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January 07, 2008
New Viking Times!
"Rip it off and start again!" proclaim Times New Viking in "RIP Allegory," one of many fuzz bombs that make up the follow up to last years' beloved (by us) album ...Present the Paisley Reich. It's a slyly funny and semi-dickish deviation on Orange Juice's "rip it up and start again" mantra, later swiped by Simon Reynolds for his book on the post-punk scene. OJ's version implied that in order to create anything "new" you had to chuck the last generation's play book. Columbus, Ohio's finest suggest that pilfering from the right spot is enough to keep you moving.
On the grounds of selection prowess TNV is certainly a band after my own heart, favoring the horrendously recorded but exceedingly charming songwriting of the early nineties rock underground. Back in the Drag City heyday, hissing static was presumably the result of low budgets and home recording necessity. In today's low cost Pro Tools world embracing incomprehensible white noise is a concrete aesthetic choice; nostalgic at best and willfully difficult at worse, right?
So, maybe I'm a sucker or a sappy DIY romantic, but the pop and crackle makes my heart beat faster. It would all be moot if these weren't sharp and energetic songs (see the cautionary tale of Ariel Pink). The Guided by Voices style, sub two minute run times aren't hurting either. A taste from Rip it Off, ahead of its January 22nd release...
Though the immediately obvious touch point here is the boy/girl duet cacophony produced by Royal Trux, this has a real sweetness that I have trouble finding in that band's work. The brevity is a plus, the relatively unintelligible lyrics a boon. It feels like someone heard the first minute of a their new favorite song on the radio and, after scrambling to find a blank tape, were able to catch only a segment. But they still loved it so much that they taped it again and again for friends, the quality slipping each time. This sounds like the copy one of those friends made for you, which has eroded into a blur of pure convicted melody.
Again, the nostalgia present in the above scenario is palpable, but what can you do? It sounds shitty/perfect.
Times New Viking - "Another Day"
There's a track towards the end of the record called "Times New Viking vs. Yo La Tengo," but the pretense of any animosity between our kids and their former tour partners is annihilated by this sugary minute forty-seven. Beth Murphy does her best down to earth Georgia Hubley impression, but the track is too far into the red for her to gently whisper. Any doubts that TNV's tunes can't escape the din of their production are erased on this evidence.
Posted by Jeff Klingman at January 7, 2008 01:20 PM
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