« High Places and babies | Main | Retrohump: Putting Your Arms Around a Memory (Hint: Don't Try) »

July 08, 2008

Quarterly Report: Second Quarter of 2008 Podcast

The year continues to turn out interesting diversions, though very few albums that engage from start to finish. For our compiling purposes, this is not much of a problem. If you can't find 20 intriguing tracks in any historical three month span, you're not looking very hard. It might, however, be a weird year for a critical consensus. Hopefully the "year end" landscape doesn't congeal around Nouns by No Age, a record snubbed here with purpose. Gratuitously dissing that disc is the subject for another post though, as the spirit of Spring '08 looms large below. The purchase of a record player meant the inclusion of many more 7" pockets of power, which I think has to be considered a net plus as the quarters trudge on towards infinity.

Album of the Quarter : Portishead - Third
Runners up: Ponytail - Ice Cream Spiritual, Wolf Parade - At Mount Zoomer, M83 - Saturdays = Youth

"Merry Swankster Second Quarter Podcast 2008"

Tracklisting :

01: M83 - "Graveyard Girl" (from Saturdays=Youth)

We start in France, where the legacy of 80s pop continues to enjoy a Jerry Lewis-esque perennial renaissance. But it's good that Anthony Gonzalez now has the courage to let his soaring/ever-so-slightly-cheesy teen goth epics stand alone without all that hip Kevin Shields haze to obscure them. It feels like a more honest performer to consumer relationship this way.

02: the Long Blondes - "Century" (from "Couples")

The Blondes developed chops, the blogosphere shrugged.

From our June interview:

Screech Louder: "That's us playing those instruments. It's not like Erol's just done some "banging techno beat" and Kate sang it and we just sat there twiddling our thumbs. I mean we did write it and play it."

03: Ladytron - "Ghosts" (From Velocifero)

Velocifero as a whole is no Witching Hour, clearly. It's too soggy and samey to be on the level with Ladytron's best. But the lead single succeeds precisely because it toys with new textures for the Liverpudlians. The opening swagger is nice and all but the vocal thaw, inching towards breezy warmth is more promising. Not sure it was entirely appropriate for the song's conclusion to ignore regret, but a nice new emotional arrow in the band's quill at least.

04: Air France - "June Evenings" (from No Way Down EP)

It's not something I necessarily consider when putting these time capsules together, but if you're hand delivered a song that perfectly romaticizes the season you're meaning to represent, there's really no way to deny it a spot. Also, the Swedish postmarks had handsome watercolors of small fish on them, which is just classy, really.

05: Cut Copy- "Far Away" (from In Ghost Colours)

This just sounds Australian somehow. Maybe in the way it takes British influences (particularly 80s synth moves) and renders them so much more fun and carefree than anything you'd currently find on that grey isle.

06: Sophie Ellis-Bextor - "Heartbreak Make Me a Dancer" (from MySpace)

Fun and carefree, this is not, though it's as slick a single as anything we've seen since, oh, "Catch You" from Sophie herself. This inclusion is a bit nebulous, posted on MySpace and slated for actual release with a forthcoming compilation of Ms. Bextor's hits. But I'm far too impatient to let such a vague timetable deprive us all. If there's a better artist working within the miniscule narrative frame of being emotionally devastated while dancing, I'm certainly not aware of them.

07: Santogold - "L.E.S. Artistes" (from Santogold)

In a few dusty corners of the internet former A & R girl Santogold took hits for being immediately ready to parcel off bits of her debut record to whichever ad man came calling. But the criticism assumes that Santi hasn't really thought out her career path with exacting care; a prognosis that this song pre-emptively diffuses. Obviously, on balance she thinks it's "worth what [she gave] up." And really, what did she even give up in the first place? Songs this well-crafted shouldn't be shuttered away in a cult cupboard, and radio is effectively broken.

08: Portishead - "We Carry On" (from Third)

And that's what you call a dark left turn. Considering the bleak place we left the band in over a decade ago, and you're looking at a room with a very high threat of severe toe stubbing. But with craft this immaculately distressed, it's nice to just stew in the dark motionless for a spell.

09: Ponytail - "Celebrate the Body Electric (It Came From an Angel)" (from Ice Cream Spiritual)

Mollie Siegel's vocal actually sound more like it came from a Tasmanian devil. But she forces her lips to form a few words here, on Ice Cream Spiritual's obvious centerpiece. "AWAY WE GO NOW!" she cries, to which her band lets their guitar licks run free.

10: High Places - "Namer" (b-side Vision's the First single)

What's great about this song is that it sees Mary Pearson beginning to shed the wide-eyed naif role she's perfected across the stellar singles and EPs the Brooklyn duo have so far released. There's some real soul, some real loss in her delivery here. The two tracks released as a UK single ahead of the band's full-length LP (if that's even the right term for a 10 song, 30 minute work) are easily that future record's most accessible. I'm still waiting for the rest to sink in, and as its scheduled for a September release anyway, that's a conversation for another date.

11: A Sunny Day in Glasgow - "Sometimes I Think About You" (from Slumberland Records' single series, Searching for the Now, vol. 3, Pastels cover)

Ben Daniels' asserts that there'll not be a new ASDIG record until next year, and having established the goal of recording 30 tracks for it, the timetable seems pretty ironclad. But new material has begun to trickle out, and it's promising indeed. This Pastels' cover comes from the worshipped-by-the-terminally-plugged-in label Slumberland Records' Searching for the Now series. Hint: "the now" is ace indie-pop.

12: Tickley Feather - "The Python" (from Tickley Feather)

I almost want to dismiss Annie Sachs songs as mere sketches, light impressions that are obviously unfinished. For much of her debut I think that's a fair criticism but "The Python" keeps squeezing me tighter. It feels perfectly haphazard, but slightly dangerous too. Like letting your fingers lightly skim over a lake's surface, without care for the potentially hungry souls beneath.

13: the Kills - "Last Day of Magic" (single)

Luckily a single release this month saves me from last quarter's grossest omission. I too had basically written off the Kills, even though I'd seen them play live enough times to know that they are more than an NME blip made possible by the band's make up in the White Stripes' wake. This is a dead sexy track, like usual, but much better crafted and easier to belt out vicariously than all of its predecessors. If this little canon-building farm system we've got going here in blog land fails to recognize a band not more than five years old writing their biggest, best, most accessible material because their new car smell has faded, well then maybe we should all reconsider our motives for a second.

14: Wolf Parade - "Fine Young Cannibals" (from At Mount Zoomer)

A record from an even newer buzz band, also swept quickly under the rug. In this case though, the diminished excitement level makes slightly more sense. The nerve endings on the new LP aren't so thrillingly exposed. Krug continues his piano scales towards an intensely personal oblivion. But Dan Boeckner's work here needs to be recognized. Not only has he lapped his song writing rival/collaborator for the first time on record, but the man really brought something to his guitar work here. Listen to that elegant, nagging riff that develops towards the end of this track. Let's focus people...

15: Vivian Girls - "Where Do You Run To?" (from Vivian Girls)

Brooklyn's Vivian Girls are currently playing gigs like mad all across our fair city and beyond. Enough legwork that their debut record sold out within two weeks, though its rough edges and short run time suggest that they are still crystallizing as a recording project as opposed to a live unit. This dreamy almost ballad brings it all together though, providing a golden ratio of tough-to-vulnerable.

16: the Pains of Being Pure at Heart - "Come Saturday" (from Slumberland Records' single series Searching for the Now vol. 4)

Another X on Slumberland's treasure map, another slice of rumbling cute from the POBPAH. Eventually, the New Yorkers should aim a bit higher than "C86 with sharper songcraft" but they haven't even recorded an album yet, so I'm not sure this is the time to gripe.

17: Diet Cola - "Sick Modern" (from the Diet Cola 7")

Deerhunter bassist Josh Fauver provides the rambunctious punk rock that his main band's stellar new album has left behind. Josh isn't the romantic goth Bradford Cox is though, and "Sick Modern" is never caught moping. With little fanfare for this vinyl EP, it's tough to pinpoint a firm release date, so the weeks in which it ambushed my consciousness will have to do...

18: Titus Andronicus - "Titus Andronicus" (from The Airing of Grievances)

I think the raw energy this young band radiates makes more sense in concert, which is, you know, why I booked them to play, more than once. Which is not to say that you can't have a hell of time rocking out with it on your own. Personally, I just think the overwhelming compulsion to scream "your life is over" to passersby could be dangerous in a crowded subway setting. Non-metropolitan car drivers, on the other hand, are encouraged to let 'er rip.

19: Jay Reatard - "An Ugly Death" (b-side to "Painted Shut," Matador single series)

Jay Reatard stops doing a Buzzcocks impression and starts doing a Clean impression. Things are looking up!

20: Love is All - "I Ran (So Far Away)"" (from "Wishing Well" + 5 Covers EP)

While the prospect of a properly unstoppable Love is All full length looms large on the horizon, we settle for a cover that works so much better in practice than it might on paper. Josephine Olausson and her Swedish supporters can breathe spastic life into any bit of inanity it seems. And it's always nice to lead in to the true summer offerings with a still sparking live wire.

--

3 to 6 tied with a fetching bow, on with the new now friends, on with the new...

Posted by Jeff Klingman at July 8, 2008 01:00 PM

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.merryswankster.com/movabletype/mt-tb.cgi/1664

Comments

Post a comment