Record Review: Beach House - Teen Dream

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By Daniel Greenwood
Rating: 9/10

In Three Words: Ignore The Hype!

Hype can be a terrible thing. Personally, the stir whipped up around Animal Collective’s Merriweather Post Pavilion and Grizzly Bear’s Veckatimest made them partially unlistenable in 2009. It’s not just because people like those records so much (and talk about them so much), it’s that it removes what’s once personal about a record, as is evident on the earlier work of those bands. Feels is Animal Collective at their loneliest, and Yellow House is Grizzly Bear half-asleep in the dusty nook of a cabin somewhere. If MPP and Veckatimest are ‘unlistenable’ now, it’s only because the light at the heart of the records might take years to really make itself known to any of us (especially Grizzly Bear’s efforts).

A fragment of the hype surrounding Grizzly Bear fell upon Beach House the moment Victoria Legrand lent her hearty swoon to Veckatimest’s ‘Two Weeks’. It’s a song that feels more like a Beach House impression on the part of Ed Droste, admittedly a huge fan of Legrand’s band. And expectation has been high for the sandy-soled Baltimoreans ever since. Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally are being tipped get global. Gladly, on Teen Dream, any worldwide euphoria is tentative, and the things that make this band so appealing remain in the surf of these songs.

Teen Dream begins and ends in earnest. ‘Zebra’ is an opening lament of someone or something that got away: ‘Don’t I know you better than the rest,’ sings Legrand. It might also be a neat metaphor for the music itself, the personal connection you can have with a song you love, as if it was all your own. In the end, this entity, this thing you’re after, it’s like Legrand’s black and white horse running before her, ‘arching among us’.

The finale, ‘Take Care’, is the album’s strongest song both melodically and in seeing the duo return to their roots. Legrand’s voice dips and peaks, piggybacking Scally’s looping licks. ‘I’ll take care of you/if you ask me to/in a year or two,’ goes the refrain. Legrand is back to the voice of old – the wishful heart of both Beach House and Devotion.

In between these two pillars are eight songs that see Beach House attempt to lift their sound and tempo. ‘Norway’ has the chaste whisper of a Rumours-era Fleetwood Mac track whilst ‘Silver Soul’ sees the pair replace lullabies with anthems of helplessness and despair: ‘It is happening again!’ ‘Used to Be’ is an update on the 7-inch released last winter, a strong redraft of an already fine song. The simplicity of that tender 4/4 kick suits Beach House well. It’s inviting rather than blasé.

‘Real Love’ will please lovers of Devotion the most, with a sense of longing that Legrand pushes further than anywhere else on Teen Dream. Scally and Legrand step away from the electronic encroachments on their droning, analogue sound, with Legrand playing piano ivories like a strong wind through leaves. ‘I met you somewhere/in an air beneath the stairs,’ she wails, and it’s here that this record finally sits itself down next to you. Not unlike Merriweather Post Pavilion or Veckatimest, Teen Dream might be overcooked by talking heads, but in time, even a year or two, this record will meet you again. You may well be underneath the stairs.

Record Review: Vivian Girls - Everything Goes Wrong

via Ragged Words
By Daniel Greenwood

This time last year Vivian Girls released their self-titled debut to general surprise and applause on these shores. The so-called ‘Noise revival’ in North America lent few ripples to Europe’s banal mainstream, where the break-up of Oasis is a grave occurrence. Bands like Times New Viking and Eat Skull are nothing names here, whereas fellow alt-guitar clangers Vivian Girls tuck neatly inside a Guardian reader’s indie quota. What makes Vivian Girls likeable is in part their quaintness and good looks, but really it’s the songs that do the work. From Vivian Girls, ‘Tell the World’ is witty and emotive, and ‘I Believe in Nothing’ marries a strong harmonic melody with a nihilistic mantra. That debut has a lot to say for itself, it’s honest and loveable.

Speaking to Ragged Words last December, the band were eager to get back into the studio and have their second record out the following September, their first with Ali Koehler on drums. So, September rolls around and Vivian Girls’ sophomore work is here. But maybe the desire to fully-initiate Ali on tape has been to the detriment of the songs.

Everything Goes Wrong feels rushed in a way that’s unlike the rush you get from Vivian Girls. ‘Tension’ is perhaps the highlight, with a hint of The Mamas & Papas in the vocal harmony collapsing behind Cassie Ramone’s tremulous Interpol impression and Ali’s gusting cymbals. Hole are of interest here, this record could have sounded like Live Through This, though these girls are too young to write a record like that, or at least not as experienced as Courtney Love. ‘Walking Alone at Night’, ‘I Have No Fun’ and ‘Can’t Get Over You’ pick up where Vivian Girls left off, and it’s a really strong sing-along opening to the record. One intentional change in the structure of the songs is the addition of Hardcore gestures three-quarters of the way through some of the later tracks. ‘When I’m Gone’ disbands from its form and delves into faceless crashing. These attempts to give the songs more depth in length don’t work so well. It’s not necessarily filler, just a trio of fledgling musicians finding what works best.

In life, everything does go wrong in one way or another, most of the time. But it has to before it can ever be alright again. And if it hasn’t worked so well for Vivian Girls this year, you can be sure it will – maybe this time next year? Everything Goes Wrong will certainly do for now.

Record Review: Yo La Tengo - Popular Songs

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by Daniel Greenwood

Experience is on Yo La Tengo’s side, with this New Jersey trio of Ira Kaplin, Georgia Hubley and James McNew having ploughed through the 1990s and now seeing out the 2000s with another very good record. The band have dropped at least one great album in each of the past two decades: I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One(1996) and Suddenly Everything Turned Itself Inside Out (2000). This is definitely a band you can rely on. And with Popular Songs, that stance hasn’t changed.

Opener ‘Here to Fall’ feels like a more contained and therefore volatile Yo La Tengo epic, with a cinematic orchestra ducking and diving as Ira Kaplin declares ‘I know you’re worried/I’m worried too’. Popular Songs has a throw-away feel to it, laid back and loose, but not in the melancholy way that Suddenly Everything is. Maybe it feels like the hard work is behind this band. Though, that’s not to say they don’t work hard, evidently they do, but the band’s craft is effortless and refined.

The first nine tracks make up a Pop record, and that’s clearly something intentional, because the final three songs comprise an almost entirely different album. Here’s where the uninitiated might turn the stereo off, or some of the uber-initiated might delete it from their hard drive. Perhaps it’s a trick, with Popular Songs luring the listener into the experience, expecting Beach Boys off-shoots and doo-wop, which there’s plenty of. ‘More Stars than there are in Heaven’ reels you in further, but no hook is forthcoming, instead there’s the near-drone acoustic ambience of ‘The Fireside’. Here Yo La Tengo slip their shoes off and sit back, allowing the looping reverb to melt into the blur somewhere above the song. And, eleven minutes later, the sort of alternative guitar squalor that’s such a fine fixture on I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One turns up to slap you in the chops for fifteen minutes. ‘And the Glitter is Gone’, indeed.

Yo La Tengo can do what they like, but then they always have, successful or not they’ve always written honest songs that have proven popular over time. This band are easy to love. But as with the upper tier of Popular Songs, love isn’t so short nor sweet as you might expect.

Record Review: Six Organs of Admittance - Luminous Night

via Ragged Words
Release Date: 17 Aug 2009
Record Label: Drag City
In Three Words: God Isn’t There
Ragged Rating: 4/5

By Daniel Greenwood

The indie- or modern-classical genre is flourishing. It’s been led in recent years by the prolific 12-string guitarist James Blackshaw, classical-drone connoisseurs Stars of the Lid, and the Gnostic frontier-folk of Six Organs of Admittance. Admittedly, James Blackshaw is the most rambunctious of the three, with an overt sensibility for the natural world clear in his song titles such as ‘Skylark Heralds Dawn’ and ‘The Elk with Jade Eyes’. Blackshaw borrows titles from literature for his songs, too, as on his latest The Glass Bead Game, care of Herman Hesse. Stars of the Lid are the seemingly softer touch, but their barely-there style of surface level string instrumentation is devastating in its sparseness, its disappearance and reappearance. Citing David Lynch’s Twin Peaks as inspiration, the Austin, TX pair of Brian McBride and Adam Wiltzie imbue a modern sense of despair that’s either hardly noticeable or completely life-affirming.

There’s a big whiff of philosophical intellectualism about these sorts of artists, and though Six Organs of Admittance fall closest in line with nineteenth-century transcendental American writers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, Ben Chasny – the man behind Six Organs – writes lyrics that, at first, completely belie Emerson’s pantheistic (in everyone and everything) kind of God. On ‘Ursa Minor’ Chasny sings: “Good people dying everywhere/ask if God is even there”. But perhaps it’s misguided to dive straight at Chasny’s lyrics, because the real joys of Luminous Night are the instrumental elements. Opener ‘Acteon’s Fall (Against the Hounds)’ has a tune to whistle with pride as you ride on horseback at a canter through the prairie. Panpipes have never sounded so good.

Luminous Night is a dark, brooding work of art. The strength and diversity of the instrumentation – groaning strings, tremulous 12-string picking ala Blackshaw – pretty much oversteps the vernacular of an indie critic. But as a fan it’s great. To recall Emerson, Chasny has little of the positivism you find in the philosopher’s writings, but perhaps it’s simply time and circumstance that divides the two. For where Chasny’s protagonist asks for proof of God (‘Bar-Nasha’), something Kant and Nietszche discouraged over the past few centuries – God cannot be proved nor disproved; God is dead – Chasny’s answer to his own question appears in the storm of distortion that is ‘Cover Your Wounds with the Sky’. And, indeed, the flutter of piano keys that pricks the load are as cold stars in a crumbling winter sky. There are darker undertones still, with ‘Ursula Minor’ alluding to a parent and a child starving in a winter famine. The song ends with a worrisome set of lyrics: “The hospital’s no place to say goodbye/I’m taking you to the shore/at the edge of the shore I kiss your eyes/You know that I’ve never loved anyone more.” Perhaps pantheism exists for Chasny after all.

The work of James Blackshaw, Stars of the Lid and Six Organs of Admittance is providing fans of lo-fi, folk and classical with a generous meeting point. It seems a natural progression for music as art and philosophy. These artists are expressing their concerns and limitations in a style of music that underlines the infinite push of well-made, meaningful instrumental music. In the case of Six Organs of Admittance, Chasny is asking the questions straight out, with panpipes.

Record Review: The Tough Alliance - The New School

via Ragged Words
Release Date: 20 Jul 2009
Record Label: Service
In Three Words: I Love Sweden
Ragged Rating: 4/5

By Daniel Greenwood

No one makes popular electronic music like they do in Sweden. It began with the Knife’s Deep Cuts back in 2004 (‘Heartbeats’ was song of the year for many, thanks in part to Jose Gonzalez’s cover version) and since then it’s been all Jens Lekman, Studio and The Tough Alliance, with ambient melancholics JJ recently becoming the new indie blogspot darlings. And that’s without even mentioning Air France or the Knife slice-off Fever Ray. You can’t help but feel that all the praise is well-deserved though, apart from the Knife, few of these artists have really been appreciated anywhere other than the handful of hegemonic leftist-indie websites. And that’s strange only because this is pop music to a beat, with the sunshine and witty sense of self reminiscent of the Beach Boys.

For the Tough Alliance, it’s a blend of English-as-second-language vocals, a well-reared sampling methodology, indigestible melodies that suck like leeches at your frontal lobes, and an imperious style of production as good as any cash-rich studio dope. These Swedes are bedroom musicians of the highest calibre. Among them, The Tough Alliance are lodged in the leftfield, and they don’t reveal much. In an interview with Pitchfork, the duo responded to a question about the nature of the band: ‘It is what it is, man… People seem to have an unhealthy need for simple, shallow, and irrelevant information and we feel it would oppose the essence of The Tough Alliance to encourage this destructive behaviour. We want the focus to be on the expression of the unity of TTA, not on our personas.’

If 2007’s A New Chance is a swift and perfectly-formed piece, The New School – the band’s debut originally released two year earlier - is something different. It’s five songs larger and twenty-minutes longer whilst being altogether more grounded. TTA have since built songs from the soil upward, but here the Swedes are compiling tunes brick by digital brick. And, for a while, The New School might not be what latter TTA fans had hoped for or expect if coming to for the first time. Whereas A New Chance grabs you by the ankle and flings you around the room, The New School requires a little more patience. At fifty-minutes it might be a too long for those expecting instant joys. Beyond the record’s underbelly of midget kicks and thudding CPU thrum-toms, there lies a contemplative edge. The sampling of the Kopite refrain ‘You’ll never walk alone,’ is probably an ode to TTA’s hometown football club (LOL), but for this bitter Evertonian reviewer it’s a concession to commitment.

The New School in itself sounds like a call to arms, with ‘Koka Kola Veins’ – the standout track here – musing on those in a sugary, cola stupor: “We got koka kola veins/we don’t know our names/blah blah blah”. It’s not necessarily a criticism but a confession. For TTA at least, it’s time to stop fucking around.

Record Review: Sunset Rubdown - Dragonslayer

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Release Date: 20 Jul 2009
Record Label: Jagjaguwar
In Three Words: King Of Hearts
Ragged Rating: 4/5

By Daniel Greenwood

Sunset Rubdown frontman Spencer Krug’s demeanour is at once stoic and downtrodden, and with Dragonslayer, the band’s third album, Krug is processing an all-consuming lovesickness. Dragonslayer is a break-up record, it’s true: “I believe she only loved my face/and maybe these days are over now,” so sings Krug on the record’s beleaguered opener ‘Silver Moons’. These issues of deceit and artifice are embellished in the album artwork – glammed-up mannequins posing against backdrops of urban decay. Most definitely, the protagonist portrayed by Krug is experiencing women troubles. But also, aside from the lovelorn swoon inherent here, there’s an attention to ageing, and the guise of sexual seductiveness disappearing with time: “Here’s a photograph for you to hold/it’s a picture of just before I got old,” as on ‘Apollo and the Buffalo and Anna Anna Anna Oh!’.

It’s ‘Silver Moons’ which sets the scene, with Krug and co. keen to waste no time by imbuing urgency early on. This impetus carries through when married with patience on the listener’s part, and, listen after repeated listen, the music strikes through. As ever, with any Wolf Parade offshoot, Sunset Rubdown offer treats over time, and though Krug admits to ‘pulling faces at acquired tastes’ his band are just that.

The lyrics are what grip you here, amidst what is at first a not wholly riveting instrumentation of grizzly guitars and tumbling drum rolls. ‘Nightingale/December Song’ offers vivid, explosive metaphors for Krug’s change of heart late-on, his attempt at growing old with grace: ‘You need the one who slowly burns/and burns to stay alive/…You are a vast explosion/and I am the embers’. This concession to clarity is fleeting, however. Entering upon the ‘Dragon’s Lair’, the record’s 10-minute finale, is a man looking for a ‘different kind of kill’. But it remains unclear whether our hero’s mantra of “You’re such a champion/You are a champion” is self-help or an admission to the bête noire acting as catalyst for Spencer Krug’s hot-headed wretchedness. These songs are ‘broken-hearted shapes’ and fitting pieces to the puzzle that is Spencer Krug the artist. Dragonslayer is the latest episode in an ever growing compendium of Krugisms.

Interview: Wavves

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Article and Photos by Daniel Greenwood

It’s a blustery afternoon in London Fields, where Ragged Words aims to meet Wavves’ Nathan Williams and Ryan Ulsh for a chat ahead of their show at London’s the Old Blue Last tomorrow night. The Californians are relaxing in a cranny of Hackney’s the Dove pub, feasting on the crumbling flesh of gargantuan veggie burgers. In fact, I’ve caught Wavves cold, amidst the death throes of another interview:

“Who’s my number one enemy?” ponders Nathan Williams, repeating the question asked of him. “It’d have to be anyone who has anything negative to say.”

The early signs, before even meeting Nathan, are that the creative individual behind Wavves and the newly released Wavvves isn’t allowing the whirlwind of online hype to taint his real world mannerisms – the ones that count – at least here in London. And when our conversation is in full swing, it’s a frank discussion between both Ryan and Nathan about the issue of music downloading, touring, and just how quickly all this has come about for Wavves, a music project that Nathan started in a garage in San Diego.

Wavves have only hours earlier flown in from the States, and whilst wishing the prior interviewer well as she leaves, Ryan chews on chunky chips, a pair of tortoiseshell specs jigging on the bridge of his nose, as Nathan intermittently doffs his Chicago Bulls cap, running his hand through the bristles of his dark hair.

“Dandruff?” Ryan asks.

“Not a good look," chuckles Nathan.

Flaky scalps aside, Wavves are proving massively popular in the US and the UK. This is the final few days of their pre-release window in Europe, before the broadsheets and mainstream journalists crack-on to either endorse the record or scythe it down. Though an earlier, sort of debut – Wavves (notice only two v’s) – has been around for a while. Wavves is available on Woodsist, a label beloved to Nathan, and for whom he’ll put out 7”s in the future. “There’s no clause in my contract [with Bella Union or Fat Possum] that says I can’t do that,” he affirms. But Wavves have been gaining most ground online, where fans and enthusiasts have posted the first record on their crude but doting blogspot pages since the autumn, generally ‘for preview purposes only, please support the bands and buy their music’. What do Wavves think?

“I’m all for it, I don’t give a fuck,” Nathan says, somewhat resigned. |I don’t care if people download my stuff. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t stop people from downloading it.”

“Apart my from my records and tapes, everything I have on my computer has been…yoinked,” says Ryan, pausing briefly to think of the right phrase, as if this had just dawned on him.

But how does that make Bella Union and Fat Possum feel? After all, the labels are the ones who put the money into the project and promote the band, the very people who need to make money from fans buying records. But that’s not to say that Wavves don’t buy records, of course they do. Does Nathan ever disguise his opinion around the labels?

“I put my stuff up for free on my blog all the time. I mean, they tell me not to, and that makes sense, they’re trying to make money as well. I don’t make any money off record sales, though.”

Surely if more people can hear this music it’ll open up the chance for more people to get behind the music and attend the show. The fact is that if people like it most will buy it, but they’ll be even more willing to attend shows and mix with other fans.

Nathan goes further: “You’re not going to be able to stop people from listening to it, and, in the first place, if someone wants it so badly that they’re going to take it then I wouldn’t stop them from taking it. I mean, if they’re interested in music, then…even if I didn’t like it, what the fuck – you know? It’s a fight that you can’t win.”

People really are interested in this music. Wavves’ first New York shows all sold out, and these are Ryan and Nathan’s first performances. They’d only recently got together to practice the Wavves material. It’s the same for the London shows with Women – originally billed to support Deerhunter before Bradford Cox fell ill – and Crystal Stilts, not to mention English pals, Pens. They all sold out, too. In New York it got popular enough for the New York Times to send down Michael Carmichael, the chap Ryan calls an ‘older guy reporting on newer bands, kind of like the hip guy’.

The interest in Wavves isn’t limited to aging music critics however. Ryan and Nathan have friends in Vivian Girls, another youthful, scuzzy guitar act to have released an enriching debut in the past twelve months. Vivian Girls covered Wavves’ ‘So Bored’ at the SXSW festival in Texas after Ryan explained how simple it was to play. I put it to Wavves that ‘So Bored’ and ‘No Hope Kids’ are two songs that not only Vivian Girls will gravitate to. It’s a remark Nathan receives with a level of surprise, if not somewhat embarrassed. But those songs will prove popular, both utterly addictive little tunes that carry a lot of weight in their point, but a sense of joyful release in their chorus.

“That song [So Bored] is just about me being bored in high school,” Nathan says. “Those two songs are my favourite from the record, that and ‘To the Dregs’”.

Ryan and Nathan’s work isn’t done for the day as they’re wanted at Rough Trade East for an in-store, one they didn’t expect to be playing. But it’s no disappointment to them and willingly (though sluggishly from their jetlag) they move along. The camaraderie with the Bella Union folk is clear and particularly with label aid Mark, whom Ryan rumours Nathan to have fallen for.

"We spoke on the phone for like an hour-and-a-half, it was a little gay," recalls Nathan.

It’s a day later and the streets of London are emptied as the locals stay indoors to watch the Champions’ League Final between Manchester United and Barcelona. But, yet again, Upset the Rhythm have sold all the tickets for a Wavves show, this time at the Old Blue Last in Old Street. The little room upstairs in the venue is packed, but at this stage of Wavves career – they’re not even teething yet – the ticket holders are curious, some of whom look to be here just for rumour value.

The duo’s live set-up is simple – Nathan on guitar and vocals, Ryan on drums – and it works. Ryan’s drumming is outstanding, feverish almost, his complexion a volcanic red as he powers through the set list. Beforehand he’s a different person, socialising with pint in hand, a modest navy jacket on his back. When on stage he dons a large and luminous baseball cap worn backwards. He finishes the show with a stage-dive, executed much more professionally than tonight’s resident antagonist, who lands on his head when the crowd part.



It’s a funny atmosphere at times, and there’s banter for Nathan to deal with. The failed stage-diver at the front tries to goad Nathan a little. “I don’t know what that means, man,” Nathan responds, drawing a measure of laughter from the rest of the audience. But the songs are electrifying here, with ‘To the Dregs’ a highlight, and ‘Beach Demon’, also. This sober crowd even find themselves devising a pit of sorts at the front of the stage, a pre-cursor to that antagonist’s skull-dive.

This is meant to be Wavves’ first date on their European tour in support of Wavvves, but at time of going to press, Nathan and Ryan have postponed the tour after a peculiar incident in Barcelona, the night after this Old Blue Last date. Anyone who reads Pitchfork won’t need to hear the details of Nathan’s trouble on stage at Primavera Sound. Besides reported behavioural trouble on Nathan’s part, it’s best to keep in mind that these young Californians are only performing in Europe because there’s a demand. There’s no denying Wavves feel grateful for the chance they’ve been given by fans of their music, particularly Bella Union and Fat Possum. When Ragged Words sat down to speak with the band in Hackney, Nathan was musing over the prospect of playing at a festival including Neil Young and Sonic Youth, joking about thanking Crazy Horse for all their support. It was unthinkable to him, an unfathomable circumstance.

The point is that fame, however brief or mild, is a perilous game. And during this process people will want things from Nathan Williams. In this case, Pitchfork didn’t get a performance from the band, but that doesn’t mean that Nathan needs to be strung up in public (or online, in daily indie headlines). Wavves and Williams will be around for years to come, and, I don’t know about American audiences, but here in London and the UK, we’re happy to have had the chance to see this duo in the flesh. But, more importantly, we’re grateful that Ryan and Nathan are willing to travel so far to put on a show for us, however exhausted they may be.

Record Review: Wavves - Wavvves

via Ragged Words
Artist: Wavves
Release Date: 1 Jun 2009
Record Label: Bella Union
In Three Words: Fuck Being Bored
Ragged Rating: 4/5

By Daniel Greenwood

This time last year British-based label Bella Union were celebrating the release of Fleet Foxes self-titled debut, a record which is generally considered 2008’s best. This in itself couldn’t be more different to Wavves - Bella Union’s newest acquisition - but where Nathan Williams, the creator of Wavves, and Rob Pecknold, the captain of the Fleet Foxes quintet, differ stylistically, they do share a level of precociousness. Even without considering American imports Beach House, Abe Vigoda or Peter Broderick, Bella Union is getting it right, in a big way. And for Wavves’ first British shows, the hosting label are alongside the wondrous Upset the Rhythm in bringing a dearth of talented North American musicians to the UK. If signing this Californian protégé was a risk, it’s paid-off.

Wavvves delivers on the blog hype of the past twelve months, but it also simmers with a sense of promise. Williams’ songs are messy but never hazy, underwritten by an existential angst that’s oft identified by indie musicians today, but never captured as simply as does Williams. The cases in point here are ‘So Bored’, a paean to an insufferably dull city-life – too much stuff, too little worth – and ‘No Hope Kids’: “Got no God/Got no girlfriend/Got nothing at all”. It’s a wonderful noise-pop antidote to those of us struggling for fulfillment in 2009. And, thankfully, Wavvves is a cathartic experience.

There are occasions where Williams allows the fuzz to fill the would-be empty corners of these songs, he slows things down and in doing so reveals an introspective tint to the assuredness of more straightforward anthemic clangers like ‘No Hope Kids’. The sweetly experimental ‘Goth Girls’ and ‘Weed Demon’ offer another take on Wavves’ boundless witticisms, as Williams lets his guard down, highlighting a lingering melancholy unrequited elsewhere on Wavvves. But before you know it the lad’s hammering his guitar, the cymbals are thrashing and Williams is reveling in the insatiable boredom of this modern life.

Record Review: The Decemberists - The Hazards of Love

By Daniel Greenwood
Release Date: 17/03/2009
Ragged Rating: *** (3/5)
In Three Ragged Words: Metal? What metal?

Up until this point in The Decemberists’ career, Colin Meloy has contained his storytelling into sole songs that are tied together by themes of self-deprecation and melancholia. The results are devastating. Picaresque, released in 2005, was the breakthrough record for the Portland-based band. It’s a record packed with miniature epics that work like short stories and, up until now, Meloy could be seen as a high calibre short story writer presenting his work in song. ‘On the Bus Mall’ is the tale of young prostitutes that ‘fuse together like a family’, while ‘The Engine Driver’ is the lament of someone unloved and strung along: “And if you don’t love me, let me go”. Castaways and Cutouts (2002) is perhaps The Decemberists’ lesser-known release and remains a well-kept secret. It finishes with ‘California One/Youth and Beauty Parade’ as Meloy calls upon all the urchins of society to join the toast of the town, to rejoice in their bedwetting and pick-pocketing.

The characters Meloy creates are forgotten souls, like ‘Eli, the Barrow Boy’: “dressed all in corduroy he had drowned in the river down the way”. Meloy’s narrator embodies the forgotten, reflecting like a ghoul upon the tragedy that has come before; or else he’ll narrate as an outsider, a feeling unfamiliar to the listener. The Decemberists’ music is tuneful and inviting, and before The Crane Wife (2007) it was hard not to love this band. In 2007 there were signs that Meloy’s songwriting was moving towards epic musicianship (two songs surpass the eleven-minute mark) overlooking the mini-epiphanies that define The Decemberists’ earlier work.

So here comes The Hazards of Love, a 17-part tragic romance hyped for its genre hopping from folk-pop all the way over to metal. There are chomping power-chords to be found, as on ‘The Queen’s Rebuke/The Crossing’ but metal it ain’t. It feels more like sea shanty-rock, an evolution of The Decemberists’ previous allusions to pirate-pop. The ‘metal’ is sparse enough, but the teeth crunching guitars feel a little unsavoury. Still, the impression remains that a record aiming for this sort of theatricality needs something pantomime ugly. It’s not unlikely that this new direction for the band will have fans of old chewing their bottom lip in confusion, and if you don’t enjoy the guest vocals (Becky Stark of Lavender Diamond as our heroine, Margaret, and Shara Worden of My Brightest Diamond as the Queen) early on in the album’s lifespan, you probably won’t like them at all.

There are moments of Meloy magic to be had here however, ‘The Drowned’ is the curtain falling on the album, albeit a curtain clawed down by the waves that ‘bear witness’ to our hero and heroine wedded beneath the rushing waters. It’s the saddest song Meloy’s written since ‘On the Bus Mall’ and it’s a suitable finale to a successful decade for this Portland-based band. Hopefully it’s a sign of things to come. May their next project find Meloy crushing listeners with the calibre of ‘The Drowned’, because it feels like all Hazards really needs to say is in this one last song. For now though, The Decemberists have every right to experiment.

Live Review: Papercuts @ the Legion, Old Street

via Ragged Words
By Daniel Greenwood

A recent Sunday Times Culture article heralded the return of shoegaze, a genre supposedly pioneered by My Bloody Valentine’s superlative album Loveless. According the article’s author Paul Lester, the influence of the aforementioned Dubliners can be seen in artists like Deerhunter, Sigur Ros, and Lily Allen. And tonight’s show in Old Street’s swanked-out the Legion is organised by Sonic Cathedral, a record label run by music journalist Nathanial Cramp, the sweetheart of Lester’s Times article. But there’s one problem, none of the bands performing here tonight are ‘shoegaze’.

Trailer Trash Tracys open the show with a pleasant sound that doesn’t suggest anything beyond the oblong shape of the venue, and certainly nothing on the scale of a cathedral. This band sound more like fans of the Crystals than Slowdive, in fact, there’s barely anything shoegazey about this band. The same can be said for It Hugs Back, who take an age to start their set, a wait that seems unworthy. IHB have recently released their debut record, and if they’re looking to ship units they’ll need to do better than this. Perhaps you could argue the band are using delay pedals so call it shoegaze if you will, but it’s more pint-gaze. There’s an element of the mundane about their performance, dragging on into the evening, it’s inoffensive and unconvincing.

Papercuts’ maestro Jason Quever has been busying around the venue all night, scribbling in his notebook and supping glasses of red wine. And as the band finally kick things off, he’s in good spirits. Papercuts write love songs, Can’t Go Back (2007) is a superb break-up record, but only ‘Dear Employee’ and ‘John Brown’ make it out tonight. There are calls for ‘Unavailable’, and this reviewer whimpers pleadingly for ‘Summer Long’. But this particular tour is in aid of Papercuts’ fine new record You Can Have What You Want, what Ragged Words’ own Tim Groenland rightfully calls one of this year’s sunniest. ‘The Machine Will Tell Us So’ and ‘Once We Walked in the Sunlight’ are nailed by the band, though at times hindered by a mix that needs the bass turned down. Quever returns for a drab solo performance, ignoring calls for crowd favourites, and it’s a meek end to a rather disjointed evening for all concerned.

Interview: Ponytail

via Ragged Words
Article & Images by Daniel Greenwood
Flickr Gallery

Ragged Words are meeting Ponytail at the Lexington in North London where, tonight, the band will perform the penultimate leg of their European tour. Ponytail are Molly Seigel on what you might call vocals, she certainly fronts the band, with guitarists Ken Seeno and Dustin Wong either side of her, and Jeremy Hyman on drums. Ken is a little homesick:

‘We’re going home on Thursday and I think part of me is already on that plane. I’ve got one leg on the plane and the other is on the stage playing the show.’ Judging by the frenetic energy of Ponytail’s live performance, this image of Ken isn’t entirely discountable.

‘That’s an amazing image,’ adds Dustin.

‘I have long legs.’

Baltimore, Maryland is home to Ponytail, a city recently gaining notoriety in the light of breakthrough acts such as Dan Deacon and Beach House. Baltimore is also where Animal Collective grew up, though they spend their time elsewhere now. For Ponytail, how does Baltimore compare to a place like the Brooklyn, the capital of buzz?

‘It’s so different,’ says Molly, the angelic-looking spearhead of Ponytail. ‘The city is so small, just the fact that it’s so much cheaper. It’s just friends doing stuff together. I think that, personally, the scene in Baltimore is still really good for a small city, but it doesn’t have as much energy as it had a few years ago. Also, with the buzz of it, with Dan Deacon getting really popular, it kind of created a more, well, maybe people were trying to get famous a little bit. It’s just the fact that it got attention and changed.’

Popularity is something the band are curious about, particularly in an age where it’s difficult to tell who is more popular – the artist selling more music, or the artist with statistical proof on last.fm or myspace profiles:

‘The other day I was trying to work out if anyone actually listens to our music,’ says Jeremy Hyman, Ponytail’s curly-haired drummer.

‘Not if anyone listens to it,’ Molly adds. ‘But if people like it. That’s what I was thinking about.’

‘Yeah, I wonder that too,’ agrees Dustin. ‘We have no idea.’

‘When we were in college,’ Jeremy continues, ‘and starting this band, bands that I thought were huge we’d meet eventually. It’d be like, “Oh, no, you’re not.” It’s all relative.’

‘It’s just numbers,’ Ken concludes.

This genial young band gives an impression that belies the internet era they’re living in. They’re each grounded and focused, and though tired at this point of their tour, they remain philosophical.

‘The most depressing thing is – I haven’t been on the internet in a while, but today I went on – on myspace they’ve changed it: it now says ‘statistics’ for the band,’ Jeremy stresses the term with disbelief.

‘No way!’ proclaims Dustin.

‘Stats!’

‘What does that mean?’

‘I mean, is that it?’ Jeremy reclines into his seat, pondering.



For Ken, the solution to this modern dilemma is simple: ‘If I play a show and I feel kind of down about it, if I’m unsure that the sound was good or something, if at least one person comes up to me and says they enjoyed it or they want to shake my hand, I feel really good. Just one person coming up to me at the show and I feel really good.’

It could be the case that Ponytail’s style will alienate some listeners with the, at times, primitive nature of their sound. Molly’s work at the front of the stage borders on primal, she acts as a guide, shrieking and squalling through the maelstrom of energy conjured by Jeremy’s brilliant percussion work and the unrelenting melodies amassing between Ken and Dustin’s guitar-pedal wizardry. But how are people reacting to Ponytail, and how might that inform their development as a band?

‘Smiles,’ says Dustin. ‘I like smiles a lot, that helps.’

‘I think a lot of what we do is solidified live,’ Jeremy says. ‘If a song isn’t working well with the audience then it might change. It’s different for every song.’

Ken comes across (as do each member of Ponytail) as thoughtful, basing his opinions on experience: ‘A couple of times on this tour, after a show, people have been coming up to me and saying, “Thank you, thank you for coming.” And I’d say, “I was booked to come here anyway, thank you for coming.” It wouldn’t have been a good show without the audience, so it’s an equal part. The last time I had that was in Brighton. London’s awesome, people in London remind me of New York – they bring the mosh. And that’s fun once in a while, just to get punked and thrash around.’

What about negative reactions, are some people turned-off by the lack of familiar song structures? According to Dustin, they are: ‘I think some people are definitely upset about it,’ he says.

‘It’s a possibility’, Ken says. ‘But we don’t invite it, you know? It seems to me that people who are fans of our music are people who are just fans of music. Not necessarily fans of being ‘cool’. The feeling is what they’re after, and that’s what we’re after too. I think it’s kind of hard sometimes when you’re dealing with traditional elements of music that are kind of a dissonance, or sometimes you throw that word “art” around, and people start getting turned-off.’

‘Yeah, we don’t want to upset anyone or anything, that’s not our intention,’ declares Dustin.

If Ponytail were unsure about their popularity in London, tonight they need not worry. It’s a full-house upstairs at the Lexington, and the band manage to whip up a frenzy. The ‘mosh’ that Ken described earlier proves him right, they do bring it, but it’s completely innocent. It’s a varied clientele, perhaps the most energetic of the band’s followers is a man in his forties, re-living his teens, thrashing around amidst the seismic shift in ‘Late for School’. It’s an audience of minor celebrities also – Max Tundra can be seen defending himself with outstretched arms against the revelers that include support act Gentle Friendly.

The band will return home to rest for a little while before heading off to Austin for the annual SXSW festival. Molly hopes the band can find the time this summer, in Dustin’s basement, to finish writing new material and have it recorded in the winter. But the band aren’t sure about where they’ll practice this year. Jeremy likes the idea of Dustin’s basement, ‘it’s pretty cool in there’, he says. But Dustin disagrees: ‘Don’t you remember the summer practices? We were sweaty as hell, man!’ Wherever Ponytail find to write new material, they’ll have a doting audience waiting for them in North London when they’re done. Tonight, London and Ponytail brought the mosh.

Words & Live photo: Daniel Greenwood

Record Review: Loney, Dear - Dear John

via Ragged Words
By Daniel Greenwood
Release Date: 02/03/2009
Ragged Rating: **+ (2.5/5)
In a Ragged Word: Pleasant

The first line of Loney, Dear’s homepage reads: “Every night before I go to bed I try to find a not so good review of the new album, and I get what I ask for.” These are the words of Emil Svanängen, the man behind Loney, Dear’s new record Dear John. Svanängen’s interest in the critical reception of his new record isn’t limited to corners of his website, it also finds its way onto the record, specifically on ‘Harsh Words’ where Svanängen pleads with someone “not to use harsh words over me, over what I do.” He’s asking you not to say he doesn’t try hard, as his voice gets lost in a flurry of percussion. It’s clear he does try hard – the ambient elements of the songs are sewn together meticulously – but you’d have to be a hardened Loney, Dear fan to find this cute at all.

There isn’t really any space for ‘harsh words’ in criticising Svanängen’s music, but the fact that he’s underlined a problem stops the music from moving somewhere meaningful. The real snag is Svanängen’s vocals. The strange layering of voices is grating at times. The lyrics come off as superfluous as much of it amounts to lonely muttering and if not muttering, then throwaway nah-nahing, as on ‘Airport Surroundings’. This is a pop record, with the Scandinavian drum machine beats reminiscent of weaker Tough Alliance tunes. It’s hard to shirk the thought that Bavarians do it better though (in Loney, Dear’s case) and the melancholy that Svanängen aims for is what Lali Puna nailed on Scary World Theory.

It’s hard not to mention Jens Lekman in a review for a Swedish pop album, but he is the zeitgeist, the pinnacle. Dear John lacks what Lekman has by the bucket load: wit. And at the moments when it’s most needed, if not to let the listener in, it just isn’t there. This is a cathartic exercise for Svanängen, as was the case on Solonge, and Loney Noir, but the catharsis is the artist’s own. He isn’t sharing much, and that stops you from accessing a record that is entirely pleasant and well-intentioned. Sadly, it doesn’t feel like that’s enough.

Interview: Vivian Girls

Gallery
By Daniel Greenwood

Vivian Girls are excited about beginning work on their second album and tonight they’ll be playing new material. I am interested to hear about the creative process seeing that much has been made of who the trio sounds like, rather than the standout quality of their record. ‘Tell the World’ is one of the album’s most immediately awesome tracks, a contender in various song-of-the-year polls. It’s a love song: “He sees what I see/He feels what I feel/I’ll tell the world about the love that I found.” There’s a real sense of simplicity about the lyrics which is quite remarkable considering the complexity of its subject:

“I wrote that song about my ex-boyfriend,” says Cassie. “He was really into psychic stuff, and we’d always try to be psychic together, it’s kind of creepy but it’s true. I don’t know. I wrote that song after we’d broken up but then we hung out again one time and I was like, ‘Holy shit, I’m still in love with him, it’s insane.’ That’s what it’s about.”

Read the article in full on Ragged Words

Caught Live: Parts & Labor

Thursday 19th February @ Cargo, London
Gallery

Thanks to the wonderful work of the Upset the Rhythm gang, London has been graced by some of North America’s best new bands. Recently we’ve had High Places, Crystal Stilts, Wavves, Women and tonight it’s Parts & Labor. This is Upset the Rhythm’s 199th show according to Dan Friel, on keys and vocals for the headliners, and here’s to another two-hundred shows. Brighton three-piece Cold Pumas open, excelling under the defunct disco ball. Their triangular sound contains two guitarists, Oliver Fisher and Dan Reeves, and vocalist/drummer Patrick Fisher. At the point of their blockbusting finale they’ve gathered a decent and receptive audience which includes impressed-looking Parts & Labor members. They’re a band to keep an eye on.

Parts & Labor begin their set as Receivers does, ‘Satellites’ surges through Cargo’s gig room, dragging punters closer to the stage with each humongous chorus. This band has an impressive sound, the first thing that grabs you is the epic wave of cymbals and keys, but Receivers’ finest moment is the incendiary guitar riff on ‘Solemn Show World’, cutting through this gargantuan sound. Sarah Lipstate wields the axe, she’s superb. There’s also something of an eighties synth-vibe to these tunes, with Dan Friel all smiles as he busies away at his desk of pedals and wires. It typifies the wholesome nature of Parts & Labor – there really is something for everyone.

The front of the audience is a sight to behold, accentuated by the flitting of one fan’s red mohawk, bassist BJ Warshaw succumbs and joins in, raising his bass aloft like a knight of super pop. London is renowned for its quiet audiences, and there is a split second of complete silence at one point in between songs. But at the encore’s climax – the band make quick work of the traditional two minute split – with Friel throwing his equipment table around like a ship in a storm, the majority of these uptight onlookers are indulging in the mighty hug of Parts & Labor. ROCK!

Record Review: Telepathe - Dance Mother

V2/Co-Op
Release Date: 26/01/2009
In a Ragged Word: Fidgety
Rating: ***+ 3.5/5

In a recent interview with Ragged Words, Busy Gangnes told us that she thought it fine for Telepathe’s music to be considered peculiar. She said that Telepathe were attempting to instil a sort of ‘weirdness’ into their pop music. Never mind music critics getting their descriptions right, Busy’s right too. Consequentially, however, that could be a real turn-off for early listeners, and it would be a shame for someone to listen to Dance Mother just once before throwing it into a pile of itchy electro-pop, the kind pouring out of car adverts and mind-scraping myspace profiles.

Dave Sitek’s position in the producer’s seat is obvious enough from the fidgety nature of Dance Mother’s percussion – the tom toms are giddy things, running alongside plentiful, jarring 808 kicks. On first listen these bass drums can be a distraction, but in sight of the record’s wider whole it is part of a movement towards a plateau. The standout track here is ‘I Can’t Stand It’, and slowly building around a vocal loop it’s here that Sitek’s influence can be felt most keenly. The guitar part is steeped in enough reverb to mirror TV on the Radio’s awesome ‘Wolf Like Me’. But the TV on the Radio elements are felt also because there is an admirable level of restraint – Telepathe choose not to ride the song out on a gelid techno wave – instead they allow the bubbling to continue with a lovely, growing harmony lit by coiling steel strings. Here Telepathe find themselves akin to Deerhunter, rather than Ricardo Villalobos.

Fidgety is perhaps the perfect description for Dance Mother’s first half, but it’s all for good reason, at least it feels good. On the penultimate track ‘Trilogy: Breath of Life, Crimes and Killings, Threads and Knives’ Telepathe launch into a more effeminate Drum’s Not Dead-era Liars. The early fidgeting has found its zenith in a strange glitz that seems to tug at so many Hip Hop and experimental influences that this review could find itself studying Flying Lotus, instead.

There’s a lot to Dance Mother, opener ‘So Fine’ is single-material, and it is always playing in Brick Lane’s Rough Trade East. Busy’s endorsement of peculiarity will be a problem for some, but then that’s good, because it’s got much more to offer a patient ear. Telepathe are teething, but this is a good start. This debut is an early document of intelligent artists searching for their sound, and it’s certainly worth witnessing.

Daniel Greenwood

Interview: Talking to Telepathe

via Ragged Words

With Brooklyn duo Telepathe, pronounced 'Telepathy' as we were quick to find out, releasing their Dave Sitek-produced debut album next week, Busy Gangnes - one half of the intriguing pair alongside Melissa Livaudais - spoke to Ragged Words.

How is Dance Mother’s release shaping-up?

Busy: It was leaked on the internet back in the summer, so I think a lot of people have been downloading it from blogs, and so it’s sort of already out. It’ll be released in Europe and the UK on the 26th January, and then we have some touring to do. It seems a lot of people are writing about the record, which is cool. I’m really excited.

How do you feel about the album being leaked online, and the concept of downloading?

Busy: I don’t really think it’s a problem at all. I do it myself to find out about new music. Obviously it puts the record labels in danger, but it’s great that so many people have access to all this music for free, and if they want to buy a record then they can. I’m not bothered by it, actually I’m pretty excited about it.

What’s it like living in Brooklyn? It’s quite a diverse and creative music/arts scene.

Busy: I’ve lived in Brooklyn for a few years now and I feel like I’ve been lucky to see live so many interesting and innovative bands over the years. But this past year I feel like I’ve barely lived here, we’ve been touring, so I haven’t actually been out to any shows in Brooklyn. I feel like the scene has become so big that it’s almost overwhelming, I hear about a new band every single day. It can be a little overwhelming to check out and try out all these new artists, and to be a part of that scene. We haven’t actually played in Brooklyn for about six-months, perhaps since the summer because we’ve been touring so much. But we’re playing a really small show soon that should be really fun.

You’ve been compared to fellow-Brooklynites Gang Gang Dance on a number of occasions. Are you fans of them, or friends with them?

Busy: I would consider Gang Gang Dance our friends, though I’m a little surprised by that comparison because the way we write our music is very different. I always thought our music was very different to Gang Gang Dance, but maybe not for other people. We used to be on the same label as them, I performed with them for a month in another band I was playing with in 2005, called Bloodline. By touring with them you get to know each other. I don’t see them very often anymore, though, they’re very busy.

Which other artists in Brooklyn are you friends with?

Busy: I don’t know if you’ve heard of Kria Brekken, she’s really great, I try to see her every time she plays. I’m also friends with the High Places kids, but they moved to LA! Last night, I heard. Also, I don’t know if you’ve heard of Bunny Rabbit? We’re friends with them too.

Your I Am Sound bio says you ‘put down’ your instruments ‘in favour of the LCD glare of a computer screen’. Do you address the issue of the environment in your music? For example, a recent video and remix of ‘Devil’s Trident’ is filmed in leafy woodland, juxtaposed with the remix – a minimal techno soundtrack.

Busy: Our process used to be much more organic, our music used to be written as all of us together in a room jamming-out. We’re still using guitar pedals and stuff, but it never used to be very electronic at all. It was also the case that we didn’t have a practice space anymore, and at the same time we were into making music on a computer. We sat down and tried to keep things together in a natural way, as in the way we put together samples, the EQ, and programming. I do feel like we still embrace an organic facility in our music but at the same time using as much technology as is available to us. I think a lot of bands have shunned the electronic properties of music, and tried to make things sound completely live. But we try to meld the electronic and acoustic elements together.

In one feature, you said Telepathe’s songs were mainly ‘about love and death, the two extremes’. Can you elaborate on that?

Busy: We kind of have these apocalyptical themes and images in our music, and I’m not really sure where that comes from because we write our lyrics in a stream-of-consciousness style, passing across our ideas and editing them down. We’ll change a word to make it sound right, rather than for meaning. But about love, Melissa and I were in a relationship so typically the content was about our love for each other.

The NME described you as ‘the most intriguing band of 2008’, how was 2008 for you?

Busy: It was cool, but kind of intense. We got thrown into the touring schedule which was quite unexpected at the time. It was a bit of a whirlwind, but I had fun doing all the touring, we made it out to Australia and to Europe a couple of times. We got to release a couple of singles which people responded to pretty well. I’m looking forward to releasing our record this year and doing a lot more touring.

In January’s Observer Music Monthly you received a 4-out-of-5 star rating. The reviewer described your music as peculiar. How do you feel about that sort of description?

Busy: That’s great, and I think our music is peculiar. We write it in a kind of unconventional way, we’re kind of trying to sneak in this sort of weirdness amongst pop music, but I think it sounds acceptable. In calling us ‘peculiar’ they were probably right-on.

Words: Daniel Greenwood.

Dance Mother is released on V2/Co-Op on Monday, Jan 26 and will be reviewed later this week.

Animal Collective @ Koko via Ragged Words

Ragged Words

Hype is rarely a good thing, and this Ragged Words reviewer felt it badly. Animal Collective’s ninth studio album Merriweather Post Pavillion was new material to these ears, but the wonderful aspect of Panda Bear, Avey Tare and Geologist’s more soulful, poppy tracks is that they feel instantly familiar. And, tonight, so is the venue. AC played Koko only last May, and it appears that Camden feels like home for these fellows.

If there is a surprise element to this the first fixture of AC’s 2009 touring calendar, it’s that things start so slowly. ‘In The Flowers’ is something of a false dawn as the evening’s opener, Avey Tare gathers momentum with his signature jink and head bob but the pace just isn’t there. Sure, it’s gorgeous enough – the swelling of one note in particular pushes high, up and beyond the boxes of Koko’s amphitheatre – but it takes an hour before anything entirely interesting happens.

All complaints aside, all dropping of heads and gawping at watches, people reading text messages, twisting their necks to look up at Koko’s grand heights, it’s so worth the wait. The breakout begins with ‘Summertime Clothes’, that rampant synth loop is devastating in a live environment, the perfect intro for ‘Brother Sport’. Only one song – ‘Grass’ – has ever enraptured an AC concert like ‘Brother Sport’ does, fist-pumping and spot-hopping, finally! The trio disappear and return swiftly to perform Strawberry Jam’s superlative ‘Chores’, a skewered ‘Banshee Beat’, and perhaps the most addictive of Merriweather Post Pavillion’s hyped-tracks, ‘My Girls’. Everyone knows the words to this one – but the album only came out today, didn’t we all wait? Guess not.

It’s hard to feel let-down by Animal Collective’s slow approach tonight, because ‘Summertime Clothes’ and ‘Brother Sport’ swallowed up everything in that transient, numinous, words-failing kind of way. Thank God for Animal Collective.