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.

Lists: My Top 100 Albums of the 2000s - 70 to 61

Here's the Spotify playlist.

Albums 70 to 61, get in:

70: Azeda Booth - In Flesh Tones (2008)

Azeda Booth have gone largely unnoticed in the blogosphere, and there's not been a single mention of them in the British press. But that suits their sound. In Flesh Tones is a pale sounding record, with androgynous vocals bleating meekly amid swathes of swooning keys and trickling percussion of sticks and toms. For any fan of quietly ambitious ambient music this is a must-have. 'Ran' is the opening and standout track, the best unknown of 2008.


69: Belong - October Language (2006)

What Deerhunter do so well in parts on Cryptograms, Belong do for breakfast. Delay pedals are the least you can blame for this oceanic sound, where only the song titles do any talking. Take 'Who Told You This Room Exists?' and 'I Never Lose. Never Really', titles which suggest a standpoint, the posing of a question or a slither of rhetoric that capsizes into the stonking depths of these near hierophanous spaces of sound.


68: Dan Deacon - Bromst (2009)

Don't listen to this record if you've had any coffee, if you're particularly susceptible to palpitations or anxiety. I can imagine that listening to Dan Deacon's masterpiece in a busy inner-city might elevate you somewhere else, or will make you collapse. Deacon borders on genius, his songs are much like paintings, ecstatic works of art like something Miro did, but somehow all the more collected and congealed. Deacon is a patient artist whose live shows, apparently, are the best out there, whether you're a fan or not.


67: Feist - Let it Die (2004)

Leslie Feist is an integral part of Broken Social Scene, with her, the band aren't the full chomp. Just see Kevin Drew and co. cameoing in The Time Traveller's Wife (WTF?). I know. What she does well is humility, but more heartbreak. Actually, Feist has a pretty good crack at truth: 'The saddest part of a broken heart/isn't the ending/as much as the start.' I find that lyric to be positive in its reverse, you haven't lost anything by being alone. It's what you give to someone else, rather than what they can do for you. Perhaps.


66: Papercuts - Can't Go Back (2007)

I think Papercuts' most recent record, You Can Have What You Want, is pretty bloody good. It's not got the praise it deserves, but for a 4-star review in the English Times newspaper. You Can Have is an oneiric affair, all mooted loveloss and broken, droning organs, whereas Can't Go Back is a straight up folk megapiece. 'Sandy' is the love song for any summer, 'Outside Looking In' is a superb anthem for loners. Do not let this one slip by you.


65: Lindstrom - Where You Go to I Go too (2008)

Though album opener ‘Where You Go I Go Too’ runs close to 30-minutes, it feels more compact than much of Lindstrom’s last record It’s a Feedelity Affair. The Swede can be heard panting at the the title track's end, and for the listener it could have been the heavy breathing of a laboured-slog. Instead it’s the sumptuous rush of adrenaline that reaches its peak at around 27-minutes, an exhilarating surmount. The arrangements are impressive, and Lindstrom’s skill in this department is what makes the record a real joy.


64: Grouper - Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill (2008)

It’s near impossible to work out what Liz Harris is actually singing on the opening track of Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill, but the angst living within the harmony makes such knowledge unnecessary. ‘Disengaged’ opens with the sound of a world ending, the harbinger of some unspeakable sadness that will consume everything by the end of the song. And it kind of does, moving into 'Heavy Water/I'd Rather be Sleeping', with Harris singing 'this love is enormous it's eating me up'. To me, it's the issue of living and dying, investing or sleeping. For Harris she's lost beneath the waves, but the idea of being anywhere else is an unrequited desire.


63: Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - Lie Down in the Light (2008)

'If there's only one thing I can do/and you know that I don't want to do it' sings Will Oldham on 'Easy Does It', a paean to procrastination. The big pluses about this Bonnie 'Prince' Billy record are the production and its sense of momentum. The first few songs swan swiftly along and towards the album's close the momentum arrests in two lovely, plaintive numbers - 'Willow Trees Bend' and 'I'll Be Glad' - the latter offering hope to the Lord Himself: 'You'll always have me around'. Oldham's is a catalogue to be mined as if for jewels, let's hope he sticks around some more.


62: Department of Eagles - In Ear Park (2008)

Daniel Rossen's stench is all over Yellow House, Grizzly Bear's first official recording as a four-piece. And perhaps that stench is so strong that Rossen had to pull away, giving more space to the Grizzle Bizzle project and throw all his roughed-up, acoustic virtuoso-isms into something almost completely his own. Fred Nicolaus is Rossen's other half here, but the poor blighter has to work and wait while Rossen sojourns with his full-time band mates. But then so do fans of Department of Eagles, who waited a long time for this quite ominous record that shelves the sample-o-rama-cum-beatmania of DoE's dormroom offering The Cold Nose. 'Balmy Night' feels a little elliptical here at the record's end, but it's my favourite because Rossen's at his heartiest and most Chekhovian.


61: Vivian Girls - Vivian Girls (2008)

OK, I didn't get Vivian Girls for a long time. Vivian Girls' 20-minute run time seemed just to whizz-by, with the emotional content of the songs completely elusive. But after seeing the Brooklyn three-piece live and thus studying their material more closely, you realise that these are brilliant songs. There's an emotional intelligence to the way Cassie sings about lusting after others: 'I'm going insane/going out of my mind/does he know, does he know/that he's totally fine,' because she pulls-off the pop sensibility with aplomb. It's so quickfire. 'Tell the World' is a psychic romance that feels like the album's centre-piece, a signifier of the record's need to express the sheer excitement in loving someone else, and in being alive. Though 'I Believe in Nothing' proves that theory all wrong.

Music Video: Vivian Girls - Second Date on Pitchfork.tv

ADD is a new feature from Pitchfork.tv where artists perform songs and have them recorded in old school Tascam tape decks while filmed with VHS cameras.



Such a lovely song.

Article: Straight outta Brooklyn: A Golden Age in American music

By Daniel Greenwood
via Seven

It has been said that, when times are hard, the art gets better. To compare the state of the American economy to the health of indie music in America shows that there is some truth to this idea. The rude health of American music is symptomatic of the sheer number of lauded artists (big and small) emerging from Brooklyn, New York. At the top of the scale are TV on the Radio, whose recent release Dear Science headed numerous album polls last year; Rolling Stone and Spin are two of the bigger brands who plumped for the act. In fact, American music dominated year-end charts, with British act Portishead and Aussies Cut Copy the only acts outside of the States to really trouble critical listings.
TV on the Radio are a bi-racial alternative rock band; four of the members are African Americans (Gerard A. Smith on keys and brass, Kyp Malone on bass, singer Tunde Adebimpe and Jaleel Bunton-Drums as percussionist) while fifth member and production hot-shot Dave Sitek is a white American. The significance of this idea of a bi-racial act is in line with the recent inauguration of America’s first African American president, Barack Obama. Take the track “Golden Age” from Dear Science: “There is a golden age/and it’s coming round.”

Leading indie website Pitchfork ranked Dear Science at number six in 2008 and their writer Eric Harvey commented: “One last sigh of relief that "Golden Age" in December isn't a sad curio of a nation afraid to embrace difference on November 4th [Election day], but instead stands as a bona fide fucking anthem going forward.”

For Harvey, this “Golden Age” is one of racial harmony, of kicking out Bush the draconian; but it can speak equally for the brilliant lights of the Brooklyn scene.

Telepathe are an electronic duo residing in Brooklyn, but with the release of their debut record Dance Mother, they haven’t been spending much time in the New York borough. Their record was produced by TV on the Radio member Sitek. It is experimental electronica and minimal, simmering with reverb-laden guitar moments akin to Sitek’s work for TV on the Radio.

In January, I spoke to Busy Ganges, one half of Telepathe, in the build-up to their debut release. Originally from Los Angeles, she said: “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.”

Ganges has a point. The overwhelming nature of the scene has lead to some bands spilling out into other parts of the country. Rob Barber and Mary Pearson of High Places comprise one of these acts who, in January, upped-sticks to Los Angeles, home of No Age and the Smell – perhaps America’s most relevant and, currently, most famous indie setting. High Places marry together an Animal Collective (once NYC-based) instinct for samples and ambient sounds, many of which are electronically modified sounds recorded at home, like plastic bags and even food bowls floating in a paddling pool full of water. High Places are perhaps the most under-the-radar of Brooklyn’s recent graduates but with much in common with the superlative Gang Gang Dance, another similar to Animal Collective.

The thing that ties bands such as TV on the Radio, High Places, Gang Gang Dance and Animal Collective together is their continental sound. The cover for Gang Gang Dance’s St. Dymphna is adorned with the image of lead singer Lizzi Bougatsos wearing colourful, almost royal Arabic headgear. The samples that tinge their breakthrough record hint at Middle Eastern influences with the kind of beats reminiscent of African American hip hop acts. It all adds up to a vibrant and colourful spectrum of artists that seem to cover so many genres that it all merges into one – a golden age for art.
Though artists like High Places have drifted away from New York’s epicentre, there is a constant germination of new acts. Vivian Girls and Crystal Stilts are two bands to have achieved international acclaim with their debut albums in late 2008, along with the lesser-known experimental dance trio Lemonade.

For all the hyped artists, such as Vivian Girls and Crystal Stilts, dominating the blogosphere over the past 12 months, one band is on the brink of doing something wonderful. This band is Grizzly Bear, the Brooklyn-based quartet of Ed Droste (vocals), Chris Taylor (bass), Daniel Rossen (guitar) and Christopher Bear (drums). Veckatimest, their second studio album, will be released in May and has been described by indie-hegemonic Pitchfork as “one of the big ones”.

But 2008 was no dry year for the band. Rossen teamed with friend Fred Nikolaus to release their long-anticipated 4AD debut under the Department of Eagles guise – In Ear Park. What you can expect from Grizzly Bear’s new record will be similar to the Department of Eagles’ tone, a spirited sound lit by the ruffle of acoustic guitars and droning piano keys. In Rossen, Grizzly Bear have a folk-virtuoso, a skilled arranger whose input on 2006’s superlative slow burner Yellow House cannot be ignored. The band is on the verge of breaking into the corner of the mainstream inhabited by Seattle-based and much-admired folk crooners Fleet Foxes. In simpler terms, Grizzly Bear have the chance to hold the gong for 2009 as TV on the Radio did last year.

The Brooklyn scene is in the throes of a golden age. But what is most wonderful about it is its eddy; you cannot identify one influence for these bands. Thanks to the internet – the blogging culture that desperately and adoringly attempts to charter the rise of these bands – much of it can be witnessed from outside the city itself and from across the pond. As some acts move on and those such as Grizzly Bear scale the international heights, new bands are moving in and playing their first shows. The scale is large, but with TV on the Radio stirring styles at the top and the likes of Lemonade reinventing rave-culture at the other end, there’s plenty of gold to mine.

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