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MP3: Clues – Perfect Fit

Alden Penner doesn’t exactly have to shoot for the stars here. You see, ever since the remaining two members of his last group, The Unicorns, restarted their careers gallivanting around the globe with Islands (a comprehensive failure in my book), he’s had little to live up to. He isn’t even alone now: fellow Canuck and ex-Arcade-Fire-member Brendan Reed has joined forces with Mr. Penner for their latest project, called Clues. Now with some new material from them, it’s become clear who the driving creative force behind the Unicorns (and Clues, apparently) really is.

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MP3: Teeth Mountain – Ghost Science from Teeth Mountain (2007)

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MP3: Dan Deacon – Padding Ghost from Bromst (2009)

All Photos: the inimitable institution, Josh Sisk (full set here)

Dan Deacon is hitting up Sonar on June 13th, I suggest that you seek out tickets.

Editor’s note: Or you could enter to win tickets from Aural States.  Check back in just a few days.

Out in rural Carroll County where I reside, there’s a powerful stigma behind the idea of Baltimore. It brings up connotations of dimly lit streets, frightening murder-prone men behind every corner, and the Inner Harbor existing as an oasis of “real citydom” in the midst of it all. Needless to say, most of my country-bumpkin peers aren’t very familiar with the town. However, if they just so happened to have been at the 9:30 Club this past Sunday night, I’m sure their minds would have completely eliminated that sinister reputation, replacing it with one of ecstatic joy.

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MP3: Edie Sedgwick – Sissy Spacek

The very concept of Edie Sedgwick is one that deserves ample discussion. To save some precious time, here are a few words on the subject from our good friend Greg: “DC’s Edie Sedgwick is a unique performer that you might say bears little in common with his namesake.  The original Sedgwick was a socialite actress most recognized for starring in Andy Warhol films. The Sedgwick in question purports to be the original’s transgendered reincarnation and is signed, interestingly enough, to legendary Dischord Records.”

He’s not kidding.

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MP3: Dirty Projectors – Stillness is the move from the forthcoming full-length Bitte Orca (2009)

There’s a strange pattern of listenership between Dirty Projectors and myself. Here’s generally how it works: every few months I excitedly stumble upon one of their albums at some miscellaneous record shop. I’ll take it home, cherish the album art that the indie gods have bestowed upon me, set my player on repeat, and amongst the other indistinct tunes, I’ll find one sole outstanding track that absolutely dominates my musical interests like a newly acquired puppy.

For example: the beauty-saturated The Glad Fact’s most sincere track (“Lit From Below”) ran through my speakers for the majority of last January, whereas the grand harmonies of “Not Having Found” played the same role for The Getty Address last June. Over a year and a half after my first experience with Dirty Projectors, “Rise Above” still hasn’t vanished from my play cue, and that’s all I’ll say about that. It’s always been worth the trouble to shuffle through Dave Longstreth’s discography for these rare tracks, which is exactly the state of mind I utilized while first listening to Bitte Orca.

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MP3: The Love Language – Lalita

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MP3: The Love Language – Manteo

Photo credit: Greg Szeto, Love Language at the Ottobar playing a fantastic set with Avocado Happy Hour (more pictures here)

There’s something undeniable about a well-executed pop song. There’s this assured quality in how pop feels, you begin to believe that there’s a normative characteristic about the music, that everyone should like a good pop track.

Raleigh’s The Love Language make music that fits this description like a pair of one-size-fits-all gym shorts. They apply the now-popular lo-fi fuzz filter to the beat-to-death standards of indie pop. Sounds worn and unoriginal right?

Wrong.  The Love Language’s greatest talent is their ability to inject some much-needed vitality into otherwise mundane breeds of indie music, making for a wholly delightful listening experience.

I, for one, cannot understand why anyone would/could/should ever dislike the batshit-giddy beach pop beats of “Lalita.” A few lone rapid strums of an acoustic guitar open the floor for an overdriven surf-pop riff larger and brighter than my radio station’s marketing director (whom I’m beginning to suspect is at least half-giant). The song continues in the same euphoric fashion for the next three minutes, with a verse catchier than that deadly swine flu from hell, and a chorus that belongs in a summer blockbuster’s soundtrack.

From what I’ve heard, The Love Language’s success has to do with their mood-enhancing vocals much of the time. While I’m still not certain what fuzzed-out voices do to us, or why they do it, I surely hope they never stop.

Check their new music video for song “Sparxxx” after the jump.

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MP3: White Lies – Death

A few years ago, when I was just getting into “indie” (a term that remains definitionally ambiguous to this day), I went to my first non-Merriweather Post Pavilion concert at the 9:30 Club. I got all jazzed up and went with a friend of mine to DC, thinking we were the most “deck” kids around for going to an “indie” show in a big city. The lineup consisted of Louis XIV, Hot Hot Heat, and the headlining Editors, who seemed radically inventive to me at the time. Upon a casual re-listen, they play like a bunch of guys with reverb pedals and enough time to listen to college radio. The misguided person I was at that point in my life would hold onto White Lies’ To Lose My Life like he did to his copy of Is This It.

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My roommate silently stalked over to my computer and asked what I was listening to.

“The new Title Tracks single,” I replied. Looking over my shoulder at the four or five possible concepts I had sprawled out on a sheet of printer paper, he asked if I was writing about this song. “Yes,” I said, trying to quiet his apparent suspicion. He began to chuckle as he stared at my notes. I asked him what he’s laughing at, to which he responded: “Nolan, it’s a freaking pop song.  Quit analyzing it like one of your David Byrne albums or something.”

He probably walked off mumbling something about a punk band, but I wasn’t listening. He was right about one thing there: Title Tracks (and their debut single, Every Little Bit Hurts) does not attempt to revitalize pop music.  In fact, I think it’s safe to say Title Tracks do nothing but add to the already-crowded guitar pop genre.

That being said, “Found Out,” the better half of Every Little Bit Hurts, shows a lot of promise from these DC indie-poppers. It stars some extra-tense guitars working like a loaded spring, only gaining a moment’s rest during the pop-standard chorus.

The sugar-soaked tune (clocking in at a whopping 2:35) is just long enough to allow a fair amount of familiarity, but somehow feels like it could still use some trimming. The first verse introduces itself like a walk through an uncomfortable neighborhood at 3AM, and before you know any better, it transforms itself into a liberating power-chorded refrain.  It just gets a little irritating when you hear the same chorus for the third time in less than three minutes, almost as if you know they simply decided to throw in the once-delightful bit wherever they could.

Title Tracks seem to have this issue all over their single. While each individual piece of any given song is strong, their copy/paste outlook ruins much of the enjoyability that may have been possible. If they clean up their song structure a little bit, I’ll be looking forward to see what these guys do with an album.

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MP3: François Virot – Not the one

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MP3: François Virot – Cascade Kisses

Buglike.

That’s how you describe François Virot’s vocals. The dude sounds like the product of an insect and a well-refined microphone. Aside from the presentation of an almost exact replica of Marty Anderson’s (Okay) vocal style, François Virot’s Yes or No is a laid-back-yet-tense-in-every-way piece of mostly-acoustic glory. His voice is at once breathy and full of life, a rare quality usually reserved for the well-established indie masterminds. It’s as if it’s everywhere at once, the words are distinguishable but somehow last for longer than you expect.

He doesn’t really ever “strum” his guitar, rather he opts to simply smash it with his artsy French hands. Maybe that’s a trendy new European thing. It takes on an unnatural crunch in its tone, like a glass of cold water from a rusted sink. Likewise, his percussion is of the found-variety: handclaps, stomping, hitting his guitar with a soft mallet, it’s all fair game. You’ll find the nearly-twee drumming on every beat, far enough in the background for it to be out of your mind, but just loud enough to carry the rhythm.

Yes or No is ancient in terms of blogosphere time, released way back in September 2008. I’m not sure if I’m just behind the times or it’s just finding its way to the United States now. I pulled it, by chance, out of the radio station library one especially underprepared day. I was overwhelmed by “Where O Where A.” How the percussion sits around and somehow never ceases stop, how the guitar sounds like it may either be played by a person or by a thousand tiny bugs working together in near-perfect harmony. There’s just enough wiggle-room to make the occasional imperfections add to the music. Then, the vocals. François Virot’s weak-yet-potent delivery adds to the almost-nonsense backing music to complete something altogether heartfelt and, at times, joyful.

Yes Or No is a far-overlooked acoustic indie album comprised of consistently fantastic songs, and I give it my highest recommendation.

Photo credit: Tom Pavlich

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MP3: Vampire Hands – Opium Typhoon

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MP3: So Wavves – Bored (Anamanaguchi cover)

Being a Baltimore-based college student living in New York, I’d like to take some time to walk through a few of the differences I’ve noticed between shows in New York and Baltimore. In my relatively meager experience with the two, I’ve noticed that Baltimore’s dancing tends to be more self-satisfying. The wild jittering and jumping involved at concerts in our fair city serves a whole different purpose than in New York or Brooklyn. Baltimore’s dancing is more inward-based. You’re bouncing ecstatically, shaking your head from side to side pretending you’re insane…it’s all for you. Every single person in front of the stage looks stupid, and nobody cares even a little bit.

Brooklyn shows, however, utilize dancing in a whole different way. I arrived at the so-DIY-you-can’t-find-it Market Hotel last Saturday night to a packed room of youngin’s collaborating in clusters of 2-5. While they existed in groups, it was easy to see that the hipsters were (comically) more self-attentive than they were involved in their respective circles. This apparent self-obsession was the first negative foreshadowing of how these New Yorkers work at indie concerts.

Vampire Hands’ unfamiliar presence took the stage at the crack of 9:30. They consisted of a drummer, a guitarist, a bassist, and a dude who sang while he messed with some looping tools and circuit-bent electronics. Aside from reminding me that standar guitar/bass/keyboard/drums bands still exist in this ever nonconforming world, they also brought a couple of really great tunes. Read the rest…

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MP3: These Are Powers – Adam’s Turtle

A trip to These Are Powers’ Last.fm page will tell you that they’re commonly referred to as noise rock, experimental, art rock, and their own made up genre, ghost punk (among other already poorly-defined terms). I’m not sure about you, but a couple of those don’t exactly measure up to the uncomfortable force these three Brooklyn-Chicago interminglers gravitate around. In reading some of the other press about this alienated trio, I have yet to find anything that accurately describes precisely what they do.

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