Listen In!
Hey there, loyal readers. Yes, all three of you! It’s me, Ben. How are you? Oh, that’s good. Me? I’m just fine, thanks. I recently got a haircut and a sandwich and my very own pair of shoes!
You know, it feels like it’s been years since I saw you. What’s that? It has? But how can that be?
Well, Niina wasn’t far off when she intimated that it has been an “unmusical” couple of years since Girlpants faded from relative obscurity to the blackest depths of the internet. The past year has been perhaps the most unmusical of my life–I think I listened to less than a dozen albums total before the Christmastime arrival of my ridiculously named new media device by a certain software titan caused me to go on an tunes-acquisition spree. I’ve discovered some remarkable things since then (lookin’ at you, jj), but in general my tastes are still hopelessly stuck in 2007.
That said, I do think there have been some excellent albums released in the intervening months. A few dozen have really stuck with me from the dark years, when I was living under the freeway and desperately trading opinions for sandwich crusts. In my next few posts I’m going to highlight a few of these, for your listening enjoyment and the preservation of my ever-dwindling sanity.
Menomena — Friend and Foe (Barsuk, 2007)
This is a band that makes straight up interesting indie rock music. I know… them’s some big words, right? Listen: Menomena aren’t trying to go back to nature or create the synesthetic equivalent of an acid trip or create a sonic tapestry of all 50 of our gloriously star-spangled states. No–they just want to make some cool sounds that no one else has made before. In that way, they remind me of The Flaming Lips, but without the druggy noodling and overly bombastic worldmaking. Much was made at the time of this album’s release about the band’s recording strategy. Apparently, they create their songs in loops on custom software before transforming those arranged loops into live performances (you can get more info here). The result is music that’s unusually complex and layered for this sort of indie rock–John Vanderslice’s studio wizardry comes close, but it’s got a different aim. In Friend and Foe, drums skitter along to techno-like beats, several guitar tracks scrape staccato over one another, pianos zoom in and out of the foreground. It’s a truly big sound. [Buy]
Menomena — “Wet and Rusting”
Richard Hawley — Lady’s Bridge (Mute U.S., 2007)
A longtime collaborator of fellow sleazy-voiced Brit Jarvis Cocker and his band of merrymaking men and womenfolk, Richard Hawley is a honey-voiced singer in the great tradition of the 20th Century’s uncounted balladeers. Occasionally he picks up a rockabilly or a doo-wop touch, but for the most part Hawley’s songs are velvety smooth and achingly quiet, but entirely without pretension. They’re songs of love and loss, and on Lady’s Bridge they flow with a master’s touch. This is the perfect album for an evening at home, curled up with a glass of your favorite scotch and the sort of artificially illuminated memory of a past, lost love. He’s put out a new album since this one, called Truelove’s Gutter, but I haven’t found my way to hearing it yet. Hopefully soon. [Buy]
Richard Hawley — “Lady Solitude”
The Besnard Lakes — The Besnard Lakes are the Dark Horse (Jagjaguwar, 2007)
The Besnard Lakes get lots of comparisons to their more popular fellow Montréal… eans? ites? ers?… I dunno… Anyway, I’m talking about The Arcade Fire. Such comparisons are really unfair. Sure, both are good at anthemic, arena-sized rock ‘n roll, but The Besnard Lakes are a much rawer, much more heartfelt (rather than heart-considered) act. Every song on this album breathes with a kind of passion and vision rarely heard in modern indie rock, raw around the edges but incredible surefooted sonically. Great big riffs of feedback and distortion crash over the listener repeatedly, backed by huge choruses and layered vocals, and simple but tried and true rock ‘n roll song structures. And man, those drums… These guys have a new album coming out this year that (at least some small part of) the internet is all abuzz about. [Buy]
The Besnard Lakes — “Devastation”
I’ll be back soon with the ones that stuck with me from 2008, a year that saw me constructing a home out of discarded hubcaps and Big Mac wrappers at the confluence of Interstates 75 and 85. Look forward to it!
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