FOAVOD: Fiery Furnaces - promo video for I'm Going Away

These guys are so freakin' charming. It makes me wish I had a brother to bicker with about song composition and album titling. The Fiery Furnaces released I'm Going Away July 21 on Thrill Jockey Records.

The Fiery Furnaces - promo video 1 from Thrill Jockey Records on Vimeo.

The Furnaces will be at the Variety Playhouse Aug. 20 with White Rabbits.

Urgh, new banner not look so good. Will fix when have time.

Live Review: Dirty Projectors, Atlas Sound @ The Earl 7/17/09

For Atlanta Music Guide (and please pardon my terrible show photography):

Live Review: Dirty Projectors, Atlas Sound @ The EARL, July 17

Dirty Projectors arrived late, during Atlas Sound’s set on The EARL’s welcoming stage. They’d driven straight to Atlanta from Louisiana, they told us, and more than one band member was sick. In a gesture of goodwill, the audience agreed to put out cigarettes for their benefit.

Fortunately, the smokes were the only things extinguished. Bradford Cox’s set as Atlas Sound had been a glowing one. Backed by Herb Harris, Jason Harris and Tommy Chung of The Selmanaires, he gigglingly played a handful of tracks from the forthcoming Logos for his hometown crowd. It was the first Atlas Sound show I’ve seen where he had a backing band — one that learned the songs in two days, no less — rather than just a microphone and a sampling board at his fingertips. Cox will take The Selmanaires on tour with him when he hits the road this October.

[Atlas Sound: Bradford Cox and Tommy Chung]

The headliners’ set was no less luminescent. Consisting of almost the entirety of this year’s Bitte Orca, it opened with “Two Doves,” just vocalist Angel Deradoorian singing and band leader Dave Longstreth on guitar. It was a sweet, captivating way to start, and ensured the audience’s undivided attention. The set was peppered with moments that would make us stare equally as rapturously.

[Dirty Projectors: Angel Deradoorian, Dave Longstreth, Amber Coffman and Haley Dekle]

Standout moments included the rocking unison “bitte orca” refrain in “Useful Chamber” and the guitar riff and handclap backing in “No Intention.” Longstreth almost never strums his guitar, always finger picking these frantic, stuttering melodies and looking ecstatic the whole time. Deradoorian, Haley Dekle and Amber Coffman’s voices ping-pong-ed off each other’s in such a way that it was seamless, and difficult to believe it was human anatomy and not an electronic device producing the sound (most startlingly in “Remade Horizon”)...[Read more]

Record Review: Megafaun - Gather, Form and Fly

Yay timeliness! Gather, Form and Fly releases today via FOA Crushworthy Record Label Hometapes. ("Home is where the tapes is.")

For Atlanta Music Guide:

Megafaun
Gather, Form and Fly
Hometapes

Megafaun’s albums feel like a flocking of musical ideas rather than a linear expression of them. Good thing for the Durham, N.C. trio, then, that the migration it has made compositionally takes it in all kinds of fascinating directions; ones that perhaps aren’t visible without binoculars. From the ashes of former band DeYarmond Edison (minus member Justin Vernon, now of Bon Iver), Megafaun took flight, releasing Bury The Square in 2007. The album won over a national audience with its pretty soundscapes, lush vocals and backwoods instrumentation.

But sophomore release Gather, Form and Fly cashes in that capital and compounds the interest, utilizing more techniques than a goose has feathers. At first glance, it’s just a record full of finger picking and pretty stacked vocals. It fiddles like Appalachian folk, rambles like Americana and strums like acoustic rock. But beyond all that, a strong instinct for experimentation and sound variety permeates Gather, Form and Fly; no two songs can be said to be the exact same style and no one song remains the same style throughout its entire length...[Read more]

Apology

I've had my file hosting account suspended for some reason (I suspect it has to do with the bandwidth usage surrounding me posting Grizzly Bear's "Two Weeks"). Sorry if you've tried to listen to some older stuff and it's not there anymore. If there's anything specific that I once posted that you'd really like, shoot me an email. Thx!

FOA OMG!!1!: Pontiak

I'm not usually one for stoner-sludge-type guitar rock, but man, is Virginia's Pontiak an exception. I missed them when they did an in-store at Criminal Records during Bonnaroo (exasperated sigh), but I've been spinning their April Thrill Jockey release Maker since then anyway. I caught wind of the band when they passed through Atlanta last year after releasing Sun on Sun (these guys record quickly). The three Carney brothers hail from the Blue Ridge, and can perhaps thank their familial relationship for the seamlessness with which they perform and record. Live, they were a positive force, dark and menacing but somehow buoyant and bright, too. Recorded, listening to Pontiak feels like walking into a cave on a hot, sunny day. You're a little blinded, but it's cool in here, and somehow the sheer depth of it relaxes.

Maker is almost minimalist. Though vocals do play an important role in the album, they're few and far between. That's because for Pontiak, less is more. Lead-off "Laywayed" stops abruptly after the intro and inspires that kind of everyone-inhales-at-once tension bands sometimes employ live. Some tracks, like "Wax Worship," begin or end with lengthy sound collages--they drone--and concentrate more on waves and textures than any pop sensibilities. "Wax Worship"'s final minutes feature vocals reminiscent of Gregorian chants or some type of cult choir situation. You can almost hear the creepy ceremonial hooded robes.

"Seminal Shining," one of Maker's shortest track, departs from all of this. It's wholly and hypnotically different, utilizing Spanish-style guitar and low vocals throughout the length of the song. Maybe a technique of drone and ambient music comes through here; it's another example of the effectiveness yielded by lulling an audience into a certain repetitive framework before startlingly changing style or key. I like it.

Give 'em a listen:

[MP3] Pontiak - "Wax Worship"

Record Review: Bowerbirds - Upper Air

After writing a Paste Band of the Week on Bowerbirds at the re-release of Hymns For A Dark Horse last year (in which I got to interview Phil Moore), reviewing their follow-up LP was a bit of a challenge. For one thing, their style hadn't vastly changed on this sophomore effort. Many of the same elements were still there, to the point that it risked monotony. But once I listened enough, I got to experience the ways the band was growing. In the end, Upper Air is a satisfying, if not list-topping, effort from a band whose instinct for beauty is unparalleled.

For Stomp and Stammer:

Bowerbirds
Upper Air
[Dead Oceans]

“One morning you wake to find you are shackled to your bed/ And bound and gagged/ Oh my, what a predicament,” Phil Moore sings to begin “House of Diamonds,” the lead-off track of Bowerbirds’ sophomore LP. That certainly would be a predicament, but not to worry; “You were free/ You were already free,” the song reassures as Beth Tacular’s high, clear voice joins Moore’s. Two years after the self-release and one year after the re-release of the North Carolina trio’s first full-length Hymns for a Dark Horse, they’ve returned with Upper Air, an album consistent with their debut but that shows clear signs of evolution.

See, they were already free. Hymns betrayed the band’s organic, unshackled ways of writing, playing and living. (Moore and Tacular are a couple and lived in an Airstream trailer in the woods before they built their own log cabin.) The album explored almost exclusively themes of respect for nature, of living harmoniously with it and with the world as a whole. On Upper Air they still use pretty, harmonized vocal hooks and minimalist, acoustic instrumentation like accordion, piano and hand-held bass drum. They still pepper their folk songs with a darker, more intense gypsy number here or there; see “Beneath Your Tree.”...[Read more]

[MP3] Bowerbirds - "Crooked Lust"

Record Review: Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest

So far, Veckatimest is one of my favorite records of the year. Seeing Grizzly Bear for the first time at Bonnaroo was a complete thrill; I was so happy! Ed Droste is a hypnotic vocalist, and Christopher Bear's live drumming is formidable and overzealous and fantastic!

When I came back, I got to agonize over a review of the album for Stomp and Stammer. What came out was unintentionally kind of a thesis. Hope you like!

Grizzly Bear
Veckatimest
[Warp]

It takes a long time to get submerged in a Grizzly Bear record. The band name itself deceives. No reckless, territorial aggression to be found here – no claws – only beauty and calculation, careful diction and studiedly released energy. The first few listens always reveal, to me at least, only the textures used and not the content. The reedy, blended treble they favor sounds like some ensemble of minstrels dancing atop an intermittently used giant bass drum. (Idea for a video, maybe?) When I’ve only gotten my feet wet, the immediacy of Grizzly Bear records doesn’t feel as apparent to me as it must to those who always gush about them.

But then something happens. On the 15th-ish listen, suddenly I’ve plunged under and all the waves of brilliance start rushing past. Veckatimest, of their work so far, is all but a tsunami. (To be fair, listening on cranked-up headphones helps, too.) Packing the punch possibly lacking in the gorgeous Yellow House and the eclectic Friend EP while still just as pretty, Veckatimest exhibits loudly the Brooklyn quartet’s abilities with theme exploration and the manipulation of audience tension. Lead-off track “Southern Point” seems a microcosm of this with its backing strings and barreling chorus, alternately gentle and jarring. Each track develops a melody or two and repeats, changing a bit each time, and often sprouts into a large, thrilling B-section or coda at the end. (Come to think of it, Grizzly Bear is exactly why you should never judge a song on its first few seconds.) They’re no less exciting for their predictability, mostly because the band ornaments absolutely everything. It sounds like they’d hang Christmas baubles on the pointy parts of their songs if they could.

Take, for example, the ostensible stand-out “Two Weeks.” As catchy as the group gets, the song just repeats the bouncy keyboard melody and soaring vocal backing (featuring Beach House’s Victoria Legrand) over and over. Here’s the thing, though: the arrangement is different absolutely every time the theme reprises. It’s the final touch that makes the song not just something hipsters can dance to, but a powerhouse composition in its own right. Same goes for “All We Ask” and “While You Wait For The Others.” Sure, they’re transcendent pop songs, but they’re effing fascinating, too!...[Read more]


If for any reason you haven't heard it yet:

Record Review: Lord Cut-Glass - Lord Cut-Glass

For Atlanta Music Guide:

Lord Cut-Glass
Lord Cut-Glass
Chemikal Underground

Ex-Delgado Alun Woodward’s lilting Scottish accent wraps itself around the haunting, intricate instrumental arrangements in his songs. His debut LP under the moniker Lord Cut-Glass — named for a character in the radio play Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas — turns seamlessly from folk to waltz to military march to a ditty about being the “product of the modern man.” Each song is a fleshed-out stand-alone composition, a full story and an entire piece of music in its own right. Listening to Lord Cut-Glass as an album feels like being at the theater; one can almost feel the velvet of the curtains and the see the glow of the stage lights.

Maybe it’s because most of the phrasing seems directly derivative of theatrical song composition in the best way. Woodward plays with tempo and volume in a manner that creates interest and tension, helped in his efforts by drummer Paul Savage (also formerly of The Delgados), as well as a large collection of Glasgow classical musicians. Together, they man a toy piano, a full horn section, an accordion and slews of sweeping strings; they supply choral backup singing to supplement Woodward’s fast-picked acoustic guitar and produce his bizarre mental collages.

Lyrically, Woodward brings intimidating smarts and a charming sense of humor to his songwriting. Take, for example, the fact that the quietest song on the album — a sweetly sung minimalist acoustic duet — is called “Holy Fuck!” and asserts that “glimpsing reflections of the past… feels like licking rats.” Through lines like these, Woodward displays his ability with striking descriptiveness. “I believe that you and me will never be/A Fred-and-Ginger matinee romance,” he croons. “Holy Fuck!” and every song on the album, really, beautifully meshes undeniable truth with darkly comic wit and weird analogy...[Read more]

FOAVOD: Harlem Shakes - "Strictly Game"

This video is incredible. It parodies those terrible slideshow videos people are always making for YouTube. But it does it in a way that makes your realization of what's going on grow gradually throughout the length of the video. I was laughing out loud-- it's brilliant!

FOA OMG!!1!: Ball of Flame Shoot Fire

There was a time (it may still be going on, in fact), when the sheer act of contacting me directly through my Fear of Arthropods email address about your band basically obliged me to listen to whatever music you sent along. See, just as what you wanted was to be in a band and to have that band be successful and heard by lots of people, what I wanted was to be a music journalist and to write about bands and hear music before it releases and have what I write be read by lots of people. When individual artists and labels and publicity companies started sending me promos or inviting me personally to listen to records...well, I still flush with excitement whenever a bubble envelope arrives in the mail or when a full album download shows up in my inbox. It's the best.

Back in the day (a whole year, year-and-a-half ago!) someone named Tim from a band called Ball of Flame Shoot Fire out of Pittsburgh sent me just such an email. Tim made a good case. He had searched for some of the bands they had shared bills with, and this led him to FOA, where I was (as usual) gushing about Man Man. He told me BOFSF had opened for Man Man before, and that if I liked them, I might like his band, too. Then he sent me an EP. It was called Grumpy Little Bird (the name made me giggle right off the bat), and while it was a bit rough around the edges, the compositional prowess it betrayed was well beyond what I had come to expect from unsolicited promos. I liked that it was virtuosic and unhinged, full of howling and crazy piano etudes and big words.

Now, Ball of Flame Shoot Fire has released their debut full-length record. It's called Jokeland (pronounced like "Oakland" but with a "J," Tim tells me), and it marks a palpable leap forward for the band. Though still slathered with all the idiosyncrasies that made Grumpy Little Bird charming, it's a much cleaner, more realized effort. The production value is miles better, for one thing, but the songs themselves feel more fleshed out and mature as well. Sure, the vocal style is still weird. There are still frantic instrumental arrangements behind the too-many-syllables-for-one-line lyrics. There are still group sing-alongs. It still sounds like the musical representation of what might happen if a circus collided with a Southern rock festival--especially if there was an awful lot of pinstripes and face paint and feathers involved. But Jokeland is more experimental, sound collage-wise, and explores a greater range of compositional ideas. Certain numbers are down-tempo-- mellow, even-- and provide welcome relief from the feverish pace kept up by most of the album. I'm a big fan of "Wishthroat" and "Butcha Poppa," and "Bertie Hey" keeps getting stuck in my head for hours.

Jokeland is crazy and fun and smart and interesting, and I really hope enough people can stomach its beautiful weirdness long enough to dig in and really appreciate it. Stuff like this doesn't come around everyday.

FOAVOD: Noot d'Noot - "Fingers Like Steeples"

Heads up y'all! Atlanta funk collective Noot d'Noot are free agents and are self-releasing a 12" (vinyl w/ CD-R inside) called "Cash For Gold" this Saturday, June 20. They're celebrating with a show at The Earl that night.

The band is awesome to dance to, not to mention super nice. I had the pleasure of interviewing them for Paste:Local last year, and loved every minute of it.

Here's the (nifty-lookin') video for their song "Fingers Like Steeples" from the record. Enjoy!

Live Review: Bon Iver @ Variety Playhouse 6/7/09

I saw Bon Iver play twice, six days apart. The first was at the Variety Playhouse; the second was a hot, packed, mid-afternoon tent show at Bonnaroo. It was almost the exact same set. Both times, I almost cried. They're that good. If you ever have a chance to attend a concert of theirs, don't think about it. Just go!

For Stomp and Stammer's Tales From The Moshpit:

Bon Iver @ Variety Playhouse, 6/7/09

I don’t know how it happens. I can’t say, because I’ve never done it. I’ve never written songs that were so beautiful on first recording, first conception, that they garnered ecstatic blog attention, that they then made it into the near-mainstream, that they got co-opted by questionable pop culture venues (we’re lookin’ at you, Grey’s Anatomy), that they have somehow become worthy of live alteration, augmentation, jam-outs. I don’t know how a collection of nine songs grows like this. Without too much reference to all the Wisconsin cabin mythology that’s been absolutely beaten to death by the blogosphere, it’s pretty amazing to think of Justin Vernon’s journey, from a down-and-out musician alone with his recording equipment in the winter of 2007 to an indie darling, signed by Jagjaguwar, accompanied by three new bandmates, asked to mix others’ records (like The Daredevil Christopher Wright’s In Defernece To A Broken Back) and getting to contribute to The Red Hot Organization’s much-lauded Dark Was The Night comp.

However it happens, it culminated, for me, with my first Bon Iver show. The Variety Playhouse was sold out, and as always happens on listening to their records, a certain kind of nostalgic calm had settled over the place. It’s like viewing the world through a thin veil that makes everything shinier and warmer at the same time. The set, made up mostly of the majority of debut For Emma, Forever Ago but peppered with numbers from the band’s follow-up EP Blood Bank and “Brackett, WI” from Dark Was The Night, began with “Creature Fear.” Vernon’s voice permeated the crowd like a soul singer’s; the persistent percussion swelled and pushed forward. The songs all took on new life, relying less—necessarily—on the extensive vocal overdubbing that characterizes every Bon Iver recording, and more on sheer instrumental prowess. This was helped along more than a little by the rest of the band (Mike Noyce, Sean Carey and Matthew McCaughan), who sometimes played guitar, bass, drums and keys, but sometimes all played drums at the same time. They sang the stacked parts that would’ve been so conspicuously missing without them....[Read more]


(During the Bonnaroo show, the band invited the members of Elvis Perkins in Dearland onstage to perform the horn parts in "For Emma," which was incredible. Also, before performing "Re: Stacks" solo, Vernon said to the audience, "I think I'm gonna hold this beer can between my knees during this whole song. Is that weird?")

Record Review: It's Elephant's - Gets Along

It's Elephant's were among the first publicity clients of my friend Liz at Deus Ex Machina PR, and they've really been blowing up lately. They're tons of fun live, and bring a real work ethic and sense of humor to everything they do, it seems. I got to write a spotlight on them for Southeast Performer after their first album Little Trouble In Chinatown last year, as well as edit my friend Nikki's Catching Up With... piece on them back in the Paste:Local Atlanta days. Now, I reviewed their sophomore full-length, Gets Along, for Atlanta Music Guide. I feel like the band has really grown up. Have a look:

It's Elephant's
Gets Along

The danger latent in having a frontman with such a recognizable voice — in this case one with a crackling, blues-rock bent that bends and scoops from pitch to pitch — is that everything else will go unnoticed. But Brent Jay’s vocal performances, for Atlanta band It’s Elephant’s, are only a small part of the story. Behind, under and all around them are other things: confident guitar riffage, adorable and well-placed backup singing, moving bass lines, bright horns, bouncing piano and insistent drumming.

All these abilities have congealed into the quartet’s sophomore full-length, Gets Along, a mashup of related but individual song styles, down to a final track utilizing the type of electronic voice made famous by Radiohead’s Ok Computer. The band has evolved light years in the time since last year’s Little Trouble in Chinatown, even if you’re only considering production value. The hardcore twinge to their compositions has largely evaporated (save for a few bouts of screaming; see “Black Cock Down”), replaced instead with smart pacing and clean, crisp arrangements that allow all parts to be appreciated equally (see “Sam Loomis Hardware”). It’s a smart move for It’s Elephant’s, because what they have over others in their genre — we’ll call it “blues pop” — is the effort they put into layering their complementary parts atop one another...[Read more]

The band plays a record release party at The Earl June 26 with The Long Shadows and Whores.

Live Review: The National @ The Tabernacle 5/27/09

Photo taken by either myself or Sara Miller at Langerado 2008.

All I could think the whole time was, "This is my natural habitat." There's a certain kind of joy to be found in going to see The National play. It was the second time for me; the first was at Langerado last year when I was an intern at Paste. I (painstakingly) blogged this review of it for PasteMagazine.com at the time, and I remember the evening as being one of the happiest I've had-- not just because of the great shows (Of Montreal immediately preceded The National), but also thanks to good company and unexpectedly free hamburgers.

Though much closer to home, the venue for this show was no less romantic, and the band seemed equally comfortable in the Tabernacle's beautiful, welcoming environment. The crowd was appreciative, the chandelier glowed pleasantly from the ceiling and absolutely everything just seemed to glitter. If only all concert-going could be like this.

Here's the review, for Atlanta Music Guide:

Live Review: The National @ The Tabernacle, May 27

It began with "Runaway." The nine-member incarnation of The National, complete with three horn players and a keyboardist, began the set with a new, mesmerizing, post-Boxer song. Poignant and compelling even on the first go-around, everyone listened with rapt attention. Then, like one communal exhale, guitarists Aaron and Bryce Dessner launched into the opening riffs of "Start A War" and the place erupted. It wasn't the during-intro cheers that marked the change, it was that the baritone notes that spilled out of Matt Berninger as he clutched his microphone like a lifeline were now veiled in a delicate tenor and soprano cloak as thousands sang along with him. Our song shimmered in the background like the tinsel curtain behind the band itself...[Read more]