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Halfstravaganza 2007

The Staff :: 1 July 2007 |                

!!!
Myth Takes
(Warp)

Truth be told, I wasn't looking forward to the release of the new !!! record, nor did I even know it was coming out until I started reading reviews of it. Coming off of the thrill that was their 2003 one-off single "Me and Giuliani Down By the Schoolyard (A True Story)." I had been thoroughly let down by the aimlessness of 2004's Louden Up Now, despite its (unnecessary) inclusion of "Giuliani.” And now having re-visited that record in the wake of thoroughly enjoying Myth Takes, I still find it as boring as ever.

So what exactly makes Myth Takes not only so much better than Louden, but arguably the most outright enjoyable record of the first half of 2007? Kind of hard to say. It's not as if they've drastically altered their sound beyond eight goofy white guys furiously grooving in tandem while spastic frontman Nic Offer shouts gibberish lyrics atop. So I'm going to have to go with the fact that they actually bothered to write some legitimate three-minute songs this time out, versus Louden Up Now's hour long re-creation of the Talking Heads' "I Zimbra." The tracks on Myth Takes feature discernible verses and choruses, in addition to a bevy of hooks to hang them on. They're still more than capable of doing a stone-cold disco stomper like first single "Heart of Hearts," but now there's room for a variety of styles, including rockabilly in the opening title track, swinging "Rock and Roll Pt. II"-style rhythm on "Yadnus," and then there's "Must Be the Moon," an honest to goodness college rock single in an era where the latter is quickly becoming a non-entity. The ratio of hits to filler on Myth Takes is very favorable, the sequencing is impeccable, and the whole album simply benefits from a newfound focus that prior !!! records did not contain. Call this one a very pleasant surprise.

Media
Heart of Hearts [Stream]
Heart of Hearts [Video]
Must Be the Moon [Stream]
Must Be the Moon [Video]
Yadnus [Stream]

David M. Goldstein

A Sunny Day in Glasgow
Scribble Mural Comic Journal
(Notenuf)

Okay, sorry: I was all set to write this blurb and then The Greatest News Ever distracted me: the Spice Girls are reuniting! Even Halliwell! And, I mean, I know it's only like an 11-show tour, and it's likely not going to be one that involves a stop in Toronto, but: people of Rio De Janeiro, let's spice up our lives! People of Berlin: "alle, alle auch sind frei!"

Freeing, right? "Stop right now," because I hear the name "A Sunny Day in Glasgow" and I'm like, "great -- more sad sack Belle and Sebastianery and sigh." And then -- "thank you very much" -- I hear the album, and all the potential and brilliance and wicked awesomeness of everybody from the Chiffons to Leslie Gore is packed tight and opaque into a clangy-guitar deconstruction of all my favorite house and Spice Girls-esque pop, "Row, Row, Row Your Boat"-ing it's way down sun-dappled surf crescendos, collapsing tongue-tied and lilt-lyricless at the bottom of the slippery slope of electro-pop, but still standing tall. I swear I hear the vocalists chanting "olly olly oxen free" during "5:15 Train" -- that's not what they're actually saying, but words don't matter in this sludge so much as mood -- and I'm actually back in the behind-the-houses woods of the north end of Saint John, New Brunswick playing hide-and-seek. Seriously: this whole kids-as-metaphor thing in music works so much better when it's subtle like here or with the Animal Collective than it does when Sesame Streetisms are perched clumsily atop acoustic rock like we should all hold hands and remember.

And speaking of girl groups, while I like that recent crit has reinserted the Ronettes back into the diagram of what's what in music, I'm asking everyone to please stop mentioning Phil Spector a priori to props to the groups he produced or groups that sound like groups he produced. It's okay to love "Be My Baby" for what it is without hedging your cred in the production, and in the same sense, Scribble Mural Comic Journal walls its own sound, sure, but let's not negate the role of these vocalists in creating its hefty ambience.

Media
The Best Summer Ever [MP3]
Watery (Drowning is Just Another Word for Being Burried Alive Under Water) [MP3]

Mark Abraham

Battles
Mirrored
(Warp)

The thing that impresses the shit out of me about Mirrored is how much it seems to emanate from a single mind, even while it maintains the spontaneity and collective energy of a rock band. This stuff sounds like Steve Reich’s edgier child composed it; even so, it still maintains the individual voices of its band members -- doubly impressive given how eager they are to pick up a killer groove only to drop it right away for something completely different (but equally awesome). The fact that it probably relies more on sampling technology than live instrumentation -- and therefore theoretically could have just as easily been made by one person -- is irrelevant; this music maintains the illusion of collective dynamics, which could be why everyone says it sounds like robots or munchkins or whatever.

So yeah, the band doesn’t have a lot of patience, but look at all the ground they have to cover: sure “Atlas” is a technological manifesto of Kraftwerk-proportions, but then there’s “Ddiamondd,” the vocal line of which could’ve actually been taken from a Philip Glass opera, and then “Leyendecker,” which sacrifices the heavily-manipulated chipmunk squeals for singing that is genuinely Michael Jackson-soulful. Then there are little landmines like “Snare Hanger,” which sounds like free jazz without the solos. You can’t program that shit.

Media
Atlas [Stream]
Atlas [Video]
Prismism [Stream]

Joel Elliott

Victor Bermon
Arriving At Night
(Hefty)

Victor Bermon's debut is thirteen pastiches of I-can't-tell-how many other songs, thirteen simple truths fused of so many seemingly incompatible conversations. Delicately disassembled, arranged meticulously, considered carefully and then constructed as if into wondrous glass figurines, each song feels airy and effortless until listened to with a more attentive ear, at which point the complexity of their many moving parts becomes plain. Arriving at Night suggests the image of a watchmaker at work. Magnified scrutiny, precision and detail, the result is a confluence of unquestionable operation. For all the effort, the album works in a straightforward way.

Like the gorgeous lounge of opener "Farewell Lunch for Laura," which sways with sleepy chimes and contrapuntal percussion including sampled typewriter strikes that clack away while drums break in and out of harmony. The song builds easily to "We Face Each Other," which never crests on its own simmering waves, and finally to the perfect (and genuine song-of-the-year candidate) "Photographs Are Not Memories." "Photographs" naturally balances ambient and rhythmic electronica and warm piano signatures that betray a true knowledge of the possibilities for musical arrangement. The Four Tet approximation of "Unprepared" and its follow up "View of the Islands" will have greater resonance with fans of Rounds (2003) than of the experiments that came afterwards, but also are never quite as overt.

Arriving at Night proves to be the perfect title -- far below, undetermined structures blink in the night as all around you an airliner cabin throbs and hums fellow passengers to sleep. Bermon takes care of the details, allowing you to enjoy the simple, unquestionable operation; the plane simply flies. You look out the window.

Media
Farewell Lunch for Laura [MP3]
We Face Each Other [MP3]

Conrad Amenta

Andrew Bird
Armchair Apocrypha
(Fat Possum)

Those of us who loved The Mysterious Production of Eggs (2005) got lost in Bird's convoluted wordplay, the musical equivalent of playing a particularly intense round of Scrabble. The whistling wordsmith hasn't changed his tune on his new album -- merely his backing band. The presence of percussionist Martin Dosh adds real oomph and character to these songs: "Dark Matter" thuds with rock 'n' roll force, and the drum machine-driven "Simple X" plays like a Radiohead b-side. The album's second half is a long, slow descent into oblivion, a beautiful set of songs but one that feels a little worn-out after all that electric guitar. It could use another rocker (or a cup of coffee), but aside from the sequencing, Armchair Apocrypha is a refreshingly charming, forthright album from one of indie's quirkiest characters.

Media
Heretics [MP3]
Simple X [Stream]

David Greenwald

Black Milk
Popular Demand
(Fatbeats)

Since hip hop's getting a cold shoulder on this list, I'm on a mission. Step 1: I'm going to start carrying my Akai 'round Toronto like Curtis Cross apparently does in Detroit. The only drawback: I wish the thing didn't require plugs and shit, 'cause I'd just plunk the thing down in the middle of a Kensington pedestrian Sunday and start hammering out the intro to "Poison." Try and stop grooving to that shit!

Step 2: call everybody out. Sure, having Popular Demand as one of only two hip hop album on this Halfstrav is kind of sad, but let's not mourn the state of hip hop. Rather, let's mourn the state of the hip hop album in the last few months. What's up, everyone? Hell Hath No Fury too much of a sucker punch? Then again, hell, let's mourn the state of hip hop fandom. This album has sold 5,871 units. And it's awesome. That's like a whole buhloone mindfuck paradox. To the 5,870 other people who own this: "I still got mo', but if you wanna go flow for flow with a toe to toe we can go."

The rest of you: seriously. Scratch your Oink-laden heads and wonder how the best hip hop album of the year thus far has only sold the equivalent of Barnhart, Missouri's population in copies. There's probably a rant here about entitlement and the point where the honest fight against a stupid record industry derails into a pit of no-amount-is-better-than-free-isms, but I'm mostly just saying: 5,871 copies. People, please: Dillafied production and linguistic leapfrogging ain't enough for you? Good hip hop isn't enough for you? How about an album that samples Yes's fucking "Roundabout"? How about an MC who drops "roller skating" like it's a threat, and makes it work? Black Milk is offering exactly what the general consensus suggests we want in hip hop: more Dilla, more gap-bridging between backpacks and Benzes, and more Akai-built beats. Maths + English just hit number 7 on the UK charts -- is that just because people in England still buy stuff? Or maybe math is just failing our North American English, lost between demand and the movable units supplied. My prediction? Black Milk will probably just masterfully tie all those back-winded syllables to a calculus-precise meter on his wicked follow-up: Unpopular Remand. And 5,870 of my friends are coming over to barbecue and groove to old school new schoolisms.

Media
N/A

Mark Abraham

Boris & Michio Kurihara
Rainbow
(Drag City)

Boris appeared on last year's Halfstravaganza with Pink, and let me welcome them back to this year's de-pantsing, now in collaboration with Ghost's Michio Kurihara on a record that's all pretty and shit. As an opener "Rafflesia" is very reminiscent of how these Japanese rock-harbingers began Pink: guitar chords chiming and then thudding, drum cymbals breaking in white splashes, vocals gliding and diving. But where Pink used that to launch into insane psychedelica, riffs blasting out of every orifice and headed for space, Rainbow decides to just kiss the atmosphere, arcing up then back down while Kurihara paints with carefully improvised strokes upon the open canvas that Boris gives him.

The band dabs flourishes around Atsuo's cool rhythms and it leads to some plain genius jams with the title track and "You Laughed Like A Water Mark"; when Kurihara's guitar starts its writhing, it moves in small staccato phrasings -- like controlled sexual ecstasy on top of a very firm and supportive cushion. Boris downplay their sturm und drang into a context where all their grit becomes the particles by which sunshine is refracted. A rainbow as a symbol might be a tired token for beauty, but by recalling that its natural beauty is something born out of an almost metaphysically violent act, the breaking of light, Boris and Kurihara conceive an aesthetic that is both subdued and intense, pliable and sharp. By Boris standards Rainbow is dainty easy listening, but we were all secretly waiting for at least one easy listening Boris record, weren't we? Now bring on the Boris grindcore.

Media
N/A

Chet Betz

Chris & Mollie
The Palm Tree
(Self-released)

I'm tempted to elaborate on this moment in Sonic Youth's "Peace Attack," where Steve Shelley cuts the beat silent and lets Lee cut loose with a hairpin bend. It's not just a fantastic guitar moment; put in context of the steadily frenzied build-up it's nothing short of fucking religious -- a raw nerve. It openly asks for a paragraph, or three. I'm sorely tempted, but I won't; because this is Chris & Mollie's show, and The Palm Tree is the kind of uniquely involving record that demands discussion, repeated listens, the good stuff. It deserves your attention, and if a cumbersome Youth comparison tips the balance, then so be it. To wit, Chris & Mollie obviously don't sound anything like Sonic Youth, but damn if the whistle on "Gravity" doesn't storm in as an emotional zinger on par with Renaldo's whipped tremolo. It's an obvious play (preceding lyric: "And you would whistle") but the execution is flawless, and more so joyous. Twee or no twee, it adds to the record's magnetic and generous character. The songs sound lived-in, almost comfortably aloof; at one point, you can even hear them laugh. Even better, the material here still stands up months later: the title track and "Waltz" house indelible hooks, "Transition Trade" is a bloody hearted jaunt, those opening drums on "Gravity" still sort of blow my mind wide open. And, hell, the thing's a concept album. Much love.

Media
Slow Sunrise [MP3]
Transition Trade [MP3]
Waltz [MP3]

Alan Baban

The Clientele
God Save the Clientele
(Merge)

The journey of the Clientele into high-fidelity has been a pretty quick one, all things considered. Since their early, tape-hissing recordings the band has grown smooth and streamlined, coming into their own on 2005's Strange Geometry. Bright and warm as afternoon sunlight beaming into a living room, God Save the Clientele is a worthy successor. While not as concise a statement as Strange Geometry, the band's latest disc is thick with their trademark sleepy sadness and nostalgia as well as a newfound spring in their steps: "Bookshop Casanova" might beat out Belle & Sebastian for "Best Rock Song About Books." Otherwise, though, Alasdair MacLean's strikingly ornate guitar playing is the perfect bed for his unrelenting melancholy, making the album an inviting place to rest a lovelorn head.

Media
Bookshop Casanova [MP3]

David Greenwald

Deerhoof
Friend Opportunity
(Kill Rock Stars)

Whatever Deerhoof might have lost in terms of rawness, they make up for by finally sounding like a coherent band, rather than a series of disjointed -- if brilliant -- ideas. I'm not entirely sure what kind of statement they're going for, but I know that while Friend Opportunity isn't as weird or quirky as The Runners Four (2005), it does sound like the band converted all that restless energy into some genuine mysticism. I often hate when experimental bands start taking themselves too seriously, but what's more audacious and unhinged than having something as romantic and pastoral as the symphonic "Whither the Invisible Birds" only two tracks away from something as obnoxious and stupid as "Kidz Are So Small"?

Then there's tracks like "The Perfect Me" and "Matchbook Seeks Maniac" which both sound like Sonic Youth when they started gathering their sludge into a massive tribal force, or like what Boredoms achieved with Vision Creation Newsun (2000). And despite the obvious and immediate charms of these tracks there's still some mind-blowing twists that could easily go unnoticed because they're so woven into the fabric of this sound: for example, the sporadic squalls that seem destined to throw "Believe E.S.P." way off course, but steer easily back into the main riff. And there's probably nothing else as avant-garde as closer "Look Away," with its Derek Bailey-isms and its refusal to compromise any of its force to melody or structure.

Mark Abraham wrote that Friend Opportunity was a "perfectly fine indie rock record." While I can appreciate the pejorative connotations of the term, I'd note that even if bands like Deerhoof or Animal Collective seem to be making concessions to the indie-mainstream in the present, that might only be because the latter half of this decade has found so-called "indie rock" bands struggling to catch up to them. I'm not sure that Mark would call either band "avant garde," but that's how I see them, and that means "ahead of the pack," not "on a completely different trajectory." Deerhoof could really be either; they're just doing both while speaking a language we can understand.

Media
+81 [MP3]
The Perfect Me [Video]

Joel Elliott