UNDERNEATHICA

Wednesday, December 02, 2009

Our Future Looks Cluttered

The umpteenth album by the Fall, "Your Future - Our Clutter", has been pushed back from November 2009 to January 2010. A single called "Slippy Floor" will be released on December 7th on Action Records.

Acute Records has announced This is Still It, a Method Actors compilation CD to be released in "very early 2010". The comp will focus on the 1980 and 1981 recordings of the Athens duo, up to and including the Little Figures album. My very second post on this here blog (almost four years ago) was about the Method Actors, and their song Halloween was the first thing I digitized from vinyl to mp3. So I'm seriously geeked out about this CD reissue.

One of my other favorite bands, the fabulous Figgs, are hoping to finish recording their next full length in January for release in April 2010. Meanwhile, you can order "Casino Hayes", a new 7" single by the Figgs on the Peter Walkee label here. The vinyl single includes a download coupon.

The reunited Rival Schools will have a record in mid-2010, per this statement from Walter Schreifels: "The new record is finished and we are negotiating with record labels for a spring/ summer release date. I think we nailed the transition from our last and long ago record to something forward thinking."

ADDENDUM: I forgot about Transit Transit, the Autolux album that is supposed to be released in January 2010. Any year with these great bands in it can't be bad. Here's to 2010!

Labels: figgs

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Why put the body where the body don't want to go?

It's a heartwarming tale beloved by children and their elders: the story of how the inchoate Welsh rage that was McLusky magically transformed into the inchoate Welsh rage the world now knows as Future of the Left. I never saw the former onstage, to my eternal regret. I finally saw the latter on Monday night.

Is Travels with Myself and Another better, or even much different, than the first Future of the Left album? I prepared for the show by listening to both, and they are equally filled with joy and wonder. Songs from both albums were performed at the show, minus a few of my favorites. I can't complain, but sometimes I just did.

The band is as entertaining between songs as during them. Andy Falkous furrows his brow and looks to me like Morrissey's bratty younger brother. During the final song, "Cloak the Dagger", Kelson Mathias entrusted his bass to a female audience member, and his body to the rest of the crowd, which hoisted him above their heads as Falkous methodically dismantled the drum kit (while Jack Egglestone was still playing it.)

Like a fat caterpillar into a graying butterfly, I too will soon transform: from tragic concert-going loner into tragic concert-going chaperone. My teenage son wants me to take him to his first metal shows. In the next month, we plan to see Converge, High on Fire, Mastodon, Dethklok, and iwrestledabearonce. I'm sure they will be loud and angry. Some of them are amusing, and some are humorless. But I doubt that any of them will match the intensity of rage and humor that Future of the Left brings to the live arena. It sounded something like this:

McLusky: Falco vs the Young Canoeist (live)

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Mark E. Smith Mix N. Match

Match the lyric to the song title. Winners will get a new profile razor unit, made with the highest British attention to the wrong detail. Another new Fall album ("Our Future -- Your Clutter") is due in November.

Notebooks out plagiarists!
They couldn't tell Lou Reed from Doug Yule.
I'm not saying they're really thick, but all the groups who've hit it big/ Make the Kane Gang look like an Einstein chip.
He said he told the policeman what he really thought/ But knowing him, I don't believe that.
His heart organ was where it should be/ His brain was in his arse.
Had a look at the free festivals/ They're like cinemas with no films.
All the English groups act like peasants with free milk enroute to the loot.
I curse the self-copulation of your lousy record collection.
To be a celebrity you've got to eat the past nowadays.
There's a brand new club in town/ Plenty of space for posing around.
Communists are just part-time workers.
The palace of excess leads to the palace of access.
And if I ever end up like Bono, slit my throat with a kitchen knife.
I just left the Hotel Amnesia. I had to go there. Where it is, I don't remember.
I got news for you my friend, to which you will have to attend/ Reduce your knees to noodles, your Doberman Pinschers to poodles.

(A) Lost in Music
(B) Just Step S'ways
(C) Two Steps Back
(D) Shoulder Pads #1
(E) Passable
(F) Mere Pseud Mag Ed.
(G) Room to Live
(H) The War against Intelligence
(I) The Classical
(J) C&C Mithering
(K) Gut of the Quantifier
(L) New Puritan
(M) Tommy Shooter
(N) Fantastic Life

Monday, September 28, 2009

Surviving Grand Atlantic

When I first began buying records, one of my favorites was the 1979 debut album by Bram Tchaikovsky (finally reissued on CD in 2007, but already OOP). A subscription to Trouser Press magazine enlightened me about the genre known as power pop. Power pop strung together all the pulse-racing moments from bands like the Beatles, the Byrds and the Who -- crashing cymbals and power chords, galloping rhythms, glorious harmonies, and all the hormonal drama of adolescence. Power pop was like a musical rollercoaster that only went UP.

Thirty years later, the genre is still dear to my ears. One of my favorite recent power pop albums was the 2007 debut of Grand Atlantic, and the Australian band has recently released an excellent follow-up entitled How We Survive. I strongly disagree with the Allmusic review which describes Grand Atlantic as less than the sum of its influences (Beatles, Big Star, Zombies, and most specifically Oasis). I can admit that "She's a Dreamer" (from the new record) sounds tailor-made for the Gallagher bros, but most of the songs recall the time when bands like Teenage Fanclub, the Posies, Redd Kross and Velvet Crush made power pop with enough sonic muscle to rival the grunge bands.

How We Survive begins with its most radio-ready songs -- "Coast Is Clear", the extra-crunchy single "Trip Wires", and the aforementioned "She's a Dreamer" bear the strongest influence of the producer Magoo. In fact, we're four tracks into the album before we hear a guitar that could properly be described as jangly. Grand Atlantic indulges its orchestral pop fetish (think Sgt Pepper, Pet Sounds, Odessey & Oracle) only once, on the title track and centerpiece of "How We Survive". The latter half of the album has a looser, garage rock feel. Phil Usher is a talented and versatile songwriter with an ear for melodies and a love of vocal harmonies. Sha-la-la, ooh-wee and doot-doo are present and accounted for.

You can listen to How We Survive at Last FM (and download Grand Atlantic's acoustic cover of "Single Ladies"). You can also grab two free mp3's from the album (and two unreleased demos) from the label, Alien Lane. How We Survive is highly recommended and available on iTunes.

Grand Atlantic: Trip Wires

Friday, September 18, 2009

Rockto-Mom

QUESTION: What has eight kids and a backstage pass? Answer hidden somewhere in this month's issue! Write it on a 3x5 card and send it in with a stamped self-addressed envelope. Send your mother home your navel. Open up another case of the punks! Three new releases I'm looking forward to in October:

BARONESS: The Blue Record (10/13/09). The second full-length from the Savannah metal band. Two new tracks are streaming on the Relapse Records website and the band's myspace. You can preorder The Blue Record on vinyl and CD. I ordered the 2CD version with a bonus live disc for just $15 (get it here). Baroness is touring with US Christmas.

EVANGELISTA: Prince of Truth (10/09/09). The latest from the band led by Carla Bozulich (ex Geraldine Fibbers and Ethyl Meatplow). You can order a special edition (180gm vinyl plus CD and poster) from Constellation Records. If you haven't heard Evangelista, there's a SXSW session from last year on the WFMU website, and lots of free mp3's on Carla's website.

JOHNNY FOREIGNER: Grace and the Bigger Picture (10/26/09). Apparently a live DVD will accompany a special edition of this new CD, though you can't order it yet from the label, Best Before Records, and it's not clear if there will be a US release. A free three track EP is available at the band's website.

Monday, September 14, 2009

Glam Racket

Spin Magazine ran an article in August called "Unsung: The 100 Greatest Bands You've (Probably) Never Heard". I was only familiar with a quarter of them. A few of the remaining 75 were intriguing. I'd like to hear Afterhours, the Crocketts, the Cherubs, the Titanics, and Regurgitator. But I immediately searched out the "brazenly blotto brilliance" of a band called Earl Brutus, described by Spin's Doug Brod as "U.K. art pranksters whose grimy glitter pomp owed as much to the Fall and Kraftwerk as it did to Ziggy Stardust."

Earl Brutus was fronted by two singers: Jamie Fry (whose brother Martin was also a bit of a pop star, I'm told), and the late Nick Sanderson. Sanderson drummed for Clock DVA, the Gun Club and JAMC (great bands all). There are a few great Earl Brutus videos on YouTube. Start here. I wish I'd known about the band in their mid-90's heyday (when Andy Falkous may have been taking notes), but I'm enjoying them today. As Earl Brutus once declared, "Pop music is wasted on the young."

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Some Things Sound Better in the Dark

My clock radio is tuned to Album 88, the college station at Georgia State. Last fall, I often heard the Lambchop song "Slipped, Dissolved and Loosed" when I awoke. As my consciousness reassembled itself in the early morning darkness, the music usually led me along the same train of thought. The blackbird in the chorus of the Lambchop song would remind me of "Blackbird" by the Beatles. Then I would recall that Paul McCartney wrote "Blackbird" in support of the civil rights movement, and that would inevitably lead me to wonder if Barack Obama was truly to become our next president. ("Blackbird" also made me think about Tenacious D's "Rocket Sauce", but that's another story.)

Sometime this spring, the Lambchop song gave way on Album 88 to "Young Master Sunshine" by Venice Is Sinking. Like the above-mentioned songs, "Young Master Sunshine" is gentle in its acoustic rhythms, and quietly hopeful in its mood. The instrumentation (particularly the trumpet and the expressive drumming) reminds me of the Atlanta band Smoke. On other songs (such as "Wetlands Dancehall"), Venice Is Sinking recalls the retro-futuristic music that Angelo Badalamenti and Julee Cruise made for the Twin Peaks soundtrack: the tremeloed guitar, tremulous harmonies, and whispers of synth. I recommend listening to Azar as an album, start to finish. The opening instrumental, "Azar One", introduces a melody that is recalled at the end of the climactic "Charm City". It's an impressive record, with a broad palette of lush and lovely sounds that my clock radio could only hint at.

Venice Is Sinking recorded a session for WOXY that you can listen to and download to get a taste of the band's talents. Venice Is Sinking also did a session for Daytrotter that should appear next month. And they are about halfway toward their goal of raising money through Kickstarter to press their third album on vinyl. Donate $20 or more by September 13 and you get the new LP, a brand new EP, and mp3s of the LP and EP songs. Plus your donation supports the rebuilding of the Georgia Theater in Athens. It's easy to donate (especially if you already have an Amazon account -- presto, you're a record mogul!) Or you can buy Azar for ten dollars from the label.

Lambchop: Slipped, Dissolved and Loosed
Venice Is Sinking: Young Master Sunshine