Pazz and Jop Comments

The contents of my ballot were never in doubt (exactly as they appeared in last week's posts), but there was still the matter of assigning points to albums. I went with a fairly unconventional ranking system this year: 25, 20, 13, 12, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5. Normally I would strongly object to six-way ties, since it's supposed to be a ranked list and all, but it's a transitional year for P&J so I figured I'd break away from my normal habits. Most years, the top four or five albums rank far ahead of the pack, and in turn, the top one or two albums crush the rest of the top five. This year was no exception and I decided to reflect it in the rankings. In 2005 I finished in the bottom 25% in Glenn McDonald's critical alignment ratings and this year I'm probably looking at single digits, so in some sense the only intelligent thing for me to do is to vote strategically if I want my ballot to have any impact. Lord only knows who is planning to vote this year, so why not throw some large numbers at the records at the top of my list?

Boris' votes will probably go to "Pink", but I thought the world of "Altar", so sue me. Charalambides' "A Vintage Burden" will get a handful of Keith's votes ("those who like it, like it a lot"), such as mine. Bardo Pond will be nowhere -- perhaps I can have pride in being the only person in the history of P&J to award 25 points to Bardo Pond? Yo La Tengo should easily land in the top 30-40 overall, outpacing every other album on my list by at least 100 spots, by my estimate. "Orchestra of Bubbles" might have an outside shot at a surprise top 100 finish, but it really depends who bothers to vote this year.

I considered reneging on my promise to not submit comments this year, and ended up musing over three options. 1) No comments. 2) One short blurb about Jesu's "Silver". 3) Submitting a slate of comments at a grade two writing level, in order to poke fun at the VV's new editorial direction, i.e. "'Maneater' is a fun song and I like it a lot. It's good for dancing. My friends also like it. We also like 'Fizheuer Zieheuer'. It's got a cool beat and stuff. Everybody loves it, even my dad."

Option 3 would actually require attention on my part. Same goes for Option 2, which would also go against some of the principles I laid out in my earlier post. Option 1 allows me to write and think about the myriad of other things I have on my mind, and therefore appears to be my most likely choice, not the mention the one that requires the least amount of effort.

James Brown is Dead

In the same way that I don't really care for songs like "Stairway To Heaven", songs like "Brand New Bag" and "I Feel Good" don't do much for me these days. They're too ubiquitous, too familiar, too far ingrained in my head. They're great songs, they always will be, but I could happily live my entire life without hearing them ever again.

Even though I was already familiar with many of his major hits, I didn't really "get" James Brown until I heard "Say It Loud (I'm Black and I'm Proud)" in my early twenties. Here was a song that was ALL rhythm, where every instrument backed and accented the drummer, while the lyrics were little more than a repetitive phrase chanted with varying energy and intensity to incredible effect. I was amazed at how such powerful music could be build from such simple elements. It gave me goosebumps. But mainly, I wondered why it wasn't fifteen minutes long.

The title of "I Don't Want Nobody To Give Me Nothing (Open Up the Door I'll Get It Myself)" tells you nearly everything you need to know about the song itself -- the lyrical content, the defiant tone, the choppy rhythm. If you don't recall the song, don't worry about it. Just read the title to yourself over and over. Sooner or later you'll be yelling it out loud, inventing your own cadence for the words, and getting funky with it.

Top Ten Singles of 2006

More fun and dancing ...

10.



Mark Henning, "Kartoffelzuppe Smackdown" (from "Curveball EP")

It's minimalist, but unpredictable. "Busy" minimalism, I love it. The amazing thing about this mad scientist shit is that he likely fabricated this craziness using little more than quick edits, pitch bending, and a few filter tweaks.

9.



Depeche Mode, "The Darkest Star (Holden Remix)"

This is easily the best thing I've ever heard from Holden, adding glitch-funk gravitas to DM's stately album closer. Time to add a bonus track to the recent DM remix collection.

8.



Muse, "Starlight"

They beat Coldplay to the punch with that piano lick, and come to think of it, the whole song is a Coldplay track waiting to happen, complete with delusions of grandeur and a video featuring the band playing on an aircraft carrier amidst blinding lights. Unfortunately for this theoretical insult, the song is sublimely epic and totally irresistible. Somehow, Muse pulled it off.

7.



Ricardo Villalobos, "Fizheuer Zieheuer"

The 40-minute gimmick is largely responsible for instantly earning it an iconic status, but excise your favourite ten minute chunk and try pretending that it wasn't one of your fave singles this year.

6.



Placebo, "Infrared"

For me, Placebo are the ultimate "I don't think much of their albums , but I'd buy a greatest hits compilation in a second" band. This song easily ranks with their best -- fierce, propulsive, steamrolling.

5.



Nelly Furtado, "Maneater"

The better of her two inescapable singles by a whisker, "Maneater" cemented her transformation from precious ethno-folk curiousity into sexpot club diva. This is the only CanCon on my best-of lists this year, and a quick peek at other year-end lists shows that I'm not the only one who can state that. I always get a kick out of being overseas and hearing Canadian artists all over the radio. A couple of years ago, Avril was that radio/TV staple. This year, Nelly owned Canada.

4.



Rhythm and Sound, "See Mi Yah (Hallucinator Remix)"

This appeared on the third (and best of the set of four) SMY remix EP, which featured Vainqueur and Hallucinator returning from the dead and spitting out a pair of windswept, atmospheric cave-dub masterpieces. But the Hallucinator track outdid them all, beating Vainqueur at his own game and effectively delivering on the promise of the long-awaited Scion and Tikiman collaboration (techno's own "Chinese Democracy"?).

3.



Lindstrom and Prins Thomas, "Mighty Girl"

Read any undeserved LCD Soundsystem review on any given day and apply the exact same descriptions and superlatives to Lindstrom and Prins Thomas' best stuff. Rollicking Italo-disco, handbag house, 70's funk, it's all here.

2.



Mogwai, "Friend of the Night"

On an album mostly devoted to paying homage to their favourite metal bands, the best track (and their finest single since Mogwai Fear Satan) was a loud/soft homage to their own earlier work. That anodyne/explosive/melodic combination they were aiming for on "Happy Songs For Happy People"? They perfected it here, topping every track on that album with room to spare. It's hard to imagine where they could, or where they would want to go with that style after this.

1.



Jesu, "Silver"

It's hard to find the words to describe this one, so in all honesty: it's everything I could have expected from music in 2006. One of those exceedingly rare, 100% perfect, wouldn't change a single solitary second type of track. This is it, this is shoegaze metal, in all its dense, angry, fist-pumping, sludgy, doom-mongering glory. Many bands have tried to hone this sound, but only Jesu have succeeded to this degree. It feels like the last song on earth, the track that will be playing when the ground splits open and we all drown in searing pits of lava. I hope so, anyway.

Top Ten Albums of 2006

In contrast to the past two years, I'm reverting back to a top ten, rather than a top twenty. It was a bit of a strange year, perhaps best encapsulated by the Great Hard Drive Purge of June. But first, some Useless Stats. For the first time since 1997, there are no Canadian acts in on this list. Last year there was only one (two in the top twenty) and at the time I balked at the prospect that this was anything other than a fluke in a ultra-competitive year for music. This year, no Canadian act came remotely close to figuring into my best-of, which is hardly shocking considering how little Canadian-made music I heard this year. One year is a fluke, two might be a trend, and I should probably get around to addressing the problem -- either with Canadian music, or with me (I won't even hazard a guess as to who is more at fault).

These ten albums total only 93 tracks. This looks to be the lowest number of any of my previous Top Tens, excepting 2002. It felt like a good year for albums comprising four to eight tracks. Another six-track album, Darsombra's "Ecdysis", barely missed making this list. I have no idea what any of this means but I found this cool for some reason. You might be able to chalk it up to the reasons I discussed in my last post, IOW, the more esoteric the album, the more likely it's an experimental record with fewer (and longer) tracks, but I'm not sold on that.

Now then. It was only over the past month (when year-end chinstroking kicked in) that I was reminded of the mere existence of albums that I'd heard many months ago. For artists such as Herbert and Barbara Morgenstern -- I honestly didn't remember that they'd released albums this year. For months, I couldn't remember anything about them, or even that I'd heard them in the first place (yes, I know that I wrote something about "Scale" on this very blog. I guess I skipped over that part of my own archives too). I heard a lot of stuff -- in total it was comparable to last year. But much of it was Teflon to me. Here are the ten albums that stuck with me the most:

10.



Sensational and Kouhei, "Kouhei Meets Sensational"

For pure, smack-in-the-face WTFness, nothing came close to the first time I sat on the train with my discman, calmly pressed play, and was flattened by the first five minutes of this one-off (?) collaboration. The long forgotten 2nd Gen once tread on similar ground, but even his twisted beats couldn't touch Kouhei's spastic, slime-funk effort. And 2nd Gen's record didn't have Sensational screaming his enraged mantras over top of it. Sure, it's all downhill after that blockbuster start, but who gives a crap.

9.



Ellen Allien and Apparat, "Orchestra of Bubbles"

There's something very fleeting about Ellen Allien's work, and I don't mean that in a good way. She has an uneasy knack for making populist albums that are welcome additions to one's collection at the time, but feel dated less than one year later. The smooth, Kompakt-esque "Berlinette" was pleasantly mediocre, and "Thrills" sounds a lot less dirty under the fingernails than it did just one year ago. Once the times change ever so slightly, you realize that Ellen's a fantastic follower but a terrible leader.

I have more hope for Ellen and Apparat's "Orchestra of Bubbles" because this is the album Orbital should have done instead of "The Altogether", which was a million times too goofy for its own good. We needed a collection of bleepy electronic pop from the Hartnolls in 2001, and if the concept hasn't dated over the past six years, then perhaps it never will.

8.



Xiu Xiu, "The Air Force"

After overdosing on this album in the two months following my initially ecstatic review, I cooled off on all but the very best tracks (i.e. "Wig Master", "Buzz Saw"), which naturally led to the train of thought: is this a Verve release or not? In light of the Verve-ness of "Fabulous Muscles" (this is becoming more apparent over time, even though I still think it was the best album of its year), 2004 really looks like shit, doesn't it? The time is right for me to revisit the last 14 years of Top Tens, to separate the wheat from the chaff, and identify the albums that have held up from the ones I don't bother listening to anymore. I'll try to get to that in the coming weeks. Anyhow, "Wig Master", which is this album's "Fabulous Muscles", remains untouchable (both songs do). They are poignant, unsettling, sublimely gorgeous love songs unlike any others I've heard, dripping with desire, seared by violence, where butterflies mix liberally with bile in the pit of one's stomach.

7.



Mogwai, "Zidane - A 21st Century Portrait"

I think I've spilled more words on this band than on any other, and yet sometimes I feel that I still can't even buy a clue. For all my bluster against those who try to pigeonhole their career into a tidy soundbite (particularly the "Mogwai haven't mattered/done anything original since Young Team" bunch), I became guilty of the same over here, where I assumed that their sophomore album "Come On Die Young" had dated and that Mogwai were better off forgetting it and bringing back the rawk. "CODY" remains great, but I slotted it away as an interesting concept that was best left in the past.

While I was busy writing that, Mogwai were in the studio recording "Zidane", which for all intents and purposes is "CODY II". It even contains leftover CODY-era tracks that were left unreleased because they didn't fit in with their subsequent records and were eventually rerecorded for this soundtrack. "Zidane" is looser and more improvisational than anything they've ever done with the possible exception of the "4 Satin EP". It's more spaciousness than CODY, whose relaxed folkwoods emptiness is recreated here with extra room to breathe. The climax undoubtedly occurs after the final notes of "Black Spider 2" have vanished, and the long "hidden" coda begins. This largely improvised ambient/drone piece, which bears almost no resemblance to any other Mogwai track, could have easily jumped off a mid-90's FSA album. Its 20-minute droning build, leading to a satisfyingly noisy conclusion, is the longest cocktease in the career of a band that is constantly stereotyped into a repetitive soft/loud dynamic. I heard this track once while motoring through km after km of empty desert near the Dead Sea, and it was absolutely terrifying.

6.



Jan Jelinek, "Tierbeobachtungen"

I didn't get into "Kosmischer Pitch", at least not properly, until early this year. Before I could finish absorbing that album, I was hit by the follow-up, whose obvious similarities make it very much a companion piece. "Tierbeobachtungen" is more repetitive, more obsessed with the art of piling on sound, layer by layer, letting his tracks flitter away, buzzing from the speakers like swarms of insects. Jelinek has a knack for making it all seem so easy. His work as Farben stood at the front of the clicktronica pack and made you wonder why (and wish for the day when) all like-minded artists couldn't sound like him. Then he gets bored and tries something completely different. History would suggest that his explorations on "Tierbeobachtungen" will meet a similar fate, but like Neil Young said, it's best to quit while you're ahead (or something to that effect).

5.



Ricardo Villalobos, "Achso"

Technically, it's a four song EP, but at nearly 50 minutes in length, and with Villalobos showing few signs of releasing any tracks clocking in at less than ten minutes in the near future, I'll take a great album when I can get it. "Achso" was released very early in the year (much earlier than anything else on this list), making it (among other things), the album that you risk overrating because it was always ... there. I'm hoping that's not the case, because "Achso" seemed to crystallize everything Villalobos was aiming for over the past five years, but particularly with regards to the disappointing "The Au Harem ..." -- funky, psychedelic, and expansive. He appears to be emphasizing the last of these qualities at the expense of the other two, which worries me, as does his shockingly daft 14-minute remix of Depeche Mode (which contains four, maybe five minutes of worth). The future will be interesting, naturally.

4.



Sunn 0))) & Boris, "Altar"

I reiterate that the essence of this album isn't the shrapnel-laced bombast of a track like "Etna", but the twilight sleepwalk of "The Sinking Belle". With that song goes the album, because after all, you can always head elsewhere for plenty of noise and screaming.

3.



Charalambides, "A Vintage Burden"

This album requires a great deal of patience, calm, and time on the part of the listener. I must have had all three in abundance this year, because before I knew it, "A Vintage Burden" had become my go-to album for late-night repeat listening. A couple of years ago, Oren Ambarchi's "Grapes From the Estate" filled a similar niche, that is, the album that consists of epic songs ideally used for soothing one's blood flow. The need to maintain those moods is somewhat temporal, coming and going with the weather and the seasons, exemplified by the fact that I rarely listen to "Grapes From the Estate" these days. But for now, "A Vintage Burden" is the warmest blanket in existence.

2.



Yo La Tengo, "I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass"

Bands Who Made Their Best Album 20 Years Into Their Career -- that has to be an extremely short list. Perhaps we can add Yo La Tengo to the queue?


1.



Bardo Pond, "Ticket Crystals"

The blackened crunch of Destroying Angel, the sleepy-eyed sway of "Isle", the way "Montana Sacra" drunkenly lurches its way through piercing squalls of noise for over ten minutes, the delicacy (and sprawl) and delicacy (and chaos) and delicacy (and fragility) of "Moonshine". The proudest stoners on the block have always been curiously adept at making arrogant-sounding music, but "Ticket Crystals" goes even further. Fuelled by ... anger? sheer willpower? ... "Ticket Crystals" became choked with fury, determined to sound completely invincible. And it does.

It's the most wonderful time of the year ...

No, not that! It's time for the

TOP TEN ALBUMS OF 2006



Except not right this instant, because I'm going away for the weekend ... the lists are done, so for now, here's the blurb that I will probably submit for the Jackin Pop poll. This will serve as my pre-list preamble. You know I hate wide-sweeping "This was the year of _____ music" reviews, so this sums up a few of my recent personal feelings about music.

I'll return in a couple of days with a lot more to say.

----------------------------------

The way I remember it, 2005 was widely hailed as the Year of Indifference, the year of non-consensus, of critics sitting on the fence and refusing to be either overly enthused or disappointed by the music they'd heard over the previous twelve months. Everybody resigned themselves to the notion that MIA, Kanye West, and Sufjan Stevens would eventually top all the major polls. There wasn't much excitement about any of this, although yawn-related reactions became quite contagious. Every publication's year-end list turned out to be disturbingly similar, like inbred copies of one another. More yawning.

As for me, I thought 2005 was a fantastic year for music -- kicked off by the strongest run of Feb-March releases that I can remember, and barely letting up until the year was through. My turntables and hard drives were overflowing with decidedly non-fence-sitting music, and I had no reason to expect that these high quality levels (and my enthusiasm) wouldn't carry forward into 2006 ...

So what happened? In comparison with such a great 2005, could 2006 be anything other than a relative disappointment? Did it take me one whole year to accept what others already understood? Or was 2006 simply a shit year for music? My hard drive became a graveyard for songs and albums that I could remember nothing about, despite having heard them a few times over. Even looking at the very best releases of the year (as in the ones that I'm voting for here), there isn't a single album that I would recommend unreservedly to everyone within earshot, nothing I would try to force upon both my friends and my enemies alike. I also can't be sure that I'll still adore most of this stuff in two or three year's time. Consuming music in relative isolation is probably not the ideal. You miss feeling that buzz around you -- on the radio, on the internet, wherever -- all of which feeds back into your positive perception of the music.

Well, maybe I'm being overly pessimistic. Take a look at my albums ballot ... as a group, they're not the kinds of records you would try to inundate your unsuspecting friends with. Would you play those albums at a party? This is the first year in approximately forever that I feel more of a connection to my singles/tracks list than my albums one, and maybe I've just found the reason why. Simply put, there are happier times to be found on the singles list. It's more of a fun list, better suited for sharing.

It's also true that relocating for a new job has shaken me out of the musical routine I enjoyed for so many years in Toronto. Music became more of a home-listening activity. I saw fewer live shows and went to fewer clubs. My MTV/Much Music-related channel flipping was gradually replaced by the regular practice of absorbing the rotating Winamp playlists in my new favourite bars. But the change is good. The new routine isn't better or worse, it's just different. Sometimes very different. For instance, I DJ'ed a party last week on the rooftop of an eight-story particle accelerator and had a room full of scientists dancing to all ten minutes of L'il Louis' house classic "French Kiss". Come on, let's see Richie Hawtin top that.

Year-end listmaking, year-end poll-taking

I can understand the anger that many people feel toward the Village Voice and their new, um, editorial direction. On a professional/literary level, the "new" VV is obviously disappointing, as evidenced by horrifically amateurish reviews such as this one. But I have nothing personal against any of the parties involved and have no desire to sabotage their poll by not voting or by submitting a stump ballot (even though doing so would be fairly amusing, for instance, check out this discussion for Hinder's grassroots campaign. I'd rather stump for Billy Talent though -- gotta reprezent da homeland).

All rumours of P&J's sudden death were clearly false -- of course the VV was going to attempt to keep the poll going despite having canned its founder, Robert Christgau. P&J has 30+ years of history behind it, the P&J name sells papers, it has far too much worth as a business/brand name to let it fade away so easily. But more pertinently (at least to me), the VV "owns" the poll in a legal/financial sense, but the guts of P&J -- the results of the actual poll -- isn't "owned" by Christgau, Chuck Eddy, or by any single other person. It's an amalgamation of the opinions of everyone who votes in it. The poll's basic building blocks are nothing but piles of data -- nothing but a bunch of numbers, added up and compiled into an ordered list. The final product effectively averages over the tastes of the individuals who submit their ballots, which is why many people glean more information from the critics' individual ballots than from the overall results of the poll. By examining someone's ballot, it is our natural tendency to extrapolate information about the personality of the human being behind the ballot -- to look for the personal stories of the individuals who listen to that music, if you will.

However, doing this extrapolation for the poll's overall results -- condensing hundreds of individual stories and accounts into one -- is a much more difficult task. This is precisely what Christgau hoped to accomplish with his annual P&J essay, along with the other critics who were invited to contribute musings on The Year In Music to each edition of P&J. So, I feel that the best form of "protest" vote is not to withhold one's ballot, or to submit a stump ballot extolling non-existent adoration for crappy nu-metal bands, but to not bother sending comments. Many critics put a lot of heart into their P&J comments, sometimes waxing in a near-freeform style for several pages, venting and ranting and getting as much off their chests as possible. If the VV only wants word-premium, high school-level soundbytes instead of longer, more meticulously scripted reviews, then that's all I will give them, if anything.

[Jackin' Pop ballots are due tomorrow, which means I had to bump up my usual deadline by two days ... so I'll be back later in the week with a lot more to say ...]

"Hey!" vs "Do You Love Me", or "why Tasha and Dishka jumped the shark"

You decide:

The 10 Million+ "seller"

The new release

"Hey" is a fairly crap Pixies song that probably spawned a million crappy Deerhoof songs. Formless, tuneless, pointless. "Do You Love Me" is amazing, a classic. It's a lot easier to mime a video for a crap song because the pictures can outshine the music without much effort. While watching the "Do You Love Me" video, all I can think about is how great the song is, which strongly detracts from the girls, who are supposed to be the real stars.

I hate being an indie elitist, but it was cool to see a fairly lowbrow Pixies song (or ANY Pixies song) on Youtube. Everybody already knows "Do You Love Me" (multiple generations have rediscovered it thanks to "Dirty Dancing"), and it is the Contours' best moment by far.

The word "gritty" might have been invented to describe "Do You Love Me". It's not exactly the best song to choose when you want to act silly and ham things up in your backyard.

"Hey" was sexy even though it didn't really try to be. When you watch it, it feels like it was knocked out in an afternoon without much effort, even though they surely put a lot of planning and work (and editing) into it. People enjoy the clip because of this perceived simplicity -- it's not so different from the reasons why music mags keep falling for 21-year olds who write catchy guitar-pop songs. In addition, the girls are very very pretty, but their antics in the video makes it look like they don't have any idea how pretty they are. Both guys and girls can't resist that sort of thing.

But "Do You Love Me" is overtly sexy to a different degree. All those tight clothes and booty-shaking show that the girls really enjoy showing themselves off. I hate to complain about watching cute girls dance, but sometimes the mystery is better than the reveal, you know? One can be tantalized by people who aren't necessarily being forwardly tantalizing. I have to give them credit for the outfits though -- straight out of 80's TV staples like "Solid Gold" and "The 20 Minute Workout" -- which are deliciously silly and are probably the best things about the video.

Sunn O))) & Boris, "Altar"

I don't understand the middling praise for this record, as in "it's decent, but less than the sum of its parts". In light of the one-trick nature of both bands' best material to this point, "Altar" is a fantastically deep and diverse album. The opener, "Etna" is arguably the most "extreme" track on here, and it's the one that appears to be most pleasing to hardcore metalheads. I can appreciate someone not getting excited over closing track "Blood Swamp" only because it sounds too much like conventional Sunn O))). Liess superficial listening reveals an astonishing track, progressing from dark ambience to churning drones in fifteen horrifying, blistering minutes.

"Fried Eagle Mind" falters a bit at the start, with reverb-drenched vocals imploring you to "dreeeeaaam". It's like a bad balearic tune composed by overly devoted fans of "The Wall" (the movie), but it redeems itself by the end once it spirals into a chaotic cacaphony. But "The Sinking Belle" gets their sensitive side just right, reminding me of Sianspheric at their psyched-out, slowed-down, blissful best.

Yo La Tengo, "I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass"

I have patiently and repeatedly requested an Animal Collective album composed of nothing but two-minute pop songs plus a couple of twelve-minute epics. In a stroke of dumb luck, one band seemingly channelled my plea through the ether and actually made that record.

The new Yo La Tengo album sounds like the rebirth of a band that looked to be stagnating after the release of the ignorably pleasant "Summer Sun". Even the album title sounds like the work of a newly motivated band. It's a diverse record on par with "I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One", where Velvet-y garage rock rubs shoulders with songs made for holding hands while whistling in the park. Nearly everything is reined into short, three minute bursts. "I Should Have Known Better" and "Watch Out for Me Ronnie" rip through the heart of the album like bolts of lightning, channeling 60's garage-punk like it's always been their calling. These are the types of tracks I figured they couldn't be bothered making these days. On the other side of the coin, "Sometimes I Don't Get You" and "The Weakest Part" are upbeat, enchanting love songs -- very distinct from the more conflict-driven relationship dramas from "And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out".

But the highlight of the album, if not their career, is the closer, "The Story Of Yo La Tengo". I always found "I Heard You Looking" and "Blue Line Swinger" to be album lowlights, blustery attempts to indulge in jam band fantasies just for the sake of it. However, "The Story of ..." ... this is IT, the minimal, monochord epic masterpiece they've been shooting for all along ... "Sugarcube" arranged by Spiritualized, with more than ten minutes of shredding guitars, chaotic horns, making this (among other things) the best Stooges song ever.

Several Bands Galore Volume 1

A couple of weeks ago, one of my longest ever music-related searches finally came to a close. Tracking down the precursor compilation to one of my favourite albums of 2000 was far tougher than I ever would have expected. Volume II occassionally floats around used CD shops and the internet, but I've never seen Volume I anywhere. It's perpetually sold out on sites like Insound, never surfaces in stores -- it had seemingly vanished without a trace. Enter slsk, where at long last I found two users sharing a copy. Cop out, you say? What's that, it doesn't count if you find an album through file sharing? Ordinarily I'd agree. You think this album isn't rare? Most CDs can be found in more than two stores worldwide.

After initially snagging five or six tracks from these two (at glacially slow d/l rates), we didn't cross paths for over a month (and/or I was relegated to the bottom of their massive queues). Then my hard drive died. I lost those tracks, along with my userlist, and had to track down SBG1 from the beginning. Finally, I lucked upon a fast connection -- a few hours before I was to board a plane! I kept downloading almost literally until it was time to walk out the door and leave for the airport (forgetting my sound card in Canada as a result of the rush), with about 2/3rds of the album in my possession. Two months and one internet connection later, I began another waiting game. From this point forward, one of the two users wasn't seen online at all, but eventually, at the average rate of one track every two weeks or so (the time it took for me to reach the front of the queue + be simultaneously online with this person), I completed the album. After SIX MONTHS OF DOWNLOADING I can finally say thank you very much to hinomiyagura2 and youyouryours, whoever you guys are.

Stupidly, I previously decided I would wait until getting the entire album before listening to any of it. One dead hard drive later, I was back to square one and armed with a new strategy: listen as things progress but wait until I have the entire album before writing anything about it. So finally, after this ridiculously extended intro (written mainly to amuse myself -- note to myself, if you (meaning me) are reading this in five years, this is how the entire mess went down, ffs) I can tell you this. What an AWESOME, amazing compilation this is. Easily better than the first.

From the opening snare cracks of Pantone's "Away" (clearly meant to kick off this comp just like "Only Shallow" did on "Loveless"), it's clear that the music will stick closer to MBV's noise-pop blueprint than the more schizophrenic SBGII. Heavy on fuzzy, sugary pop, the spirit of "Isn't Anything" is all over this album. The two Pantone tracks encapsulate this feeling perfectly -- good luck finding two-minute singalong ear-bleeders that are as good as these. SBGII had a few too many lapses into mildly distorted indie rock, but on SBGI there are a lot more hardcore MBV fetishes on display. It's more consistently dazzling in comparison to its successor, more bouncy, more hummable, and more fun.

Death drones are well represented by the likes Sideband's "Sensory Deprivation" and the creaking husk of Lemur's Earth/Sunn0)))-esque "Glacial Shift". It winds up with a slight diversion into twee pop (Psychic Hearts), goth (Myth Mechanic, whose track fits perfectly with the general style of this album, never mind rock and roll, maybe all good music really does turn into goth in the end), and a final, roaring ambient drone climax with Lukewarm's "Licorice" (which sounds like a lost between-song interlude from the "Loveless" sessions -- a far stronger effort their track that opened SBGII, "Mogwai Fear Lukewarm").

Whatever happened to Several Bands Galore Volume 3-382, anyway?

2006 MTV Europe Music Awards

Five Good Things:

1. Contortionists handing over the award envelopes. Freak damn.

2. The setup. It's a bit redundant to comment "the venue looked nice" in reference to a music awards show (particularly the EMAs, where the design always ressembles a futuristically-minded Euro-club), but the dome-pod was saturated with neon (reminiscent of the look of Daft Punk's now legendary Coachella show) and the stage was stacked with so much smoke, light, and rapid-fire, motion-heavy camera work that every live performance came off like a ready-to-air music video. A feast for the eyes, to be sure.

3. The host. Justin Timberlake was snarky, arrogant, conceited, backstabbed his friends and touring partners (remarking "sorry, I fell asleep for a minute there" after Xtina's absurdly long and boring taped acceptance speech), foul-mouthed (at home with Snoop and Justin), and rude ("who's sexier, me or the Hoff?"). In short, he was quite brilliant.

4. Rihanna. She took "Pon de Replay" (a nothing song with a nothing tune and a nothing vocal) to #2 on the sole basis of a Jay-Z rub. Then it was all "to hell with the nouveau Caribbean chic", replaced by more conventional R&B singing/production and a "Tainted Love" sample. Voila, "SOS" was deservedly a huge #1 hit. The KISS principle applies here.

5. Depeche Mode winning for Best Group ... but I have to deduct points for Andy Fletcher's acceptance speech. I mean, there was nothing wrong with what he said, but come on -- ANDY FLETCHER? That's like advertising an appearance by Aerosmith, and having one of the non-Joe Perry/Steve Tyler members show up. I like AF, but his top qualities don't include acting as the face of the band. So now we need one more "good thing" ...

5a. Snoop and Pharrell pimping out in audacious fur for their outdoor performance of "Drop It Like It's Hot". Snoop belongs on every awards show. Maybe we can even digitally insert him into past awards shows.


Five Bad Things:

1. Who the fuck are the Kooks and why are they winning awards for being the best band in the UK + Ireland? And does Poland have nothing better to offer than Blog 27 (worst name ever, plus it's 2006, surely there are better idols to have than Shampoo)?

2. The "Free Your Mind" campaign ... good intentions, terrible execution. Amateurish video clips where your favourite celebs look un-airbrushed and sloppy, while pushing a catchphrase that is distantly related to the issue at hand makes for a campaign that will go down in flames worse than "Vote Or Die" did.

3. "Maneater" ... awesome track, but Nelly's rock-soaked, tattoo-laden performance screamed "Pink was a no-show".

4. "Crazy" winning for best song. Let's review. First, the song was considered underrated, with people wondering why it wasn't a huge hit and when it would finally be released as a single in the US. Then it received a wide release and became the year's most overrated underrated track, essentially the musical equivalent of World Series go-go-Clutcheroo David Eckstein these days. Then it became overrated, as I tried my best to convince myself that it was ever a good song to begin with. Now it's just an ordinary song that I really don't need to hear ever again. I'm sure it'll be all over the radio in the lead up to the Grammys though.

5. 2006 Eurovision winners Lordi "tearing down the house" in the most embarrassing attempt at scary/freaky rock as the close of an awards show since White Zombie's ramshackle performance at the American MTV awards several years ago.

Ricardo Villalobos, "Fizheuer Zieheuer"

Villalobos has been routinely pumping out ten-minute tracks and remixes right from the beginning of his career, so it was only a matter of time before he started putting out four track "albums" . But why stop there? After all, the logical conclusion to these inflating track lengths is to produce a one track "album" ... hence, he gives us the 37-minute "Fizheuer Zieheuer".

This track doesn't have much to say that we didn't already hear more than ten years ago from Basic Channel's "Octagon/Octaedre" and especially BC's "Phylyps Trak II (side B)". He plays around a little more with delay, echo, and irregular, syncopated percussion (the latter of these being very similar to the tricks he used on "Ichso") but I mainly find myself longing for another thirty minutes of those BC records rather than multiple listens to the whole of "Fizheuer Zieheuer".

It's overly long for the sake of being overly long, not because it needs to be. It makes for remarkable listening for the first fifteen minutes (all of side A) but the saturation point comes a few minutes into side B, after which it becomes something of a curiousity, i.e. "how long does he really want to continue like this?" That said, this little experiment is rewarding enough that I won't mind if Villalobos releases nothing other than 40-minute tracks for the rest of his career. Sooner or later he'll hit upon an uberclassic, where every single second of it is essential.

Compression Triumphs

I recently started reading up on the issue of compression in modern audio recordings/remasterings. Now that my mind is on the subject, it's been informing nearly all the music I've been listening to lately. I always knew about the concept of compression, even though I didn't know it by name -- noticing that some albums sound very loud, noticing that certain recordings could be grating on my ears (and not in a "dense" way, i.e. the new Flaming Lips album vs, say, peak era shoegazing albums), mentally noting how some artists sounded louder than their musical style would warrant (hello, KEANE). I've been asking myself "does this sound compressed?" no matter if I'm hearing the song for the first time or the 50th time. I've been marvelling at the fantastic sound on Audion's records, particularly his newest EP "Mouth To Mouth", where you can easily hear quiet clicks and purrs way down in the mix, even on top of the cavernous beats that anchor the EP's two tracks. I'm remembering the stories about how Basic Channel insisted on mastering their vinyl at special facilities, and how much better those recordings sound on vinyl compared to CD. I remember being amazed at the power of the first two Oasis records, decibel-wise, and my dislike for Verve's "A Northern Soul" (also produced by Owen Morris) because it sounded so much like "(What's the Story) Morning Glory?", in dramatic contrast to their gentler, more atmospheric debut.

I recommend articles from Austin360, Stylus, and Wikipedia as an introduction to the subject. But all those articles are quck to point out that compression isn't always a bad thing. Full-on tracks that require almost zero subtlety are likely improved by sloppy, slap-in-the-face compression. Audion's "Mouth To Mouth" EP demands for it's gentler, percussive elements to heard amongst the beats, particularly when the volume is turned up. Other tracks probably wouldn't benefit at all from such subtlety ...

Ladytron, "Destroy Everything You Touch". It's hard to sit through the entire "Witching Hour" album in one sitting (you know why), but this track, with it's stomping beats, wild sirens, and caveman lyrics (perfect for shouting over the din) is just about perfect the way it is.

Depeche Mode, "John the Revelator". It builds up in layers, and Dave Gahan's voice pierces into the red from the very start. By the time the choir joins in during the chorus, there isn't anywhere in the mix left to put them. All the song's vocals feature the collective enunciation of a swarm of bees from this point onward, but who cares? It's Depeche Mode rocking the "Numbers" beat and blowing your speakers apart in the process.

Roots Manuva, "Chin High". All of the "Awfully Deep" album has been banned from my iPod until I figure out how to optimize its volume levelling capabilities. Roots Manuva's baritone does manage to stand out quite clearly, but otherwise the whole album is like one big, thudding bassline and that's OK because they're the best parts of RM albums. "Chin High" adds a bunch of clanking in order to increase the assault on the ears.

Charlotte Gainsbourg, "5 55"

Songs from this album have been cycling through my iPod, rubbing shoulders with songs by famous actress (and occasional singer) Charlotte's even more famous father. When one of her songs comes up on shuffle, I usually find myself clamouring through my short-term memory, trying to recall which early 70's album I chose to upload to my iPod. Since the early 70's are pretty much a black hole as far as my music collection goes, my confusion tends to last until her voice appears in the song. So she's got the authenticity thing downpat, effortlessly apeing the sweeping exotica of albums such as "Histoire de Melody Nelson". The string arrangements are highly reliable ear-candy, they practically write themselves. Elsewhere, she slips easily between English and French lyrics, and even makes forays into Travis-esque grandma-indie ("The Song That We Sing" is a dead ringer for "Flowers in the Window"). Her breathy, half-bored, half-sex kitten vocals sound completely effortless, you get the feeling that she could churn them out all day long without breaking a sweat.

On the other hand, the lack of variety in her singing style likely indicates that she did spend many days in the studio, purring out the same semi-spoken lines on song after song. You get the cynical feeling that if she simply wanted to sing on autopilot while recreating the sounds of her father's most fertile period, then why bother in the first place? Does such an album need to exist? So let's put all that baggage aside and judge the album more straightforwardly -- are the tunes any good? Fortunately, many of them are. In particular, the title track is as good as anything Serge did in that style circa "Melody Nelson". The album's easygoing, pastoral feel isn't too far from what Rachel Goswell was aiming for on her dreadfully boring (save for one track, "Coastline", which is several shades of awesome) solo record "Waves Are Universal". Over the course of forty minutes, the album's tranquility gradually turns it into easily ignorable background music, sweet and pleasant but nothing too notable overall. A mini-album might have been a better idea, either that, or let the listener beware: only listen to three or four tracks at a time, lest you start to forget that the album is even playing.

The many talents of Paris Hilton

I formed an opinion on this record (more or less) over a month ago, but decided to wait until I heard the actual music before writing something up. I figured I owed it to myself to hear the album first, as a matter of intellectual honesty. A lot of reviewers probably didn't give this album that chance, for instance, all the jokes in this review were probably written before the "play" button was pressed.

I don't have much to say about the album that hasn't already been said. It's perfectly passable music. It's a vehicle for the talents of its producer (Scott Storch) far more so than it is for Paris herself, who is the easily-replaceable window dressing of the record. It's compressed as all hell. All the same tricks that are used to sweeten Britney Spears' vocals (and those of a million other singers) are in full effect -- swarming background vocals, double tracking, liberal use of whispering and purring, etc.

Paris' album might represent the apex of the ongoing popism debates. She's the latest in a line of "artists" who made an album for the teen-oriented market, not for any reason in particular but only because she could (Lohan, Duff et al). The debate is only mildly interesting to me, discussions such as this one are notable for confirming everyone's preconceived opinions about Paris than for any truly new criticism (i.e. every "Paris" review in a nutshell, as I already pointed out). Jerry the Nipper's comment stands out though, and I fully agree with it. Tracks like "Turn It Up" come across as silly as Paris implores you to muse about getting down with her and what might happen when her clothes come off -- we already know what happens, we've all seen the famous video, thank you. As JtN states (and I haven't read his complete Uncut review), Paris' wealth is her most noteworthy asset, not her body. A sassy, confident, "like me or not, but I can buy you if I want" Material Girl for the 00's would have made for a far more appealing and unique record.

Still, the most unappealing thing about "Paris" (besides, perhaps, sticking her on a reggae track -- "Stars Are Blind" and releasing it as a single, who could have possibly thought this was a good idea?) is that I'm completely unconvinced that Paris Hilton gives a flying fuck about music. I can't imagine her having a taste in music beyond what her personal assistants buy for her or the songs played in the clubs that her publicists tell her she should be seen at. She released an album because she has the money to hire whoever she wants to write/produce a good record and let her sing along with it. Knowing all these things ruins most of the fun for me. Now hang on, I know the counter-arguments. Lots of people have released superficial novelty/comedy albums just for the money. Still, William Hung cares about music more than Paris Hilton does. Lots of bands hated each others guts, half-assed it in the recording studio, and still implored us to spend money on their product. If those bands were able to harness their full talents on earlier albums, or if I have reason to believe that they'll get their act together on subsequent albums (together or solo) then I have more time for them than I do for Paris Hilton.

Now watch me write something about Charlotte Gainsbourg's new album while completely ignoring everything I wrote in this post ...

Peeking In on Techno and DJ's

Philip Sherburne's latest "Month In Techno" column for Pitchfork is more of his typical brilliance -- new trends and contextual techno history, profoundly readable for both novices and experts, all in less than 2000 words. Reading his columns and blog posts actually makes me a bit sad because I come to realize how far I've receded from the contemporary techno scene. The producers fled Toronto for friendlier environments (Montreal, Berlin), the availability of good vinyl naturally started decreasing (as did my disposable income, although I can't claim that these two things are related) (I never bought enough vinyl for any correlation to exist), good parties and tolerable crowds became ever more scarce. There is absolutely no replacement for flipping through vinyl in shops, it's the musical equivalent of learning a new language by immersing yourself among speakers of that language. It's also the best possible way to keep up to speed with new releases and new trends.

I can comfort myself with the notion that even though I am spiralling out of date, it's mitigated by how far ahead of my time I used to be. For the most part, my vinyl purchases were centred on the hardest, densest tracks (e.g. Cari Lekebusch, Petar Dundov, Kai Randy Michel), and stripped-down, plinky tracks (e.g. Richie Hawtin's m_nus-era stuff, the audio.nl label, Thomas Brinkmann). The latter group now encompass the world-beating "minimal" tag, but I always thought of the former group as minimal as well. Minimal, to me, didn't mean "quiet" or "not banging", it meant "very little variation".

However, when practicing my spinning, I easily became restless. I didn't like to play any one track for too long, after a couple of minutes I started itching to hear something else. I favoured long mixes between tracks, beatmatching them for two or three minutes if possible, and playing around with filters and effects to combine elements of the tracks in real time. I quickly discovered the problem with my style of choice -- it was damn hard work. I'd race through 15-20 tracks each hour. The continuing need to cue up and segue into the next track meant there was very little time for standing back and admiring whatever song I was playing at that moment. In my head, I wanted to hear all twenty minutes of Starfish Pool's "Offday", but my hands wouldn't listen. Considering I cut my electronic music teeth on epic ambient music, "mixing" tracks together using tape recorders, you'd think I'd have calmed down and let the music stretch out a bit more.

I remember watching Mutek founder Alain Mongeau DJ in the opening slot on the festival's final night (I think it was in 2002), he was playing every record from groove to groove, with tight (but simple) segues between them. Granted, this was a 9PM set and hardly anybody had showed up yet, so it's not like he needed to pull out all the stops and impress people. But was his style indicative of a lack of skill, i.e. is that how he played because that's all he was capable of doing? Or was he a little bit ahead of his time? Michael Mayer plays tracks nearly from start to finish, and his Immer and Fabric mixes are considered classics. Mayer has helped bring the club DJ closer in style to the radio DJ, playing songs you actually know rather than being an obsessive trainspotter whose cred is based around digging up the most obscure records that nobody could possibly recognize. This attitude (I hesitate to call it a "problem" because I'm not sure that it actually was one) was very common in techno during the 1990s, and it was perfectly suited to Jeff Mills' "techno gangbang" sets (dozens of tracks per hour, no time to think about song recognition) and Richie Hawtin's banging, percussive marathons (stuffed full of white labels). As Sherburne points out, the "stretched out" style leaves more room for the tracks and clubgoers to breathe, but it also conserves the DJ's energies. So which is the chicken and which is the egg? Were DJ's becoming less skilled, thus leading to longer and longer parties featuring fewer and fewer tracks, or are knowledgeable partygoers demanding epic sets with more proper hits and forcing the DJ's to adapt to these wants?

Too many issues here ... "hard techno" isn't dead, at least not in Berlin. Otherwise, one could simplistically dismiss all this as a matter of fans' tastes changing -- people are tired of hard stuff, they want less banging "minimal" tracks, along with the DJ styles, drugs, hours, etc. that are conducive to them. I think there's more to it than that. Also, the notion of "DJ's becoming less skilled" is a bit too harsh, it smacks of virtuoso snobbery. You know the kind -- if you can't play 20-minute guitar solos in 15/8 time, then you aren't playing anything worth listening to. Spinning records can be sweaty, backbreaking work (as I discovered) and there's no reason why this absolutely must be the case (which I should have realized back then).

Annals of the Completely Unneccessary (Part One in an Infinite Part Series): Westlife

Exclusive! Live! Performance!! Their new single, tonight, on the Miss World 2006 telecast!

In fact, they got to perform two songs, meaning that in total, they were onstage for roughly twice as much time as the finalists in this pageant. But that's another matter, because thanks to the efforts of boy band svengali Louis Walsh (conveniently one of the pageant judges) their hard work and boundless popularity, we're treated to a world premiere performance of their new single, "The Rose".

Was the world clamouring for a cover of "The Rose"? Even the Backstreet Boys rocked out a bit on their most recent album, getting all gritty and dusty in the video for "Incomplete". But "The Rose"? Will the British public ever grow tired of shmaltzy ballads covered by boy bands? What's their next single, "Unchained Melody"? Oh hang on, Boyzone already went there in 1999, but I think there's a seven-year statute of limitations on this sort of thing. Once seven years have passed, pillage away. BTW, Westlife aren't looking so boyish these days, I suppose that's what happens when real life, i.e. kids, marriage, and coming out of the closet entrenches on a career of selling aural molasses to ten year old girls.

Yeah, their cover of "Mandy" was one of my favourite singles of 2003 ... what about it?

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Robin Gibb's sloppy performance at the very end of the show, singing "Jive Talkin'" as the credits rolled and the girls tried to get down and party in the most ladylike way possible. The sight of Gibb (easily the shortest person on stage), surrounded by international beauties, looking extremely distracted, warbling in and out of tune and rhythm, brought obvious comparisons to the man, the myth, the legend, Michael Sandecki -- far more so than any ressemblance to a member of a legendary chart-topping band (but let's face it, Robin Gibb is as relevant to the Bee Gees as the non-Joe Perry/Stephen Tyler members of Aerosmith).

Random Play Disasters (Part One in an Infinite Part Series): The Art of Noise

The iPod era is just the latest chapter in my never-ending fascination with random play. Lately, I haven't even been queuing up entire albums, preferring to sample just a few songs from them instead. But there are a lot of albums (or more commonly, artists) that defy the random play format, usually because some or most of the tracks flow together (Spiritualized, Tim Hecker, many more).

The Art of Noise recently released a four-CD box set of material from their time on the ZTT label from 1983-1985, entitled "And What Have You Done With My Body, God?". I have been a huge fan of this band since high school, so naturally I was excited about the prospect of such a collection. Although their most well-known tracks all stem from this period ("Moments In Love", "Beatbox", "Close To The Edit", all of which have been sampled more than just about any songs from the past twenty years or so -- if you're not sure if you've ever heard these songs, don't worry, you probably have), they arguably reached their prime during the China Records era that followed. It was a more prolific time for the band, for one thing, stuffed with experimental oddities ("Instruments of Darkness", "Opus 4"), proto-ambient ("Camilla"), and Yello-ish minor chart hits ("Paranoimia", "Kiss"). "(Who's Afraid of) The Art of Noise" is their most fascinating, twisted, and iconic album by far, but 1990's "The Ambient Collection" (a pseudo-remixed collection assembled and sequenced by Youth) is their best record. Long before "ambient" became a buzzword, this was a landmark chillout album filled with years worth of album tracks that were eons ahead of their time, anticipating just about every piece of downtempo dance music released during the 90's. I wore out my cassette during 1990, listening to it for hours upon end, second only to the Stone Roses debut (yes, ahead of Depeche Mode's "Violator", which I didn't even own until late 1991, but that's another story).

The problem occurred when I put this box set -- unheard -- on random play with a bunch of other stuff. One sitting later, I'd heard maybe a quarter of the total set but was completely baffled as to what I had or hadn't already heard, thereby complicating subsequent listening sessions. This is what happens when a band throws six or eight versions of "Beatbox" onto a box set. Although the concept of a "Pet Sounds" Box for the AON makes for an interesting prospect, I have to question whether anybody (even this band's most devoted fans) (even ANY band's most devoted fans) needs to hear the same four or five tracks being jammed out over and over and over again. I'm lost as to which versions are the best ones, and the working/alternate titles don't help matters.

Of course, it's always wonderful to revisit this stuff, and by putting the whole box on random play for about 45 minutes, you too can create your very own alternate mix of "(Who's Afraid Of) The Art of Noise" -- one of a kind, every time! There are plenty of previously unheard gems, such as "Diversions 3", a greasy, funky take on "Beatbox" that distinguishes itself from the other versions by stripping away nearly all elements of the track other the backbeat. Ditto "Close (To Being Compiled), which does the same to "Close (To the Edit)". The title track and "The Long Hello" pile even more drama onto their source track "How To Kill", adding church organs and choirs to the heartbreaking and unsettling original. A twenty minute version of "Close (To the Edit)", charmingly entitled "That Was Close [Diversion Eight / Diversion Two / Closest / Close-Up / Close (To The Edit) / Closed]", somehow flies right by, psychedelically bumping and grinding its way through several linked variations on the original song.

All in all, there's plenty to like here -- a little too much, in fact. Consume in rationed doses!

Tim Hecker, "Harmony In Ultraviolet"

Tim Hecker likes to stick to a formula. Sometimes that's shorthand for "stuck in a rut" but this particular rut (whoops, I'm not calling it that) is one that I never get tired of. Sure, he broke from the formula on my favourite release of his, "My Love Is Rotten To the Core", i.e. the sound of hair metal riffs shattered into a thousand pieces, swept up, and reassembled hastily (and sloppily). The typical formula rarely fails to awe me with its beauty, in which he goes from sparkly, fuzzed-out noise (perfect for stargazing) to darker, fuzzed-out noise (perfect for stargazing ... IN HELL). It's fascinating how those dark endings just keep getting darker with each new album. This time around, it seems as though Hecker's been listening to the likes of Sunn0))), judging by the quaking, rumbling, bass-heavy distorted tones that fill up the latter third of "Harmony In Ultraviolet". This album is typically great for Hecker, but here's hoping for something a little different next time. My personal choice: an entire album of pitch black darkness, featuring one long, slowly shifting deathdrone piece with perhaps a slight peek of happiness to alleviate the mood at the very end.

Strange voices in my head

It had been a while since I'd heard REM's "Automatic For the People", but three songs into the album I could effortlessly remember the main reasons why I love(d) it so much. Sometimes you can look at just one photograph taken during a two-week vacation, and even though you haven't looked at or thought about that picture for months, you suddenly remember everything you did that day, what you did immediately before and immediately after it was taken, or what you were thinking about that compelled you to make that goofy face. I think that's the mark of a fun, memorable vacation.

I never thought much of Michael Stipe as a vocalist before this album came out, to me he was always the nasally geek from "Superman" and "Shiny Happy People". I was awed to hear his voice carry nearly all of "AFTP", dominating and conducting nearly every track like few albums I've heard before or since. Make no mistake about it -- Stipe's weathered, gravelly voice is the lead instrument throughout the record, making 100X more of an impact than any guitar lick or bassline on every one of its twelve tracks. Fourteen years on, all this jumps out at me immediately, far removed from the spectre of grunge-era seriousness (when for a split second, it seemed as though mopey, depressing albums might be 10M sellers on a routine basis) and all the "REM aren't touring, ergo, Michael Stipe has AIDS" faux-poignancy rumours that made headlines at the time.

In a similar way, I found it easy to write off Daniel Johnston's voice as a gimmicky curiosity. He was the guy who sang the demos that other artists would polish up and sing properly. Johnston sings like a twelve year old pubescent kid, so there's a sizeable adjustment period when first hearing him, during which his voice progressively grates less and less. It's one thing to hum along to his pained thoughts about love, but learning something about love from Daniel Johnston is another thing entirely. He had to complicate matters by writing and singing one of the most beautiful love songs ever. "True Love Will Find You In the End" neatly sums up most of what you need to know about the subject (in less than two minutes, amazingly enough) by confidently assuring you that Your Special Someone needs you as much as you need them, so get off your ass and go find that person before it's too late. A song with such simple, childlike words could only be sung by someone with a simple, childlike voice; which is why the cover versions (e.g. Spectrum) get it completely wrong. Johnston's characteristically sloppy musicianship is entirely appropriate here, because what is the search for true love if not sloppy, disorienting, and occasionally fruitless?

A moment of clarity with Flowchart's "Cumulus Mood Twang"

Somehow I managed to not listen to this album for about six weeks, probably since my last plane ride. It is far and away the best Flowchart album, nestled gently between the Stereolab mimicry of "Multi-Personality Tabletop Vacation" and the semi-deep house junk they'd do later on. The album's first few tracks play around with some two-dollar beats (they upgraded them to more expensive models on later records, to detrimental effect) while adding all the coos and "aaahh"s and "whoa"s you can handle. But in the middle, it makes its push into greatness by settling into a woozy sort of eazy listening shoegaze (in the Tim Hecker/M83 stargazing sense of the word, not in the decibel-crunching guitar attack sense. It peaks, as all albums should, in its final 20 minutes, starting with "Rust a la Glare", a kind of Fila Brazilia/Jimpster late-90's downtempo-d'n'b thing filled with flutes and shit, and yes, you have to namedrop when talking about Flowchart because all their stuff is so ridiculously derivative but it WORKS, in this case spectacularly. The final two tracks, "Icicles and Clipboards" and its intro (more or less) "Grain of Apology", might as well have been titled "To Here Knows When Part II" because that's obviously what they're trying to recreate+remodel, and it's eight minutes of foggy beauty, of holding hands in the rain, of not worrying about anything, and it has to be one of the best dozen or so album closers ever.

Near the end of "Rust a la Glare", at around 8:30 AM on Monday morning, I realized that we have the tendency to be angry at people or upset with them when they don't act the way you want or expect. Sometimes these feelings last for one day and are quickly forgotten (because you never see that person again) and sometimes they last for weeks or months or years. There are people in Israel that I've only known for a few weeks and they're wonderful guys and gals but part of me is already starting to resent them for things they have or haven't done (things that don't necessarily have anything to do with me). And for what? For stupid reasons, that's what.

I feel better now. This music is good for that.

Kokhav Nolad Season 4 Finale Anticipation

Admittedly, I haven't watched all (or most) of the episodes, I don't fully understand the show's format, and I understand virtually none of the language. But finale time = fun time, the ads run on TV all the time, and I'm getting excited.

The final three are Maya, Jako, and Raphael. We'll ignore Raphael for the time being because I have no idea what he brings to the table that makes him deserving of the spot he's in. Maya is playing the Katharine McPhee role to a tee right now. She's a good, but not great singer who happens to be very pretty and has a great body (Katharine is a better singer when she's at the top of her game, but she was prone to the same bouts of inconsistency that Maya has been experiencing). Naturally, these are the sorts of qualities that make you stick out early in the season. Then comes the tendency to start coasting on that early momentum. Once the season reaches the midway point, the pretenders are essentially gone and you need to pull off some blowaway performances to stay ahead of the pack. Instead, we are treated to middling -> good (bordering on very good) outputs, at which point you can see the uncertainty in their eyes -- they know they need to work some magic (and fast) but aren't sure how to do it, and aren't even sure that they're capable of doing it. Katharine's apex in this respect happened during the final four of AI Season Five, with the not-so-shocking shocking elimination of the profoundly overrated Chris Daughtry. Maya's point of no return happened last week, when Zahbit (who shouldn't have stood a chance against Maya) was sent home, even though Maya had that dead, completely resigned look in her eyes and had a scarily striking resemblance to Ally Sheedy's character in "The Breakfast Club".

Jako has a look not unlike AI Season Four runner-up Bo Bice -- he looks like a rocker but is really a big softie and that's why all the girls love him. He also carries himself with a macho swagger and can be a very gritty performer when the song calls for it. In this respect, picture Chris Daughtry minus his air of entitlement and all of his arrogant shithead qualities. He's on a major roll right now and seems to be the clear favourite from my perspective, but we'll find out this Thursday.

Amos Corman, Uzy Feinerman @ Levontin 7, T.A. (Wed., August 30)

The intimate, basement space in this eerily quiet neighbourhood (which reminds me of T.O.'s Kensington Market once the sun sets) is actually perfect for this guitar/tabla show. It's billed as a tribute to Indian musician Amir Hussain Khan and American blues guitarist Elizabeth Cotton, both of whom I know absolutely nothing about until this evening. The first half of the show consists of one meandering, disjointed improvisation in which the musicians play circles around each other without ever finding themselves on the same page. The second half is a somewhat sloppy but very enjoyable bit of country tabla blues versions of Elizabeth Cotton's songs. Feinerman's studied, country-tonk accent shows that he's a devoted fan of country, and Corman's droll, unpolished singing actually adds to the performance because he clearly enjoys straying off the beaten path in tandem with his instrument of choice.

The Wonderful Sounds of NIN

"The Fragile" didn't come close to meeting expectations, but the tour was a hit and so was the eventual DVD. Nobody bothered to listen to all 893 hours of that double album, but overall, the CD was still something of an event (expect essays in approximately 20 years that hail it as a misjudged masterpiece, the alterna-generation's very own "Tusk"). But one year later, it feels as though "With Teeth" didn't even happen. This tends to happen when you insist on spending five years between album releases throughout your entire career. Sure, the long wait builds anticipation and turns the eventual release into a big event, but the shtick gets old after fifteen years and the law of diminishing returns rots into the picture. You can only make so many grand comebacks and expect people to keep caring.

But no matter what he does, Trent Reznor always finds a way to make his music sound great while doing it. He's our very own Eric Clapton, sort of. Everything he touches (outside of the Marilyn Manson crunch-rock portion of his career) sounds fantastic, filled with layers of moody chords, sizzling distortion, and hummable melodies. It all sounds so big, so cavernous, so meant to be played on gigantic speakers. "With Teeth" is an underrated record that could have been a classic if Reznor hadn't tried to ruin significant parts of it with underproduced crap like "Only". I can only assume that he felt like dabbling in blues and wanted to make the most of Dave Grohl's drumming talents. But the best tracks on this record, most notably the pulsating, mind-numbing "Beside You In Time" easily rank high among his back catalogue.

Admittedly, that may be damning Reznor with faint praise -- I haven't even felt the need to listen to "The Downward Spiral" (sans the indispensible "Closer") in years.

Songs in heavy rotation ...

Sometimes the brilliance of certain songs doesn't hit for you months, or even years. Everybody is familiar with this concept, right? Here are some songs that fit the bill for me, all of them are currently in heavy rotation on my iPod:

Broken Social Scene, "Ibi Dreams of Pavement (A Better Day)". "You Forgot It in People", as great as it is, feels like a time share, where each member's former (or current) band gets their proper allowance of recording tape. The songs could have carried subtitles straight out of "Friends", i.e. "KC Accidental (The One That Sounds like Do Make Say Think)", "Anthems for a Seventeen Year Old Girl (The One That Sounds Twee, like the Cranberries Back When They Were Good)", and "Shampoo Suicide (The One That Is Supposed to Sound Like Reggae, but not Rocking in that Zeppelin-y Way)".

Finally, here is a song that justifies the need to have five guitarists among the twelve people onstage from seven different bands. It truly sounds like all those bands mashed into one song, with guitars wailing like vacuum cleaners over what passes for the tune, a vocal that demands for you to shout along with it, and just when you think they can't throw any more madness into a five minute track, along comes a horn-driven ending that kicks everything up a level (the ending could use another two minutes, one of the only weaknesses of the song). The loudest and best thing they've ever done, possibly. Too bad most of the album that followed it was indulgent, overly long, similarly overproduced junk (note: this is probably the reason that it took me so long to come around to this song -- I couldn't bear to sit through the entire album).

Michael Jackson, "Billie Jean". One of my all-time growers -- I didn't start liking it until I dunno, the late 90's? What was I thinking? All the child molesting allegations in the world can't dampen this song's funky sheen. Even the notion of Michael being slapped with a paternity suit in 1983 can't make this the least bit laughable (although I suppose the sex is implied, not confirmed, in the song's lyrics).

Bangles, "Manic Monday". For those who don't remember the 80's, Prince was essentially Pharrell + Radiohead + Christina Aguilera. He needed an airline hangar to contain his critical acclaim, he could rock, he could funk, and he could raunch. He played, wrote, and performed on big hits for several other artists, all of which owed a large part of their success to him. I heard "Sexy MF" a couple of weeks ago for the first time in ages, and while thinking about how easily its lyrics could be incorporated into contemporary hip-hop (why haven't the Ying Yang Twins covered this yet?), I realized that I'd forgotten that Prince, when he wanted to, could write 60's-style girl group songs with the best of them. Of course, this being Prince, there has to a line about getting busy ("He tells me in his bedroom voice / C'mon honey, let's go make some noise) but otherwise this is bittersweet pop at its finest.

Bardo Pond, "From the Sky". Most often, one isn't in the mood to sit through a 31-minute song. That's what kept me at arm's length from the final track on the "Cypher Documents" compilation, but the song absolutely crushes, like the vocal-less middle section of "Destroying Angel" stretched out for another half hour.

Lisa Germano, "In the Maybe World"

Her 1993 album "Happiness" starts with more than a minute of shredding, echoing guitar noise that could have been lifted straight off a Cocteau Twins record. Well, the album *was* released on 4AD so maybe it was all part of her plan to make herself feel at home on the label. Fifteen years into her solo career, those hazy, otherworldly qualities can still occasionally appear in Germano's music. But it's not much more than window dressing on the devastating, heartbreaking feeling one gets from listening to "Too Much Space" on her newest record. Neo-shoegazing = window dressing? Yes, it's just that damn sad.

In the morning without a sound
And the stirring of dreams around
then you wake up -- he wasn't there again

Of course, it's the slight pause before the word "again" that strikes the final, unrecoverable blow.

On the way home you feel it there
cuz your heart needs to be somewhere
but you wake up to too much space again

There's an even subtler pause before the world "somewhere", but I'm sure it's mainly my imagination (wishful thinking, perhaps).

Drugstore's Isobel Monteiro makes a strong case for the sexiest female voice in contemporary music, but Drugstore haven't made a record in five years so I'm tempted to hand over the title to Lisa Germano. There are a lot of similarities between the two -- the soft, husky whisper and the way they seem to purr instead of sing when they're performing at their best. With their penchant for semi-acoustic ballads/lullabies, they're even similar as songwriters. But even though either one of them could convincingly sing the other's entire ouevre, the overall tone of these switcheroo works would be strikingly different. That is, these two singers might be similar, but they are far from interchangeable. Pixie-like Monteiro is the naughty sex kitten, the girl whose voice you lust over but whose heart you can tolerate breaking. Sure, you might feel bad about it eventually, like if you heard "All the Things A Girl Should Have" a few years later. You would trick yourself into thinking that she was a sweetheart all along, but then you'd hear the vindictive "I Know I Could" and quit feeling sorry for her altogether. One minute she's moaning your name and the next minute she's that crazy bitch who made a voodoo doll of your likeness and plans to put it on her album cover. Who needs her? But Lisa is the starry-eyed quiet girl next door, the person you want singing you to sleep every night.

"Happiness" is a schizophrenic record. Half of it is caught in this weird suspension between early-90's teenaged alt-rock and late-90's adult-oriented wannabe alt-rock. Semisonic and Matchbox Tw20enty would have been thrilled to have some of these songs on their first hit records ("Energy" or "Anyone's Victim"?). The other half consists of charred, fragile beauty, epitomized by the gorgeous closer "The Darkest Night of All"). But "Geek the Girl", released the following year, feels like an overreaching stab at fitting in with post-grunge, post-"Loser" slackerdom. Despite some fantastic songs ("Cancer of Everything"), only in 1994 could a song try to pass off "Oh no, I'm not too cool" as a credible chorus. In 1996, she inched close to her forte with the gentle "Excerpts From a Love Circus" and with 2003's aptly named "Lullaby For Liquid Pig" she perfected her "lullabies for adults" formula (bedtime stories about alcohol, loneliness and depression). She continues to exploit this formula in fine fashion with this year's "In the Maybe World", and I'm selfishly hoping that she never stops being miserable (or sounding like it on record).

Goodnight

Following a somewhat uncomfortable and fairly disturbing sleep, I woke up, flipped on the TV, and saw a man with a 70's porn star moustache tucking a giant crow puppet into bed. He was singing the Beatles "Goodnight" in Hebrew (the orchestral backing music was quite faithful to the original) while the video faded in and out from a very lo-tech marionettes-in-front-of-a-blue-screen display of stiff little angels coasting through the stars. The whole thing was simultaneously worse and better than any scene from "The Wall" -- better because it held my attention more acutely than anything from that movie, and worse because this was supposed to be a children's show.

My brain instantly melted but I've been having a pretty good day ever since.

I've told myself so many times before. But this time I think I mean it for sure. We have reached a full stop. Nothing's gonna save us ...

... from the big drop."

[full lyrics here]

What they meant was: Israel feels that it's been more than tolerant of Hezbollah's growing power and influence in Lebanon, not to mention their formidable military capabilities; and in this light the current confrontation was inevitable.

Reached our natural conclusion
Outlived the illusion
I hate being in these situations
That call for diplomatic relations

That is, Israel feels that the illusion of peace (in the abscence of a large-scale conflict like the one we're seeing now) along its northern border has been shattered, but that the need to keep up appearances in the international community are preventing her from conducting the current military campaign in the manner that she would most prefer.

f I only knew the answer
Or I thought we had a chance
Or I could stop this
I would stop this thing from spreading like a cancer

If Depeche Mode had the magic formula for peace in the Middle East, they might have spoken up and tried to prevent the events of the past few weeks, but alas, the Israel-Hezbollah confrontation was likely inevitable.

What can I say? (I dont want to play) anymore
What can I say? Im heading for the door
I cant stand this emotional violence
Leave in silence

Therefore, citing a need to remove themselves from the drama and retain a neutral perspective on the conflict, Depeche Mode had to cancel their wildly anticipated first ever concert in Israel.

Understandably, Depeche Mode's Israeli fan club is extremely upset. The world has been robbed of the oppurtunity to see tens of thousands of Jews singing "Personal Jesus" and "John the Revelator" in the Holy Land. Damn you Hezbollah! Why, Ehud, why?

This story has spread around quite a bit, from the NME to Jewish blogs to the evening news on Israel's channel 1. Well, this story happened to break on the day of the most pronounced lull (from both militaries) since the conflict began, so it was a slow news day.

I guess we'll never know the true reason why the show was cancelled ... officially, it was safety concerns cited by the tour crew, and I can't blame a group of unionized workers for not wanting to set up lights and video screens in a possible war zone. OTOH, that explanation would provide a perfect cover for the band's own apprehensions in playing the show at the current time. Remember, it doesn't matter who wins the actual war in real life, it's the propaganda war that really counts.

Johnny Cash, "American Recordings V"

It's probably not realistic to talk about this album without acknowledging one's obvious bias toward the recording, that is, it's impossible not to know that the songs were assembled long after Cash's death. With that in mind ... there something plastic, overly polished, and fake about some of these songs. Cash's "American Recordings" series are known for their no-frills, rootsy, back-to-basics approach. The first album was little more than one man and his guitar. Subsequent albums gave greater prominence to extra guitars and piano but the overall feel remained very stripped-down and basic.

In short, Cash's voice doesn't sound up to the task throughout the record. His voice (and health) progressively and precipitously worsened over the last ten years of his life, which might have added poignancy to the song and video for "Hurt" but gradually depleted the quality of his recordings in an overall sense. Here, his weak, gravelly voice is coated over clean, chiming guitar picking, which practically advertises the fact that he wasn't in the same room (or, uh, planet) when the music was being recorded. A voice that weak doesn't feel credible leading such a polished-sounding band, and the juxtaposition of the two is very out-of-step with most of Cash's back catalogue. "Back on the Chain Gang" is a more classic sound for Cash, as his voice recedes into the mix, in short, it sounds like raw and unprocessed Cash. "On the 309" is a great rustic country song in the vein of "Tennessee Stud" (AR1) or "Country Trash" (AR3) but it's badly in need of a singer that doesn't sound exhausted on every verse. Ditto "Rose of My Heart", which is a pretty tune nearly ruined by Cash running out of breath at the end of nearly every line.

On "Four Strong Winds", his voice protrudes over and above the recording. It sticks out too much, possibly because they protooled him up to make a low quality recording (or vocal performance) sound better. It just doesn't sound like him. Similarly, I have to mention "If You Could Read My Mind", partly because I think it's one of the most beautiful songs ever written, partly because Cash's AR cover songs are probably the most well known recordings in the AR series (Hurt, One). Cash prided himself on learning these songs until they became his own -- indistinguishable from a Cash original if you had never heard the source recording. Again, the voice is too high in the mix, coming across like overly digitalized Cash. Over intricately picked acoustic guitar (very Lightfoot, but very un-Cash), the song proceeds at a slow, crawling pace, as if Cash is too weak and out of breath to keep up and needs the song slowed down for him.

Still, there is a fragile beauty in the weakness and vulnerability of Cash's voice, making "American Recordings V" a pleasant (but not the least bit arresting) listen. But unfortunately, it really and truly sounds like the end.

Lost

Two weeks ago my hard drive died and everything on it was lost. Let's just say that my annual Blue Screen Of Death was a bit overdue and that I should have been better prepared for this (read: in possession of a backup hard drive). My most important, irreplaceable work-related files were backed up elsewhere, but about 9 GB of mp3's were irretrievably lost.

I wasn't particularly bothered by this (I was thankful for my complete care warranty though), mainly because -- to my numbed surprise -- I could barely remember what music had been on there. I knew I had over 1 GB of albums from 2006, but I couldn't immediately recall which ones I had beyond my four or five favourites, and felt very little need to recover most of them. Storage space is so cheap that I usually don't bother deleting anything unless I actively dislike it. Once the new Flaming Lips album was on my hard drive it was a non-decision to keep it there, but now that's it's gone, I'm not in the slightest rush to get it back because I didn't particularly care for it to begin with. There were several dozen unclassified tracks floating about, but damned if I can remember more than 10-15 of them (note to self: reacquire "Ms New Booty").
Can anyone possibly justify keeping over 1 GB of live Animal Collective mp3's on their hard drive (on top of the 600 or so MB already burned elsewhere)? How many live versions of "The Purple Bottle" does one person need? (OK, scratch that, you can never have too many versions of "The Purple Bottle")

So now, my computer runs like new thanks to the Windows reinstallation. In parallel with my mp3 replacement strategy, I'm in no hurry to reinstall every last thing because my computer's memory and hard drive were bogged down with a bunch of programs that I probably don't need at this very moment. I bought a backup HD (but not a DVD burner to back THAT up ... a mathematical induction problem awaits me), discovered that many of those Furtwaengler and William Basinski tracks were a lot easier to find again than expected, and replaced the essentials (Bardo Fucking Pond) with some new blood (Lisa Germano ... oh man, more on this another time). In all, I trimmed the digital fat and my computer is likely better off because of it -- I would almost recommend that everyone should have their HD wiped out at least once in their lives!

But it all made me wonder what other inessentials I'm saving. If half of my current CD collection suddenly evaporated, would I be that upset about it (besides the hammer to the head feeling of calculating how much I paid for all those discs)? I could go for years without hearing large parts of my collection simply because there's so much to wade through. What would I really miss? The strange thing is, I think I would miss a great deal of it, in part because I think a music collection is no different from a book or painting collection. It's as strong as its whole, and each CD fills a small but unique niche. People don't read every book on their shelves every year, or even every ten years, but it's nice to know that certain books are there when you need them. Sometimes you don't need them and it's enough for you to know that they're a playing their part in this tiny bit of your life's overall work. And the best part of all -- reappreciating and reevaluating music after neglecting it for years is a fantastic feeling.

Konono No 1, Jamie Lidell @ Harbourfront Main Stage (part of Beats, Breaks, and Culture)

Despite all the flaws in his set (bad PA system or shitty gear or a combination of both, keyboards that wouldn't work unexpectedly, keeping his gear in tune, a sloppy mix in which the percussion swamped the sludgy bass tones that sounded as if they were being played through a decaying guitar amp, the tendency to make Jamiroquai comparisons whenever a white British male makes an attempt at R&B, the overwhelming feeling that Brinkmann as Soul Center did a much better job with this minimal funk thing with the exception of the vocals), Jamie Lidell is onto something.

My number one expectation from Konono No 1 live was that they sound exactly like their "Congotronics" record. Everything over and above that would be gravy. Oh, and there were some other questions I needed answered, like "what sort of drum do they use for that rattling snare-esque sound?" (answer: it's not a drum, it's a hi-hat fed through a really shitty mic) and "do they use any sort of bass other than those thumb pianos?" (answer: no). In this case, the gravy was a huge group of white Torontonians getting down to an hour and a half of raw minimalism. The last (and probably only) time I saw anything like that in this city was the Scion + Tikiman show in 2002. And since this was the last show I will see in Toronto for a while, it's nice to go away knowing that people CAN learn some new tricks around these parts.

Berlin Music Stores -- the update

I swore that I wouldn't buy vinyl on this trip and I managed to keep that promise to myself. The planned Hard Wax swingby never materialized for unrelated reasons, I blame the World Cup. "Blame".

I spent a lot of time in Kreuzberg during the six days I was there, which was enough time for Spacehall to join my pantheon of Berlin music stores. Oddly enough, the further you walk into the store, the greater the riches become. The front is devoted to an unexceptional selection of indie rock, but a few steps further back is one of the grandest collections of rare early-to-mid 90's techno and rave compilations I've ever seen. The electronic and ambient CD sections are solid, but they pale next to the stunning quality of vinyl in the store's back room. Besides a top notch selection of new records, they keep a dazzling array of prominent techno artists perpetually in stock -- where else can you be sure to see about 30-40 records by the likes of Surgeon or Richie Hawtin or Speedy J, covering their entire careers and containing several rare gems?

With its expanded space (and vinyl stock), Dense easily remains on top of the Berlin heap. Every second inside that store is another second of trying to not look too conspicuous while my money burns a hole in my pocket. I managed to escape with about 40% of my remaining cash and CDs by Sensational, Final, plus a few Berlin noise/improv artists. Onward to Neurotitan, which is even more dominated by comics and artwork than I remember. In concerted symmetry, its CD stocks felt even more dominated by obscure and local noise.

A few words about the Saturday night clubbing experience: after wandering through roads that were paved over with bottles (fallout from the Germany vs Sweden celebration) we were denied entry to a Perlon night at Watergate (f. Luciano, Zip, Sammy Dee) on account of the bouncer's dissatisfaction at the guy/girl ratio inside the club. Modeselektor, Plaid, and Jega at Club Maria made for a fine Plan B. Despite the mountains of recent hype, Modeselektor sounded like the 3rd or 4th coming of Heckmann at times. On the night's rankings, they trailed far behind Plaid's thick, tuneful anthems as well as Jega's snowstorm of dnb and Confield-era Autechre-ish beats. Jega's onslaught brought the intensity of black metal, and in that vein, he played for only 30-40 minutes, followed by a near-instant crash of energy on my part.