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January 28, 2005
Asleep at the Switch
If we may be allowed to appropriate the exclamation of every Irish cop in film history, Saints preserve us! We somehow fell disastrously behind on this week's stellar spate of record releases. If it hadn't been for our embarrassingly urgent need to get our paws on the new Bright Eyes records, we would've totally overlooked the following:
Bill Fay Group: Tomorrow Tomorrow and Tomorrow (scroll down a bit) - After the tragically dismal sales of his first two full-lengths, Bill Fay (who we love very much) made a quiet retreat from the business of making records, saying that "It wasn't me who left the music, it was the music business that left me." Far from being another attempt at stardom, this record is a true labor of love, representing the efforts of a small group of dedicated musicians getting together in service of the songs. That said, we wish it were better. The heavy use of early synthesizers serves to disconnect this record from the rest of Fay's small but strong discography. Worse yet, they make the whole affair sound hopelessly dated. Sadly, our first few spins of this disc revealed a closer aesthetic kinship to Christopher Cross than to, say, Nick Drake. Nonetheless, we want very badly to like it, so we'll keep giving it as many chances as it takes and report back.
Six Organs of Admittance: School of the Flower - Ben Chasny is back and... pretty much the same as ever. But make no mistake: that is a Very Good Thing. Personally, we haven't yet been able to get enough of Chasny's insidiously infectious blend of dark ragas, noise collages/freakouts, and Takoma/Revenant-inflected folk lamentations. Neither do we intend to anytime soon. Now if somebody could just tell us if that Tonic show with P.G. Six is still happening...
M83: Before the Dawn Heals Us - Once again, M83 provides a shining example of what French electro-rock should be. Instead of smarty-pants "Vee are French, and rock ees dead, no?" affectations (you know who we mean), these fresh young fellows have embraced their rock roots to create life out of silicon. They definitely have the chops to put paid to every mealy-mouthed assertion that there's nothing "authentic" to electronically-produced music. Between M83, Cyann & Ben, and the firebrand UMP leader, Nicolas Sarkozy, we think it's high time to fall in love with the French all over again.
Matt Sweeney & Bonnie 'Prince' Billy: Superwolf - Sweeney writes the tunes and Bonnie makes up the words. Um, it's good. It's not as great as such a triple-dog-dare collaboration could've been, but it's definitely successful enough to warrant a round two. These two have been working together for a long time now to considerable effect, so we should expect plenty more where this came from.
I'm Wide Awake, it's Morning is still very, very good. God help us, we even like the stupid intro now. If this were Cuckoo's Nest we'd think it was about time for the Chief to do a pillow job on us.
Posted by matt at January 28, 2005 10:31 AM
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