Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Review - Where Astronauts Go to Hide: Amongst Friends


Rating: 9.2

Albeit short, this album tickled each and every indie bone in my body.

Amongst Friends opens with deliciously clear vocals, understated guitar and an excellent use of violin. Each track is littered with vivid imagery and personal references. You honestly feel like you're learning about the vocalist, Josh Pederson, with each phrase he sings. The fourth track "great lakes and greater lays" makes reference to places and things so creatively and endearingly that I genuinely felt like I knew the area being described.

This album is friendly and accessible. Even now I find myself craving Pederson's voice. The lyrics and vocals are warm and welcoming. The accompanying instruments are understated but grasp at your attention.

With this freshman release, Where Astronauts Go to Hide have created for themselves a solid, achingly genuine platform from which to etch their place in the musical sphere.

--Casper Wood

[mp3] Where Astronauts Go to Hide - "The House That Kevin Garnett Rebuilt"



Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Review - Julian Casablancas: Phrazes For the Young

Rating: 6.3

Julian Casablancas' Phrazes For the Young fits the underwhelming solo record formula to a T - some small measure of the essence and charisma of the artiste's former group, a few bewildering design decisions caused by too few cooks in the kitchen and a frustrating lack of drive and unity. Phrazes For the Young will undoubtedly please its demographic, though it's essentially a throwaway record with little staying power, certainly not the event its trippy marketing has tried to make it into.

Anybody who's checked out the lead single "11th Dimension" has already heard the best the album has to offer (sorry), and should know pretty much exactly what to expect: a synthed-up and overproduced, melodically watered-down and unapologetically busy The Strokes record.

But even these well-informed consumers wouldn't be able to anticipate a few of the bewildering design choices in this record,
including a misguided eleven-minute detour into traditional blues structures for the fourth and fifth tracks, the culmination of which is a cringingly inappropriate banjo solo near the midpoint of "Ludlow St." This track's percussion at times also sounds like a primer for misguided Pro Tools use, with stumbling, jarring claps and painfully tinny snare that clearly belong elsewhere. A singer like Casablancas, who relies on overdubs for his signature vocal style and who really has no idea just what to do with his "r"s, has no business at all singing blues.

In fact, the whole album seems painfully overmixed. Nearly every track features two guitars, bass, standard drums, even more percussion added in production, synthesizers, and extra instruments (trumpets, cowbell, handclaps) added in for mere measures at a time with really no appropriate role to fill. Unlike more seasoned musicians who can use layering and a myriad of instruments to thrilling effect, Mr. Casablancas and his producers really seem to be over their heads here. When read as a concept album Phrazes For the Young almost seems to be a treatise on musicians' fear of isolation.

With these particularly snarky asides now out of the way I should clarify that Phrazes isn't really bad per se, just uninventive, mostly colorless and ultimately unnecessary. Even in the bluesy tracks the vocals sometimes hit some almost Lennonesque wails, and most of the album (particularly the first stretch) is "good" and wholly listenable. But the great strength of The Strokes were their tightness and cohesion, something that simply can't be replicated with a playground full of sounds and only muddled, half-baked ideas of what to do with them. Sorry, but outside of his element Casablancas is exactly what his detractors have always claimed him to be - a vanilla vocalist without a clear sense of direction.

---Dustin Steinacker

[mp3] Julian Casablancas - "River of Brakelights"

Monday, November 2, 2009

Review - Neon Indian: Psychic Chasms

Rating: 8.5


Making relevant electronic music can be a difficult task. While it's nearly impossible to escape the genre's popular perception of accessible, simple rhythms and repetition, give your listeners too many party anthems and the strength of your singles starts to wear a little thin (sorry, Justice). Indie musicians, on the other hand, have the luxury of an audience raised on sonic texture and a little weirdness. Four Tet made a career out of sidestepping standard electronica for more tuneful, ambient fare, and The Knife's darker departures were accepted by critics and listeners alike despite (maybe even because of) their odd mixing choices and hyperparanoia.

Neon Indian pick a heavier, hazy sound for their debut, a heavily funk and psychedelia-oriented affair incorporating nauseated synths and guitar which distort perfectly, lackadaisical vocals and sudden, comfortable shifts in melody to joyful effect. The first time you hear some of these tracks they may floor you, though successive listens continue to yield addictive treasure and inescapable head-bobbing, even in nearly bobbed-out heads such as mine.

The funk elements are there in droves - percussive, defining bass lines drive every track - though the colder, more ethereal instrumentation makes this a perfect seasonal release for the upcoming cold. This is a giddy, disciplined and taut record which deserves to be played loud and often, rigorously-produced and involving.

What's doubly refreshing for a record such as this one is how blasted consistent it is - the group keeps track times low, occasionally trying out neat experiments in miniature songs and not subjecting listeners to filler. Songs traverse one dopamine-releasing segment after another, such as the brilliant "Mind, Drips," whose chorus hinges on a very subtle vocal background melody which fulfills its role perfectly. This is music which almost seems as if it couldn't have been created until it was already fully formed; as crucial and interdependent as each element is, changing something would seemingly require a retool of the entire track, yet the album never seems frail or collapses under its own weight.

The title track is perhaps the most striking sonic moment on the album - a very straightforward, hard-hitting beat juxtaposed with floaty vocals and almost unsure synth blasts. The track is pure sex and easily the centerpiece of the album. Psychic Chasms is a half-hour of aural bliss which never overstays its welcome or leaves you feeling sick to your stomach.

---Dustin Steinacker

[mp3] Neon Indian - "Psychic Chasms"