Things I Like: Funky Bass Loops

Add funked-out bass lines to that list. In this case, a line from outer space that loops atop cool waves of synthesizers. "Feel It All Around" by Washed Out is one of the few cases where a song title and band name perfectly describe its own sound. (Illustration by Richard Perez)

Washed Out - "Feel It All Around"

Calvin and Hobbes, Luke Top, and capitalist rock

Recently, I've been rereading my grandfather's Calvin and Hobbes winter collection, It's A Magical World, and obsessing over the brilliance of the characters, dialogue, and story lines. It's easily one of the best—if not the best—cartoons of all time. The philosophy and pro-environment undertones in each panel seem so far ahead of its time, even if it was only a decade before Al Gore hit the scene. I was curious to see if Bill Watterson, the cartoon's creator and now recluse, ever tackled popular music in his panels. I came up with this brilliant ramble:

Calvin: The problem with rock and roll is that the generation that created it is now the establishment. Rock pretends it's still rebellious with its video posturing, but who believes it? The stars are all either 45-year-old zillionaires or they endorse soft drinks! The 'revolution' is a capitalist industry! Give me a break! Fortunately, I've found some protest music for today's youth. This stuff really offends Mom and Dad!
Hobbes: Easy-listening Muzak?!
Calvin: I play it real quiet, too.

...and now those 45-year-old zillionaires are pushing 70. Here's a song in honor of Calvin and his wonderful imaginary friends.

Luke Top - "Friends" (from Friends)

Mason Jennings is falling out of windows

Minnesota troubadour Mason Jennings has a new record slated for release September 15th, titled Blood of Man. Director Barry Kimm recently visited Jennings in his studio to discuss the record and returned with a short film about the musician's creative process. The video features several songs from Blood of Man, including a few dark electric turns and the title-track—a beautifully plucked acoustic number the musician describes, amongst other metaphors, as "looking out of an airplane, watching a dog fight... that time when you fall out of a window before you hit the ground."

Mason Jennings - "The Field" (from Blood of Man)

Elvis Perkins In Deerland to release Doomsday EP

Following their critically acclaimed debut, Elvis Perkins In Deerland will release the Doomsday EP. Due out October 20 via XL Recordings, the EP will feature two versions of the previously released track as well as four additional songs recorded this past June in Pawtucket, RI. The release is best described in Mr. Perkins' own words:

...You have a song that arrived like the rest of us by boat, a selection from the Sacred Harp, a rock ‘n roll heralding the eternal advent of rock ‘n roll, an ode to the soul of the undead and, finally (and firstly), two takes on a single song called Doomsday, one which comes from our March release and the other which leans in the direction of its original conception as something of a gospel number . And here they all are, risen from their cribs and graves, under one moonlight while their folks and undertakers look the other way. - Elvis Perkins

Track listing:

1. Doomsday
2. Gypsy Davy (Traditional)
3. Stay Zombie Stay
4. Stop Drop Rock and Roll
5. Weeping Mary (J.P. Reese)
6. Slow Doomsday

Elvis Perkins In Deerland - "Doomsday" (from Elvis Perkins In Deerland)

Nazis, David Bowie and the Femme Fatale

In each one of Quentin Tarantino's last three films (Kill Bill, Death Proof, and Inglorious Basterds) he's subverted weak female archetypes with strong willed characters that are often as devastatingly beautiful as they are murderous. Inglorious Basterds features the director's most compelling female character to date. Actress Mélanie Laurent plays Shosanna Dreyfus, a French Jew who watches her entire family die at the hands of Nazis and later exacts revenge as a camera-wielding cinema owner. In one of the film's best sequences, Laurent dresses in a mock-Rambo style where makeup serves as the femme fatale's war paint. The images of Laurent in her blood-red dress paired with David Bowie singing "Putting out the fire with gasoline" over roaring guitars is as comical as it is chillingly good—pure cinematic magic.

David Bowie - "Cat People (Putting Out The Fire)" (from Inglorious Basterds)

Adam Arcuragi to release I Am Become Joy

Ever since I saw this flea market performance of Adam Arcuragi and company singing "The Bottom Of The River" I've been dying to get my hands on a professionally recorded version of the track. September 8th I'll finally get that chance when the folk songwriter releases his second full-length, I Am Become Joy. The first leaked track, "She Comes To Me," is nearly as joyous and epic and should hold me over for the time being.

Adam Arcuragi - "She Comes To Me" (from I Am Become Joy)

Blitzen Trapper release Black River Killer EP

Portland, Oregon's Blitzen Trapper released a seven song EP yesterday featuring the band's previously released murder ballad "Black River Killer" and six tracks previously only available on CD-Rs sold on tour. The material may be recycled for some, but for others it's a chance to sit down with some of the band's most accessible songs. "Big Black Bird" and "Silver Moon"—with their booming drums and screeching guitar and harmonica riffs—burst out of their folk/rock seams like well-worn classics. And "Black River Killer," which sets the EP's tone, runs on a hip-hop sized beat and a synthesizer melody that sounds like it came straight from Snoop Dog's living room.

Blitzen Trapper - "Big Black Bird" (from Black River Killer)

New track from Islands: "Vapours"

Islands, the project of former Unicorns member Nick Diamonds, has a new LP produced by Diamonds and Chris Coady (Yeah Yeah Yeahs, TV On The Radio) due out September 22nd. The title track from Vapours is a bouncy and uplifting ditty featuring a funked-out bass riff and brass section.

Islands - "Vapours" (from Vapours)

Cocaine Blues: A Brief History

I'm currently reading journalist Joe Klein's Woody Guthrie biography, an unbelievably in-depth and historically detailed account of the songwriter's life. While taking a break from the book, I looked up a few of Woody's songs and found "Bad Lee Brown (Cocaine Blues)" which I immediately realized was also one of my favorite Johnny Cash songs—"Cocaine Blues"—famously performed live at Folsom Prison in 1968. The song's origins, however, date further back than Guthrie. It was originally written by T. J. "Red" Arnall around 1947 as a reworking of the traditional Western song "Little Sadie." I couldn't find Arnall's version, but Bob Dylan covered it in his 1970 album Self Portrait.

Bob Dylan - "Little Sadie" (from Self Portrait)

Woody Guthrie - "Bad Lee Brown (Cocaine Blues)" (from The Asch Recordings, Vol. 4)

Johnny Cash - "Cocaine Blues" (from At Folsom Prison)

There are several other popularized versions of "Cocaine Blues," including an eight-bar blues song attributed to Reverend Gary Davis. Both Keith Richards and Townes Van Zandt mention it as one of the first songs that they learned how to fingerpick.

Townes Van Zandt- "Cocaine Blues" (from Live at the Old Quarter, Houston, Texas)

Keith Richards - "Cocaine Blues"

Bob Dylan - "Cocaine Blues (live 1997)" (from Tell Tale Signs)

Lastly, here is a version of "Tell It To Me," also sometimes referred to as "Cocaine Blues."

Old Crow Medicine Show - "Tell It To Me" (from O.C.M.S.)

Trailer: The Fantastic Mr. Fox

I was underwhelmed by Wes Anderson's last feature length The Darjeeling Limited, mostly because of the soundtrack. The movie's music selection was dominated by the Kinks' 1970 satirical look at the record industry, Lola Versus Powerman And The Moneygoround, Part One—one of my all-time favorite records. But topically, the songs had little if anything to do with Anderson's film. Sure, "This Time Tomorrow" and "Strangers" sounded beautiful on the big screen, but lyrically, they are part of a bigger picture that did not belong nor fit with Anderson. To me, their inclusion felt entirely incongruent.

But Anderson is still brilliant. Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums and especially The Life Aquatic—with its Portuguese translations of David Bowie songs—contain some of the best pop music and film pairings ever produced. After watching the director's newest trailer for The Fantastic Mr. Fox, it seems Anderson is back at the helm of his creative and tastefully imagined world I and countless others have come to love. The Bobby Fuller Four and the great Clarence Carter in one trailer? It's hard not to bounce along. Jarvis Cocker, formerly of Pulp, will also play an original song during the film as the mandolin strumming Petey.

Clarence Carter - "Looking For A Fox" (from This Is Clarence Carter)
The Bobby Fuller Four - "Let Her Dance" (from I Fought The Law)

Interview: Dennis Coyne of Stardeath and White Dwarfs

Before Oklahoma City quartet Stardeath and White Dwarfs took the stage at Edgefield in Troutdale, Or., I got the chance to sit down with frontman Dennis Coyne, the nephew of the Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne. The band recently released their full-length debut, The Birth, via Warner Bros. and are currently touring the States and Europe opening for Built To Spill and the Lips. See pictures from the show here.

Let's start from the beginning. How did you first get into music. Do you remember the first song that made you want to play?
Well, I remember the first song that I learned how to play. It was "The Long and Winding Road" on the keyboard. But the first song that got me loving music was probably also something by the Beatles. My dad was a huge Beatles fanatic. He had two giant PA speakers from the 70s I guess he had bought or stole off some train and he used to turn them inwards like two gigantic headphones. He'd sit me in the middle of them, crank it up and make me listen to the Beatles and Led Zeppelin all day. I think that’s got to be what did it.

Your first instrument?
I think it was keyboard first and then guitar quickly after. Once I started trying to play music I played whatever I could find.

First concert?
First concert was the Flaming Lips when I was about 9 months old. I don’t remember much of it because I was really high. [laughs] I think the first non-Flaming Lips concert was the Eurhythmics in like 1983. I was a year and a half old.

Were you in bands growing up?
No, this is my first band and I hope this is the only band I’m ever in.

How did Stardeath and White Dwarfs first come about? Did you always know you wanted to form a band?
I used to be a part of the Lips' road crew. Since I was about 18 years old. Around that time I was working on Christmas on Mars with Wayne and I started to write some music. I think through having my own songs and watching them play and working with them, it was just sort of this natural thing to start to want to do that myself. It was just kind of an evolvement that made me want to start forming a band.

Was the rest of the band on the road crew as well?

The way that worked was almost the opposite. We formed our band and then Wayne and the guys decided to hire us as their road crew. He’d just grab us so that way we’re out together and learning how to do things. Then when we’re home, we don’t have to split up to work jobs because we’re making money. Instead, we have time to practice and work on music.

I have to ask where the name cromes from?
I know, everybody does. And I wish I had a better answer. Our name probably is like how every band comes up with their name. Some friends of ours were playing a record release show and they asked us to play with them. And we hadn’t even thought about playing a show, but we said “yeah, we’ll play.” We had songs recorded, but we didn’t have a name and they started calling us everyday because they were making flyers and were like, “dude, you’ve got to have a name for these flyers.” Me and Casey, our bass player, got together one night and I’m sure we probably had a half ounce of pot, a bunch of booze, and every fucking sci-fi book you could want and had a night of pure debauchery. When we woke up in the morning—I don’t know how it got there—but there was a piece of paper that had four or five names on it and the wickedest one was the one that we used. We don’t know where it came from—some existential miracle.

On The Birth you guys sound like you have a really fully formed sound and style. I understand you made it over the course of four years. How do you maintain that type of consistency?
It wasn’t really worked on solid for four years. We made our own EP first. And I think immediately after we made it up and printed it—nobody was putting it out or anything—we started to record some new songs. You know, you stop working when you get busy and play shows and during Lips tours that all breaks it up. I think we had about half a record ready when we started to talk to Warner Bros. And then it really started to come together over the last year. The bulk of the stuff got rerecorded and remixed. So it wasn’t a constant barrage of working on something; it was really bits and pieces at a time and the last year and half it really came together.

And you worked with producer Trent Bell?
We did. We recored with Trent Bell, the guy from the Chainsaw Kittens. I’ve known him since he was hanging around the Lips guys when he was 16 years old. So he’s like a brother to me and a close friend to all of us. He’s really easy to work with and a lot of fun.

I wasn’t able to find the EP, but I was wondering how much the band's sound has evolved since then?
I think if you listen to the EP you’d probably say it’s the same band with worse microphones. The EP was recoreded in someone’s garage. Our lineup has also changed since then. Only me and the bass player, Casey, are left from the guys that were in that. I don’t think it's changed drastically. We’re just more dynamic now.

I wanted to ask about the songwriting process. Two of my favorite songs off The Birth are “Keep Score” and “Smoking Pot Makes Me Not Want To Kill Myself.” They’re really sparse acoustic songs and I was wondering if a lot of your songs start out like that and then you start collaborating?
It goes back and forth between me and our bass player, Casey. Both these songs are good examples because a lot of times he’ll make a quick little 30 second piece of music and give it to me and I’ll start to compose something over it and put a melody on it. Sometimes he gives me a piece that’s already completely finished. “I Can’t Get Away,” he gave me that piece of music, and that was almost the way it is now. I just put a melody on and put some words into it. But “Keep Score” I think he gave to me as a 30 second drum loop with a bunch of instruments over it and I slowly picked through it and put a bridge in. On the other end, “Smoking Pot Makes Me Not Want To Kill Myself,” I had the whole song done and came in there with the other guys and they put stuff on top of it.

Wayne directed your “New Heat” video and helped contribute to the album’s artwork. What kind of energy does he bring to the band?
Our graphic guy, who does the Lips artwork, also did most of ours, but Wayne is always around and I think just his spirit and enthusiasm for everything risky and taking chances is what helps drive us to take chances and be bold and fearless.

How did the cover of Madonna’s “Borderline” come about?
That one was just kind of a chance. We were on tour with the Flaming Lips at the time. We always play a cover song because no one knows our songs and we like to play songs people know. We had been messing around with the idea of playing this different version of “Borderline.” We all love Madonna, especially that old shit. We had been working and talking about doing the cover live. Around that time the Lips were slated to do a song for Warner Bros. 50th anniversary. We were just signing at the time. They were supposed to do Prince’s “Purple Rain,” but something happened and Prince said they couldn’t do it. So at the same time we were talking about doing “Borderline,” Wayne just suggested we do it together because it would help us get on this record and give us a chance to let people know who we are. They were in their studio and we were in ours and we sent it back and forth for a day and ended up coming up witht that version.

Is there ever a desire to separate yourself from the Lips?
I think we are separate in many ways. We don’t consciously make a decision to go one way. I think with our influences the Flaming Lips our involved, but maybe no more than the Beatles, Led Zeppelin or Black Sabbath. I would be a fool to say they weren’t an influence because I’m around them all the time, I’ve grown up around them. But at the same time, I think we’re around each other so much that we’re all influenced by the same things. And I love the Lips. We’re probably always going to sound a little like them, but we don’t make a conscious effort to sound one way or the other.

Every musician starts out as a fan, so I was wondering if there was a moment making this record or touring sometime when it hit you that you could really make a career out of this and be successful?
[laughs] I think we’ve yet to find whether we’re going to make a career out of this. When we finished our first EP and I played it for the Lips guys. The fact that they liked it so much made me think, “I trust what these guys think. Maybe we’ve got a shot to be in a real band, go out on tour and make records.”

My last question is something I ask at the end of every interview. If your band, Stardeath and White Dwarfs, were an animal, what would it be?
We would be… [contemplates for a minute]… I want to say black panther but that’s a little controversial. I think a black panther cause were going to be radical and change the face of music.

Stardeath & White Dwarfs - "Toast & Marmalade For Tea" (from Toast & Marmalade For Tea)

Stardeath and White Dwarfs + Flaming Lips @ Edgefield

The Flaming Lips mafia took over Troutdale, Or. on Thursday night as a host of orange clad roadies set the stage at Edgefield for an epic confetti- and smoke-filled extravaganza starring the Lips and Built To Spill. While giant balloons and set pieces transfixed the audience later in the night, it was the night's openers Stardeath and White Dwarfs that stole the show's first half. SDWD are a psychedelic and riff-heavy Oklahoma City quartet led by singer and multi-instrumentalist Dennis Coyne. Dressed in a skin-tight purple jumpsuit, Coyne and his bandmates tore through their set with ferocious enthusiasm, head-jarring guitar play (especially by bassist Casey Joseph) and plenty of green smoke courtesy of Coyne's own specially rigged axe.

Recently signed to Warner Bros. Records, SDWD share the experimental tendencies of their friends the Lips—Dennis is also the nephew of the Lips' Wayne Coyne—but bask in a heavier, darker and, at times, more playful light. Songs like "I Can't Get Away" and "New Heat" shoot out melodies from seemingly cannon-sized synthesizers while bass and guitar riffs bounce into a dizzyingly catchy funk. There are quiet moments on the band's debut The Birth, but on stage it was all a hurricane of sweaty movement and pounding rhythm that had the newly acquainted audience quickly on their feet.

Before the show, I caught up with Dennis Coyne. Read the interview here.

Stardeath & White Dwarfs w/The Flaming Lips - "Borderline" (Madonna cover)

Deer Tick - "These Old Shoes"

I recently wrote about Deer Tick's wonderful Born On Flag Day. It's a record that's hard to put down: classic and full of as much soul as dirt and grime. The band's previous record, War Elephant, ain't bad either. I've been especially prone to repeated listening of "These Old Shoes," a sort of old time folky love song with the evolving chorus: "I will take this old train to get to you... I will take these old shoes to get to you." Portlanders can catch the band when they play free shows September 16th and 17th.

Deer Tick - "These Old Shoes" (from War Elephant)

Deer Tick - "These Old Shoes" (live acoustic from Laundromatinee and MOKB radio)

Review: Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros - Up From Below

The song "40 Day Dream" is about a dream so good that narrator Alex Ebert refuses to wake up—"the magical mystery kind," he sings. Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros—a Los Angeles-based group comprised of Ebert and nine other musicians—make music along those same lines: it's so infectious you won't be able to turn it off. Seeped in soulful Stax-style melodies and orchestra-caliber percussion, the group's debut Up From Below is a collection of hip-swinging and psychedelic-tinged folk tunes epic in size and classic in quality: a modern day masterpiece that beckons to be heard over and over until you're dizzy with delight.

Up From Below opens with an uplifting assault of soaring strings and choruses in "40 Day Dream" and "Janglin" and proceeds to unfold into an eclectic tapestry of sun-drenched ballads, Laurel Canyon-inspired jams and one Spanish march. "Carries On," with Ebert singing in a more bruised and sombre tone, builds slowly from the sparse pairing of a bass line and snare drum into a Zombies-esque polyphony of voices that seemingly lift the song into a different era.

"Home," a duet with Ebert and girlfriend/band member Jade Castrinos, might be the album's centerpiece: a song based around a catchy and oft-whistled melody that reappears in the repeated phrase: "Home, let me come home/Home is wherever I'm with you." Lyrically it's simple and straightforward, but here, that's a formula for success: a sincere and sweet—but never over the top—celebration of love.

The bearded and lanky Ebert, formerly of dance-rock group Ima Robot, recorded Up From Below with his cast of band mates over the course of a year and a half on an analog 24-track tape machine dated from 1979. The record, like the equipment used to produce it, has a timeless quality that recalls everyone from the Beatles to the Mamas and Papas and Eddie Floyd. In our current over-saturated musical climate, this is that rare feat: one not worth missing.

Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros - "40 Day Dream" (from Up From Below)

Bon Iver + Collections of Colonies of Bees = Volcano Choir

After the wildly successful and brilliant Bon Iver debut For Emma, Forever Ago, the doors were open for the multi-talented and unworldly-voiced Justin Vernon to explore whatever musical path he saw fit. Vernon chose to make a record with his favorite band and fellow Wisconsinites—the experimentally inclined Collections of Colonies of Bees. Together, they are the Volcano Choir.

The group's debut, Unmap, is due out September 22nd on Jagjaguwar. And "Island, IS" is the first song to emerge from the project: a pulsing gathering of synthesizer swirls and looped guitar riffs that lift, sway, and dive, churning a seemingly unreal but convincingly intimate landscape for Vernon to exhale his soulful instrument. In contrast to Bon Iver, Vernon's singing here is relatively similar; but instrumentally, it's as far out as if his acoustic guitar had been replaced with a Medusa-like collective of interweaving textures—simultaneously bizarre and beautiful.

Volcano Choir - "Island, IS" (from Unmap)

New music from the Flaming Lips

The Flaming Lips have been one of my favorite bands since I first heard the epic Soft Bulletin and continuing into the excellent Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots. They're easily one of the most exciting, bizarre and fun bands performing and making records today. The Lips' newest LP, Embryonic, is due out October 13th via Warner Bros. Judging by the album artwork and the first leaked track—the pounding ambient pop tune "Silver Trembling Hands"—it will be a smartly produced but completely whacked out piece of work. To get a sense of the band's musical evolution, take a listen to the 1995 track "Bad Days" from Clouds Taste Metallic.

The Flaming Lips - "Silver Trembling Hands" (from Embryonic)

The Flaming Lips - "Bad Days" (from Clouds Taste Metallic)

Introducing: Corte Real

I recently received an email from Corte Real, a band hailing from Versailles that cites its influences as the Arcade Fire, Kinks, Pogues and The Walkmen. But after a few listens from two of the group's offerings—"Ligne 15" and "Navigator"—one influence outweighs the rest: Bob Dylan. The tracks specifically recall "Queen Jane Approximately" and "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" from Highway 61 Revisited—ballads predominately based around beautifully messy organ and piano with Dylan using his unique vocal cadence and emphasis. Corte Real, named after the Portuguese explorer Gaspar Corte-Real (thanks Wikipedia), use loose and occasionally wandering arrangements that give particular weight to the song's lyrics and style of delivery—one that is undeniably Dylan-esque. The great feat here is that, despite the endless waves of Dylan imitators, these songs sound fresh and are quite beautifully produced.

Corte Real - "Ligne 15"

Corte Real - "Navigator"

RIP Les Paul

Electric guitar innovator and extraordinaire Les Paul died today at the age of 94 of complications from pneumonia. According to the Associated Press, his family and friends were by his side.

Born Lester William Polfuss, Paul helped pioneer the solid-body electric guitar—which more or less gave birth to rock and roll—as well as recording innovations including multitrack recording, overdubbing, and delay.

Paul, an accomplished jazz guitarist, once said about playing music: "It's not technique. It's what you have to say."

Sam Cooke with Eric Clapton and Les Paul - "Somebody Ease My Troublin' Mind" (from Les Paul & Friends)

Dead Man's Bones - "My Body's A Zombie For You"

Dead Man's Bones—a band comprised of actors Ryan Gosling (Lars And The Real Girl, The Notebook) and Zach Shields with appearances by the Silverlake Conservatory Children’s Choir—will release their debut album on Anti Records October 6th. The record's first single, "My Body's a Zombie For You," is an uplifting doo-wop and gospel-inspired tune that combines the far-reaching choruses and emotional punch of the Arcade Fire with the dark and comical subject of the undead—used in a metaphor here that's as bizarre as it is delightfully original.

Dead Man's Bones - "My Body's a Zombie For You"

The Nice Boys - "Johnny Guitar"

Terry Six is the sole surviving member of Portland, Oregon power-pop group the Exploding Hearts—whose brief career came to an end when three of the band's members died in a car wreck. Six, the Hearts' guitarist, never gave up making music. And he hasn't let go of that sweet power-pop sound either. In 2006, The Nice Boys—with Six fronting the group—released their self-titled debut. The album's best track, "Johnny Guitar," is as influenced by the Hearts' catalogue as it by Cheap Trick's.

The Nice Boys - "Johnny Guitar" (from The Nice Boys)

More Exploding Hearts coverage.

Trailer: Where The Wild Things Are

The second trailer for Spike Jonze's adaptation of the classic Maurice Sendak book Where The Wild Things Are looks even more breathtaking than the first. With music courtesy of the Arcade Fire and Jonze at the helm—a director whose produced some of the finest films and music videos of the past decade (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, "Weapon of Choice")—I simply cannot wait. And how good does James Gandolfini sound as the lead monster, Carol? The film hits theatres October 16th.

Aracade Fire - "Wake Up" (from Funeral)

Review: YACHT - See Mystery Lights

On the fourth track from YACHT’s DFA label debut, Jona Bechtolt and Claire Evans sing in unison, “In these conservative times / We’re making conservative art/ And it’s boring, boring, boring, boring.” The lyrics, delivered over muted guitars and a choir of rolling tom-tom drums, repeat like a disaffected punk anthem before Bechtolt loosens the reigns and transforms it into a disconnected tangent of noise and rhythm under the repeated mantra, “You can live anywhere you want.”

Boring? I think not. With the excellent and bizarre See Mystery Lights, YACHT have produced an album immune to categorization; a computer-generated opus of beeps, synthetic bass lines, manipulated vocals and dissonant crevices and arcs that somehow meld into a wholly organic work. Lyrically tackling topics like religion and the occult, the record is an oft-humorous but intellectually invested endeavor as equally far out as it is accessible and hook-filled.

Asking on the opening tropicalia-infused “Ring The Bell,” “Will we go to heaven or will we go to hell? / It’s my understanding that neither or real" and continuing into to the Talking Heads- and Devo-esque funk of "Afterlife," the two songwriters probe and speculate on heavy issues with danceable beats, science-fiction worthy sound effects, and whip-smart lyrics:

It's not a place you go, it’s a place that comes to you / And it's not about who you know or who is in your heart / It may come as a surprise, but you are not alone / All that you have is not what you own.

See Mystery Lights is unique as a largely electronic dance album, as it not only sufficiently delivers its booty-shaking promise but also stimulates the listener into thought. While every song is not a theological exercise ("Summer Song," "We Have All We Ever Wanted"), it's refreshing to encounter a subject matter in pop music that hasn't become absurdly over-saturated (love, perhaps?).

On "Afterlife," Evans, who spends her spare time writing a science journal, muses "death is not the end of this song." And she's right. While music is the rare art form that exists in time and subsequently has a beginning, middle and end, her record with Bechtolt is one that will certainly live on after its inital death—with repeated plays.

YACHT - "The Afterlife" (from See Mystery Lights)

Related: Video for YACHT's "Psychic City (Voodoo City)"

Rating System

I’ve added a rating system to my record reviews. Not one with numbers, stars, percentages, or any other strange qualifications, but rather what I would show up to the door with if I were taking the band out on a second date.

Past reviews (updated with ratings):

Portugal. The Man - Majestic Majesty

Slow Club - Yeah So

YACHT - See Mystery Lights

Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeroes - Up From Below

RIP John Hughes

Writer/director John Hughes passed away today at the age of 59 after suffering from a heart attack. The wildly successful Hughes was responsible for an array of 1980s comedies (Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Planes, Trains & Automobiles, Pretty In Pink, Weird Science, The Breakfast Club) and a couple of excellent 1990s family films (Beethoven, Home Alone). His films also propelled a few memorable songs into the limelight.

OMD - "If You Leave" (from Pretty In Pink OST)

Yello - "Oh Yeah" (from Ferris Bueller's Day Off OST)

Digging For Covers: Harry Nilsson sings Jimmy Cliff

In 1973, John Lennon embarked on his "lost weekend"—an 18-month-long period of separation from Yoko Ono. During the oft-drunken and drug-fueled "weekend," Lennon became involved with his assistant May Fung Yee Pang at the request of Ono. One of Pang's musical contributions was renting a beach house in Santa Monica for Ringo Starr, Keith Moon, Harry Nilsson and Lennon so that the musicians could live under the same roof together and get to the studio on time—no matter how intoxicated they were.

The project was Nilsson's Pussy Cats. Produced by Lennon and released in 1974, Pussy Cats was a messy and raw collection of original songs and covers—including Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues" and the children's sing-along "Loop De Loop"—that over time has become a cult classic (it was covered in its entirety by The Walkmen in 2006).

Perhaps the album's most affective track is the cover of Jimmy Cliff's somber "Many Rivers To Cross." Nilsson, who ruptured a vocal cord during the album's production, sings with an especially broken and rough tone that transforms the song from its ocean view in Dover, Jamaica to the sticky floors of a lonely bar.

Once in an interview, Lennon poetically revealed his true feelings about the period (without Yoko around) to journalist Larry Kane:

You know Larry, I may have been the happiest I've ever been... I loved this woman, I made some beautiful music and I got so fucked up with booze and shit and whatever.

Harry Nilsson - "Many Rivers To Cross" (from Pussy Cats)

Digging For Covers: Talking Heads meet American Psycho

I can't vouch for this electro-pop cover of the classic Talking Heads anthem "This Must Be The Place," but I can say that actor Miles Fisher's video—a medley of recreated scenes from the film American Psycho—is absolutely hilarious. I went to high school with Fisher in Washington, DC and his take on Christian Bale's performance as the sociopath Patrick Bateman was spot on even back then. If you haven't watched the film or read Bret Easton Ellis's source material, I highly recommend them both—twisted and uproarious parodies of 1980s materialism. Fisher nails Bateman's mannerisms and speech here, especially during the monologue at the video's halfway mark.

Miles Fisher - "This Must Be The Place" (download the entire EP for free at Amie Street)

Review: Slow Club - Yeah So

Sheffield, England's Slow Club may be a duo, but their full-length debut Yeah So suggests otherwise with its multifaceted and undeniably affecting collection of rockabilly soul, folksy ballads, and soaring melodies that simultaneously break through the clouds and wrench back down into your gut. At times contemplative ("I Was Unconscious, It Was A Dream", "There Is No Way To Say I'm Leaving You") and others playful ("Because We're Dead") and celebratory ("It Doesn't Have To Be Beautiful"), the album is a riff on the varying manifestations of love—for the duo, an endlessly fruitful subject matter.

Over the course of the record's 12 tracks, singer/guitarist Charles Watson and singer/percussionist Rebecca Taylor deliver a pitch-perfect combination of finger-picked, strummed, and snare beaten rhythms; heartfelt and organically weaved male-female harmonies; and wordy musings on friendship, bruised hearts, and nostalgic yearning that recall the brighter moments of The Magic Numbers self-titled debut.

It's unclear whether or not the duo's songs are self-referential or a series of separate narratives, but either way the Slow Club (who call themselves "a pair of apples") display an intimate and learned musical interrelation that is uniquely dynamic and their own. As the bio suggests on their Moshi Moshi Records page, the Slow Club is really a one-man band simply made of two people.

Those two brains working as one achieve their most colorful successes on the album opener "When I Go," where the shared narrative relays two friends contemplating getting married to each other if they're both still single by a certain age; the electric up-tempo "Giving Up One Love," which contrasts its melancholy topic with the album's brightest and sunniest chorus; and the beaming single "It Doesn't Have To Be Beautiful"—an anthemic celebration of love, friendship and all things in-between:

In the electrical storm you were running wild / You had a death wish you were a child / I came to bare in the lighting bolt / If you came back as the deep sea, I would come back as the salt.

Rating: A peck on the cheek, a bucket of clams, and a field of daisies.

Slow Club - "Giving Up On Love" (from Yeah So)

Moshi Moshi's blissful pop heads on the road

Moshi Moshi Records, founded in 1998, is celebrating its 10th anniversary on a bit of delay with an August tour featuring three of its current acts: Norway's Casiokids and the UK's The Wave Pictures and Slow Club. Each act is excellent in its own distinct way—from the playful electro-pop of the Casiokids to the shimmering melodies of folk-pop duo Slow Club and lyrical prowess of The Wave Pictures—and each are fully worth checking out.

Tour dates:
Aug 04 Schubas Tavern Chicago, IL *
Aug 05 El Mocambo Toronto, ONT *#$
Aug 06 La Sala Rossa Montreal, QC *#$
Aug 07 South Street Seaport New York, NY *#$
Aug 08 Spaceland Los Angeles, CA *#$
Aug 10 Bottom of the Hill San Francisco, CA *#$
Aug 11 R Bar San Francisco, CA #$
Aug 11 Doug Fir Lounge Portland, OR *
Aug 12 Media Club Vancouver, BC *
Aug 13 Crocodile Café Seattle, WA *

* = Casiokids
# = Slow Club
$ = The Wave Pictures

Casiokids - "Finn Bikkjen!" (from Finn Bikkjen!)
The Wave Pictures - "If You Leave It Alone" (from If You Leave It Alone)

Video: YACHT - "Psychic City (Voodoo City)"

I've always enjoyed Jona Bechtolt's beat-heavy electro-pop music, whether with his former side-project The Blow or as YACHT. YACHT—now a duo with the addition of vocalist Claire Evans in 2008—released its newest LP See Mystery Lights on July 28th and its first video for the record today. "Psychic City (Voodoo City)", the album's first single, is visualized as a hilarious religious parody with the duo manifesting the forces of light and dark in full monochromatic suits and bearing wands and a nun-chuck slinging crucifix. It doesn't get much weirder, or better.

YACHT - "Psychic City (Voodoo City)" (from See Mystery Lights)