Speak Through The White Noise

Speak Thorough The White Noise, the second album from one man band, Ilan Rubin emerged several months ago but I thought now was prime time time to do a short review. The album is nothing more than massive and so often I come out of listening to it and just have to think to myself, how did one person make all of this music.
Rubin, who I first learned of when he joined Nine Inch Nails as their touring drummer, is a multi-instrumentalist and a prodigy on the drums (He won the guitar center national drum off when was only 8 or 9.) He started as a touring drummer when he was 13 and has been on the road ever since, then again, he's only 23 years old! The solid wall of drums is a wonderful motif that exists through the whole album. As a self taught, multi-instrumenatlist, he is incredibly skilled with each instrument. From classical piano to guitar to synthesizer, Rubin never fails to amaze.

The album features an interesting mix of hard hitting rock songs such as State of Possession as well as tender ballads with massive Queen-esque outros i.e. The Skeptic. The heavier electronic influence is quite visible on this album more than Coup (his first release). The whole album is a work to be admired and after many months of listening, I don't see it getting old anytime soon.
Stand-Out Tracks:
Clairaudience
Enjoy The Bitterness
State Of Possession
All Laid Out To Rest

Strange Mercy

St. Vincent. The name is deceiving, not a gospel group, no. A one woman musical expedition led by Annie Clark. Strange Mercy, Clark's third album as St. Vincent is lush. Lush in so many ways, lush sounding lush lyrics, lush instruments. Because of this saturation, the parts of each song where it is all stripped away is oh so refreshing. It's just full of so many things that I love. Her guitar is a magic wand that she uses to paint walls of fuzz and distortion. At one point you could be listening to a tender ballad before it turns into a driving, thick, wall of sound chorus.
Its this unpredictably that has you on your toes throughout all of Strange Mercy. A lyric like "I've seen miracles with no clothes on" seems out of place before you hear the chorus "I don't want to be a cheerleader no more" Sprawling orchestral arrangements sit right beside funky guitar synth solos with no seams between the two. Its quite amazing this sound that comes out of this one woman and if you have ever seen them live, Clark plays a mean guitar that can compliment and clash with her voice in just the perfect way.

Synthesizers tasteful flutter in and out of a song like Champagne Year and take center stage in Surgeon. But all falls back behind Clark's no nonsense voice.
Stand-Out Tracks:
Surgeon
Cruel
Chloe In The Afternoon
Champagne Year

Hurry Up, We're Dreaming

From the word "go," Hurry Up, We're Dreaming, the latest release from M83, bursts in with a triumphant anthem. The song is dense with modulating synths and M83's classic soft spoken word intro. The song is the overture to the massive work that is Hurry Up, a 22 song concept album. While it is the first M83 album that I have listened to in full, I feel that so much can be learned about the band from this latest release.
M83 is a musical group based around french musician Anthony Gonzalez, who plays almost every instrument on the record. M83 is and always has been defined by their thick and thoughtful music but Hurry Up turns to a more pop sensibility. It retains the well known M83 noise in some interstitial tracks but the big hits on the album come from the, as i once heard it put, unapologetic 80s sensibilities within the tracks. This vintage nostalgia comes mostly from the drums and bass which at times transport the listener back to the times of Duran Duran and Aha.
To zoom in for a moment, I'd like to discuss my personal favorite track off of the record. The song "Steve McQueen" starts off with a distorted vocal melody behind some classic 80s drum machine. The song descends into a synth arpeggio buildup with so much tension behind it that by the time that the drums fill and go into the unabashed anthem singalong, you can barely stop yourself from getting up and dancing about like a crazy person. The verses are short and not very prominent but they do provide time to take a breath before the next chorus. Every time I listen to this song it gets better and better, a feeling I have about the album as a whole.

Stand-Out Tracks:
Steve McQueen
Intro
Midnight City
Reunion

Torches

This review is long overdue. The band is called Foster the People and their sound is about as eclectic as the lineup at any number of festivals that they have played at. Foster The People is a three man band from Los Angeles. They describe themselves as "melodic dance-infused pop and rock, spanning many genres." This description makes sense but doesn't begin to cover the range of sounds and styles on their debut album Torches. 

The wonderful and playful album manages to create a distinctly different sound and tone on each song while still retaining a common thread that relates them. Foster balances undeniable pop melodies and ideas with a more dense sounding techno back-bone.

Each song has a memorable, usually instrumental intro. For example, the dance funk "Call It What You Want" starts out with a fun little a capella section, something you wouldn't find on every top forty album these days. 

At the heart of the album is its most popular song, "Pumped Up Kicks" which became the anthem of last summer for so many. The song tells about a disgruntled teen who thinks of violence against his enemies. Despite having a dark idea at its core, the song is joyous and fun sounding, a testament to the power of instrumentation and melody.

I like this album so much because it blends some old musical ideas like 70s and 80s dance and funk music with the music tools that we possess today. It's a refreshing listen after the often repetitive dance/pop that dominates the mainstream music scene today.

Stand Out Tracks:

Houdini

Call It What You Want

Miss You

Waste

RED

Now, for a change of pace. In my english class focused on blogging, we've been discussing social networks and their responsibilities and dangers. To honor that always interesting topic, this review will be of a fairly new electronic artist going by the stage name SONOIO. 

Sono io, Italian for "It's me" is the title that Alessandro Cortini has bestowed upon his solo electronic project. I first heard about Italian born Cortini, when he joined the line up of one of my favorite bands, Nine Inch Nails. He toured with NIN for about 3 years before starting SONOIO. 

SONOIO is a very unique project in which cortini contributes all parts. Despite being trained in rock guitar, the songs on "Red", Cortini's second release as SONOIO, are mostly based around modular synthesizer parts and drum machines. However, unlike standard electronic music, Cortini sings on each song. His voice is delicate and very often reminiscent of the melancholy of an Elliot Smith or Sufjan Stevens. Outside of those mellow vocal parts, there often arises a wall of processed vocals. Think Peter Frampton on steroids.

Cortini's often melancholy vocals are contrasted by the driving drum machine beats that move "Red" forward seamlessly. However, the album is not perfect. After listening to the album front to back, there does tend to be some tonal overlap between songs. That being said, I would highly recommend "Red" for a homework filled night or a rainy day.

Stand Out Tracks:

As Long As You Make A Sound

Scientist

Enough

No Fun

Pala

This one’s another recommendation from a friend. This time the band is Friendly Fires, a British dance pop outfit boasting their sophomore release Pala. Upon hearing the name of the band, I must have mixed them up with the band Fleet Foxes, a band also fans of alliteration. Literary devices aside, I was expecting a soft acoustic sound from a band like fleet foxes and could not have been more surprised.

From the first song I heard “Blue Cassette” I knew that I was in different territory than I expected. The song starts out with a pulsating horn loop that seems impossible to follow but as soon as the full beat kicks in, there are no illusions about where the groove lays in the song. It immediately makes you want to stop what you’re doing and dance your face off! It’s an infectious song that is very difficult to get out of your head.

This description can be applied to almost each song on the record. At times it’s a strength and at others, a weakness. I think for the most part, it is strength. The record isn’t a tender acoustic piece that should be ripped to shreds, it’s a fun dance record that is meant to make you move, but if you stop dancing and listen to the lyrics, you might be surprised:

            Late night driving

            With every move you make

            Your head shows me the way

            And coma rising

With every move you make

            -Show Me Lights

The true strength of Pala is in its sound design and HUGENESS. The band is only made up of 3 core members but some of the songs sound ridiculously grand and big. “Pull Me Back to Earth” is the perfectly example of the grandiosity that Friendly Fires achieves on Pala.

Stand Out Tracks:

Blue Cassette

Show Me Lights

Pull Me Back to Earth

Hawaiian Air

Tedeschi Trucks Band Live in Albany

Time for some non-review blog stuff. I had the honor and pleasure to see the Tedeschi Trucks Band perform last night at The Egg in Albany. Tedeschi Trucks band is a blues and soul group led by Derek Trucks, slide guitar virtuoso with a steady gig as one of the guitarists in The Allman Brothers Band, and his wife, blues singer, Susan Tedeschi. They are backed up by a spectacular band of characters including Allman Brothers bassist, Oteil Burbridge. The band which boasts two drummers was incredibly tight and together and just generally seemed to be having a ball on stage, always a plus for a live act.

One of the amazing things about Tedeschi Trucks is the sense of being worn in; they sounded and looked as if they had been playing together for years, yet they only have one album out. I think this is partly because so many of the members in the band had played together before. There was such a cool element of family that could really be felt in the room.

They blazed through a tight set of the standout tracks from their album, Revelator, as well as a song that they wrote with Herbie Hancock called Space Captain. There were several covers and they ended the night with a knock-out rendition of Sly & The Family Stone’s Sing a simple song and I want to take you higher.

The stage at times seemed to be overflowing with talent, whether it was coming from Trucks’ soulful slide playing, Tedeschi’s incredible vocals or the incredibly animated horn section. I must’ve had chills at least 10 times throughout the set. It was such an amazing experience that I really hope to repeat soon. I’ll leave you with this video from a concert they did a couple months ago. Enjoy!

Music Video!

Non-album review post! Check out my band, Sins of the Loose Buttons' new music video, Retrobox. Shot in my neighborhood and directed by our friend and award winning film-maker, Michael Bass. Check it out and share it with your friends! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBVMbC75j1w

Tourist History

I admit it. I’m late to the bandwagon that is Two Door Cinema Club. I had heard a snippet of one song on MTV in between mindless reality shows and dismissed it as nothing more than a catchy melody with a hip sounding track behind it. It’s really my own fault that I didn’t give it any more thought than that. It was about two weeks ago that a friend told me about them and gave me their album “Tourist History”. Yet again, it took me a while to sit down and actually give it a thorough listen.

Without a doubt, Tourist History is one of the tightest sound ‘pop rock’ albums that I’ve heard in the past year. Two Door have mastered the art of writing those ear worms that undeniably stick in your head. Some songs start out with ambient intros of processed sounds like the bob-your-head “Come back home” while others boast insanely catchy guitar riffs and percussion like the album opener, “What You Know”. Their songs are simple but have strong and distinct layers of instruments and vocals.

The melodies are straightforward and keep the song in forward motion and never seem stale or reused. The tracks have a backbone of pop but also manage to fit in some techno riffs and textures, most notably found in my favorite track, “I Can Talk” with it’s processed vocal rhythms and Gameboy breakdown.

I really wasn’t expecting such a cool and seasoned sound from this young, relatively new band but I am definitely impressed and looking forward to their next release.

Stand Out Tracks:

I Can Talk

This Is The Life

Cigarettes in the Theatre

You’re Not Stubborn

I'm With You

In 2006, the biggest rock band in the world was selling out stadiums, making people wild over their music, and making millions of dollars. Then they dropped off the face of the planet. For four years, the Red Hot Chili Peppers disappeared. One member played in other bands, one went to school to study music theory, one had a son, and one left the band. After being enshrouded in mystery for so long, they burst back onto the music scene this summer with a new guitarist and a new album, “I’m With You”.

I’ve been listening it over for the past two weeks or so and somehow, it manages to sound like classic Red Hot Chili Peppers (slinky, funky, poppy, and melodic) while at the same time being something very new and modern sounding (textural, electronic, and gritty). This ‘new’ sound is most likely attributed to the new member of the band, Josh Klinghoffer, who has played with the likes of Gnarls Barkley, PJ Harvey, and John Frusciante, the previous guitarist of the Chili Peppers.

The album is experimental and at times almost avant-garde sounding. There are layers of guitars and keyboards on almost every track and a great deal of Latin sounding percussion. The standout songs feature some classic Chili Peppers touches and motifs. Between the downbeat rap of “Look Around” and the mellow crooning of “Meet Me At the Corner”, lead singer, Anthony Kiedis is in fine form, sometimes even trumping his past melodic ventures. The frenzied beginnings of “Monarchy of Roses” transition into the pristine disco pop chorus naturally and the odd time signature bass groove of “Ethiopia” highlights the dynamic rhythm section of the band.

Despite being the freshman band member, Klinghoffer contributes some excellent guitar parts and background harmonies, as well as some unlikely guitar solos in a very different way than his predecessor. He finds his sonic range in the band with seeming ease and ability.

Overall, it has taken some time to grow on me but I am really impressed with the album. It is different than their previous works but that’s what is great about music: It’s always changing. I’ve read both positive and negative reviews of the album but in the end, it all comes down to personal taste.

Stand out Tracks:

Ethiopia

Did I Let You Know

Monarchy Of Roses

Factory of Faith