SUSUMU YOKOTA - Kaleidoscope

Susumu Yokota may not be a household name, but in certain circles he is certainly a recognized benchmark. For over a decade, Yokota has been quietly making quiet music whose quality speaks much louder volumes. True, his catalogue also includes some exceptional house albums, but his main output has been focused on the kind of ambient electronic albums that anyone outside of Eno, Budd and Aphex Twin would kill to make one of. Records like Sakura, The Grinning Cat, The Boy and The Tree, and Laputa all feature Yokota's signature touches—merging patterns of traditional and ethnic music from around the world with gorgeous synth pads, gently loping rhythms and ear-catching found sounds. What has always saved him from merely making background music is the way he can subtly anchor his pieces with a kind of sonic narration. It's hard to explain in any way other than to say that his records go places—all while remaining quite still.

Kaleidoscope, while representing no real quantum shift in his approach, is another solid addition to Yokota's body of work. Like the best albums of this genre, it takes on dramatically different forms depending on the volume used by and the attentiveness of the listener. The music works in layers, and what appears translucent and hazy from a distance is sketched with surprising detail up close. The tortoise-paced evolution of colours on "Lily Scent Jealousy" is pulse-calming, but underneath voices calling for "The mothership..." hint at great unrest. 

Yokota's years of being a house producer also make a few appearances, albeit in atypical ways. "Pebble On The Verge Of Breaking" plays its title out, as Yokota uses the classic dance floor trick of a reverse whoosh after a long keyboard build up to signal the throbbing bass-heavy beat...except, in this case, the beat never comes. It plays with our Pavlovian sense of anticipation skillfully, keeping our senses riveted to what is essentially quite static music.

In the end, just another day in the workshop by a master craftsman. Beautiful stuff.

CLOUDLAND CANYON - Fin Eaves

One of the most fun things about the last half-decade or so of music has been listening to a brand new generation of players modernize the so-called shoegazer movement of the 1990s. Back in the day (you know, fifteen years ago or whatever), bands like Ride, Lush, Slowdive and the canonical My Bloody Valentine used effects and processing to make their guitars sound like anything but guitars. But they still came at their music from the mentality of a rock band—no matter how mutated, the basic language was still voice, guitars, bass, drums.

Now an even greater fluency with the computer and its possibilities has allowed solo artists and duos to create something akin to this music but in a slightly tweaked fashion. Here, the primary engine driving the music is the model perfected by another brand of '90s acts such as Underworld and Chemical Brothers—the IDM DJ duo. I don't mean this to be a particularly novel observation, but hearing the combination of swerving MBV-style chords and loop-based grooves of Fin Eaves track "Pinklike / Version" is one of those moments when you can really see the fruits of evolution. Like an equation in calculus, Cloudland Canyon are a problem wherein finding any 'x' variable in their chain of influence is just a matter of puzzling over it for a little while—obscured and refracted, sure, but it’s all there.

This duo pulls from more than the aforementioned template (there’s a heavy '60s psych undertone, for example), but it's most thrilling taken as a update of those early shoegazer albums—the ones made before bands like Ride or Lush allowed their rock instincts to push the gauzy FX aside and reveal themselves as the more conventional rock/pop bands they always kind of were. This record drifts everywhere and nowhere all at once—shards of pop songs and hooks float around in an amorphous jumble, and it's ultimately up to your ears to assemble it in a form that makes the most sense. In keeping with their model of 'engine', Cloudland Canyon really don't write songs as much as mobius strip suites that relive their brief lives over and over until they fade out. Which, more than anything, is actually somewhat conventional music in today's world...and it pleases me to no end that we've evolved to the point where this style of expression is as normal as picking up a guitar, setting up a drum kit and counting to four. 

DIAMOND RINGS - Special Affections

Not even with some kind of super-duper, newfangled model of crystal ball could anyone have seen this coming three years ago. That John O'Regan—up until quite recently still known only as the frontperson of somewhat quirky indie rock group The D'Urbervilles—would create a synth-pop alter-ego that is on the verge of taking over not just Toronto, but the American and British underground as well, is pretty unreal. But riding on waves of gasping, fumbling praise, O'Regan's Diamond Rings project is doing just that. 

The word 'project' feels appropriate here, if only because this music is certainly well-planned and thought-out. He has masterfully matched his slick, DIY bedroom dance-pop with an immediate image. Borrowing from Bowie and Adam Ant, O'Regan's bold rainbow and neon make-up is an androgynous glam stroke of simple genius—well-matched to the music, highly recognizable, but also recognizably homemade. You can tell he worked on this look via bathroom experimentation and just plain 'what if?' fun.

Even more than that, it is a look that makes great sense when one gets around to listening to his great songs. There's a real 'butterfly from a cocoon' feeling one gets from Special Affections. From the slowly emerging beats of opener "Play By Heart" through to the the brisk "whoa-oh-oh"s of early breakthrough single "All Yr Songs", this catchy album bears a tangible level of personal discovery—as though you're hearing in real time the sound of his colourful persona delicately climbing out of the beige everyday-ness of indie rock. It is perfect pop music that points to that specific, chrysalid moment of change, acting it out in both figurative and literal ways. O'Regan chronicles these changes with plainspoken vocals that sound experienced, bored and overwhelmed all at once. And of the record's ten tracks, at least half of them are full-on hits. 

It's enough to almost make one sad that it's getting so much attention; that it feels posed to live out some kind of accelerated lifespan and die in front of our eyes. But regardless of how long O'Regan can keep this up and have it resonate, at this moment in time, it totally does—he's living that moment with as much vitality and daring as a person can muster. You can't ask for more than that.

JIM GUTHRIE - Now, More Than Ever (Expanded Edition)

Where does the time go? Has it already been seven years since we last heard from Jim Guthrie? Of course, we haven't been completely devoid of his music. He collaborated with Nick Thorburn in Islands back in 2005, and then paired up again for Human Highway in 2007 (where his contributions really are worth hearing for any starved fans). There was also last year's excellent rarities compilation from his old band Royal City, and if you were really paying attention, you may have heard his distinct vocals and arrangements in the odd television commercial or movie soundtrack. However, the world has been waiting for another solo album proper, and though this isn't it, the expanded reissue of Now, More Than Ever still deserves our attention.

Born and raised in Guelph, ON, his first two full-lengths (1999's A Thousand Songs and 2002's Morning Noon Night, which followed a number of independent cassettes) were lo-fi pop done right. Using an interesting array of instruments (most notably an original Playstation console), Guthrie developed an utterly unique sound, one which he abandoned nearly altogether for his third album. Bringing in a band made up of fellow Royal City member Simon Osbourne, Evan Clarke (ex-Rockets Red Glare), multi-instrumentalist Mike Olsen and Owen Pallett (pre-Final Fantasy), Guthrie completely dropped his lo-fi electronic sound in favour of something far more lush. Pallett in particular shines throughout—his violin arrangements nearly steal the show, especially on the instrumental title track. Still, the lyrics are the real prize here; Guthrie is an expert at saying a lot by with a little. On opener "Problem With Solutions", he sings "the longer the hesitation, the smaller the celebration." Seven years on, those words still resonate—don't hesitate any longer, get this album now.

KELLEY STOLTZ - To Dreamers

Please welcome to the Soundscapes website our first-ever celebrity guest reviewer—distinguished medical professional and host of Channel Five’s hit health and lifestyle program Check It Out, Dr. Steve Brule!

“You ever go, um, ever wanna listen to a Kinks album, but then you think, Village Green Perspiration...um, geez, that title is looong! And I don’t need to hear about how gross your sweat is. I don’t even like England!

Forget it—just buy the new Kelley Stout album To The Dreamers, ya doofus!!” 

SUFJAN STEVENS - The Age Of Adz

Everyone has a friend like this—the guy who has to take everything too far. Jokes, stories, innuendos...everything is an exercise in boundary pushing. Sufjan is like that friend set to music. Why have a couple of backing vocalists when you could use a choir? Why one drummer when you could have three? Why use five words in a song title when you could use thirty-five?!

If there's anything that's saved him from descending into a total self-imposed oblivion of excess, it's his ability to remind us at key points of just how potent he can be with all the layers stripped away. It's amazing how one three-minute tune like "John Wayne Gacy, Jr." can set right a (let's face it) bloated, under-edited 22-track, 74-minute concept album like 2005's Illinois. It's not as though it's the only good song on the album—far from it—but with only a guitar and a pair of voices, it is one of the most affecting. So even when he's leading something that sounds like the score to a climactic battle scene in a Planet Of The Apes Broadway musical, we're able to take the moment as part of a larger array of expression. The brand new album, The Age of Adz, also has one such low-key, pendulum balancing song—but it’s also its opener, "Futile Devices". After that brief moment of comfort, Sufjan asks the listener to hold tight and feel the Gs. And so the density begins.

Stevens is ridiculously at home weaving mazes of sighing voices, bleating horns, sheets of strings, and especially this time out, squealing and gurgling electronics. His touch is precise, his demeanour calm and composed. When it all comes together, like on highlights "Get Real Get Right" and the head-nodding "Too Much", it presents a strong case for him being in command of a musical language all his own—one that is intriguingly positioned between Gershwin and Four Tet. It's gorgeous, hooky, head-engaging and classically inspired, yet all refined by modern tastes.

But, never happy to play it safe, Stevens' taste for excess threatens often to derail the record. It seems a bit of an obvious thing to pick on the album's 25-minute closer here, "Impossible Soul", but when the sign says "Kick Me"... Besides, plenty of the 'shorter' tunes—the eight-minute title track being one of them—would also gain much from a more concise approach. The killer moments are there, for sure, but they’re caught in an endless bait-and-switch with the listener: a tender hook here buying six minutes of auto-tune tomfoolery later.

It's now that I'm reminded of Rush, a band whose hyperbolic music landed them in the crosshairs of many a critic, while blowing the minds of legions of young fans for whom the group's boundary pushing was a benchmark of daring, technique and brawn. I know this, because I was (and am still) one of those fans. Looking at The Age of Adz (and indeed much of Sufjan's moves in the last half of this decade) in this light is helpful. Pushing things too far is always gonna be polarizing, but we desperately need artists like this around. This guy’s got the fans to prove it, too, and by still giving those fans enduring melodies to hold as a horizon throughout his musical maelstroms, Sufjan Stevens remains able to (just) maintain enough balance with them as he pushes defiantly onward.

SAM PREKOP - Old Punch Card

Admitting that it took me a long time to remember to review this album isn't exactly the best way to begin its endorsement—especially when I also admit that Sam Prekop's self-titled debut solo album is one of my favourite records of all time. I mean, I should be all over this, right?

My relative tardiness does say a lot about the latest from the Sea and Cake frontman, but it's not as bad as it might seem. Old Punch Card is a very different album to his first two solo works, trading their cooing jazzy pop/soul for dawn-of-the-computer electronic instrumentals. But it happens to pick up a dropped thread from earlier in his career. Originally, his first solo album was going be such a record—you can hear his early stabs at this material with the two final cuts on The Sea and Cake's 1997 EP, Two Gentlemen. Evidently, Prekop wasn't fully happy with where those songs initially led, but he did keep at it. Ten years later, he had a book of photography published (2007's Photographs) and stuck with it via an eight-song CD of untitled electronic instrumentals. The pieces were brief Boards of Canada-style beatscapes punctuated by primitive melody. It was a nice little bonus, but there was not much reason to believe that it warranted a wider release.

Old Punch Card arrives with similarly homespun hedged bets—the first 1000 copies have hand-painted artwork by Prekop himself, and there was little fanfare to herald its release. Even by his soft-spoken standards, it's something of a minor album. But that's kind of the beauty of the whole thing. By skirting anything approaching a big show, this album is going to end up in the intended hands: i.e. people who are familiar enough with the man and his pedigree to give his first full-on foray into electronic music a chance.

Does it match his careful buildup? While spare and open, Old Punch Card is certainly confident of its territory. Though it boasts nothing approaching a song, Prekop tours the array of sounds before him like a connoisseur at a wine and cheese tasting—every sip and nibble of bubbly binary is presented just so. And just as one would at such a culinary event, you have to allow yourself to indulge a bit to get the most out of it. But if you do, you'll quickly find that glitch 'A' really does pair nicely with zap 'B'. It all adds up in ways that kind of circumvent rational explanation. It just sounds pretty cool. 

From a man whose solo and full-band discography speaks volumes of quality—not to mention an exceptional career as a painter and photographer—a minor release of cool-sounding recreational electronic music is more than allowed. If anything, that's a huge part of what makes it the special little find it is.

NEIL YOUNG - Le Noise

At this point in time, there really is only one icon who can be reasonably seen as a comparable foil to Neil Young: Bob Dylan. Both are so unquestionably woven into the fabric of rock music's influence that it seems patronizing to even point it out, and both have found a way to not only produce excellent late-career albums, but to also follow their muse as they do it (not that those last two things always happen at the same time). With last year's Together Through Life, the law of diminishing returns finally caught up with Bob's recent 'old-timey' fetish, while Neil's last few albums have been patchy at best (Chrome Dreams II), and highly isolating at worst (Fork In The Road).

But perhaps most interesting when comparing these two in their respective twilights is the different ways they handle themselves in the modern world. Despite calling his second most-recent disc Modern Times, Dylan is retreating further and further into a train-hopping comfort zone of 12-bar blues, ragtime jazz, lost 78s, and that ultimate messenger of the days of his youth: the radio show. His successes and failures over the last two decades are pretty much down to how well he interprets that well-worn template.

But Young, despite his well-publicized railing against digital technology back in the halcyon days of the CD, has fully embraced new gadgets to fuel a wildly creative and relentlessly-paced home stretch. Whether ragged war protest albums released a month after they are recorded (Living With War), or compiling his life's musical archives complete with meticulous Blu-Ray editions and endless easter egg videos, the man knows an opportunity when he sees it. The internet age has turned an already restless soul into a pure creature of impulse—one that sits in direct opposition to Dylan's contemplative recreation society.

So what does all of this have to do with Young's latest, Le Noise? For starters, this is the first time that Neil has crossed paths with Daniel Lanois, a man who famously revived Dylan's failing fortunes on two occasions with 1989's dense Oh Mercy and 1997's exceptional Time Out Of Mind. Lanois did this by immersing Dylan in an atmosphere—dark, swampy, and, eventually, mortal. They are both albums with a presence you can feel.

As the title suggests, Le Noise is also an album with strong first impressions, and once again, Lanois takes his charge into a dark, swampy world. But to his enormous credit, this time his methods are very different. Where with Bob he used a full band and cavernous twang to achieve this, Le Noise takes Neil's initial pitch to Lanois—let's make a record with just me and a guitar—and filters it through tons of delays, effects and a monstrous sounding guitar specifically designed by Lanois.

And sonically, the end product is a masterstroke—a near-perfect marriage of Lanois' love of dubby studio trips and Young's love of spontaneous presentation. You've literally never heard Neil quite like this. Thankfully, Young has also brought some of his better recent songs to the table, ensuring that this album is more than just a narcotic studio experiment.

From the hefty drug chronicle "The Hitchhiker" and the seething "Angry World", to the scruffily romantic "Walk With Me" and "Sign of Love", the eight songs on this trim LP are hearty and up to the task. But again, props to Lanois for realizing that no matter how rad his guitar sounds are, we need moments of repose to fully appreciate them. As it turns out, Le Noise's best tracks are its calmest. "Peaceful Valley Boulevard" is a quietly devastating sequel to the themes of "Cortex The Killer", examining North America in the aftermath of treaties, suburbs, and company-led natural rape. But it is the haunted Spanish lament of "Love And War" that rises highest here. As much a critique of himself as anything else, it perfectly pulls at our two most eternally driving forces, summing it all up poignantly with the line: "When I sing about love and war/ I don't really know what I'm saying".

From someone so regularly quoted in the context of both subjects, this could come as a bit discomforting. But then again, that's what we've always loved about Young—he's a guesser. If Dylan has been the cool brains behind the model 20th-century songwriter, then Young has been its feisty, feeling heart. Quick to anger, but just as quick to love, he is most remarkable for his ability to channel his natural talents into whatever desire is flowing through his veins at that exact moment. It's a method that has produced its fair share of missteps, but then again, few people are as right as Young when he nails it. With Le Noise, he has driven a spike clean and flush into the wood.

PS I LOVE YOU - Meet Me At The Muster Station

This Kingston guitar-drums duo are a lot more than they appear to be on the surface. And what exactly is that? Take a quick spin through Meet Me At The Muster Station, their half-hour-long debut, and you are greeted by what seems to be a fairly standard-issue indie rock album (right down to the lyric-quoting album title, a line from Super Furry Animals’ 1997 tune “Down A Different River”). The vocals yelp and crack like Spencer Krug's (Wolf Parade) younger brother and the general proceedings are fast, frenetic and pretty catchy. But truth be told, you’d be forgiven for feeling that it gets by more on the novelty of "we’re only two people!" than anything terribly remarkable. Except...

Scratch below the duo tag a bit more, and something truly impressive emerges: the postscript that is Paul Saulnier. Nothing against the very steady drumming of Benjamin Nelson, but Saulnier is a bit of a minor revelation. Potentially, he’s one of the most unlikely underground guitar heroes this country will ever produce. An unassuming bespectacled hirsute teddy bear of a guy, he is a goddamn powerhouse on this thing, handling vocals, manic guitar freakouts AND bass pedals simultaneously—a feat he pulls off live just as well. As No Age's usage of sampler and hot sheets of white noise brings interest to their take on the guitar/drum rock duo, PS I Love You's nearly one-man wrecking crew Saulnier brings an expressive range that many of his contemporaries simply can't match without copious overdubs and samples. You'd be hard pressed to find a two-piece that sounds this full—it's kind of insane. And even though the short songs don't give him much room to stretch out, dude is clearly a hell of a guitarist, with the shredding bridges of "Facelove" and "Butterflies and Boners" suggesting he could even push into Marnie Stern territory.

So once an appreciation of this guy's talents settles in, how does this record change? It's still definitely a debut album, its brevity occasionally getting in the way of what could be some truly exciting detours. And the messy, sticky production sometimes does the band a bit of a disservice—musicians this capable don't need layers of reverb and fuzz to help glue their sound together. Simply put, some of these parts would hit a bit harder if they were a little clearer. But whether or not the buzz around them hits the level of fellow Canuck guitar/drum duo (and tourmates) Japandroids, I like their chances of turning into a lasting concern a lot more than those guys. Meet Me At The Muster Station could be the launching pad for a band that merges the kinetic sugar rush of basement pop, the on-the-fly improvisation of a two-piece, and the sheer virtuosity of a guitar hero. I’d say its worth hitching a ride to see how it all turns out.

(PS I Love You are playing an in-store here at Soundscapes on Tue. Oct 26 at 7pm in advance of their show with Diamond Rings later that night at The Garrison, which we also have tickets to!)

NO AGE - Everything In Between

No Age's guitar/drums/sampler template is as exhilarating as it is primed to one day expire, but maybe that's the point. It burns on a high octane brand of petrol, and for now, they sound like they’re living on anything but borrowed time—Everything in Between finds this pair subtly shifting their limited pieces to get the most out of their set-up.

The main thing one notices this time out is that melody is front and centre in all but the most soundscape-y tracks. "Life Prowler", "Glitter", Fever Dreaming", "Valley Hump Crash" and especially closer "Chem Trails" are all primarily wicked pop songs, likely to be at the very least appealing in even the most bland scenarios. And while no one will confuse drummer Dean Spunt for a great singer, he sounds more confident here than in the past, often digging into his lower range for near sing-speak vocals. Fans of the rock-ambient-rock tug-of-war that drove 2008's Nouns will find just as much to love here, too. "Katerpillar" and "Dusted" are as beautiful and briefly poignant as past such tracks, while "Skinned" manages to smartly dance between worlds—a nice moment of ambience that quickly turns abrasive as the band amps up their collage.

Which brings us to No Age's main strength. Aside from their youthful bravado and spunk, they've got an uncannily keen sense of the right noise at the right time. Whether its levitating sheets of aural wax paper wrapping themselves around a tune, or sonic scraps of 80-grade sandpaper scouring one another down to a smooth shine, each "non-instrumental" bit arrives with purpose and presence. Simply put, they're really, really good at picking and crafting this stuff and the duo's continued refusal to introduce anything bass-like into the mix just reinforces their clear belief in their methods: guitar + drums + a bunch of crazy noise = wicked. It's the new math, baby.

GRINDERMAN - Grinderman 2

When word originally arrived of the first Grinderman album—a splinter project of Nick Cave's Bad Seeds featuring its most unruly members—it came via the hilariously untamed, but uncomfortably on-the-nose single, "No Pussy Blues". An uncompromising song fueled by fiercely in-the-red guitar tones and all the considerable midlife rage and sexual frustration Cave could muster, it was exhilarating, but it also brought up the question: could the rest of the album really be this blindingly good?

Well, it wasn't. Grinderman wasn't a failure, but there's no doubt that the rest of the record lived in that song's shadow. Grinderman 2 doesn't have a song quite as novel, explosive and fun as "No Pussy Blues", but it is a much, much better album. It's not so much tamed as focused, and more interested in the power of threat and presence than its quick-strike visceral predecessor. While this album's lead singles, "Heathen Child" and "Evil!", do a pretty good job of measuring up to that first record's bravado, the real stars now are the tracks deeper in the album. "When My Baby Comes" is an awesome display of atmosphere and swampy tension that really makes use of Warren Ellis' talent for sounds both ethereal and spooky as hell. The chilled, brief ballad "What I Know" is a well-placed and -paced mid-album moment of reflection. And "Palaces of Montezuma" is a bonafide pop tune—an immediate and hooky slice of Americana that doesn't sacrifice any of the album's overall heaviness.

In case you're worried that the new Grinderman isn't as pervy or hilarious as the original, fear not. 2 packs a serious wallop of double-entendres, self-deprecating wisecracks and leering, lustful glances. But now there's a lot more to chew on after the initial shockwave has passed. Simply put, this time around, Grinderman is a lot more than a pack of two-minute brothers. 

DEERHUNTER - Halcyon Digest

I'm just going to say it: I find Deerhunter a little scary. Not dude-in-sunglasses-howling-obscenities-whilst-wearing-a-dress-smeared-in-fake-blood scary (that stage in the band's development was more funny than anything). I'm talking how-are-they-so-consistently-good scary? 

It may not seem like a lot, but over a scant few years, the band has released a pair of stunning full-lengths, a "bonus" album that shames most group's main releases, and a pair of solid EPs that contain some of their best tunes—and that's not including two excellent LPs by frontman Bradford Cox's Atlas Sound project and a decent one by guitarist Lockett Pundt's Lotus Plaza. Aside from a very regrettably named debut album—something even the band seem to roundly acknowledge as a mistake—the overall quality of their output is way above par...and a tad suspicious. Off-putting, even. 

Now, after that kind of biographical build-up, this is usually the part where the reviewer states: "And now to top it all off, they've gone and released their best album yet!" And wouldn't you know it...

Whether or not Halcyon Digest is the band's best album is up for debate, but one thing's for certain: they've thrown together an exceptional record that deserves that kind of consideration. And why is such a distinction worth more than a cheap Kinko's-made commemorative plaque hung up in the band's dingy rehearsal space? Because Deerhunter have quickly gone from being contenders to standard bearers—one of the best bands of their ilk and moment.

And I do mean "band". As much as Cox gets all the headlines and most of the credit, Halcyon Digest succeeds on the back of elegant and exquisite communication between all four members. Bassist Josh Fauver and drummer Moses Archuleta have a knack for understanding how and when to drive a song. Their playing is subtle and in the pocket throughout, which is good since, as a collection, this is Deerhunter's poppiest and most laidback album. Pundt's two tunes have already been roundly praised as two of the best on the record, and rightly so. In particular, mid-album centerpiece "Desire Lines" is a total stunner—Microcastle's "Nothing Ever Happened" in a more graceful pose, from its gently nodding chorus through to its swirling, endless coda.

With Pundt locking down a pair of classic pop tunes that act as the album's rudder, Cox ambles creatively around its perimeter—ranging wildly from stoic one-man ballads ("Sailing"), late-era Slowdive atmospherics ("Earthquake"), clanging acoustic rave-ups ("Revival"), and even old-school saxophone workouts ("Coronado"). These tastes all coalesce on first single, "Helicopter"—a chimerical gumbo of nearly everything he loves as a writer: glitchy electronics, swooping synth lines, lush guitar effects, and sighing pop hooks. About the only thing missing from it—and the whole record—is the sinister vitriol that defined half of breakthrough LP Cryptograms: the same kind of strobe-fueled vehemence that got them opening slots for Nine Inch Nails back in the day. Is it missed? It was always this writer's least favourite part of the group's sound—especially live, where when paired with Cox's theatrics, it could come off as a university student's insincere hoax. Besides, it's always something they can go back to. For now, Cox and co. have found a far more effective way of scaring people—by releasing album after album after album of impossibly great psychedelic pop music.

BLACK MOUNTAIN - Wilderness Heart

I still remember first hearing about Stephen McBean's early project, the oddball indie outfit Jerk With A Bomb, from a friend. It's some decent stuff, but in no way did it hint on the grand scope of music this man had the potential to unleash on the world in the coming decade. Since then, between Black Mountain and his always evolving "solo" project, Pink Mountaintops, McBean has taken on Spector pop ballads, minimal electro bedroom excursions and hairy psych freakouts, and mastered them all. But there's no question that it's the Sabbath-meets-"Low Rider" stoner cool of Black Mountain breakthroughs like "Druganaut" and "Don't Run Our Hearts Around" that are his greatest claim to fame. 

Black Mountain's second LP, In The Future, sought to push this style to the edge of its possible envelope—the result being an eight-minute single, "Tyrants", and the seventeen-minute "Bright Lights" (notable if only for the endless repetition of "Light Bright/Light Bright..." that no doubt had scores of high thirty-year-olds scouring their mom's closet in the vain hope of finding the namesake toy left over from their youth). It was a solid effort, but as an album it kind of lost itself in places.

Well, the band has definitely found itself again on Wilderness Heart, a pure distillation of all the things that make McBean's projects great—it swoons, it spaces out, and it rocks like a hurricane—and all within the confines of a far more succinct LP. "Old Fangs" and "Let Spirits Ride" (the latter containing a riff that actually sounds a lot like a sped-up take on Van Halen's "House of Pain"—just saying...) are head-banging bursts of hirsute fun. In other places, tracks like "Radiant Hearts" and "Rollercoaster" offer beautiful pedestals for the perfect pairing of McBean and Amber Webber's vocals. And all across the album, the band sounds capital 'A' amazing: locked and loaded with even more room than before for Jeremy Schmidt's killer synth and organ lines.

As with any album that seeks to truncate a band's sound, what it gains in brevity, it loses a little in blissed-out patience. And so Wilderness Heart has no slow-building stunner on par with their debut's "No Hits" or "Set Us Free". But it's a welcome shift all the same that the band wears well. Besides, with a career as varied as McBean's, there little doubt he'll find himself back in that trippy, kraut-y territory again soon enough.

GARY LEWIS - Listen!

Teenybop pop performer Gary Lewis was one of the kids able to use his showbiz connections to gain a foothold in the mid-Sixties music scene (Gary's father was none other than Jerry Lewis). While other aspiring singers took advantage of "Hollywood nepotism", Lewis possessed a decent (if somewhat nasal-sounding) voice, and, with the help of producer Snuff Garrett, scored some now-classic Top 40 hits, the best of which was "This Diamond Ring". By 1967, his budding career as a pop/rock chartbuster had screeched to a stop, on account of Lewis having been drafted by the bad ol' Uncle Sam. Nevertheless, with brilliant arranger Jack Nitzsche and Wrecking Crew session players on board, Gary cut the album Listen!. Released in October 1967 and easily the best thing he ever lent his voice to, the record was met with a resounding...thud.

Listen! album-buyers sadly did not, preoccupied with the groundbreaking LPs that the likes of The Beatles, Jefferson Airplane, and The Doors were putting out, along with bubble-garage records by The Monkees, who easily replaced Gary Lewis and his erstwhile group, The Playboys, in teenagers' affections. Which was a real doggone shame, because Listen! is THE orchestral pop jewel in Lewis' catalog. Kicking off with the finest song Brian Wilson never wrote, the gorgeous ballad "Jill", the album also contains convincing covers of The Lovin' Spoonful's "Six O'Clock" and not one but two Tim Hardin compositions. Alongside "Jill", the talented songwriting team of Alan Gordon and Gary Bonner contributed three other standout tracks on Listen!.

Gary Lewis' vocals never sounded better than on this disc, as he toned down his adenoid tones and sang in the softer style the songs' lush settings required. Despite flopping commercially at the time, the sheer pure pop power of Listen! can now be fully enjoyed on this delightful reissue, which includes both mono and stereo mixes, as well as comprehensive liner notes.

THE WALKMEN - Lisbon

When The Walkmen released You & Me two years ago, it signified a profound moment of freedom for the group. Freedom from what, you ask? Their hit song, 2004's "The Rat". Propulsive and pissed off, it registered with listeners immediately, slaying everything in its path—including, unfortunately, the band's own catalogue. While 2006's underrated One Hundred Miles Off played it sloppier and dirtier (even dipping into hardcore tempos for a couple tracks), its drunken bang and clatter fell victim to cries of "Where's 'The Rat II'?", and audiences fell away. Even if this was merely the inevitable process of shedding fairweather fans, it had to have hurt a little.

So the band did exactly what bands should (but rarely) do—they stuck to their guns and made a record that defiantly turned the other cheek. You & Me was the first album by The Walkmen to fully commit to their unsung counterpoint to the "The Rat"s careening brawler: the doomed but resilient romantic. Even that record's magnificently wailed single, "In The New Year", was more about tender hope than bitterness. With a slow burn that nicely matched You & Me's pacing, listeners of a different kind now flocked to the band—the kind well won over by a full album's merits rather rather than those of a single song.

All of this brings us to Lisbon, an album that is as sunny and at ease with itself as the vibe of its namesake city. The Walkmen may have worked very hard making this record (by some accounts around 30 songs were considered for the LP), but it sounds anything but laboured. I suspect that's because The Walkmen are now in a position where they truly understand how to best utilize their talents. The patience and atmosphere they mastered on You & Me blossoms here into a wonderfully concise set that is immediately worth revisiting as soon as it concludes. The band just sounds so in control, so expressive—even the wild rush of "Angela Surf City" is perfectly balanced, hurtled forward by Matt Barrick's humming engine of a drum part. And whether live or on record, singer Hamilton Leithauser has never sounded as good as over the last few years. For all of the hell-raising fury that he is capable of, he's often best wrapping his pipes around a whisky waltz or bleary group-hug of a shanty. Like a dropped ripe peach, he's tender and sweet, but sticky, bruised and prickly. When he and his formidable band are in the intoxicating throes of cataloguing their regrets, their dreams, their loves and their losses, it's a real treat.

S. CAREY - All We Grow

Let's get this out of the way—Sean Carey's choice of moniker comes off as one hell of a lame joke ("Boo!" Get it?). Shuffle around that groaner though, and you'll arrive at an album that is anything but dumb. But is it also too smart for its own good? After all, Carey (who got a leg in indie rock's door by landing a key role in Bon Iver's live band) is a trained percussionist with an ear for avant-classical heavyweights such as Glass, Riley and Reich. Adding these tendencies to the often self-important navel-gazing of indie-folk ain't always the best idea.

Fortunately, here he marries them superbly to a songwriting style that favours impressions and moods over verses and choruses. All We Grow seeps and bleeds like water from a split vase across a thick tablecloth. Its patterns are subtle and slightly random, and their borders are easily lost against the white-on-white of sighing vocals, folksy strumming, lightly shifting percussion and impressively nuanced orchestrations. As such, it works best when it is allowed to figure itself out—hands-off listening lets each of these tunes become something a little different every time you hear them. It's a beautiful little session.

Now, that said, one can't help but feel that with just a little more cohesion in the songwriting department (something his employer could really help foster), All We Grow could, well, grow into something more than just avant-garde. But as a debut, it signals a major talent that had previously been lurking in the shadows. Where he goes from here could be 'scarey' indeed.

THE GOLDEN DOGS - Coat Of Arms

Others get greater plaudits, but no other band in Canada have set themselves as heirs to power-popsters Sloan and The New Pornographers as The Golden Dogs have on this third album. And while their buddies in Zeus are currently seen as the relative heavyweights, I dare say that it’s The Golden Dogs who have upped the stakes in the game of thrill-ride pop/rock. Zeus’ Carlin Nicholson and Mike O’Brien produced Coat Of Arms, while Neil Quin played guitar on the Dogs’ last record, and this connection leads one to join the dots regarding their mutual love of ELO-esque texture, as well as the more prominent use of piano here, which helps drive songwriter Dave Azzolini’s increasingly rock-classicist tendencies. Much in the same way that Supergrass had recently opened themselves to a wider palette, Azzolini covers new ground for the band on Coat by working with a slapback reverbed vocal (“Dear Francis”), quoting Leonard Cohen (“Travel Time”), and channeling Split Enz (“Lester”), all without sacrificing the fervour that characterizes their hyper sound. 

The trademark shared vocal duties of Azzolini and not-so-secret weapon Jessica Grassia continue to cause the pair to push their throats into exhilarating wail range, particularly on “Permanent Record”. Grassia’s role as the band’s Neko Case (“Movie’s Over”) is a fairly obvious point of comparison, but make no mistake: in this writer's opinion, The New Pornographers have neither been as good, nor as consistent as this in a few years. 

(Get your copy of Coat Of Arms signed when The Golden Dogs play a free in-store here at Soundscapes on Thu. Sep 23 at 7pm!)

QUEST FOR FIRE - Lights From Paradise

Everything sounds better when you're stoned. It's a fact upon which far too many so-called stoner rock bands have lazily rested, whether they actually partook of the magic weed or not. Hey, when the central tenets of your style are lead-limbed repetition, fuzzed-out tones, and blurry vocalization, how much impetus would you have to break bold new ground?

So what makes Toronto's Quest For Fire more than just another pack of rockers slouching their way onto an already crowded wave? While it may not have been virgin territory, QFF's debut smartly balanced stoner rock’s need for bluesy lethargy with a sound that made the most of the band members' pedigree (one that covered everything from bar rockers The Deadly Snakes to the hardcore blitzkrieg of Cursed)—in other words, underneath the haze were well-written songs full of wounded heart, human tales and well-nuanced aggression. It was heavy for sure, but it was a lot more than that: it had real soul.

Lights From Paradise builds wisely on this formula with a similarly strong record that increases in meaning with each listen. Chad Ross’ half-awake croon in particular nails the group’s appeal, managing to sound casual, desperate, wise, and menacing, all in equal measure. And his subject matter benefits greatly from being rooted in the personal, rather than in realms of fantasy. Sure, sometimes smoking with dragons while bedding mysterious demon women is cool, but it’s nice to know that this kind of stuff can be used to explore themes not already covered by Fighting Fantasy gamebooks. So while fans of all manner of stoner rock—from Boris and Dead Meadow to even heavier fare like High On Fire—will find lots to like here, so will those who crave a little more meaning from their music. Stoned or not, this record sounds amazing.

VA - Califia: The Songs Of Lee Hazlewood

The late great Lee Hazlewood was one hell of an ornery contrarian. And, bless his soul, he also happened to be one multi-talented musical tour-de-force: eccentric singer, songwriter, record label owner, and producer. We’ve seen several sterling Hazlewood reissues crop up over the years, but Califia is a compilation with a twist, amassing twenty-five tantalizing tracks he wrote and produced for himself and others between 1956 and ’70.

And those “others” in question? Irrefutable talents like Duane Eddy (whose twangy instrumental hits initially made Hazelwood a record producer to be reckoned with), legendary session guitarist Al Casey, drummer extraordinaire Hal Blaine, blue-eyed soul belter Dusty Springfield, cinematic sex symbol Ann-Margret, and, of course, Nancy Sinatra, who hit the big-time when Hazlewood recommended that she ‘sing like a gal who goes out with 45-year old truckers’ on her immortal 1966 smash, “These Boots Are Made For Walkin’”.

Califia, the latest volume in Ace Records’ unbeatable songwriters and producers series, provides a fascinating sonic portrait of the early years of Hazlewood’s career. Bouncing back and forth chronologically, the disc’s many treasures include Sanford Clark’s bluesy 1956 rockabilly hit, “The Fool”, rhythm ‘n’ blues vocal group The Sharps’ raucous number, “Have Love, Will Travel”, Suzi Jane Hokom’s irresistibly infectious go-go groover, “Need All the Help I Can Get”, Dusty Springfield’s swingin’ “Sweet Ride”, and Lee’s own vocal turn on the creepy oddity, “The Girl on Death Row”, originally written for an obscure film.

In fact, by the late Sixties, Hazlewood had acquired quite a knack for giving his songs a dramatic and panoramic Technicolor big-screen feel. Listen to Ann-Margret’s “You Turned My Head Around” and its ferocious fuzz pedal-powered wall of sound (the teen-aged Phil Spector picked up many a production tip from Hazlewood, by the way), Duane and Miriam Eddy’s twang-a-delic “Guitar on My Mind”, and the album’s smokin’ title track, an undeservedly obscure 1969 duet between Lee and his then-girlfriend, Suzi Jane Hokum, that has all the epic qualities of the hits on which he and Nancy Sinatra shared vocal duties. 

Rockabilly, r‘n’b, country, novelty tunes, garage, stripped-down instrumentals, and orchestrated pop productions: Hazlewood wrote, recorded, and sang (with his inimitable baritone) ‘em all. Nearly everything he touched was imbued with his dry self-deprecating wit, and even if you already have one or more of his solo albums, Califia’s worth getting for the way it sums up his genius. Yes, genius, a word I generally don’t toss around very lightly, but one that pretty much describes up good ol’ ornery Lee to a “t”.

THE SWORD - Warp Riders

As someone who enjoyed a fair bit of metal as a teenager, the current so-called "hipster metal" trend has been both vindicating and a little strange. While it's amazing to have so many embrace the pleasures of bands like Mastodon, Baroness and High On Fire, it's not as though these bands are really doing anything all that different from the bands that preceded them. But if you can get beyond the "cart before the horse"-ness of having these bands on one's iPod and no Judas Priest or Iron Maiden, then it still adds up to metal being taken seriously—respect a whole host of these bands deserve.

Austin, Texas' The Sword are just such a current band, combining the modern evolution of stoner rock with a sound that pulls from all the best mid-tempo moments of Ozzy and Metallica. There's witches and weed and a loose concept about a man on a temporal dimension journey of some kind, but you don't really need to worry yourself about that. It's all just fantastical set-dressing for what The Sword do best: rock the hell out. This band is tight, fierce, and nicely melodic when it needs to be. But maybe its best attribute is the one thing that seems a little plain at first—its singer. J.D. Cronise's voice isn't much to look at until you realize what a nice change it is to hear a modern metal band with a guy who doesn't scream his way through every second line.

Mastodon's last album, the super-sick Crack The Skye, picked up on this virtue to great effect, and it's nice to say that The Sword have been way ahead of the curve on this one. The dude just sings in a laidback Texan drawl, suggesting that ZZ Top have as much of a role to play in their sound as Sabbath, Slayer, or Pantera. Aside from that small touch, The Sword play it straight and classic, and why not? It's metal, it's got an awesome van-worthy album cover, and it rocks. Public tastes may change, but this type of music has always worked for the same simple reasons.