Some recent music acquisitions:
cerulean, Brighter/Still
Travis, Ode to J. Smith
Asobi Seksu, Hush: Yeah, this album was a letdown, but I still figured I’d pick it up. The best gauge of my disappointment: I bought it digitally off eMusic, instead of buying a physical CD like I originally assumed I would.
Brighter/Still
Ode To J. Smith
Hush
I wrote last month about my initial disappointment with Asobi Seksu’s new album Hush, and now that the album is actually coming out I thought I should update my thoughts on it.
Except that I haven’t really changed my opinion much. Not so much a bad album as a disappointing one, Hush just isn’t as exciting or engaging as its predecessors.
At first I thought that I just missed those big, majestic guitars, since the band chose to go with a spare, fragile sound this time out — reminiscent of classic 4AD recordings — instead of their previous shoegazer guitar roar. And that may be part of it, because as anyone who reads this blog knows, I really like big majestic guitars. But the album’s real problem is that it’s a pretty dull listen, with one delicate, mid-tempo song after another blurring together into a rather dour monotony.
It’s not that the band is bad at dream pop. Songs like “Layers”, “Gliss”, and “Mehnomae” are quite beautiful. But the band has eschewed much of their earlier diversity here — nothing as punky as “Mizu Asobi” or “Asobi Masho”, nothing as flat-out poppy as “I’m Happy But You Don’t Like Me” or “Taiyo” — mostly sticking to frigid, slow numbers. And this is where the production really hurts them, because there’s a surprising lack of dynamics to much of the material, as if a crush of huge guitars on the chorus was the only tool the band had in their arsenal to add emotional punch to their songs, and having decided to not do that this time around, the songs are left feeling empty and cold. The drums and guitars are extremely low in the mix for the most part, which does accentuate Yuki Chikudate’s wonderful, ethereal singing, but also leaves the songs badly in need of an injection of tension, drama, and release.
The album’s two best songs come at the end: “Glacially”, the ninth track, is built on top of a pulsing, melodic bassline (reminiscent of New Order) that adds some welcome urgency to the song, and has a tremolo-laden chorus that adds some of the excitement that’s so lacking elsewhere on the album. And closer “Blind Little Rain” is the album’s absolute highlight, a wonderful melding of girl-group elements (which the band flirted with on their b-side cover of “Then He Kissed Me” a couple years ago) with dream pop. The song is gorgeous and heart-breaking, and exudes a warmth that most of the rest of the album lacks. If only everything on Hush was this good.
I got my hands on a leaked copy of Asobi Seksu’s soon-to-be-released third album, Hush
I knew the album wasn’t going to sound the same as Asobi Seksu
But I’m just not getting into the actual album much. Sure, there’s some gorgeous dream pop here — “Layers”, “Mehnomae” — and in “Glacially”, at least one track that soars like the band’s earlier material, despite the more restrained, atmospheric production. Album closer “Blind Little Rain” attempts to fuse 60′s girl group pop with dream pop, with fairly successful results. But most of the rest of the songs seem indistinct, and just bleed together. Do I miss the guitar roar of their first two LP’s that much? Is the material just weaker this time around? Does it just lack for a couple hooky pop songs to make the album a bit more immediately accessible?
Anyway, this (hopefully) isn’t my final word on the album, and hopefully in a couple weeks I’ll post a mea culpa about how much the album grew on me.
Another rundown on recent music I’ve picked up. This edition is all about shoegaze, old and new. I’ve been listening to a lot of shoegaze lately.
Asobi Seksu, “Me & Mary”
Lush, Gala
Lush, “Monochrome”
Amusement Parks On Fire, s/t
Me & Mary
Gala
Spooky
Amusement Parks On Fire
Writing yesterday’s post about new bands I “discovered” this past year (yes, the same way Columbus “discovered” America), I debated for a while whether or not to include some bands that weren’t exactly new to me, but that I really got into this year. Ultimately I decided not to include them, but to give them a separate post instead. So here they are:
Aberdeen
Aberdeen — I used to hear “Toy Tambourine” on KXLU back in the mid-90′s and really liked it, but I never picked up anything by the band. A few months ago I picked up a few of their early Sarah singles off eMusic, and have been really enjoying their British-influenced guitar jangle. I wrote a bit about their first single here. MySpace.
Rocketship — This group had a couple songs on the Slumberland comp Why Popstars Can’t Dance that I absolutely loved (the comp was basically my intro to indie pop). I’d always intended to pick up their full-length A Certain Smile, a Certain Sadness, but never got around to it. Having finally picked it up — again, off eMusic — I absolutely love it. One of the cool things about those two Popstars tracks is that, while they’re both basically indie shoegaze, they were really different — “Your New Boyfriend” was awkward, lovelorn indie pop with shoegaze effects layered over it, while “Like A Dream” was a more hypnotic, heavy track that would have fit well on several of the classic early 90′s British shoegaze albums. A Certain Smile follows up on this diversity, swinging between noisy twee and sophisticated, spacey compositions. MySpace.
Blonde Redhead
Blonde Redhead — I actually used to play these guys occasionally on my college radio show in the late 90′s, but I never really thought of them as much other than a Sonic Youth knockoff (and I was never particularly into Sonic Youth). But I picked up 23
Asobi Seksu’s new single, “Me & Mary”, came out yesterday. I already wrote a bit about the A-side, which has been streaming off their MySpace page for a while, but I finally got to hear the B-side, “Breathe Into Glass”, today.
Anyone who’s looked through my previous posts knows that I like Asobi Seksu a lot, so it’s no surprise that I like this song, too. But I actually think that this is going to end up one of my favorite songs by them. Much more dream pop than shoegaze — there’s very little guitar to be heard — the song is hauntingly beautiful. The walls of icy, shimmering music during the verses positively dwarf Yuki Chikudate’s vocals, giving the song a fragile, vulnerable air. But when the chorus comes in, with more drums and her vocals now pushed up in the mix, the song becomes positively majestic.
I read somewhere that that new album was going to be less in the way of 700 processed guitars and whatnot, something that made me nervous at the time. But if this is what it’s going to sound like instead, then I’ve got nothing to worry about.
Still not that big on the cover art, though.
23
Okay, this is hardly a new release, but I wasn’t blogging when Blonde Redhead’s 23
I’ll confess that I don’t know a huge amount of Blonde Redhead’s music. When I was doing college radio back in the late 90′s, I knew some guys who liked them a lot, and I played tracks from them from time-to-time myself. I recall them sounding pretty much like Sonic Youth knock-offs, but if that was the case then, their abilities have developed quite a bit.
Which isn’t to say that Sonic Youth isn’t still an apt reference point. They’re definitely still an art rock band, and the album ripples with tension. But the band indulges their pop instincts now as well. This contrast is embodied in singer Kazu Makino’s voice, which often verges on shrillness, but never quite crosses that line, instead coming across as both unearthly and alluring.
Opening track “23″ is all thundering drums and deep bass, with “Glider”-era My Bloody Valentine guitars layered on top. The song walks a fine balance between art rock and pop, and does it magnificently, setting the stage for the rest of the album. The album’s second highlight is “Silently”, whose slinky beat, ethereal harmonies, and poignant chorus make it the album’s pop centerpiece. “Top Ranking”, the penultimate track, could almost be described as jangle pop if it wasn’t so apprehensive and creepy sounding. And album closer “My Impure Hair” is haunting, beautiful dream pop, allowing the album to drift away at the end, in contrast to its thundering opening.
Those are the album’s highlights, but the rest of the material is fine as well. Amedeo Pace sings the bulk of the album’s middle section (“Silently”, somewhat oddly, is nestled between his three songs), and while his voice is a bit annoying, it fits the unsettling vibe of the material (the best of his songs is the propulsive “Spring And By Summer Fall”). This album is really good. I’m going to have to dig into the back catalog.
A New Hope
San Francisco indie pop band Minipop put out their debut album,A New Hope, late last year on Take Root Records. A collection of female-fronted guitar pop in the vein of late 80′s British dream pop bands like the Sundays, it’s subtle charms sneak up on you, digging in their hooks on repeat listens.
The songwriting is solid, and the sparse but atmospheric production fits the material well. Much of the album’s best material are majestic mid-tempo numbers like “Fingerprints” and “A New Hope”, which ride on waves of ethereal, layered vocals. But other standouts stray from this style – “My Little Bee” is hushed and fragile, while “Butterflies” is a slice of bright jangle-pop, a pop hit in a just world. The album’s highlight, however, is “Precious”, a moody, bass-driven epic that builds to a beautiful, stirring chorus.
Not all the songs are as good as those, but the album has few weak spots, and is well paced (though I notice most of my favorite songs show up on the second half). Recommended.
