Category Archives: Record Review

EFTERKLANG, TRIPPER (LEAF) CD

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Is it me, or is just about everything outta Europe some sorta twee stuff these days? I mean, even the grime stuff I’ve heard had an unbearable Paddington Bear quality to it, underneath a thin veneer of tough. What happened? Isn’t this the same continent that basically brought us two world wars, not to mention Scandinavian death metal? Where’s the frenzy, the brutality, the stupidity?

Efterklang’s this ten-piece band from Denmark, home of the l’il mermaid and some of the twee-est shit in Europe. Then again, they also got Lars Von Trier so I’ll give ’em a break (The Idiots ain’t twee, at least not all the way through). And really, there isn’t anything wrong with attempting to attain the beautiful, if it’s well done. Which this record is, if anything.

To these ears Efterklang definitely falls on Satie’s conception of “sonic wallpaper,” which ain’t an insult (even though I don’t think that’s what they’re shooting for). Which is to stay, this stuff, with its strings and choruses and gentle electronics and whatnot, is either easily ignorable or strikingly beautiful. Since I’m not a curmudgeon all of the time, I’ll give Tripper a pass.

PANICSVILLE, PERVERSE (LIQUID DEATH/HELLO PUSSY) CD

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Panicsville’s Andy Ortmann has been doing his thing for quite some time now, and he doesn’t care if you like it or not. No matter whether “noise” gets heralded in some dumb mainstream magazine by some clueless chump, no matter whether Panicsville gets a mention or a photo, I take solace in the fact that Ortmann will do what he wants regardless of what others think.

And the cool thing is it’s not easy to know what to think about Perverse, with its varied electronics and other instrumentation, water and cash register sounds, and sinister drones. I’d seen Panicsville a bunch of times when I lived in Chicago, in different incarnations, and the only real constant thread through all of the performances (other than them usually consisting of Ortmann and one or more co-conspirators) is that there’s no constant thread, no easy way to categorize what’s going on. This recording is similar, we’ve got a range of styles (though all sort of classifiable as challenging, in a sense), and a bunch of ways to interpret what we’re hearing. A cast of notables such as Kevin Drumm, MV Carbon (Metalux), Thymme Jones (Cheer-Accident), Weasel Walter (Flying Luttenbachers) and others add to the bewildering texture of sounds, but it’s clearly Ortmann who runs the show. And that’s fine with me.

ARIEL PINK, HAUNTED GRAFFITI 2: THE DOLDRUMS (PAW TRACKS) CD

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I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t get it. I’m not gonna play some high-and-mighty critic role and try to come up with some lame way to pretend that I figured out some lame way to interpret Ariel Pink, ’cause I haven’t. This record is immediately weird. It’s up to you, dear listeners, to figure it out.

Now I’m no stranger to strange probably most of the music I would list as my favorite shit ever would be frowned on by the general populace as “weird.” And that’s fine. But I think there’s a distinction between weird weird and “funny haha” weird. And I can’t quite tell where Ariel Pink fits in there. My inclination is to say towards the latter.

First impressions being what they are, I get the sense that Ariel Pink one guy who does everything on his records isn’t necessarily trying to be “funny haha” weird. Unfortunately, a lot of the tunes come across that way. What’s the most telling factor? Well the helium voices, definitely. I’m not sure if sounding like Ween is something he’s consciously shooting for, but he’s not far off. Additionally, the lo-fi-ness low-finesse of the recordings adds to the Beck outtake factor. Buried under the hissing sizzle and falsetto overloads is an occasional pop hook, sometimes even reminiscent (to me, anyway) of prime Scott Walker. Except you can’t tell what the fuck he’s singing. Put him in a studio with a decent engineer; clean him up a bit, maybe you got something. Then again, maybe not.

RTX, Transmaniacon (Drag City)

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My history with Royal Trux is a long and strange one. Right about the time Cats & Dogs came out, and I saw them open for Sonic Youth, I was in high school, and in the midst of probably the most wide-open time a kid can have for discovering music. Here was this band that both live and on record was totally shambolic, occasionally hellacious or pretty, depending on whatever mood they felt like putting across. I remember standing front and center, watching them, being totally bewildered by Jennifer Herrema’s uncompromising and confrontational stage presence: black Oakland Raiders jacket, platform tennis shoes, hair over eyes, and hand over crotch. That her partner Neil Hagerty generally exuded the opposite, a weird aloofness that sometimes obscured how fucking intense a guitarist he is, made it all the more confusing for me, then a pretty dumb teenager.

Over the years I checked out more Trux live shows, heard records, but there was something that still bewildered me, even though I started to get it. And then, in 2001 it all fell apart. Neil and Jennifer split, the Trux was over, broken up by the difficulties they always were rumored to have with drugs, perfect gossip fodder. At least, that’s what we thought.

While Neil has continued to make incredible music under his own name, it wasn’t really clear what Jennifer would do, or even if she’d be able to continue making music. Let’s face it, rock is still stuck in the realm of the sexist past; even for the most politically progressive rock fan it’s easy to assume that, in a male-female creative partnership, the dude does the heavy lifting. This is a whole ‘nother can of worms I ain’t gonna open.

So here it is, Transmaniacon, the first we’ve heard from Herrema in a few years, under the RTX moniker. And despite there being no Neil to be heard, continuity with the Trux years is evident. Yet at the same time, RTX is its own magnificent beast. Put simply, this is the best rock album I’ve heard in years, and stands up to any of the best Royal Trux material.

How’s that, you say? Well Neil and Jennifer always had an awesome way with production, and RTX continues that while taking off in a different style. Transmaniacon, as you could probably guess by the Blue Oyster Cult-ish title and butterfly skulls artwork, is a heavy metal record but it’s produced like a modern pop record (which was Neil and Jennifer’s secret strength: everything they did seemed influenced by pop radio, in the most brilliantly non-obvious ways). This record might be the first time a rock band has used computer production in a blatant and totally psychedelic way. We got crazy auto tuned vocals; layers of clipped, thumping drums; Jaimo Welch’s bizarre and twisted guitar riffs and leads and it all works through the force of its own internal logic. This music is perfect, from “Stoked” to “Low Ass Mountain Song” to the ending number “Resurrect” (whose coda sounds like Nicks/Buckingham-era Fleetwood Mac on speedballs).

Last week, I was driving down a mountain in New Mexico, in my dad’s pickup truck. The sun was shining bright in the west, about an hour before sundown; the air was warm and crisp. I rolled down the windows, blasted Transmaniacon, and entered a state of perfect bliss. I can’t think of a more important function for a rock band to achieve.

First Utterance

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I got my first taste of Comus not too long ago. Comus, for those of you who don’t know, was a band that released two records in the early 1970s. I have never heard the second one, To Keep From Crying, and by some (but not all) accounts it’s not worth hearing. But I recently picked up a CD reissue of their first LP, First Utterance, and it’s been burning the proverbial hole in my stereo ever since.

So what’s special about it, you ask? Well, uh, I dunno how to answer that exactly, but I guess I’ll try (since that’s probably the whole point to this dang blog thing). I didn’t know a damn thing about Comus before picking up the CD, besides the name, but in searching around on the ol’ InterWeb, I see that:

“In Greek mythology Comus is the god of revelry, the son of Circe and Bacchus. Comus is also the title of a dramatic poem by the renowned 17th Century English poet, John Milton, and the poem’s central theme – female chastity tempted in the archetypal ‘wild wood’ of moral perplexity by the demonic enchanter, Comus – sets the tone for First Utterance, especially ‘The Song To Comus’.”

That’s from this exceptional short essay on Comus: A Million Fleshy Things: The Songs Of Comus – by Chris Blackford, which prolly provides more information than I should attempt. Needless to say, tho, I do know that First Utterance is an absolutely engrossing listen. But it’s not the easiest thing to get into at first. The singing on the first song by Roger Wootton, “Diana,” may be enough to turn people off, and I have to admit that when I first heard him squeal out a gutteral “Di-ane-NUH!” I was a little non-plussed. However, it’s grown on me, and is now one of my favorite songs on the album. It took me a little bit to realize, but what’s so great about Comus is the way they combined complex British folk melodies and harmonies with a none-too-subtle edge of dark, almost macabre lyricism. Plus the playing is just super-tight too, and the instrumentation is varied. But yeah, the voice, it’s an acquired taste. But then again, there’s also Bobbie Watson’s contralto (at least that’s what I think her range is) to play off Wootton’s growls and faux-Elvish-ness (that’s elves, not Elvis)…