AWmusic

The Vaselines are a legendary twee pop group, an extraordinary band of its genre and generation which might have been left behind had it not been for Kurt Cobain, who convinced Sub Pop to re-release the band’s two EPs and their full length LP under the title The Way of The Vaselines. Due to the enormous appeal of Nirvana, which covered three Vaselines songs (“Jesus Don’t Want Me For A Sunbeam,” “Son of a Gun,” and the beautiful “Molly’s Lips”) and the cultish deference to its frontman, Eugene Kelly and Frances McKee saw a resurgence which resulted in a much larger interest in their music than when the band was active. (Note: Both are still active solo artists and are still producing interesting music.)

Recently, it has come to our attention that Sub Pop has decided to reissue the whole Vaselines catalogue, including previously unreleased tracks, under the Bruce-Lee-like moniker Enter The Vaselines. And few of us are kung fu kicking the air with excitement. Those that care have already heard what we think is there to hear. Nevertheless . . .

What would characterize the Vaselines’ music? Cheeky lyrics, sunny chord changes, a refreshing jangly guitar aesthetic in keeping with the C86 tradition, as you may hear for yourself below; poise, mystique, and an indomitable indie cool are also apt markers. Frankly, I have discovered few musicians capable of addressing the ostensibly stupid, everyday anxieties we don’t readily admit to others. Every man who has felt denuded or jilted by a love affair, spurned from a beautiful woman’s (or man’s) gaze could identify with the pseudo-dance classic “You Think You’re a Man.” Sometimes, The Vaselines go much further, and one wonders what might have prompted such idiotic lyrics as those of “Monsterpussy.” But their songs are generally very short, in the punk singles tradition, so if you don’t like one in a series, you can easily wait it out until the following number. Rarely do we find a love song so pure, so simple and so compelling as “Molly’s Lips.” I don’t know the Molly of the song but every time I hear it I want to kiss her.

The less important question, I suppose, any fan should ask is whether there is any necessity for a reissue or whether this is just the label’s ploy to make money out of nothing. I suppose unreleased demos and recordings done in the early years of the band’s career, between 1986 and 1988, aren’t exactly nothing, but what I would really like is for the pair to make a new album. There have been reunion shows, rumors of new a release, and so forth, but no real signs that they are about to give that a shot anytime soon. But what else is possible for two gifted songwriters except to sit down and write the non-hits of another generation?

The Vaselines – Molly’s Lips
The Vaselines – You Think You’re A Man
The Vaselines – Teenage Superstars

The girl-and-a-piano motif has its innumerable accomplices, and we know that if done poorly it can smell of melodrama or, worse, musical theatre. When performed well, however, the lone voice and lone piano, with their harmony and play, their percussive and melodic possibilities, can project the ethereal. While Sarah Shafey’s music is often assisted by drums, guitar, and orchestral arrangements, these are never so dense as to take away from the second possibility.

Sarah is a Toronto musician I hadn’t heard of until quite recently. Her voice carries a certain mournful feeling which, as I have described in other reviews, I am fond of in good singers; and Sarah’s voice, even after hearing just a few songs, is evidently very good. Her album Tiny Music Box is being released through Squeaky Clean Records (which she herself founded), and features examples of her vocal prowess and effective, imaginative song-writing. “After Dark but Early in the Morn” begins with a mysterious piano intro, with howling “oohs” close in tow; by the time the main vocals appear like a Siren, the listener is hooked. While interviewed for the Artists’ Forum, where she has been selected as the artist of the month for March 2009, Sarah described trying to affect the theme of the “lone skeleton bride dancing on a black lake” in her work, which I would say she achieves quite nicely on this track.

While our genealogy-obsessed culture might require me to mention at first listen she might remind us of Feist, or a less jazzy Em Gryner or Regina Spektor, or Amy Winehouse on “Say No one,” and although her voice carries strong shades of artists as diverse as Nina Simone, Mirah and Bjork, she is, like others of her generation, quintessentially post-modern and interested more in defying sub-genres than being acquainted with any in particular. There are, therefore, always influences which we might miss. “5 Minutes to Go” has an almost bop jazz-meets-Beatles feel, I would say, something between the Sgt. Pepper and Magical Mystery Tour eras. “Good intentions,” meanwhile, is a beautiful bare rhythm and blues and gospel track with zero drums, but featuring piano, beautiful harmonies, and unpredictable dips and swoops in melody.

Another song I was fond of, though it is not included on the album, is “Break Your Bones,” (locatable on her myspace) and which sounds like it begins by someone turning on an old drum machine in a musty suburban basement twelve years ago. How cool, I thought, when I first heard the intro. And then the guitars started. If Sarah is playing guitar on this track, then kudos. Among her skills seem to include understanding late 80s, early 90s twee/shoegaze sounds, not to mention how to use a fuzz bass in conjunction. There are heavy shades of 90s indie/alternative in the chorus lines which amused me greatly and led me to listen to it several times. If better produced, this song has potential to be a top-40 hit, though it might win praise with critics too if it retained its “basement indie feel.” Perhaps the two are incommensurable, but nevertheless, the song carries its own tiny cosmos.

If Sarah’s aim is to create a “soundtrack to life,” as she described to me briefly, then these songs are bold beginnings her foray. An album that took several years to make, and which arose out of the musician’s interest in making music without certain aim, for ostensibly the sole purpose and joy itself of making music, but whose sounds incidentally allude to exactly the opposite–the polished and thorough work of a visionary–should inspire our desire to listen.

Sarah Shafey – Good Intentions
Sarah Shafey – After Dark but Early in the Morn

So this is the third Junior Boys album. The first of the bunch, Last Exit, was one of my favourites of 2004, and almost single-handedly inspired my friend and I to start a band. I remember Jeremy Greenspan from one of my English classes at McMaster. At the time he wore enormous pants that resembled a wide skirt. He dropped the course by the fourth week. While the rest of us struggled through Foucault, Derrida, and Roland Barthes, he went on to make a hit record.

I must say before all else that I love the title of this album; lifted from a 1949 Norman McClaren animated short Junior Boys are really sinking their intertextual teeth into a beautiful fragment of Canadiana here. Not that I harbour any fond nationalist sentiments about our country, but McClaren is an undeniable genius and the quotation does not and cannot escape us. Second, this band is always floating around my iPod, and since I respect the pair very much, I will be critical of this album.

I think it is always a bad choice to situate two six-and-a-half minute tracks at the beginning of a record unless they are undeniably brilliant, and unfortunately the first two songs of Begone Dull Care are not. “Parallel Lines” and “Work” are long numbers that build very slowly to allow Jeremy Greenspan’s voice to swoop and sway, to generate expressive strength. Personally, I find this exercise interesting, but if you don’t already love what the Junior Boys do, I can understand if you get bored and skip onward. Frankly, for me, the album doesn’t really get going until the third song, with “Bits and Pieces,” where finally, the listener is rewarded for being patient through the first nearly fifteen minutes. Over the next few tracks, it really revs up. “Hazel,” the following number, is an excellent song, arguably the best on the album, and the first of the series to feature a chorus anyone with an ear can sing along to even on first listen. It made me dance alone in my room as if I was drunk on a litre of sangria (which I was, but nevertheless.) It reminds the listener Junior Boys are pop musicians, after all, no matter how hard they try at times (or how hard the critics try) to position themselves as experimental minimal electronic artists.

There is an opiating quality to the record that is autochthonous to the pair’s sound. I have friends who dismiss them as “snoozy” but I will defend the boys by arguing they always program sufficient layers of counter-rhythms and melodies in their music to keep us interested. This record is relatively coherent and offers several hit-single type of songs we all covet while also keeping to that other of their traditions: to push the boundaries of their peculiar melancholic variety of electronic pop. In the end I like this album, and maybe after a dozen listens I will come to adore it as much as So This Is Goodbye, but probably not as much as the first record. At first impact Begone Dull Care resonates at a level of 7.9 out of 10.

Junior Boys – Hazel
Junior Boys – The Animator

It has been an eventful recent past for music listeners. First: our mother of otherness, Ms. MIA, recently brought a child into the world, as I’m sure you’ve heard. I can’t really imagine growing up in a house where one’s mother is an MC with semi/pseudo radical politics and one’s father is a rock musician (Ben Brewer from The Exit), but no doubt the boy will have access to a cornucopia of colourful costumes and expensive guitars, not to mention a sense of entitlement to the privileged status of “global citizen.” But yes, a hearty congratulations to the happy couple.

In much sadder news, Gang Gang Dance, one of my more favourite recent so-called experimental acts, whose self-titled debut in 2004 was one of my favourite records of that year, had all of their gear destroyed in a fire. They were forced to cancel a European tour. Fire is, of course, a major destructive force in artistic history. It destroyed the Library of Alexandria, the homes of numerous notable artists who lived in Chicago during the Great Fire there in 1871, and of course all the museums and galleries and schools in Iraq during the American invasion of 2003, and during their subsequent occupation. Hopefully, GGD will be able not only to recover from this event but use it as a means of reshaping their sound so it is henceforth incendiary (fight fire with fire, as they say), and indestructible.

Last, but certainly not least, one of my favourite Canadian chanteurs, and certainly one of my favourite Canadian poets and writers (of which there are, frankly, very few brilliant ones and many mediocre choices), the one and only Leonard Cohen, is set to play Coachella in the spring. Yeah, I thought it was kind of strange, too. Not because he’s 74 years old, or because he hasn’t played festivals enormous venues in the past, but because his will be a truly melancholic contrast to the others on the bill, like The Killers, for instance. (Does Leonard Cohen listen to the Killers? I doubt it. I hope not.) There are several other pieces of news, but these three caught my attention. Forgive me if they are a little late in coming, but I thought I would at least inform all the tortoises like me out there. Y’all have a good week, now.

MIA-Boyz (Hatchmatik Remix)
Leonard Cohen – Ain\'t No Cure For Love
GGD – First Communion

Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on your take, In Rainbows did not win best album at the 2009 Grammy awards. (The band did, however, perform a spirited version of “15 Step” with the USC Marching Band.) But more importantly, and well before all the Grammy hoop-la, in September of last year, after losing the Mercury Music Prize to Elbow, Collin Greenwood mentioned to BBC 6 Music that the band had returned from its world tour and headed straight into the studio to begin working on an eighth album. “We’re still talking about doing some stuff and we’re really excited about it,” he said. Some individuals on a Radiohead messageboard I frequent responded by hoping for a quick release of the following album to counteract the sour lingering taste of the last one.

What did you all think of In Rainbows? I agreed with the critics that it found the band treading water, and the two previous records had set high standards, perhaps unreachable, for all the ones following. “House of Cards” (for which they were nominated for Best Video at the Grammies) is a good song, with an innovative, trippy video to be sure, but nothing can truly match the strangeness or the splendour of a piece of music like “Everything Its Right Place,” or “How to Disappear Completely.” Nevertheless, “15 Step” did justice as an album opener and “Weird Fishes” found its way into my heart by endless waves of triplets, one arpeggio flowing over another, exhibiting the band’s formalist mastery without undue fanfair. My two favourites are still the quieter tracks, “Nude,” a gorgeous ballad with an atypical melodramatic finale, and “Videotape.”

Meanwhile, I found the lyrics on this album more personal than any of the others aside from maybe their first; it isn’t often that we find the author of such lines as “kicking squealing Gucci little piggie” writing “I don’t want to be your friend/I just want to be your lover.” So no, it was not a flawless work, especially not lyrically, and especially not
on “Jigsaw Falling into Place,” a truly boring musical moment on the album. But the question is, of course, where does one go after such a record, a mixed bag of beautiful moments and not-so-interesting ones?

Probably to oblivion or redemptive ground, the two most clearly visible paths. A mediocre record (the first road) at this stage of the game is almost expected. At an average age of 40+, the band has reached a level of inordinate success, and one might assume they’re slowing down. According to a New York Times article, they have eleven kids between the five of them and can’t dedicate as much time to the studio as they could during the Kid A years. So the fact some of us want another electronic masterpiece may just be wistful thinking . . . but I hear ours is an age of hope.

Radiohead – Nude
Radiohead – Videotape

Yep. The word is out from numerous sources, including Rolling Stone and Pitchfork. Though no one seems to know much, except that the man himself will participate somehow; how exactly is also very much a mystery. Typically Michael Jackson.

Really, though, it was bound to happen. The kitschy over-the-top “Thriller” was meant to be staged as a theatrical escapade: prisoners in the Philippines have already performed its dance routines, and innumerable Bollywood films have ripped them off too. But the “Thriller” music video was, like so many other ambitious Michael Jackson productions, not just dance moves; it was an episode, a mini movie with a story. And frankly, the elements of gaudy American musical theatre were already there, especially in its melodramatic and alienating effects. But does it contain enough material for a two-act performance? Some sources claim the short story of the original video should suffice for an hour and a half, if other elements from Thriller and even Off The Wall are included. Supposedly we shouldn’t be surprised to discover new representations of “Billie Jean” and “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough.”

Frankly, I’m a fan of the video and the album as a whole. It still stands up as a great dance pop record, sold over fifty million copies worldwide and turned Michael Jackson into a household name, one of the few truly global artists. And there is a certain ferocity to “Thriller,” despite its campy nature; the guy turns into an animal onscreen. We laugh, but it’s actually kind of Kafkaesque. Michele Wallace writes an excellent essay on black modernism and Michael Jackson, describing his music’s self consolidated identity and its racialized relationship to the white liberal media and public. Broadway may not do justice to academic questions, and raises simpler ones, like how exactly will they transform young Michael into a werewolf on stage? And what will it mean for a bunch of forty or fifty somethings to watch their favourite 80s superstar returned to his original alienating persona, Weremichael? Personally, I’m just glad the guy’s doing something again, even if it means returning to his earlier work.

Michael Jackson – Billie Jean
Michael Jackson – Thriller

Katie and Lance are the mysterious type. Their myspace fails to reveal a single picture of either member. But their invisibility ends before the music, thankfully, since it is veritably good stuff. The songs flow like a grade six dance, like tracks by Technotronic or Snap, but which are somehow actually cool, and interesting ear candy. “Viewers Like You” has a fantastic hook, excellent pad and punchy, arpegiated synths, as well as a beat that’ll make you move with more spontaneity than your eleven year old self. I prefer the group’s songs to their remixed versions. Lady Citizen’s mix of “The Jump Back,” for instance, is not as good as the original, and neither is Hot Juice’s take on “Viewers Like You” (to which you can listen for yourself below).

The original songs interest me particularly because they document the transition of dance sounds in the indie electro world, which have already progressed from re-imagining the 80s into early 90s house, break-beats, and dance pop. With over 800 plays a day on their Myspace, I believe this band has what it takes to make a global hit, to become a household name. Either they will do it or someone who remixes one of their songs will help them do it. That’s my only prediction for 2009 thus far; so I’m quite convinced, as you see . . . But there’s little else to say for the time being, since no major recordings have yet been released.

Let\'s Get Invisible – Viewers Like You
Let\'s Get Invisible – Viewers Like you (Hot Juice Remix)
Let\'s Get Invisible – The Jump Back

Supposedly, he has a new EP out called Live At Park Avenue, and if I had it I would review it. Jose Gonzalez, the Argentine-born Swedish singer, came to my attention, as he did to millions, through his moody interpretations (and perhaps misinterpretations, by some bloggers’ accounts) of classic covers on Youtube. If you’re thinking, “oh no, yet more praise for mashed-up tracks originally by Joy Division,” I would advise exercising patience, holding our breakfasts in our stomachs at least until the end of the article.

A man armed merely with a nylon string guitar, and often covering songs we’ve heard a million times since adolescence, can be appealing for at least two reasons. If not only because the covers are performed with the infusion of a simple, genuine style, then we must consider that all of Gonzalez’s songs carry his signature sadness.

There exists an original strategy to the covers. One would imagine that to try and imitate Karin Dreier Andersson or Liz Fraser (whom I seem to mention every other week) would be a fruitless misadventure, so Jose Gonzalez doesn’t bother. He sings in a range more fitting for the basso-tenor male, and moves with the notes according to a feel all his own, one very different than those in the original Knife and Massive Attack songs. His take on “Heartbeats” was once described by my friend to be “the castrated version” of that track, and while I would make no antithetical Freudian claims, I would say he leeches the melodies and re-presents them denuded of all pretensions, over simple, fluidly plucked classical guitar. It’s not necessarily better or worse, just different, and haunting.

As for the originals, they move with such intensity one wonders why (aside from the obvious attention-seeking/grabbing reasons) he would bother playing anyone’s music. Veneer, his first full album, released in 2003, which incidentally contains the Knife track mentioned above, also has a song called “Hints,” a small, delicate yet somehow incendiary track that broaches the true character of Jose’s voice, its slightly nasal strain and natural dips and bends. The 2:24 may not be enough to justice or convince you, but “Lovestain” and “Crosses,” also on the same album, may do the trick. (Check them out.) His 2007 sophomore effort, In Our Nature, meanwhile, sees the budding songwriter through his course, and recalls his capacity to write evocative lyrics, nestled within well crafted songs and melodies, whether illustrated in the beautiful “Abram” or powerful “Cycling Trivialities.”

I recognize the ostensible ease in picking out a cover and playing a song someone else has written, and reading online, one gets a sense of how much backlash this young man receives for his artistic choices. Nevertheless, I must request that the reader inquire into the quality of such recordings as Chromatics’ cover of Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill,” or any covers of such classic songs, and compare against Gonzalez’s efforts. If any artist is daring enough compete against the original version of “Teardrop” in efforts to match its emotional depth and complexity, I’d like to know who this person might be, besides the artist in question. Frankly, I’d rather listen to Jose Gonzalez than take the piss out of him.

Jose Gonzalez – Heartbeats
Jose Gonzalez – Hints
Jose Gonzalez – Teardrop
Jose Gonzalez – Love Will Tear Us Apart

Every once in a while a band comes along and takes an old formula, transforms simple guitars, drums, bass, and vocals into the majesty of pure difference, of actual newness. Unfortunately, The Uglysuit is not such a band. (How did these guys even get Pitchforked?) Honestly, there has got to be at least a dozen acts in this city alone (Rural Alberta Advantage, for one) who I think do greater justice to this style of music. And the style: a cross between alt-country with limited indie rock sensibilities on guitar, unremarkable bass, with simple drums, and . . . yes, vocals.

So! You’re in your early twenties, you just joined an indie band, you kind of sing but don’t really know how to manipulate your voice effectively? Just bite into a bit of Connor Oberst or drink a pint of Jeff Tweedy before lamenting away! Yes, I find Israel Hindman’s vocals annoying, not entirely ineffective within the limited boundaries of the band’s music, but a testament to its limitations, with his poor range and predictable melodies. “Chicago” is the song that has received the most press, for which the band has received its comparison to The Shins, except that James Mercer’s Beach Boys inspired voice dominate that group’s tracks and provide melodic continuity, extraordinary harmonies and countermelodies, ideas which Hindman would kill for. In a style where vocals are key, a mediocre singer can destroy the chances for making interesting music.

But at least we have the songwriting to look forward to. “And We Became Sunshine” is an attempt at epic which fails for me just around the time the band begins pounding out repetitive, unexciting, distorted chords, clearly signaling its over-the-top attempts at being “precious” within softer, break-down sections. Even in an age when repetition is tolerated and accepted I would desist from extending the marker of respect onto a song whose most interesting segment is the last three seconds, when everything slows down like an old record . . . but only perhaps because I know it’s nearing its end. (Now that I think about it, the best part of the song might have been when it accidentally drifted onto the opening madness of The Vaselines‘ “Son of a Gun” on my iTunes playlist.) “Anthem of the Arctic Birds,” meanwhile, is just plain boring, from mild piano intro to crashing chorus to crescendo finale. Folks, we’ve heard all this before.

This album is a truly hollow work of art, but let’s cut these kids a break. Needless to say, they’re young. Their myspace claims their ages as between 20 and 23, and frankly, few artists, barring maniacal geniuses, have reached their potential in any form during such formative years. I wouldn’t look out for their next album with poised anticipation, but maybe I’d laugh a little at being reminded of The Uglysuit, and give it a listen. This debut deserves no more than a 5.0 out of 10.

The Uglysuit – And We Became Sunshine
The Uglysuit – Chicago

Grouper is the moniker of beguiling Portland, Oregon artist Liz Harris, the crux of whose music seems to reside in the complex relationships between the surfaces and structures of her songs. The former presents the listener a turbid ambiance below whose dense atmosphere resides the structure. These do not shy so far away from pop in the end, but always avoid the verse-chorus phenomenon. Meanwhile, over a backdrop of softly plucked guitars and reverbed pianos, the voice soars.

At first, I was reluctant to compare Liz Harris with the singer of the Cocteau Twins; others seem to be too fond of the link, and my deep love for the Twins and their singer’s voice first led me to exclaim: “not every ethereal female vocalist is Liz Fraser!” After a few listens, however, the album offers several points of comparison: the harmonies from “Stuck,” are not unlike some of Fraser’s early work, and Harris’ voice, like Fraser’s, sometimes veers towards lilting and glossolalia. In fact, the vocals are the strongest suit of the album, always beautiful, like a pair of caged panthers, never dominating, but you know they could.

“When we fall” sounds a lot like Low or Beach House, or maybe even like some of MBV’s softer sounds from Strawberry Wine. “Fishing Bird (Empty Gutted In The Evening Breeze)” is the one song which comes closest to being a pop song, a single or whatever. It’s essentially a moody folk track, featuring layers of ambient vocals, oohing-aahing on one level and mouthing incomprehensible lyrics on another, fading in and out. It adds to the fact the songs on the album all flow into each other, thusly creating the impression of continuity.

I could go on, but really, this is a fantastic album, and I’m really glad to have heard it before the year’s end. I’d give it an 8.0 for sure, out of 10.

Grouper – Fishing Bird (Empty Gutted in the Evening Breeze)
Grouper – I'm Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill
Grouper – When We Fall