Showing posts with label steve gunn. Show all posts
Showing posts with label steve gunn. Show all posts
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buffaBLOG Best of 2013 (so far): Part 5



Editor's note: If you missed any of this week's selections, you can check them out here.

 James Wild

 Album:  Justin Timberlake - The 20/20 Experience

 Seven years after Timberlake released his masterpiece, FutureSex/Love Sounds, he has polished his already sterling composing ability. With the release of The 20/20 Experience earlier this year, he met the expectations of his fans and earned respect from the haters. Though highly publicized, the album lives up to the hype, proving to be a composition of songs that help to define Timberlake's catalog. The song "Mirrors," though extremely popular, is one of the most beautiful and meaningful songs I have ever heard.


Song:  Little Jinder - "Whatever 4ever"

Sweden's dreamy Little Jinder is the definition of a break-out artist. Her song "Whatever 4ever" is a beautifully written dream-pop summer anthem! Surprisingly, the beautiful lyrics match her high toned and whimsical voice, often delving deeper at choice opportunities to display her vocal range. This style stems from a long tradition of Swedish pop stars. Accompanying this song is a hilarious music video, and that's why it holds up as best song, so far.



Adam Putzer

Album:  Steve Gunn - Time Off

While upon first listen I wasn’t completely blown away, eventually Time Off wormed its way into my subconscious thanks to Steve Gunn’s low key voice, and the amazing interplay between Gunn and his bandmates. Time Off is the best band album of the year, one where you can see musicians create synergy between them, through familiarity and talent alike.  This allows the songs, which are all on the long side, to weave hypnotically through your brain until they’re lodged there for good.  Time Off is definitely a massive achievement, and, for all its solemn beauty, is the best musician’s record we’ve gotten all year.



Song:  Vampire Weekend - "Unbelievers"

On which Vampire Weekend begins to tackle Big Issues, with its images of atheistic dissenters being “tied to the tracks of the train,” but still manages to enliven the themes with music so robust and joyful that it makes the postulating go down a bit easier.  Probably the band’s greatest accomplishment yet, “Unbelievers” is that rare pop song, an earworm that is not only memorable for its melody, but also for its forward thinking topics.  In that regard, it harkens back to some of the singer songwriter styling’s of the 1970s.  But James Taylor never had a backing this full of life and exuberance.



Michael Santillo

Album:  Vampire Weekend - Modern Vampires of the City

Although this album has had the benefit of being fresh in my mind, I do believe that this pick will hold up over time. Modern Vampires of the City is a tight record filled with indie-pop songs that initially mislead the listener before revealing their structural complexity amidst continuous idiosyncratic vocal hooks.



Song:  Foxygen - "San Francisco"

This psychedelic dream-pop song is a stellar summer jam, best served on a slow sunny drive to the beach. The chorus is forever repeating in my head, cemented there by the casual call of the lead vocal followed by the sugary, child-like female response.

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Album Review: Steve Gunn - Time Off


After spending the better part of the last year touring with Kurt Vile as a member of his backing band, Violators, guitarist/vocalist Steve Gunn has emerged with one of the better, more unique records to pop up in this already strong music year. His somewhat ironically titled Time Off (presumably made during the time after he had fulfilled his other commitments) is a low-key stunner, a rather diverse collection of tunes that covers substantial ground in a short span of time.

Like Kurt Vile, Gunn mostly sticks to a folksy musical style. However, he eschews Vile’s penchant for layered, dream-like psychedelia for a more straightforward approach, leading a trio through mostly acoustic-based material and occasionally employing stabs of electric guitar.  his works largely to Time Off’s benefit, however, giving the songs a plaintiveness they might have lacked otherwise.

This atmosphere also helps lend credence to the themes of Time Off, which, aside from the sly joke about when it was made, really deals with getaways, brief times when one can break free for a bit. “The water wheel’s constant turn, open views and days turn burn,” from album opener “Water Wheel,” succinctly provides Gunn’s mission statement . In fact, succinct is a key word to describe Time Off; the record is only six songs long. However, none of the songs are shorter than five minutes, and each makes an impact during their extended duration.

“Water Wheel” is a highlight, with a musical push and pull that visualizes the endless churn of water passing through the title object. Gunn and his backing band are absolutely tight here, as they are on the rest of the record, understanding and sympathetic to one another and to the song itself. Gunn’s voice is appropriately subdued, often mixed a bit further back than the instruments, but still a key ingredient.

Time Off is peppered with strong material, from the melancholia of “Lurker” and “Old Strange” to the droning, yet propulsive “Street Keeper” (the album’s best track). “New Decline” is the record’s most straightforward song, a blues workout given muscle by a swaying drumbeat and bass line, enlivened throughout by Gunn’s virtuosic slide guitar, which here lets rip one of the record's rare guitar solos. “Trailways Ramble,” the closing track, will probably be the most divisive: a nearly nine minute instrumental workout riding on an endless riff. While it artfully provides the image of a train endlessly rolling, it quickly becomes tedious, and the long running time doesn’t help.

Still, five out of six songs is a pretty great hit-to-miss ratio. Time Off proves itself to be an idiosyncratic record, unlike most indie folk or pop or anything released this year. In a year of similar records like Wakin On A Pretty Daze or Phosphorescent, Time Off distinguishes itself as a sparer, yet more resonant (and better sounding; Gunn and his compatriots are consummate musicians) record than either of those admittedly strong efforts. Steve Gunn definitely did something productive with his time off this year.

Grade: A



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