The record for selfies taken at the Tralf was broken Monday night's Wild Nothing show thanks to a frankly alarming number of teenagers and teenage girls in particular in attendance. Having staked out prime front of stage real estate, they posed for self-taken pictures they took, danced badly, got drunk, had their drama, Ecstasy danced, and carried on like general nuisances... to the chagrin of other paying concert goers, and shit was not entirely cool as a result.

Now, ordinarily I'm super cool with the youth attending the various indie shows going off throughout Buffalo because I believe the children are the future, and there were definitely cool teenagers and teen girls keeping it real at the Wild Nothing show. Those kids are great. You see them at shows like Cults, M83, and Santigold; the kids who know what's up, the us of the future today, you know... the kids who give you a smidgen of hope for the future. The nuisances Monday night however give me hope about nothing.

I also don't want to sound like a bitter old man in an old episode of Scooby Doo, pitting demographic groups against each other, or worse scold the youth about how to behave at shows. I generally don't give a shit what you do at a show... provided you don't infringe on the enjoyment of myself and others, and with the exception of the occasional overzealous moshers, Buffalo crowds are generally copacetic. I was actually amused by the Ecstasy girls, three die-hard teen fans totally hepped up on goofballs with no dancing skill whatsoever or concept of personal space. But they were certainly fans; they knew all the words ,and got all excited by the oldest Wild Nothing material, so I was more or less cool and the gang with their antics. Other folks were understandably a bit bent out of shape however, and the vibe was definitely strained, harshing a few mellows and prompting this post.

So simply put, kids (or at least the kids who don't know any better), it's not all about you. Shows, especially wonderful shows like Wild Nothing, are shared experiences that unite the crowd for the duration of the show and sometimes beyond. It's bad enough that there are occasionally adults all too eager to harsh the mellows of fellow concert goers, but teenagers? That ain't right, and that's not how we do it, especially now that we've got a live music bonanza going on. Be cool... like those other cool teenagers who know how to represent at shows. If you're in front of the stage, longingly worship the band, or dance meaningfully. Don't be a narcissistic jackass.

That is not cool.

Over the last few years, Jack Tatum's dream pop project, Wild Nothing, have released a string of strong records. Last year's Nocturne was excellent and this year's EP, The Empty Estate, indicated that Tatum was continuing to change and grow as a songwriter. In what is shaping up to be a great summer and fall for The Tralf, Wild Nothing will be stopping in Buffalo tonight.

Wild Nothing's music is a wistful blend of shoegaze and new wave that fits in well with acts like Beach Fossils, DIIV and Heavenly Beat, all of whom release records through Brooklyn based label, Captured Tracks and all of whom - barring Heavenly Beat - performed at the Tralf this year.

Wild Nothing will be joined by local acts, Lesionread and buffaBLOG favorite, Marine Biologist. With tickets being only $15, I am having trouble trying to come up with a better way to spend a Monday night. Unless you are going to the Moon, and by Moon, I mean the actual Moon. So really, unless you have a ticket to the Moon and back, you have no reason to miss this show.

Wild Nothing w/Lesionread and Marine Biologist
The Tralf $15
7pm Doors
8pm Show

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

Album:  Waxahatchee - Cerulean Salt

As I can only highlight one album, I’m picking Waxahatchee’s Cerulean Salt. I’ve already written extensively about The National, Vampire Weekend, and Deerhunter (all great albums) but so have a lot of other people. Katie Crutchfield’s adorable and nearly flawless album of folk-pop, however, has been written about far less, and for no justifiable reason. I’ve listened to this album countless times this year and never tire of it. It’s simple and catchy and affecting and lovely. Songs like “Misery Over Dispute” show off how brilliantly Crutchfield mixes vulnerability and strength and also her ability to craft a really emotional and unexpected melody. It’s truly no reflection of my opinion of the album that I chose not to write about it at length. I think some albums just don’t lend themselves very well to the level of (over) analysis in which I engage. Parsing the hell out of the earnest sentiments of this album would feel like dissecting a butterfly.

Wild Nothing, aka Jack Tatum, has released a solid catalog of material by consistently building building upon his specific style of dreamy, wistful, and lush indie pop. Nocturne, his 2nd LP, was one of 2012's better releases, and it is somewhat of a surprise to see an EP of new material, titled The Empty Estate, so soon after. More interestingly, it is apparent from the first single, "Dancing Shell," that this new EP marks a shift in style away from the consistency of his earlier releases. The Empty Estate signals a departure, and in that vein, this EP seems more about sketching out what a shift in style might sound like, making the record somewhat noncommittal. Yet, as loosely defined as this record may be, The Empty Estate is a promising introduction to the next phase of Tatum's work.

The Empty Estate opens with "The Body in Rainfall," a familiar sounding Wild Nothing song that also falls completely flat. This track is decidedly weak, as if to purposely establish that maybe Tatum's previous sound has been exhausted of ideas and creative potential. Now, I doubt that was the intent (and if so represents a level of mind games I almost admire), but, when the record is already so short, this opening track substantially weakens the whole. Thankfully following "The Body in Rainfall," The Empty Estate completely shifts direction to something more interesting.

With "Ocean Repeating (Big-eyed Girl)," Tatum drastically changes gears. The reference points are still the same, there is a fixation with 80's and 90's sounds but where the dream pop angle was more pronounced, this new material is more electronic with fuzziness giving way to a sort of machine like clarity. These songs open onto something more luxurious and sprawling and are decidedly more rhythmic and fluid than previous output. It still sounds distinctly like Wild Nothing but this sound has been successfully taken somewhere else.

Following from this is a series of even further departures in the form of mostly synth instrumental pieces featuring minimal, if any, vocal parts. These middle songs are even more of a departure, electronic instrumentals more akin of to the soundtrack of an undetermined science fiction TV show. Here, Tatum seems to be provisionally sketching out his new direction. And while these work, they sound more like library music and less like a series of distinct pop songs. These middle tracks are well done, but they do not come together in any sort of meaningful way beyond a series of experiments.

The record culminates in "A Dancing Shell," a track whose rhythm pops up at various points throughout the middle section. "A Dancing Shell is the point where these new style crystallizes the most and actually is one of the stronger songs across Tatum's work to date. It is a large song, featuring blaring, phasing synth and a conversational vocal style. The single meshes well with the video, a animated short featuring a geometric character wandering the landscape of something you might see hanging in your dentists office circa 1986 (which is a strangely apt metaphor for the whole record's visual style). From there though, the album seems to exhaust itself and the last song is a gently fading, barely there instrumental.

Whether this EP is merely a brief experiment or the first hint of a new direction, it is a welcome change all the same. The Empty Estate suggests that Wild Nothing is capable of doing something more rhythmic, blending his usual soft focus wistfulness in with a discernible beat. Ignoring the lackluster opening track, this EP is a welcome experiment.

Grade: B

There has always been something deeply referential about Wild Nothing's music, which takes previous styles (New Wave and Dream Pop) and re-purposes them in a modern context. And, unlike, say, Foxygen, whose entire point seems to  sound so much like music from the 60's and 70's that you are honestly just better off borrowing your parents' records, Wild Nothing does something significantly more creative. The latest single, "A Dancing Shell," is an interesting shift in style with the introduction of spoken verses and a more varied electronic sonic palette. The change works and the song is a welcome step forward. Also, please take the time to watch the video, which has to be my favorite music video to date this year. The new EP will be out on May 14th.

Well, I am sitting here listing to the Charlie Brown Christmas album on repeat, which means one thing...it is the end of the year. And, with it being the end of the year, my overlords at the blog demanded an end of the year post from all of us. And, with me having sold my soul to this blog over the summer, I oblige. So, what can we say about 2012? I mean really? Mac has a gun to my head for this post so I should really say something...help?

2012 offered a lot to be enthused about with great new releases throughout the year. Whether it was already established artists like Grizzly Bear, Flying Lotus, Jens Lekman, and Spiritualized or new ones like Grimes, Tanlines, and DIIV, there was no shortage of great music. For me, this year was marked by moments where I genuinely began to feel like I was hearing something new - artists taking earlier genres and styles and recombining them in ways that felt fresher than they had in a long time, without feeling like a simple pastiche. Narrowing down a top 5 was difficult, but here are mine: 

[Note: This was also a great year for album art, so somehow my favorite albums musically linked well with some of my favorite albums visually.]

So, it was a  slow week for the Listener and I did not find anything that grabbed my attention. However, for some unknown fortuitous reason, several music videos, all coming from some of my favorite albums this year and last were released . Readers of this blog, and our ongoing column "Picking Up the Slack for MTV," should already be well aware that the music video did not die with MTV switching to an all "original programming" format, but that there are still quite a few enjoyable videos being released. So, in the spirit of mixing things up, here is a special music video edition of "Listener's Digest."

The Sea and Cake - "Harps:" Off this year's excellent Runner, the Sea and Cake's "Harp" is a great distillation of the veteran band's overall style. The video captures the song's twinge of nostalgia by going with a 70's motif as two girls wander a seemingly abandoned and idyllic town collecting field recordings.


Wild Nothing - "Paradise:" There is a surprising local connection for this video, which at one point features Michelle Williams wandering Niagara Falls and going on the Maid of the Mist. Another video that visually captures the tone of Wild Nothing's music and which also suggests a slight retro dimension with the brief appearance of a walkmen, "Paradise" follows a lone Michelle Williams around from airport to airport. Midway through, Williams reads a brief passage from Iris Murdoch's novel, A Word Child.


LA Vampires and Maria Minerva - "Seasons Change:" Off the forthcoming collaboration LP between the two artists, "Seasons Change"  is an airy and haunting track that suddenly crystallizes into a dance song half way in with the introduction of a tinny synth driven groove. I am kind of cheating here since I really wanted to put this song in the column a last week but failed to see it in time. It is really an intriguing song and the video - which looks to have been shot on a $10 budget, follows the two electronic artists around a sun drenched Los Angeles.


M83 - "Steve McQueen:" Apparently, M83 is really into psychic children  as the two videos before this ( "Reunion" and "Midnight City") all featured psychic children. In this video, a yellow suited kid creates a large scale lawn display using his wits and apparent ability to bring electronic circuitry along with all sorts of inanimate objects to life. You have to wonder where the neighbors are, or the parents, or anyone really. Pretty much all of today's videos feature, in some way, solitary individual(s) wandering empty landscapes. Where did everyone go?


No really, where is everyone? Guys? Guys?

Yes, we've reached August. And while the summer is fleeting past, there's still plenty of time for new music to find it's way to your ear canals and then to any subsequent barbecues, frisbee golf tournaments, or Sunday afternoon naps. Let's face it though, this has already been such a substantial year for new music; I still find myself catching up on past releases. Just wait 'til December when we come out with our "Best of 2012" lists. It's going to be insanely difficult.


10. Niki and The Dove - Instinct