Showing posts with label yo la tengo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label yo la tengo. Show all posts
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buffaBLOG's Best of 2013 (so far): Part 1


If 2013 ended today, I am confident in saying that this year has already blown  2012 away by a mile. Between long awaited follow ups (Daft Punk), continued greatness (Deerhunter, The National, Vampire Weekend), and exciting debuts (Atoms for Peace, Rhye), 2013 has been one of those years that keeps me excited for the future of music. 

Over the next five days, our writers will be discussing their favorite albums and songs at the half way point of 2013. I know that personally, I always enjoy looking back at these lists to see how the second half of the year measures up to the first, and if early releases will hold up against the fresher, flavor of the moment, songs and LPs. Anyways, here begins our recap of 2013's first six months in music. Make sure to check back all week for what should be (at least I hope) a diverse collection of picks.
 - Mac McGuire (Editor-in-Chief)

 Steve Gordon

Album: Thee Oh Sees - Floating Coffin

 San Francisco garage monsters Thee Oh Sees have been crazy busy the last couple years, dropping clumps of records and touring incessantly. 2013 saw the release of Floating Coffin, probably one of their best offerings in years. It's often quite heavy, but cleaner songwriting and an increase in production quality allow John Dwyer and Brigid Dawson's vocal harmonies to cut through the rancid, grimy mix, lending a sense accessibility amidst the decay.



Song: Anamanaguchi - "Meow"

Brooklyn's chip-punk quartet, Anamanaguchi, were relegated to videogame nerd circles before they announced the upcoming release of Endless Fantasy, their debut LP, earlier this year (to be released on vinyl, CD, download, USB, and, yep, functioning NES cartridge). The DIY project raised over $277,000 on Kickstarter (well beyond the $50K they asked for) largely on the strength of lead single "Meow," a futureshock psych romp that's danceable, nostalgic, and catchier than the Mario theme.



Nick Sessanna

Album: Deafheaven - Sunbather

Deafheaven's Sunbather is an hour long collection showcasing an impossible mix of shoegaze and black metal. Throughout Sunbather, atonal washes of screams mix with enormous guitar lines, somber piano dirges, some spoken word, and everything in between. In this case, Deafheaven somehow has just as much in common with Sigur Ros as they do with Converge. Black metal drums and screams somehow mix beautifully with the otherwise not-so-heavy guitar tracks. Thick with delay, reverb, and other effects, Sunbather is a swirling vortex of noise, albeit a beautiful one.



Song: Weatherbox - "Big News"

In the words of Weatherbox singer Brian Warren, "This song is about staying in your room for two months, thinking that everybody in the world hates you, and then coming out and realizing you were right." If a few months and all my friendships are all it takes to write a song like "Big News," I think it might be a risk worth taking. Weatherbox has discovered a penchant for inserting pop-sensibility into a discordant frame, mixing frantic guitars into a calm rhythm-section skeleton. There's something a little off about this song, but essentially that's what makes Weatherbox so great. Nothing about it should work, but it does.



Cliff Parks

 Album:  Daft Punk - Random Access Memories

 I wrestled with this for a good while, but the album that’s taken over is Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories. It’s a record with a mission I can and do subscribe to, it’s super dense with information, you can actually shake your ass to it in a rhythmic fashion, and it’s a ton of fun to listen to. For all of its obvious artifice and sharp, stylized clarity, it has heart and soul, achieving genuine artistic transcendence. Plus, you can actually dance to it. Please note: I am in no way an EDM fan.

 Song:  Daft Punk feat Pharrell & Nile Rodgers - "Get Lucky"

 I wrestled with this one too. Should I go with something off of the new Vampire Weekend, Charles Bradley, or that epic M83/Susanne Sjundfor ditty for the Oblivion soundtrack? Nope, it’s more Daft Punk, because “Get Lucky” is wickedly, absurdly good. I can’t begin to guess how many times I’ve heard it in the last few months and I still adore it. It’s the song of the summer, and probably the song of the year. Nile Rodgers is a guitar genius, pure and simple.
John Hugar

Album: City & Colour - The Hurry And The Harm

When I saw the announcement that a new City & Colour album was coming out, I was cautiously optimistic. Their last album, 2011's Little Hell, is one of my favorite albums of the past decade, and I didn't think the follow-up could possibly be on anywhere near the same level. I've since learned to never doubt Dallas Green, as The Hurry And The Harm is right there with its predecessor, and may even surpass it. The opening title track creates a cinematic feel lasting throughout the album, while "Two Coins" ranks among the deepest songs Green has ever written. Fans of his punkier work in Alexisonfire may still be getting used to this new direction, but Dallas Green is one of the best songwriters around, and folk suits him extremely well.



Song:  Yo La Tengo - "Is That Enough"

Yo La Tengo have tried many things over their nearly 30 years of existence, but until now, orchestration was not one of them. The addition of a string section to a band not usually known for that can be sign of creative stagnation, but in this case, it's a sign of a band who's never been afraid of anything continuing to ope new doors. "Is That Enough" is an easy highlight of their excellent new album Fade, and it ranks among the most beautiful songs the band has ever written. After this long of a career, Yo La Tengo shows no signs of decline, with regards to both quality and ambition.

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Album Review: Yo La Tengo - Fade


Yo La Tengo is Ira Kaplan, Georgia Hubley, and James McNew: An introduction for a band that, in most circles, does not need one. Started by husband and wife Kaplan and Hubley in 1984, Yo La Tengo has been writing and releasing records for over twenty five years. They have attained some mainstream success, but for the most part they hover just under the mainstream radar. They have cultivated a sound and remained consistent, not conforming to trends and traveling to the beat of their own drone. This puts the band in a unique position, neither blowing up nor falling into obscurity. It is their persistence to write the way they want that has allowed such longevity in their career. They haven’t fallen off. They will never offend their fan base by embracing disco (in a manner of speech). They are in a way, out of the effected reach of critics because their dedicated fans will likely not be swayed in a negative direction. In other words, Yo La Tengo doesn’t need you to like their music. They like their music and they will keep making music that they like. That being said, their latest album Fade, is actually quite exceptional.

Again I reiterate, Yo La Tengo are practically dinosaurs in the music industry, and so I hesitate to make comparisons to other bands that may share sonic similarities. Yo La Tengo predates many modern bands to which I might make a comparison and it is more likely that said bands have been influenced by Yo La Tengo, and not the other way around (that is not to say that the reverse could not be true). The Velvet Underground influence is obvious, from the repetitious droniness, to the fuzzy and technically avoidant, meandering guitar and of course there is Georgia Hubley’s vocals that embody a prettier, less atonal sounding Nico. But, this comparison is trite and at this point in the band’s existence they have achieved their own relevance outside of any recollection of Lou Reed, no matter how fond.  

Fade begins with some subtle percussive elements (guitar strings that better resemble tapping on an empty bucket), followed by some kind of synthesized shimmer and then the beat drops. Enter some guitar jangle and what emerges is the unmistakable pulse of a Yo La Tengo concoction.  A living, breathing machine, this first track, “Ohm,” ebbs and flows as a mantra, the essence of a sound developed over the course of almost three decades. Familiar mellow vocals deliver the lines, ”Sometimes the bad guys come out on top/ Sometimes the good guys lose/ We try not to lose our hearts, not to lose our minds.” Kaplan comforts the listener in a way as he delivers a kind of matter of fact, ethereal wisdom. He continues, “Nothing ever stays the same/ Nothing’s explained.”  His connotation is insecure, but not without hope in an all-accepting, enlightened, and philosophical way. The record plods along with the second track, “Is That Enough,” a reminiscent love ballad that continues with the theme of pensive reflection.  An unsure Kaplan asks the question, “Is that enough if it’s not clear the way I feel for you?” Then in comes the infectious upbeat third tune, with fast drums and a loud, funky bass riff. “Well You Better,” serves as an answer to the uncertain thoughts of the first two tracks and repeats in a spectacular and uplifting manner, “Please make up your mind before it’s too late.” This song communicates that it is fine to thoroughly contemplate, but at a certain point there is a demand for action, as Kaplan understands because of a familiar voice heard inside his head.

Each song that follows has something special happening as well. Hubley’s role is not to be marginalized as she sings beautiful lead on a couple of songs echoing the comforting tone and vocal delivery established early on by Kaplan. In “Cornelia and Jane,” Hubley’s voice conveys a desperate sense of longing that I have not felt from a new release in a long time. I will admit to holding Yo La Tengo in particularly high esteem. I have not been a lifelong fan of the band, only previously being exposed to certain songs here and there, mere highlights from an accomplished musical archive. This record however, has meant something to me on a personal level. I listened to Fade for the first time through headphones on a gray day, while traversing a windy and desolate beach. The music served as a soundtrack to a pensive stroll; a backdrop to a scene in a film where some kind of self-discovery first manifests. Realizations like this are fleeting and mostly inconsequential outside of the moment. It was through this lens that I experienced Fade and although each listen will yield a different relation to this music, I will remember that time on the beach because for me, music and memory are closely related. 

Listening to music is not a passive non-event, but an active experience. After the initial experience, each consequent listen is like a memory of the first time. Over time it becomes less real and more bias toward some designation that is readily acceptable; re-written into a comfortable narrative; dislodged from the place where it was felt; transformed into something understandable and mundane; no longer personal, but general and detached; no longer belonging to one’s individual self alone. Something like that cannot remain and so, in the end, it will fade.



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Top Ten January Album Releases


What up 2013?! Last year was assuredly righteous, but just by the sight of what’s coming out in January, it’s hard to argue that we could be in for an even more abundant year of new releases. Here are our top ten new releases for this month.

10. Spectral Park - Spectral Park
While Spectral Park aka Luke Donovan will be releasing his debut LP on the 29th of this month, you shouldn’t expect any greater production level than the blotchy, coarse 60s rock they offered on his two-track demo from 2011, Gratis. The first cut from the self-titled record, “L’appel du Vide” is equally as dusty, and could even come off as a demo, but its corrosive energy carries the group as it does lo-fi artists Ty Segall or Ariel Pink. It might also help to know that Donovan’s recordings are, as Mexican Summer puts it, “Borne from the trash, literally sourced from a box of records the Southampton multi-instrumentalist found on a walk by a council block’s curbside garbage.” But seriously, he did that. By chopping-up clips in a sampler and adding vocal tracks Donovan has set out to reconstruct a cacophonous ghost of pop-music past.

9. Ra Ra Riot - Beta Love
Formed in Syracuse, NY, Ra Ra Riot are Upstate’s native sons of indie rock. They recently played a stellar show at Mohawk Place, touring behind songs off their new album, Beta Love. The record is currently streaming in full and sample tracks at the groups website, and upon first listen it seems that the band has stayed in line with their signature upbeat, pop style. Beta Love is out 1/22 via Barsuk.

8. Parquet Courts - Light Up Gold
Parquet Courts are a four-piece punk band from Texas that relocated to NYC and well, wanted to record a record, so they did and released it last August on Dull Tools. Right. So why are they releasing it again via What’s Your Rupture? on January 15, you say? Well, mostly because every major music source fell asleep on the excellent punk record last year, so...yeah. The awkwardness will fizzle out once you listen to "Stoned and Starving" below:
 
7. The Revival Hour - Scorpio Little Devil 
As I mentioned back in November when they released their debut EP Clusterchord, Sufjan Stevens collaborator DM Stith and John-Mark Lapham of The Earlies have teamed up to form a great new band called The Revival Hour and they will be dropping their debut record Scorpio Little Devil on 1/21. While its being called a pop record in theory, The Revival Hour’s debut is more of a fusion of 60s soul, doo-wop, and folk as Stith lends his hallucinatory vocal melodies and loops while Lapham offers a layered stew of instrumentation and catchy rhythms. Listen to “Hold Back” below:


6. Yo La Tengo - Fade
Indie rock juggernauts Yo La Tengo will go ahead and release their thirteenth album of their nearly 30 year career on 1/15 via Matador. The album is called Fade and was produced by John McEntire (The Sea and Cake) instead of Roger Montenout, who has produced every album since 1993’s Matador debut, Painful. In an interview from 2009 Kaplan had this to say about the band’s relentless creativity: “You may think that you know everything that we do...we’ve thought of a few new things over the past couple of years.” Listen to the excellent new single off the new album in “Ohm” below:

5. Foxygen - We Are 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace and Magic
Foxygen are another great new act that’s were signed by the folks at Jagjaguwar by way of handing their demo to producer Richard Swift after a show one night in NYC. Luckily, he got them in the studio for their debut album last year because they will already be releasing their follow-up We Are 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace and Magic on 1/22. They’ve cleverly been described as “the raw, de-Wes Andersonization of The Rolling Stones, Kinks, Velvets, Bowie, etc. that a whole mess of young people desperately need.” I probably can’t top that. Check out the Richard Swift directed video for “Shuggie” below:

4. Ducktails - The Flower Lane
After releasing the excellent sophomore record, Days, and hitting the road for almost a year as a part of his main gig playing lead guitar for Real Estate, Matthew Mondanile has been hard at work this summer on his third album under his drowsy, lo-fi moniker Ducktails. The Flower Lane is out 1/29, and while the recently released title track retains the groggy vibe that we’re familiar with from his prior two LPs, there is an undeniably stronger production quality to the track, as Mondanile has expanded his bedroom studio into a basement practice space, adding four band members. The Flower Lane is being released on Domino Records.


3. Christopher Owens - Lysandre
When Girls broke up back in July I was pretty saddened by the news. In three years, they had put out three incredible releases, and seemed to be only getting better and more prolific; the SF duo of Christopher Owens and JR White had created something that became one of my favorite bands of the last five years. Since the split, it was hard to know how quickly either would get back into making music, or if they would at all. White got back into producing pretty fast, and a few months later Owens announced the exciting (and speedy) news of a forthcoming solo record and shared a new track called “Here We Go.” The track takes on a similar soft rock guise, but a lot of the punk and gospel stylings of work as Girls are absent, and instead we’re left with an anchored, folkier song that still bleeds out every drop of emotion we’re used to experiencing with Owens. Listen to “Here We Go” below:


2. Local Natives - Hummingbird
Three years ago a charming five-piece LA band calling themselves Local Natives released a killer debut album called Gorilla Manner that they recorded in their SoCal house, and then toured the shit out of it. Since they’ve garnered comparisons to big names like Grizzly Bear and Arcade Fire, there’s been a hum as to where they wound go next. In a way it’s not surprising that their first single off the forthcoming record, “Breakers,” feels so energetically stadium-ready. Co-produced by The National’s Aaron Dessner, the band has said that Hummingbird is a progressive change: “I definitely think the album represents a lot of growth for us as musicians we pushed ourselves a lot to try new thing, experiment. On a lyrical emotion level I feel we dug a whole lot deeper laid a lot more things bare and tried to be more honest.” Listen to “Breakers” below and decide for yourself:


1. Toro Y Moi - Anything In Return
As we mentioned back in October, Toro Y Moi aka Chaz Bundick has a crisp LP primed called Anything In Return due out 1/22 via Carpark. As he has modestly shifted his scope from late ’00 chillwaver to house, funk-hop beatsmith we’ve been following the prolific musician the entire way. First cuts off the record “So Many Details” and “Say That” both offer Bundick’s varied approach to intelligently danceable music that puts him in a chasm betwixt producer and songwriter. There’s little doubt that this is Bundick’s most anticipated record yet. Watch the video for “Say That” below:


 Tom Dennis
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Listener's Digest: September 21-28


Well, now that autumn is technically here, the only thing left to do is sit and wait for the leaves to change. Personally, I make sure to be the first to see the shifting colors so I pick a tree and sit dutifully next to it until I feel like it has sufficiently changed. By sit dutifully next to it, I mean sit dutifully next to it, nonstop, and wait patiently for it to change colors. So, here I sit, in my parents backyard, just waiting for these leaves to change. It is day 7, and I am sad to report no change. I thought I saw them starting on Wednesday, but those were just the spots I was seeing because I forgot to eat for a few days. After I fainted, I ate a whole apple pie and returned to wait. I will be sure to update you next week, but for now, here is some new music.

Jim Jarmusch and Jozef Van Wissem - "Etimasia:" The always cool Jim Jarmusch teams up with Josef Van Wissem for their forthcoming second album this year, which will be released on Sacred Bones. "Etimasia" is a quiet and haunting instrumental. 


Tennis - "Guiding Light:" A slinky cover of the Television classic. Tennis stays fairly true to the original while the vocals simultaneously seem to completely change the tone of the song to something warmer and more relaxed.


Yo La Tengo - "Stupid Things:" Yo La Tengo teases their first album in 3 years with an alternate take of a new song. A wistful song with quiet vocals and a brief synth line that wavers in and out of the track. Yo La Tengo rarely disappoint so I am excited to hear what they have up next. This track, for whatever reason, is only available on Spotify.


Cold Cave - "A Little Death to Laugh:" Cold Cave have quietly perfected brooding synth pop over the last few years. This new track, written and performed by front man Wes Eishold channels The Faint, mixing the danceable with the theatrically sinister. In the meantime, the band now has a completely new lineup featuring members of Samhain, the Blood Brothers (remember them?) and LCD Soundsystem. Figure in that Eishold used to front American Nightmare and this seems like one of the strangest supergroups ever assembled.

Crystal Castle - "Wrath of God:" Another theatrically sinister track this week to suggest the recent gloomy weather affected me more than I noticed. It is true, I did buy a black coat the other day and lately I have just been standing atop buildings watching the millings of people like ants and snickering at their ways as they fret while ignoring the cold hand of death gently cradling their necks and waiting to take them away to the void...Still, I would not say I am any darker than I used to be, when I sniveled through life armed with a pitiable hope that things will always get better. Anywho, this new track is  surprisingly restrained and atmospheric. Their new album will be out in November. 


Michael Torsell
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Album Review: Grizzly Bear - Shields


In addition to a sound afforded with a larger budget, the latest Grizzly Bear album, Shields, is endowed with a certain vitality that their previous albums more or less lacked.  Even though the psychedelic folkgroup is rather reputed, the album comes across as formidably ambitious, but thankfully, the skill-level of the members, individually and collaboratively, has allowed for it's poignant execution, for the audaciously broad ideas to be seamlessly encapsulated through the final product. Amid the pool of highly-anticipated releases of this year, it seems like Grizzly Bear has put out one of the few albums whose actual release will resonate more deeply than its prior hype. 

Those who are in touch with the group's musical repertoire will most likely be able to identify a coherent aesthetic vision that neatly strings together the group's collective output. It's as though from the start, Ed Droste had in mind a vision that was laid out within the blueprint of his musical project and the addition of Chris Bear, Daniel Rossen, and Chris Taylor equipped the vision with the means to expand its trajectory while at the same time refine itself. Today, reference to the band's music conjures associations with a distinct textural quality that mimics the morphing climate that is wholly New England- landscape-culture-temperature and all. In the same vein of many other notable musical acts, Grizzly Bear has experienced the career highlight of sculpting a unique sound whose genesis listeners and critics will always attribute to them; the pillar of sound that would circumscribe an environment of lush desolation.

Through the release of Shields, Grizzly Bear reaffirms their fidelity to this signature faculty, however, using an approach which curiously enough deviates from a path they have opted for in the past.  Regarding the construction of Shields, bits and pieces from recent interviews fill in a portrait of four individuals who turned to a more idiosyncratic creative process than ones they have grown accustomed to. This time around, Droste reveals that they were less subdued, often stepping out of their traditional roles in the band- writing parts for each other and exchanging input in a manner that was shamelessly honest.

To the listeners relief, the uninhibited approach paid off tremendously. In Shields, you can almost hear the vibrant atmosphere of the spirited ideology unfurl as the tracks reveal themselves one after the other.  An instagram photo posted by the group several months ago on their official Facebook page reveals what guitarist/vocalist Rossen saw when he glanced down during a practice session- an assortment of instruments scattered throughout a shining wood floor, unidentifiable effect boards and a nexus of tangled wire framing a dizzying array of colorful guitar pedals.

The musical notation of the instruments within this album is more intricate than that of Veckatimist.  Structure wise, the tracks display the most expressive level of musicality they have achieved to date.  The transitions are more spontaneous, the pauses are more dramatic, the build-ups are more expansive, the vocals are clearer and more pleading.

In "Yet Again," the first single released from the album, Droste does not shy away from embracing a strangely upbeat attitude, singing "Take it all in stride, speak don't confide" to a melody line that wouldn't sound out of place in a desert shoot-off scene from an old western flick. The instrumentation, a bright chord sequence colored with atmospheric organ notes, circles a heavily pronounced rhythm consisting of slapping bass lines supported by pounding toms.

The rewards of their stylistic advancements can be most vividly experienced in the 2nd to last track, "Half Gate," where the flow of the first half (n.p.i) is reminiscent of Fleet Foxes, that is until it suddenly explodes into a fountain of burbling layers which create a sonic experience equivalent to that of a monsoon. Alongside the lead vocal melody supplemented with angelic vocal aahs akin to war cries, heavy brass notes paired with metallic guitar riffs ride over deep tribal-like drums rolls. It’s something like an orchestral swelling, the emotional effect of which being heightened by the spiritual content that surfaces in the lyrics.

This is not to imply that all the tracks off the album are ecstatically charged in this way.  Shields contains its share of diversity. For instance, the track "Gun-Shy" is reminiscent of sun-kissed Yo La Tengo while the Rossen spearheaded number "Sun In Your Eyes" (the last track of the album) evokes the circus colored imagery that characterized Veckatimest. Each song is discernible from the other and the moods of them range from the mellow ambiguity of Yellow House to the rapturous suspense characterizing "Half-Gate."

It is evident that the four members of Grizzly Bear have meticulously seen to it that the end product of their efforts be fully refined. In any given second of the album, you won't come across an extraneous note,  or find an instrument overpowering over another, or notice a snare hit that misleads the vocal rhythm, or even a vocal rhythm that misleads a snare hit. Compositionally speaking, the group pulls off a deft balance among the many layers in each song, and as a result the album as a whole sounds anything but sloppy.

This release reaffirms that Grizzly Bear rightfully holds the status of being among the list of current musical artists who remain at the precipice of expanding sonic possibilities, among the list of bands that seizes the prospects offered by the classic guitar, bass, keyboard, and drum set combo. Altogether, the experience of listening to Shields in it's entirety leaves a mark that is best recapitulated by a segment of their own lyrics:

Silver inside
Rushing on
Endless abundance overflows
Always surround you, always glows
(From “Sun In Your Eyes")


Grade: A-

P.S Feel free to comment & share any opinions you have on this album.


Jeannette Chin
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