[I started this blog in order to hack away at the large stack of CDs on my desk.
Since then, my stack has only gotten bigger. In an effort to pare this shit down to reasonable levels I'm instigating a SPEED ROUND REVIEW series, of which this is the first entry.
Time to crank, plow, purge and splurge!]
Polite Sleeper – Lake Effect
Parenthetical Girls, but boisterous … never thought I’d find myself writing that. Polite Sleeper aren’t really polite at all. They kick in your door and start singing — nasally and loud — into your ear. As long as they’re not interrupting anything too important you’ll be OK with it because they’re a tight band. I’m not in love with the vocals but that’s a person-to-person thing. Lots of nice brush strokes on the drums and soulful backup vocals. It’s like The Thermals’ Hutch Harris unplugged his fuzzbox and listened to a lot of Decemberists and Wilco, then took a lot of speed and gave some of it to the drummer. The pianist refused to get left out so they gave him a tab too. Pretty sturdy for what it is, though not, like, the Real Deal or anything. Then again, if The Decemberists can get huge there’s no reason Polite Sleeper shouldn’t be able to. These songs are a little long, that’s probably the biggest snfu.
As I get ready to hear Our Delicate Stranded Nightmare I realize I have no idea what to expect. The Omar Rodriguez-Lopez connection (both Marcel and Marfred Rodriguez-Lopez are related to him) is one of the best eye-catchers around, and Marcel is also in The Mars Volta. But that’s really all I had to go on until now, and if you know O-Rod’s output well you know that surprises are around every corner. Stranded Nightmare, once the ambiance fades into the ether, isn’t very surprising. It’s a prog workout on par with Dakota Dakota or Old Money, with the staying power of the former, not the latter. I appreciate the atmosphere they applied to this album’s corners. The vintage Floyd-isms are obvious, but those flute charts … that’s all Zechs Marquise. Good listening and tight jamming — especially the eclectic passages with deep, sexy bass thrusts, timbales (I think) and disorienting effects — but not quite something to flip your wig over, if you wear one. Give them time; they’ve got little gristle in their chops.
Ear Pwr – Super Animal Brothers – Carpark
I’ve been cranking this one for awhile; from the first jolt of jumpin’-Jupiters, gee-whiz effects of the Dan Deacon ilk I knew I would be down. This is dance music with serious personality. Dee-lite (“Groove is in the Heart”) had a hand in this, as did a lot of the old techno groups like Level 242 and Atari Teenage Riot. Elastica and Everything But The Girl need a place in the pool, too. Make room for them, then toss in a Speak n’ Spell and watch the spark fly. Hell, throw in a purple manatee too. YES THEY EXIST! What? No, I’ve never tried that, but I would. Anyway, there’s a girl singing over top and I’d enjoy less of her. The beats, shakers, bass bloops and whatever else make enough of an impression on their own. I’m not sure how Super Animal Brothers is going to fare once the sun recedes into cloud covers, but for now — despite the vocal annoyances — it’s an ice-cold, florescent-pink snow cone (or should I say, SYNTH cone! HAHA!) with enough flavor to last its long running time. Slurp it up bitch!
Sugarplum Fairies – Chinese Leftovers – Starfish
Full disclosure: I’ve been avoiding this one. I don’t like the name of the band, the name of the album nor the association with Grey’s Anatomy (apparently crappy dramas need to use indie songs every so often). That said, this is a fairly decent stab at laid-back, fuzz’d-out (I guess shoegaze should be mentioned), post-Dolly Parton-strain-of-alt-country pop influenced by The Concretes. It sounds ridiculous until you hear the combination of Silvia Ryder’s voice and Ben Bohm’s intricate arrangements, often bolstered by steel strings, tambourines and … hell, pretty much anything else you could imagine (toy piano, glocken-something-or-other [HA!], cello, trombone, pedal steel, yo’ mamma). This isn’t something I’ll be revisiting often but that doesn’t mean it isn’t of good quality. You’ll want to check this out for yourself. It’s like Eisley grew up!
