song of the day: 5/30/11

PJ Harvey's "Plants and Rags" is an gut-wrenching crawl of a song - in the best way possible. Violins creak in a haunting blast of sound. An acoustic guitar roughly burns through a pattern of deep minor chords. Harvey's 1993 debut, "Dry," is a real force of nature throughout, but nowhere is it stronger than on this mid-album roar. Harvey has a knack for pairing technical precision with discordant experimentalism and making it sound good - much like predecessor and influence, Patti Smith. "Plants and Rags" is one of the best examples of that rare, near unmatched songwriting ability. She'll have you at "ease myself into a body-bag."

song of the day: 5/25/11

Abrasive, shamelessly bluesy guitar work might be what the Kills are best known for, and if there's any song that most exemplifies that sound, it's "Tape Song." "Tape Song," (off of 2008's "Midnight Boom,") is a sonic tsunami that breathlessly rattles through two full verses of screechy, tin-can guitar riffing before folding into a beautifully thick chorus, where lead singer Alison Mosshart's powerful vocals truly have their chance to shine - as singers like Adele and Florence Welch come into the mainstream, it's sometimes easy to forget that there were soulful, bold female vox kicking around pop music for years before "Rolling in the Deep." Mosshart's recordings undeniably do their part to prove that there were.

song of the day: 5/22/11.

If Enya and My Bloody Valentine ever met and played a gig together, it'd sound rather like The High Violets. Ethereal, artfully angst-ridden songs pack the Violets' discography, making their music among the best and most instrumentally complex to grace the Portland indie scene. Though pretty much everything this band has touched is worth hearing, "The Believer," one of the most compelling tracks on 2010's "Cinema," wins song of the day for its stirring, adrenal intro and floaty ascent into musical bliss. There are few bands who know how to sound agonized and peaceful at the same time - on this track, the High Violets prove that they are one of them.

album review: sleater-kinney's "dig me out."

Sleater-Kinney's music is best described as manic. Verses and bridges are slow, terrorizing builds that explode into psychotic climaxes of choruses where screamed declarations and pounding drums are layered over driving guitar harmonies. 1997’s “Dig Me Out,” their third and most seminal album, personifies this mania more than any other record the iconic riot grrrl trio has put out. The savvy sophistication that is heard on later albums – the critically acclaimed “One Beat,” for example – isn’t there yet, but neither is the lumbering experimentalism that characterizes Sleater-Kinney’s earlier recordings. On “Dig Me Out,” the band is in control, but you get the feeling that it’s only because they want to be.

Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein’s vocals are interlocking parts that make up a sonic puzzle, one that can only really be described as discordant harmony. Listening to them together is an unnerving, if unparalleled experience that sets ablaze tracks like the angsty “All the Drama You’ve Been Craving” and the euphoric “Words and Guitar.”

But it is the more reserved tracks where “Dig Me Out” is at its most beautifully cathartic. “Dance Song ‘97” is a tribute to confused infatuation with a charmingly kitschy musical aesthetic and some of the most memorable guitar work in Sleater-Kinney’s entire discography, while the agonized “Jenny” is a heartrending narration that pulls no punches in its description of heartbreak and loss. Sleater-Kinney has, somehow, invented and engineered the impossible: the punk ballad. Poignancy meets disillusionment in a series of soft yet still very intense tracks that mesh better with the band's identity than a listener might expect after hearing 1996’s “Call the Doctor.”

Even when put into context as part of riot grrrl’s wonder years, “Dig Me Out” is a remarkable album for its ability to exist on the edge, always close to tumbling over into sheer mania but holding it in – just barely.

4/5. 

album review: pete krebs' "brigadier"

Best remembered for sharing an LP with the late & great Elliott Smith, Pete Krebs has amassed a surprising number of fans and musical credentials over the years. After fronting Hazel with Jody Bleyle of Team Dresch in the early 1990s, Krebs put out a number of solo folk albums on Cavity Search Records. "Brigadier" was the first of these records, put out in 1995, and perhaps the best.


Most singer-songwriters shove their feelings into a listener's face via the album-long narrative, packing their angst into a series of dull, labored accounts of romances gone wrong and rainy nights in empty coffee bars. Pete Krebs doesn't do that. Though the songs on the album are unmistakably meant to be linked together, they are linked with subtle agility that lets them dodge cliche status; "Brigadier" isn't a bad break-up album or a mid-life crisis album or even a dewey-eyed 'debut' album. But it is a story. From the quietly passionate first verse of "D Tune Drop" to the dark, harrowing climax of "Kiss," Krebs plays narrator, earnestly relating a series of reflections and thoughts that are half stream-of-consciousness, half self-deprecating joke. Metaphors are woven into personal memories, dialogues are woven into acerbic commentaries, and sarcasm is woven into sentimentality. Throughout, "Brigadier" is pain-stakingly honest without, miraculously, ever being vacuous or annoying.

While some are likely to notice that Krebs' whispery, suppressed vocals are reminescent of Elliott Smith (which they are, like it or not), he is very distinguishable from Smith (and the growing pool of Smith wannabes) in that he never deals in misery or caves to his more depressive impulses. After the somber "Orleans Parish" comes the twangy, upbeat "Truman;" after the anguished, battering "Bad Penny" comes the soothing "Mean Time." There is a sweet, almost pastoral quality to Krebs' work, in part because of the classical folk and country traditions that he borrows so heavily from. In this case, his derivation pays off: it makes what would otherwise be Just Another Indie-Rock Record become an absolutely beautiful folk record.

Sixteen years after its release, "Brigadier" still sounds fresh, a mark of its possible timelessness. And even when Krebs takes a turn for the calculatedly indie ("every bicycle looks like yours'" could only be a lyric penned for the not-yet out-of-diapers "Juno" generation), he's put more honesty into "Brigadier" than some musicians put into their entire discographies. With its understated brand of confessionalism, "Brigadier" is a success.

4.5/5

smashing pumpkins re-issuing albums.

Billy Corgan & co seem to endlessly put out strings of singles and EPs, but the space that the iconic band takes up on record stores shelves may increase exponentially throughout the next couple of years. On April 27th, Corgan announced the reissue of the Smashing Pumpkins' complete works, from "Gish" to "Zeitgeist." The earliest three albums - "Gish," "Siamese Dream," and "Pisces Iscariot" - will be out by next Christmas, while later records will trickle out sometime during 2012.

Corgan also intends to put out another new record, which will become part of the lengthy "Teargarden" chapter in the band's work. The new album, "Oceania," is slated for a release sometime this year.

Fans have been anything but impressed with Corgan's latest compositions, with complaints lodged against new members (after drummer Jimmy Chaimberlain's departure circa '09, Billy Corgan is the only original member left) and new sounds. After the dark, thematic, heavily electronic Machina albums, the second of which was recorded under uncomfortable and very much unconventional circumstances, the Smashing Pumpkins made a radical shift. A hiatus of several years and a change in line-up seemed to also prompt a change in music, with 2007's "Zeitgeist"  receiving harsh criticism at the hands of both listeners and critics.

A cynic might accuse of the Pumpkins of trying to reclaim their legacy after an exceptionally sub-par few years back in the game. After all, iconic and inventive records "Siamese Dream" and "Mellon Collie & The Infinite Sadness" still enjoy radio play, while the "Teargarden" songs have been unable to stay in the public's minds (or on their radio stations) for more than a few weeks, even when they were made available for free download. High-end production techniques and years of industry experience can only do so much to revive a band whose sound seems doomed to stay stuck in 1997 - or stuck in the shifting labyrinth of cheap, unoriginal alt-rock that haunts FM radio stations and strip-mall hair salons.

However cynical you may feel now, though, when alt-rock fanatics, 1990s nostalgics, and new listeners alike are given the chance to enjoy re-issued copies of some of the most critically-acclaimed rock records ever made, the circumstances may not seem important.

song of the day: 5/1/11.

On first listen, Averkiou's 2008 single, "Holland and Headaches," is nostalgic bliss at its best. It hints at ferry rides home from secluded cabins and disappointingly gentle autumn storms that come after scorchingly hot summers. On second listen, the nostalgia level only shoots up: Averkiou seems to have robbed the 1980s in the best way possible, as the Wipers turn up in fuzzy, minimalistic guitar work and the Smiths are present in spider-web thin vocals. Ripping off earlier innovators? Sure, but when it ends up sounding like this, who cares?