Dots and Loops

The genesis of this little guy was actually a riff from...

Tue, 26 Mar 2013 00:12:42 -0400

The genesis of this little guy was actually a riff from (don’t laugh) a Zelda game that got stuck in my head and I turned it into a song, but it wasn’t really working, so I scrapped it. Sometime later my friend Phil sent me this choppy rhythm track, it sounded like waves made of Legos struggling against each other, and I put about 100 echo-y guitars on it and it really did start to sound like lapping water. Lo and behold the Zelda riff sort of naturally appeared again and sort of floats over the top of everything. Seemed fitting for an intro to an imaginary place called Winnogrand.

I had this simple two-chord sequence lying around from literally...

Tue, 26 Mar 2013 00:11:56 -0400

I had this simple two-chord sequence lying around from literally years ago that all of a sudden seemed viable again, so after playing it on acoustic I channeled my inner Johnny Marr/Paul Maroon and came up with these messy little counter-melodies. The vocal melody and lyrics are sort of a playground taunt inspired by the childlike, nightmare imagery of Jonathan Donahue.

Audio

Tue, 26 Mar 2013 00:07:25 -0400

Audio

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 23:38:07 -0400

A little place called Winnogrand…

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 23:18:13 -0400

A little place called Winnogrand…

oxyconten: Barbara Poček

Sun, 10 Mar 2013 16:08:35 -0400

oxyconten:

Barbara Poček

Audio

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 00:14:10 -0500

Audio

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 00:09:05 -0500

Your favorite Frenchmen Phoenix make an epic return with...

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 17:33:00 -0500

Your favorite Frenchmen Phoenix make an epic return with “Entertainment.”

“Amok” by Atoms for Peace

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 17:30:00 -0500

“Amok” by Atoms for Peace

Belle & Sebastian making “Tigermilk” and...

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 17:23:00 -0500

Belle & Sebastian making “Tigermilk” and “If You’re Feeling Sinister.”

President’s Day is the Christmas, if the quality of alt media that’s been released today...

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 17:22:06 -0500

President’s Day is the Christmas, if the quality of alt media that’s been released today...

The art of the Not-To-Do List

Thu, 03 Jan 2013 14:57:42 -0500

When making a to-do list, you should consider making a “not-to-do” list at the same...

I thought I had every imitative angle of Ryan Adams’ Rock...

Sun, 09 Dec 2012 13:48:00 -0500

I thought I had every imitative angle of Ryan Adams’ Rock n’ Roll covered only to discover that I somehow missed the most obvious one. No, really.

Ryan Adams: Rock n’ Roll (left)

John Lennon: Rock n’ Roll (right)

Renowned producer sets out on his own with Ultraista...

Sat, 10 Nov 2012 18:22:00 -0500

Renowned producer sets out on his own with Ultraista debut

Ultraista, the new project from producer Nigel Godrich (Beck, Radiohead) is essentially the same band as Atoms for Peace, minus Thom Yorke. Naturally, that’s a little too bad.

Percussion wunderkind and oft collaborator Joey Waronker joins Godrich and vocalist Laura Bettison for a chilled-out take on their respective resumes, and as one would expect, it sounds like a killer cocktail of past projects: an AIR loop here, a Radiohead synth there, but with an added dose of outer-space.

Bettison is given the unenviable task of distinguishing herself from other vocalists Godrich has worked with before (er, Thom Yorke), as well as other female vocalists who typically define this brand of downtempo. For the most part she’s game, especially on the delightfully weird “Easier,” but other cuts, like “Gold Dayzz,” are practically crying out for Yorke’s singular honey-throated inflection.

Check out the video for smalltalk.

Mitt Romney not the only Mormon doubling down… and...

Sat, 10 Nov 2012 17:43:00 -0500

Mitt Romney not the only Mormon doubling down… and losing

Back in 2006 Brandon Flowers (hopefully) half-jokingly mentioned the Killers were recording “the best album of the last 20 years,” and it was to be called Sam’s Town, so-named after a born-to-lose dive bar in Vegas, and let’s just say it wasn’t on the strip.

Sam’s Town wasn’t even the best album of 2006, not by a long shot. But it did mark a turning point for the band that, for better and worse, appears to have been permanent on the evidence of Battle Born, their fourth release.

Flowers has always been drawn to kitsch as a bear is to honey, but here he leaves no Meat Loaf cliche uncovered. ”Not sure how this natural selection picked me out to be a dark horse running in a fantasy,” he sings beautifully on “Flesh and Bone” with the innocent conviction of someone who doesn’t know any better.

The problem is they’ve already mined this territory with more novel results. Battle Born sounds like the offspring of Sam’s Town and Day and Age without the soaring heights of “Dustland Fairytale,” “Read My Mind” or the self-awareness of “Losing Touch.” Instead, we get closing-credits fodder like “Miss Atomic Bomb” and “Here with Me,” replete with synthesizers that probably should’ve stayed in 1986.

And yet, there’s something compelling about their stubborn resolve to exist outside of any contemporary context and continue mining their glitter-in-the-gutter ethos. They’re precisely the kind of lost cause Werner Herzog would take a shining to. Maybe next time they’ll transcend empty pastiche.

Richard Gere loses his cool in ‘Arbitrage’ “I’m...

Sat, 10 Nov 2012 17:34:00 -0500

Richard Gere loses his cool in ‘Arbitrage’

“I’m under a lot of pressure,” Robert Miller (Richard Gere) repeats throughout Arbitrage, Nicholas Jarecki’s rather deft examination of a billionaire businessman trying to outrun his lies. “I have responsibilities… people are relying on me.”

Among those relying on Miller are his wife (Susan Sarandon), daughter Brooke (Brit Marling), mistress (Laetitia Casta), and his investors. This last group is the most meaningful to Miller, naturally, as they have made him the man he is.

So what kind of man is he? Jarecki sets out to answer this question in subtly perverse fashion, never deigning to judge him as much as coolly observe him.

Miller has business troubles. A billionaire with a beautiful family, a (seemingly) flourishing business, and a newly minted Forbes cover, there is in fact a $400 million hole in his balance sheet he’s plugging with a loan from an impatient colleague so he can clear the audit standing between him and the sale his business. No one, least of all his CFO – who also happens to be his daughter Brooke – knows about it.

To make matters worse, Julie, his mistress, goes all crazy on him. He offers to drive them upstate to spend some time together, but a car accident delays them indefinitely, and in fact, the accident is a neat little metaphor for what is perhaps Miller’s greatest skill: survival. We get the sense he’s been able to walk away from wreckage his entire life when no one else is spared. Will he get away this time?

To his credit, Jarecki’s doesn’t condescend us with the mechanics of the ensuing investigation. Detective Bryer (Tim Roth) has only one – albeit highly engaging – scene with Miller early on, and in a genre where the detective is supposed to appear and reappear like the suspect’s nagging conscience, it’s a remarkable thing that the brunt of Bryer’s investigation is more practically reserved for Jimmy (Nate Parker), Miller’s unwitting accomplice and part-time beneficiary.

And therein lies Arbitrage’s strength: despite familiar plot points, Jarecki’s screenplay inverts enough of the pieces to inspire equal parts intrigue, disgust, and a sort of wry pleasure in whether or not Miller gets away with it.

As we watch his high-wire act unfold, Miller covertly enlists our — dare I say — sympathies. Credit Gere’s finely calibrated performance. With a face like a fox, he weaves in and out of ruthlessness and remorse, ego and insecurity convincingly enough to add surprising accents to a man whose livelihood relies on the projection of confidence, even if there’s nothing back there.

An (un)welcome return?

Sat, 10 Nov 2012 17:07:19 -0500

Ah, it’s been too long. Time clean out the Fall closet in preparation for winter, which is...

New demo from our friends British Sea Power “Hail Holy...

Sun, 14 Oct 2012 23:13:31 -0400

New demo from our friends British Sea Power “Hail Holy Queen.” Brings a tear to the eye. Sort of perfect for the new Marie Antoinette project…

Smashing Pumpkins ticket in hand for Halloween at the Barclay...

Tue, 09 Oct 2012 23:23:14 -0400

Smashing Pumpkins ticket in hand for Halloween at the Barclay Center show! Frankly, I’m tickled.

I know, I know: they’re not the same Pumpkins. Call me naive, but that’s a good thing. Corgan, like the best of narcissists, could use some underdog status, and right now he’s got it.

The current line-up, which includes wunderkind Mikey Byrne, the very nice Nicole Fiorentino on bass, and Jeff “Shredder” Schroeder, can flat out play. It feels like a band, unlike the 2007-2008 iteration that spawned the rightfully-panned Zeitgeist, which saw Corgan coming to terms with his failures in the ugliest of fashions.

But since announcing his absurd 44 song-cycle Teargarden by Kaleidescope project, Corgan appears to have regained his Occult mojo. The Songs for a Sailor EP, Vol I (of XI?) of the Teargarden cycle, was a pleasant surprise, with the title track and “Astral Planes” retaining the spirit of the band that recorded Mellon Collie while exploring new territory. Even the cover design looks like something out of “Magic: The Gathering.”

The momentum’s continued with the excellent Oceania, the first LP since Corgan’s 2008 announcement the band would no longer record any such thing.

Against all odds, Corgan & company seem to be in a fertile creative period. The Halloween show (and I can’t think of anyone I’d rather see on Halloween) should be a celebration, then, of the true resurrection of the band, not as nostalgia reunion shtick, but an actual creative force worth paying attention to. I plan to enjoy while it lasts and keep my fingers crossed they bring the pain on non-album tracks As Rome Burns.