Scarlett Johansson: Anywhere I Lay My Head

My instinct was to write off Scarlett Johansson's involvement with this album and credit almost everything to Dave Sitek (of TV on the Radio, who produced/engineered/played a bunch of stuff); but that kind of dismissal is plainly sexist. Is it fair to discount Johansson because she is an actress with a pretty face? Despite having been involved in critically acclaimed films like Lost in Translation and The Man Who Wasn't There and hailing from New York, Johansson is still perceived by some as a Hollywood creation; the virtue/damnation of her blondeness and her portrayal of the sellout character in Ghost World set her up as a personification of Hollywood shallowness; maybe someday she'll shock us all like Charlize Theron but until then people still snicker when she turns up the trailers of Woody Allen films as though she doesn't deserve to be there.

Which is mostly bullshit. Johansson is a mostly drama-free actress who has carefully balanced her acting resume with junk that pays the bills and work that probably fulfills an artistic drive. If she is perceived as a cypher that may be due to her desire for privacy. And when did we so significantly segregate the arts? Certainly every time Madonna or Sting try to act it makes entertainment media grin and shrug, but the reception given to Jennifer Hudson, 8 Mile and Alpha Dog show that these doors are opening again; not every cross-arts excursion needs to be viewed in the context of Jennifer Love Hewitt albums or Glitter.

So, credit to Johansson or to Sitek, either way, this album is really good; on the whole I like it more than TV on the Radio's last release, Return to Cookie Mountain, which seemed too long and dense and too short on melody for me to really grab on to (this is admittedly because I have so little time for new music these days). The melodies here come fully vetted from Tom Waits' head so compositionally, there is nothing to worry about. Presentationally, the songs are painted in deeper colors than Waits' arrangements; where Waits is fiery reds and oranges, this album is a langorous green sea. "I Don't Want to Grow Up" aside, they avoid whatever might pass for a hit and dig deeper into the catalogue: the material covers a wide range of years, going back as far as Small Change's "I Wish I Was In New Orleans" up through "Fannin Street" which appeared on Orphans. Two tracks come from Alice and even the overlooked Real Gone's "Green Grass" get an airing. One original track, "Song for Jo", curls up in the center of the album and matches tonally so well that I figured it must be a cover of a song I didn't recognize at first. My favorite element is the music box treatment given to "New Orleans"; I'm not sure if they had a music box built for the music or treated a keyboard or xylophone but it's lovely, mixed atop each note played in reverse.

Fair enough: Johansson's voice is occasionally bland, and it's subjected to a fair amount of reverb that can strip it of affect; Sitek treats the voice as just another instrument and it isn't the only thing he spent time layering and manipulating (there are parts in "Green Grass" where her vocals almost completely vanish behind massive swaths of reverbed guitar and sound effects; and "Who Are You" is basically a duet with Sitek). But you have to wonder if this approach would be given criticism if this were an unknown vocalist from Brooklyn rather than a known celebrity. Paradoxically it seems we may expect nothing from ScarJo and expect too much. As a first release (maybe an only release; maybe done on a whim; maybe completely driven by Sitek and an anomaly in her creative career, who knows), it's something to be proud of.

Labels: reviews, scarlett johansson, tom waits, tv on the radio

At one point in my life I read voraciously (and wrote, too). This seems long ago; majoring in English lit did something to stomp the fascination with fiction out of me. There remain a stable of established, canonical works that I will always love (Ulysses, Sound and the Fury, Rainbow, yadda blah blah) of varying degrees of experimentalism, but there are also a number of books (of varying degrees of plain mentalism) that I read prior to college that I have a fondness for that didn't get the kind of critical attention I would have expected (well they probably did but you know).

I owe my discovery of most of these to library book sales and the Walden Books remainder tables.

Weird novels I read b/w the ages of 14 and 21 that I continue to harbour affection for:

1. The Wanting Seed: Anthony Burgess. I actually still own a large number of Burgess books, and I think I only ever finished this, M/F, and A Clockwork Orange, and Clockwork Orange is probably the least weird of the three. Burgess's fiction just seems so incredibly dense and odd to me now that I don't think any of this stuff would get published in this day and age.

2. Kleinzeit: Russel Hoban. I've tried to finish numerous other non-childrens' Hoban books since and none of them do as much for me as this one, which I loved when I was 13. With characters such as Hospital, Bed, and, er, other inanimate objects, dealing with a sick protagonist, this caused a lasting paranoia in me about pissing in two divergent streams. Tom Robbins always seemed like a sad copy of this book to me.

3. Crome Yellow: Aldus Huxley. I've read many other more famous Huxley books but none of them had dwarves in them like this did. Or did it? Honestly can't remember.

4. Fabrications: Adam Mars Jones. I see he has a new novel out. I haven't been interested in any of his other writings but the short stories in this are strange, or were to me when I was 13. Hoosh Mi. ? This was the type of Granta fiction which I devoured as a pretentious teenager. I think I had more patience then for this sort of thing, or maybe I just had more time.

5. Wearing Dad's Head: Barry Yourgrau. This was a moderately successful book of short stories and Yourgrau went on to do some stuff for NPR, maybe? He's probably still writing, I have no idea. I remember I read this around the same time as Girl with the Curious Hair and preferred this. Strange that DFW is now so established. (actually I now see that Yourgrau also has a blog that he just updated after two years of blank-ness!)

6. Conducting Bodies: Claude Simone. I read the english translation which was probably not very accurate. It was incredibly weird though and inspired an attempt to also write a piece where every sentence could be read three different ways. I made it two pages in. So that's probably why Simone won the Nobel Prize for Literature and I occasionally update a shitty blog.

Labels: books

Review: American Music Club, The Golden Age
From 1995 to 2003 the likelihood of a new AMC album seemed slim. When the band returned with Love Songs for Patriots in 2003, the album and the tours behind it were generally well received, but there was a sense of unease abut the whole proceedings. An AMC reunion could not have been staged for the money, because there was none; it had to be about the music. The music was good--great even, at times--but not always as transcendent as it had been in the past. Some of this due to the shine of hype being long past (it seems impossible now to think they were Rolling Stone Magazine's pick for "Hot New Band" in 1992 and had a four page spread), some of it due to the absence of Bruce Kaphan (even the '94 tour behind San Francisco without him had been a mess), some of it probably, frankly, due to the age of the band and it's fans.

So how does American Music Club return? Maybe they don't. Originally intended to be credited to "Macarthur Park Music Club" or "the Lost Anchors of the Pacific" until management and the label told Eitzel that it wouldn't sell under a different name, The Golden Age sees things shaken up. Tim Mooney and Danny Pearson (the only other member outside of Eitzel and Vudi to have been there since the beginning) are out as the rhythm section, replaced by LA musicians Steve Didelot and Sean Hoffman ('04 touring keyboardist Jason Border also played on the album sessions). The album was well-rehearsed and recorded in an LA studio with Dave Trumfio, without too much reliance on overdubs and post-production edits; the result is a professional album that flows more naturally than anything AMC have done since Everclear.

This is a kinder and gentler AMC to be sure. I was initially startled by the straighforward pop arrangements on songs like "Who You Are" and "All the Lost Souls Welcome You to San Francisco" until I remembered "Can You Help Me", "Aspirin", and "I Broke My Promise". It's easy to forget that not every second of AMC music was the howling misery of "Apology for an Accident" and "I've Been A Mess". There aren't really any moments of that kind of self-indulgence on The Golden Age; this is a more emotionally mature work. As expected some fans have revolted at this but Eitzel and Vudi aren't mental puppets for our amusement and I neither expect nor do I want to see Mark cry during a show these days. I've said before that The Invisible Man showed an artist moving out of a dark period and toward the light; The Golden Age shows him living in it.

Eitzel has been introducing the album opener "All My Love" as the most sappy song he's ever written but it's no more sentimental than "Only Love Will Set You Free", and it's a better song, recalling "Fearless". The album features at least two major Vudi sonic guitar assaults on "Windows on the World" and "On My Way". "The Sleeping Beauty" is the arrhythmic heart of the album; rescued from Eitzel's ignored Candy Ass release and rearranged for the band, it's the sighing, resigned descendant of "Western Sky". "Decibles and Little Pills" and "The Stars" are both paint surrealistic scenarios against strong and dark musical compositions. "I Know That's Not Really You" revisits the country stomp oompha of "Gary's Song." The album closes with the acoustic "Grand Dutchess of San Francisco", Eitzel's guitar against Vudi's accordion.

If there is a criticism of the album it's that -- mix and production-wise -- it doesn't take as many risks as it could have. Many of the songs on the album are more character-based than first person; this switch in focus results in an album that seems less immediate and confrontational than past work. But these same characteristics make the album live and breathe more than the claustrophobic Love Songs for Patriots, which sometimes seemed smothered under it's self-imposed expectations of performance. The Golden Age shrugs off whatever is left of expectations of the band and that attitude serves it well in the end.

Labels: american music club, mark eitzel, reviews

Review: Elbow, The Seldom Seen Kid
I have a special fondness for Elbow because, staying at a hotel that reeked of cigarettes in West LA about five years ago, I saw them in the lobby checking in very late, looking exhausted and kind of embarrassed. I picked up Asleep in the Back shortly after that and found a lovely blend of downbeat British indie with slight prog touches, something along the lines of a less-mannered Blue Nile or more subtle Catherine Wheel. Subsequent releases have been a mixed bag for me; I loved some songs, disliked others; "Switching Off" in particular seemed destined for a love scene in a Richard Curtis comedy if a comparable Coldplay song turned out to be too expensive; good, you know, just not very original.

The Seldom Seen Kid is a huge improvement over the last two albums. The songs just stick in memory better. "Mirrorball" rolls on a machinistic steady rhythm and delicate arpeggios. Guy Garvey used to have a slight self-conscious Peter Gabriel affectation to his voice, but it's smoothed out and his enunciation has improved; maybe it's just because they're so far into their career or I've just gotten used to him, but he finally sounds like himself. "The Fix Is In", a duet with Richard Hawley, waltzes onto the album out of some black and white noir-musical. The piano and tambourine riff that opens "Audience With the Pope" and the percussion on "Weather to Fly" recall the subtle touches that latter-era Talk Talk excelled at (Elbow have often garnered Talk Talk comparisons -- to their detriment, I think, because gravelly voice aside, they usually sound nothing alike; but these elements make good on those critically promised similarities).

Some mention has been made that this album was mixed and mastered with particular attention to dynamics in opposition to the loudness war, but the opening scrawl of static seems intended to make you turn your stereo down rather than up. That aside, there is a far amount of variation in volume on this album and it never sounds fatiguing. A song like "Some Riot" was carefully mixed for a nice stereo system or headphone listening, paying particular attention to the soundstage and levels on the instrumentation: muted piano, delicately picked guitar, and a distant, surging cello that rises and falls in volume behind Garvey's voice. "A Friend of Ours", the album's final track, in memory of departed Manchester musician Bryan Glancy, is a tribute of real beauty with a lovely, understated piano riff that takes the album out on a quiet note of restraint.

Labels: elbow, reviews

This blog is back. Apologies to anyone who found half of the old 250 posts illuminating or relevant, I'm deleting most of them because they aren't. I am going to leave the music posts though, and that is what this blog will focus on in the future. The old posts will crop up in the archives as I have time to clean them up. Like Axl Rose or Brian Wilson or some other mentalist, having access to my old content in a readily editable format doesn't do anything for my productivity on new material, but we'll see what happens.

Well, I hardly update here anymore, but I wanted to write a few words about Brent Kimble. As you can imagine San Francisco can be a difficult town for a new band to get a break in; musicians can have pretty big egos and there is little incentive to be nice to people you've never heard of. Over the past several weeks Brent and I exchanged a lot of emails about setting up shows; though he barely knew me or my band, he was so friendly and enthusiastic. For a little while it looked like we might have been playing with Hood and I tried to get Continental on the bill with us before we were confirmed; as it turns out, Continental wound up getting the slot and we didn't; then, in the end, when they got kicked off as well, we had a pretty good laugh about it. I was really looking forward to hanging out with Brent this Wednesday at the Continental/Charles Atlas show and he was going to come by our show on Thursday. That I'll never have this chance now is deeply sad. Brent's passing last week from a heart condition is a huge loss to the spirit of the SF music community which has already suffered a lot over the past few months. Charles Atlas and Brian 'n' Chris will be playing the final booked Continental show as scheduled. This show will be a memorial for Brent. If you ever had any interaction with him come down and share your memories, March 9th, at 12 Galaxies on Mission in San Francisco.

Van Der Graaf Generator regrouped last year and recorded a new album for release in early 2005, and on May 26th, will be playing a show at the Royal Festival Hall in London, which I, being in California, will not be attending. Hopefully they will bring this to the US at some point, maybe ATP or Terrastock next year?

Review: Rogue Wave, Out of the Shadow.
About a year ago I received a copy of Out of the Shadow in the mail. I randomly put it on the CD player on shuffle with Fleetwood Mac's Tusk; serendipitously, it turns out, as the albums share a home-studio style quirkiness, and singer Zach Rogue's voice occasionally recalls Buckingham's. I was meant, of course, to review the record then, but for whatever reason, I slept on it, though I found myself playing it more and more often. Now that the album has been picked up by Subpop and remastered with (excellent) new cover art, I don't really get to say "I told you that this band was going to be big." But I'll say it anyway. Little touches like the synthesized backward birds on 'Be Kind - Remind' and the phased keys on 'Seasick on Land' make this record a joy to listen to. 'Falcon Settles Me' recalls the kind of easy, simple but excellent songs that filled the Shins' first album (with whom the band is about to embark on a tour; if you're going, get there early). The immediately catchy songs sound floated in from a sun-baked poppy field from some alternate 1974. Doubtlessly one of the most interesting debut albums from an indie band in a while, and recommended without hesitation.

Labels: reviews, rogue wave

Review: Charles Atlas & Various Artists
"Fabricate: remixes of the album 'Worsted Weight'"
The challenge was to approach an instrumental, ambient guitar and keyboard album and not stomp on the beauty of the compositions; the result is an album that flows more as a collaboration between bands than a remix project. Almost all of the 12 mixes match the quality of the original tracks, with the opener, Sybarite's reconstruction of 'Sun With Teeth', bettering the original. With a shared interest in the tension of chiming arpeggios, Sybarite is an obvious choice. As remixes go this is way more interesting than Sybarite's (admittedly rushed) approach to Piano Magic's 'Dutch Housing.' Weaving humming, breathy vocal snippets around the clockwork guitar loop and glockenspiel, he turns the song around with a bass line and a processed trumpet. Suddenly, out of nowhere, it's an IDM Dr. Who theme. Too short by about two minutes, but brevity is the soul of wit, or something. As the lead track, this sets high expectations. The Telescopes construct a noisy soundtrack out of 'Italian Air' by injecting distorted foreign language samples and skittering spidery clicks. Pram's added gentle beats and keyboard lines to 'Strategies for Success Boxes' turn it into a lost track from 'Dark Island.' The return of Casino Vs. Japan to the Charles Atlas fold (Erik was a collaborator on the first CA album, "two more hours") sees him throwing some of his trademark churning bass lines into the space rock drift of 'The Deadest Bar.' Magnetophone's drastic reappraisal of the beautiful 'Antiphon,' previously music-box pretty, is like a Lynch-eye view of a fun fair: wide-angled, taking in the whole, the perimeter slightly out of focus, while the carousel and callipoe spin out of control. Signaldrift and Strategy turn in surprisingly dancey beat mixes of two tracks. For those already familiar with "Worsted Weight," each of these songs is a (good) surprise; for those who haven't heard the original but know the mixers, this is a necessary listen.

("fabricate" will be released to stores on June 29th, 2004 but is now available by mail order from audraglint)

Labels: charles atlas, reviews