To Be Kind

The first track from Swans' new album To Be Kind has been released to Pitchfork in 192 kbps format, and I've already heard the entire album, not scheduled to be released until May 2014, in a 92 kbps leak.  Despite the limitations of the latter bit rate, the question is not if this is the best album of the year.  Even though we're only a quarter of the way through the year, the answer, obviously, is yes.  

The real question is, is this the best album ever?

Yo La Tengo at Variety Playhouse, Atlanta, March 29, 2014

Is there a band with more unimpeachable indie cred than Yo La Tengo?  It's hard to imagine anyone having more.  This year will mark their 30th anniversary as a band, and over the years, they've managed to release a remarkable series of recordings and perform in every imaginable type of both dive bar and concert hall, and all on their own terms.

Last night, Yo La Tengo performed at Variety Playhouse as part of something called the Atlanta Jewish Music Festival.    

Yo La Tengo have always embraced their Jewish roots, most notably with their annual Eight Days of Hanukkah shows at Hoboken's now defunct Maxwells (RIP), so it's not surprising that they'd be invited to participate in this event.  But some indie music fans I know were leery of the event, thinking that perhaps it would be an evening exclusively of ethnic music (as it that were a bad thing) and not sets by musicians who happened to be Jewish playing their own individual music and bringing their heritage to their music in their own individual ways.

My friends' fears might have been reinforced, if they had shown up, by the house dj, who did play ethnic musics (klezmer, folk, and genres I couldn't identify) before and between the sets.  

The first musician on stage was Basya Schecter of the band Pharoah's Daughter.  "Blending a psychedelic sensibility and a pan-Mediterranean sensuality" (according to her bio), Basya played swirling Hasidic chants, Mizrachi and Sephardi folk-rock, and spiritual stylings filtered through percussion, strings and electronic flourishes. 

Basya's sound has been cultivated by her Hasidic music background and a series of trips to the Middle East, Africa, Israel, Egypt, Central Africa, Turkey, Kurdistan and Greece.  It was difficult to identify a single style in her music, and her sound, at least to my ears, would have seemed as appropriate at a Palestinian Music Festival, a Persian Music Festival, or a Saharan Music Festival, as at the Atlanta Jewish Music Festival.

Even though she had a guitar with her on stage, she played an oud exclusively through her set, backed by an electric guitar and a fine percussionist playing in odd, Middle Eastern time signatures.  It was an interesting performance, although she wasn't able to get the level of audience participation that she seemed to want at times during her set.

SoCal's Mikey Pauker was up next.  Pauker plays folk rock influenced as much by reggae, hip-hop, and pop as by his interests in Jewish mysticism, yoga, the Torah, and Chassidic study.  His music is relentlessly sunny and upbeat, and reminds me more of Michael Franti or even J Love than Tevye from Fiddler On the Roof.  

His lyrics were sung in English and Yiddish (or Hebrew, I don't know) and concerned Kabbalah, the soul, and global unity, among other things.  He was somewhat more successful than Basya Schecter before him in soliciting audience participation, probably due to his energetic stage presence.

Here's a video of one of his songs that captures the flavor of his music and his stage presence.

So, all of this was just a prelude for headliners Yo La Tengo, who performed a YLT set and didn't make references to Kabbalah, the pan-Shephardic experience, or their heritage, other than greeting the audience with a "shalom" at the start of the set before launching into their opening song, Stupid Things from their latest album Fade, followed by their earlier song Barnaby, Hardly Working, both of which included extended passages of glorious noise and feedback not even hinted at by the album versions of the songs.

This was our second time seeing Yo La Tengo, after a concert a little over a year ago at the Buckhead Theater.  Like at the previous show (like on most of their albums), the band alternated between sections of pastoral, acoustic songs and of shrieking, guitar-driven noise rock, but last night, even more than last year, guitarist Ira Kaplan seemed in a mood to shred, and treated the audience to several extended improvisations of the musical and non-musical sounds that can be produced on stage by an electric guitar and an inventive mind.  It was fantastic.  Also, I was fortunate enough to get a stage-side position almost directly underneath Ira Kaplan, mere feet from his, um, feet.

James McNew played drums on the first two songs, and occasionally played guitar, but most of the time he anchored the rhythm section with his bass. When not shredding guitar, Kaplan played keyboards.

Georgia Hubley played drums during most of the set, except when she didn't and McNew filled in, or during some of the quiet, acoustic passages, where she sang and accompanied the band with maracas.

The  acoustic portion of their set included a tender rendition of Is That Enough, also from Fade, and I'll Be Around, which, Kaplan told us, was one of the few songs from Fade that they didn't play during last year's Buckhead Theater set. The spellbound audience was appropriately silent during these quieter passages.

The set ultimately climaxed with Ohm and Pass The Hatchet and more feedback drenched pyrotechnics from Kaplan, most notably during an extended Pass The Hatchet, when Kaplan seemingly explored every conceivable option for eliciting sound out of his guitar over the hypnotic repeated bass line of the song, ultimately winding up on his knees a la James Brown as he tortured the guitar strings with the microphone stand and the floor.

For their encore, they performed a quiet, acoustic rendition of a Bob Dylan song, a newer song, apparently, and one that I didn't recognize. 

In all, it was a great set, maybe not as diverse as last year's Buckhead Theater show, but probably more exciting for all of the guitar heroics.  The band at time brought to mind past masters like the Velvet Underground, post-rock bands like Godspeed! and Swans, and both the electric and acoustic versions of Crazy Horse.  Here's last night's set list in the band's shorthand:  

Here's the full titles:

1. Stupid Things
2. Barnaby, Hardly Working
3. Let's Save Tony Orlando's House
4. Super Kiwi
5. Stockholm Syndrome
6. Mr. Tough
7. Periodically Double Dare or Triple
8. I'll Be Around
9. Before We Run
10. Nothing To Hide
11. Tom Courtenay
12. Ohm
13. Pass The Hatchet, I Think I'm Goodkind 

Sin Estrellas y Biblia Negra

I know there hasn't been much 70s British prog rock presented in this blog, but still, if you noticed some little extra electricity in the air today, it may be because today is the 40th anniversary of the release of King Crimson's Starless and Bible Black. 

Johnny Cash

I know there hasn't been much Country & Western presented in this blog, but still, I can listen anytime to some of the old masters - Merle Haggard, Bob Wills, and Hank, Senior, and no one can possibly say anything bad about Johnny Cash. Try it - you literally can't say anything bad about him, even if you try. Here's a fitting tribute to The Man In Black, featuring Dawes, Father John Misty, and an out-of-this-world performance by Local Natives.

Ana Tijoux

I know there hasn't been much hip-hop presented in this blog, but still, one of my favorite rappers ever since I saw her highly anticipated set at Bumbershoot 2012 (probably before that) is Chile's Ana Tijoux. Here's her KCRW Morning Becomes Eclectic set.

Dude, I Was There!

From Kishi Bashi's encore set during Saturday night's Slingshot Festival in Athens.

Fruit Bats

Eric D. Johnson, who gave me his beer during MFNW (RIP), performing a solo Fruit Bats set.

Shearwater

A few OPB videos of Shearwater featuring Jesca Hoop to remind us of what a great show they put on last week.

Kishi Bashi at the Georgia Theater, Athens, March 22, 2014

Kishi Bashi performed an energetic and joyful set last night at the Georgia Theater in his hometown of Athens as part of something called the Slingshot Festival.  Slingshot appears to be Athens' way of observing March Madness.  

Spread over four city blocks and dozens of venues, the Slingshot Festival included international, national, and local acts, boundary-pushing artworks throughout the urban environment, and, as increasingly common at music festivals these days, tech talks with leading innovators during the day, so that IT folks can attend and write it off their taxes as "training" and "networking."  Little wonder it's held before April 15.

Slingshot's Saturday night sets at the Georgia Theater opened with Atlanta's Today the Moon, Tomorrow the Sun.

It was our second time seeing TTMTTS, after 2012's Atlanta Film Festival Sound + Vision event (for some reason, it seems we only see them as a part of some larger enterprise).  They put on a good set of their highly danceable, electro-pop music, although the Athens audience by and large resisted shaking their asses and just stood here and watched.

The next band up was Athens' Electrophoria.

I wasn't sure what to expect from Electrophoria.  According to their band bio, "Core members Kai Riedl (Macha) and Suny Lyons (pacific UV) have criss-crossed the globe (mainly to Java Indonesia) recording everything  from bands in darkly-lit nightclubs in bustling cities to bamboo huts way way off the grid."  Here's a sample recording from Kai's Soundcloud page:

Apparently, it didn’t stop there, as Riedl and Lyons then used those recordings to build new songs with the sounds in these field recordings, taking loops, samples and segments of the songs, and remixing, re-imagining, and integrating them with musicians from in and around Athens into a variety of styles, including pop, dance, ambient, electronica, and experimental.  But I didn't hear any exotic loops or remixed world music last night.  Maybe I was expecting to hear a funkier version of the New Age band Deep Forest, but other than some interesting and challenging time signatures by their remarkable drummer, they sounded more like a slightly goth electronica band, which isn't a bad thing at all (they were quite good), but not what I was expecting, is all.

Kishi Bashi took the stage at 11 sharp, after his usual prelude of Ravel's Bolero played over the PA.  

Bashi was extremely animated and energetic throughout the set, dancing around the stage and working the audience up.  His music was as fun and joyful as ever, an explosion of pop melodies and complex loops, supported by the "space banjo" of collaborator Tall Tall Trees (Mike Savino).

Kishi Bashi may not be a household name, but almost everybody knows his music, even of they don't know who it's by, from that ubiquitous Windows 8 commercial from last year:

Bright Whites, the song from that commercial, was the second song in his set, much to the delight of everybody in the Georgia Theater.  So that I don't leave you with just a tease, here's the full version of Bright Whites as performed in the KEXP studios:

Bashi played most of the songs from his excellent debut LP, 151a, as well as several new songs from his upcoming Lighght (his spelling, not my typo).  Last night, he played with a backing band and he also played several songs solo, just his violin, his voice, and his loop repeater, with no loss in the fullness of the sound.

The encore included a very unexpected cover of Paul McCartney and Wings' Live and Let Die of all things.

The set also concluded with confetti cannons, slingshots attempting (not very successfully) to shoot t-shirts and glow sticks into the audience, and Bashi stage-diving into the audience and breaking a pinata with a stick over the heads of the crowd. 

In all, the evening was a joyful celebration of music, life, and the possibility of infinite happiness. 

One last thing:

Christopher Owens - It Comes Back To You

Christopher Owens, formerly of Girls, is quite possibly one of the best young songwriters recording these days, so it's exciting to learn that he'll soon be releasing a new album "made with dear friends."   He's shared a first song, It Comes Back to You, which masterfully uses swirling organ and gospel-like backing vocals to build to a joyous peak reminiscent of the Girls' masterpiece, Vomit, and then, once it's gotten your full attention, gently fades to its conclusion.   

 


Bravo, Christopher! We're looking forward to hearing more.

Dum Dum Girls at The Earl, Atlanta, March 20, 2014

Last night, after frantically scrambling to upload my review of Wednesday's Shearwater show and just before heading out for the Dum Dum Girls set at The Earl, I checked The Earl's web site to confirm the show's starting time and saw to my disappointment that the show had sold out.

I immediately concluded that I wouldn't get to see the show.  Bummer, so much for March Madness, but on the other hand, I could finally get a much-needed night of sleep.  Between Monday night's Typhoon concert and Wednesday night's triple-header of Jesca Hoop, Death Vessel, and Shearwater, I'd heard a lot of good music this week.  Not to mention  the Stephen Malkmus, Jonathan Richman and St. Vincent shows earlier in the month, and I still had Kishi Bashi to look forward to on Saturday.  

Speaking of Saturday night, though, after I discovered that the Dum Dum Girls had sold out, a friend had emailed me to ask what time the Kishi Bashi show would started.  I went to check my stash of tickets to see, and discovered, there at the top of the pile, a Will Call receipt for the Dum Dum Girls concert that I had forgotten about. Yes, it had sold out, but no, that didn't mean I couldn't go.  It was 9:00 pm, and if I left that very minute, I could still catch most, if not all, of the  show.

As it turned out, I got to the Earl in time to hear the last two or three songs of Vertical Scratchers' set.

Vertical Scratchers sounded like a power-pop garage band from the 90s, and that's meant as a compliment, although I didn't get to hear very much of them.  Additionally, the sold-out club was crowded and it took me a while to work my way through the crowd to a good vantage spot.  But as soon as I found a spot and snapped off a few pictures, frontman John Schmersal announded, "We've got one more for 'ya," and after that, they were gone.

The audience dispersed between sets, and suddenly a spot right in front of center stage opened up. I moved up and got a front row view for Blouse's set, which was the band I was primarily there to see.

Portland's Blouse play a retro-sounding blend of dream-pop and shoegaze fronted by Charlie Hilton's breathy vocals.  Their set was near perfect by my tastes, loud when it should have been loud, softer when that was appropriate, and always interesting from start to finish.

I had wanted to see Blouse during 2012's MFNW (RIP), when they played a late-night set at Dante's.  I was at the Doug Fir earlier that night watching Black Mountain, and should have been able to make the walk over the Burnside Bridge in time to catch Blouse's set as well, but got roped into having first one beer at Ronton's and than another and another by someone who eventually talked me into blowing off the next night of MFNW (including Kishi Bashi) to see My Morning Jacket somewhere out in the Oregon countryside, until it got so late that I missed Blouse's set altogether.  But I digress, as old men tend to do.  Last night, I finally got to see Blouse perform, and I think the band, if anything, are better now that they would have been two years ago.

Last night was also my first time seeing The Dum Dum Girls (three firsts for the night!).  I wasn't quite sure what to expect from them - garage punk or slick power pop? Their discography suggests both.

The answer turned out to be somewhere in between.  Overall, the band was far quieter than I expected - the amps seemed to be turned way down, perhaps to let the audience better hear lead singer/guitarist Dee Dee Penny's vocals. They were the lowest volume band by far I've heard in a while.

Phoning it in:  Here's a description copied from The New Yorker,  "Burnt out on being in bands, the singer-songwriter Kristin Gundred, who records and performs as Dee Dee Penny, started this act as a home recording project in 2008.  Six years later, they have largely outgrown the bedroom, blossoming into an all-female four-piece who just released their third album, Too True.  Co-produced by Sune Rose Wagner, of the Ravonettes, and Richard Gottehrer (Blondie, the Go-Go's), the Girls' latest work combines sixties-girl-group tropes with elements of New Wave, punk, goth, and garage rock; it's all tied together by Gundred's impeccable craftsmanship and vixenish allure."

They performed mainly new songs, most of which at least I didn't know, and the songs they played sounded very different from those early ones that I did (e.g., Jail La-La, and Bhang, Bhang I'm a Burnout). The girl-group sound was definitely evident, and the four women in the band looked great (plus one guy on guitar, making me wonder if it was really as much fun as might be imagined being the one male on the road touring with an otherwise all-female glam band).  I did recognize a few songs, not the least of which was the encore closer, Coming Down. 

Eye candy and ear candy, with just enough substance to let you not feel guilty, and besides, who doesn't like candy?  It was all fun and sweet, but a far cry from the Dum Dum Girls of 2010.

Most importantly of all on a school night, though, it was all over by midnight.

Shearwater at The Earl, Atlanta, March 19, 2014

Shearwater at The Earl, March 19, 2014

March Madness is now in full swing.  Last night, Austin's Shearwater took the stage at The Earl.

Jesca Hoop opened.

I had heard a few Jesca Hoop songs before last night's show, but wasn't that familiar with her.  As her performance unfolded, a fascinating biography emerged - raised a strict Mormon, she broke away sometime in her teens to pursue a wilderness life off of the grid.  Eventually, she discovered songwriting and started performing, and now lives in Manchester, England, but cut her most recent album in LA before becoming a member of Shearwater's touring band.  However, before Shearwater took the stage, Hoop played a spellbinding solo set accompanied only by her own electric guitar and haunting voice.  The normally rowdy and noisy Earl was so quiet during her performance, you could have heard a pin drop - I was self-conscious by the barely audible "click" of my camera phone.

So that was cool.  I hadn't heard anything by or about the next band, Rhode Island's Death Vessel, before they took the stage, but based on their name expected black metal or at least droney stoner rock.

We got neither.  Instead, they played sweet folk rock, led by singer Joel Thibodeau's crooning soprano. Their songwriting was impeccable (Triangulated Heart was particularly memorable) and the sound mix was perfect.  A particularly nice touch was the quiet, little soundscapes they created between songs, using just a few chimes from a xylophone and a gentle bowed bass line to achieve near-ambient compositions as Thibodeau tuned his guitar for the next song.  At times, I was reminded a little of Fleet Foxes spin-off Poor Moon.

These guys are great.  Check them out.

So that was cool, too, and Shearwater, as always, was triumphant and magnificent.

By my count, this was the fifth time we've seen Shearwater play. We saw them at The Earl way back in November 2010, and then saw a reformulated version of the band at The Earl on Leap Year Day, 2012. In addition to those shows, we saw them open for St. Vincent at Variety Playhouse and for Dinosaur Junior on the same stage.  Five times, and every one was a delight.

This version of Shearwater was different than the last several concerts, most notably for the inspired addition of Jesca Hoop on keyboards, percussion and backing vocals.    

But as always, a Shearwater performance is basically The Jonathan Meiburg Show, and he did not disappont last night.  The band has a new album out, Fellow Travelers, of covers by bands they've toured with, and while they played one or two songs from the new album, they relied heavily on songs from 2012's superb Animal Joy, most notably the title track, Breaking the Yearlings, and You As You Are.

As at most Atlanta concerts by the band, Meiburg's parents, who live here in town, were in attendance.  The set closed with A Song for the Minotaur, and then, for some reason, a perfectly-executed cover of Roxy Music's Virginia Plane.  I have an MP3 somewhere of Shearwater covering Eno's Baby's On Fire (from roughly the same period of time and similar location in the glam-rock universe), so they're obviously fans of 1970s British art-house pop. At this rate, I wouldn't be surprised to hear them perform a complete, note-by-note cover of Fripp & Eno's No Pussyfooting.

So, what a night!  A thrilling but intimate performance by Jesca Hoop, a new discovery of a great band, Death Vessel, and a chance to check in with Meiburg and see what he's been up to lately with Shearwater.