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Sub Pop, Vice, and CNN Team Up for Online Video Series
CNN.com, the “number one destination for online and wireless news” has announced today that it is teaming up with Sub Pop Records and Vice’s VBS.tv (which is directed by Spike Jonze, did you know that?), to bring two unique video series to what will likely be a large and demographically diverse network of viewers. The first episode of the VBS.tv series presents Vice founder Shane Smith traveling through the battered country of Liberia, interviewing citizens and ex-warlords to bring a candid, first-hand portrait of the country as it heals and transitions into the new decade. A far cry from the “Do’s and Don’ts” that put Vice in the hands of urban hipsters all across the world, this segment will “reflect a very transparent approach to journalism,” and includes some heart-wrenching and unbelievable stuff. Viewer discretion is advised.
The Sub Pop affiliated series is called “Indie Asia: On Tour with Handsome Furs” and it chronicles the lo-fi, synth-driven husband and wife duo as they travel through far-eastern countries. Dan Boeckner and Alexei Perry’s experiences to be shared with the online audience will document the band playing shows, exploring China, Hong Kong, Vietnam, and Thailand, and offering commentary on their experiences, all presented up close and personal by CNN.com. Included are photos, info on the band, and a travelogue.
Beach House Always Has the Best Videos, And Now They Have One for “Lover of Mine”
[via Gorilla vs. Bear]
Seriously… they do. Directed by Sean Honey, the video for “Lover of Mine” comes just a week before the release of the band’s much anticipated album, Teen Dream, on Sub Pop. We’ve been listening to it for a bit now and it’s so, SO good. Watch the video here.
After the jump, check out some more rad Beach House videos. read more
Video of the Day: Pissed Jeans: “I’ve Still Got You (Ice Cream)”
WARNING: Not only might Pissed Jeans‘ band name make one cringe with mild disgust, but the above video for “I’ve Still Got You (Ice Cream)” might also provoke an extreme aversion to ice cream, that most hallowed of desserts. Proceed at your own risk.
More info on Pissed Jeans and their latest album after the jump…
Tiny Vipers’ Life on Earth: Finite and Cavernous
I don’t know about where you live, but here in San Francisco it’s raining this Friday afternoon. The dreary weather and gray skies have put me in a Tiny Vipers mood. If you don’t know already, Tiny Vipers is the musical project of Seattle-based Jesy Fortino (she appears mid-way through the linked YouTube clip talking about how growing up in Seattle has influenced her music). A self-taught guitarist who plays abstract, mysterious music on an acoustic guitar that’s lightly fingerpicked, Fortino’s songs are at once dark and beautiful, carrying with them deeply introspective lyrics that brood mirage-like in a space reserved somewhere between daydream and nightmare.
Subtly somber and restrained yearning odes abound on her latest release, Life on Earth [July, Sub Pop], her second LP and fourth release. The songs are so personal that I’m not always quite sure what she’s singing about, but that hardly matters as the songs definitely do speak to me on other gratifying levels. If you are a fan of ’60s British folk, you’ll fall instantly under her spell. read more
Flight of the Conchords
Flight of the Conchords
I Told You I Was Freaky
(Sub Pop, 2009)
If you had told me three years ago that a folk comedy duo from New Zealand would become an underground phenomenon, not only would I have believed you, but my faith in a bright future would’ve been reinstated. But you didn’t tell me, so it came as a complete shock when deadpan Kiwi duo Flight of the Conchords snuck quietly into a seedy little one-bedroom on the Lower East Side and took over comedy culture.
As their half-hour long weekly HBO show continues to get funnier (you must check out the episode where FOTC’s bumbling manager Murray gets them addicted to hair gel) and more popular, earning the show an impressive six Emmy nods this year, Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie further cement themselves in the pop culture spotlight. And I Told You I Was Freaky, the pair’s second full-length studio album, comes just in time to satiate ravenous fans who’ve already memorized every word to Flight of the Conchords’ 2008 eponymous debut.
Pissed Jeans at Bottom of the Hill, San Francisco
Pissed Jeans
August 18th at Bottom of the Hill, San Francisco
As Pissed Jeans were about to begin their set, singer Matt Korvette walked up to the microphone in a black tank emblazoned with the word “heaven” to mysteriously exclaim, “A big stage requires a big man.” Compared to other SF venues of similar clout, the stage at Bottom of the Hill really isn’t that big, but the sizeable Korvette and the rest of the Allentown, Pennsylvania rock foursome had plenty of space to work with around their fairly minimal set-up—drummer Sean McGuinness’ kit sat at the center, leaving plenty of strutting room between the amps. Although they’ve been around for about five years now and are touring in front of their third full-length (and second for Sub Pop), King of Jeans, this was somehow the band’s first outing to San Francisco.
They really made it count. For those who haven’t heard them, Pissed Jeans kick out meaty, ’80s hardcore-influenced thud-punk in the vein of bands like Flipper, Drunks With Guns, and Stick Men with Ray Guns. Totally bludgeoning and riff-tastic, but with a resigned, disarmingly contemplative lyrical core: “I don’t mind stacking papers up in a pile / And I don’t care if it takes half an hour to get there” goes a nine-to-five-resigned line in the blistering “Dream Smotherer.” More than the lyrics, however, it’s the band’s energy that sticks out above all else in the live setting: McGuinness smacked with unbelievable force, and the pairing of bassist Randy Huth (also the guitarist in Pearls & Brass) and guitarist Bradley Fry makes for a ripping accompaniment to Korvette’s writhing, gutturally howling figure. He would hold the microphone and the upper half of the mic stand (separated from the lower half), whirling around maniacally and sometimes crouching to wink at one of the nearby girls or take a swig from his water bottle (no beer necessary!). Korvette gave the mic a few affectionate kisses and bites as it briefly hung from the onstage holiday light fixtures, and everyone went wild for the fastest, most ass-kicking half hour I’ve ever experienced. These guys are masters, seriously—one of the best live bands you’ll ever see.
Fleet Foxes: April 14th at the Fillmore, SF and Elle King: April 14th at Spike Hill, Brooklyn
Fleet Foxes, Blitzen Trapper
April 14th at the Fillmore, San Francisco
Last March, when I asked a local music editor fresh back from SXSW 2008 for the band she’d recommend, Fleet Foxes flew out of her mouth with the blind confidence of true love. At the time, their Sun Giant EP was a prime promise of the inspiration to come with the June 2008 release of their self-titled full-length.
So, it’s only appropriate that on a day when San Francisco reported 45mph winds, Fleet Foxes should bluster the Fillmore for a sold-out show, and that the harmonized lyrics, “What a life I lead in the spring / What a life I lead in the winded breeze” should ring out as “Sun Giant” opened their set. The fact that lead guitarist Skyler Skjelset next played with a bow for “Drops in the River” made you feel like one of the lucky 1,199-few to be at the Fillmore that night for their first of a two-night appearance in San Francisco.
Handsome Furs
Handsome Furs
Face Control
(Sub Pop, 2009)
Though the Handsome Furs was initially formed as a side project by Dan Boeckner of Wolf Parade and his partner Alexei Perry, with the release of Face Control, their second album on Sub Pop, the married musical duo have proven to be their own dynamic presence, the Wolf Parade association notwithstanding. Where Wolf Parade’s co-songwriter Spencer Krug’s compositions are oftentimes epic and mythical, Boeckner’s are urgent and tense, which creates a duality in Wolf Parade records. But with Boeckner in the sole driver’s seat, the musical output blazes, glitters, and holds tight, lifted to great heights by solid songwriting and an ineffable musical chemistry of the duo at hand.
The Handsome Furs don’t toil with vapid observations of, say, their relationship or the struggles of being in a band. No, their themes are big, bigger than even themselves. Though their songs may initially sound like they’re crafted during drunken late night sessions between a husband and wife whose lifestyle is manically fueled by mobility, their music is much more calculated than that. They proved their prowess with 2007’s fantastic conceptual gem, Plague Park, and with the release of this newest collection, Mr. and Mrs. Handsome Furs have secured their foothold as valiant contenders for taking the originality throne—putting their deeply delving commentary and unrest with the world around them to synth-driven, lo-fi music. Though their influences are discernable, they simply don’t sound like anyone but themselves.
Plague Park was about despondency, based on a Scandinavian park under which the victims of a 17th-century plague are buried, but also glistening with the rebirth of a celebration set every spring. Face Control extends that journey of self-discovery through travel to foreign lands, this time in the outer reaches of a chilling Eastern Europe: The vastness of Russia infuses the record with an insistent frost.
“Legal Tender” is a unnerving, thumping intro, with Boeckner hitting it hard from the get-go, about shattering, presumably (based on the premise of the album), a Westerner’s disownment with world responsibility, with lines like “Don’t wanna hear about the weight of the world” and “He don’t want what he don’t need, you can kick at the world and just plea legal tender.” And beneath the lyrics, Boeckner and Perry nail incredibly stylish, hook-laden melodies. The album heads into “Evangeline” next: “Her dress was dark and clean / And how did you get here / You twist all over me / Like you were caught in the wind / And we were cold calling,” dark and desperate, as it ventures into Siberian climates.
From there, the album continues to explore the Eastern hemisphere through the visage of a detached but slowly awakening visitor. “Talking Hotel Arbat Blues” is pointed commentary driven by up-tempo, excitable beats about a Russian club who practices “face control,” a policy that allows patrons in based solely on their physical appearance: “I don’t know but I’ve been told / Every little thing’s been bought and sold / There was a guy who came in from the cold / Who’s never going to get past face control.” The biting, computerized tones of the instrumental “(Passport Kontrol)” lend further detachment to the record before humanity sweeps in with Boeckner’s fiery “All We Want, Baby, Is Everything”, a song rocked solid by an anthemic chorus that sparkles under dual harmonies and a charisma that flavors dreary post-Communist societal woes. “I’m Confused” is both jarring and sprightly, with Springsteen-esque lines like, “I hope this life don’t get you down / Dirty old time in a dirty old town,” and in “Nyet Spasiba”, Boeckner takes a silent, searching walk through Moscow, lyrics painting the cold, dark town with a sense of wonder and isolation.
“(It’s Not Me, It’s You)” is airier, almost shoe-gazey and ethereal, a tasteful shift from the stoicism of the album prior, and serving to usher Face Control to its stoic ending, with the snappy, cerebral “Thy Will be Done” (“’Cause you know life is a thing of wonder / We can wait… ’til the morning to come”) and the end-cap “Radio Kaliningrad”, an incredibly strong song with which to close the record, a fast-paced rocker doused in apocalyptic acceptance. “I know you love me baby / I know the heart is just a little dry / You can wait outside / Yell we’re all just waiting for it / We’re all just waiting for the future and uranium / And sleeping in the all-red sky / You can wait outside.”
Tastefully subversive but weighted with an inescapable feeling of significance, Face Control is another exceedingly solid Handsome Furs effort, one whose merits grow with every listen, as the instrumental nuances and Boeckner’s lyrical deftness only become more and more pronounced. The album is a perfect mix of detached objectivity injected with impassioned sparks of transformation and a vital musical chemistry between husband and wife, resulting in an album that somehow never falters, fails, or slips, leaving, at least this listener, with a sense that this is essential listening.
Listen: Various Tracks [at myspace.com]
Tags: Handsome Furs, Face Control, Sub Pop, Wolf Parade
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Blitzen Trapper
Blitzen Trapper
Furr
(Sub Pop, 2008)
When Blitzen Trapper self-released Wild Mountain Nation last year, and word quickly began to spread about their warped, rowdy, and infectious brand of indie-folk, it came as a surprise to people everywhere that it was actually the band’s third full-length. They’d been toiling in relative obscurity in Portland since 2000, honing their sound as best they could before ever even leaving the West Coast. It’s curious, then, that the biggest period of change the band went through occurred when they set out on a tour of the whole country, playing to excitable crowds every night, and eventually signing on with the venerable Sub Pop label.
When it came time to record the follow-up to Wild Mountain Nation, they retreated to the same rehearsal space they used to record previous efforts. Located in a dance studio near the Portland border, the studio provides cheap studio rates most bands would kill for, and as a result, the kind of time that would tempt many bands to over-think their songs, to tinker too much, or fall in love with time-consuming and, often, ultimately counter-productive studio wizardry.
Fortunately, Blitzen Trapper made expert use of their resources, taking advantage of downtime between tours to make Furr, a record that still sounds decidedly organic and spontaneous, but also marks a new level of cohesion and reserve for a band that had come to be known for their scattershot approach to songwriting and their boundless live energy.
Where before there were massive-sounding guitars, wacky time signatures, and no shortage of blood-curdling screaming now sits a collection of songs that are most notable for their impeccable, spot-on taste in a distinctly American (and growing in prominence) type of indie rock that’s informed just as much by sunny folk-rock as it is by, you know, Pavement. And probably more so.
One could easily make the argument that Furr is bogged down with a lack of adventurousness, that the whole thing is just a little too straightforward, which wouldn’t be terribly far-fetched. But it’s also nice that, for the first time in their career, they’re allowing their stellar sense of melody to stand front and center, unobscured by guitar heroics or other noise. It feels weird and intellectually sort of cheap to praise a band for simplifying their approach, but it also speaks to a purity of songwriting that’s hard to find. They focus heavily on acoustic guitars on Furr, propping them up with just the right amount of electrics, mostly through understated, laid-back noodling), a large helping of vocal harmonies, and a far greater reliance upon piano than in their previous work.
There are still some boisterous moments, like album opener “Sleepytime in the Western World” and “Love U”, which sounds kind of like how you wish the White Stripes still sounded, and features an opening scream that sounds so much like Kurt Cobain it’s actually unsettling. These moments are fun, and will be even more fun in a live setting, but it’s the rest of the record that leaves the most indelible mark. People will say there’s nothing setting them apart from the millions of other bands currently making folk-inspired, white-boy indie rock, and on a very surface level, they’ll be right. But they’ll be leaving out one important point: Blitzen Trapper is writing perfect little songs that aren’t particularly impressive in their scope, but are endlessly admirable for their ability to hit home despite the band’s newfound stylistic limitations.
Listen: Various Tracks [at myspace.com]
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Beach House: Teen Dream
by: Howard Wyman
Teen Dream
(Sub Pop, 2010)
Well, now they’ve done it. They’ve pulled off the hat trick. In 2006, Beach House emerged with a perfect, cold, and misty self-titled reverie of an album, and for all we knew then, it could’ve been a lark. Hype ensued, and in 2008 they made good on it, dropping a sophomore album that both clarified and advanced the formula, gaining strength in the studio and even loftier critical momentum—but would the streak continue? Do they have what it takes for the long haul? With Teen Dream, Beach House gives us confirmation: Hell yes they do.
With each album, Beach House takes another step into the light, shedding a layer of sonic gauze and gaining a measure of potency and focus, and Teen Dream continues in that direction. Maintaining their well-hewn approach of minimal guitar, keyboards, organs, and vocals, on Teen Dream Beach House continues to convey a spectrum at once thick and uncluttered, sweetened by the love at the center of their lyrics and by pop melodies that unfold at a deliberate, sometimes soporific pace. While absolutely recognizable as the band we met four years ago, they’ve also come a long way from the distant, icy siren calls of their self-titled debut. In fact, they’ve just about reached pure pop, albeit with earnestness, abstruseness, and enough poise to keep safely on the “cool” side of the cultural divide. The Baltimore duo’s first two albums were issued by DC-based indie Carpark Records, and though number three comes from the borderline big-time Warner subsidiary Sub Pop (therefore with a presumably bigger budget for production), Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally strike dream-pop gold in keeping it simple and majestic. Elements of bygone radio pop may run free through their inspiration, yet they incorporate them subtly and without any trace of irony, aloofness, or ostentation. read more
by: Howard Wyman
published: January 26, 2010
in column: What Goes On
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