The Joys of Being Filthy Poor in the Country
Recent art encounters on Soda Street.
Mos Def – Black On Both Sides
You know what’s gonna happen with hip hop, whatever’s happening with us. If we smoked out hip hop is gonna be smoked out. If we doing all right hip hop is gonna be doing all right.
A reliable source once called this his favorite hip hop album, and that’s all the recommendation you need, but then I’m not really trying to recommend an established classic, just trying to say it’s part of the texture of life in 2012.
Main Attrakionz – 808s & Dark Grapes II
A sort of validation of Mos’s prediction, for the year 2011, Main Attrakionz sound like they’re smoked out and doing all right; in fact that would probably be the best way to describe them. I’m still catching up with clicking last year’s guilt-free links to music even as new ones proliferate, here’s one of my favorites.
Sonny Sharrock – Ask The Ages
1991 of my dreams, and jazz. I’ve begun a process of fusing years to more indefinable qualities, e.g. the ones this album shares with what I already thought I knew.
Frankie Rose – Interstellar
Update: “Know Me,” in its guitar emphasis, is this album’s outlier. Whatever other genres do with it, this will go down as the bass album of the year.
The Shins – Port Of Morrow
I fell into dark times and you were there to help me through.
One of James Mercer’s more straightforward lines (gone is the improbable grammar of Chutes Too Narrow), but what’s amazing is the way he always adapts his attitude to his latest style of songwriting (I guess that process is called songwriting) and tweaks the boards and his voice just right to pass them off. The lyrics here sound great off the page.
The Magnetic Fields – Love At The Bottom Of The Sea
I’m goin’ back to the country, the big city’s too small. I don’t need more than one treehouse but there’s none at all.
It’s been a while since Stephin Merritt moved to the country (L.A.?), but synths have often been associated with rural life in his songwriting (see The Charm of the Highway Strip), so the return to synths on this new album marks an important transition that’s more than aesthetic. Note also: As long as Shirley Simms is allowed to sing his songs, Magnetic Fields albums will always be good.
The Men – Open Your Heart
When they’re loud they’re always loud, and yet maintain a pretty consistent drama and mystery. But, contrary to my expectations for this album, they’re not always loud. The highlights here are two country songs, one nominal and one actual (“Candy”).
Big K.R.I.T. – 4evaNaDay
From Dave Marsh’s New Book of Rock Lists: “Rockers Who Should Read Fewer Books – KRS-One – More fresh beats, fewer stale facts.”
Everyone’s got their fingers crossed that KRIT will never merit an equivalent directive: Less power of positive thinking, more power of lush production. I’m still satisfied with the balance.
P.M. Dawn – The Bliss Album…?
“Filthy Rich (I Don’t Wanna Be)” … And I’m starting to see that the music of P.M. Dawn can help me avoid the undesired impossibility as effectively as the crunchier 90s sounds I’ve typically relied on to keep me rich in spirit.
Thee Oh Sees with White Fence, Magnetix, The Mallard – Low Spirits (Albuquerque, NM) – Saturday, March 10, 2012
Thee Oh Sees – A problem I also had with Unknown Mortal Orchestra: weird rock band favors euphoric, good-times vibes in concert to the exclusion of all else, when it’s clear there is so much else. But I buy (though not as much as the moshing crowd). Here’s a band in peak form, so it’s hard to come in unaware and try to say something about it. But they’ve got two drummers and I can tell they’ve earned it, that they’re not desperately trying to generate the enthusiasm that already runs in their blood.
White Fence – Side project of Darker My Love’s Tim Presley reads as Paisley Underground cover band. I’d say they rocked and that’s that, but it was a bit of a shame that Presley’s vocals were so smothered by the noise, because what noise they made was improbably wide, arena-ish (especially relative to the band’s recordings), and wanted something to carry it.
Magnetix – Probably the most adrenalized guitar/drums duo I’ve seen, or maybe second to Birthday Suits, these two are scarily committed, i.e. a bit insane.
The Mallard – My favorites of the night, pop music that comes off as noise rock because it changes musical ideas so frequently. Descendents of The Raincoats, The Slits, Liliput, et al, a bit less tuneful, but when they are tuneful, brilliantly and surprisingly so.
