After loving 2005’s Body of Song, I was really looking forward to this one and fortunately, it doesn’t disappoint. Unlike that album’s more direct approach, this album feels like a survey of every style that Mould has tried in the twenty (!) years since HUSKER DU broke up and he went solo. It contains several SUGAR-like blasts such as “The Silence Between Us”, perhaps the best track here. However, just like on his last couple of albums, the vocoder and experimentation with disco-ish beats are featured prominently on several tracks (even in the otherwise straightforward, poppy and terrific opener “Stupid Now”), which reminds listeners that this is an ‘00s Bob Mould album and not something from the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. Still, at times, this feels a lot like listening to an imaginary record that was shelved during the period he recorded Workbook and Black Sheets of Rain for Virgin since at times it’s reminiscent of the former as well. All in all, this is an excellent effort and along with the new ones by JOE JACKSON and THE MAGNETIC FIELDS, my favorite new album of 2008 so far.
As any reader of this column could figure out, I’ve been a bit obsessed with Kimya lately. As I venture backwards into her vast solo catalog, I discover gem after gem. Her music is instantly engaging and highly personal, like talking to a good friend who you haven’t seen for ages. She touches upon everything from her family to friends to pop stars and childhood heroes, and with diversions into politics and social issues as well, sometimes within the same song. Although not a technically gifted singer nor a virtuoso guitarist, the depth of her lyrics and her talent is simply astounding. I’m just bummed that it took me this many years to realize it, but hey better late than never! On this particular record, she’s backed by other musicians on about half of it, so it has a more fleshed-out, full band feel than her most album Remember That I Love You does. The most memorable song here is “My Heroes”, which eviscerates her childhood hero MICHAEL JACKSON and addresses the issue of child abuse.
This came out in October, but I didn’t know about it until a few weeks ago, so I promptly ordered it as The Undertones are one of my all-time favorites. How did I miss this? Anyway this album is another corker and the second consecutive great record they’ve made since their surprising reunion (with new singer PAUL MCLOONE) at the turn of the century. It’s very much in the spirit of their first two records as well as 2003’s Get What You Need, though “Fight My Corner” nods towards principal songwriter JOHN O’NEILL’s post-Undertones band THAT PETROL EMOTION (which also included his brother DAMIAN O’NEILL, also The Undertones’ lead guitar player) and there’s even a piano ballad here, but otherwise this is the band’s trademark, ultra-melodic and speedy assault on the senses.
You can hear them performing songs from their most recent album Challengers along with an interview CARL NEWMAN here. I highly recommend it!
An astounding record that is perhaps even better than their incredible debut, this record is so ahead of its time that it’s hard to believe that it even came out in 1975. Divided amongst two vastly different sides of music, the first is quiet, unimposing synth-pop similar to some of KRAFTWERK’s music except of course, that it was made in 1975 and has a richness, texture and feel that most of the synth hordes of the early ‘80s failed to match. The second side is where it gets weird, however. It’s proto post-punk complete with yelling, noisy freakouts and the like. Listening to this album, it’s hard not to think of DAVID BOWIE’s “Berlin trilogy” (especially Heroes) both in its thematic division of the “rock” side and the “ambient” side as well as the overall experimental work, which along with the previously mentioned Kraftwerk is a huge, obvious, acknowledged influence on those records.
Her latest solo album from 2006 is my first foray into Kimya’s solo career and boy is it excellent. Armed with a child-like voice and an acoustic guitar, she transcends labels like “inde-pop” and “twee”, her humanity and zest for lie showing through on almost every track. The most affecting track here is “12/26”, about the catastrophic Indian Ocean tsunami that happened on that date in 2004.
Although I’ve been familiar with this song for years thanks to the excellent Nuggets box set, I heard it in an entirely new light recently thanks to this great blog. Hearing the snaps and crackles of the actual 45 (albeit digitized) instead of the digitally remastered version really brings out the raw energy inherent in many of these songs. This one is a proto-psych pop masterpiece that rivals anything ever recorded in this genre.
From their debut album Places, this is by far the best song on there. Currently in heavy rotation on local station WXPN, I’ve also been playing it just about daily recently. Stylistically similar to the British indie-pop of THE LODGER but even catchier, I defy you to get it out of your head. When I saw this band open for CAMERA OBSCURA back in the summer of 2006 (review here), they didn’t make much of an impression on me, but this song and others on their debut album have forced me to reconsider them.
Based upon the success of the Juno soundtrack, there has been a lot of interest in this long on-hiatus New York anti-folk duo. So much so, in fact, that they were set to reunite on Conan O’Brian’s late night show on NBC a few weeks ago until JOHN DARNIELLE of THE MOUNTAIN GOATS told Kimya Dawson that the show was at the time still affected by the ongoing writers’ strike. Not wanting to cross any picket lines, they thus chose a show that allegedly (though this is a topic that is still controversial) has no writers. They performed “Anyone Else But You” (by far the sweetest song on their sole studio album, it was sung by actors MICHAEL CERA and ELLEN PAGE in the movie) and afterwards chatted briefly with Dawson’s hero WHOOPI GOLDBERG. You can read all about it here.
It’s always interesting to revisit an album that I loved at the time of its release, but haven’t listened to in a while. Such was the case with this album, which was my favorite album of 2006. Although if I had to do it over again, JAY REATARD’s Blood Visions would be my favorite album of that year (it’s not on the list because I didn’t hear it until last summer), this album still holds up. The first six songs or so are amazing and though it loses a little luster after that with the exception of “Careening with Conviction” and the amazing closer “Nancy Reagan’s Head”, it’s strong enough that I still believe it to be the best comeback album I’ve ever heard.
