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Top 20 New Rock Releases of 2006, Part One
Oh, the agony! Narrowing the list down to just twenty albums is a torturous process (though in a way I quite enjoy it – well, I enjoy the intensive relistening). It would be even worse if I were trying to compare apples and oranges and persimmons and blueberries, which is why I’m restricting this list not only to rock but also to new releases rather than reissues – and I’m being quite strict; for instance, Springsteen’s Hammersmith Odeon London ‘75 doesn’t qualify as a new release because I had a good chunk of it on LP for over a quarter of a century (granted, a bootleg). But I’ll cover reissues the week after next, and non-rock stuff the week after that, etc.
And since I have in recent months been sticking little obituaries in here, I will mention that if you would like to read my thoughts about the late great James Brown, you can read them here. It has amazed me to learn in the past few days that some of my friends, rabid music fans, never got around to attending a James Brown concert. I did, twice, and it was amazing, especially when I saw him up close at the old Lone Star in Greenwich Village.
There was something of a shoegaze revival in 2006, most impressively on this Brooklyn band’s sophomore release, full of massive shimmering wash of effects-laden guitar a la My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive. Heavy reverb on Yuki Chikudate’s breathy female vocals, hooks sometimes darkly subtle and sometimes brightly brilliant, and extended song-ending thrash-aways. Compared to the band’s debut two years ago, there’s more focus: Chikudate dominates the vocals (perfectly winsome at times, perfectly ethereal at others, recalling Cocteau Twins’ Elizabeth Fraser and, less often, Cranes’ Alison Shaw), the shoegazer sound is much stronger and more dominant, the songwriting’s better, and Chikudate’s keyboards are usually warmer and more submerged in the overall texture. There’s still a fair amount of variety, though, and more fast tempos and aggression than the obvious comparisons might suggest – the vocals may often recall dreampop, but the drumming usually doesn’t. And I can vouch that it stands up to frequent listening!
This collective’s second full-length is more strongly imbued with the darkness found in guitarist/vocalist Greg Weeks’s solo music than on their debut. One of the obvious touchstones for the band is the late-’60s/early ‘70s British folk-rock scene, such as Pentangle, but with some more avant-garde elements from subsequent years also embraced, giving the album a spiny power on the tracks where Weeks’s electric guitar freak-outs burst from the shadows with spiky dissonances and prickly timbres. This contrasts starkly and effectively with the otherwise pastoral mood (keeping in mind that country life is hardly all bucolic sunshine; plenty of killings take place in barns). So while much of this disc is absolutely gorgeous, the overall context shows that such beauty must be struggled for. Beauty isn’t for wimps; it takes inner strength.
Reuniting with producer J.D. Foster for his eighth album, Buckner (relocated to Brooklyn) rocks out while retaining his trademark musical and lyrical darkness. His words are evocative yet enigmatic; he describes situations so specifically, at such a fine level of detail, that paradoxically their definable meaning cannot be pinned down – and yet, the mood is communicated unmistakably through his world-weary singing. Buckner retains some of his country sound but with a sometimes shimmering, often more muscular indie-rock impetus. It’s as though he doesn’t know where he’s going but he’s hellbent on getting there. On quieter songs keyed around acoustic guitar or piano, there’s a sense of light piercing the darkness, but even as we see the scene more clearly, we quickly realize that we’re looking at rubble, the aftermath of some ambiguous devastation. In the end we’re left with questions, not answers, but somehow a satisfying feeling of having almost grasped or at least glimpsed the unknowable.
This Brooklyn singer-songwriter used to garner an obvious comparison to Liz Phair (minus the blatant provocations), but on her third album O’Connor sounds like no one but herself. The production’s more indie-rock than before on some tracks, but it’s the assured songwriting (full of telling yet unpretentious, unshowy verbal triumphs), her voice’s open vulnerability wrapped around an inner toughness, and the bittersweet melodies that will hold one’s attention. Notably, “Sister” is the most deeply moving song of the year. In dealing with deaths, one after the fact and one pending, bombarded by memory and emotion and dread and so much more, the singer starts out matter-of-fact, tightly contained, but slips into an eruption of feelings, her voice cracking, as the music builds perfectly from acoustic simplicity to dense support. Though one more refrain follows it, the climax of the song is the despairing end of the last verse: “There’s no way it’s ever gonna be right ever again.” Nor is this a song that gets by on topic and empathy more than craft or quality; the lyrics are pure poetry without ever being falsely fancy. Repeated listening brings me to tears.
Lamontagne’s debut reminded me of Van Morrison at his lushest, mellowest, yet most emotionally harrowed. This time out, still working with producer Ethan Johns, Lamontagne retains a retro feel but works in more stripped-down arrangements and often recalls the quiet intensity of Nick Drake. There are also tracks with horn arrangements that recall the more intimate side of Otis Redding; there’s range and variety yet also a clearly honed aesthetic that makes it all cohere. And there’s Lamontagne’s voice, high and haunting without slipping into the sort of piercing or flamboyant falsetto that becomes tiring to listen to or seems like a fey affectation.
A quietly brilliant masterpiece by this duo of Sierra Casady (CocoRosie) and Matteah Baim, with guests Antony, Jana Hunter, Devendra Banhart, Greg Rogrove (Tarantula A.D.), and Christina Chalmers adding their special flavors. Vocals waft softly through the air, sometimes delicately intertwined, and even the more raucous tracks (such as “Airships,” which includes sections with electric instruments so dirty it’s hard to say whether they’re keyboards or guitars) have a meditative quality. This despite the chilling darkness of much of the music – this album is all about dualities, about yin-yang juxtaposition of fragmentary materials, in a way that often recalls early His Name Is Alive (for instance, “Berry Metal”). The result is sonically fascinating, beautiful, and adventurous.
The number of styles these guys utilize continues to expand: The epic opening track, “Blessing Force,” moves through minimalist Krautrock, a cappella vocals, Byrdsian guitar, an African groove (think Zimbabwe), prog-metal freakout, and free jazz blowout. Elsewhere on this seven-song, 35-minute disc, the psych-folk they’re best known for dominates but continues to be imaginatively spiced by organic tangents. Jazz drummer Hamid Drake and members of Do Make Say Think and Broken Social Scene contribute to the creative ferment.
More evidence of the shoegazer revival. This opens with a minute of buzzing, loopy, phased, speed-shifted solo guitar so striking that it gets its own track even though it leads directly into the driving first song, “On & On.” After that, brooding, monumental mid-tempo song-sculptures are built from multi-layered, effects-drenched guitars chiming, droning, spattering, and most of all soaring. Among the other highlights: “Harmed” is a cathartic burst of energy with some powerful drumming by Donny Newenhouse. “Pitfalls” is keyed around a skirling guitar lick in the verse, while the refrain features slides up and down across a sixth. “Breet” is more uptempo and alternates spare instrumentation in the verse – with the twitchy beat front-and-center – with everything kicking in for the refrain, plus a tension-building bridge. Occasionally the specter of the Cure peeks through some of these songs, especially in the vocals (“11:11” is the epitome). So good, you’ll think they’re British – but they’re a San Francisco/New York outfit.
This disc finds TVOTR’s musical and lyric visions uncompromised but further refined, and drawing on such a wide range of genres as to be uncategorizable. Conceptually, it’s reminiscent of David Bowie (who is one of the vocalists on “Province”) if his career were condensed into a single album, in the sense that pop and experimental music, bits of prog-rock and R&B, are fuzzily interwoven in a sum greater than the parts. This is a real live band, but the operating aesthetic sounds akin to laptop electronica, as though the goal with each track is to create a sonic sculpture through the accumulation of interesting, seductive, and evocative timbres, with the vocals given equality rather than primacy in the mix.
I’ve liked and respected the previous Six Organs albums, but until this one I was never knocked out by Ben Chasny (also of Comets on Fire [which also put out a pretty fine album this year], Current 93, and others) and friends. It was hard to put my finger on why; now, compared to this brilliant album, I hear that previous efforts lacked the last bit of focus and intensity (although I did here those from solo Chasny in concert). But this album takes his droning psychedelic folk to a new level. Nothing’s extraneous, and nothing – not even the nearly 24-minute closing track “River of Transformation” (with the most players, including Al Cisneros from OM) overstays its welcome. (Four of the other six tracks are each under three minutes.) Chasny’s guitar fluency, on both acoustic and electric, is a means to a transcendent end; other players come and go as the situation organically requires.
