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Not Necesarily Brand-New: 10 Music Reviews

by dave heaton

This is a place for reviews of albums that aren't necesarily brand-new. It's a shame to let interesting releases pass me by just because I was too pressed for time to meet that imaginary deadline imposed by current Internet climate of everything-now! There are many more of these shorter reviews to come.

Amestory, They Can Sing They Can Sing They Can Sing Underwater EP (Portia)

The Los-Angeles-based band Amestory plays a piano-driven, emotional style of pop-rock. It's music that gains some of its energy from being fueled by emotional fire, whether it's personal or societal subject matters. Of course everything is personal when you get down to it, which this CD is a reminder of. The comparatively more dramatic tone of this, their second CD, suits, and may be a result of, the subject matter, which could be summarized not too unfairly as life during wartime (maybe throw in life during environmental devastation as well). They refrain from getting too preachy in words looking at the state of the world more poetically, but still within an obvious point of view. This veers close to overwrought at times, but that may be a matter of perspective, or at least what mood you're in. There's a dark, serious cloud hanging over this music, for sure.

Fireflies, Goodnight Stars, Goodnight Moon (Lavender/Music Is My Girlfriend)

Home-recorded bedroom-pop about broken hearts and the changing of the seasons and, you know, unrequited love. With children's book cover art and a lonely diary entry/love letter on the sleeve, this seems a little too cute and cuddly, even for me (and I have a high cute/cuddly tolerance). But as I listen I'll occasionally hit a song that is truly lovely, like "Summer Has Gone" or album-closer "Strawberries", where Fireflies hits the synthesizer/melancholy/early Magnetic Fields thing he is going for dead on, and stops me in my tracks. These moments make the rest more pleasant, turn it all into one sad, fanciful storybook moment.

Graves, Seldom Slumber (Hush)

Seldom Slumber is Greg Olin's fifth album as Graves, and also his best, for two reasons. The first is the brilliant lazy day outside in the sun, possibly near water demeanor that the album captures so well, through Olin's patient singing voice, vacation vocal harmonies behind him, and the laidback playing of guitars, organ, etc. which has a heavy dose of freedom within its calm. The second reason is that he wears his eccentricity on his sleeve, from off-kilter instrumentals like "Kampu Blues" and "Be Lee" through to the album-ending warped, slow-speed version of the strange apology "Television". That eccentricity is aided too by the lyrics, always ripe with humor and oddity.

Harper Lee, Go Back to Bed (Matinee)

This reissue of the 2001 debut album by Harper Lee, the duo of Keris Howard from Brighter and Laura Bridge from Hood, is a welcome reminder of how strong their musical output has been since the beginning. Over time they've sharpened and tightened the structure of their pop songs, setting the bar higher with each album. That still leaves this earlier, less polished album with its own special qualities. It's melancholy, introspective music that in its own way is hardcore, take-no-prisoners about self-examination. Spare (and haunting for it) music accompanies lyrics that probe sharply into life's existential questions: what are we doing, where are we going, and why?

Hotel, Hotel, Allheroesareforeverbold (Lo-Bango)

Large-ensemble, sweeping instrumental imaginary film-score music is nothing new, but it still sounds nice when it's done well. Texans Hotel, Hotel aren't breaking ground here, but they put visceral energy into their playing. Recorded in one take, the music matches the track titles for mood. Those titles match the seven stages of grieving. The harsher ones are especially explosive, full of feeling and noise: "Shock", "Anger", "Depression". Even the most peaceful or mournful stages have an ominous aura, which I like.

Jana Hunter, Carrion (Gnomonsong)

Nifty little EP of three new songs and three alternate versions of songs from Hunter's 2007 album There's No Home. The new songs are in the same vein – moody, mystical, sort-of folk. Her voice is beguiling, the songs pleasantly odd…even (or especially) the haunting instrumental "You Will Take It and Like It." Fitting right in is the cover art, with Hunter's drawings of a vulture wearing checkerboard sunglasses and a man in an alien mask playing a guitar while riding a banana as a surfboard.

Jatun, self-titled (Other Electricities)

At first impression, Jatun's self-titled epic sounds like you imagine it would from the cover art: an overnight scene of the sky, aglow with Northern Lights or similar. You know, atmospheric soundscapes, music to slip away to, to dream away with. That it is, but more interesting than just that, with hazy songs that have double lives. "Ghost and Grey" is sort of a great dance-pop tune. "Zombie Hotel" drifts into quite an emotional trajectory for a song of that name. Everything is hazy, but that haze is not just escape. To steal a sci-fi tagline: Something is out there.

mwvm, Rotations (Silber)

The so-close-up-it's-abstract cover image made me imagine that Rotations would sound mechanical, and it sometimes does, but it's warmer than I expected. The opening track "Context. Where?" is like an evil film score: ambient, "who knows what instruments made this?" music, but there's motion to it, and almost a tune. That's followed by an absolute, near-silent drift, which sets the tone for the rest of Rotations. It's often spooky music, where out of nothingness something creepy will suddenly arise. The way it happens at the end of the third track, "It's Easy to Be Miserable", is like an earthquake, but a metallic one. Elsewhere the music drifts pleasantly, in and out. It'll follow an almost static path sometimes, but then you also never know what's going to appear. It's like walking through a forest of sound: a not that densely populated one where you still might suddenly be charged by a robotic tiger. Or you might fall asleep; it's hard to tell.

Two Hours Traffic, Little Jabs (Bumstead)

"I will let you sing my sing / if you can relate / let you get the lyrics wrong / they're not that great," goes the first line of "Stuck for the Summer", over a catchy melody and a set-up that emphasizes clean guitars and snappy drums. There's something 1990s about that playful tone of self-deprecation. But this group of Nova Scotians is young, on their second album. In that context their approach to pop/rock is refreshing – they're not putting on airs, not pretending to be revolutionary. I enjoy their young-lust ballads as much as their young-lust rockers. The former end up being the album's focus; they go the light-touch, mid-tempo route, sounding like Nada Surf sometimes. Towards the album's end, they play soft even when the lyrics would seem to call for some hard-drinkin' class-rock style, like on "Heatseeker": "I'm a heatseeker baby / and you're just my type." It's a more enjoyable and interesting approach than the "hey look at me" histrionics of so many of their peers.

The Westfield Mining Disaster, Spaghetti South-Western (self-released)

With Spaghetti South-Western, don't think of the American Southwest, more like Southwestern UK. What's tumbling through the air on this 6-song EP are fine pop melodies – smart, fun, sometimes melancholy little songs. I've had this sitting on my desk for a long time now (copyright says 2006). Yet instead of writing about it I keep playing track #2, over and over and over again. "Judy Greer", it's called – a jumpy, catchy song about lovelorn misery with the immortal sing-along line, "my heart is bleeding from the rafters / tumbling down like a mining disaster." The other tracks are good too. Opener "Not Everybody Gets to Be a Rolling Stone" has a catchy tune and nicely understated vocal. There's a jaunt about "Elvis Night" that always brings a smile, and the CD ends with a compelling romance/suicide tale, "Clifton Bridge Song". But with this CD, I confess to having had a bit of a one-track mind, pardon the pun.


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