This Is Book’s Music

The moment I finished listening to mr. Gnome’s last album, I knew that they would be a group I would become a fan of. They have returned with Heave Yer Skeleton (El Marko), and as I listened to this, I thought of a number of ways to try to describe what I heard. I’ll do that here.

For one, this is their second album, so terms like “sophomore slump” were roaming my head. The whole “it takes a lifetime to record a debut album, but only six months to do the second” thing was something that lurked too, but as I listened to this album, where the group continue on their dark and mysterious ways, there was no reason to second guess this. Before, I heard a group that wanted to establish themselves or at least say “hi, this is what we do. It’s unique, we like what we do, and we hope you’re an open ear to our creativity.” As I listened to this new album, vocalist Nicole Barille and musician Sam Meister realize there is a fanbase, one they hope will stay with them on what will hopefully be a courageous voyage towards their muse.

As a kid, you might be attracted to songs that are happy, poppy, and hopeful. In the adult world, mr. Gnome know that there’s little to no time for searching for happy, that if it comes, it comes. Maybe. In “Sit Up & Hum”, affection towards a loved one becomes less important than simply surviving towards the finish line of life:

I saw my lvoe growing older
Shut his eyes and called it over the end
I watched from far away
And as he was passing over
He loved down and across his shoulder
And he said, I love you anyway

Despite a somewhat omnious tone to this album, there’s hints of hope in such lyrics as “I’ll miss you more than you’ll ever know” (from “Vampires“) and “sailing through holes,we were running to my home” (from “Titor”. Vocally, a number of comparisons to Karen O. of Yeah Yeah Yeahs have apparently been made, and one can definitely hear a bit of that in Barille when a lyric or verse reaches a level of raised excitement. It also doesn’t hurt when a section of your song, in this case “Plastic Shadow” goes:
summer will fade, away… yeah yeah yeah
Cuttin’ the day away, away… yeah yeah yeah
Gimme the dark and gray… yeah yeah yeah
Letting me fade away… yeah yeah yeah

Yet within her style, I also hear a bit of Erykah Badu, particularly when she overenunciates a word for emphasis. This happens in the second half of the album, I’m not sure if that was deliberate or if that’s simply how things ended up, but it’s a contrast to how Barile sings the other songs, and it balances perfectly. As for the music, Meister is someone who is in control of what he wants to execute, and with an exchange of ideas between him and Barille, you hear their brand of pop, rock, and even a bit of lounge/exotica that somehow carves a different cave for their fanbase to explore. Meister is basically the canvas to Barille’s paint, one helps provide inspiration to the other and together they create something that might be a downer, but hearing it makes you feel anything but down. You might get that sinister smile when you hear a line that sounds like something that’s been roaming your mind, and maybe that’s what mr. Gnome are, nothing more than the earworms you’ve been wanting to get into your mind, and not out. I had compared them to some of the great music Siouxsie & The Banshees had recorded, and mr. Gnome are on that same level of intensity. I hope new fans will find them worthy of exploring, and if there comes a day when they will split off into individual adventures, I hope fans will want to explore those paths too. Until then, welcome into your daily life the earworms of mr. Gnome.

(SIDENOTE: You can also read my review of their 2008 debut album, Deliver This Creature, by clicking here.)

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The songs on Passing By Behind Your Eyes (self-released) Pretty Lights each sounds like they’re looking for a TV show or movie to belong in. It’s a nice electronic mix that would sound as good on the dance floor as it would at a beauty salon. It’s the kind of music one would find on those classic library albums, and maybe the reason for Pretty Lights doing this was to shop it around in the hopes of it finding a place in someone else’s project. I honestly don’t hear this album as something that demands leisurely listens, but as something that was made for a specific purpose in mind, definitely.

The music is so strong though, I’m split on whether I want to hear him make more music like this, or to create a cohesive album from start to finish. There is a joy in hearing 13 random ideas on an album, I like being able to hear him continue this, but I also want him to get into something more in-depth.

(free MP3 download)

Sometimes you get caught up in a sound that sounds good for a few seconds, and just when you feel you can’t take it anymore, you realize you’ve just been listening to it for 43 minutes.

This is the case with the sappy guilty pleasures of Owl City, who try to sound ultra cool, extra slick and smooth with their never-a-dull-moment music. But lyrically, they’re dorks, as heard in “Cave In”:

Please take a long hard look through your textbook
‘Cause I’m history
When I strap my helmet on, I’ll be long gone
‘Cause I’ve been dying to leave
I’ll write the range and I own my loose change
In my bedroom
‘Cause riding a dirt bike down a turnpike
Always takes its toll… on me

What? What are they saying? Then you have “The Bird And The Worm”, which sounds like it came dripping out of a birdie hole. If Jonas Brothers create dickless music, this has to be something that’s a few notches below the residue. There’s also a fricken song called “Dental Care”:

I brush my teeth and look in the mirror
and laugh out loud as I’m beaming from ear to ear
I’d rather pick flowers instead of fights
I’d rather than flaunt my style, I flash you a smile of clean, pearly whites

I’ve been to the dentist a thousand times, so I know the drill
I smooth my hair, sit back in the chair, but somehow I still get the chills

Oh for fuck’s sake, stop. The worst thing about this is that his voice sounds smoothed out to the point of sounding like Preparation H relief. It’s robotic but it’s not like auto-tune, it’s seamless but it’s not completely human sounding. I think if this song was done by Tobacco or Black Moth Super Rainbow I’d probably laugh along with them, and perhaps maybe the reason for Owl City is to laugh. Unfortunately, the humor in other groups who use similar vocal tracks isn’t here, but perhaps the joke is on us. The lyrics are so mundane and ass-crack worthy, I’m left wondering if they are really taking themselves seriously.

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Kuriaki’s Lovestory (self-released) is a 5-song EP that shows the kind of electronic music he likes to create. He knows how to make potential dance anthems if he needs to, or to combine that with something beat heavy and exotic, perhaps something ready for a film or television show (“Phantom Possessions”). Other tracks, like “Quarks” and the title track, could have been made from the early 80’s with those warm, analog synths that hit you harder than anything you’ve ever heard. “Erosion” is the longest track of the five, running close to 8-minutes and showing in its complex nature the subtleties of minimalism.

Even with just five songs here, Kuriaki seems to be someone that is capable of pulling off anything, and would welcome the oppotunity to do anything for everyone. I would love to hear what he’d pull off in album form, but a few more EP bursts wouldn’t hurt either.

Chasm is the producer, Vida Sunshyne is the singer and rapper. Together, they create a team that sounds really good. For fans of hip-hop and reggae, hearing Move (Obese) will be somewhat of a flashback to the early 90’s, when hip-hop/reggae hybrids were as frequent as the token hip-house song. In fact, what Chasm & Vida Sunshyne do is simply continue the vibe that the hybrid sound had left behind, or at least had it continued into the 21st century, these two would be the leaders.

The songs here range from cultural pride to partying and having fun, and finding the green leafy substance that will make you feel all irie (“The Highest”). They may be from Australia, but there is a huge reggae following there and the island feeling can be felt since Australia is the biggest island in the world. But with a surf culture there that also loves reggae, something that has spread to Hawai’i in the form of Jawaiian music, it’s a side of Australia that the majority of people around the world aren’t familiar with unless they know of Katchafire. But this is different.

Vida Sunshyne sounds great when she sings, especially single tracked, and a few times she gets caught up in that Hepburn yodel when you hear her double- or triple-tracked, and I wish she would do less of this. But I do like it when she springs into a toast, she’s a feel good vocalist who can probably uplift some people with just a few lines.

I can see them appealing in the U.S. to jamband fans and those who love the festival circuit in the summer. If there is ever renewed interest in the hip-hop/reggae hybrid again, I hope Chasm & Vida Sunshyne will be able to crack the market, and not be just a casual trendy novelty, because I can honestly see someone pushing them that way without really taking a deep listen into what they do. With luck, they’ll find someone who is really listening and it’ll help them get more positive coverage around the world.

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Behind The Smile (In The Groove)… now you already know how I feel about “dentist jazz”, so the fact that this CD cover features a beautiful woman showing her pearly whites immediately threw up some flags. Fortunately I didn’t really take this into consideration until after I had come up with an opinion. Here’s my opinion.

Antoinette Montague is an incredible, classy jazz vocalist who enjoys singing as much as she enjoys interpreting the songs she performs. It makes for great listening, especially if you are someone like myself who isn’t much of a fan of vocal jazz. Her renditions of Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On”, The Miracles‘ “Get Ready”, and Dave Brubeck’s “Summer Song” makes me want to hear more of her, and perhaps check out a live show. She takes the two Motown chestnuts and brings them to her neighborhood, while “Summer Song” is given a slight twist that Brubeck fans will enjoy.

She doesn’t go overboard, she doesn’t force herself to reach notes or do things that would make this a not-so-spectacular recording, in fact she pretty much avoids the things that for me makes “dentist jazz” something to avoid. Upon hearing Behind The Smile, it’s safe to say you’ll want to be a devotee.

Last year I was searching a few heavy metal blogs when I came across a band called Kowloon Walled City. I think the fact that they were associated with stoner/sluge/doom metal bands, styles that I have been a fan of before there was a name for it, and with a name like theirs, I was intrigued. The release I had heard was a mere 4-song EP, which was more than enough to make me a fan and anxious to hear what they would offer next.

Gambling On The Richter Scale (The Perpetual Motion Machine) is an album by a band for fans who love Melvins, Godflesh, Eyehategod, Monster Magnet, and Helmet, where the guitars grind, drive, slush, slice, and warble to acopaclyptic levels. In fact, for those who want to put faith in the 2012 theories, then let these guys be a warning sign for what’s to come. Each of their songs touch on sacrifice, hatred, or just things we as humans can and will never understand, but don’t expect to hear solutions or theories. Instead, they confront the demons of the world and stretch it out to incredible levels of speed and volume. They can be speedy when they want to, but understand the power of attacking a song with the consistency of sorghum. But don’t just listen to the groove of their metal steins, take a serious listen to their lyrics and they have some pretty heavy things to say, especially in “Paper Houses”, “Diabetic Feet”, and “More Like The Shit Factory”. There’s nothing to decipher, just listen to how they do it and they’ll floor you.

This is what Ilike about these guys is that they will floor you, with a fist or boots. Kowloon Walled City are the kind of music you would think of if your face was on the floor with a man-made object pointed at your face. Your life would suddenly feel as if it’s in slow motion as you anticipate something to come in contact with you when it leaves the mechanism. It’s the metaphorical sound of pre-death, and somehow you wish for it to last forever. Gambling On The Richter Scale is basically trying to predict the unpredictable, and within this heavy wall of doom are some incredible melodies and sections that will surprise you, as they’re not about playing the same low-end riffs for 37 minutes. They are capable of doing just that, but there’s another level to their sound, one I hope will continue to grow and reveal more levels. This is their first full-length album, they have a lot of time.

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2009 is the 40th anniversary of the live shows in New York that The Rolling Stones performed, which would be used for the classic live album released a year later called Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out. In honor of this, The Morrison Hotel Gallery (313 Bowery) in New York City will be presenting a photo exhibition on Thursday, November 19th by respected Rolling Stones photographer Ethan Russell, which will also feature a tribute to the Stones via the tribute band, The Soul Ramblers. The photos are a part of a book Russell came out with recently called Let It Bleed: The Rolling Stones, Altamont and the End of the Sixties, released by Springboard Press.

This music video has three things Britney Spears doesn’t have: talent, sarcasm, humor. I was also going to say “balls”, but some of you would say “figuratively or literally?”

Anyway, take a look at Lady Gaga’s new video for “Bad Romance”.