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Badlittlekitten · 08-10-2011, 08:23 AM

Catching Up With 2011, Part 1

Much of the music of this year seems to be passing me by,this being the result of my current obsession with jazz and the various forms of ‘world’ music, as well as my general apathy toward modern music. (Oh dear. It seems as though I’m becoming one of them people.) So I’ve only heard six or seven LPs from this year. Here be my thoughts.

The Antlers – Burst Apart

This is the third (?) album from the New Yorkers following the much loved Hospice. I only heard bits of that Lp and wasn’t bowled over by it but I thought I’d give Burst Apart more of a try. [WARNING; RANT COMENCING] If your gonna use a drumbeat as plodding and wet as the one on opener ‘I Don’t Want Love’ then you better have a dynamic and melodically adventurous song to cover for it. Unfortunetly it contains a lame uninteresting chorus where singer Peter Silberman, who has a nice voice, sings “I don’t want love” over some Coldplay chords. In fact the dire Coldplay could teach The Antlers a thing or two about this stuff because if you’re in the practice of making this over-earnest, ‘deep’ brand of indie music then surely you must go the whole hog and make every song a cry-your-heart-out anthem. The Antlers fail every time. For example, take ‘French Exit’ which has some choral bittersweet vocal harmonies in the verses and some swirling synths which are very pleasant. Then two minutes in there’s a break and the keyboards sound as though they are building up to something and I say to myself “that’s it Antlers, give it to me! Give me that great big chorus!” and I’m about to jump out of my seat and punch the air and then . . . . .nothing. The track just goes back into another verse and I’m left underwhelmed, the song sounding 100x more drab as a result. And that’s the story of Burst Apart. The group are doing their best to communicate inner pain to the listener, but to my ears they just come across as stubborn and self-consciously gloomy. ‘Rolled Together’ could have been a great song if the band invested more time in writing it. The reverbed guitars and the haunting vocals sound like a dreary wet dream, a mash up of Bon Iver and Sigor Ros at their best. But Silberman just sings the same line over and over and over and the band go into an instrumental passage which as musicians they are neither good or inventive enough to pull off.

Blah. What do I know anyway? I gurentee Burst Apart will be topping the end of year polls by Pithfork and the like. Something that irritates me about music journalism is this belief that music that is as formal and deadly serious as The Antlers (and Arcade Fire, Pink Floyd, Fleet Foxes etc.) is somehow more deserving of praise than music that’s unafraid of fun and adventure, despite its quality. [RANT OVER]

All in all Burst Apart isn’t my cup of tea.

Panda Bear – Tomboy

Person Pitch was a was a great release, full of twisted Beach Boys memories and subtle laptop wizardry. With Tomboy, or Person Pitch part 2, part of me feels that Noah Lennox has jumped the shark. On Pitch he often sounded thrilled just to be there, but nothing on Tomboy has the harmonic excitement of ‘Bros’ or ‘Take Pills’ and Lennox sometimes sound like he’s phoning it in, unsure whether he wants his music to continue in this direction. That’s not to say Tomboy is a bad album, in fact some parts are pretty good. My favourite track, the aptly named ‘Drone’, is a song that makes me feel as though I’m on my back gently wading through the shallow waters of a rainforest, reaching through the mist for the fruit on an overhanging branch. There’s not enough of those songs.
Tomboy is just disappointing. Stale even. Yet I don’t know what I was expecting from it. Sorry Panda, we can’t count on you.

Tune Yards – Who Kill

Now an album I can heap unreserved praise upon, although on my first listen of the first few tracks I went from thinking “Eh? I must’ve downloaded a Dirty Projectors album by mistake” to “EUWW I hate this type of unsubtle American faux quirkiness” to “I quite like the horns and African toms though” to “Hold on. THIS IS FUCKING GREAT!” It doesn’t help that Whokill goes against conventional music logic and places all the weak tracks at the albums beginning. I also thought the vocals came from a falsetto-d male, a mark of the extraordinary throat of Merrill Garbus, who manages to sound like Mica Levi, Robert Plant and Prince having a quick threesome shag. On reflection, Whokill (sorry Merrill but I can't be bothered to write your album or stupid band name properly, though I could be bothered to write this apology) isn’t quite “FUCKING GREAT!” but it is daring, fun, diverse and dynamic, globally informed and, well, basically everything the Antlers aren’t.

08-10-2011, 08:23 AM	#18 (permalink)
Badlittlekitten And then there was music Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Near Wild Heaven Posts: 287	Catching Up With 2011, Part 1 Much of the music of this year seems to be passing me by,this being the result of my current obsession with jazz and the various forms of ‘world’ music, as well as my general apathy toward modern music. (Oh dear. It seems as though I’m becoming one of them people.) So I’ve only heard six or seven LPs from this year. Here be my thoughts. The Antlers – Burst Apart This is the third (?) album from the New Yorkers following the much loved Hospice. I only heard bits of that Lp and wasn’t bowled over by it but I thought I’d give Burst Apart more of a try. [WARNING; RANT COMENCING] If your gonna use a drumbeat as plodding and wet as the one on opener ‘I Don’t Want Love’ then you better have a dynamic and melodically adventurous song to cover for it. Unfortunetly it contains a lame uninteresting chorus where singer Peter Silberman, who has a nice voice, sings “I don’t want love” over some Coldplay chords. In fact the dire Coldplay could teach The Antlers a thing or two about this stuff because if you’re in the practice of making this over-earnest, ‘deep’ brand of indie music then surely you must go the whole hog and make every song a cry-your-heart-out anthem. The Antlers fail every time. For example, take ‘French Exit’ which has some choral bittersweet vocal harmonies in the verses and some swirling synths which are very pleasant. Then two minutes in there’s a break and the keyboards sound as though they are building up to something and I say to myself “that’s it Antlers, give it to me! Give me that great big chorus!” and I’m about to jump out of my seat and punch the air and then . . . . .nothing. The track just goes back into another verse and I’m left underwhelmed, the song sounding 100x more drab as a result. And that’s the story of Burst Apart. The group are doing their best to communicate inner pain to the listener, but to my ears they just come across as stubborn and self-consciously gloomy. ‘Rolled Together’ could have been a great song if the band invested more time in writing it. The reverbed guitars and the haunting vocals sound like a dreary wet dream, a mash up of Bon Iver and Sigor Ros at their best. But Silberman just sings the same line over and over and over and the band go into an instrumental passage which as musicians they are neither good or inventive enough to pull off. Blah. What do I know anyway? I gurentee Burst Apart will be topping the end of year polls by Pithfork and the like. Something that irritates me about music journalism is this belief that music that is as formal and deadly serious as The Antlers (and Arcade Fire, Pink Floyd, Fleet Foxes etc.) is somehow more deserving of praise than music that’s unafraid of fun and adventure, despite its quality. [RANT OVER] All in all Burst Apart isn’t my cup of tea. Panda Bear – Tomboy Person Pitch was a was a great release, full of twisted Beach Boys memories and subtle laptop wizardry. With Tomboy, or Person Pitch part 2, part of me feels that Noah Lennox has jumped the shark. On Pitch he often sounded thrilled just to be there, but nothing on Tomboy has the harmonic excitement of ‘Bros’ or ‘Take Pills’ and Lennox sometimes sound like he’s phoning it in, unsure whether he wants his music to continue in this direction. That’s not to say Tomboy is a bad album, in fact some parts are pretty good. My favourite track, the aptly named ‘Drone’, is a song that makes me feel as though I’m on my back gently wading through the shallow waters of a rainforest, reaching through the mist for the fruit on an overhanging branch. There’s not enough of those songs. Tomboy is just disappointing. Stale even. Yet I don’t know what I was expecting from it. Sorry Panda, we can’t count on you. Tune Yards – Who Kill Now an album I can heap unreserved praise upon, although on my first listen of the first few tracks I went from thinking “Eh? I must’ve downloaded a Dirty Projectors album by mistake” to “EUWW I hate this type of unsubtle American faux quirkiness” to “I quite like the horns and African toms though” to “Hold on. THIS IS FUCKING GREAT!” It doesn’t help that Whokill goes against conventional music logic and places all the weak tracks at the albums beginning. I also thought the vocals came from a falsetto-d male, a mark of the extraordinary throat of Merrill Garbus, who manages to sound like Mica Levi, Robert Plant and Prince having a quick threesome shag. On reflection, Whokill (sorry Merrill but I can't be bothered to write your album or stupid band name properly, though I could be bothered to write this apology) isn’t quite “FUCKING GREAT!” but it is daring, fun, diverse and dynamic, globally informed and, well, basically everything the Antlers aren’t. __________________ 'Said do you feel it? Do you feel it when you TOUCH ME?. THERE'S A FIRE! THERE'S A FIRE!' The Stooges. Dirt. https://soundcloud.com/bad-little-kittens My Top 100 LPs My Top 52 Indie Tracks Of The 21st Century (incomplete)