Menomena
Mines
****
Portland experimental rock three-piece Menomena have a more unusual writing process than most groups of their stature, laying down loops by the dozen before slowly assembling the resulting audio mess into distinct songs in the comfort of their bedrooms. Either they were working to sharper schematics than in the past, or they’ve honed the process to a fine art – Mines is their most coherent yet consistently surprising release to date.
Surprising in every sense, too. A track like ‘Taos’ rolls along quite nicely in alt-rock cruise control before veering through half a dozen musical flourishes – strings, a lone arpeggiated piano, a choir of Loony Tunes extras, slickly irregular drum licks from Danny Seim, sudden Zepplinesque guitar vom. And Brent Knopf’s not-quite-unlikeable yowl provides the pivot on which the whole thing turns; a sweetly unassuming lyrical come-on developing the confessional overtones of a serial sex addict. More exhilarating ground-dropping-away-beneath-you moments in the space of one song than many manage in an entire album.
Menomena draw their emotional oomph by picking through the detritus of failed relationships, and they do it in lyrical style: ‘you’re five foot five, not a hundred pounds / I’m scared to death of every single ounce’ (‘Queen Black Acid’). But Mines pulls together far too much diverse musical territory for it ever to become depressing; more moments of consummate awesomeness include the ascending piano hook and girl-group back-up vocals on ‘Oh Pretty Boy, You’re Such a Big Boy’ or the bitter twist of the saxophone on ‘Five Little Rooms’.
Full of surprises, this is one of the most endlessly listenable rock releases of the year.
First published in The Brag, Iss. 376, August 23rd 2010
Monday, August 23, 2010
Ben Sollee - Learning To Bend
Ben Sollee
Learning to Bend
***1/2
Listening to Ben Sollee’s rather lovely debut in the middle of an election campaign is a somewhat bizarre experience. First released in the US in 2008 B.O. (Before Obama), Learning to Bend overflows with deeply felt left-leaning political sentiment generated in the lead up to Bush the II’s ousting from the White House. Not that this dates Sollee’s songwriting in the least; a song like the opener ‘A Few Honest Words’ channels public disgust at political duplicity in a sentiment that’s timeless: “I don’t need no handshake or a firm look in the eye / don’t tell me what you think I oughta hear”.
Sollee is undoubtedly a committed activist – if it wasn’t clear from his own lyrics, which occasionally veer on the side of the overly direct, his decision to cover Sam Cooke’s sixties classic (and Mr O’s spiritual theme song) ‘A Change Is Gonna Come’ confirms it. But the real attractions to be found here are musical; Learning to Bend is, aside from anything else, an invigorating cross-pollination of bluegrass and soul.
Sollee wields his instrument of choice, the cello, with understated skill. His effortlessly articulated pizz provides the foundation for some great contributions from banjo-picking fellow travellers Abigail Washburn and Bela Fleck (from Sollee’s other project The Sparrow Quartet), while he sings in a soulful lilt – think Eli “Paperboy” Reed meets Andrew Bird.
With Sollee’s subsequent LP Dear Companion (written with Daniel Martin Moore and produced by My Morning Jacket’s Jim James) already available, it’s a shame that this debut has taken so long to reach Australian ears.
First published in The Brag, Iss. 376, August 23rd 2010
Learning to Bend
***1/2
Listening to Ben Sollee’s rather lovely debut in the middle of an election campaign is a somewhat bizarre experience. First released in the US in 2008 B.O. (Before Obama), Learning to Bend overflows with deeply felt left-leaning political sentiment generated in the lead up to Bush the II’s ousting from the White House. Not that this dates Sollee’s songwriting in the least; a song like the opener ‘A Few Honest Words’ channels public disgust at political duplicity in a sentiment that’s timeless: “I don’t need no handshake or a firm look in the eye / don’t tell me what you think I oughta hear”.
Sollee is undoubtedly a committed activist – if it wasn’t clear from his own lyrics, which occasionally veer on the side of the overly direct, his decision to cover Sam Cooke’s sixties classic (and Mr O’s spiritual theme song) ‘A Change Is Gonna Come’ confirms it. But the real attractions to be found here are musical; Learning to Bend is, aside from anything else, an invigorating cross-pollination of bluegrass and soul.
Sollee wields his instrument of choice, the cello, with understated skill. His effortlessly articulated pizz provides the foundation for some great contributions from banjo-picking fellow travellers Abigail Washburn and Bela Fleck (from Sollee’s other project The Sparrow Quartet), while he sings in a soulful lilt – think Eli “Paperboy” Reed meets Andrew Bird.
With Sollee’s subsequent LP Dear Companion (written with Daniel Martin Moore and produced by My Morning Jacket’s Jim James) already available, it’s a shame that this debut has taken so long to reach Australian ears.
First published in The Brag, Iss. 376, August 23rd 2010
Monday, August 16, 2010
Twin Sister - Colour Your Life
Twin Sister
Color Your Life
***
Brooklyn’s Twin Sister garnered considerable buzz Stateside on the strength of their debut EP Vampires With Dreaming Kids – which they thoughtfully made freely available through their website. Although their second LP delivers some radiantly chromatic moments – assuring them their place on the ‘ones to watch’ list – it does so without ever becoming uncontrollably drool-worthy.
The tone is set from the get go, ‘The Other Side Of Your Face’ kicking Color Your Life off to a hypnotic start with rippling phased guitars parsing over an unfaltering drumbeat. Singer Andrea Estella’s waifish vocals unobtrusively cut through the texture, before allowing the song to collapse into a post-rock fade out – kind of like a moving light refracting through a steadily held prism. Radio-ready single ‘Lady Daydream’ is beguilingly chilled as is ‘All Around And Away We Go’, which circles around a point of white euphoria and provides the EP’s most memorable moment. But this same moment also makes the group’s debt to the likes of Stereolab abundantly clear – and ‘Milk and Honey’ leans towards the ‘theft’ side of ‘influenced’.
While Estella’s voice takes a little while to warm to, being beautiful in the same way that Charlotte Gainsbourg is (strangely, undefinably so), Twin Sister works better with her than without. The EP’s single instrumental, ‘Galaxy Plateau’, is a piece of sinister ambience straight from the void, which acts as little more than an extended introduction to original final track ‘Phenomenons’ (the actual final track, Australia-only ‘#6’, sounds more like an undeveloped demo’).
Color Your Life is a moody little collection which suggests that as soon as the band shrug away the burden of their influences, only good things are possible.
First published in The Brag, Iss. 375, August 16th 2010
Color Your Life
***
Brooklyn’s Twin Sister garnered considerable buzz Stateside on the strength of their debut EP Vampires With Dreaming Kids – which they thoughtfully made freely available through their website. Although their second LP delivers some radiantly chromatic moments – assuring them their place on the ‘ones to watch’ list – it does so without ever becoming uncontrollably drool-worthy.
The tone is set from the get go, ‘The Other Side Of Your Face’ kicking Color Your Life off to a hypnotic start with rippling phased guitars parsing over an unfaltering drumbeat. Singer Andrea Estella’s waifish vocals unobtrusively cut through the texture, before allowing the song to collapse into a post-rock fade out – kind of like a moving light refracting through a steadily held prism. Radio-ready single ‘Lady Daydream’ is beguilingly chilled as is ‘All Around And Away We Go’, which circles around a point of white euphoria and provides the EP’s most memorable moment. But this same moment also makes the group’s debt to the likes of Stereolab abundantly clear – and ‘Milk and Honey’ leans towards the ‘theft’ side of ‘influenced’.
While Estella’s voice takes a little while to warm to, being beautiful in the same way that Charlotte Gainsbourg is (strangely, undefinably so), Twin Sister works better with her than without. The EP’s single instrumental, ‘Galaxy Plateau’, is a piece of sinister ambience straight from the void, which acts as little more than an extended introduction to original final track ‘Phenomenons’ (the actual final track, Australia-only ‘#6’, sounds more like an undeveloped demo’).
Color Your Life is a moody little collection which suggests that as soon as the band shrug away the burden of their influences, only good things are possible.
First published in The Brag, Iss. 375, August 16th 2010
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