Any band using Don DeLillo references for their nom de plume are friends of mine. The Airborne Toxic Event is named after a chapter in DeLillo’s 1985 novel, White Noise. Their EP sounds as if it was recorded during that same era. The band has been wafting across Los Angeles airwaves and blogwaves with their upbeat yet dour songs, the tempo made for the dancefloor set, the lyrics for the brokenhearted. It’s still too early in their career to determine how things will pan out for The Airborne Toxic Event, they’ve only released four songs, but considering they’ve had a run of shows and a single release in the UK there’s a good chance they’ll be affecting a lot more people with their own White Noise.
Eugene Francis Jnr.
He’s an imaginative lad, this Eugene Francis Jnr. One need look no further than the video for his group’s first single “Poor Me” for proof — kinda like Gulliver’s Travels as told by Michel Gondry. It won’t surprise you that homeboy’s got some hippie roots. He’s the son of Eskimo and Apache Indian parents who lived in Wales, if you’re to believe his bio. They provided him with a diverse musical upbringing that ultimately led him to pursue music himself. He started out solo, but soon recruited a small army of fellow Welsh musicians to create a “harmonious, beatnik supergroup” (his words, not mine). This democratic approach makes for really nice, lush instrumentation to buoy his humble voice. Think ’90s XTC, Syd Barrett, or Lost in the Trees. Eugene was kind enough to provide us with this dreamy little number, the other A-side of the double A-side single “Poor Me”/”Kites” — available on iTunes (U.S. only for the moment).
LoveLikeFire
Can you really fall in love at first sight, or is it just infatuation? Romeo thought he was in love when he first saw Juliet: “Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight! / For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.” I’m feeling a little loopy myself after hearing “S.O.S.” from San Francisco’s LoveLikeFire. The song blows open like a track from Bossanova, or Trompe Le Monde, then settles into a nice Cure-esque riff (“A Forest?”) and finally into a breathtaking chorus where singer Ann Yu sounds like a more forceful Siouxsie. I love LoveLikeFire like I love all of the above. No, I know it’s just infatuation. I don’t have a long relationship with LoveLikeFire. I haven’t put in hours and hours of intense listening. I haven’t dreamt or loved along with their music. It sure feels like love though. Call it what you will; I’m going to let myself wallow in the butterflies I get from LoveLikeFire.
Bat for Lashes
The UK’s Mercury Music Prize is basically the musical equivalent of the literary Man Booker Prize: Though neither necessarily goes so far out on a limb that they’re what revolutions are made of, you can be pretty well assured that the nominees are making the best music (or fiction, as it were) right now as opposed to (though not always mutually exclusive of) the most popular. But you already know that. You probably also know that Bat for Lashes, the breathtaking brainchild of singer, multi-instrumentalist and visual artist Natasha Khan, is a nominee for this year’s Mercury Prize, and she certainly deserves it. Fur and Gold is loose yet organized, expansive yet hummable, experimental yet familiar. Khan has a cinematic sense of arrangement and a sonic majesty that marks her as an absolute original on the pop landscape who nonetheless bears the best markings of recent forbears like PJ Harvey, Bjork, Chan Marshall, Sinead O’Connor, and Kate Bush. She weaves echoey piano harmonies with one-note-at-a-time basslines and harpsichord with marching drums, conjuring a cabaret-esque intimacy and drama. Yet unlike other recent entries into the post-punk chamber pop canon like Joanna Newsom and CocoRosie (great artists both of ’em, don’t get me wrong), Khan seems to make songs for more than just herself. Her “sounds like” description on MySpace includes “Halloween when you’re small” and “dark nighttime lovemaking,” which pretty much say it all. Fur and Gold is one of the most haunting and engrossing albums I’ve heard this year precisely because that’s the only way Khan could have made it.
Squalls
It’s been a whirlwind of a week; my wife and I took our 1.5 & 4 year olds to New York City, and you know how that is. We met up with 3hive’s Lisa at the Pink Tea Cup, rode the Staten Island Ferry, wandered the neighborhoods and Central Park, hung out at Coney Island with my friend Matt and his 4 year old, etc. (Speaking of Matt, his band Gift Shop has just relesed a new album. If I could figure out how to link to songs on MySpace, I’d be posting them today.) And once I got home, I found out my friend Cheech is coming to Michigan to visit Zingerman’s deli on his Eat American tour. In honor of all this… experience, I’m posting a band dear to my heart, Athens, GA’s long-defunct, early-80s, totally awesome (and please don’t wreck this aspect for me) Squalls. They had the opening track on the Athens, GA / Inside Out soundtrack, which was MY soundtrack and hairstyle guide for my senior year of high school. Anyway, in these low quality live tracks, you’ll find pleasant, Talking Heads inspired pop, but really, that’s not the point. This is the good stuff, no matter how it sounds, and I want you all to have a little taste.
Licorice Roots
Let me preface Licorice Roots by saying they’re an acquired taste. I admit I almost didn’t last twenty seconds into their record. Their wobbly, off-kilter sound knocked me off balance at first. At first. But I held strong and as soon as I ventured four tracks deep, their song “Hey There Little Love” saved the CD from certain eject-death. I learned to appreciate Licorice Roots for their peculiar low-fi-ness. It’s as if The Seeds were playing underwater, with a sprinkle of attitude courtesy of Ween. My swimming trunks are on and I’m in mid-cannonball, ready to take the Licorice Roots plunge! P.S. If the vocals are a bit much for you, check out the title track “Caves of the Sun.” It’d make a great soundtrack to a SpongeBob SquarePants Spaghetti Western.
Mono in VCF
To make up for a few posting days I’ve missed during my move to Cali, it’s two-for-one day.
Recalling a simpler time with simpler pop, Mono in VCF have graduated from the University of Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood (school mascot: The Some Velvet Mornings) magna cum laude. Okay, that was lame, but these songs are so fresh and clean and original (in a 2007 way) that they are completing enthralling, and you should just download now. An MP3, like a picture, is worth a thousand words.
The Toy Guns
The Toy Guns are (mostly) British, yes; but no, this is not a Joy Division cover. “Transmission” is a rip-roaring little post-punk number that, like the best of the genre, clocks in at just over two minutes. It may be a less-then-ideal 96kbps, but if listened to loud enough in the car while playing the air guitar, you can barely notice.
Podcast #23 Is Go
Aesop Rock
I’m hesitant to file Aesop Rock under “rap” because I’ve learned that you’re statistically less likely to listen to it if I do (shame on you). That said, he does rap…but his music draws on influences ranging from art pop to beatnik jazz to first-wave electro and so on. Just depends at what moment you catch him. The only constant is Aesop’s dizzying flow and fertile narratives.
These two tracks will give you a taste of how his work has evolved over time: “Basic Cable” comes from his first label-released album and “None Shall Pass” is the single from his brand-new album. However, if you’re looking to start your Aesop Rock collection, I still recommend 2001’s Labor Days.