Take It From Me -- Track #10

“Operation”
by Deerhunter
from Weird Era Contd.
October 2008

Well. Not for the 1st time, I’m in love with a band with a kind of stoopid name. This album was released simultaneously with Microcastle, they’ve got a couple of albums earlier than those & also some later stuff, & plus Bradford’s solo band has at least two albums out + some EPs, so, yes, these are some very prolific boys. I could easily have filled this whole CD with their excellent & variegated songs. & yeah, I thought about it.

Anyway, I love love love the way this song ostensibly ends, only to reprise itself & then quickly disintegrate into a distorted auto-reflection before wrapping up for real. Hot!

Operation - Deerhunter

Take it From Me -- Track #9

“Off Work”
by Thurston Moore
from Trees Outside the Academy
September 2007

This is the oldest selection on the mix, I promise!

From Thurston’s last solo album. I like the juxtaposition between his Sonic Youth guitar & the electric violin that’s featured throughout. It’s noisy, it’s pretty, it see-saws back & forth. The combination sometimes works in a very satisfying way, as on this track. Here, I also enjoy how that weird hissing, vaguely-industrial sound insinuates itself into the middle of the song, practically taking over the whole show only to abruptly disappear, leaving the chord structure sort of inverted in its wake. Not everyone in my house appreciates that, but I think it’s nice.

btw, a chronically-underappreciated treasure is Thurston’s 1995 solo album, Psychic Hearts, which improves with age & is almost uniformly brilliant from start to finish. Seriously. Although, you may want to debate me on that. If so, buy it, listen to it one hundred times, & then I will buy you a drink. Or, you know, one hundred.

Off Work - Thurston Moore

Take It From Me -- Track #8

“Dory” by Grizzly Bear
from Veckatimest
May 2009.

Well, here’s a switch.

Grizzly Bear is now a band that makes pure, unadulterated capital-P Pop Music. I can’t help but hear the Beatles all over this album (see also, In Ear Park by side project Department of Eagles), e.g. especially, the single “Two Weeks,” which you might have heard a lot of last summer.

What’s curious to me is how little this resembles their earlier music (e.g., Horn of Plenty –noisy, electronic, often interesting, not always listenable). A curious evolution, & my general preference is for a little less sugar w/the medicine.

I do like this song though; it’s a kind of a suite, & I find the lyric genuinely poetic (“wo-wo wo-wo-wildly cohering in a watery deep,” etc.), which is rare let’s face it.

My usual music hosting site has let me down on this one; this album is inexplicably unlicensed there. You can still check it out here, or here, or wherev. Also, here is video of them performing the song live in an orchestral setting, which is kind of cool.

Take It From Me -- Track #7

“Malibu Gas Station”
by Sonic Youth
from The Eternal
June 2009

I won’t try to explain here all the reasons why Sonic Youth still occupy such a warm & special place in my heart. But it’s not difficult to get me started on the topic over beers, just FYI! I saw SY at the Fox this year, but I missed the “secret” show at the Independent (tickets sold out online in two minutes flat).

Kim’s vocals (can’t always call them “singing”) are not typically my favorite ingredient of SY music. I like Thurston’s crisp & precise rhythm playing on this song (e.g., at ~2:00). It's not virtuosic or anything, but just a tasty little surprise, an indicator that this band is still reaching, still growing. The obligatory degeneration into noisy feedback is obviously their stock in trade, & handled particularly well on this track I think.

Malibu Gas Station - Sonic You...

Take It From Me -- Track #6

“Give Blood”
by Rain Machine
from Rain Machine
October 2009

This is Kyp Malone’s solo project (&, here again, the band’s name doesn’t do anything for me. Just saying.).

Not all of the songs on this album compare favorably to TVOTR, but there’s some very good & interesting stuff going on here. I do like the way Kyp’s singing just seems to drift in & out of falsetto, often more for dramatic than strictly musical effect. On this song, it’s the click-click-click percussion & the throbbing, raunchy fuzz-tone guitar that I find very tasty.

btw, I had a ticket to see Kyp’s new Machine play the Independent in October, but had to miss it when I couldn’t shake a pounding headache. I’m still mad about that.

Then Kyp & Co. opened for the Pixies at the Fox. Which I skipped. bc as much as I love me some Pixies, I just wasn’t going to pay out 65 bucks+ for ye olde reunion tour (see my snarky comments elsewhere here re nostalgia events masquerading as rock concerts). But I digress.

Kyp is a smart guy making smart music. Here, hear:

Give Blood - Rain Machine

Take It From Me -- Track #5

“Useful Chamber”
by Dirty Projectors
from Bitte Orca
June 2009

OK, back in the current year.

I had never heard of this band before seeing them open for TVOTR this year. I just have to say first: Dirty Projectors is a crappy band name, evocative of nothing, clumsy to say, & just really nothing much other than dumb.

So there’s that.

Still, it took me all of 15 minutes to fall irrevocably in love with the music. Dirty Projectors have evidently been on extended tour all year, & they keep passing their way through SF, so I’ve now seen them live three times, as discussed elsewhere here.

David Longstreth is the main guy in the band. From what I can tell, he is young, probably pretty pretentious, & is maybe even full of himself. I’m actually cool with that, since he’s a genuinely brilliant composer & a fascinating guitar player. I have heard comparisons between this band & prog-rock excesses of yore, & that is maybe fair, but only to a point. What I love most here is the arch sense of musical humor that permeates these ambitious & very quirky songs.

Useful Chamber - Dirty Project...

Take It From Me -- Track #4

“DLZ” by
TV on the Radio
from Dear Science
September 2008

I have to admit I was a little slow to catch on to this group, & I really have no excuse since they have THE BEST band name since, like, Talking Heads.

That alone should have clued me in, right?

Happily, I saw TVOTR play at the Fox in Oakland this summer, & the show left me very excited, very interested. Their music is not exactly rock, or jazz, or funk, or hip-hop, or techno, or doo-wop, or high-concept performance art, or etc. But it seems to me to connote all of those things & more. Oh, & it’s overtly & aggressively political, too. There’s just a lot going on inside of there, & all of it is (most importantly) very fun, danceable, & yeah, sexy.

I understand the band is now on a 1-year hiatus while Kyp Malone pursues his solo project, but I’m expecting a long & fascinating career ahead from these guys. In the meantime, I can recommend this album without reservation, as well as Return to Cookie Mountain (admittedly weird title), from 2006.

DLZ - TV On The Radio