REVIEW: Thao w. the Get Down Stay Down - "Know Better Learn Faster"

On Thao's 2008 LP, We Brave Bee Stings and All, there was invincibility. Even the title track's suggested this: "we brave bee stings and all / we don't dive we cannonball." Thao's ferociousness, her untireability, the refusing to duck to geography, travel, age, riddles the album. It's not a middle finger but a statement of fact. We're going to make it through.

A year later, with Know Better Learn Faster, the verve is still there, but Thao's tune has changed quite a bit. The lyrical content of the album is a continual challenge to the listener from the buoyant but bluesy chorus of "When We Swam": "Bring your hips to me" to the swoon of her intro to "Easy": "Sad people dance too." Even the sound of the album has become more intricate, fuller, deeper, more instruments, more melodies, more more.

What drives us along, though is the same old Thao -- a plaintive demand backboned by a thumping rhythm section. It's enough to make you wanna cry and dance and do fucked up things all at once. The title track, and heart of the album, is the joyous cry of a failed relationship: "And you need me to be better than me / And you need me to do better than you." In Thao's songs, no one seems to ever get quite what they want from one another. What we're left with is the immeasurable power of want.

And the best part about want is that it can draw you to the dancefloor again and again. As this album does. It's almost impossible to listen to sitting down. "Body" is the beautiful beat of fuck buddies, the morning-after waltz of jilted lovers. Too often, we end up wanting just one emotion out of a song out of an album, but like a great actor Thao can play more than one emotion at once. A little like life, don't you think? And, as the title suggests, a little impossible. What's wrong with wanting impossibility? It's not invincible, but it's not going to go away anytime soon.

REQUIRED LISTEN: THE SUBJECTS

ZACH THAT:

The Subjects write music that makes you feel like everything is right in the world. The Brooklyn four piece touts swinging beats, floating harmonies, and shatteringly beautiful melodies. They're one of those bands that you see live and then run to the merch table and grab all their swag. After playing some tracks to friends, I've come to the conclusion that it's really hard to not like The Subjects. They're fun and each member of the band loves the music they're sharing. They get a huge two thumbs up from me and I hope each and everyone of you out there gives them a chance. I'll end with their myspace quote summarizing the band: "Like Nickelback but less ballsy." Not quite, but even their myspace content is thoroughly enjoyable.

REVIEW: Neon Indian - Psychic Chasms

In a decade where the synth was grabbed from the bowels of the 1980’s and dusted off, there couldn’t be a better album than Neon Indian’s debut to perfectly bookend ten years of a machine that touts waveform generators, ADSR envelopes, ribbon controllers, and other electronic words I’ll never understand. Neon Indian’s Psychic Chasms acts as a history lesson of the synth in the 2000’s, moving from simplistic melodies to more evolved 2005 esq “synth art” tracks and ending with an almost 8-bit, “now” sounding synth track. Psychic Chasms is a loaded name for an album if one were to go greek/latin, which I shall. Psychic from the Greek psychikos means “of the soul” and chasms from Latin hiare means “to yawn”. Yawn being the Greek chainein meaning “to open wide”. This album, by definition, is the wide opening of the soul. Some of you reading are yawing already. Basically, I bring this to your attention because the first time I heard Neon Indian’s big beat psych synth sounds, my soul was opened, wide. The music notes rushed through my body like white blood cells and that little place in my mind that controls judgment smiled and determined one thing: this album is fantastic.

Psychic Chasms starts off with a short instrumental track that doesn’t seem to add much to the album. Four tracks later you’ll completely understand the opening track. Neon Indian has been slowly releasing tracks and building “buzz” with the two masterpieces “Deadbeat Summer” and Terminally Chill”. On the album, these two tracks are broken up by short instrumental clips that act as moments of rest. Another moment of rest, “(If I Knew, I’d Tell You)" acts as an exit point to these two songs and an entrance to the start of an actual album. Think of it as an EP starting out a LP. If a listener skips around to the longer songs, it will only hurt the overall experience in the end as I’ve found that “Terminally Chill” doesn’t sound half as good without the buildup from “Laughing Gas”. You’re eating the popcorn plain. Put some butter on it and let the album work as it was intended, with these rhythmic instrumental tracks building up to an explosion in the form of the longer tracks.

“Deadbeat Summer and Terminally Chill” are masterpieces. This being true in what these songs are trying to accomplish. I feel like the mission statement for Neon Indian is to create soundscapes that tip toe the line between being cool and artful. Let’s face it, when listening to both of these tracks, all I want to do is put on some colored hipster glasses, jump in a vintage car with an American Apparel model who likes Bukowski, and drive around a deserted Texas town blasting Neon Indian up and down the empty streets. At the same time, I also feel a deep emotional connection to this music that goes far beyond connecting an image of cool to the music. The vocals are consistently melancholy, one emotional note crooning throughout which allows for the melodies to waver from beauty to bleakness. In this respect the album reminded me of the emotional power the synth can create and how it has been executed in the same successful way as bands like Broadcast, Casiotone, Air, M83, Animal Collective, and many others of this decade.

While most will gravitate to the two “masterpiece” singles off the album, every track from “6669 (I Don’t Know If You Know)” to “Ephemeral Artery” sweeps me off my feet. These tracks are the spine of Neon Indian’s sound and really cements this album as something special. It’s one transcendental beat/melody after another for six straight tracks. “Should have Taken Acid With You” is foot pounding fun, while the title track, “Psychic Chasms” sounds like an 80’s prom slow dance song strung out on, well, acid. “Mind, Drips” is a very literal title since if you listen to the track with headphones on, every thought in that precious head of yours drips out as the beat floats in.

My excitement for this album mainly exists in two thoughts. First, for me, this album makes me feel something that no other can. It mixes emotions and creates new ones track after track. Secondly, the album is highly intelligent in its integration and reformation of the synth sound. Neon Indian pulls from those who used it successfully in the past and puts a fresh spin on the sound for the future. I don’t believe this album is for everyone as some people might find it boring, repetitive, challenging, or pretentious. For those who can close their eyes and see the lush soundscapes that Neon Indian created on Psychic Chasms, then you understand what I’m saying, for the others who can’t…try opening up that soul of yours and let the music sink in.

REVIEW: Air - Love 2

Lyndsay Hieneman:

Air’s fifth studio album, Love 2, has everything that makes these French electro-poppers who they are. Nicholas Godin and JB Dunckel continue to master intricate arrangements, sublime synth landscapes, and warm, soothing tones that make for a decently captivating chill out album. It’s nothing too fantastic, however. The idea of mashing oriental, jungle, and extraterrestrial themes together seems like an interesting concept. It is interesting. It is unique. Then we reach an issue. It gets too chill. It gets too entrancing. This might be another way to say a bit too boring. The repetitiveness that makes Air the perfect soundtrack to relaxation is a double-edged sword. If you can stay focused and remember that Air is supposed to sound like a blissful, tripped out dream, you’ll be fine. If you can’t stay focused, however, you’ll be begging the next track is something that’ll snap you out of the musically induced daze. Ambient music doesn’t have to knock you unconscious.

A few of the tracks do keep you on your toes. “Missing The Light of Day” reaches Depeche Mode territory with spacey, industrial beeps and bloops. The Air touch is added with, well, airy vocal harmonies that keeps the song from becoming uncharacteristically heavy. “Be A Bee” is propelled along with a driving bass line and grind saw synthesizers. “Tropical Disease” is a sultry, sax and marimba flavoured track with hints of bubbly melodies straight from the 70’s. Air does a fantastic job at painting a picture. Lucky for them, lyrics would be completely unnecessary. The atmosphere takes you a long, mellow ride.

When Love 2 ventures from pulsing beats and psychedelic distortion, it goes a bit wrong. “Heaven’s Light” sounds like something cut out for a hip televangelist. The single, “Sing Sang Sung” is perfect material for someone performing on the classic Gong Show, or even worse, the Lawrence Welk Show. The music becomes undeniably cheesy, even cheap at times. The melodic do-do-do’s heard throughout the album was reminiscent of the choir voice setting on an ancient Yamaha keyboard I got for Christmas years ago. No one buys an 8-year-old an expensive keyboard. No one. Air can do a bit better.

The problem with Love 2 is that there isn’t a single standout track. There’s no pop gem that screams for a bit of limelight. It isn’t that there’s not a “Sexy Boy” on the album. It’d be a bit foolish to expect Air to recreate that track for the sake of popularity. The issue here is more like there’s nothing that comes close to the seductive cool and invasive catchiness of “Sexy Boy”. Of course, excuses can be made. We can say that perhaps Air has moved past that hook filled portion of their career. We could also say that I’m an ignorant reviewer that just doesn’t understand Air’s genius. I don’t like excuses, however. I just want a good pop tune. Air has all the right ingredients, but they don’t put the elements together in the right way to create an impressionable album like 1998’s Moon Safari. Until their stars realign again, they’ll just be above par elevator music in my book.

REVIEW: Avett Brothers - "I and Love and You"

HANK ALTOGETHER:

The Avett Brothers have always known how to turn a phrase. The title track to their latest, Rick Rubin-helmed project I and Love and You plays on what the group does best -- waxing nostalgic about lost love, longing for home, and playing it back to you like you hadn't heard it. For fans of the band, it's a recipe that plays along with the rest of the group's substantial catalog. But, from the opening salvo of the record, the winds of change are set in motion. A lonely piano riff leads into accented horns and an orchestral sound which is less bluegrass and more studio, chamber sounding. From the spareness of Country Was or Emotionalism, the Avett Brothers haven't been the most experimental of songwriters. Like I said, though, if you got something working for you, why quit it? On I and Love and You, the Avett Brothers don't give up on what they did before, but they make a distinct choice to flesh it out while maintaining the folksy feel -- think John Hartford wanders into one of Brian Wilson's Pet Sounds sessions.

Thankfully, the orchestration doesn't get in the way (does it ever when Rubin's by the board?). At the forefront, still, are the Avett Brothers voices, working in harmony, pressing onward into the uncharted core of the heart or America or the heart of America. For folks who caught onto this whole return to folky based rock through Fleet Foxes, welcome to the driving power of the souls of songwriters. Of course, phrases like this don't just bring up the requisite questions about the power of song, they also smack of a certain sentimentalism. And, to be honest, you gotta give into your sentimentality a bit to enjoy the Avett Brothers. This record isn't super ironic, it's vaguely danceable, I guess the easiest way to define it is to say that the Avett Brothers mean what they say and say what they mean--a grueling proposition for indie rock critics who tend to like their guitars played by picks of wit.

What's the power of sentiment? Well, that's pretty damn subjective, which means, that you gotta wear your heart on your sleeve and be damn good at songwriting to make it work. The line between therapy and sentimentality is one that gets blurred far too often. What the Avett Brothers are great at is merging both -- mixing song structure, mining the depths of American songwriting types, and sharing a bit of the pain and pleasure. The best parts of this album aren't found on the first listen but on the 10th or 20th way through, when your mood has changed, and when the album changes you. Because that's why we listen, right? To get a little closer to being human. Or to get a little closer to saying what being human means...