Chimpomatic

Oxford Collapse

Bits

Sub Pop

Just because the Sub Pop 20 marathon is over, doesn't mean the label has stopped putting out quality records and with a squeal of burning rubber (literally) Brooklyn's Oxford Collapse kick off their fourth LP. It's an exciting start, as the twins vocals of Michael Pace and Adam Rizer battle over the clatter of drums on Electric Arc, comparing their memory skills - "I can remember things" / "I can't remember things". The almost balled-like sound of the downtempo Vernon Jackson finds the band in a reflective mood, taking their foot of the accelerator for once .....for a moment at least, before they sing "88 Miles Per Hour!" on Young Love Delivers, while orchestrated strings add a more subtle dimension to A Wedding.

While the record is certainly ambitious - building on the college radio sound of the band's previous efforts - the ideas just don't seem as well honed, making for a less successful result. The band seem to be overflowing with ideas and excitement, yet unable to quite get that all shoe-horned into focused song-writing. Bubbling guitars permeate nearly every song, while the disjointed drumming fails to lift itself up as it has previously. The charming quirkiness just doesn't gel together in many places, giving some of the songs a disjointed feel that makes them hard to grow into.

The band have scored a keg and moved into party-hard mode for Men & Their Ideas, but it's too little too late. While Remember The Night Parties was a little slow to get going, the half dozen tracks that closed out the album bumped it into my mainstaream, setting expectations high for this release. While all the ingredients from that previous recipe are here, for some reason the album just doesn't quite take off. The problems here are similar to those noted in my review of their recent Hann - Byrd EP - but where a five track EP may distract you away from the cracks, they become more evident in this longer form. While this is still a good record, rather than build on the promise of their last LP and move up to the next level the band stay put for now. I'm maintaining Oxford Collapse's status at "one to watch".

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21st Aug 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

Oxford Collapse

The Hann - Byrd - EP

Comedy Minus One

In anticipation of their recent LP Bits, Brooklyn rockers Oxford Collapse put out this 5 track EP as a quick appetiser. Sub Pop take a back seat on this one, with small label Comedy Minus One running up the 500 copy vinyl-only release. Not to worry if you're not a vinyl junkie however, as thanks to the digital revolution it's also available at your local download store.

The trade mark dual vocals of Micheal Pace and Adam Rizer are in full effect from the very start, as Internet Cafes in Micronesia are amongst the subjects covered in Bikini Atoll, before the vocals slip away and the song moves into a pounding instrumental jam. The call and response of Among Friends (mp3) doesn't quite take off, before bassist Adam Rizer takes a more central vocal role on The Pilgrim.

Things pick up with the almost line-dancing style of Genetic Engineering, peddling an amusingly sarcastic positive message. This more thought-out approach makes for a more engaging song - and once you are past the bizarre hip-hop intro, Bikini As Hole continues the approach, bookending the album with a beefed up re-working of the opening track.

While finding the band in their most familiar form - counterpoint John Hughes-esque stories of guys at parties over frenetic jangling guitars and pounding drum tracks - there's a more adventurous approach to the later music here, building on the success of Remember The Night Parties with a more considered sound. The songs don't quite have the same punch just yet, but for a mid-season EP it's a worthwhile effort. Let's hope things have beefed up for Bits, which I'll be reviewing tomorrow.

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20th Aug 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

No Age

Nouns

Sub Pop

NOW: With Sub Pop hitting their 20th year in many ways not much has changed. Superb albums from Fleet Foxes, Flight Of The Conchords or Band of Horses could be described as influenced by the past, but No Age perhaps sums up both where the label is at now and where it has come from. Taking their name from a 1987 instrumental compilation on SST Records, 'No Age' provides a nod to one of Sub Pop's major influences, while the band's sound and style recall the zine aesthetics of the label itself. The DIY sound of this LA two-piece hides some ambitious ideas - and just as Sonic Youth took inspiration from The Stooges and Steve Reich in equal measure, these guys seem to pull ideas from Sonic Youth or My Bloody Valentine, in both punk and experimental terms.

From the super-8 fuzz of Eraser to the thundering cymbals of Ripped Knees, this is a confident, retro, futuristic and inspiring second album. While it might not contain 'hits', Nouns shows signs of a promising future for the band,.

SUB POP SAYS: "Spiritual heirs to both Thurston Moore’s wide-eyed experimentalism and the all-encompassing, stark DIY art-is-life aesthetic of the Crass collective"

KILLER TRACK: Eraser (mp3)

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15th Aug 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

Band of Horses

Everything All Of The Time

Sub Pop

THEN: Let's suppose that My Morning Jacket had a younger brother, who hung around the practice sessions and was witness to their particular brand of genius. He's maybe thinking to himself, yeah that's pretty good - but those extended, distorted solos are a bit distracting, at times they get in the way of a nice, clean, imaginative pop song. I like the reverb on the vocals, I'll have that (It's possible that a couple of tracks were actually lifted straight from the outtakes of a MMJ session - Part One and I Go To The Barn Because I Like The could well be from At Dawn). The result is a charming, dreamy album with enough emotional weight to demand full attention. (Read our original review here)

NOW: WIth their popularity buoyed by a total market saturation of the radio friendly / soundtrack friendly / ad friendly awesomness of killer track The Funeral, Band of Horses have exploded - at least in Sub Pop terms. Strengthened by a series of blistering live shows, the band's identity has also matured - lifting them out of the My Morning Jacket sound-a-likes category into a place of their own. Packed full of great tracks - The First Song, Wicked Gill, Our Swords, The Great Salt Lake, Weed Party - rather than fading away, this album his matured and improved, contributing to their top five spot in the Chimpomatic "most-played" chart.

SUB POP SAYS: "Achieving musical transcendence is a tricky feat, almost definitively"

KILLER TRACK: The Funeral (mp3)

NEXT: 2007 - Kinski - Down Below It's Chaos

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15th Aug 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

Low

The Great Destroyer

Sub Pop

THEN: After a long career spattered with promise, potential and occasional excellence it all came together for slowcore heroes Low with this, their first album for Sub Pop. From the pounding opening of Monkey, through California, Just Stand Back and more ...it's all killer and no filler.

NOW: While this album still rocks hard, the utter dissapointment of follow-up Drums & Guns has put the band back in the dark ages. Personal bias aside however, The Great Destroyer retains it's majesty - and maintains it's position as a fall-back favourite.

SUB POP SAYS: "The beautiful harmonies of Sparhawk and Parker ...stood in stark contrast to the era’s fascination with 'grunge'."

KILLER TRACKS: California

NEXT: 2006 - Band of Horses - Everything All The Time

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15th Aug 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

The Postal Service

Give Up

Sub Pop

THEN: Letting of steam from his day job as front man for Death Cab For Cutie, Seattlite Ben Gibbard struck up a long-distance recording relationship with Los Angeles-based Jimmy Tamborello from Dntel. The results were an ecstatic blend of electro-pop, toning down the seriousness of Gibbard's day job and creating some great singles and EP's -boosted by left-filed covers from label mates The Shins and Iron & Wine.

NOW: With no real evidence of a follow up and Death Cab just releasing a new album, Ben Gibbard stated that it was unlikely there will be another Postal Service album "before the end of the decade". Strange that Sub Pop's all-time number three hitter should still be another man's side project, but what can you do.

SUB POP SAYS: "Instead of hiring someone to lay Gibbard down for the dirt nap, he (Jimmy Tamborello) asked DCFC’s leader to lay down vocals on a track for his upcoming album."

KILLER TRACK: Such Great Heights (MP3)

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14th Aug 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

The Shins

Oh, Inverted World!

Sub Pop

THEN: In 2001 Sub Pop took a gamble with The Shins and rolled the dice on a run of 4000 copies of their debut album. Sales went well and then and the band's second album Chutes Too Narrow came out to positive reviews, before the band had two tracks from Oh, Inverted World on the soundtrack to Zach Braff's Garden State in 2004, as well as a name-check in the film from Natalie Portman. The publicity has since pushed sales of this album past 500,000+

NOW: Still a pretty good debut, but for me this was just a warm up for the band they have developed into. Chutes Too Narrow took things a bit darker, while Wincing The Night Away added some considerable beef to their sound.

SUB POP SAYS: "The little album that could"

KILLER TRACK: According to Natalie Portman, New Slang will "change your life".

NEXT: 2002 - Iron & Wine - The Creek Drank The Cradle

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14th Aug 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

Damon and Naomi

Damon and Naomi With Ghost

Sub Pop

THEN: Following them demise of Galaxie 500, this was the fourth album from Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang - and to beef things up a bit they enlisted the help of psychedelic Japanese band Ghost, who added an even more dense layer of atmospherics to the album's sound.

NOW: Still the definitive Damon & Naomi record, providing everything you need to know about these guys. Cerebral, medative and moving - put this on and set your afternoon to 'snooze'. Beautiful. 

SUB POP SAYS: “We never thought we would perform because there’s no rhythm section, and us being a former rhythm section, we thought there’s nothing worse than a band without a rhythm section.”

KILLER TRACK: Judah & The Maccabees

NEXT: 2001 - The Shins - Oh, Inverted World

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14th Aug 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

Pigeonhed

The Full Sentence

Sub Pop

THEN: Pigeonhed was the result of noted Seattle engineer/producer Steve Fisk collaborating with singer Shawn Smith and Soundgarden bassist Kim Thayil. Dabbling with  electronics and tape loops Pidgeonhead were an 'experimental' band, giving Sub Pop one of it's most left-field releases.

NOW: There's elements of Trip-Hop, a hint of Prince and even touches of Gospel in this hard-to-Pigeonhole album - but it still maintains an 'Alternative' tone. This still rates as a fairly left-field album and - while the meandering electro-funk of tracks like P-Street hasn't fared well - Shawn Smith's distinctive vocals add much to the atmosphere and still create several memorable tracks.

SUB POP SAYS: "Fisk and Smith contributed to some of the finest bands in the Northwest—Brad, Satchel, Pell Mell, Soundgarden, Nirvana and Beat Happening."

KILLER TRACK: For Those Gone On

NEXT: 1998 - Murder City Devils - Empty Bottles Broken Hearts

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13th Aug 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

Pond

Practice of Joy Before Death

Sub Pop

THEN: Ecstatic reviews from the British Music Press (never trust those guys!) set the pace for the much anticipated Pond, who made an early attempt to move away from the plaid shirts / long hair stereotype and onto the short hair / t-shirts prototype. After their '93 debut, this second album aimed for a darker sound - before major label debut Rock Collection failed to break the band in 1997.

NOW: While Pond were a little late on the Grunge circuit, they were also a little behind the 'alt' continuation that powered through the mid-90's. Without the grandiose ideas of Smashing Pumpkins, or the crunching power of the Foo Fighters, these songs are done few favours - with the muffled production doing little to lift the appealing buried melodies out of the quagmire. Could do with a little more distance between the quiet and loud of their "quite quiet / quite loud" formula.

SUB POP SAYS: "We just wanted danceable, driving drums, and lotsa melodies and hooks, and it all seems to come out murky and thick".

KILLER TRACK: Sundial

NEXT: 1996 - Sebadoh - Harmacy

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12th Aug 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

The Monkeywrench

Clean As A Broke Dick Dog

Sub Pop

THEN: With Mudhoney in full swing, the ever-active Mark Arm and Steve Turner collaborated with Tim Keer of Poison 13 and an even more Nuggety side-project was born.

NOW: With Mark Arm having found his true voice with Mudhoney, this is a long way from Green River. Harmonica, touches of brush drums and stretched-out bluesy jams with extended instrumental sections makes for a great listen. It's a mild attempt to do something new, but not really. Like a Muhoney album without the belting killer tracks, but a bit more subtlty.

This is the side project that won't quit - with new album Gabriel's Horn out this year.

SUB POP SAYS: For fans of: Mudhoney, The Big Boys, Lubricated Goat, The Sonics, The Dicks, MC5

KILLER TRACK: Doubled Over Again

NEXT: 1993 - Earth - Earth 2

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12th Aug 2008 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Mudhoney

Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge

Sub Pop

THEN: I was definitely well aware of being late to the party on this one, and with Nirvana having blown up and Sonic Youth defecting to Geffen this somehow seemed like Mudhoney's "sell-out" album. Luckily being a sell-out in this instance meant being able to pick the album up in the outer-regions of suburban England. It was a great record though, with multiple highlights and Pokin' Around notching a place in my all-time favourites.

NOW: In context it's about as much of a sell-out as Led Zeppelin II - and takes equal standing. Many might disagree, but for me this is still Mudhoney's kick-ass high-point by a mile. More focussed that Superfuzz, but still fresher than their later efforts EGBDF seemed to pull it all together: better songs, better production and more accomplished playing. Good Enough, Let It Slide, Fuzzgun '91 and of course the still mighty, harmonica-infused frenzy of Pokin' Around.

KILLER TRACK: Pokin' Around

NEXT: 1991 - The Monkeywrench - Clean As A Broke Dick Dog

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11th Aug 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

Green River

Dry As A Bone / Rehab Doll

Sub Pop

THEN: There's no denying that Green River was a lawless guitar riot that was the start of something new. In the early 90's everybody was acting like they were into this long before Nevermind or Superfuzz, but unless you were based in the Pacific North-West it's unlikley you really heard this until long after the fact.

NOW: All the elements are here, but while it's all fine there are no real stand-out tracks. Sounds like the early band of a few guys who went on to form Mudhoney; a band that was a lawless guitar riot and the start of something new. It's also a minor footnote on the Pearl Jam biography, but there's little sonic resemblance - try Temple Of The Dog instead.

SUB POP SAYS: "Before alternative sucked"

KILLER TRACK: This Town

NEXT: 1989 - Nirvana - Bleach

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11th Aug 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

Everything's Gone Green

(dir. Paul Fox)

ThinkFilm

Post-Generation X slacker Ryan gets home to find his girlfriend and her brother moving him out of her apartment. When his father claims to have won $4.2 million on the lottery, he quits his job before realising the mistake. Luckily the Lottery Bureau hires him as a writer for "Winners" magazine and after meeting hot set-designer Ming things start to look up. However, when his parents get involved in a grow-op and he starts money-laundering for golf-course designer Bryce, life gets a little tricky.

Surprisingly engaging comedy from Douglas Coupland, transferring the un-transferrable nature of his novels onto the big screen, by writing one specifically for the big screen, even if much of it was previously covered in Coupland's book JPod (the grow-op, the Hongcouver non-influx). Here, the constant ironic nods and stream of consciousness writing assimilate nicely into the plot without ever seeming forced, and all the usual issues are covered: consumerism, aspiration, relationships, life direction... and it all comes together nicely.

The actual boards of Canada seem to have had quite a bit to do with this too - and it's an easy choice for them. While poking fun at Vancouver's flexible qualities as a film location the city is a strong silent character in the film, coming across like a pretty laid back place - which being in South-West Canada seems like a sunnier version of North-West America. The best-of-Canada soundtrack is also well worth checking out, with the likes of Black Mountain and Caribou.

The best thing about it though, is it's just like reading a new Coupland book - and it only takes 95 minutes.

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7th Aug 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

This Is England

(dir. Shane Meadows)

Big Arty Productions

With bullies making his school life a misery after his dad is killed in the Falklands, 12 year old Shaun falls in with a gang of local skinheads, who accept him as one of their own and treat him with respect. However, when older skinhead Combo returns from a stint in priosn, the group splinters as their beliefs are brought into question. What is being a skinhead? Is it a harmless interest in music and fashion - or a more militant belief in keping England "British"?

I'm rocking up two years late to this party, but yet again I wish I'd got in on this earlier. Following on from his magnificent Dead Mans Shoes, Shane Meadows delivers a masterful film - and an outstanding critique of British society and culture. Side-stepping the two usual British cliches of cockney gangsterism and kitchen sink drama, Meadows portrays a vivid sketch of 80's Britain, telling his stories form the common perspective rather the London-centric world portrayed on the news.

Thomas Turgoose is a revelation, effortlessly portraying the coming-of-age of cheeky protaganist Shaun - as he smokes his first joint, drinks his first beer and gets his first snog. Stephen Graham is an equally compelling Combo, undermining the leadership of the group, poisoning them with his mis-informed rhetoric.

Meadows keeps back from the action, but I'm pretty sure his seemingly improvised dialogue and effortless directorial style are actually fast becoming well-honed crafts. I'm surprised he hasn't yet been picked up by Hollywood, or maybe he's just not interested. Turgoose returns for his next movie Somers Town, which has been scooping awards around the world. Surprisingly, that has been revealed to have been funded by advertising agency Mother on behalf of it's client, Eurostar. Make of that what you will....

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1st Aug 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet