The erstwhile Flaming Lips have earned the right to do anything they want. Never one to crash a party they were not invited to first, Deap Vally and Flaming Lips join forces for a noisy yet acoustic record of modern Pop. What is funniest is that Deap Vally's garage-isms are smoothed out ("Home Thru Hell" replaces beats with acoustic guitars and motorcycle sounds) while the legendary Psych-out Pop of the Flaming Lips feels hidden behind a lot of minimal trickery that would have been lost on a Lips record.
DEAP LIPS
Deap Vally
Flaming Lips
[LP/CD] (Cooking Vinyl/The Orchard)
SAM DOORES
Sam Doores
[LP/CD] (New West)
Stepping away from his band The Deslondes (and Hurray For The Riff Raff), New Orleans singer/songwriter Doores releases a very cut-and-dried yet warm Dylanesque travelogue of tracks. These cuts feel road-tested ("Let It Roll") and like they play very well acoustically ("Windmills"). Once Doores adds more instrumentation (his woozy duet with Alynda Lee Segarra of HFTRR "Other Side of Town"), it lacks the immediacy of just him telling tales on harmonica and guitar.
YOU KNOW I’M NOT GOING ANYWHERE
The Districts
[LP/CD] (Fat Possum)
After three albums, Pennsylvania quartet The Districts were due for a little change in identity. While they have always been a Rock band at heart, "Anywhere" feels like a couple of plates in their base shifted. More shoegazer and psychedelic backgrounds frame their songs better. "Hey Jo" shifts from hazy observations to a sweeping chorus effortlessly, while "Cheap Regrets" even shifts into a terse disco-y beat for a Killers-esque single. Looks like "Going Anywhere" is about to take them somewhere.
ALCHEMY
Tara Nome Doyle
[LP/CD] (Martin Hossbach GER)
Born in Germany and raised in Norway, Doyle is a beautiful new singer/songwriter. Her dramatic music brings up memories of Joanna Newsom and Tori Amos, although to her credit she finds a softer edge in more ethereal music. "Alchemy" is an environmental tale where Doyle draws inspiration from bodies of water and the existence of nature. In addition, Doyle sings in her higher register with an alien soulfulness ("Heathens") and draws her band in to accentuate the quiet moments ("Neon Woods"), making "Alchemy" a hypnotic slow burn.
4K
O.L.I.V.I.A.
[CS] (Deathbomb Arc)
We do not know much about the Argentine netlabel scene. Because of restrictions and numerous political and monetary issues, Argentinian artists are turning exclusively to the Internet to release their music (much of it guerilla style, as well) to the world at large. On her debut, "4K," O.L.I.V.I.A. illustrates how much of the world's music gets into her country with a glitchy, hip-hop based skittering set of songs. However, when you listen to a track like the stunning "ilove," the dichotomy of her slow, seductive voice layered over blistering electronica makes it stand out. Her choruses are memorable, summoning emotions (the House-y "Modo Avion"), and even the most bracing moments (the on/off/on noise of "OK") are less shocking and more interesting than everyone else.
– REISSUE –
THE WEED TREE
Espers
[LP] (Drag City)
The beauty of doing traditional music is as an artist inserts their own voices and character into these tales, the best ones revive the idea of having songs actually tell stories. With the heavenly voices of Meg Baird and Craig Weeks, "The Weed Tree" also revives an interest in classic British Folk, namely Pentangle and Fairport Convention. "The Weed Tree" is a little more delicate yet packs a punch. Instruments appear and disappear, and the spartan production allows every part to, in a sense, dance together. The main thrust of the 2005 record, however, is their re-definition of Blue Oyster Cult's "Flaming Telepaths" and the post-punk Durutti Column track "Tomorrow," which Espers make sound as traditional as the rest. "The Weed Tree" sounds as vital today as it 15 years ago.
– NOTES –
Record Store Day is coming, so look forward to items like “Fillmore West 1-31-71” (LP, Allman Bros./The Orchard) and “An Evening with the Allman Brothers Band, First Set” (LP, Friday Music) ...
The historic Skydog-period run of the Allmans continues to give us more untold riches in the LP era. This famous Fillmore West show has never been on wax. This January '71 show is a bit of a warm-up for the famous recording at Fillmore East that would actually put the ABB on the map. While the sound quality is not the best, you can tell that the band continues to fine-tune their ferocious set between shows. Listening to them race through the first four songs ("Trouble No More" and "Statesboro Blues" included) and then slow down for heavy build on "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed" is a tribute to their ability to hand off the load from player to player and remain seen as a band. However, when they hit the back end of the set and roll out "Midnight Rider" (which would soon give them their biggest chart hit) and the magic of "Dreams," even a novice listener will likely seek out more ABB.
After rejoining the Rock world with the graceful re-entry on "Seven Turns" and "Shades of Two Worlds," the ‘90s iteration (with Warren Haynes on guitar) tried again to capture that live magic. While the newer songs did have some fire and grit, listening to the new version again hand off that load from player to player on the classics ("Blue Sky," "Melissa" and "Dreams") proves that even 21 years later, the Allman Brothers Band could still summon that magic.
And, finally this week, a word about a lost band, Camper Van Beethoven, and their releases, “Telephone Free Landslide Victory” (1985), II & III (1986) and “Camper Van Beethoven” (1986) ...
I remember it like it was yesterday. Over 18 months, this little upstart band from the Inland Empire of California singlehandedly made all of Rock weird again and were years ahead of their time. "Telephone Free" comes out of nowhere, just like when we were graced with their first MTV video for the raucous but melodic "Take The Skinheads Bowling." As a record, "Telephone Free" seeks to be the experience of a polyglot. Restless, young and full of ideas, CVB set out to combine Punk, Ska, Reggae, Country, Folk and Rock into one stream-of-consciousness. "Border Ska" and the imaginative "The Day Lassie Went To The Moon" made AmerIndie seem interplanetary. "Oh No" was a signal of their forward direction with driving mid-tempo songs that would encapsulate feelings of being lost or isolated or confused all the way to CVB's next chapter as Cracker. Add to that wonderment, a straight Country cover of Black Flag's anthem "Wasted" and you have unlocked the basis for a career.
"II & III" took the ragged glory of their instrumentalism even farther. Styles no longer vary from song-to-song but begin to fit together into a patchwork. The ideas that were present on "Telephone Free" begin to cross wires as they brilliantly sequence the album and even conjoin songs. Country is done straight ("Sad Lovers Waltz") and in an amped-up Honky Tonk manner ("Cowboys From Hollywood") Drone and horror play havoc with songs making it a rollercoaster of sawing violin, twang guitar, and haunted almost sad organ. The instrumentals take on a druggy, hallucinatory feel often ending abruptly like a channel being switched. "Down and Out" and "(Don't You Go To) Goleta" are fun rave-ups, where "(We're A) Bad Trip" sets the stage for the next ten years of smartass bands on Alternative radio. Oh, and they do a country cover this time of Sonic Youth.
Just eight months later, Camper dropped their magnum opus using the studio to segue songs together and predate the CD age of no stopping by a few years. Sixteen songs seamlessly connected but honestly lacking very little in common. For example, the dreamy hippie Pop of the celebratory almost-celebrity sighting in "We Saw Jerry's Daughter" tumbles into the brooding "Surprise Truck." While their mixed-media titles and weirdly circumstanial lyrics remain, this CVB using the studio to their advantage. "Five Sticks" plays backwards and forwards. The bizarro world Folk of "The History of Utah" is a shape-shifter of a song that twists Rock into a Moebius comic strip. However, those are not even the real masterworks of this classic. "Good Guys and Bad Guys" opens the album with a good time feeling like never before (and sadly never again as they would not make it into the Nineties.) "Joe Stalin's Cadillac" is a apolitical as a political could be and yet names names and openly quotes Led Zeppelin. While the beautiful "Still Wishing To Course" forms the backbone for the evocative blended guitar rock to come as they sign to Virgin Records in 1987. Oh, and they do a blistering cover of Pink Floyd's "Interstellar Overdrive" which they add their own delirious coda to with "Shut Us Down."
Most of the continuity is shot in the streaming age, but for eighteen months between the Summer 1985 and Fall 1986, Camper Van Beethoven were pushing College Rock farther than anyone before. By 1986, R.E.M. would become a staple on AOR radio. The Cure would almost crossover into Top 40. and Brits like The Smiths and Echo and The Bunnymen would dominate car stereos of woozy, disenchanted teenagers. However, beneath the slipstream of College Rock becoming Alternative and AmerIndie bands like Husker Du and The Replacements joining major labels, this unkempt, lysergic, snarling yet sincere band would prove to be the glue that held it all together - by not fitting in.
They are back together again and touring. Wit permanently intact. Roundabout song sensibility always in play. David Lowery recently said "We're still a college band. Now our fans are faculty and staff." Seems like the unsung always keep singing. Still wishing to course the sixth sea.
