It's the Supersound

by JEAN-LUC MARSH

Austra’s debut, Feel It Break, was operatic in scale, but small in scope. Lyrically, it was narrow, and stylistically, it adhered almost religiously to the synthesizer. Feel It Break, was mainly a personal record, and it worked with its focused vision and the perfection of a distinct, singular sound.

At first, Olympia seems like a simple extension of Austra’s unique brand of dark-wave music. On many levels, it is. Katie Stelmanis continues to incorporate her background in opera, wailing melodramatically over electronic soundscapes, resulting in an emotionally dissonant form of dance music that feels at once neurotic and nimble. Where Feel It Break was initially a bedroom project and bore the traces of its origins visibly, Olympia sets its sights on the dance floor, applying the expertise honed over the course of two years on the road to a more expansive arena. Despite the shift in targets, Olympia suffers from much the same problem as its predecessor. Once again, Austra establishes mastery over a single sound, and stops there, eschewing diversity for dominance. The result is an immersive sophomore effort, whisking the listener away to a wonderland perpetually frozen in one color.

Nearly all the tracks on Olympia follow a similar pattern. They begin in some stripped down version, accumulating elements until, as if by magic, they transform into a potpourri of discordant noises that somehow combine into an arresting climax. The tradeoff is that lyrics often get lost in all the synthetic sparkle, rendered unintelligible by drawn-out howls and distorted behind the syncopation. Album opener “What We Done?” serves as a blueprint for the remainder of the songs, contrasting Stelmanis’ heady drawl against gently pounding percussion, short flute notes, and ethereal background vocals, escalating from a stripped siren song into a vortex of iridescent keyboard strokes and crashing cymbals. “Sleep” employs drums, wind chimes and a menagerie of other sounds to simultaneously seem like something vaguely eighties and utterly alien. Early single “Home” evolves from an opening dominated by a pounding piano and a confession of “You know that it hurts me when / You don’t come home at night,” into woodwind-driven dance track with an increasingly addictive pinging that works its way to the forefront in the final moments. On “Reconcile,” Stelmanis whines over glittering synthesizers, horns, and an overt, repetitive chiming, her dusky, contralto moans dissimilar against the buoyant rhythm. “We Become” and the confessional “You Changed My Life,” are notable for being some of the few down-tempo moments on the record, though they too succumb to the accretion of sound.

The majority of Olympia is uniform in terms of polish and composition. The result is a record saturated with tracks that become indistinguishable as time passes, melting into one another with the predictable pattern of sparseness, build-up, and exuberance. The exception is stunning closer “Hurt Me Now” which finds Stelmanis wailing in a sonic dungeon of reverberating percussion and swelling organs. Her voice grasps at the iron bars, pleading with desperation and vulnerability, but it is when the organs fall away, leaving behind a tangled nucleus of strings, that Austra crafts the most poignant, wordless moment on the album.

Olympia inhabits a strange realm of saturnine electronica meant for cathartic swaying rather than choreographed movement. Stelmanis often warbles herself to oblivion, but she always regains control and directs the cinematic typhoon with a cathartic wail just in time to catch the crescendo. A hypnotic mixture of chimes, gorgeous gothic synthesizers, and heavy emotional confessions, it is not a dance record in the conventional sense. Olympia is meant for after the party has ended, and only the specters of unresolved emotion remain. [B+]

Read more articles like "Review: Austra – Olympia" on PMA - Pretty Much Amazing.

by BENJI TAYLOR

Music is cyclical. Like all trends it follows unruly patterns, a shifting tide retreating back and forth, with continuous reconstruction of earlier works. At some stage a genre pauses for a moment of introspection and reflection, peering into the shadowy depths of the past to draw inspiration for the present and the future.

Deep house as a sub-genre of EDM was considered by many to be too esoteric and subtle to erupt from the underground, but when Disclosure’s fifth single “White Noise” peaked at number two in the UK Singles Chart in February 2013, it felt like the melodic harbinger of winds of change for house music. Guy and Howard Lawrence, the two brothers who make up the electronic duo, weren’t even born when Manchester nightclub Haçienda was popularising acid house in the late eighties. Yet the tracks that comprise their debut album Settle are heavily informed by the house music from the decade that followed.

Purists will be quick to dismiss the album’s first two crossover hits (“Latch” and “White Noise”) as watered-down versions of a richer underground sound, but they miss the point. Whilst it’s true that stylistically Settle is revisionary as opposed to revolutionary, it’s successful because they revisit the two-step, garage and house sounds of the past, but refract them through the prism of modern pop, refining their influences and rechanneling the sounds using fresh eyes.

Album centerpiece “White Noise” may well be the greatest dance song of 2013: a perfect storm of warped synths and distorted bass-lines. There’s a moment of magic and exaltation around the one-minute-twenty-second mark, when Disclosure peel away the beats and introduce a rich haze of swooning synths backed by AlunaGeorge’s looped vocal of “just gonna get my back”, before the beat kicks back in with the hook of the chorus. It’s a trick they repeat several times on the album and it always works.

Lead single “Latch” remains one of the best dance-pop songs of recent years to capture – both lyrically and musically – that heady and all-consuming rush that overtakes you when you’re falling helplessly and hopelessly in love with someone. Sam Smith’s brilliantly soulful vocals are at odds with the track’s offbeat hyperactive rhythm, but it works spectacularly when bolstered by the precisely layered instrumentation and propulsive background glitches.

Smith is one of a raft of collaborators who litter the album: eight of the thirteen proper tracks feature guest appearances. This predilection for well-chosen collaborations is a masterstroke in that it sidesteps the issue of facelessness that clouds so many house singles. The Lawrence brothers provide their own vocals on “F For You,” another mass of infectious silky grooves and throbbing beats. Elsewhere, gorgeous stripped down album closer “Help Me Lose My Mind” uses the irresistible voice of London Grammar vocalist Hannah Reid over a contagious beat.

On Settle, Disclosure answer the question that they pose in their one minute intro, when an exasperated preacher asks: “How do you stay motivated in the midst of everything that’s going on? How do you build your personal momentum and how do you get in the zone?” The thirteen tracks that follow are their answer – they create dance music as life-affirming and cathartic as this – and don’t settle for anything less. Fanned by an intelligent approach to production, Disclosure’s fire has started to burn, and is destined to whip itself into an inferno this year.

Ultimately Settle is the aural fruits of Disclosure’s mission to reinvigorate dance and pop by annexing and consolidating their favourite sounds from the sonic side-streets of house music’s sprawling musical past. The sound of summer starts here. [B+]

Find it at:

analog.am | amazon | emusic

Read more articles like "Review: Disclosure – Settle" on PMA - Pretty Much Amazing.

by JERRICK ADAMS

It wasn’t until the fourth or fifth spin of Laura Marling’s fourth LP, Once I Was an Eagle, that I began to hit upon what it is that makes this a great record. I knew from the first that it was overwhelmingly strange, and that this strangeness was the key to understanding the record. But how do you describe strangeness, such a relative and therefore slippery concept to begin with?

Of course, some of that strangeness comes from Marling’s voice. Her phrasing throughout is enchanting and inscrutable. She stretches words to their breaking points, wrapping every syllable in smoke. On “I Was an Eagle,” she delivers lines like “I’ve got damn near no dignity left” with an evocative flatness that is her vocal signature. Her rich upper register, sparingly employed, retains a special force by virtue of its rarity. Her approach is a testament to the power of restraint. Lesser singers might belt or bellow much ado about nothing where Marling can murmur volumes.

Perhaps more of that weirdness can be found in the songs themselves, which are so elegantly constructed that you scarcely notice how smart they are. This is nowhere more evident than on the first seven tracks, which comprise what I can only call a gothic folk song suite, the central theme of which seems to be what Marling considers the loathsome subjugation of self that so often occurs in romance. Lyrics, melodies, and rhythmic figures echo across the individual pieces, connecting them to one another and extending the suite’s themes and motifs. For example, on “Take the Night Off,” the singer repeatedly addresses her unwanted suitor as a beast. Later (a couple of times, actually), in a winning twist on that imagery, she refers to herself as a “master hunter.”

The audacity of such a conceit is stunning in itself (as is the fact that she’s willing to take on Bob Dylan and repurpose his lines for her own use on “Master Hunter”), but what’s more stunning still is how well the conceit works. The suite alone is so rich, musically and lyrically, that it promises to reward countless plays with fresh insights. The songs that make up the record’s second half, though they naturally lack the suite’s ambition, are just as strong. As a writer, Marling is practically peerless on the contemporary scene.

With lyrics this good, one fears that the music will pale by comparison. Fortunately, that’s never the case on Once I Was an Eagle. Grounded in folk forms, it nonetheless draws from a broad sonic template, incorporating drums, piano, and strings. The result is both lush and austere, quite unlike anything else this writer has ever heard.

The cumulative effect of all this is the strangeness I alluded to earlier, and it doesn’t make for easy listening. This is challenging stuff, but it’s certainly worth the effort. Once I Was an Eagle is a singular achievement: a haunting record, peopled with aural ghosts that come gradually crawling from out of the grooves. While it might take a while for them to materialize, once they do you’ll never be rid of them – and you’ll be glad to have such interesting company. [A-]

Find it at:

analog.am | amazon | emusic

Read more articles like "Review: Laura Marling – Once I Was An Eagle" on PMA - Pretty Much Amazing.

by JERRICK ADAMS

A brief summary, in case you’re pressed for time. The title of the new Queens of the Stone Age album, …Like Clockwork, tells only half the story. The cover, featuring a goateed fellow in a high-collared vampire-style cloak against a neon red backdrop, tells the other half.

Our creepy friend from the cover makes sense almost immediately. The lead track, “Keep Your Eyes Peeled,” features foreboding lines about “danger, monsters of smoke and mirror,” and the like. And lead vocalist and band lynchpin Josh Homme, together with Jake Shears (one of some half-dozen notable featured players), deliver the lines in appropriately churning, drugged-out croons that suggest none too subtly the ominousness of what’s to follow. It’s an uninspired and unpromising opener, one that all too accurately sets the tone for the rest of the record.

As if that weren’t enough, the third track dispenses with the notion of nuance altogether, not that “Keep Your Eyes Peeled” is a hallmark of subtlety, and flat-out name-checks a vampire. Actually, it’s “The Vampyre of Time and Memory” (check the archaic, and therefore cool, spelling). Now, unless your last name is Dylan, I usually don’t expect much of rock lyrics and I spend little time worrying over them. These, however, are so bad as to merit some attention:

You think the worst of all is far behind.
The Vampyre of Time and Memories has died.
I’ve survived. I speak. I breathe.
I’m incomplete.
I’m alive. Hooray. You’re wrong again, ‘cause I feel no love.
Does anyone ever get this right?

Worthy of Keats, right? To add insult to injury, Homme’s vocal here is painfully slow, tedious, at once melodramatic and dry. With a lyric this absurd, you’ve either got to own it and play it like the gospel or disown it and deliver it like parody. Homme tries to have it both ways and the result is neither moving nor laughable, only irritating.

Song for song, the album is a bust. I can’t discern meaning, or anything approximating it, in these tracks. And that’s all right, or at least it could be. Bad songs do not necessarily make for a bad album, though they usually do. Sometimes sheer musicianship can carry the day. With Dave Grohl, Elton John, and Mark Lanegan on board, to name just a few, one might expect …Like Clockwork to be a rousing effort, if nothing else. Unfortunately, it isn’t, and the the record’s title brings the problem into focus. Too much of this album is given to flat dynamics and sluggish tempos that drag – you guessed it – like clockwork. Even relatively up-tempo numbers like “My God is the Sun” suffer from plodding treatments.

Granted, the group clearly has chops. This is all well-played stuff, occasionally expert, and most of the songs, even the most indulgent (“The Vampyre of Time and Memory” being perhaps the most obvious offender), boast minor redemptive moments – a cool guitar riff here, a nice vocal trick there. Also, to their credit, they’re able to work up and sustain a steady level of trippy menace over the course of the album. But the fact remains: these minor virtues aside, …Like Clockwork is a droning, incoherent endeavor, and it simply doesn’t reward the attention it’s asking for. [C+]

Read more articles like "Review: Queens of the Stone Age – …Like Clockwork" on PMA - Pretty Much Amazing.

by ADRIENNE THOMAS

Confounding our ears with crackling beats and falsetto harmonies, Baths’ Obsidian is a persistent fusion of melody and dissonance – off-beat sequences woven through delicate layers of beat. The sum of these contradictory parts is nothing less than a extraordinary and complex album. Whether traversing through Oohs and Aahs or discussing depressing sentiments and death, Baths carries his carefully facilitated combinations far beyond their individual components. Will Wiesenfeld’s growth since 2010’s Cerulean is a delightful non-surprise, if his tireless remixing and work with side/solo-project Geotic speak anything for his insatiable creativity.

In its gloomy candor, opening track “Worsening” channels Elliott Smith in lyrical outlook and Shlohmo and Teebs in curtained mesmerization. “Where is God when you hate him most / When the mouths in the earth come to bite at my robes” passionately belts over a deep electronic landscape before the song culminates with a skipping record cut-out effect. As an opener it entices us with an unidentifiable oddness that carries through each and every track that follows.

“Miasma Sky” is a deserving album single composed of beauty and optimism, produced with a light touch to facilitate sky traveling minds, all the while grounding itself in hopeful, deep-toned bass. Clean glitch beats and a soft techno tempo echo the chaotic melodies frequented by the tenured Dan Deacon, Flying Lotus and Four Tet.

“Ironworks” is a luscious track and a continued reminder of Baths’ poetic lyrical tendencies. His words flow like the bars in his music transitions – with unique and rolling congruency. Wiesenfeld melancholically sings, “I am the sweet smile in Victorian doorways / In tempestuous foreplays / I am the sweet smile in the madness of the mind.”

Obsidian is, at its core, a dark and solemn collection of music. Even in its highest pitched verse there exists sadness in the mood of his lyrics and reverting tones. Midway through Obsidian we come across two immaterial additions that unfortunately disappoint an album otherwise mastering respectable depth. “Ossuary” is a relatively heavy track, circling vague themes of frailty and death. “Incompatible” shallowly tells the story of a failed couple growing into distance and resentment. Neither of these tracks stand out with the odd beauty that has so far come to define Baths’ music.

It’s this same odd beauty that has had Baths’ critics struggling to cement terms that extend past “weird” or “freak” pop. In this respect, Wiesenfeld has paid no mind to them. As an entity, Obsidian is neither more nor less accessible than Cerulean. Ultimately, your mood as a listener – and perhaps the weather – will dictate how often you’ll return to Obsidian‘s bleak and beautiful world. [B+]

Find it at:

analog.am | amazon | emusic

Read more articles like "Review: Baths – Obsidian" on PMA - Pretty Much Amazing.

by JEAN-LUC MARSH

Johnny Jewel’s Italians Do It Better label album After Dark 2 has been a long time coming. In the literal sense, it took six years for the fifteen songs to emerge, develop, and consolidate into one uniformly refined anthology, but in the metaphorical sense, it also took a renaissance in electronic music. In the years since the original After Dark, the tectonic plates of music have shifted away from dubstep and all of its grimy excessiveness, towards an era in which polished, sleek electro in once again in vogue. Chromatics became emblematic of this trend, rising to meteoric heights last year with their dreamlike tour de force, Kill For Love.

In that respect, Johnny Jewel had incredible foresight; biding his time and crafting an opus while the rest of the world swayed mindlessly, seeking the instant and ephemeral satisfaction of booming bass and dizzying drops. After Dark 2 is the antithesis of dubstep. There are no drops. A majority of the songs exceed five minutes, and instant gratification is rare. Jewel elected to follow the patient route, forcing us to take the journey along with him in order to fully experience every brilliant nook and cranny of his nocturnal masterpiece.

“Warm In the Winter” by label heavyweight Glass Candy – serves as a glittering overture, an invitation to venture deeper into Jewel’s glamorous noir universe. Over an array of sparkling synthesizers, vocalist Ida No begins a conversation of encouragement aimed at the listener explaining that “If you ever should look in the mirror and wonder who it is that you are, and wonder what it is that you came for… Well, I know the answer. You’re beautiful. You came from heaven.” She grows rapturous, shouting “I love you! … We love you!” as the synths climb skyward, entering an astral plane and endowing the song with an iridescent, uplifting radiance. It is a dazzling, stirring introduction, incongruous with the other fourteen tracks in tone, but on par in terms of craftsmanship and quality.

Beginning with the minimalist instrumentation and modest vocals of Desires’ “Tears from Heaven,” the remainder of After Dark 2 eschews warmth for an edgier, dusky ambiance created by an assortment of vocoders, bells, and omnipresent synthesizers. The value of such instrumentation in crafting this specific mood is emphasized on wordless tracks from Symmetry and Mike Simonetti which surge with an underlying menace while maintaining their composure.

Unsurprisingly, Glass Candy and Chromatics, the two titans of Italians Do It Better, dominate the album, providing nearly half the content and consistently delivering performances that flourish within the narrow confines of Italo-disco. Across the entire compilation, the raw materials to create bombastic anthems of the night are readily available, yet all parties involved opt for a more disciplined approach, never breaking the barrier that could so easily be shattered. Nowhere is this more apparent than on Chromatics’ “Camera” in which the perfect storm of a solid beat, distorted vocals, and chiming bells is present, yet Ruth Radelet remains distant and restrained, electing the path of elegance over sonic opulence.

Despite the huge presence of more established acts, it is label newcomers Appaloosa, who enchant on the closing third of the album with the exquisite “Intimate.” Singing in the midst of an artificial life cycle in which beaming synthesizers build, bloom, and die, Anne-Laure Keib contemplates the insignificance of love in context with the grandness of the cosmos. In a lilting French accent she pines “I was your soul mate,” seemingly stopping space and time to confess her vulnerabilities.

For all of its nocturnal leanings, After Dark 2 avoids an oppressive darkness that haunts other works dealing with similar motifs. The balance of synth-driven buoyancy and emotional distance, in adherence with Jewel’s meticulous attention to detail, allows the compilation to evade the fate of becoming a requiem. Whereas the original After Dark was a glimpse into the mind of Johnny Jewel and a preview of what was to emerge from his fledgling Italians Do It Better label, After Dark 2 is a confirmation of his prowess and vision. It is proof and testament that the reignited flame of Italo-disco can endure through the tempests of shifting tastes. [A-]

Find it at iTunes.

Read more articles like "Review: Johnny Jewel – After Dark 2" on PMA - Pretty Much Amazing.

by JEAN-LUC MARSH

What is it about CocoRosie that immediately inspires snickers and tirades deriding the duo? Perhaps the answer lies in the chafing vocals and insipid lyrics of the Casady sisters, or cover artwork so hilariously absurd that it provokes the question of why any record label would allow it to be released. One fact is clear: whatever CocoRosie is doing, it is simply too avant-garde and bizarre to appeal to the vast majority of the human population.

This issue is the crux in the downfall of CocoRosie. The eccentric nature of their music becomes very evident, alienating the sisters rather than endearing them. The result is a perplexing duo prolifically producing music that very few understand or enjoy. Too abstruse for their own good, the Casady sisters have crept so deep into the crevices of the freak-folk genre that they find themselves wedged in, unable, or unwilling to climb out.

Tales of a Grass Widow continues this esotericism, toning it down just enough to make the album endurable. The bulk of the tracks on Tales of a Grass Widow are, for the most part, actual songs complete with rhythms and refrains, a step forward for an outfit that created the mystifying fracas that was The Adventures of Ghosthorse and Stillborn.

Beyond the unnecessarily morose tone of album opener “After the Afterlife,” resides a rhythm engrossing enough to entice the listener deeper into the artistic dystopia. Piano, percussion, synthesizer, and some ungodly noise reminiscent of a wind-up toy, coalesce into something jazzy enough to warrant a second listen. Bianca Casady’s voice, alternating between a gravelly, Björkian growl, and a ghoulish falsetto, while far from anything pleasant, successfully establishes the unsettling tone that saturates the album.

While no portion of Tales of a Grass Widow is particularly upbeat, “Broken Chariot” stands out for its melody, or rather the lack thereof. A miasma of distant ringing sounds, tribal flutes, and the eerie murmuring of Bianca Casady amalgamate into a mass of sound with no purpose or direction. It can barely be qualified as music, fitting more easily into the category of ambient, redundant noise.

Clichés abound on “End of Time,” which offers absolutely nothing novel or profound on a topic that has been used ad nauseam. Lyrics as ostensible and vapid as “This is the end of time,” and “Let’s all hug and say goodbye,” form the backbone of a macabre chorus. However, it is the sisters’ ridiculous rap (more of a morbid spoken word) containing the lyric “Jesus, by the way dear lord  / you always protected me,” juxtaposed with “this will not be televised / the televisions all have died,” that really steals the show.

Despite its flaws (and there are many), Tales of a Grass Widow enters territory that CocoRosie has only recently begun to explore: cohesiveness. The eleven tracks on the album, while almost uniformly unpleasant, all share an underlying moroseness sewn together by Bianca Casady’s unnerving vocals. While not something one would ever want to listen to again, Tales of a Grass Widow is progress for the Casady sisters. There are signs of focusing less on pushing the envelope of what constitutes music, and more on actually doing it well. It took them nearly a decade to get where they are now. Maybe in another ten years they might actually succeed. [D+]

Read more articles like "Review: CocoRosie – Tales of a Grass Widow" on PMA - Pretty Much Amazing.

by NICK MCGOURTY

Majical Cloudz’ Impersonator, the newest release from the Grimes-friendly Montreal twosome, brings to mind Sigur Ros’s most recent release Valtari. Like Valtari, Impersonator is a beautifully crafted album that teases at a big moment that never seems to come. The close of each song suggests that the following track will bear the climactic fruit Impersonator consistently promises. Valtari left want for more build-ups, crescendos, and all around cosmic jaw-droppery, and the production’s shortcomings were clear in comparison to previous bodies of work. With Impersonator, the missing element that could take the album from good to masterful is much more ambiguous. Each run through Impersonator provides equal parts beauty and equal parts almost. “Wow that was great, but…,” and that “but” would trail off into the mist from where it came. Not to be misunderstood, Impersonator packs a lot of awesome. Devon Welsh’s voice is stunning from its first plunge into the pulsing synth soundscape that Matthe Otto could not have created anywhere besides a hot air balloon, perpetually rising above the clouds (oh, Majical Cloudz!). Welsh’s voice does its best to provide an anchor for Impersonator, which at times derails from orbit and floats out into deep space.

The opening track, taking its name from the album title, opens with looped strings and a distorted vocal sample in a humming plod until the sky abruptly opens and Welshes voice steps out of an interdimensional wormhole. Welsh’s dum-dum-dum arrival is one of Impersonator’s most striking moments. Welsh’s apparition is followed closely by his own personal brand of self-loathing soul baring. “See how I’m faking my side of it / I’m a liar, I say I make music,” Welsh begins as he exposes himself as a phony in a very real, raw, and self-aware way. On Impersonator, Welsh tells a story in reverse, Memento-style. First, Welsh coming out as a fraud, and then he heads back in time to show us how and why he got here.

Welsh’s declaration on “Impersonator” is followed by the hide-and-go-seek heartbeat that throbs behind some of Welsh’s most vivid lyrics, describing the inception of both his fears and his wants. “This is all that I want / I had dreams about you when I was so young / And you’re mine,” Welsh sings, after painting a picture of an early life in a house of “monsters” and “murderers.” “Childhood’s End” continues Welsh’s reflection on his dark youth. The pitter-patter beat and the cathartic delivery of “Weigh down, its weighing down, on me, yeah” makes “Childhood’s End” an album highlight.

Impersonator loses itself on “I Do Sing For You” and “Mister” before the gunshot opening of “Turns Turns Turns” rights the course. On “Turns” Welsh is lost, running from a self-inflicted wound trying to catch his breath. Matthe Otto’s production shines on “Turns,” and is the track on which Welsh and Otto seem most in sync. It’s a hard act to follow. “Silver Rings” sounds most fit for the Water Temple in Legend of Zelda, as it drips into “Illusion” where Welsh’s emphatic “yeah!“ teases at Majical Cloudz’s potential. “Illusion” brings Welsh full circle as he returns to his initial theme of deceit. “Bugs Don’t Buzz” marches melancholic as Welsh compares himself to a still insect nearing death, which is also the topic of the album closer “Notebook”. Welsh tells someone (himself?) that despite his imperfections he’ll die respected for his acknowledgement of his shortcomings and effort to overcome them. “Hey man, sooner or later you’ll be dead / I want you to know I’ve got respect / Both of us have seen the light,” Welsh sings. You’ve still got some work to do, and some demons to exercise, but I see that you’re trying, Welsh is saying.

And then its over. And you’re exhausted. Impersonator is heavy stuff as Welsh leaves few stones unturned in exposing his personal pains and failures. Impersonator tells a supremely honest story from the mouth of a self-proclaimed liar. It is an album that needs to be experienced in its entirety, but in the age of remixes, the blogosphere, and Adderall, who will have the time or patience to dig into Impersonator? Those who do will find parts of it beautiful and rewarding, if they can stomach the emotional drain. Welsh’s voice alone is worth experiencing, as he orchestrates his own crucifixion. [B]

Read more articles like "Review: Majical Cloudz – Impersonator" on PMA - Pretty Much Amazing.

by BEN BROCK WILKES

Creeping out from the quiet warbles and crinkles of the needle drop that begin Wampire’s debut, an archetypal pipe organ leaks notes of familiar darkness. A shadowed, Draculesque figure hunches in front of the haunted keys as metallic, baroque horror echoes off the walls. Buckling to an irresistible curiosity, we approach the figure, a pool of sweat collecting on our brow in the cool humidity of his dungeon hall. We reach the bench where the embodiment of our fears sits, just as he whisks around to greet us with a smooth bass lick, an assortment of ghoulish fellows, and a contemporary “Monster Mash” in Curiosity’s opener, “The Hearse.”

It’s hard to not have images of ballroom blitzes or Scooby-Doo chase scenes dance through your mind while listening to Wampire’s first release, Curiosity. The Portland, Oregon duo of Rocky Tinder and Eric Phipps—trio, if you include Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s bassist and the album’s producer Jacob Portrait—have crafted a record with a precise and distinct tone that is this silly, frantic nightmare. It is sinister at the same time that it is playful, fun and danceable at the same time that it is deeply confessional and at moments, depraved—as “Orchards” admits, “inside the old folks home, I can’t stop my laughter.” An absolute expertise in tonality is what was necessary to hollow out such a niche, and is what makes the LP so singular.

Clocking in at just over half an hour, Curiosity is fast-paced and concise, moving through its nine tracks without dwelling on any one hook long enough for the listener to recognize it as such—the one exception being “Outta Money’s” take on the Arcade Fire 2-chord epic. The opening track and the group’s exposé of style, “The Hearse” tromps through its gothy, new wave pop-rock with a guilty smirk, “nobody knows what I have done…if you were in my shoes, you’d do it too.” A pleasant surprise arrives with the ambient break halfway through the song—a faux pas for the first track on a pop LP maybe—but also a candid plug: hey, we have guts, from Portland’s latest in psychedelic.

Each song is stuffed with sound — there is, simply put, a lot going on and a lot to pay attention to in a short amount of time — despite catchy hooks and appropriated pop forms (i.e. the chord progression on “Trains,” that even Rolling Stone couldn’t keep its hands off of). What’s impressive is that every layer of noise is so articulate and finely honed that wherever your ear chooses to roam is a worthwhile endeavor. The lonesome, desert whistle on “Orchards” seems to better encapsulate the Western movie genre than John Wayne does. The tin flute effect that responds to the call of the offbeat guitar strums during the verses of “Spirit Forest” is as out-of-this-world as it is oddly organic. And the synth tones during the second half of “I Can’t See Why” conjure an image of ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” on the moon. Even the smallest nuance like the güiro scrape that enters the percussion on “Trains” at 1:20 has been altered to sound like a croaking frog to match the mood of cinematic horror. The most remarkable moment of this recording fluidity is the subtle implosion on “Giants” at the 2:30 mark. Rarely is a half-time break pulled off so well, not to mention a 180-degree reversal in feel, from a driving, tension-filled beat to a spacious jazz groove.

Flawless transitions are endemic to the record, and necessary in order to cram this many ideas into an attention-deficit 32 minutes. It is as if Curiosity has taken a postmortem body, with krautrock blood and a heart of rhythm and blues, and resurrected it by stapling and gluing on pieces of our postmodern musical Diaspora. Wampire’s Frankenstein Rock has defibrillated Dick Dale surf rock on “Giants” and the “Hotel California” voiced chords on “Orchards” with the production savvy of post-dubstep (for example, the downtempo intro of “Magic Light”) and the tonality and spirit of Oregon psychedelic dance bedfellows Unknown Mortal Orchestra and STRFKR (the second half of “Magic Light”).

Whether by coincidence or some pulling of strings that surely resulted in a large amount of ribbing among the higher-ups, Vampire Weekend’s new record also came out this week. Though Wampire certainly has a lot left to prove, Curiosity busts down doors in the messy free-for-all that is indie rock on a similarly self-aware and intellectual plane to the way VW’s self-titled did five years ago. With a name like Wampire, an adaptation of Phipps’ nickname coined by goth friends in Germany, these guys obviously don’t take themselves too seriously — see their new video for “Orchards” for more; it features a character that resembles a splicing of the two main Scarers in Monsters, Inc. This light-hearted nature is ironic and refreshing when paired with dark music and rather serious nocturnal confession, “I give to you, you give to me, but I never seem to get what I need,” or “you could be the nighttime sky and see me lose my mind.” It is these oppositions of goofy, yet quite unsettling; sunny tunes, but lit by an amber moon; Kraftwerk cover B-sides released next to music with Motown flair, that makes the fact that “we can’t figure out which way to turn” work. Making and experiencing music is all about exploration and curiosity because “life is but a playground with kids running around.” Wampire makes that feeling accessible through a new avenue on Curiosity. [B+]

Read more articles like "Review: Wampire – Curiosity" on PMA - Pretty Much Amazing.

by NICK McGOURTY

“Oh, Weezy?” my roommate inquired when I put on Chance the Rapper’s newest release Acid Rap. I told him this wasn’t the case, but I didn’t judge his hasty comparison; Chance comes in “yeah-ing” and “we back-ing” like it’s “Let The Beat Build” 2. As the mixtape slides on from the opener, it’s as if Chance realizes being pinned a neo-Lil Wayne isn’t the most astute of PR moves, and impresses with his own lyrically nimble and melodic flow. Acid Rap is a road trip mixtape. You’re headed due south, the weather is beautiful and only slated to get nicer. Just like the road trip, what starts as a good time only gets better as you get further from home. Chance is driving, you’re in the front seat, and I have my feet up in the back. Here guys, put this on your tongue, put the top down and turn this up.

Boom. Pupils huge. “Good Ass Intro” (which is good ass named) hooks the sides of your mouth and you can’t help but smile as Chance manically pumps you up for the trip. The syncopated, chugging beat throws you off for a second, wait weird, but you like it. Green Bay Packers, wait, Weezy? Nope. Chance! On “Pusha Man,” Chance tells us about all the positive changes in his life since his fateful suspension inspired #10Days, his first Mixtape. Chance’s dealer has the best stuff, the girls love him, he’s made it. You’re thinking, “Chance is the man!”, when you look over and Chance’s face has fallen, the music cuts out and Pusha Man has a dark flip side. The trip has gone bad, and demons are momentarily abound.

Where Chance is from isn’t the sun splashed party he’s been talking about. In fact it’s the opposite. Matt Lauer and Katie Couric, the media spawned symbols of justice and truth are nowhere to be seen, and in their absence is left a “[prayer] for a safer hood”, attainable once Chance’s finances are finally in order. We realize Chances escapist behavior may be based in something deeper than merely youthful partying. Chance’s lament is fleeting, however, and he quickly gets back to doing what he does best: lifting the spirits of those around him.

Fellow Chicagoan, Vic Mensa drops in for a verse on the funky and smoky “Cocoa Butter Kisses,” and thank god he announces his arrival (“Twista!”) lest we be confused as to who else it could possibly be. “Juice” will be a live-show crowd pleaser with an Odd Future-esque yell-hook [“Juice! (Juice!)”]. Your girlfriend will throw her hands in the air and proclaim her love for the Childish Gambino co-starred, “Favorite Song” and say, “Oh this is the one with that guy from Community!” at any Chance festival appearances in the near future. The funked out bass line on “Nana,” accompanied by the always awesome, always food conscious, Action Bronson, make up for the semi-obnoxious, taunting chorus taken from the title (but maybe that was on purpose, haters!). As a matter of fact, Action Bronson’s verse of Rick Pitino comparisons and Japanese lesbians (“With my hair slicked back, I look like Rick Pitino / 3 Japanese dykes in my El Camino”) is the best guest feature on the mixtape.

Regal horns and Ab Soul’s clever potty verse on “Smoke Again”, which I’ve deemed the album’s biggest grower (a song that seems like nothing special with a first listen), lead into the somber, atmospheric and nostalgic “Acid Rain”. Chance reflects on a better past with “diagonal grilled cheeses / and back when Mike Jackson was still Jesus,” and pays his respect to a dead friend. “Acid Rain,” like the second half of “Pusha Man”, showcases a more self-aware and sensitive side of Chance, and proves he’s capable of more than party-starting bangers.

Unfortunately, “Acid Rain” is overshadowed by the mixtape’s crown jewel in “Chain Smoker.” “Chain Smoker” is the song you want on when the road trip is over. You’re pulling up to your destination and the cabin you rented looks even more epic than it did in the pictures. The three timing changes of the beat, from verse to chorus to bridge, are infectious, and Chance is completely right when saying “This part right here, right now / right here, this part my shit.” That part is absolutely the shit. You can almost see Chance in the studio yelling over the bridge with a manic smile on his face and bleary eyes. Oh, and I’m glad someone else is still shamelessly spinning Channel Orange a whole year after its release.

Chance is at his best when he’s working his pipes on “Interlude (That’s Love)”, the glorious two and a half minute mixtape centerpiece. Chance’s unique delivery (listen to him pronounce Vicodin on “Chain Smoker”), and his fearless and irreverent rhymes are refreshing despite a sneaking suspicion that his style isn’t completely original. I’m also willing to cut him some slack due the fact that Acid Rap begs to be played while drinking in your favorite park on the most beautiful day this summer. The release timing couldn’t be better. And maybe it’s just that: Acid Rap is the summer action blockbuster of mixtapes, where the audience need not dig much deeper than the surface to enjoy the best of what the production has to offer. That isn’t to say there aren’t moments on the mixtape where Chance discusses some very real topics, there are, but these moments are smothered amongst the bubblegum, bounce, and just plain fun of the rest. So with the dawn of summer, I’m in no hurry to put Acid Rap on the shelf, but I’ll have to reevaluate Acid Rap’s staying power this coming fall. Who’s even thinking that far ahead though? For now, you can find me in the park with my Jambox and Acid Rap on repeat. [B+]

Read more articles like "Review: Chance The Rapper – Acid Rap" on PMA - Pretty Much Amazing.