Re: Stacks - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

Re: Stacks - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot by WGTB Blog

Catherine takes a look at the Wilco mega-hit Yankee Hotel Foxtrot in this first installment of 'Re: Stacks,' an article where we learn about the intimate relationships between listener and performer.

Re: Stacks - An Introduction

Re: Stacks - An Introduction by igorgerman

Welcome to 'Re: Stacks,' an audio column by incoming Music Director Catherine Degennaro that explores not the story that an album tells, but the story that an album creates by its relationship with the listener. Take a listen to this introduction to the column and get excited for some great features to follow.

Review: Jamie Lidell, Compass

Jamie Lidell
Compass
B

Sometimes it’s all too tempting to pigeonhole the beardy and bespectacled gentlemen of alternative music. Each crafting his own brand of the thinking man’s pop song. All crooning those literary lyrics. But despite blending in inconspicuously with his contemporaries, Jamie Lidell’s sound stands out, sitting more comfortably among the likes of Stevie Wonder and Sly & The Family Stone. It’s clear from the video for “The Ring,” the single from his newest release, Compass, that Jamie has a lot of soul. Or perhaps that he has a lot of sand in his pants. Maybe both. That being said, his manic twitches and convulsions are not at all ill suited to the feel of Compass as a whole. All written and recorded in a few frantic fell swoops, Compass plays like an album that was, well... all written and recorded in a few frantic fell swoops. Coasting in on the tailwinds of his collaboration with Beck, Wilco and Feist on the Record Club’s recreation of Skip Spencer’s Oar, Lidell’s work on Compass draws from the same manic, experimental energy with many of the same players contributing. And as with most things done with manic, experimental energy, the results on the album are exciting, if inconsistent.

Far from the middle-of-the-road, polished soul of 2008’s JIM, Compass pulls hard in every direction. The title track encapsulates the spirit of the album, morphing from spacey and delicate to beat-heavy and dissonant and back again. From the weightlessness of “You See My Light” to the even, summery Jackson 5 sound of “Enough Is Enough” to the heavy junkyard funk of “Your Sweet Boom” (which might give Bret from Flight of the Conchords a run for his money for the title of The Boom King), the album runs the sonic gamut. Occasionally, Lidell’s nervous, deconstructed soul energy strikes gold on tracks like “Completely Exposed” or “Coma Chameleon” (Boy George, anyone? I’m sorry. He made that too easy). On the other hand, it occasionally misfires in 80s slow jam duds like “She Needs Me” or “It’s A Kiss." And following his musical compass in the millionth direction it points him, Lidell also finds himself in new, vulnerable vocal territory. If it’s possible to pinpoint the place where Beck’s influence as producer and collaborator is felt most, the heavy, desert dirge of “Big Drift” could make a good case, calling to mind the best of the hollow rawness and sorrow of Sea Change.

This is a fairly unrefined peek into Jamie Lidell’s artistic mind, which by all accounts sounds like a weird and chaotic but undeniably funky place—a place where one might reasonably spend a good amount of time squirming about in the sand shouting “There’s a rhythm to his madness!” And I’d have to agree with flailing beach Jamie. While it won’t be remembered as the album where it all came together, Compass certainly points Lidell's sound in what looks like a promising direction.

Recommended Tracks: “The Ring,” “Big Drift,” “Completely Exposed,” “Your Sweet Boom,” “Gypsy Blood”

-- Catherine DeGennaro

Review: New Pornographers, Together

The New Pornographers

Together

B

Together has been lauded as the triumphant return of the New Pornographers after the lull of 2007’s Challengers, but after a few listens, I couldn’t help but feel a little bit underwhelmed. Maybe it’s easy to expect too much of The New Pornographers, a band that has churned out several critically acclaimed albums in the past ten years and stars four very talented and individually successful musicians like A.C. Newman, Dan Bejard of Destroyer, Neko Case and Kathryn Calder. We expect chugging guitar riffs and infectious pop hooks sung in perfect male/female harmonies, so sugary that we can easily swallow down those abstruse lyrics. Most of all, we expect them to sound as fresh and energetic as they did when we first blasted Mass Romantic over our speakers ten years ago. Not that I should be projecting all my expectations on to you—maybe it’s just me holding on to the sounds of “Letter From An Occupant,” “Electric Vision” and “Sing Me Spanish Techno” a little too tightly. But it’s difficult to say exactly what’s missing on the new album. It’s more mid-tempo than earlier albums, but no more so than 2005’s Twin Cinemas. There are the high-energy numbers of old like “Crash Years,” “Up In The Dark” and “Your Hands (Together).” There are breezy hook-filled tracks like “Silver Jenny Dollar” and “Sweet Talk, Sweet Talk.” So what’s the problem?

Review: Joanna Newsom, Have One On Me

 Joanna Newsom

Have One On Me

39 out of 46 Golden Harp Strings

(Alternatively: 8.5 out of 10 Cats Dying Slow Deaths)

I tried to like Joanna Newsom before. I really did. At the behest of the bearded and bespectacled gentleman behind the counter at Barnes & Noble who asked me if I was buying a copy of Paste because Sufjan Stevens was on the cover (which I was, for the record), I gave her a listen. His disclaimer that her voice was “something of an acquired taste” seemed a bit of an understatement as I listened to her screech along with her harp live on “Peach, Plum, Pear”—though, to be fair, his other disclaimer was “you’ll probably hate her.” It’s not that her voice was unbearable, though. I recognized that if I gave her a good, long listen, I might become immune to it and be able to appreciate her lyrical and musical talent regardless—but I didn’t. Maybe it was because I had a lot of more tolerable music waiting to be listened to, or maybe it was because of how loudly my roommate complained whenever I put Joanna Newsom on. Whatever the reason, I naturally had no expectations of her newest release, Have One On Me, when I stumbled across it on NPR First Listen. Well, maybe one expectation—that whatever it sounded like, I could expect some amusing outburst of irritation from the opposite side of my room. (cont'd after the jump)

Bushwalla visits WGTB, plays some tunes before Jammin Java set 2/22/2010

Last Monday, DJ Catherine Degennaro brought Bushwalla into the WGTB studios to play a few acoustic songs and discuss his latest work before taking the stage at the Jammin Java that night. Catch the in-studio set below along with the interview, and Catherine's concert review with more photos after the jump!
Bushwalla Interview by wgtbmusic
 
1982 Blues by wgtbmusic
Raise Up - Bushwalla acoustic in-studio at WGTB by wgtbmusic
Acoustic Rhymer - Bushwalla in WGTB studio by wgtbmusic

Review: The Magnetic Fields, Realism

 The Magnetic Fields

Realism

A-

From the early influence of my parents’ record collection, featuring 60s folk-rock acts like Peter, Paul and Mary, Simon & Garfunkel and Dylan, to my later discovery of British folk revivalists and numerous modern folk artists, folk music has always been a musical staple of mine. Judging by The Magnetic Fields’ most recent album, Realism, it is a musical staple of frontman Stephin Merritt as well. Following the Jesus and Mary Chain-inspired Distortion, Realism trades feedback and fuzz boxes for more traditional folk orchestration, making use of instruments as varied as mandolins, dulcimers, banjos, accordions, sitars, flugelhorns and tubas. Musically, the album is full of retro charm and a survey of folk music across styles and eras, but in typical Merritt style, Realism is a concept album of sorts, thematically exploring—or perhaps skewering—the conventional view of folk’s lyrical sincerity.