Midwest Dilemma
Timelines & Tragedies
May 20th 2008
Self Released
Maybe, just maybe, the cooption of music that has largely flown under the radar for the better part of the last decade by soulless corporations can be avoided. The Billboard oriented marketing machines are systematically being dispossessed of their tastemaking power. Major labels, when they can acquire them, harvest artists who have already established a national following from their independent releases. Fortunately for independent artists, a major label contract is no longer seen as always the optimal circumstance for national exposure, sustained industry influence, and market representation. This enervation of the gate keepers has fostered resistance against artistic compromise in nearly all sectors of the music industry. It is evidenced by the emergence of successfully branded indie labels such as Kill Rockstars, Matador, Jagjaguwar, and Saddle Creek; it is evidenced by the successful dislocation of goliath music makers such Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails from their respective and restrictive major label bonds; it is even evidenced by interlabel dealings such as Wilco’s refusal to accommodate Reprise’s critical observations of their seminal release Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, which led to their auspicious migration to Nonesuch, a label that ironically along with Reprise are both subsidiaries of the major conglomerate Warner Bros. Records.
Through the democratizing power of the internet, and an increasingly ability for local communities of artists to obtain national exposure, we are beginning to see a number of bands release music independent of any label at all. They are the “self-released” categories of burgeoning blogs everywhere (I love me). Even though their trajectory might lead many bands to any number of market deals, their injection into large scale networks of critical discourse through modest industry connections has clearly signal a shift in the fundamental paradigm of artist ascendancy, and this change it seems will be long lasting and far reaching.
From Omaha, Nebraska Midwest Dilemma has caught my attention with their densely organic and texturally rich debut Timelines & Tragedies. While consisting of as much as 10 core members, Midwest Dilemma recorded in bloom with 23 musicians and vocalists, an indication of the ambitious and highly masterful orchestration of the project. As their name implies Midwest Dilemma’s endeavor is steeped in folksy Americana. It not only seeks to lyrically reconstruct the narrative of songwriter Justin Lamoureux’s family as they traveled from Montreal, Canada to Nebraska in the 19th century, but it also serves to define a musical tradition whose flair and flavor has definite regional roots. The Midwest is an incredibly rich landscape that is colored by the lived experiences of both its colonized and marginalized pre-European inhabitants and the various pioneers and traders that eventually came to form the towns and cities that today spot the vast plains, prairies, and bluffs from Wyoming to Ohio. The resulting constructed music culture is as distinct as the Southern-Gothic genre explored by artists like Iron & Wine and Phosphorescent.
Timelines & Tragedies is a string heavy odyssey that incorporates woodwinds and orchestral percussion to accentuate its epic recollection of the Lamoureux family’s journey. Using stories passed from generation to generation through old letters and family folklore, Lamouroux and company have produced an ethnographic testimonial. The record is more than episodic; it is a beautiful and memorizing patchwork of individual characters that in their juxtaposition recount a shared history of the Midwest. The themes, while specifically engrossed in a particular family’s past, speak as much about how we reflect on all stories of exodus. Timelines & Tragedies does an extraordinary job of telling the immigrant’s story, one that distills the shared experience of severed roots and the dismembering and intimidating shift out of the safe boundaries of home into an uncertain future. Each song moves through time toward the present, allowing for each successive generation to contextualize current predicaments with the preceding memory of past struggle. Timelines & Tragedies is a genealogy; it is thick, articulate, and captivating.
As far as Midwest Dilemma’s place in establishing their own relevance beyond the role storytellers, I applaud their emergence as a sign of the times. With their impending tour toward New York City this fall, I look forward to catching a show. I often wonder when this flood of independence might subside, leaving only the most contrived and commercially viable bands to suffer the dictates of the Billboard hierarchy. Midwest Dilemma gives me hope that we have entered a new age of production, one that like the band’s own inspiration, relies on local communities and personal relationships to direct ascendancy. Timelines & Tragedies is a debut produced with extraordinary talent and ambition, the limits of which may only be bound by the degree of Midwest Dilemma’s interest in telling their story.
Tour
10/17 – Omaha, NE @ PS Collective – 10pm
10/18– Ames, IA @ Ames Progressive Office – 7pm
10/19 – Sheboygan, WI @ Paradigm – 8pm
10/20 – Louisville, KY @ The Space at 6th and Oak – 8pm
10/22 – Muncie, IN @ Village Green Records – 7pm
10/23 – Philadelphia, PA @ Green Line Café – 7pm
10/24 – New York, NY @ Café Vivaldi – 8pm
10/25 – Biddeford, ME @ Hogfarm Studios – 8pm
10/26 – Cambridge (Boston), MA @ Lily Pad – 7pm
10/27 – New York, NY @ The Living Room – 7pm
10/28 – Hamden, CT @ The Space – 8pm
10/29 – Montpelier, VT @ Langdon Street Café – 8pm
10/30 – Buffalo, NY @ Bon Vivant – 8pm
10/31 – Cleveland, OH @ Barking Spider Tavern – 8pm
11/1 – Chicago, IL @ Red Line Tap – 8pm
11/2 – Des Moines, IA @ Vaudeville Mews – 10pm
Oh My God
Fools Want Noise
October 14th 2008
Split Red Records
Oh My God- Facewash
Oh My God- Houston
While I have loved many bands over the years, there have only been few that I really give a shit about. Would you believe it, Chicago’s Oh My God is one of them. I first met Bish, Ig, and Billy many, many years ago when they played Duffy’s Tavern back in Nebraska. I had seen them a few times prior and was very impressed with their performance. My sister also happened to be in town from Chicago and I wanted to take her to a great show at my favorite dingy bar. They did not disappoint.
Rumors circulated that there would be an afterhours party with the band. Memory from that night being hazy, I can’t exactly remember how I scored the address, but I later found myself with my sister and a friend parked in a gravel lot outside a big house in the country. There didn’t seem to be anyone around and our first instinct was to scram, but the van was there and I was determined to meet these freakishly performative people. I don’t remember much about the night save the phrase “flying fish farm”, a bottle of Makers Mark, absolutely delicious vegan lasagna, Ig’s massive hair, and the extremely kind company of Ig and Billy as we sat around a living room table discussing who knows what. My sister, my friend, and I were thrilled to have imposed on their late night festivity.
Later, when booking a show at a venue in Lincoln named Knickerbockers, I learned that Oh My God was on tour again and that my band was to open for them. This had my gut in knots. There was certainly no way we were going to compare. But we suffered through it, knowing what was to take place on the same stage only moments after our breakdown. It was a blissful evening, regardless of the sad circumstance of less than capacity attendance. Eventually I moved to Chicago where I saw them at the Double Door for their tour’s homecoming. This time I brought my cousin and a few friends. They were equally impressed with the band’s visceral performance.
Oh My God is aggressively eccentric. You haven’t ever seen a scissor kick until you’ve seen Billy fling his body around the stage. To give you any idea of their antics, Billy often begins shows dressed as a clown or plays the show in a kimono, or a clown in a kimono. As the show progresses he loses an article of clothing here and there, until he ends up in his skivvies, sweat run makeup, and a white tee-shirt that has some handwritten social critique such as “legalize prostitution” printed across the chest.
I always liked Oh My God’s combination of instruments. Their songs are structured around the drums, bass, and organ. The drums are often schizophrenic, the bass is distorted and fuzzed to excess, and the organ is tweaked beyond recognition. Since those days in Chicago and Nebraska, they have added guitar to the amalgamation. Tragically, while on the road in Ohio during a recent tour in 2007, a car collided with their van head on. Every member received terrible injuries. Billy shattered a kneecap, cracked a few vertebrae, and broke three ribs. Bish broke his left wrist and Ig broke his right. Matt, playing guitar on tour, broke his tibia, nose, and thumb. To be honest, I thought the band was through. It is extremely difficult to tour year in and out, record after record, only to be forced to postpone an upcoming record release and take a year off for physical therapy, psychologically to start again. I can only imagine the difficulties they encountered. I wished them the best in a dire situation.
So imagine my surprise when Frederick Foxtrott received a copy of their new record for review. The triumph of this band only underscores their tenacity and energy. While I have always said that Oh My God’s live show never quite translates onto plastic, their newest effort Fools Want Noise comes closest to capturing the frenetic display on stage, although I will always have a place in my heart for Interrogations & Confessions. New to the band are drummer Dathan DeVore and guitarist Anthony Gravino. While I have not witnessed Oh My God play in their current incarnation, I assume they will have all the excess that my memory reports.
Fools Want Noise continues Oh My God’s irreverent tradition. Billy’s voice is steeped in rhythm and blues, imbuing the rugged bass lines and industrial organ with hooks and catchy phrases that snare even the most indifferent of listeners. The melodies were forged in a popcentric factory. Oh My God is a candy coated cog. Though this combination makes for an unlikely surfacing into the mainstream, make no mistake, Fools Want Noise is infectious. Oh My God is an indulgent, intense and socially seditious band.
Every track on this record attracts the listener as much as it challenges them. Billy exudes a libertine persona that shuns social standards with confrontational words. They don’t keep safe any particular agenda; they prescribe an abandonment of all extremes, all the while shanking the status quo. Even in some of their contradiction the band seeks beauty. Billy’s soliciting eyebrows and cocky form sing songs about failure, vulnerability, and tragic love. Oh My God’s words are provocative in that they judge against judgment, while at the same time projecting themselves as iconoclasts seeking to deliberately break from the cagey grip of modern expectations. This allows some of the more saccharine elements of Oh My God’s music to be enjoyed in an abnormal context instead from the inhibiting and trite perspective of the masses.
Other Music
Oh My God EP- 2000
Action!- 2002
Interrogations & Confessions- 2003
You’re Too Straight to Love Me- 2004
Tour
Sept 18, 2008 Founders Brewery Grand Rapids, MI
Sept 19, 2008 The Loading Dock Traverse City, MI
Sept 20, 2008 DIY Street Fair Ferndale, MI
Sept 20, 2008 The Belmont Hamtramck, MI
Sept 25, 2008 Midpoint Music Cincinnati, OH
Sept 26, 2008 (Scene) Metrospace Lansing, MI
Sept 26, 2008 Mac’s Bar Lansing, MI
Sept 27, 2008 Beauty & the Beat Flint, MI
Sept 28, 2008 Allegheny College Meadville, PA
Sept 29, 2008 Smog @ Bard Annondale On Hudson, NY
Sept 30, 2008 Daniel Street Club Milford, CT
Oct 01, 2008 Pianos York, NY
Oct 02, 2008 Mohawk Place Buffalo, NY
Oct 03, 2008 Casa Cantina Athens, OH
Oct 04, 2008 Howard’s Club H Bowling Green, OH
Oct 10, 2008 Doug’s Rockhouse Aurora, IL
Oct 11, 2008 Subterranean Chicago, IL
Oct 16, 2008 The House Dekalb, IL
Oct 17, 2008 Triple Rock Minneapolis, MN
Oct 18, 2008 Cactus Club Milwaukee, WI
Oct 23, 2008 Cowboy Monkey Champaign, IL
Oct 24, 2008 Bluebird St. Louis, MO
Oct 25, 2008 Record Bar Kansas City, MO
Oct 26, 2008 Duffy’s Lincoln, NE
Oct 27, TBA Pittsburg, KS
Oct 28, 2008 Hailey’s Denton, TX
Oct 29, 2008 Beerland Austin, TX
Oct 30, 2008 TBA Paso, TX
Oct 31, 2008 Hotel Congress Tucson, AZ
Nov 01, 2008 Modified Arts Phoenix, AZ
Nov 02, 2008 The Mint Los Angeles, CA
Nov 03, 2008 Bottom of the Hill San Francisco, CA
Nov 05, 2008 TBA Rapid City, SD
Nov 06, 2008 Nutty’s North Sioux Falls, SD
Nov 07, 2008 Maya Jane’s Vermillion, SD
Nov 08, 2008 Maintenance Shop Ames, IA
Tom Schraeder
Lying Through Dinner EP
September 6th 2008
En Prise Entertainment
After missing his flight out of Austin after playingSXSW music marathon, Chicago’s Tom Schraeder made a deliberate decision to approach his next project with a synergistic attention to detail. His stay in Texas was serendipitous,
“It’s clichéd, but everything really does happen for a reason; I couldn’t tell you what pulled me to stay in Austin with two changes of clothes, a guitar, and nowhere to sleep.”
Tom’s time absorbing his environment produced Lying Through Dinner, a collection of intimate perspectives voiced with care, projecting the short lived narratives beyond the confines of a single song. Rather, each track seeks to exist in tandem with the next, so that each song serves the greater purpose of the record. Indeed, every song is a rebuttal of vanity and narcissism.
Even though his stay was unplanned, Schraeder’s experience instilled a sense of determination that served as an effective catalyst for his renewed creativity. He slept everywhere from floors, to couches, and even a homeless shelter. Speaking of how his journey contributed to this project, Schraeder says,
“I’m not saying I’d choose to spend the night in a shelter again, but something about the vagabond nature of the experience made this project happen with ease. We went from demo to mastered record in three weeks.”
The record opens with Needle Will Bite, a short and simple track that appeals to one of the most basic of internal monologs. The point of it all, what sticks in the brain, is the line “Something’s gotta give…” This is a moment that everyone has been through, and the song’s elevated tempo is perfect for the lyrics. The song quickly identifies itself with the listener and after only a few seconds makes clear that it speaks for the audience. People sing along to songs and memorize every word so that when they sing them, it is as natural as if they had written the words themselves. Schraeder should be proud; there is a certain beauty in being the guy who wrote the song that poor slobs across America sing at karaoke bars, wasted out of their gourd.
The metaphorical theme of the album’s next track, Guadeloupe Cries, forms the song’s backbone. Guadeloupe at once represents the pre-European peoples of Mexico, but she also represents the holy virgin of Christianity. She is a hybrid of an old world and a new one. She is the liminal space that exists betwixt and between. We imagine a familiar hotel room that has become somewhat lonely. We watch it rain out the window, as if Guadeloupe’s tears lament worldly events, what has been and what is to come.
Musically the record represents tradition and heritage, but in nearly every song experimentation is present. The folk, country-boy croon is at times accented with cavernous feedback, and in the case of Sorry My Dear, the distant and mournful wail of a magnetized guitar. The juxtaposition of the saloon–tuned piano and the fluctuating noise creates a beautiful atmosphere in which words are cradled.
In contrast, Don’t Look Back seems to be Schraeder’s shot at writing a standard, complete with a horn pick-up and a key change. The song says “move on, get over it, shake it off,” The song recovers from the melancholy and depth of the first few tracks, to turn the record face forward. This is a bar song. Not in the sense of alcohol drowned sorrows, but in that it celebrates that feeling you get when you realize the meaning of present and future tense. The past becomes irrelevant. The audience then becomes surrounded with possibility. The suffocating empty room becomes thrown into the social, recognition that a wider world awaits us.
Lying Through Dinner was also made possible by a number of local Austin musicians. While the heart of the record is clearly derived from Tom Schraeder, the rich Texan heritage that was brought to the table certainly added to the already excellent song writing. The challenge for Schraeder was not only to follow up to 2007’s release The Door, the Gutter, the Grave with a record as equally honest and soul soaked, but to also to step up the presence of a defined artisanship. Tom Shraeder has succeeded in this endeavor with Lying Through Dinner.
The night began with Peasant captivating a fairly populated crowd at New York City’s Mercury Lounge. As Frederick Foxtrott has mentioned numerous times, Damien DeRose has an incredible ability to command attention without begging for it. He is not desperate, even as he discusses even the most vulnerable of topics. The audience talks amongst themselves, waiting through their typical opening band annoyance, when something happens across the crowd; the conversations become muted; peoples’ eyes no longer look for an answer on the floor, or from their friend’s quips and shrugs. Applause reforms from obligatory to laudatory. Peasant plays and people listen. While the contrast with the night’s headlining act was sharp, I wanted to give the band I actually came to see a little credit for inadvertently tipping me off to Bodies of Water, whose recently released record A Certain Feeling is entirely worth listening to.
While Bodies of Water seem to focus on vocalist Meredith Metcalf in their live performance, A Certain Feeling has a much more choral arrangement. At Mercury, Metcalf was the center piece, and a mighty fine one at that. Her voice is strong and refined. She has an indie operatic melody maker that emanates impassioned words well beyond her thin frame. On the record, the band has a much more pronounced presence, supporting Metcalf, whose voice is embedded in the slightly vintage, entirely eccentric instrumental textures. Bodies of Water, from LA, are highly talented. At times they give me the impression that an ever so small, yet appropriate amount of the musical Pippen lays at the foundation of their music- an amalgamation of nascent-prog rock, psychedelia, and musical theater.
The awkward melodies generated by the prowling organ and commanding guitar are deliberate and precise. They accomplish what the Fiery Furnaces are rarely able to. Minute doses of discombobulating riffs blend with an epic sense of song craft. The vast space that the band seeks to fill with its projected strength is impressive. What is even more so, is their ability to never leave the listener hanging, left and abandoned as one movement yields to the next. While Bodies of Water have an air of something enigmatic, they make sense. While this could be a detrimental observation to some bands hoping to produce music that is new and different, Bodies of Water excel at knowing what is worth obscuring.
Wintersleep
Welcome to the Night Sky
October 2nd 2007
Labwork Music
Wintersleep formed in 2002 in Halifax Nova Scotia. Paul Murphy and Loel Campbell collaborated on songs that were unsuited for the various other projects in which they were engaged. What began as a repository for odd ends, emerged as a well spring of potential. With the help of various recruits Wintersleep made use of their creative resources to produce an album of exceeding excellence. Welcome to the Night Sky is themed with violence and illness, words referenced as key phrases on multiple tracks. Borderline depression asserts and capitulates itself throughout the record, although the mood is not formed out of self loathing or inadequacy. The “unknown self” quarantines the words to a weighty inner dialogue, with questions as often rhetorical as they are inquisitive.
Mouth full of teeth chewed up and spit on the ground
When I speak, are my words just white naked sound?
Carelessly rendered and scattered around
Random
The lyrics are particularly artful. The poetics of the words are reinforced by a lack of repetition. There is little resemblance to the typical verse, chorus, bridge, reprise structure. The words are wrought with anxiety and self reflection. They expose the self interrogation undergone by those who do not know what to make of the world, let alone themselves. The lyrics suffer from a strange detachment of mind from body, and question the nature of such detachment. The mind is as anatomical as the brain. As we try to describe the phenomena of the mind, we visualize its throne and all its biological susceptibilities.
Oh my, I feel the teeth again
Gnawing and eminent in the lost lonely night.
Oh my, give me the words again, paint it aluminium, make it white, make it white.
The music is not as provocative as the lyrics, but even with occasional pop-rock simplicities, it provides an infectious mode through which the obscure words can be implanted into our own consciousness. The music rarely challenges the listener; however its accessibility will not leave the sour taste of conformity in your mouth. During its blissful moments of intensity, the music is textured with synthesizers and sprawling guitars. On balance it is yet again another exciting band to emerge from Canada. I am extraordinarily pleased with Wintersleep’s Welcome to the Night Sky. Their next stop in New York will find a warm reception.
The Octopus Project
Hello, Avalanche
October 9th 2007
Peek-A-Boo Records
Part garage rock, part NES music protocol, and part taurine infused melodics, The Octopus Project’s Hello, Avalanche bravely transverses the boundary between electronica and post rock. The most apparent feature of this band is their overt interjection of digital melody and animated instrumentation into a genre that typically prizes subtly and droning repetition. A song will alternately run a sampled scale and a barrage of distorted noise, punctuating the electro-beats with organic instruments, disallowing the music to remain suspended in an epic or sprawling delay.
Hello, Avalanche was co-produced by Ryan Hadlock of Blonde Redhead, Eagle Seagull credit. The record again highlights Hadlock’s uncanny nose for talent. The hybridity created by The Octopus Project is extraordinarily pleasing to the pop senses. They allow for the striking textural juxtapositions of bands like Xiu Xiu, yet have kept the discordant ambiguities to a minimum. While the suppression of dissonance is in no way an inherent reason to praise, it is a nice contrast to music of equal scale but of jarring composition.
For those of you who are tired of bands that seek to reproduce the melodies of Tortoise, the sequence execution of The Album Leaf, or the gravity of Explosions in the Sky, know that Hello, Avalanche is a contribution to the modern music soundscape of unique and particular character. The Octopus Project allows the audience to dance as they marvel at a functioning collection of flesh and blood, rather simply to listen with a dissatisfied and disinterested ear. This is the balance they strike; they have a defined structure without sounding sterile or methodical. Who knew Austin…who knew?
Other Music
Identification Parade- 2002
One Ten Hundred Thousand Million- 2005
Tour
08/02 Chicago, IL Schuba’s w/ Okkervil River
08/03 Chicago, IL Lollapalooza Myspace Stage at 11:30am.
08/04 Kansas City, MO Record Bar
08/05 Norman, OK Opolis 08/06 Lubbock, TX Tequila Station
08/11 Phoenix, AZ Rhythm Room w/ Diagonals
08/12 Tucson, AZ Congress Theater w/ Diagonals
08/13 San Diego, CA TBA w/ Diagonals
08/14 Los Angeles, CA Knitting Factory w/ Diagonals
08/15 Visalia, CA Cellar Door w/ Diagonals
08/16 San Francisco, CA Bottom of the Hill w/ Diagonals
08/18 Portland, OR Satyricon w/ Diagonals
08/19 Seattle, WA Nectar Lounge w/ Diagonals
08/20 Vancouver, BC Richard’s
08/22 Edmonton, ALB Velvet Underground
08/23 Calgary, ALB Hi Fi
08/25 Salt Lake City, UT Urban Lounge
08/26 Denver, CO Hi Dive
08/28 Ft. Worth, TX Lola’s w/ Diagonals
08/29 Houston, TX Warehouse Live w/ Diagonals
09/28 Austin, TX Austin City Limits
Bella Noir
Premonitions EP
March 7, 2008
Avow Records
Rarely does a band’s name seek to so completely describe its music. Bella Noir’s brand is dark and beautiful; it is atmospheric and heavily ambient with dim melodies of vampiric proportions. Vampiric in the sense that Bella Noir creates an intoxicating hybridity of sensual romanticism and tremolotic shades. The distorted reverberations blend every peak and valley, allowing coherence but refusing pomp and excess. The heavy set bass lines are the progeny of The Cure’s 1981 Faith, while rooted in gothic psychedelia, skin deep there is a sense of pop that prevents Premonitions from falling victim to obscurity.
Premonitions is a relatively short EP consisting of 6 songs totaling 22 minutes. This brevity owes impart to the extension’s fifth track Bellow, which clocks in at 42 seconds and merely serves as an intro to the closer Distraction. The EP is extraordinarily even in mood. I have not heard a record so flauntingly androgynous since Elliot’s 2004 sea change Song in the Air. As sad as I was to see Elliot go, I am thrilled to see Bella Noir emerge. Their lack of irony is a much needed contribution to Brooklyn’s independent music scene.
Incidentally, Bella Noir will play R Bar in Manhattan July 9th at 8 PM.
In order to tie up some loose ends I thought I’d look back to 2007 when married couple Dan Boeckner, of Wolf Parade, and writer Alexei Perry released Plague Park under the moniker Handsome Furs. The band, named for a short story penned by Alexi, toured Europe before Plague Park was even complete. Granted, the Montreal duo had plenty of help in the label and marketing department from their association with Wolf Parade, benefiting from their status as a major buzz band of ’06 and ’07. The signs warning of Handsome Furs potential flaws were certainly imposing. Another successfully crafted record by a husband/wife team only a couple years after Apologies to Queen Mary? Let me guess, guitar riffs backed by synthesized drum sequences. Lay your doubts to rest, for someone who was never quite interested in the Wolf Parade bandwagon, this record will impress. I have had the disc for a while now, but it has only come to my attention as of late that Plague Park should have someone championing it for what it is, a great fucking record.
Those elements beyond guitar and beat machine that elevate Handsome Furs above their initial humdrum grow in your bones the more you listen. What you want to distrust becomes clever and interesting. The sequences become ingenious and you feel cheated because you’ll never get to be the one who thought of it. Isn’t that one of the best compliments you can give; distain because some band claims another inch of creativity from a nearly exhausted cerebral fabric? Boeckner’s voice is intensely woeful, and the lyrics are beautiful. They shuttle from dirge to digital, expending high amounts of energy but quick to slow and return to contemplation. There is never the sinfulness of Eagle Seagull or the synthetic dexterity of Xiu Xiu, but Handsome Furs deals a heavy blow to snobbish ears. Plague Park is an urban memory of rural roots; it is an exhalation of intimate song-craft; it is a great fucking record.
Given the breadth of contributors, it is difficult to describe the myriad of styles that reform Martin’s work. What makes this record so excellent is the consistency provided by the base that Jeff Martin has constructed. While nearly every track is laden with electronic beats and celestial atmospherics, the meat of the music is rooted in the organic, natural sounds of the acoustic guitar, banjo, piano, mandolin, violin, and cello. Indeed, most of the tracks are instrumental, flowing into the limbo that is post-rock. A few songs include Jeff Martin’s voice which has a surprising smoky quality that contrasts sharply with the velour texture of the music.
The most outstanding track off the Spoons remix record is its first. Shuttlecock is energetic, voluminous, and expansive. It comes to us remixed by Bristol’s Minotaur Shock from 4AD. The song begins with a beautiful interplay of strings and xylophone, which is then mixed with a syncopated acoustic guitar riff, a clarinet, and brass. As Shuttlecock accelerates and builds, it perfectly exemplifies the beauty that electronic/organic fusion achieves; the fast paced beats layer the spaces between the chimes of a dozen other rhythms; it increases in velocity, but remains measured and deliberate. This track is simply ridiculous.
Spoons: RCI has many other gems as well. Strange for a Tuner by Chequerboard is sequenced perfectly. Balancing Act by Decal has a latent retro 80s structure that becomes fully born as the track concludes. Some tracks lack many of the electronic elements that are so prevalent throughout the record. Plays Music by Mice Parade and the impassioned Augustine by the Dublin Guitar Quartet are both gorgeous instrumentals. For those of you who love multi-instrumentalists like Sufjan Stevens and Tortoise, the beats of the Album Leaf, or even if you are a listener of the more ambient songs from God Speed You Black Emperor, Spoons: A Collection of Remixes, Collaborations, and Interpretations is a perfect addition to an ever growing and diversifying, nameless genre that flees moment to moment and movement to movement, renegotiating our expectations of complexity and simplicity, tonal dialectics and the subtlety of repetition.
Nine Inch Nails
The Slip
May 5th 2008
The Null Corporation
“thank you for your continued and loyal support over the years – this one’s on me”
Following his self-released instrumental album Ghosts I-IV, Trent Reznor comes at us again, this time reaching out to fans registered at nin.com with an album free for download. The Slip is licensed under creative commons law, which encourages people to use material for any non-commercial purpose as long as the product remains available for creative commons use. It comes less than 3 months after Reznor’s instrumental opus and contains many of the same elements as the 36 track Ghosts set.
Where you stand on the argument of which NIN record is the greatest will largely determine your love or languishing of The Slip. If you are a fan of his goth-industrial, Skinny Puppy influenced early work, then this may be entirely too divergent and you may scoff at it saying, “Nails’ early work was way better.” Clearly Pretty Hate Machine and Broken/Fixed have their charm as groundbreakers. Who didn’t find happiness in slavery or god/money absolutely darling concepts?
The Downward Spiral codified Reznor’s place as a musical genius for the masses. Remember when people remarked after a particularly close listening of Closer, “Did you know that Trent Reznor was a classically trained pianist?” as if this somehow justified your purchase of the record without having any track marks. His place as a true Deus de Electronica came with his collaboration with David Bowie on Earthling and his seminal contribution to David Lynch’s Lost Highway soundtrack, Perfect Drug. Nine Inch Nails’ trajectory culminated in a 4 minute video in which Reznor dressed as a young Alister Crowley. The problem? Perfect Drug is Mr. Reznor’s least favorite thing he has ever done. He believed his path thus far had strayed, and change was in order. I’d have to disagree, but hey- dude’s got his opinion.
Years later, NIN released the indubitable double disc The Fragile. Some fans saw this record as a deviation from his earliest work, pussyfooting around the recording room. Rather than drive an intense electro-beat with raging guitars and vocals, many of the songs were caught up in the atmospherics. Lyrics became secondary, if they appeared at all. Jazz chords replete with syncopated dulcimers and xylophonic movements were sandwiched between chart-zingers like Star Fuckers Inc. Reznor’s work was drawn from more than just his cold black heart. He succeeded in sustaining his visionary status without caricaturing himself; a disappointment that he perhaps felt had occurred during his David Lynch experiment.
Then the 2000’s came complete with 8 years of George W. Bush. Big Brother never seemed so domineering. Reznor’s paranoia would never again get the opportunity to enter ears more receptive. With the rise of indie rock though, NIN had an uphill climb in order to remain relevant. We live in a post-rock era now. In some ways this released him from his obligation of showmanship. If NIN was to continue, it would not be by the grace of Marilyn Manson. Though With Teeth and Year Zero might not be his most defining work, they are certainly more mature and in sync with the state of affairs of rock and roll. His style, like that of Lou Reed and Bowie, seemed to morph without penalty. He set the terms and tone of his relevancy.
Reznor, confident in his ability to maintain an audience, released Ghosts I-IV containing 4 volumes, 2 discs, and 36 lyricless tracks. The album has a movie score like quality. With a record devoted solely to environment and subtlety, Reznor was free to commit to something like never before. With The Fragile, the commercial confines required that his instrumental endeavors be sparse. Now having left Universal, Nine Inch Nails could release a straight up art album with no to answer to but his audience. To our delight, he then released a follow up fewer than 3 months later.
The Slip is an aggressive project that assimilates some of the atmosphere of Ghosts I-IV. Typical of his post Fragile releases, the music is much more instrument oriented. Where his early work was composed of blips and distorted thuds of a synthesized and amplified typewriter, The Slip has is constructed of real snares sounds with recognizable guitar tones. Not to say that it doesn’t have its share of electronic beats, the synthesizer is certainly still employed, but any comparison with tracks prior to 1999 will illustrate the marked distinction in direction.
So it really comes down to your favorite chapter in NIN’s catalogue. The Slip is a great record that offers 10 new compositions to an ever increasing legacy. The best quality of this record the live is its studio feel. For all the fuzz and blown out noise it contains, the acoustics of the drums off the studio wall cut through, and Reznor’s vocals sound as if he is only across the room. The Slip is a very under produced album. It states Reznor’s appreciation for his listeners. The Slip is an invitation into the studio, unmitigated by highly compressed and modulated megabytes. Thanks dude…but Perfect Drug wasn’t that bad!
Other Records
Pretty Hate Machine- 1989
Broken/Fixed- 1992
The Downward Spiral- 1994
The Fragile- 1999
With Teeth- 2005
Year Zero- 2007
Ghosts I–IV- 200
The Slip- 2008
