Saturday, August 23, 2008
 

Innumerable apologies for the my absence last week.  These blazing days of summer get wanderlust burning like a dwarf star and I'm prone to meander.  Last week I ventured to Southern Oregon for a trifecta of dirty hippies, 109 degree heat, and the veritable orgy of Shakespearean plays.  Thus, you were deprived of my brainless caterwauling, and instead blessed with Lee Scratch Perry's brainless caterwauling.  The level of sense made couldn't have been that different. Now though, I've returned from abroad, and I'm ready again to regurgitate a small mouthful of stewed ideas on the state of music, just for you. As always, thanks for reading.

CAN WE TALK ABOUT SOME GOOD LABELS?

If I've learned anything from my brief tenure as a blogger, as well as a publicist for an indie label, it's this: find labels that consistently produce quality musical acts and then trust them like Lord Baby Jesus and his army of robots.  LISTEN TO EVERYTHING THEY PUT OUT!  Seek out their back catalogues because invariably, if you like more than one act that a label is putting out, you're going to like a lot more that they have to offer.

The world of music listeners is wallowing in the "single" mentality these days - single tracks, single bands - and were losing the ability to look at the bigger picture.  As exciting as it is to find a track that you just can't get out of your head, it's even more exciting in the long run to discover the tastes, eccentricities and personality of a label.  It's exciting to dive in to their history, to watch them evolve and change.  Follow a label, give the music they put out a chance, and you're bound to discover a broad variety of artists that you would've completely missed out on just cruising I-Tunes. 

With that rant clear from my head, I'd like to just make a few notes on a few of my favorites at the moment.  Shine a little light on the path for those who are new to this game.

HARDLY ART

I'm excluding Sub Pop from this little exercise, as I don't want crash John's server with the 300-page novel I could craft about my absolute unchained love for Seattle's national treasure.  Yet, one of the reasons why I love Sub Pop so much is because of their recently formed splinter label, Hardly Art.  I've been meaning to inquire about why exactly a splinter-label was needed, but for now, let me just heap some praise on their line-up.

For you more inclined to hipper music, you've most certainly heard of Le Loup, a band I only recently gave a chance (because of my love for Hardly Art's other bands) and have really enjoyed their sort of lo-fi, circus-dance-music.  What really got me excited about Hardly Art though was stumbling upon Arthur & Yu's debut album In Camera, a collection of loose, sort of late-60s classic rock joints built around lead singer Grant Olsen's astoundingly beautiful voice.  For some reason when I first heard the album last year it wasn't to my liking, but in the last two weeks it's been on pretty much constant rotation.

This love led me to what will be the next monstrous Seattle band, The Moondoggies.  With an album released just this week, this foursome of 20-somethings craft a mature, sort of whiskey-fueled Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young-style rock and roll.  I was lucky enough to attend their CD release party last evening (with Whalebones and Grant Olsen of Arthur & Yu playing solo) and was just blown away by the wailing guitar solos, the old school plinks of the piano, and just the natural sound these gentlemen are able to produce.

Hardly Art seems to be aiming at bands who wear their influences on their sleeves, bands who manage to build fresh sounding identities out of what came before and I absolutely love it.

:The Moondoggies - Changing:

FRENCHKISS

If I was forced to claim a favorite band right now (at gunpoint) I'd probably say The Dodos.  There's no band who so artfully combine guitar, drums and vocal in to such a beautiful, intense, driving sound.  Meric Long and company are as talented as anyone performing and implore you to be in attendance the next time they perform in your one-horse town. 

With that said, it's really just the tip of the iceberg for Frenchkiss, who've amassed a solid line-up of up-and-coming acts like Passion Pit (oh Passion Pit, you rock my socks like no other) and indie stalwarts like Les Savy Fav (a band I'm still punching myself in the face for missing/being to drunk to see at Capitol Hill Block Party) and The Hold Steady (a band I managed to catch, but, well, even that show is a little hazy).  To be honest, I've yet to dig in to their extensive stable of bands, but I'm excited as hell to get around to it. 

I can't say that I can really pinpoint their personality (enjoyers of quality music), but Frenchkiss has as sharp an ability to pick high quality, creative acts as about anyone.  If you're just coming out of your cave for the first time in twenty years, I'd recommend The Dodos first, and then a quick burst of Passion Pit and then a real sit down with their more established artists. 

:Passion Pit - Sleepy Head:

JAGJAGUWAR

I met Abe of Jagjaguwar at a SXSW event this year and was blown away when he told me that he was only one half of the publicity team for the entire SC/Dead Oceans/Jagjaguwar.  This ridiculously stacked, fairly immense stable of artists has only TWO people running their entire publicity campaign.  It's ridiculous.

Here's my reasoning behind it: since nearly every band on the three labels are brilliant, it must not even be work for them to get the media to fawn all over them, thus they only need two people just to like answer fan mail or something.  I could've picked any of these three labels to drool over publicly, but Jagjaguwar really has a sweet spot in my heart. 

And that sweet spot is called Black Mountain.  I've expressed my unbridled love for Black Mountain on many, many occasions, but the fact that one label can possess this brilliant stoner-rock foursome as well as Bon Iver, Okkervil River, Pink Mountaintops, The Besnard Lakes and, and fucking PARTS + LABOR is absolutely crazy.  Just take a second, look over those names, count off how many of those bands have made your end-of-the-year lists and then head over to Jagjaguwar's website and start riffling through their other acts, I promise you, you'll be pleasantly surprised.  Then, THEN when you've gorged yourself on amazing music, check out Secretly Canadian or Dead Oceans and realize that you could very easily drown, happily in the amount of brilliance this trio of indies are producing.  I honestly am a little hot and bothered just thinking about it myself.

:Parts And Labor - Little Ones:

- Noah Sanders -



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