Sunday, November 16, 2008

First off, let me thank the truly great proprietor of this site for his coverage of, ahem,  The 1^st Annual Light In The Attic Holiday Sale.  Sure, my claims of "millions of dollars" in discount may have been superficial hyperbole, but seriously there is some monster deals going on over there.  Alright, I’ll stop as I’m feeling more like a white-toothed car salesman than the sophisticated music writer I pretend to be.

I’ve been in a bit of musical burn out lately, unable to really muster any real motivation to search out or listen to anything that isn’t already squished in to my computer.  I can’t say why, it’s just something that happens when on a pretty regular basis your listening to two or three or four new albums, only a few of them really catching your attention.  For a period of time in college I was as the music director for a radio station and I spent pretty much every day slogging through a giant box of demos, rarely finding anything worth listening let alone not tossing off a cliff.  For almost a year after that debacle, and let me tell you it was certainly a debacle, I couldn’t focus on anything new.  This is like a smaller version of that.

Thus, please excuse my lack of effort and my inability to seek out anything that Pitchfork didn’t review this week. 

Onto the music!

School Of Seven Bells - Alpinism

I’m pretty opposed to The Secret Machines based on personal reasons, so I was wary of giving Benjamin Curtis’s new band School of Seven Bells much of a listen.  That said, I love the name School of Seven Bells, though I have no idea what it means.  Over the course of the last two months or so, I’ve thought about their name enough that it actually started blurring my memory of if I’d even heard the music, and if so if I actually liked it or not.

Well, I checked it out yesterday and was actually pleasantly surprised.  Sure, it’s really electro-hipster, what with the sort of electronic wall of sound and Alejandra Deheza’s flat-toned vocals, but there’s a sort of sincerity beneath the coldness that pushes it above the regular hipster crap.  There’s real emotion here and it draws you in more than one would think. 

Verdict:  I’m am so so shocked that I like this, but I do.  Seems like good music to walk alone at night to - not that I’ve done that or anything.

:School Of Seven Bells - Chain:

Reefer - Self Titled

Nick Thorburn of Unicorns and Islands fame, is a prolific man, already releasing two albums this year as Human Highway (an album I love) and as an emboldened Islands (an album I was sorely disappointed in) and has now released a third as Reefer, a collabo with iffy hip-hop producer Daddy Kev (Freestyle Fellowship, Awol-ONE, etc.).  I was excited for this based on how much I loved Human Highway, but this album, recorded over a month on Kauai is really, really disappointing.  There’s a few key tracks, the single May Baleen and the cover of Blue Moon but there’s also just a ton of directionless murk that I can’t get through.  I’ve listened to it a few too many times already, and each additional listen is pushing the album further away from my go-to pile.

Verdict: Maybe old Thorburn needs to cut back on making the albums and pump out another Human Highway album.

:Reefer - May Baleen:

Karl Blau - Nature's Got Away

I’ve been interested in Karl Blau for a while because of his affiliation with Olympia’s own K Records.  Good stuff has sporadically come out of the label over the years and looking at their recent signings, I’m more than excited to see what they’re bringing next.  Blau is hopefully indicative of what they’re looking towards next.  He’s a singer-songwriter but without all the crappy stereotypes that dog the title.  He’s interesting, extremely talented, and completely willing and able to venture off in to weirdville.  I’m already seeking his older stuff.

VERDICT: Great, if K Records keeps doing this I’ll have to forgive them for Kimya Dawson.

:Karl Blau - Ballad Of The Symbiotic Subterranean Species:

- Noah Sanders -



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