1998: Squarepusher - Music Is Rotted One Note
I’ll say it up front: I’m not a big fan of Squarepusher these days. He churns out soulless drivel on record and comes across as an arrogant show-off at live shows. I used to like him though, a lot. I used to think the sun shined out his arse, and I awaited each new release with fervor, eagerly anticipating another freaky chunk of drill ‘n’ funky bass written by someone who could actually, you know, ‘write’ music. So when Music Is Rotted One Note dropped in ’98, I immediately snapped it up, ready to dance myself spastic as soon as I got back home to my stereo. But I didn’t dance that day; I just got kind of weirded out, and then, after a few listens, finally became impressed.
At the age of 23, Tom Jenkinson took it upon himself to go explore new territory. Not content with being different from the norm, he ventured to be different from his norm. Gone were the ultra-precise breakneck beats and acid overtones of Hard Normal Daddy et al., replaced by live and loose drums and alien cassette atmospherics. It was a departure that threw many fans sideways, myself included. There are no rave-ups on the album, and the only overtly computer-based sounds appear on the bridge of the spacecraft you teleport to in track four, “Curve 1.” It’s an odyssey, this whole thing.
Starting the album with a little idle chatter, you’re placed in a very real room with a very real mic; then, as if by some error of space and time, the music starts and you’re swept away in Squarepusher's approximation of fusion. It’s pleasant enough and not wholly unfamiliar for a ‘pusher fan, but over the next couple of tracks the sound seems to separate -- elements move apart and space opens up between them all. It becomes almost slack and very sci-fi.
From there, the album plays like a series of landings and takeoffs, scenes of investigations and the flights between them, exploring an outer nebula, alien voices; it is humorous, ridiculous even, then it's suddenly dark as the deepest depths of a black hole. And stuck in the middle of this is the sublime “My Sound,” the soundtrack of contentment, the raison d’etre of this whole wild trip.
Yes, the debt to Live Evil-era Miles Davis is evident, but the Squarepusher style is in the foreground, with his mastery of sampling and production shown in a whole new light, divorced from the tightly programmed beats of before. This is Squarepusher with room to breathe; Tom Jenkinson the man, not the machine. Sure, there’s tracks that fail to impress, but on an album so full of experiments it’s surprising how little is throwaway or disappointing.
Music Is Rotted One Note is the sound of a talented young musician pushing himself to try new things, and the discoveries he made fused with his previous ravings and informed everything he did from then on. But the jazz elements in his recent work have been cleaned up, sterilized, and made coffee-shop at times, while arid virtuosity abounds. It was on Music Is Rotted One Note that he really went exploring, and it yielded some of the finest results of his career -- some of the most impervious to the ravages of retrospect.
1. Chunk-S
2. Don't Go Plastic
3. Dust Switch
4. Curve 1
5. 137 (Rinse)
6. Parallelogram Bin
7. Circular Flexing
8. Ill Descent
9. My Sound
10. Drunken Style
11. Theme From Vertical Hold
12. Ruin
13. Shin Triad
14. Step 1
15. Last Ap Roach
Sunny Day Real Estate - LP2
Fourteen years removed, it's hard to imagine the cloud of mystery that surrounded Sunny Day Real Estate following their breakup. Their debut album Diary, a surreal and propulsive work, sounded fresh: raging enough to attract the ears of hardcore and punk fans, but subtle enough to earn an Alternative Press comparison to Steely Dan. Jeremy Enigk’s distinctive vocals moved from subtle beckoning to impassioned screams, and the music contained dynamics to match. But Diary had barely settled when breakup rumors began circulating, partly fueled by Enigk’s embrace of Christianity. Remember, this was a time before the internet became ground zero for music news; rumors spread by chain and appeared in zines. It seemed surreal, but it also made the appearance of a second Sunny Day Real Estate album seem practically miraculous.
In the fall of 1995, I was a freshman in college and had a dedicated internet connection for the first time. I came upon a website that had brief live clips of songs that would appear on LP2, fragments of interviews with Enigk, and news of the band members’ various guest appearances. It had me captivated; these clips sounded nothing like Diary, suggesting a band demolishing the demarcations of their style. So the day LP2 was first released, I purchased a copy, withdrew the CD case from plastic wrap, opened it up, and was promptly baffled: the packaging was so minimal as to be surreal -- song titles, music credits, and a photograph of a fly were all that was inside. Compared to the detailed artwork and lyrics of Diary, this was unexpected. And given the music that I was about to hear, the lack of printed lyrics felt even more significant.
On paper, LP2 may look similar to Diary: both traffic in abundant loud/quiet/loud dynamics, both push Enigk’s voice from calm to anguished, both end on notes of release. But LP2 is ultimately a much more challenging record. Songs end abruptly and structures shift unrelentingly, the familiar yanked away for tempo and stylistic changes that defy expectation. (“J’Nuh” in particular embodies the latter quality.) Most significantly, Enigk’s vocals are almost impenetrable: it isn’t until “5/4,” the album’s fourth song, when the majority of his lyrics can be discerned. And it’s probably no coincidence that, of the songs on LP2, this track most directly addresses his faith.
The album builds haltingly across its nine tracks, and by the time we reach the midway point, it has drained us, exhausted us. The band seems divided between building on the style of Diary and imploding it. When “8” hits, with Enigk crooning something about a “rain song” before the guitars kick in, it’s a necessary catharsis. Enigk’s voice roars, and the guitars roar right back, each element pushing the other to a greater intensity. (It should also be mentioned that “8” appeared on the Batman Forever soundtrack prior to LP2, giving mid-90s emo kids reason to pour over the film for any trace of its appearance.)
The pair of songs that close the original version of LP2 showcase the strength and potential contained in this version of Sunny Day Real Estate. “J’Nuh” opens in serpentine fashion, lurching forward and leaping back, its structure threatening to collapse on itself. Halfway through the song, a clear guitar line emerges atop a steady drumbeat, which is then followed by a dizzying thread of vocals. The rhythm section of Nate Mendel and William Goldsmith is equally precise here. If “8” represents the template that many Sunny Day Real Estate acolytes ran with, these sinewy, mysterious breaks represent an aspect of their sound that few chose to emulate -- something equally cathartic but far more satisfying. And while the slow-build-towards-explosion structure of “Rodeo Jones” might seem similar to “8,” it unexpectedly shifts gears as it approaches its conclusion in a crashing, brutal collapse.
The two songs added to the end of this 2009 reissue, “Spade and Parade” and “Bucket of Chicken,” sound like dry runs for the more expansive (yet ultimately less challenging) style heard on 1998’s How It Feels to Be Something On. Enigk’s vocals are also more moderate in their dynamics. What had been screams are now low rumbles, reflecting the gravitas of a band who’s seen a style they helped establish become a touchstone. These tracks aside, LP2 is still more erratic than Diary and lacks the stylistic expanse of How It Feels, but it may be the group’s most rewarding album -- a fluid demonstration of the permutations of one band’s style.
1. Friday
2. Theo B
3. Red Elephant
4. 5/4
5. Waffle
6. 8
7. Iscarabaid
8. J’Nuh
9. Rodeo Jones
10. Spade and Parade
11. Bucket of Chicken
Sharks Keep Moving - Desert Strings and Drifters [EP]
In 1998, a Seattle band led by singer-guitarist Jake Snider released their debut EP. In 2001, another Seattle band led by singer-guitarist Jake Snider did the same. The second of those groups was Minus the Bear, who have gone on to tour internationally, released three albums (with a fourth on the way), and have been remixed by the likes Tyondai Braxton, Fog, and members of dälek. It’s not hard to understand why: at their best, Minus the Bear write terrific, punchy pop songs, enlivened by Snider’s relaxed lyrics and J. Robbins-esque everyman delivery. Yet the band we’re here to discuss are Minus the Bear’s predecessors, a group called Sharks Keep Moving, whose discography encompasses less than 20 songs and who made fascinating rock music out of unlikely elements.
The first notes of “Try to Sleep,” which opens their 1998 EP Desert Strings and Drifters, are languorous, more concerned with setting a mood than with a payoff of released tension. But that payoff does eventually come. The first words heard are “Rolled off to my side of the bed/ Slightly cold and only slightly tired.” It’s a malaise, but a different sort of malaise than many a post-collegiate post-punk anthem traded in -- one closer in tone to The Wrens’ The Meadowlands than Braid’s Frame and Canvas.
Applying the “post-rock” label to this EP isn’t entirely accurate, but like the jazz-influenced direction Karate was adopting at a similar time, Desert Strings and Drifters represents a way to channel the tensions of both punk and post-hardcore and push them in different directions. The looping “Arizona,” with its refrain of “Call this a landscape? Man, any other state” and Stephanie Goldade’s steady viola, takes things into Dirty Three territory. It is quiet resignation rendered across a wide screen, and when it does reach a conclusion, the listener is left exhausted, an emotional mirror of the trying times and draining conversations implied by these four songs.
Their history was brief: Desert Strings and Drifters followed a split 7-inch with the noise-punk band Kentucky Pistol. It, in turn, would be followed by a self-titled full-length and a final EP titled Pause and Clause. Meanwhile, Sharks Keep Moving, their only full-length, featured a subtle shift in songwriting, with four twisting instrumentals and four stark, moody rock songs. Indeed, each of the band’s releases has its own particular character, but Desert Strings and Drifters’ combination of lush textures, embittered ennui, and musical tensions continues to haunt a decade later.
1. Try to Sleep
2. Cashmere, Washington
3. All Out Of...
4. Arizona
Plagal Grind - Plagal Grind [EP]
As listeners in the MP3 age, we crave an initial frame of reference. We pride ourselves on being in the know. The kaleidoscopic diffusion of information that typifies our modern world can indeed be an important and useful tool; paradoxically, though, it often serves as an inadvertent but powerful foil to our innate human desire for discovery and wonder. In terms of music, we are so used to having some sort of idea about what a band or an album should sound like that we forget how miraculous it is to stumble upon something new, something untarnished. Such discovery becomes a truly exciting, if disorienting, experience. In the case of the remarkable self-titled EP from New Zealand noise-rockers Plagal Grind, it is a wholly welcome one.
Plagal Grind is not new in a chronological sense, but it was new to me, and it's probably new to you. It was released as a limited 12-inch EP in 1990, and -- well, that's it. It was due only to happenstance (more specifically, a brief blog mention and a friend's subsequent insistence that I take a listen) that I first heard these tunes myself. I mention all this not to try to prove my indie mettle, but to provide some context for those interested; also, simply to marvel at how something so minor and obscure can be so damn good. Fronting this group of mad Kiwi scientists was Alastair Galbraith, a name you may be more familiar with if you run in certain noise and experimental circles -- Galbraith was a founding member of several groups, including this one, before embarking upon a prolific and well-documented solo career. However, having come across Plagal Grind with little-to-no knowledge of the guy's later work, I remain weirdly hesitant to give that stuff a go; I suppose I fear crushing disappointment when nothing stacks up to this monumental EP.
The first track, "Vincent," roars quickly to life like some kind of decrepit shoegazey anthem, and it's dark: with Galbraith's vaguely-accented voice cloaked in mumbles and buried in the mix, it's damn near impossible to tell what the hell he's is singing about, but one might reasonably suppose it's something odd and altogether untoward. The song is affecting on a strange level and over before you know it -- of the seven songs on Plagal Grind, only two (barely) cross over the four-minute mark. Its brevity both enhances its mystery and belies its greatness. "Midnight Blue Vision" finds the band changing gears completely -- instead of MBV-style wash, we get a This Heat-esque dirge, complete with warbling, reversed tape loops and lumbering, minimalist death march percussion. This time, Galbraith's lyrics are decipherable, but no less ambiguous: "Mirror expanding, midnight blue vision/ Fingers entwining, you made me shiver/ All I remember is falling," he intones, a bizarre nightmare -- or, perhaps, a wonderful dream -- given new and terrifying life in song.
That track proves anomalous to the rest of the album, though, and over the next five tracks, Plagal Grind lets it fucking rip. The songs sound thick and oozing, like they might contain 20 guitar tracks each, and perhaps they do. It's not quite heavy, but dense, reaching its greatest potential at maximum volume (don't most things?), at once caterwauling yet somehow perfectly harmonious. Like the album's opener, the brief, churning "Yes Jazz Cactus" shifts tempos and textures effortlessly; "Marquesite Lace," in turn, plods along drunkenly at a psychotic snail's pace. All this expansive clamor builds methodically to the album's brilliant, breathtaking closer. "Blackout" is a luxurious, sprawling instrumental in the vein of the title track from Eno's Here Come the Warm Jets. Not only does it call to mind the dreamy, looping catatonia of that song, it nearly improves upon it -- as grand finales go, I've always thought of "Jets" as among the best, but "Blackout" dominates.
Put bluntly, I urge any and everyone to seek out and soak up this music: Plagal Grind is a fine and lasting recording. For as much as its guitar-centric, bass-heavy sound superficially reflects its early-90s-era conception, it is equally and absolutely timeless. Like all the best records before and after it, this EP sounds like nothing and everything you know, like years and years of pop music precariously compressed together, blown all to bits, then reassembled again into one singular, seismic recording. It is stunning; it is its own.
1. Vincent
2. Midnight Blue Vision
3. Receivership
4. Yes Jazz Cactus
5. Marquesite Lace
6. Starless Road
7. Blackout
Neil Diamond - The Feel of Neil Diamond
In the realm of pop music, “adult contemporary” is perhaps the only genre more damning than “dad rock.” And Neil Diamond, the man who claims to have given up his dream to cure cancer for the chance to earn $50 a week writing pop songs, is, for better or for worse, one of the most iconic adult contemporary artists in history. Moms love him. Muzak composers love him. The rest of us? Well, we mostly just blame him for The Monkees.
But then there’s the matter of his debut album, a little-known pop gem called The Feel of Neil Diamond. And for the love of all that is critically acclaimed, I must admit that if I could give an entire album five stars based on one song alone, I would award it to The Feel of Neil for opening track and debut single “Solitary Man,” one of the most perfectly anthemic and inspiring songs about being a loner ever written. Crooked Fingers covered it. Johnny Cash covered it. Those two know good songwriting and reclusive tendencies better than most I can recall. To quote Reading Rainbow: Don’t take my word for it.
Unfortunately, what happens after "Solitary Man" is a bit more hit-or-miss.
Songs like “Cherry, Cherry” and “New Orleans,” and a performance of The Cyrkle’s hit “Red Rubber Ball” are the kind of perfectly white-washed classic pop tunes that make Wes Anderson soundtracks so completely infectious. But the equally whitewashed version of “La Bamba” and the admittably “mom rock” strains of “Someday Baby”? Well, they give us the feel for the Neil Diamond that would haunt easy listening radio frequencies for decades to come: inoffensive and unfortunately generic, detracting from some otherwise compelling pop songwriting to an entirely unforgivable degree.
And therein lies the conundrum of The Feel of Neil Diamond. While Neil’s not, and probably has never been, cool, his debut had hints of pop songwriting chops that even the most die-hard cynics should have a hard time denying. But like so many debut albums before and after, it is, more often than not, how you choose to follow up that cements your legacy. And Neil went adult contemporary. Good for moms and muzak. Bad for the rest of us. But at least we’ll always have “Solitary Man.”
1. Solitary Man
2. Red Rubber Ball
3. La Bamba
4. Do It
5. Hanky Panky
6. Monday, Monday
7. New Orleans
8. Someday Baby
9. I Got The Feelin’, Oh No, No
10. I’ll Come Running
11. Love to Love
12. Cherry, Cherry
Brainiac - Hissing Prigs in Static Couture
Hailing from the mythical land of Dayton, Ohio, Brainiac were produced by Kim Deal, Steve Albini, and Eli Janney (of Girls Against Boys) and opened for Beck, The Jesus Lizard, and The Breeders, among others. From 1992 to 1997, they spit vitriol into the vast ocean of post-grunge bile, creating a discography that stands eternally poised at the nexus of the 90s, both temporally and aesthetically. There was a lot of space to explore in the void between Nirvana and the new millennium, and Brainiac's body of work suggests a lateral detour that has yet to be pursued to its end. Hissing Prigs in Static Couture (a.k.a. H1551ng Pr1g5 in Stat1c Coutur3) was their final LP and penultimate release due to the unexpected death of lead singer Tim Taylor.
However embroiled the band may have been in their particular cultural climate, they never shared their generational aversion to unabashed flamboyance. After a blurry warm-up track, "Pu55yfoot1n'" cuts loose like a cartoon boogie band riffing on The Sonics' classic nugget "The Witch." Taylor's strutting, flippant falsetto doesn't belong to any frontman lineage known to this writer; Roger Rabbit's half-brained mania is the unlikely analogue that comes to mind. Other voices that possess Taylor on "Pu55yfootin" and throughout Hissing Prigs include a vaguely German guttural, a top-shelf grunge groan, and a rapey Reznor whisper. Irreverent, snide, insane? Yes to all. And before you can fish your monocle out of your martini -- incoming -- "Vincent Come on Down" swoops in like a misfiring altbot, the guitar, bass, drums, and moog in disciplined discord. The production is thoroughly post-grunge, but structurally and performance-wise, the song outdoes neo-garage bands like The Hives at their own game before they even thought they had invented it. Taylor's voices talk over, under, and around each other like a sonic CAT scan of a late 20th century schizoid man. And Hissing Prigs keeps this violent pace for 13 tracks and 35 minutes, slowing only for a few short experimental tracks that act as atmospheric stabilizers.
Album closer "1 Am a Crack3d Machine" is heavy enough for the stadium, a tune that starts low and only accelerates lower, forcing the willing listener face down into the muck to taste pure, absolving shit. By the time Taylor delivers the couplet "Muhowwwwowwohoh!/ The first time I forced myself to be real!" as if he were Kurt eyeing his collection of shotguns, the listener knows that the band is unequivocally a well-oiled, structurally sound rawk machine. Just what it is they are crack3d over about remains conspicuously unclear. It's to their credit that they subscribe to the Albini method of production -- guitar up, vox down -- because, when intelligible, the lyrics are largely inane. Here's the military chant that occurs two-thirds of the way through "V1ncent Com3 on Down": "Two four six eight/ Tell me who I'm supposed to hate/ Get with the two step/ Tell me it's a two-step process." Indeed, what are these post-collegiate midwesterners directing their anger at exactly? The Digital Age? Jocks? The System? The answer Hissing Prigs gives is that they're smart alecks, indiscriminately rebelling against whatever they want to, and doing it with intense rock ‘n’ roll precision. Score one for Brainiac. Still, a dialogue from the Simpsons Homerpalooza episode surfaces in my mind: "Are you being ironic?" "I don't even know anymore."
"K1ss Me U Jacked Up J3rk" is a litmus test for listeners who haven't a stomach for the sillier side of alternative. It finds Taylor exploring the inherent humor of the Spanish language, pronouncing "chihuahua-huahua-huahua" like Sancho Panza at Taco Bell. It's bothersome not because it's offensive, but because it's insipidness is so at odds with the musical messages being sent out. It's hard as a listener to give a record the proper love it needs when its makers feel that rock is but a joke. Yet, the band's talents are such that after a labyrinthine series of choruses and sub-choruses, you know the song is about more than a Zorro-themed porno, even if they say otherwise.
The early-to-mid-90s explosion in underground rock culture gave birth to countless forgettable acts, whose dull malaise was as often summed up by grainy black and white cover art of things that were inordinately hairy. Not this one. Everything about Brainiac is provocative -- from Taylor, to their synthetic blips and screeches, to their inventive spelling and bizarro imagination. However, the broadly facetious tone resounding throughout Hissing Prigs never fully congeals with its spirit of 95 sound. Their final release, the Electro-Shock for President EP, resolves this tension by abandoning guitars entirely for electronic instrumentation. Hissing Prigs, however, is the more endearing release, precisely because it is less consistent and frankly because it rocks. It would come as no great shock if the bands forming today with that gen-x guitar sound start finding something endearing and instructive in this strange, singular band.
1. 1nd1an Poker (Part 3)
2. Pu55yfoot1n'
3. V1nc3nt Come on Down
4. Th1s L1ttle P1ggy
5. Strun6
6. Hot 53at Can't 5it Down
7. Th3 Vul6ar Trad3
8. B33k33per's Maxim
9. K1ss Me, U Jacked Up J3rk
10. 70 K9 Man
11. 1nd1an Pok3r (Part 2)
12. Nothing 3v3r changes
13. 1 am a Cracked Machin3
