It s been a long, long wait for new material from the formerly Austin-based ambient duo Stars of the Lid. Their last full-length, 2001 s ambitious double-disc epic The Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid, from Pitchfork scribe Mark Richardson upon its release, and remains one of the most powerful and richly textured ambient releases this decade. Six years later, following two separate solo releases-- Adam Wiltzie s The Dead Texan in 2004, and Brian McBride s When the Detail Lost Its Freedom in 2005-- the duo are set to release another two-disc outing, Stars of the Lid and Their Refinement of the Decline on April 2 via Kranky.
We were beyond psyched to see that Kranky had made one track available through their offical website last Friday. At just under four minutes, that track, Apreludes (in C sharp major) , is one of the album s shortest. And while it begins with optimistic muted horns-- not unlike the ones that open Godspeed You Black Emperor s Lift Yr Skinny Fists-- the piece eventually turns darker, alternating between major and minor chords.
erotic potential, and took it out of the club and into the boudoir. Flexing his prowess with lush, quiet-storm sex jams, he re-envisioned Get Up as panoramic foreplay, deep with liquid synths and the ever-sexy ice-cream truck bell. Straight from the classic New Jack playbook, Polow pays homage to fellow Atlantans Silk, from which he open-shirted producer s swagger.
It s a slo-mo re-shoot that brings out the inherent breathiness of Ciara s singing voice, recasting her as a kind of dancefloor Marilyn Monroe. And while the lyrics are still about pop-locks, rag-tops and body-rocks, the emphasis is less on the that you was watchin me. Oooh, ahhh: Keith Sweat couldna said it better.
[Julianne Shepherd]
That remix isn t the only gift Ciara s Myspace page has to offer-- R. Kelly appears on a remix for Promise . The song doesn t undergo quite the same transformation as Get Up , but Kelly s clearly having a blast responding to Ciara s come-ons, even when his own fall flat.
I mean, who wants to be told they ll ...
scream like Michael Jackson? [Jessica Suarez] If we re going by the title, this should be a cover of Fast Car or Luka . Fortunately, it s not karaoke at all-- and that s good since these are the last guys you d probably want to hear down at Alice s on a Saturday night belting out Baby I m-a Want You .
Electro Karaoke in the Negative Style is, in fact, an updated and reworked version of one of Fujiya Miyagi s own earlier songs-- and this is the only place you can find it. Not that we ever find out what the title means: The vocals don t start until after a hair-thin buzz and tiny, graphing calculator keyboard riff carry you halfway through the track. No explanation, just the title line repeated a few times before the keyboard chords carries you to the end.
So I give up. What is electro karaoke in the negative style? Is it Tears In Heaven ?
It s Tears In Heaven . [Transparent Things (U.S.
) is out 1/23/07 on Deaf Dumb + Blind] | [ ] stylistic and artistic shift for Rjd2. in the fall, Rj s forthcoming third album has played down his hip-hop roots to explore a more pop sound, ditching the samples for live instrumentation. Or to put it in his own words, he s going rap free in 2006.
Well, it s 2007, and...
okay, Rjd2 hasn t completely turned his back on hip-hop; have crisp beats and retro-futuristic keyboards that connect the brighter, melodic tracks to his past work. Get It only reinforces that connection. Here, a electronic keyboard and organ flourishes.
Rj knows exactly when to back off the instrumentation and let each sound work alone, before dropping the hip-hop...
er, pop beat back in.
Norwegian sound manipulator Erik K. Skodvin, one half of the duo Deaf Center, whose 2005 Pale Ravine LP was wrought with macabre beauty.
But when left to his alone-time devices, he burrows into sparse, forboding ambient soundtracks, citing horror and mystery films, field recordings, churches, bones, and the moon, as influences. He s not bluffing: You hear them all on Knive, his excellent full-length debut for the prestigious Type label that s also responsible for similiarly fascinating projects by Xela, Khonnor, Goldmund, and Mountaineers. from the Knive recording sessions, suffers a bit from amputation.
Knive builds, contracts, and interlocks in gorgeous, subtle ways; Raggsokk dies just as you re expecting cello drone, crackling hum, or pipe organ to expand epiphany. But for first time listeners, this heaving, All That We Can See , the debut release from the promising Bay Area quartet Sholi, kicks off with moody, arpeggiated chords rippling downward while frenetic drums kick and sputter like the floor s giving way. It then pieces itself back together, only to slip apart once more.
Tumult, peace, tumult, peace; so it goes for Sholi.
Words enter between breaths in the midst of the percussive maelstrom, eventually coaxing the drums to settle on a discernible beat. But stasis in this song never lasts for long.
All soon dissolves into an initial moment of serenity pinioned by politely strummed acoustic guitar and traced by warm accordion. Give me golden/ Give me holy, chants vocalist Payam Bavafa, as if counting off the final seconds of his life.
And, indeed, unease storms in again, culminating in a desperate tremolo outburst.
Then, adrift one final time, accordion and strum guiding us gracefully toward quietude: All that we can see/ Exists in memory. A bit like the Microphones at their existential best, it s a six-minute journey that rattles the spirit and the psyche.
The album may have been out in Europe for nearly a year, blown up on blogs, and received a subsequent nod as at this very website, but as anyone repeatedly trekking to Stateside brick-and-mortar record stores can assure you, it is still not out in North America.
That, fortunately, is due to change February 6, when, , the Scandinavian indie pop trio finally brings it over the sea on their own label, Almost Gold, replete with a bonus disc of six non-album tracks-- and this, the single mix of Let s Call It Off , in place of the original album version. Of course, contrast this track with the heady, new-love joy of Young Folks , and the song s a bit of a downer: slower beat, deeper voices, and the complete opposite of the former s subject matter. Let s Call It Off , punched up here with cleaner production and sparklier reverb, is about that precise and specific moment when someone finally gets the sack.
Mistakes were made, or as PB J explain it: It just didn t sparkle, it just didn t grow. Putting aside the subject material, everything else here is gauzy and charming-- meandering little guitar lines put the ellipses at the end of each breakup line, each triplet of drums nudging the object of the song into agreement. [from Writer s Block (U.
S. Edition); due 2/06/07 on Almost Gold] | [ ]
On the feel-good scale, the Maryland-based gets a 10.0 every time.
We were introduced to these pint-sized rhyme-slingers and their mentor (high school teacher David Goldberg) last July when the fledgling crew on a jam called First Ladies Anthem .
Now these grammar schoolers are back with new rhymes, new samples, and a new two-part zinger called When We Were Kids . Boasting flow well beyond these kids years-- and, as before, indie savvy-- the tune samples the Motown-bred trumpet bounce of s A Sweet Summer s Night on Hammer Hill .
It s stuffed with hysterical verses-- including lines like I free people like Frederick Douglass/ I eat other rappers like some chicken nuggets -- and a damned catchy chorus, and if it doesn t make your heart grow three sizes today, you re probably dead and/or Donald Trump.
I don t have a locker cause I m not in middle school, and I m not cruel, but I rule, fool. Try to front on that, we dare you.
While you re here, swing on over to the Rapper s Delight Club s to hear another newish joint called Hum . This one sports a sample copped from what sounds like a children s TV show and includes the verse (we re not making this up): (She s a Jewish rapper)/ Come check out me/ (At the synagogue)/ Is where I ll be/..
.I ll light you up like I did my menorah. Despite climbing the charts in Ireland (and making a small dent in the BBC s), Bell X1 are pretty unknown here in the States.
Their original Flame single was released back in April of last year, but its b-side remix-- created by UK DJ crew Chicken Lips-- is a waaay better introduction to the band. Bell X1 singer Paul Noonan s vocals whisper give-ins more than come-ons, offering explanations for why he stopped fighting his attraction to the nameless, genderless subject of the song. I would dare to speak its name if I knew what it was called, he sighs, then shouts, and it s suddenly hard to believe that Noonan was Bell X1 s drummer before frontman Damien Rice (!
) left the band to pursue a full-time career in adult-contemporary schmaltz-pop. The remix preserves all the best parts of the original-- the huge chorus, Noonan s falsettoed accompaniment-- but it also gets a second act here: After the song fades away amid laser guns blasting, it comes roaring back with a hotter bassline brought forward and stronger drums. Ted Leo/Pharmacists have never been repped to the best of Pitchfork s abilities: 2001 s revered The Tyranny of Distance and 2003 s Hearts of Oak both pulled in mid-to-low 8 s when they were first reviewed-- and Hearts of Oak didn t even score Best New Music.
What in the hell! Granted, we did our best to right this injustice a couple years back with our Top 100 Albums of 2000-04: Hearts of Oak charted at #57, while The Tyranny of Distance rightly checked in at #31. And of course, we did bring dude on for last year s Pitchfork Music Festival, where he famously gave himself a head injury onstage.
So it s with great happiness we present to you the following: As most of you , Ted Leo and the Pharmacists fourth album, the Brendan Canty-produced Living With the Living, is due March 20. Well, today our pals at venerable Chicago institution Touch Go hooked us up with the exclusive premiere of its debut track, The Sons of Cain .
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