Stuff I’ve Been Listening To Luke Simcoe, OP Contributor Ee off, for those of you loyal readers (the few, the proud, the misguided), I’m sorry I missed you last week, but I’ve decided to turn Stuff I’ve Been Listening To into a bi-monthly shindig as opposed to a weekly ordeal. I found myself listening to things just to include them in the column, and it wasn’t a good thing. I was forced to make snap judgments about records, and the excitement of discovering (and rediscovering) music was starting to feel like a chore. Anyway, I’m back, refreshed, and good to go. Downloaded: Minus the Bear — /nterpretaciones Del Oso Hot Chip — The Warning Clap Your Hands Say Yeah — Some Loud Thunder Listened To: Winning — This Is an Ad for Cigarettes Headwound City — Self-Titled EP Minus the Bear — Jnterpretaciones Del Oso Ah, the remix album. I didn’t care when Death From Above 1979 did it, I didn’t like it when Bloc Party did it, and I wasn’t that excited when I heard that Minus the Bear was trying their hand at it. Here’s the rub: Menos del Oso was a technical feat full of delays, loops and digital effects, almost a remix album in and of itself. Therefore, a lot of the tracks on this second take sound too close to the original versions. Tyondai Braxton’s take on “Fulfill the Dream,” and the Dark Baby remix of “Hooray” are radically dance-worthy departures and the best songs on the record, but P.O.S.’ version of “Drilling,” and FOG’s remix of “Memphis and 53rd” sound like someone’s lazy AcidPro or Garageband experiment. There are some interesting interpretations of the Bear’s songs on this album, and it features contributions from an assortment of Seattle artists (including Jay Clark from Pretty Girls Make Graves, and Morgan Henderson from The Blood Brothers), but it’s only worth having if you’re a die-hard fan like myself. Hot Chip — The Warning Yeah, yeah, Hot Chip is so 2006. I don’t care, and at the risk of making a terrible pun based on The Warning’s standout "VE GOT JOBS WAITING... Access the employment grapevine for Vancouver’s best Food & Beverage opportunities: JOBSWAITING.COM track, I have to say that I’ve been listening to this record “over and over and over and over, like a monkey with a miniature cymbal.” For me, England’s Hot Chip comes off as the bastard child of MSTRKRFT and Broken Social Scene (perhaps the whole Canadian vibe is what makes me feel so at home with this record). The Warning topped almost everyone’s best-of lists for 2006 (Except for me because I hadn’t really listened to it yet) and Hot Chip reign supreme whether they’re crafting electronic jams (“Careful”), sample- based jingles (the aforementioned “Over and Over”), or techno-tinged, introspective ballads (“And I Was a Boy From School”). Clap Your Hands Say Yeah — Some Loud Thunder After their curious supersonic flight into indie-rock stardom, which was almost immediately followed by a blogger- driven backlash, the world has been waiting with baited breath to see what CYHSY would do next. This is just one man’s opinion, but after listening to Some Loud Thunder, it seems as if all that baited breath was for nothing. The album is incredibly underwhelming (Note to Sloan: according to the dictionary, that IS a word. I know because I looked it up.). The songs are a touch too slow, and Alec Ounsworth’s love-it-or-hate-it voice seems restrained. With the exception of “Satan Said Dance,” a largely instrumental number, the album drags a meandering path over its 47 minutes and reminds me more of their bland live show than their exciting debut record. Content aside, CYHSY gets props for sticking with the DIY ethic when they clearly didn’t have to. Still, I can’t help but wonder if a little outside influence might have been a good thing. Winning — This Is an Ad for Cigarettes I actually BOUGHT this record, which says a lot about my respect for Winning’s frontman, Andy Dixon (d.b.s., The Red Light Sting, The Epidemic, Secret Mommy). In fact, I was happy to shell out for This Is an Ad for Cigarettes; it’s both local and independent. Anyway, I was all praise for Dixon’s simultaneously released Secret Mommy record, Plays, but I’m a bit more apprehensive about a wholesale endorsement of Winning. At best, this record sounds like a catchy, yet syncopated reminder of what punk rock should really be. At worst, it sounds like two guitars and a drum kit struggling to stay in tune and find a tempo. I’ll always applaud Dixon’s attempts to destroy the boundaries between art and music, but was it really necessary to discard every shred of pop sensibility in the pursuit of that goal? Headwound City — Self-Titled EP Jordan Blilie and Cody Votalato of the Blood Brothers. Check. Gabe Serbian and Justin Pearson of The Locust. Check. Nick Zinner of The Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Check. A noise rock fan’s wet dream. Check. Headwound City’s debut EP is only about ten minutes long (and that’s including the 40 seconds of chainsaw guitar fuzz that introduces the first track), but listening to the record is the sonic equivalent of running the gauntlet for ten minutes while spectators throw salt on your open wounds. I mean this in a good way: Blilie attacks the mic with all the fury, but none of the sass that he brings to The Blood Brothers, Serbian wreaks percussive havoc with his machine-gun drumming, and Nick Zinner shines like he did on “Fever to Tell,” but at about twice as many beats-per-minute. It doesn’t matter whether he’s picking atmospheric staccato, or shredding squalling riffage, Zinner’s a virtuoso. Sure, it’s a side project, but Headwound City comes through with a noise-rock album that actually sounds like noise- ROCK, and not just noise. If that’s not enough, some of the songs clock in at under a minute, and one of the tracks is titled “I’m a Taxidermist, I'll Stuff Anything.” Go download the record and lay waste to your bedroom. I’ll see you in two weeks. Pg 11