si emia ee aie NT Te Ee a ee TT ar ae SLE SS IE LT 2 aE a OT EE LT YN IE PN a > Sy acme entire re February 19, 2003 Culture 10. Gogogo Airheart: Exitheuxa, Gold Standard Laboratories While the photos on San Diego-based Gogogo Airheart’s latest album really say http://otherpress.douglas.bc.ca o.. opener “Small Stakes” sets the min- (> Alufen: My Way, Force Inc. _ With its vibrant club scene and the inter- _ while lyrics like “small stakes ensure you imalist tone for the rest of the albu the minimum blues / but you don't feel nothing about the music contained wi in, they make perfect sense once you li to it. They’re hazy, timeless, vaguel turbing and apocalyptic. The pho sunny suburbia on the back has a cially “just before the bomb hit” As they veer recklessly form genre with the only consistent eleme Michael Vermillion’s thoroughly tent voice, the band’s mature son talent and the aforementioned mood somehow hold everything ta When the Sonic Youth death-ra “Good Things” leads into the tv dub-reggae of “Witch Hunt,” nothing seems out of place. Art punk for kids were diagnosed with ADD but were rea just bored with humanity. 9. Black Dice: Beaches and Canyons, DFA If the term “psychedelia” makes you think of hippies picking flowers and hour-long guitar jams, you need to hear “Beaches and Canyons.” Black Dice have been building notoriety in the New York hard- core scene through shows characterized by extreme volume and the possibility of physical violence toward one another and the audience. The most shocking thing they could’ve done is release this relatively tranquil album of epic psychedelic jams and samples of water lapping at the seashore. Not to say that much of the bombast and insanity isn’t still intact, just that it’s being delivered in a much more expansive and emotionally resonant form. Now all the punks can enjoy this musical rule-breaker, and sleep easy with the knowledge that if Black Dice ever jammed with Phish, somebody would probably end up dead. 8. Iron and Wine: The Creek Drank the Cradle, Sub Pop Calling Iron and Wine country is a little misleading. I'd much sooner recommend Same Beam’s rootsy songs to Elliott Smith and Nick Drake fans than anyone who owns a cowboy hat or belt-buckle for non- ironic reasons, but they really do sound like they were written on a back porch amidst muggy evening air. This relaxed pace gives ample space for Beam’s lush vocal harmonies and intricate guitar work to unfold, while his lyrics utilize rustic Americana to deal with lost, lost faith, and personal failures, and yet never resorts to finger-pointing or self pity. When Beam steps out of the faded photographs to deal with modern issues, he drops gems like “we gladly run in circles/but the shape we nationally respected Mutek festival, Montreal American hub for experimental ¢ has become the anifesto, all of rom the radio, mnouncers, the mbiance, the party really gets with the song of the year (with clos ealous Lover” and Missy Elliott , “Deck the House,” whict vocabbits and guitar samples int nitely catchy and danceable m The bottortmef my jaw’s still from hitting 1 oor the heard it. © —— 6. Sonic Youth: Murray Street, Geffen New York’s Murray Street is notable both as where Sonic Youth’s recording studio resides and where an airplane engine land- ed on September 11th, 2001. New mem- ber, producer, and all around musical Renaissance man Jim O’Rourke was in the studio at the time and had to flee to escape the massive dust cloud when the buildings collapsed. What. affect this all had when they went back, cleared out the dust, and recorded this album would only be speculation, but the fact is that, for a band many had written off, this album surpasses most of their 90s output, hint- ing at the glory days of “Sister” and “Daydream Nation.” My guess is O’Rourke’s influence had a lot to do with it. He’s also released an album of 70s rock- tinged chamber pop called “Insignificance,” a collection of live laptop improvisations called “I’m Happy and I’m Singing and a 1,2,3,4,” and collaborated with Christian Fennesz and Peter Rehberg on the massive “Return of FennO’Berg.” Oh yeah, and it’s all brilliant. 5. Spoon: Kill the Moonlight, Merge As good as “Girls Can Tell” and the pre- ceding “A Series of Sneaks” were, they were both inconsistent albums that never quite rose above their influences, the Pixies and Elvis Costello being the most cited. With “Kill the Moonlight,” Britt Daniels and crew have filled the album with single-worthy, idiosyncratic songs. taken and you don't feel abused” hint both _ly catchy, w Akufen. As Spoon’s major label past and indie it’s songwriting prore h that are boul of saying a lot seem to. And, li ' Tr just well enough to raise a seething mass of negativity that destroys conventional ideas about song structure and ends with 25 minutes of looped dis- sonance. Being told “fuck you” never sounded so good. 3. Out Hud: STREET. D.A.D., Kranky As someone who listens to a lot of music, it gets way too easy to write off new music by saying what it sounds like. If you've ever heard anyone call a band “the re- incarnation of Joy Division” or say “the Velvet Underground did this a lot better,” you have to realize it’s partially their opin- ion and partially their sad little way of showing off. With Out Hud, the best I can come up with is “the guitars are kind of like U2.” This is music without prece- dent. Featuring members of funk-punk giants, Out Hud combines tribal drum machine beats, delayed guitars, emotive basslines, fractures electronics, soothing washes of white noise, cooing strings, ringing synths, and any number of other sounds into massive dance compositions that constantly shift and morph, often with beautiful results. “Dad There's A Little Phrase Called Too Much Information” is a brooding epic cut through with shards of noise and acid house melodies, while “The L Train Is A Swell Train And I Don't Want To Hear Any Of You Indies Complain” somehow sustains 12 minutes of supremely funky instrumental bliss that not only doesn’t get d but, they're probably developing bette - Jux who stands at the forefront. He the other press boring but actually makes you wish i could go on forever, if, of course, it weren’ or its gorgeous ending. And this is material as I write. If there’s any justice i orld, these guys and gals will bq Fantastic Damage, Def Jux dary as EI-P’s work with abstrac pioneers Company Flow is, it: ig he’s done since splitting wit that he'll truly be remembered label he’s built, e Jux after a lawsuit from De shame Russell Simmins, have yo vever heard of homage?) is who’s who o novative hip-hop, with a stable of Jukie cluding Cannibal Ox, Aesop Roc 2, and Mr. Lif, and a track record fo release that’s flawless thus far. Still, it’ renamed taken the “damaged yet epic” aesthetic o his production to an even higher leve starting the album with bangers lik “Deep Space 9mm” and “Truancy” befor taking a harrowing journey through Vietnam and an Orwellian vision of th future. He proves he’s a bigger man thay most MCs by opening up emotionally of “Stepfather Factory,” which manages tq revisit his problematic childhood whil brilliantly satirizing corporate irresponsi bility and modern fatherhood, and th Shakespeare-referencing “TOJ,” a medita tion on lost love that still sends shivers u my spine. Of course, he follows the latte with the alternately hilarious and disgust ing sex rap “Dr. Hell No and the Prayin Mantis.” This is an album that’s been criq icized for being “relentlessly masculine, which is probably valid, but some meg sages are wasted preaching to the converq ed. As El rhymes on “Constellatio Funk,” “This is for the single maternal fig ures beaten to the floor/who crawled bac to their children and stood up fa more/and watched those same kids adults/with bullshit vinyl cuts, calli women whores.” 1. Wilco: Yankee Nonesuch “Band records most experimental albu which ends with departure of key membg Jay Bennett and addition of genius mix¢ Jim O’Rourke. Band’s label refuses release ‘commercially unviable’ albu Band buys album from label and strea it for free on the Internet. Different sul sidiary of same label buys albums fro band and releases it. In testament to eff ciency of free market economies and co porate concentration, culture-sucki monolith AOL-Time-Warner pays twi¢ for same album.” That’s the condense Hotel Foxtro © page 10