Pop 'stache

Animal Collective has clown shoes to fill following 2009′s stellar Merriweather Post Pavilion on their ninth proper album, Centipede Hz.  The Collective: Avey Tare (David Portner), Panda Bear (Noah Lennox) and Geologist (Brian Weitz) are rejoined by fourth founding member Deakin (Josh Dibb) completing the original roster.  Centipede Hz also finds the quartet back in the studio to record as opposed to trading emails for the first time in over five years, revamping their Strawberry Jam-era instrumentation.

AC’s expanding oeuvre has toured lo-fi psychedelia to cacophonous tribal rights jams, from frenzied folk to gleaming pop hooks.  At a first listen Centipede Hz sounds infinitely more convoluted, confused and complex than their most recent work despite the fact that they worked once again with Merriweather Post Pavilion producer Ben Allen.  With the possible exception of “Applesauce,” no song on the album even remotely resembles the pop glisten of MPP.  With its trippy, sampled segues the album plays like a faulty iTrip set to a cosmic FM frequency.  A few more listens and one discovers that the majority of the tracks are more-or-less orthodox pop/rock songs that are obscured with sometimes clever and sometimes distracting harmonic tugs-of-war.

Those tracks that succeed shoot brightly in multiple directions like fiber optics.  The busy opener “Moonjock” and “Today’s Supernatural”’s meandering bursts fuse five or more song’s worth of hooks like an atom smasher, the latter exhibiting some of Tare’s most powerful vocals to date.  The album’s closer “Amanita” is an absolute spectacle with its colorful mish-mash of noise, Japanese pop and indie rock.

The weaker tracks on the album smother monotonous loops with garish effects.  “Monkey Riches” is weighed down by its heavy effects and Tare’s harsh refrains are enough to make one scream.  The clunky, percussive “New Town Burnout” accomplishes precious little in six minutes.  At the album’s core, Josh Dibb has his lead vocal debut on “Wide Eyed.”  He sings, “I find that I am less overwhelmed with change. / Change all the time,” reinforcing AC’s admirable philosophy with regard to songwriting, but the song itself is forgettable.

After the critically praised and indie pop crossover explosion that was Merriweather Post Pavilion, Animal Collective has found themselves a hipster litmus test of sorts.  There are at least two types of fans, but most notable are the former fan turned AC antagonist and, to borrow a term from Teenage Fanclub, the bandwagonesque fan.  The former, butt of the unfortunately popular “hipster jokes,” will piss and moan to musical peers about how the band was getting a little too syrupy in 2004 with the scatterbrained pop of Sung Tongs but MPP was clearly designed as an opiate of the pop/rock masses – and who remembers Spirit They’re Gone and Here Comes the Indian??  The bandwagonesque fan replies lackadaisically, “Who cares?  I like what I like and this is catchy.”

Animal Collective is not immune to the critical muck-raking that befalls any band who was “cooler” before they gained popularity (do not read “sold out,” but rather contextualize it for those particularly myopic hipsters) and although Centipede Hz has its clear faults, it accomplishes two important objectives by adhering to their ever-changing sound credo – it ought to challenge those more recent fans, encouraging them to visit AC’s back catalog and maybe, just maybe have those bitter, former fans second-guessing their hasty write-offs.

Animal Collective – Centipede Hz tracklist:

1. “Moonjock”
2. “Today’s Supernatural”
3. “Rosie Oh”
4. “Applesauce”
5. “Wide Eyed”
6. “Father Time”
7. “New Town Burnout”
8. “Monkey Riches”
9. “Mercury Man”
10. “Pulleys”
11. “Amanita”

Come of Age is a highly anticipated album of 2012. In addition to that pressure it’s not an easy time for The Vaccines to be a rock band. This is their sophomore album, which everyone knows is your hardest. You have your entire life to collect stories and songs to write your first album and then are put in an awkward position to “wait” and work on a sophomore release or trudge through it and release a second one in a year. Imagine what Passion Pit’s second LP would be like if it had only a year to ferment. There seems to be no proper way to do your second album without 1) pissing some fans off, 2) pissing all the fans off, 3) polarizing the fans into two groups of people who think they “sold out”/”should stick to their old sound” and people who think they should “let the band go in their new direction.” The Vaccines chose to tackle it head first.

The album intro & title track “Come of Age” is kind of weak. The way the first line: “I could bore you with the truth/of an uneventful youth” comes off dreary and unenthusiastic. The instrumentals aren’t energetic enough to really catch your attention much either. “When you’re young and bored and twenty-four, there’s no hope…” the chorus tells us. The strange part is that this boredom is what is so intriguing about other tracks. “Weirdo” has a rainy-day shoegaze drone that makes you put want to put the track on repeat. “Aftershave Ocean” follows suit with an almost sludgy instrumental section that makes the lead guitar melodies shine more. In addition to this, the production value of Come of Age is a step-up, where each song is mixed and mastered to sound dynamic and different from each track on the album, like they actually took time to make sure each song was an individual.

The songwriting on Come of Age is a strange monster that takes many forms. There’s some sort of underlying energy that is missing on Come of Age, but it’s those songs without as much energy that catch your ear. “Lonely World” has a catchy lead riff that builds extremely well into a pretty epic album closer. This is where the meaning of Come of Age comes full circle-the Vaccines have grown up a little. I don’t think the Vaccines will be able to pull immature (arguably joke) songs like “Break-up Sex” off anymore–in the same way that they likely wouldn’t have been able to pull off these more mature and refined songs earlier in their career. This is most evident in the flop of “I Wish I was a Girl” that almost comes off as an uncalled for drunken misogynistic rant.

In the gladatorial realm of sophomore albums Come of Age doesn’t fatally wound the Vaccines or give fans any reason to give up on the Vaccines like some sophomore albums have to bands (like MGMT) which is half the battle. On top of that it’s a pretty decent album. It doesn’t hit as hard and loud as one might want, but it’s not like they missed the target.

Husker who?

It’s been a banner year for Bob Mould the solo artist. A spot on Foo Fighters’ Wasting Light exhumed him from the yellowed basement of critics’ circles. He published his memoir See A Little Light, and the reissues of his albums with Sugar – Mould’s garage-heaven equivalent to Paul McCartney’s Wings – warrant another glance from indie rock fans who were in preschool when Copper Blue came out (guilty, although old school fans might similarly wince at Hüsker Dü’s Warehouse: Songs and Stories turning 25 this year).

Done looking back? So is Mould. On Silver Age, that trademark bitterness he spat at the vain ex-lover in Foos’ “Dear Rosemary” has all but disappeared (the reverbed staccato chords to Silver Age’s opening blast “Star Machine” are the most brooding moment here). What follows sounds like much-needed relief: his best album in a decade, 2008’s stormy District Line, was an emotional anvil, and the morose Life and Times lagged a bit much for “victory lap” status.  Mould now sings about what he’s going to do right, not what someone did wrong to him. Whether dude went through some shit around 2006 or just felt like writing in sullen character for a while, it’s a new day rising.

Mould is a rarity in the legion of ’80s American indie survivors. He’s more vital than Henry Rollins or Ian McKaye, more interesting than Mission of Burma and more popular than R.E.M. (“survivors” being a relative term in that last case). Silver Age brims with the hard-won optimism shared by R.E.M.’s Collapse Into Now, yet Mould is unaffected by that weird middle-age giddiness afflicting some (see Young Fresh Fellows’ new one).

If the album’s title is a wry nod to having entered his greying years, songs like “First Time Joy” show he’s looking at age with earned wisdom instead of worry (and hey, at least he didn’t call the thing Hairline Rising). At 51, he can run circles around any best-new-thing band with enough leftover energy to chop down a tree and build a house. “Briefest Moment” keeps the listener on his toes by continually introducing chordal left turns like a punk rock getaway driver with an anxiety problem, somehow never sounds scattershot. Then it’s over in a flash, leaving behind a slow-mo trail of dust like Han Solo having zoomed into hyperspace.

Tellingly, the electro-burbles Mould embraced on 2002’s Modulate are nowhere to be found on Silver Age. In their place are his first love: riffs on riffs on riffs, gate-crashing on horseback in perfectly square chunks (the four-chord refrain remains his preferred hook). Mould’s a bear with bite, his songwriting as tight and utilitarian as his now-trademark muscle shirt.

The Australian six-piece’s name suits them well. Alpine’s airy female vocals float over tinkly piano lines that pop into the air like icicles. The songs sound fresh and crisp, clouds of breath expelled from the band’s mouths.

Despite their wintery sound, Alpine’s debut album is anything but cold. The jaunty tunes sounds like they’re taking a walk in the crisp autumn air, like they’re traveling somewhere. It’s the soundtrack to an adventure. Perhaps one would listen to it on a long train ride through the countryside, on a road trip or while arriving in another country amidst snow-capped mountains.

The album is thoroughly danceable, complete with handclaps, cowbell and catchy beats. Song lengths hover around four minutes, but nothing seems to drag. The vocal harmonies, done by members Phoebe and Lou, sparkle amidst the percussion and synthesizers. Sometimes the words are indistinct and difficult to pick out, but they aren’t the most important thing in the album. It’s more about the overall mood on this album than the specific message of each individual song.

In fact, after a few listens, no distinct songs pop out as being significantly better than the whole. A Is for Alpine is best taken in all at once, as a whole album, which is something to be admired. Too often, in today’s musical world, we’ve become a single-oriented culture. People watch the video, listen to the hit and rarely take the time to enjoy a whole album, start to finish. Alpine has created a work that deserves to be listened to, start to finish. The songs move effortlessly from one to the next, with no jarring transitions. They’ve created a delightful mood album, a strong debut full-length that deserves several in-depth listens.

A Is for Alpine is a perfect record for a long train ride or the beginning of a vacation. Maybe it’s because it takes the listener on a journey that lasts the whole album, so it’s fitting to listen to it while going traveling. Whatever the reason, keep an eye on Alpine.

Alpine – A Is for Alpine tracklist:

1. “Lovers 1”
2. “Lovers 2”
3. “Hands”
4. “Villages”
5. “Softsides”
6. “Seeing Red”
7. “Gasoline”
8. “All For One”
9. “Too Safe”
10. “In the Wild”
11. “The Vigour”
12. “Multiplication”

Bloc Party was one of the most celebrated bands to emerge in the 2000s post-punk resurgence. Their stellar 2005 debut, Silent Alarm, slated them as one of the brightest newcomers to the indie music scene. What happened then? They released the front-heavy and largely overlooked A Weekend in the City in 2007 and a year later, they forced out Intimacy which appropriately sounded rushed. There were talks of disbandment after their “break-up album” but no formal break came to fruition. Lead singer Kele Okereke and bassist Gordon Moakes focused on a solo career and side-projects respectively.  Some fans suspected that Bloc Party had quietly dissolved but in September of last year they returned to the studio planning a fourth release. They released said album, aptly and/or lazily titled Four, earlier this week on Frenchkiss Records.

With the direction of their latest producer, Alex Newport, Bloc Party abandons both their earlier, punchy sound and Okereke’s later electronic leanings for a modern regurgitation of the past three decades of pop/rock. The album begins with a 311-esque riff on “So He Begins to Lie,” a song that is relatively catchy despite its clunky composition. The album’s second single, “Day Four,” recalls The Police and Okereke’s soulful, radio-friendly vocals are sullied only by their being sandwiched between two of the heavier songs on the album.

With the exception of the thumping “Kettling” which is an interesting combination of The Dismemberment Plan and Weezer, these heavier tracks ultimately weigh the album down. “Coliseum” is the most egregious track, opening with garage blues a la White Stripes followed by a choppy transition into White Zombie hard rock. Though charged, “3×3” calls up bad Mars Volta, unsurprising as Newport produced their work as well.  These tracks make it feel like the proverbial was thrown at the wall in the hopes of sticking.

But Four is not without its moments. Bloc Party is made up of four more than capable musicians and a few of the new tracks are impressive in their ingenuity. The first single, “Octopus,” sounds like a British Kill the Moonlight-era Spoon with a fingered guitar solo that could have been lifted from Daft Punk’s “Aerodynamic.” “V.A.L.I.S.” brings Franz Ferdinand to mind in its shamelessly catchy pop sensibility and kudos to Okereke’s seamless inclusion of “meth amphetamines” and “phenomenology” in the song’s lyrics, a syllabic feat unto itself.

It’s possible that Four‘s seeming mediocrity is the result of a four-year wait and the selfish fan’s hope for another Silent Alarm, but allegedly the band had to whittle the album down from around seventeen tracks earlier this year and it’s hard to believe that these were the best twelve tracks that they were able to come up with. It becomes increasingly difficult to believe when the listener discovers that they omitted two pleasant, albeit conventional pop songs in “Mean” and “Leaf Skeleton,” offering them instead as bonus tracks. All said and done Four is not a total senior slump…it’s more of a “back to the drawing board” record.

Bloc Party – Four tracklist:

1. “So He Begins to Lie”
2. “3×3”
3. “Octopus”
4. “Real Talk”
5. “Kettling”
6. “Day Four”
7. “Coliseum”
8. “V.A.L.I.S.”
9. “Team A”
10. “Truth”
11. “The Healing”
12. “We Are Not Good People”

Wild Nothing has an active imagination and a thoughtful execution of their dreams.  The title Nocturne livens all forms of nighttime blues, not lighting the narrative of a debaucherous night out but harrowing the sense of long evenings full of thought and contemplation. This isn’t the kind of nocturne we expected to hear about.

The song’s title track captures this feeling most effectively off the bat. “Nocturne” speaks of becoming lost in dark thoughts. It’s hard to tell what it achieves artistically, though. The feeling is uncertain.

Nocturne as an album is rock steady though, never overpowering or overwhelming, nor asking too much of its listeners because it’s easy to pay attention to and easy to get lost. It’s not hard to come away from feeling full, though, because the rough content filling the album is incredibly thick. A lot of effort was clearly placed into the construction of this album, and at many moments, it’s nothing short of amazing.

It feeds off its own energy as a project at large, each song being funded by the connection with the others surrounding it.

Lead song “Shadow” really sets the mood with the right pace for the calming mood and a mid-tempo chorus, only to be followed by the equally down “Midnight Song,” though the latter picks up the pace to accompany a more thoughtful narrative.

It’s an expressive record, telling of trials and tribulations rather than what fans might have anticipated with a fun-filled scene of stories in the evening.But whatever compelled musician and writer Jack Tatum to record his nightly thoughts was a great instinct, because his diaries are quite interesting to follow.

Here, Wild Nothing doesn’t make you jump from your seat or even motivate the listener to want to see them live. It’s an at-home kind of record, well made and delicately processed but meant for the listener to enjoy at their own will and circumstance. Nocturne asks us to listen rather than to sing along, which is fine, and for some, a nice change. But the contrary argument is that Nocturne is boring and limp. This is a judgment call you’re just going to have to make for yourself.

Not really until “Paradise” after Nocturne’s halfway point does Wild Nothing show they like to have a good time. Chiming with a happy guitar riff reminiscent of something from a John Hughes film and visionary synth sounds in the song’s background, the song sails to a wonderfully euphoric atmosphere.

Perhaps Wild Nothing concentrated too much on the task at hand when making Nocturne, disregarding the larger picture and focusing on the album’s artistic success. It’s a bit too serious and meditative, forgetting to have fun with it and loosen up. It’s contemplative and concise just as much as it is lonely and sorrowful. This is why Nocturne is part exemplary and part disappointment, a troublesome combination.

This isn’t to say the deeper moments on this new album aren’t short of wonderful. It’s just Wild Nothing’s Jack Tatum feels sorry for himself, and though the loneliness can be shared, the pity is a bit discouraging.

Wild Nothing – Nocturne tracklist:

1. “Shadow”
2. “Midnight Song”
3. “Nocturne”
4. “Through the Glass”
5. “Only Heather”
6. “This Chain Won’t Break”
7. “Disappear Always”
8. “Paradise”
9. “Counting Days”
10. “The Blue Dress”
11. “Rheya”

[rating 4.5]

Matthew Dear, 33 year old electronic avant-garde music producer from Texas and Detroit, is preparing for the release of his fifth full length LP Beams. The short trailer for his album sets up a conceptual feeling, one of self-definition, mystery and vacant vision. Beams calls for the integration of light interpretations with audible observations; but how vaguely or literally the album is experienced is up to you.

Dear has an extensive history in music production. He is now on his third release with Ghostly International, an experimental music label that he created with fellow electronic music lover Sam Valenti IV. In addition he has released two albums on sister label Spectra Sound. Audion and Jabberjaw, his heavier techno projects, have also seen numerous releases on these labels from ’04-’09. Let it be noted that Dear has (apart from Audion in 2003) only released material on his own labels, conforming to nobody but him and his own. This is certainly reflected in his unique sound. Unlike many other successful DJs, his music doesn’t exhibit over-production qualities nor does it steer towards a commercial sound. Matthew Dear is experimental as ever with the hectically arranged “Overtime,” while claiming his style for certain with the clean beats and transitory melodies of “Get the Rhythm Right” and “Ahead of Myself.”

Beams explores new melodies, which is a confident tangent from the mostly minor-key, low pitched tunes of 2010’s LP Black City. “Do the Right Thing” is a beautiful example of Dear fusing his signature beat styles with a more melodic tone, not unlike something a slightly sedated Dan Deacon might create. These beats sound slightly more chaotic but are for the most part controlled. To his sound I imagine lines of men rustling deep-percussion chains on the ground, each step dragging them closer into a river of menacing choral riffs. Each percussive layer interweaves with the next- often in rhythmic half-time- which develops into a rolling and diverse beat pattern that Dear has come to be known for.

Matthew Dear’s music compares to that of other contemporary electronic musicians like Nicolas Jaar and Gold Panda, however defining differences include Dear’s deep-toned voice which, along with other elements of dominant bass, works through a variety of beats to create a special calamity in every track. There exists a pop element to some of his tracks as well; listen for example to “Her Fantasy,” the first album track and the second released single. Exemplifying diversity even further, Dear’s second track “Earthforms” abandons much of his techno-beat style for one more akin to Beck or Radiohead. This is not a rock album though, this is electronic and musical experimentation, and it cares little about pleasing everyone.

Beams flirts with being a party album, however its true listenership falls on the accidental late night porch get-togethers, where bench-swinging and music-sharing roam. The music speaks to explorers of ideas and life and sound. By the end of the album, it’s clear that Dear is on par with Douglas Adams’ ideology of change and innovation for sustainable life, evident in both the album’s meaning and execution. Fourth track “Fighting Is Futile” says it best: “Take a trip on something else…and move on from yourself at times.”

Matthew Dear- Beams tracklist:

1. “Her Fantasy”
2. “Earthforms”
3. “Headcage”
4. “Fighting Is Futile”
5. “Up & Out”
6. “Overtime”
7. “Get the Rhyme Right”
8. “Ahead of Myself”
9. “Do the Right Thing”
10. “Shake Me”
11. “Temptation”

The Fresh & Onlys’ latest album, Long Slow Dance, can, for better or worse, be described as the soundtrack for stale relationships that trickle on for the sake of comfort.

The record offers its listeners a variety of sound-generated feelings that have been created by a group of people that have, until this release, stayed close to the familiar rock sounds that propelled them onto the Indie-music scene.

The San Francisco-based group of six’s fourth record doesn’t stray directly off the “garage-rock” path from which they started on with Grey-Eyed Girls. Instead  The Fresh and Onlys spiced up the usual by creating a noise that teeters on ’60s Doo-wop, including a Beach Boys’ surf sound on tracks like “Presence of Mind” and “Dream Girls.”

On “Dream Girls” frontman Tim Cohen gingerly spills out his feelings about deceptive ladies who come into the picture as perfect pieces of humanity, but quickly transform into everything they said they weren’t – “The perfect ones never last forever,” he preaches.

Since The Fresh & Onlys’ inception in 2008, The Fresh & Onlys have been spewing out at least an album a year.  Each of a Long Slow Dance’s predecessors can holds its own in the arena of Indie-rock, but don’t have the structure or thoughtfulness that is available on the band’s 2012 release. Although enjoyable when left as sound bites in the background, the previous records had an aggravating way of causing unnecessary anxiety – it felt as if each song blended into the last, depleting the value of the songs as individual tracks. Long Slow Dance is the digital mixed-tape that a close friend makes when a turbulent relationship needs to be explained with more than just words.

The first single off of Long Slow Dance, “Yes or No,” is catchy enough to sway and sob to while the lyrics soothe at the aches and calm the nerves from the sting of a fresh altercation about who really loves who more. The track, along with “20 Days and 20 Nights,” has a comforting Morrissey groove to it, courtesy of Cohen’s crooning vocals and guitarist Wymond Miles’s tender touch. “For 20 days and 20 nights, I’m wishing for the better times, something so heavy in my mind, I think I wanna try and get it out …” Cohen cries.

With “20 Days and 20 nights” leading off with its introduction to some sort of heart-ache, track six, “Fire Alarm,” serves as a pivot-point for the album; the bass jumps to an almost ’80s-dance beat, and Cohen manages to convey a sense of excited anticipation through his gravelly voice.  “So come on baby don’t fly before you fall, right into my arms below,” Cohen sings. It’s a get-up-and-move song from a band that generally puts out sit-in-a-haze jams.

The second-half of the band’s fourth album is less sequential than the first half. Grungy-riff-filled tracks like “Euphoria” are instantly followed by feel-good, resolution-songs like “Foolish Person.”  The ebb and flow of the last half of the less-than 40-minute album seem to propel the entire package into an early ending – they pull the plug on the emotional-music feast.

The satisfactory jumps from what’s expected to what is refreshing to provide a delightfully overwhelming blend. Long Slow Dance is laid out in such a precise way that coming back to it even when it feels like it should be over is absolutely necessary.

The Fresh & Onlys – Long Slow Dance trackist:

1. “20 Days and 20 Nights”
2. “Yes or No”
3. “Long Slow Dance”
4. “Presence of Mind”
5. “Dream Girls”
6. “Fire Alarm”
7. “Executioners Song”
8. “No Regard”
9. “Euphoria”
10. “Foolish Person”
11. “Wanna Do Right By You”

Yeasayer reminds one of a cat sliding around on a hardwood floor – they click, skitter and slide sideways before leaping ten feet straight up in the air and landing on the windowsill. It’s just the right amount of unsettling, and it hits home in their latest album, Fragrant World.

From the the crunchy sound of “Fingers Never Bleed” to the synth-coated groove of “Damaged Goods,” Fragrant World is a solid album jam-packed with sounds that dance around, under and over each other. Just when you think something’s landing, it takes off again. It’s impressive how the band members are able to make everything that’s going on in each song work. Each element fits in with all the others around it, creating songs instead of totally disjointed groupings of sounds. With another band, perhaps, this album could be a disaster. But Yeasayer pulls it off beautifully, layering vocal harmonies, synth, and electronic miscellany with hardly any missteps.

They’ve somehow managed to create danceable tunes that also harbor a sense of foreboding and doom. It’s like the dance music of the apocalypse, which is fitting, given that the world is supposed to end this December. Maybe they’re the sound of the post-apocalyptic club scene. It never quite veers off into the too-depressing; instead, it skirts the edge. It’s the kind of album one could listen to on a rainy day or sunny one, which is rare. It’s a nice answer to the too-sweet pop songs that pepper Top 40 stations nowadays, and is reminiscent of the 80s New Wave scene.

Radio-friendly, this album is not. The length of the tracks is the most off-putting thing about Yeasayer’s latest effort. Song lengths hover around four minutes for most of the tracks, and there aren’t many catchy, sing-along moments. It’s nice to have shorter tunes in an album to break it up a bit, and Yeasayer doesn’t do this at all. Consequently, some of the songs begin to drag near the end. Guess the cat has to slow down sometimes.

Fragrant World is one of those records that requires a few listens to get into, but it’s definitely worth an investment of time.

Yeasayer – Fragrant World tracklist:

1. “Fingers Never Bleed”
2. “Longevity”
3. “Blue Paper”
4. “Henrietta”
5. “Devil and the Deed”
6. “No Bones”
7. “Reagan’s Skeleton”
8. “Demon Road”
9. “Damaged Goods”
10. Folk Hero Shtick”
11. “Glass of the Microscope”

Purity Ring is the Montreal-based duo of Megan James and Corin Roddick. Since forming in 2010 they released four singles prior to their debut, Shrines. The first, “Ungirthed,” garnered them some deserved attention in early 2011 while Purity Ring was still a relative internet unknown of sorts. “Belispeak,” “Obedear” and “Fineshrine” saw scattered releases as singles over the months that followed, making it clear that Purity Ring was patiently assembling something. That something turned out to be Shrines and it’s definitely something special.

Like their 4AD label-mate and fellow Montreal native Grimes (there must be something in the water), Purity Ring prove themselves adept in fusing a number of different genres: dream pop, house, dubstep, hip hop, shoegaze. They also fuse words to create their own language in track titles like “Crawlersout” and “Lofticries.” Their unique, bizarro pop and playful approach contrives an image of other-worldliness and wonder.

Corin Roddick’s production on Shrines ranges from the rich, accelerated twinkle of “Ungirthed” to the minimalist tick and drone of “Cartographist.” His thumping, hip hop bass and clever, sliced and diced vocal arrangements act as a near-perfect backdrop for James’ velvety coo.  Interestin.gly enough, the only time that Purity Ring’s sound feels discordant and cheapened is on “Grandloves” featuring Young Magic’s Isaac Emmanuel. Another genre-bender, Emmanuel should have found himself right at home with Purity Ring, but instead “Grandloves” sounds like Akon collaborated with Dntel; the result is a vomitus hip hop fail. It is the sole letdown on the album.

One hears after just a few spins a slightly eerie set of well-orchestrated pop songs. It takes more than a few listens before one recognizes James’ oft effects-buried lyrics as dark and incredibly visceral. She sings, “Cut open my sternum and pull / my little ribs around you” on “Fineshrine” to what sounds otherwise like a clubby ballad. On “Shuck” she softly speak-sings, “I’ll take up your guts / to the little shed outside. / I’ll shuck all the light from my skin / then I’ll hide it in you.” It’s almost as if Ed Gein wrote love songs. The lyrics juxtapose the absolute grotesque with passionate intimacy, a seemingly incongruous pairing that just happens to work.

Purity Ring’s debut puts another feather in the well-decorated cap of 4AD.  Despite it being their first single, “Ungirthed” is the unmistakable pinnacle of Shrines.  The pulsing bass and manic oh-ohs are wonderfully distorted by James’ cheerfully delivered lyrics about bone piles.  “Ungirthed” does outshine some of the other singles, though the album leaves precious little to apologize for.  Shrines may just be the prettiest little bit of eviscerating pop released to date.

Purity Ring – Shrines tracklist:

1. “Crawlersout”
2. “Fineshrine”
3. “Ungirthed”
4. “Amenamy”
5. “Grandloves”
6. “Cartographist”
7. “Belispeak”
8. “Saltkin”
9. “Obedear”
10. “Lofticries”
11. “Shuck”

Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti is a curious animal, and that level of curiosity has only been amplified with their (his?) latest release. Now celebrating his 10^th year recording as Ariel Pink, the nom de plume of Ariel Marcus Rosenberg, Mature Themes continues a discography of unclassifiable idiosyncrasy. The magic music corporate overlords of iTunes categorize it as “experimental,” and it’s hard to argue with that assessment, although it’s far more catchy and listenable than that label might make one think.

From the top it kicks off like some kind of Magnetic Fields meets Destroyer inside joke, with the David Byrne-esque questions as the break comes in: “Who sank my battleship? I sank my battleship! Ah la la la.” Then there’s something about “blowjobs of death” and “she-males hopped up on meth.” From there, the record only gets weirder. “Is This The Best Spot?” introduces a hip-hop flourish before exploding expectations with a quaint 80’s synth-pop via 60’s melodies and lyrics that demand to step “into my time warp now.” Maybe not the most original sentiment, but it’s done in such an original (and unpredictable) way, it’s impossible to fault them for it– is it a post-punk homage to “The Rocky Horror Picture Show?”

“Schnitzel Boogie” is so wantonly weird it borders on the Zappariffic, most tellingly the high kazoo-like vocal “nah nah nah’s” over the courses, which surely Pink would take as a compliment. The dialogue that involves ordering (a hamburger?) only adds to this divinely comedic moment.

“Symphony of the Nymph” takes the vibe of Kraftwerk’s “The Model” and reimagines The Doors’ “Riders Of The Storm” as a tale of a lesbian nymphomaniac, whipping and, well horseplay, complete with simulated whinnies. Not for nothing is this record called Mature Themes, although ironically, the title track is among the least scandalous, at least lyrically speaking.

“Early Birds of Babylon” sounds for all the world like a mid-period Damned b-side (when they were still slightly punk and before they went way goth), whereas “Only In My Dreams” somehow finds the nexus of Air Supply, 10cc and Alan Parsons Project.

If their earlier records were just as unclassifiable (and they were), then the only way Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti “fit in” is to be clustered with fellow fringe operators of today’s post-indie rock environment like SoCal XTC wannabes The Soviet League and Afternoon Records stablemates The Poison Control Center, Pomegranates and Yellow Ostrich.

“Pink Slime” is like Barnes & Barnes’ “Fish Heads” for the 21^st century; it may be the first musical salute to that mysterious simulated beef by-product, although with Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti it’s always unclear what type of meat is caught in their mouth.

It’s zany with a capital Z, throughout, and the uninitiated can be forgiven for thinking that this record is a joke, for here we have the silly superciliousness of Muse with the new hi-fi songcraft like a Magnetic Fields or Xiu Xiu, both of whom are also analogous in that they have a highly dominant front person, around whom everything revolves. It’s hard to pin down, but entertaining fun nonetheless.

Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti – Mature Themes tracklist:

1. “Kinski Assassin”
2. “Is This the Best Spot?”
3. “Mature Themes”
4. “Only in My Dreams”
5. “Driftwood”
6. “Early Birds of Babylon”
7. “Schnitzel Boogie”
8. “Symphony of the Nymph”
9. “Pink Slime”
10. “Farewell American Primitive”
11. “Live It Up”
12. “Nostradamus & Me”
13. “Baby”

Glacial is an impressively eclectic trio: Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo on guitar, The Necks’ Tony Buck on drums and Highland Bagpipes’ contributor David Watson on, well, bagpipes.  The fact that this album is one 48-minute track, it’s an instrumental and bagpipes are involved might immediately sound like a kitschy experiment but rest assured, On Jones Beach transcends the realm of mere novelty.

Broken down by musician, Glacial makes total sense.  Ranaldo has been an inventive and influential guitar guru alongside Thurston Moore in one of the most important bands of the past three decades.  Buck has exhibited his percussive fortitude in numerous mile-long productions with The Necks.  David Watson, aside from being an accomplished bagpiper, co-founded Braille Records which championed the experimental music scene of New Zealand.  Three pieces to a bizarre yet fitting puzzle and so Glacial’s success with On Jones Beach should not come as a surprise.

What does come as a surprise is that the material is six years old.  The title track was recorded in 2006 prior to the release of Sonic Youth’s Rather Ripped and The Necks’ excellent Chemist.  It wasn’t until 2012 that the record label Three Lobed decided to step up and release On Jones Beach.

The sound for On Jones Beach builds upon itself.  The drums don’t kick in until the 15-minute mark and the bagpipes some minutes later.  This sonic construction allows the album to transition swimmingly through a number of different vibes – from droning, minimalist whale song to cacophonous free jazz; from a wind chime in a windstorm to a plodding, Gaelic death march.

What’s most impressive is that Ranaldo’s guitar and Watson’s bagpipes are not in competition.  Rather, the two distinct instruments end up complimentary, a miracle unto itself.  Watson’s pipes and Ranaldo’s guitar become homogenized similar to the way that John Cale’s strings melded with the guitars of Lou Reed and Sterling Morrison.  And kudos to Tony Buck for anchoring the sometimes wayward feedback and squelching pipes with catchy shuffles, jazzy cymbal work and tumbling drum rolls.  Each Glacial musician is afforded an appropriate amount of limelight.

The delayed release and lengthy duration of On Jones Beach prove that patience is a virtue.  It is available for download or on vinyl.  The downloadable content includes an alternate version of the title track as well as some live recordings and extras.  This album, though a bit of a commitment at first, is one of the more impressive instrumentals in recent memory.

Glacial – On Jones Beach tracklist:

1. “On Jones Beach”
2. “On Friuli Island 1”
3. “On Friuli Island 2”
4. “On Norfolk Street”