Vampire Weekend - The Kids Don't Stand A Chance 7"

Side A: 'The Kids Don't Stand A Chance'

This is one of the simplest, most effective songs on the Vampire Weekend self-titled album, which is in itself quite a simple and effective pop record. Sure, this song's got strings on it (like the other best tracks, such as 'M79' and 'Walcott') but they don't come in for a while, and when they do arrive, they're restrained. Originally I thought this song, coming at the end of the record, stood out more from the rest of the album - like a pop-punky Clash track - but now I see it's more of a perfectly pitched, langurous finale.

I'm never really sure what people object to about Vampire Weekend, or what they find irritating about one of 2008's deserved best debuts. Too cloying perhaps, too quirky - for me it's just great indie pop songwriting. 'The Kids Don't Stand A Chance' has more than a good melody and hook; it's the absorbing sense of atmosphere that weaves the sound of Vampire Weekend into my soul - vocal affectations, slow beats and lush Afro-Caribbean guitars with a swirl of faux-Baroque decoration. It works for me, if evidently not for others:

"Baroque-ska!? Like a hellish mix of UB40 and The Left Banke."

Mark Prindle's Micro-Reviews: Hip New Bands That The Kids Dig

'The Kids Don't Stand A Chance' was the Vampire Weekend song I used for my end-of-year mixtape:

The (very) Best of 2008 Pt. 1

Side B: 'The Kids Don't Stand A Chance' (Chromeo Remix)

Ever wondered what Vampire Weekend would sound like in 1983? Despite what Mark Prindle might say, it's not exactly the same; it's this. Blocky, upfront synthesiser beats and New Romantic keyboard side-swipes. That is, until the quietitude and following euphoric ascent, as the entrancing beats give way to more natural snippets of the songs - and then back to - horns?

Stereogum says "It's a fun listen -- syncopation and synths run rampant, the signature guitar line gets a keyboard makeover with some new chord movement in the mix. Sounds like Ezra gave 'em a new vocal melody to work with, too".

It's remarkable how Vampire Weekend have managed to fold some twenty-five years of pop music (twenty-five, or twenty-eight, decades if you want to include Vivaldi) in on itself, making chronology irrelevant. Like the cover picture for the record, a sodium-lit tableau of Risky Businness-esque privilege, or a Janus-faced, empty winter scene. They're a sort of end-of-history pop band, with no groundings in these modern times except for being them. They don't represent a point in time in pop music, but a sweeping together and away of all those points. I'll take this over any indie trend-setters, thanks.

Boxes - Animal; Road Records

Boxes - 'Animal'

There's been a lot written in the Irish blogosphere (blogo'sphere?) about the decision of Road Records to close down. The causes and consequences of Dublin's premier independent record shop disappearing have been discussed at length here, and the best tribute to the store is written here. I think the most I can add is to highlight a recent purchase from the shop, an independent band from the same city, just by way of showing what was important about Road Records to the alternative music scene in Ireland and Dublin.

Personally, I had only been going to Road on a regular basis since about this time last year, when I got a USB turntable and, separately, got into Irish indie music. Prior to that, the shop was too esoteric and, well, indie for my tastes; and besides, there's a perfectly good Tower nearby for more ordinary-alternative sorts of purchases - a fact which must have sidelined Road for most music fans of my generation.

The combination of vinyl and Irish, however made, Road a real necessity for my listening experiences. The excellent Human Bell LP was album of the week or month; Shooting at Unarmed Men's superb Triptych album was displayed in the window for some time (possibly because it looks awesome); and favourite Irish albums from last year like So Cow's I'm Siding With My Captors and Chequerboard's Penny Black came from there as well. Of the Irish releases sourced in Road, I invariably got the crucial listen from the Indie Hour radio show/podcast - which has also unfortunately come to an end at the same time.

I heard the track above from Boxes in passing on that show, and was going to buy the album but put the purchase off (and should have gone to the album launch in the Lower Deck, too) and never did. Until I was looking for some last purchases to make from the shop -it doesn't even seem like there's a sale on, but people just seem willing to help clear their stock and buffer some of the losses. So Boxes - Animal it was (plus the new Cap Pas Cap 12" and Fucked Up - Year of the Pig, which is about as underwhelming as The Chemistry of Common Life). As it turned out, I should have been listening to this album a long time ago.

Here's the description from the store - that was one of best things about Road, the little mini-reviews of practically every album or single - as displayed on the Boxes website:

"album number three from this irish based two piece featuring mark hayes on drums and gavin cowley on bass and vocals. the album is another superb slice of post punk, math rock, post rock and old style sludge rock. its full of hard hitting but also quite intricate sounds with hints of no means no, shellac, don caballero, jesus lizard, fugazi and all things amphetamine reptile related."

(Road Records july 2008)

Animal is Boxes' third album - their second was recorded with Steve Albini, so you can tell there's a track record there - and was recorded in Experimental Audio studio in Dublin. Sonically, they're like a heavier version of current Irish favourite multi-instrumentalist R.S.A.G, or a funkier Young Widows (or, equally, a more AmRep-py Fugazi). It's metallic without being too metallic, which is what I like, and it's got the intense mathy sound of their influences down well, while still sounding sufficiently original to be interesting.

I've chosen the title track because it's, predictably, a good introduction to their sound (though far from the sum of it), but also an extra track from the album, 'Picture', because in part it exhibits, in a way that 'Animal' doesn't quite, the Irish nature of the band - 'Picture' has the typical post-rock/post-hardcore vocals in a quite noticeable Dublin accent. Which may not be particularly important, but I still like the song even more for it:

Boxes - 'Picture'

You probably won't be able to buy Animal online from Road anymore (though try your luck if you're actually in Dublin), but you can get their second album Bad Blood on Cargo Records

[Update: Road Records have Boxes - Bad Blood for sale]

FLApes album review in NME

via Unarocks, the New Musical Express review of Fight Like Apes and the Mystery of the Golden Medallion:

NME.com - Fight Like Apes

"post-hardcore synthery" Wtf?

"built a nest from shards of Enter Shikari, Test Icicles and Le Tigre and then thrashed the shiny fuck out of it" Engaging metaphor, but Test Icicles? Enter Shikari? Two/three bands I vaguely remember hearing about, and not in a positive way, in 2007? (2006?)

"Dananananaykroyd gone new wave" Ditto. I dunno, Dananananaykroyd sounds pretty new wave in the first place to me. Like Kajagoogoo.

"comic-book geek-joy of early Ash" Okay, I like that one. Bonus points for mentioning an Irish band.

"FLA are the anti-emo..." If you say so, Emily Mackay (How ironic.)

"...a funny, clever slap of fun. Turn the other cheek, eh?" Quoting scripture is always a good conclusion.

Actually, apart from those quotes, the review's not too bad - if a little vacuous. The album itself is awesome, of course.

Fight Like Apes UK album release & tour - details

Arty new video for 'Tie Me Up With Jackets'

State.ie review of Fight Like Apes live at Koko, London

David Grubbs, Live @ Whelan's 24/01/09

David Grubbs, 'An Optimist Declines' from An Optimist Notes the Dusk (2008)

This show is the first time I've been sitting down in Whelan's, with candles in little glass jars, jazz-club style, and beermats on the table. David Grubbs was listed in The Ticket as 'Rock-pop experimentalist. Recommended'; I knew him before from appearances on Codeine's The White Birch, from (pre-Slint) band Squirrel Bait, as well as Bastro; and his latest solo album garnered considerable praise in the Prisonship's best-of. Armed with those recommendations and connections - though Gastr Del Sol passed me by, insofar as bands from past decades can be said to have done so - I still wasn't sure what the show would sound like, apart from that track from his album above.

The set-up was sparse: an amp on top of a case with a mic in front of it, and another mic in front for vocals. Support was from Debutant from Aberdeen, an impressive singer-songwriter with a penchant for heavily-delayed post-rock guitar, building up from quiet chords to full-on looping ear damage. The show was promoted by Forever Presents, who brought Dan Deacon and Matmos to Dublin last year, and gave respective support slots to Jape and Si Schroeder, the latter my favourite Irish proponent of the shoegaze-y post-rock guitar style. Here, though it was a bit one-man-band Mogwai at the very end, on the whole his set was varied and interesting, and very enjoyable to listen to.

It didn't prepare you much for Grubbs, and it's hard to know what would. Obviously the context was the same - one man + electric guitar; but the content of the performance was quite different. In fact, if you were doubting the versatility of the guitar as an instrument, this would have been the show to go to. Personally I don't know much, if anything, about the technique of guitar-playing, but as with all art, I know what I like. And I liked David Grubbs.

That's not to say that the show was all rapt adoration of his axemanship. He could have played a full set of slowcore guitar, all spaces and reverbating chords, and it would have been amazing. However, he didn't, and the performance gained from being challenging. Combining stoner rock (echoes of Earth and Grails) and slowcore (especially Codeine) with bluesy riffing, the set built up through a diverse range of songs including 'An Optimist Declines', with its affecting vocal cadence and heavy guitar; through more pop-oriented folk and Americana, but still imbued with the slowcore ambience, such as 'Eyeglasses of Kentucky'; and concluding with a lengthy instrumental which seemed to blend the sounds of stoner rock guitar with those of a banjo and an ambulance siren.

I picked up the album from him at the edge of stage after the show, too. It doesn't disappoint either, but it's still quite challenging. Reading the press one-sheet (pdf), there's an interesting paragraph which says

"Much continues to be written about the end of the album and its splintering into the MP3dom of individual songs. An Optimist Notes the Dusk is at one and the same time an album and a collection of splinters. There is no contradiction. Do we dare suggest it sounds very 'playlist'?"

The album is just six tracks, which can be either described as varied or incoherent (if you wanted to be negative), without getting into Zen-like oppositions. Opener, and easy stand-out, 'Gethsemani Nights' is very reminiscent of the earlier For Carnation, though here the guitar, while still as (largely) clean and sparse, is more insistent, heavier in its tread, like a fastidious bluesman; and behind it a trumpet - by Nate Wooley - somewhere between Abilene and Human Bell. It's slowcore with an extra weight, an initially challenging further dimension.

Musical Rooms Part 52: David Grubbs

(Just trying out posting in Trebuchet. Let me know if you'd prefer reading in a serif font)

Friday Video: Grails - Acid Rain DVD Trailer

I got an email today from someone at Temporary Residence Limited about a new video from Grails promoting their new DVD, due out in April. I had been planning on posting the new-ish live videos of Dan Deacon - w/ ensemble - from Pitchfork, but this is probably more useful for me to post. Grails have the whole visual and sonic art combination down quite well (see this post), so their videos are usually a joy to watch. The 'commercial' for Doomsdayer's Holiday was a great idea - though I'd love to see the television channel that interrupted its programming for a Grails video - and this is the same concept, except for a DVD rather than an album:

"Grails - Acid Rain DVD [due out April 7th]

Following up their widely acclaimed and most successful album, Doomsdayer’s Holiday, Grails unleash their first-ever DVD, the career-spanning Acid Rain. Centered around a half dozen mind-altering music videos from their last few albums, Acid Rain also features nearly two hours of live shows from the past several years. Packed full of bonus material and special treats, Acid Rain is as bizarre, eclectic and otherworldly as their albums, with the added spectacle of debaucherous activities, vicarious cult obsessions, and street preachers on rollerskates."

'Acid Rain' happens to be my favourite track from Doomsdayer's Holiday, the epic, surf-drenched and slow-moving finale. It's a good title for a "career-spanning" DVD; as it is a culmination of the varied and progressive post-rock styles of Grails, and also distinctly different from most of the rest of the album. It's impossible to predict where Grails will take their sound next, which is great for a band in an otherwise often repetitive genre.

Since another TRL band, also broadly in the post-rock genre, Envy, produced an excellent DVD - Transfovista - not too long ago, I'm assuming this release will live up to a similarly high standard.