Slint - Glenn/Rhoda 10" and Mogwai - Batcat 12"

Slint - 'Glenn' (1994)

Slint - 'Rhoda' (1994)

Mogwai - 'Batcat' (2008)

Slint's EP contains, minute for minute, the best music of their slender but massively important output - Spiderland a greater, but far longer, opus of the early 90s Louisville sound and post-rock point of origin. (The songs were recorded in 1989, after Tweez, but were never released until after Spiderland, in 1993/4) For a description of these two two songs, allow me to return to one of the very earliest posts on this blog, written before going to see Slint performing Spiderland in Tripod, Dublin - at which 'Glenn' and 'Rhoda' were played as part of an extended encore:

"1. this EP almost perfectly bridges the fairly disparate sounds of Tweez (a lo-fi, desultory and crunchingly metallic album) and Spiderland (a twisting, epic and subtle masterpiece of post-rock). 'Glenn' rejuvenates the minimalistic sound of Tweez, tightening it up and adding an extra dimension of tension to the instrumental style. The song quickly builds up into a crescendo, which almost immediately goes nowhere, except to introduce an ominous humming sound... part reminiscent of the antagonistic noise of Tweez, part prescient of the eerie claustrophobia of Spiderland.

2. the music of this EP was for me the most 'accessible' part of Slint, coming as I was from a particular musical direction. Previously, I had an allergy to the whole aesthetic idea of post-rock or math-rock (don't worry, I'm on meds now... the doctors call them the mercury program). The song 'Rhoda', in no small way, helped change that. You see, I was listening to a lot of Maximillian Colby, which was a very heavily Slint-influenced emo/hardcore band, similar in vein to the Swing Kids or perhaps Clikatat Ikatowi. But Slint-influenced is not the same as Slint, so when I downloaded Tweez (the only Slint record Touch and Go have released on eMusic... insert conspiracy theory here) I was a little disappointed, not to say confused. Because this alternate version of 'Rhoda' is simply so much better than that entire album. Right from the starting notes, it is probably Slint's loudest song, performing a similar synthesis of styles to 'Glenn' but simultaneously amping the sound up several notches, drenching the spaces between jagged riffs in perfectly pitched feedback, descending into weird, metallic noise and finally collapsing into a droning whine..."

(Slint - "Glenn/Rhoda" EP, August 2007)

I can't believe I had "an allergy to the whole aesthetic idea of post-rock or math-rock", because it would make a listening to a lot of what I follow now very painful. The Mercury Program are a very good band, though. After that post was the review of the gig itself, still probably the best I've seen in the last 18 months (including the Dinosaur Jr. reunion tour and Battles, twice, with the only real challenge being seeing Si Schroeder live for the first time as well).

"3. When they started playing the first few bars of 'Breadcrumb Trail', it sounded like the most familiar thing in the world. This was basically like listening to the album, but better in every way. Or if you were able to listen to the album at tremendous volume, in a room full of people, maybe that... The first sequence of 'Breadcrumb Trail' and 'Nosferatu Man' was pretty damn rocking, and then they slowed it down a bit for 'Don, Aman', when the two guitars came and sat opposite each other on stools in the middle of the stage. Halfway through 'Washer' I was thinking, maybe now I understand a little bit more what Indian Summer felt 'with the needle dragging the end of the slint lp', and where they took a lot of their sound from. The same with 'For Dinner' and the echoes of Max Colby... not really that all those bands are derivative, but that Slint just created this massively important aesthetic. Finally, with 'Good Morning, Captain', we were left with "I MISS YOU!!!" reverberating in our ears, and wondering... what happens now?

4. They played 'Glenn' and 'Rhoda'! That is, after playing Spiderland in its entirety, they played the Glenn/Rhoda EP in its entirety. I was pretty stoked to hear the album, and that would in itself have made the gig awesome, but hearing those two songs live just blew me away. Especially after just writing a review of those songs, to hear them so unexpectedly was memorable to say the least. Mind you, I used to think 'Glenn' was a quiet song. Not so live, however... 'Rhoda' was also upgraded to "earth-shattering". Just awesome."

(Slint - Live @ Tripod, Dublin)

Since then, I bought a record player, and pretty much along with it, a vinyl copy of Spiderland (the way it's meant to be heard). Later on this year, new reprints of the self-titled/'Glenn'/'Rhoda' EP, whatever you want to call it, arrived in the shops. I have to say the difference in quality - in audio terms and in the general experience - is less easily discernible than with Spiderland. Hence, the streaming clips are just ripped from the CD version. However, the pure aesthetics of the EP are enhanced by the 10" version, from the film noir-ish cover art (supposedly inspired by this 1992 book of NYPD crime scene photographs) to the unnamed, crimson-soaked pictorial side A/side B labels on the record itself.

(Click to expand)

A further enchancement of this most perfect encapsulation of the Slint sound and energy came also with the 2008 release of Mogwai's 'Batcat' EP for their current album The Hawk Is Howling. What a 'batcat' is, I don't know - visual, visceral horrorshows aside - but Mogwai did follow in the footsteps of another Slint (okay, Albini/Shellac) influenced band, Mclusky, with their song titles. And yes, that's not a hawk on the album (or at least it doesn't look like one), and no, it's not howling. But 'Batcat' the song is a condensed epic of post-metal, crushingly heavy, noise-making guitars and intricate post-rock composition, which immediately reminds me of Slint's 'Rhoda', the re-worked version.

It's not just 'Batcat', the second track on the full album after the winding, harmonious 'I'm Jim Morrison, I'm Dead', that makes the EP worthwhile, however. Two tracks on the flipside to 'Batcat', 'Stupid Prick Gets Chased By The Police and Loses His Slut Girlfriend' and 'Devil Rides', showcase Mogwai's less intense, more subtly crafted post-rock soundscapes, in a sort of combined 'Glenn' to Batcat's 'Rhoda'. The upfront heaviness of the EP is in some ways mirrored by the accessibility of the full-length, for all its sprawling, double-LP expanse:

"...Mogwai's sound on The Hawk Is Howling is in the style of their last few albums. The melodies on The Hawk Is Howling are direct and overt. It's grown man, heart-on-their-sleeve music without being veiled in pretense--probably why it got a 4 on Pitchfork. When Mogwai get heavy, they sound like Tool. And it rules. Mogwai are a great rock band because they sound honest."

(josephlovesit, Geek Down - Best of 2008: Rock Albums)

Slint - Touch and Go / Quarterstick Records

Slint 10" at Road Records

Mogwai - Matador Records

Best of 2008: Year End November - Rhythm and Blues

Miles Davis Quintet - 'If I Were A Bell' from Relaxin' with the Miles Davis Quintet (1956)

Hardcore for Nerds (Best of) 2008: Year End November - Rhythm and Blues

1. Cold War Kids - 'Welcome to the Occupation' from Loyalty to Loyalty.

2. The Gaslight Anthem - 'Miles Davis and the Cool' from The '59 Sound.

3. Rarely Seen Above Ground - 'The Climb' from Organic Sampler.

6. Jape - 'Phil Lynott' from Ritual.

5. The New Year - 'Folios' from The New Year.

6. Grails - 'Acid Rain' from Doomsdayer's Holiday.

7. Mogwai - 'The Precipice' from The Hawk Is Howling.

(Download)

This is the last instalment in my pre-end of year list, collecting together some albums that have caught my attention in the last few months. I've already discussed directly and indirectly the first and last pairs of albums, so I wasn't sure how to best construct a mixtape or post from the seven here. As it happened though, taking some less obvious tracks from those albums and an placing them around the newer additions, a theme seemed to appear. It's not rhythm and blues in the sense of "r'n'b" as such, but rather jazz/blues and the more primal origins of rock. The rhythm is in the brash, assertive first two bands and the two beat-driven, experimental Irish artists; the blues are more in the lusher, post-rock tracks of the final three - although within them there is a great variety of style.

Two features have been lifted from Geek Down - first, the genre-paralleling streaming track at top (I probably could have found a Miles Davis track from 1959 and the true 'cool' period instead, but I like that song and it's around the birth of the sound, anyway) and second, the longlist at the bottom of 2008 albums that I've listened to in full, all of which have been covered in this post or previous posts (with two exceptions - God Is An Astronaut and Loma Prieta). It's not perhaps that long - about thirty/thirty-five in total - but it should be the basis for a proper top ten-fifteen of the year in a few weeks.

Cold War Kids and The Gaslight Anthem are part of my loosely-conceived 'alt-Americana' typology of not-quite-indie, not-quite-punk, alternative rock bands that express something very strongly (and critically) American in their music. In the Cold War Kids' case, it's the jazz-rock angst of ordinary life; in that of the Gaslight Anthem, the Springsteen-esque musings. With one, theres's anxiety and fear; with the other, hope and wistfulness. Both are brash, somewhat derivative bands but with enough underlying complexity and creativity to fulfil their cultural role; to infiltrate the mainstream with sufficiently thoughtful and discordant music...

Rarely Seen Above Ground and Jape are both alter egos for Irish rhythm artists: Jeremy Hickey, a drummer and all-round instrumentalist and producer; Richie Egan, the bass player with Dublin instrumental post-rock heroes The Redneck Manifesto. Rarely Seen Above Ground is consequently a groovy, catchy, drum-based but richly coloured blend of pop, post-punk and funk constructed into a nebulous, Talking Heads-resonant feel of music. The song comes in two parts, by the way, so that's why it slows down in the middle. Jape, in general, is more heavily electro - check out this version of 'I Was a Man' or the popular video for the older song, 'Floating' - but this track, for all its minimalism, is an almost perfect encapsulation of his sound and direction. I'm no great fan, musically, of Thin Lizzy, but the sentiment of 'Phil Lynott' is hard to argue against. Pure Dub (as in Dublin, not Kingston).

The New Year is a find directly from Lex Dexter of Organizing Grievances/The Prisonship. The full self-titled album is very good, but I stuck with the same representative choice, the opening track 'Folios', a good deal like a mostly acoustic, jangly, upbeat version of Slint's 'Good Morning, Captain'. Grails and Mogwai are the combined object of josephlovesit's half-finished discussion as well, but in a case of parallel evolution of taste more than anything else: these really are the two most vital post-rock releases of the year, and from which I have chosen their respective closing tracks. Grails 'Acid Rain' is my favourite song on the album, out of a selection of many great ones; though opening with a familiar swipe of Eastern melody, in reality it is far different, a "lush, pacific world of surf melodies and jazzy rhythms, disintegrating into pulsing electronics and re-emerging cyclically into tender clarity". Mogwai may be underwhelming or irritating some critics with their latest album, but I'm in the ideal situation of never really appreciating anything else they did beforehand; and while 'Batcat' and 'The Sun Smells Too Loud' might be atypical Mogwai songs, 'The Precipice' is a straightforward but perfectly executed epic, a descent into sheer post-rock crescendo that identifies why Mogwai still really are, for me, the originals.

2008 Longlist:

(all Irish bands have a Myspace link; other albums have a link to review/download on Worship and Tribute where available)

Bats - Cruel Sea Scientist

The Black Keys, Attack and Release

Chequerboard, Penny Black

Cold War Kids, Loyalty to Loyalty

Envy/Jesu - Split EP

Envy/Thursday - Split EP

Fight Like Apes, Fight Like Apes and the Mystery of the Golden Medallion

God Is An Astronaut, God Is An Astronaut

Foals, Antidotes

Fucked Up, The Chemistry of Common Life

The Gaslight Anthem, The '59 Sound

Grails, Take Refuge from Clean Living

Grails, Doomsdayer's Holiday

Halves, Haunt Me When I'm Drowsy

Ham Sandwich, Carry the Meek

Have a Nice Life, Deathconsciousness

Heathers, Here, Not There

Human Bell, Human Bell

Jape, Ritual

The Jimmy Cake, Spectre and Crown

Loma Prieta, Last City

Matmos, Supreme Balloon

Mogwai, The Hawk Is Howling

The New Year, The New Year

Patti Smith & Kevin Shields, The Coral Sea

Rarely Seen Above Ground, Organic Sampler

Shooting at Unarmed Men, Triptych

Sinaloa, Oceans and Islands

So Cow, I'm Siding With My Captors

Vampire Weekend, Vampire Weekend

...Who Calls So Loud, ...Who Calls So Loud

Zomes, Zomes

Friday Video: Mogwai - 'Batcat'

Apparently tonight is some sort of pseudo-pagan festival, so here's a scary video for you.

Okay, it's not really that scary (this video "made out of an old 70's music video with a Danish dude doing a cover of Apache by The Shadows" for 'The Sun Smells Too Loud' is probably more unsettling) but it's a great song, and the video with its camp horror is pretty good too. Initially, I didn't think so, chiefly because I came in around the 2:00-minute mark and children dressed in folk clothing running around a forest to heavy guitars somehow reminds me of a lot of nu-metal and 'post-hardcore' videos from the early-to-mid 00s. Plus, as I had already discovered 'Batcat' as the awesome instrumental post-rock/metal track that it is, I didn't feel like it needed visual exposition. There's a self-contained quality to the music - like that of Slint - that fills up your headphones with sound that is both curiously mechanical and organic.

However, the video has plenty of technical and aesthetic merit to it, creating a gloomy environment (aesthetic, but perhaps not very creative), and the glistening, visceral image of the 'batcat' at the end is quite impressive. Having seen the full thing, the opening shot of the girl's hooded face, with a very painterly effect, is brilliant - as is the foreshadowing juxtaposition of the visceral, sci-fi cliche of pulsating, inhuman flesh. Man, this rocks!

More on this (and Slint) later: