POSTS BY: Shopping BagJuly 25th, 2010 by Shopping Bag Join the Record ClubLed by Beck Hansen, the Record Club is an informal meeting of various musicians to record a reinterpretation of classic albums. Nothing is rehearsed or arranged ahead of time, meaning the songs are rough renditions, often recorded on the first takes. What hooked me on the Record Club is Beck’s decision to interpret the INXS 80s pop masterpiece “Kick.” Check out this session featuring Annie Clark/St. Vincent:
Record Club: INXS “Never Tear Us Apart” from Beck Hansen on Vimeo. July 6th, 2010 by Shopping Bag Daytrotter Sessions“One band a day, every day, 28 Daytrotter Session songs each week.” Just listen to the performance of one of my favorite bands Far. They take away the many sonic layers that blanket the album version of “At Night We Live” and perform songs with guitars and trap set that sounds like it’s being played for you in your bedroom as you drift off to sleep. The space and airiness of the recordings are at once strange (to our used-to-hearing-over-produced-recorded-music ears), disarming, and totally gorgeous. I also have to mention comical but true to life illustrations of each band sketched by Johnnie Cluney. Classic! June 6th, 2010 by Shopping Bag Screaming Lights is your new favorite bandThe album “Like Angels” took two years to complete, but it was worth the wait. The sound is 100% classic dark Brit rock (these boys hail from Liverpool) in the vein of Idlewild and White Lies and Editors, with obvious influences from the originators of British gloom indie rock Joy Division and the Comsat Angels. Their debut album “Like Angels” features organs, dirty guitars, solid tempos and a singer whose voice carries beautiful melodies and the scratchy weariness of person who has been through the ringer a few times. Listening to the lyrics for “Hello Tomorrow” gives listeners a glimpse of the cynicism and anger that pervades their music in what is a choleric condemnation of the notion that every new day brings new opportunities: “You’re a butt face lie, a monster in disguise! I shook your hand, the purple veins, you’ve got shit for brains.” Check them out on MySpace.com or Facebook. May 31st, 2010 by Shopping Bag Were you “Super Surprised”?
I had a less than stellar experience on Record Store Day, but I think that was largely because I didn’t find any of the special releases promised to us. Case in point: the Beastie Boys contributed a “super surprise” 12-inch record for Record Store Day that was limited to 1,000 copies and will be distributed among more than 700 record stores. Not surprisingly, Alaska seems to have missed out on any copies of this 12-inch, forcing fans like me to find it on the web. Cool footnote: according to the internets, Capitol/EMI (the Beastie record label) did not commission the album from the Beastie Boys, meaning that the idea to participate in Record Store Day was solely the Beastie Boys’ idea. Mad props Boys! January 26th, 2010 by Shopping Bag Shopping Bag’s Albums of 2009
The Twilight Sad is awesome. A band that lists Phil Spector, Arab Strap and Leonard Cohen as influences has to be, right? They continue to grow and mature as a band, and their 2009 release Forget The Night Ahead is the pinnacle of their blossoming career. Imagine Sonic Youth dissonance (see “I Became A Prostitute”) layered with My Bloody Valentine’s sonic mastery (see “Interrupted”) and buttered with Ian Curtis (see “That Room”) and sprinkled with that Scottish accent that I can’t seem to get enough of, and that’s Forget The Night Ahead. Plus they have absolutely killer album covers. This is probably my favorite new band of the past few years and a serious contender for album of the year 2009. What can be said about We Were Promised Jetpacks and their debut album These Four Walls that hasn’t already been said? At once frenetic (see “Roll Up Your Sleeves”) crashing (see “It’s Thunder and Lightning”) tender (see “This Is My House, This Is My Home”) and FUN! (see “Short Bursts”), this is a contender for album of the year. Musically it’s amazing: lyrically it makes me smile with its adorable accents. Along with Frightened Rabbit, The Twilight Sad, The Swell Season and other member of the recent Scottish invasion, WWPJ is here to stay. I never saw the movie, though it is on my “to see” list, but I am a huge fan of the Once soundtrack. The Swell Season is the latest collaboration between Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová. Their 2009 album Strict Joy is exactly that. From whispered ballads (see “In These Arms) to desperate pleas (see “Low Rising”) to acoustic travel songs (see “Feeling the Pull”), the album has it all. Strict Joy covers tremendous lyrical ground from realizing our own shortcomings (see “The Rain”) to the unavoidable end of relationships (see “High Horses” — maybe one of my favorite songs of the year and featuring one of the best bridges in recent musical history.) Oh Minnows released a three song EP called Might EP and somehow made it on to this list of top albums. How? Simple: beautiful synths (see “Might”) impeccable shoegazing (see “Might”) and hints of the Cure (see “Might”). Yes, I just referenced one song three separate times. It’s that good: probably my favorite song of 2009. And that’s all. This description is as short as the album. Rick Froberg, of Pitchfork, Drive Like Jehu and Hot Snakes fame, says “I think innovation is an overestimated quality.” I don’t know about overestimated, but sometimes a familiar thing is a good thing. Take the his newest endeavor Obits: their 2009 album I Blame You is far from innovative. In fact, I’d go so far as to say it sounds like it could be b-sides from one of his other bands. But that doesn’t matter when you have high octane (see “Pine On”) greased lighting (see “Window of my Dreams”) truckin’ down the expressway of your ears at full speed! Surf rock influences (see “I Blame You”) and the minimal production that made Hot Snakes sound so bold make this a favorite 5-miler soundtrack. From the opening keyboard lines of the 2009 album A Balloon Called Moaning, it’s obvious that The Joy Formidable is both beautiful and bold. Reminiscent of the great female-led indie rock bands of the past – from the Breeders to the Sounds and beyond – this Welsh three-piece has nailed everything about indie rock that I enjoy: layers of sound, killer riffs on both guitar and keyboard (see “While The Flies”), and strong energy (see “The Last Drop” and “Whirring”). Get hooked from the opening track (“The Greatest Light Is the Greatest Shade”) and enjoy the rest of the ride. Nashville, Tennessee indie band Paper Route released the sprawling pop masterpiece Absence in April of 2009. It’s still in rotation on my iPod. And no wonder: any band that tours with the likes of Paramore, Phantom Planet, Jack’s Mannequin, Copeland, Passion Pit, or She Wants Revenge has to be good, right? Think well-produced synth pop (see “Enemy Among Us”) with anthem-like epics (see “Are We All Forgotten?”) and familiar, comforting melodies (see “Lovers’ Anthem”). The band is quickly becoming a guilty pleasure of sorts: in addition to having songs on One Tree Hill, they are currently touring with band-of-the-minute Owl City. However, don’t let that detract from this true pop masterpiece. I have to admit: I wrote you off long ago. Sorry Richard Melville Hall, you just got kinda boring and predictable. I have since eaten those words with the release of Wait For Me. Helped in small part by Ken Thomas (of Sigur Rós fame) handling the mixing boards, Moby seems to have found both his inner melancholy and his knack for nailing simple, yet elegant melodies. Everything about this record is beautiful (see “Shot In The Back of the Head”) and depressing (see “Mistake”) and uplifting (see “Walk With Me”), sometimes within the same song (see “Wait For Me”). I’m not entirely sure about the pseudonym Loney, Dear. Frankly, it doesn’t matter, Mr. Emil Svanängen – weird name or not, you make lovely (see “I Was Only Going Out”), soothing-yet-melancholy (see “I Got Lost “) pop-infused electronic music (see “Everything Turns to You”). Your soft and delicate voice is like a breeze before a nap. Dear John is a somber electro pop masterpiece. Music is sometimes soundtrack to our lives, while other times our lives seem to be following the script of our favorite records: this record fulfilled both of those roles for me. You look like an accountant, Matthew Stephen Ward. But you seem to be best buds with Zooey Deschanel, and for that I am envious. And you make wicked roots rock music (see “One Hundred Million Years”), smothered in blues and classic rock influences (see “Never Had Nobody Like You” featuring Deschanel) that, because of the amazing production on your 2009 album Hold Time, sound fresh and new and awesome. Your voice is both soft and raspy (see “For Beginners”), your melodies velvety. I caught your performance on Conan and was sold. Awesome collaborations ( see “Oh, Lonesome Me” featuring Lucinda Williams) abound on this album. Before you say to yourself, “My God – Shopping Bag’s gone all soft” let me introduce you to a new band and 2009 album that are nipping at the heels of The Twilight Sad for top honors: The Tupolev Ghost. Their 2009 album (with the imaginative title of The Tupolev Ghost) has resurrected the ghosts of Drive-Ins past, or any other aggressive indie rock of the past two decades – from Fugazi on. It’s a shame it’s only six short songs: the driving guitars and screaming vocals leave you with your pumped fist still in the air and wanting more. See, um, ALL of the songs. Yes, it’s total girl music. Yes the girl I was seeing was a huge fan. Yes she played it fucking ten million times a day. And, yes, it actually grew on me. Florence + the Machine is one part Tori Amos, one part Neko Case and a little bit of Fiona. Hear them all on Lungs. The energy of the album comes from both the music itself (see “Dog Days Are Over”) and the lyrical content (see “Kiss With A Fist”) and from Florence’s idiosyncratic vocal stylings (see “Cosmic Love” and “Rabbit Heart”). Honorable mentions: The posthumous ODB album A Son Unique | The Engineers album Three Fact Finder | The Haymarket Riot album Endless Bummer | The Metric album Fantasies | The Yeah Yeah Yeahs album It’s Blitz! | The Western Civ album Shower The People You Love With Gold | The Veils album Sun Gangs November 28th, 2006 by Shopping Bag Gotta go put on your Headphones
With that out of the way, let me talk about what this album is not: it is not the same thing as when a similarly talented lead singer / guitarist took a break from his wildy popular indie rock band Death Cab for Cutie and cut a lovely synth-driven pop record with the dude from DNTEL. Headphones is mid-tempo sadcore stripped down to the bare essentials as played by Bazan and longtime Pedro the Lion member TW Walsh. Interestingly, there are no guitars – bass, lead, rhythm or otherwise – but they do use live drums. That is the really unique thing about this project: while there are electronics – both Bazan and Walsh play 80s sounding Casio keyboards – there is no thumping, clicking, popping, sampling, or any sort of electronic beat. Dueling Casios and a live drummer. “Gas and Matches” is melodic and dark, like much of the Pedro catalog. The catchy, dour keyboard lines carry the tune, as does Bazan’s unmistakable voice. “Shit Talker” is a slow but catchy number with narrative-driven lyrics. “Hot Girls” is a catchy tune based on simple keyboard lines. “I Never Wanted You” is a somber tune about a cheating lover that is carried by the perfect mix of dark pop, minimal drums, and minimal electronics. “Major Cities” features Bazan singing softly over keyboard backing. “Natural Disaster” is a speedy little pop song about Bush II. “Hello Operator” is a simple song with some pretty melodic breakdowns. “Pink and Brown” is a great little number driven by the drums and sparse keyboards. “Wise Blood” is a moody number that gets rather spacey and dreamy despite the limited arsenal of two keyboards and drums. “Slow Car Crash,” the closing number, is almost acapella with Bazan singing along with a simple on keyboard chord progression. All in all, this album is pretty fantastic for those of us who love Bazan. Indie rock fans will be disappointed, just like indie rock label Jade Tree who reportedly passed on the album because it didn’t fit the indie rock mold cast by Pedro. Their loss: Bazan hits all the right notes on this one in his trademark baritone musings on cheating hearts, infidelity, religion, war, politics, and good old human nature. |
I need to preface this review with two declarations: [1] I am a fan of pretty much everything 