why I haven't posted in so long. I guess a lot's been going on in the last month (as of Jan 2nd, I've been living in Edinburgh until early June), but I stopped leaving posts well before that. Oh well. Beats me. I guess there wasn't a lot to say? Or maybe I've been saving it. Also, The Beatles'
Love took up quite a bit of my time.
As I've posted before, Of Montreal were kind of on my bad side. I know they make stellar albums, on a pretty regular basis, too, but they stood me up for an interview and live mix at
WERS last year, and then when I saw them at McCarren Park Pool last summer they just blew. Had so little dynamics, and I know that it's a hard music to recreate live, but jesus Kevin, take a step back. Start by making somone play drums, maybe? Anyway, that's neither here nor there. I downloaded yesterday
Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? (I know that's a ridiculous title, but stay with me). The thing is, much as I want to hate this band (is it a band at this point? Apparently Kevin Barnes recorded most of it after he relocated with wife and infant son to Norway, beggin the question of whether this is a one-man-show type band) they keep coming out with really solid albums. It's just hard to argue with. So they suck live–I'll just stop checking out their live shows, I guess. From the album opener "Suffer for Fashion," which starts with a very Bright Eyes-esque distant-pianos-storms-and-babies-cooing sound, it breaks into the kind of deliriously dancable tune that we've come to expect since Barnes reinvented the group as an indie-disco-dance party. Overall the album kind of drops off towards the end, but even the twelve minute "The Past Is A Grotesque Animal" holds my interest with its spiraling keyboards and creepy backup vocals. Of course, as with any Of Montreal album or concert, you can't help but be confused at the dude's sexuality (Wife? Really? Like, a female wife?), but that doesn't really matter once you start dancing. I highly recommend this one.
Speaking of Bright Eyes, I also got my hands on a copy of his new
Four Winds EP, and it also is very good. Makes me excited for whatever direction he's going with the upcoming LP
Cassadaga, which apparently features Gillian Welch and M. Ward. The songs on here are fairly stripped down, and it sounds like he's finally finding the way to combine the country and electronic angles he felt the need to divide down the middle with his last simultaneously-released two LPs. How does this guy manage to make such unfailingly great records one after the other? Conor keeps me forever swooning.
Also yesterday I got from
eMusic Meet The Smithereens!, a track-for-track cover of the Beatles' first stateside album,
Meet The Beatles!. It plays alright, but really it just makes me want to listen to the original. There's not a lot you can add there, and these guys opt to not even try, just doing these faithful covers. I would, however, like to check out the tour they're doing in support of this release where they play the album start to finish. That would be fun to watch.
There's more, but I gotta save something for the next post.
