Slipped Discs September 2010
Discs You May Have Missed
by John Noyd
Cas Haley
Initial Thoughts
September often marks a return to routine. Back to work? Plug into SAM PREKOP’s atmospheric automaton odyssey, “Old Punch Card.” Miss the sunshine? Soak up multi-talented RICHARD BARONE’s radiantly raggedy, pop-rock concoction, “Glow.” From CAS HALEY’s soul-inspired reggae, “Connections,” to the spindly symmetry in OVAL’s galvanized electrical experiment, “O,” autumn discs concede and contest routine advancing structurally-minded titles and their anarchist doppelgangers. Deviate from the norm and repeat as needed.
Disc Reviews
The Young Scamels - Tempest
The Young Scamels
Album title: Tempest
Record Label: File 13
Music composed for the Shakespeare play; “Tempest,” dispenses magical moods, funneling modest solace and worldly wonder into eloquent sentiments. Songs, soliloquies and spell-binding post-rock hover over swarming strings, quizzical cymbals and twittering marimbas as wordless pursuits cavort and consort around ectoplasmic incantations. Lending a gentle tenderness, TYS’s spirited instrumentals devise, confide and mesmerize.
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The Young Scamels online:
• Website • Facebook
Underworld - Barking
Underworld
Album title: Barking
Record Label: OM Records
First-time use of outside producers, Underworld’s sixth disc remains indelibly true to its trance-disco roots. Corridors of escalating beats, sweetened in hip-swiveling jangle and arena-sized synthesizers, helicopter to rapturous pneumatic satisfaction. Tentatively menacing, “Barking,” revel in spotlight stares cast from lingering sizzle; steamy cybernetic sequences teasing secret night-time daydreams between pounding downtown declarations exuding cavalier club-hopping confidence.
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Underworld online:
• Website • Facebook • Wiki
Interpol - Interpol
Interpol
Album title: Interpol
Record Label: Matador
Stripped down to a sleek threesome, “Interpol,” still thinks big. Gloating in slow reproaches cloaked in dark velvet tensions and cast-iron cadence, brawny sonic monuments get lubricated in withering glances and sinister insect rhythms. Fashionably dramatic twists fortify Interpol’s ultra-cool odes simmering in insurgency – hatching glam-rock plots born from suspicious minds, tortured desires and lurking malevolence.
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Interpol online:
• Website • Facebook • Wiki
• Download Interpol from Amazon
• Purchase Interpol on Amazon
Fences - Fences
Fences
Album title: Fences
Record Label: Onto Entertainment (ADA)
Bedroom pop wallpapered in weathered regrets and street-fed wisdom, “Fences,” packages unsorted feelings into restless resolution, nimble pickin’ and waltzing melodies whose casual insight and gifted riffs bolster roller-coaster emotions through stoic brokered perspective. Personable and persuasive, Fences’ jaunty melancholy and placid happiness nestle together befriended by quietly spry lyrics, sly hooks and humble brilliance.
(3065) Page Views
Fences online:
• Website • Facebook
The Clientele - Minotaur
The Clientele
Album title: Minotaur
Record Label: Merge Records
A mini-album packed to the gills, from the quasi-classical to the nakedly oratorical, Minotaur,” jumps verbal hurdles with posh indie-pop. Richly descriptive visions pitch open-hearted curve-balls, blue-eyed soul courting memory and dream, woozy musings illuminated in toe-tapping mojo. TC’s craftily re-mastered music hall rock tosses off crisp Britpop swagger saluting fine taste and good breeding.
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The Clientele online:
• Website • Facebook • Wiki
Kristin Hersh - Crooked
Kristin Hersh
Album title: Crooked
Record Label:
Mounting electricity rips through, “Crooked,” as acoustic voodoo squalls carved from Hersh’s inscrutably unique dervish curses snake around careening guitars and stun-gun percussion. Irrepressible epiphanies pair punk parables to mountain-music mania, channeling deliberately elliptical folk psychosis with haunting clarity. Available this summer on-line from CASH music, “Crooked,” returns accompanied by a bonus-laden book.
(2835) Page Views
Kristin Hersh online:
• Website • Facebook • Wiki
Final Thoughts
Can’t see the forest for the trees? No problem. Nibble on tasty electro-folk innovators THE ACORN’s cultivated jam-based Americana-crunk opus, “No Ghosts,” and then harvest psychedelic chamber-pop mischief-makers TALLEST TREES’ marvelous musical menagerie, “The Ostrich or the Lark.” Plant yourself beside smart, emo-rocking romanticists THE LONELY FOREST’s flying, driving self-titled EP before finally navigating classically-bent folk revisionists LOST IN THE TREES’ vast and lovely, “All Alone in an Empty House.”