Posts tagged with album review

01/29/2011

Album Review: Alexander – Alexander

This seems odd to be posting this as I just posted a stream of “Million Years” this morning from the upcoming self-titled album from Alexander, the solo project of Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros frontman Alex Ebert, but when someone spills the beans that there’s more to be heard, I just can’t help myself. Especially since I had a pretty good feeling that this would be a pretty feel good album, and the perfect thing to bring some excitement into an otherwise lazy Saturday afternoon.

Alexander goes through a series of ups and downs with the fun, singalong type tracks that Ebert is so great at, and the slower, introspective tracks whose beauty is only revealed after a few listens. At 10 tracks, this album feels to be the perfect length. The tracks move through a series of emotions both musically and lyrically, and as he so often does, Ebert lays it all on the table. When I’d first heard “Truth” a few months back, I really liked it, but it wasn’t until I saw this album which showed the lyrics and read them that I realized what a fantastic song it truly was, with Ebert bearing his demons to all in his eternal quest for ultimate enlightenment (I swear I don’t mean that in a snarky way). Ebert says that the all important second track, in this case “Awake My Body”, really expresses the feelings that led to the creation of the album, as he was feeling exhausted and wanted to reawaken himself, in the sense of invigorating his individual cells to become a physical representation of his spirit, and then throws in a “whatever the hell that means” for good measure. I say that all the time around here, so I can buy into that. But in that way, you really do get the sense that this album is a physical manifestation of Ebert’s soul, with perhaps the slightly out of control vocals in “Remember Your Heart” representing his potential wild streak (just kidding).

As I mentioned in another post, perhaps the most interesting and impressive thing about this album is that Ebert is responsible for every single piece of this album. As a former clarinet player (I’m sure it’s extremely easy to believe that I was in the marching band in high school), I really appreciate that Ebert plays a clarinet, trumpet and even a violin, which he had never played before but had one lying around, at some point on this album (among many other instruments of course). Ebert takes DIY to a new level, and it’s a true, literal example of a “solo record” made even more great by the depth of sound that the album has from start to finish.

It’s hard not to imagine that this album as a whole will take the same course as The Edward Sharpe ATMZ album and “Truth” did. At first, I will hear them and think, “That was pretty cool.” And then after repeated listens, I’ll start to really, as Carles would say, “get” it. Even “Million Years”, which I heard once or twice on SiriusXMU and have listened to a few times since then, is already getting better and better with each listen. That’s how I feel right now. It’s a pretty cool album. For now at least, though I’m fairly confident that getting to know these songs a little bit better will let out all a whole new level of appreciation/enjoyment. And I feel like while the upbeat tunes like “In The Twilight” are early standouts, some of the more subtle tracks, like the slightly downtempo “Old Friend” and the soulful “Glimpses” are bursting with potential to become album favorites.

An impressive solo effort, in the truest form of the word “solo”.

The album will be released to the masses on March 1 on Community Music (via Vagrant Records).

Alexander – In The Twilight

Alexander – Glimpses

Alexander track listing:
1. Let’s Win!
2. Awake My Body
3. Truth
4. In The Twilight
5. Bad Bad Love
6. Old Friend
7. A Million Years
8. Remember Our Heart
9. Glimpses
10. Let’s Make A Deal To Not Make A Deal

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01/16/2011

Album review: Cut Copy – Zonoscope

Without a doubt, Zonoscope, the newest album from Aussie electronic beatmasters Cut Copy, was one of my most anticipated albums of 2011. The band just has an unparalleled ability to always brighten my spirits and can elicit a dance party with almost any of their tracks, so after the huge success of 2008′s In Ghost Colours, I had high expectations that I was trying to keep under control. My first glimpse at this album was the shuffle-laden “Where I’m Going”, a track that at first didn’t grab my attention at all but after repeated listens had me on board. Next up was the potentially Men At Work inspired “Take Me Over”, a track that was pretty 80s sounding but had me feeling pretty good about where things were going.

And now, after my first listen of the full album, I can say that all in all I am pretty satisfied with this record. Most noticeably, it seems to be a whole lot brighter in general than In Ghost Colours. I think this is due to some combination of brighter melodies and a noticeable reduction in the heaviest synth bass lines that permeated their 2008 album. Just like the last record, this one flows from one track to another almost seamlessly, so everything is tied together pretty nicely. Opener “Need You Now” is a great slower paced track at first that builds into a shining gem and is a great summation of the overal sentiment of the whole album. The heaviest track might be “Pharaohs & Pyramids”, an early favorite for me, especially coming immediately after the bouncy “Where I’m Going”, or the second to last track “Corner of the Sky”. The beginning and end of the album seem to be the heavier tunes that bookend the lighter tracks in the middle, and while the energy does go down a bit in the middle, this gives the album a really great flow from start to finish.

Undoubtedly the most ambitious track on this album is the quasi-rave inspired 15 minute closer, “Sun God”. At the start, this tune sounds a bit Hercules & Love Affair to me (I doubt if that’s a good comparison, but that was the name that first popped into my head when the song began) before breaking into several minutes of long, flowing synth as a beat slowly (very slowly) builds up, just bracing you for whatever is about to come next. I’m typically not a fan of these long, sprawling tunes, but this one just seemed to work, not to mention it got into some of the darker places (especially in the last few minutes) that many of the other tracks on this album did not.

Overall impressions: Another solid effort from Cut Copy. There seems to be slightly less (emphasis on slightly) of the heavy beats and that defined In Ghost Colours, but the synthy side of Cut Copy is still ever present, and the band still made sure to build their own brand of deep and intricate soundscapes that they do so very well. This is still the same Cut Copy we know and love, but just a tiny bit lighter and a tiny bit brighter, although after giving a few of the tracks some more plays, I’m starting to think that’s true less and less. Point is, I’m not disappointed by this album one bit, and I’m sure I will only like it more and more with each listen. Let’s just hope we see them on the roster for Coachella later this week as I’m fully expecting.

Cut Copy – Pharaohs & Pyramids

Cut Copy – Corner of the Sky

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11/22/2010

Daft Punk – TRON Legacy (End Titles) + Soundtrack Review

Well, it’s happened. The much awaited soundtrack to TRON: Legacy has hit the interwebs and I’m not ashamed to say that we just threw on some bomb-ass headphones and gave this scheisse a listen from start to finish. Unless you’ve been living under the internet’s equivalent of a rock (which I guess would be something like a hotmail email address?), you’ve no doubt been waiting for the moment when we got to hear something new from Daft Punk, even if it was in the form of a movie score. But after our first flavor of the TRON: Legacy soundtrack a while back when we first heard “Derezzed” (check the NTEIBINT edit here), we were pretty stoked to hear more. That being said, when you decide to give this a listen, just keep in mind that it’s the soundtrack/score for a movie, so you’re definitely not going to be dancing your ass off the whole time (or even most of the time), nor will most of it make any sense out of context of the movie. It’s pretty orchestral as most movie scores are, and pretty much nothing about it screams Daft Punk, but there’s no denying that it’s insanely beautiful. But for me that makes it all the more impressive. There’s nobody out there that doubts that Daft Punk can get anyone to shake it in just about any situation, but I don’t think there are many of us who thought/knew that they had this kind of musical composition in them, and while chances are I never would have listened to a movie score from start to finish if it didn’t involve the words “Daft Punk”, I just listened to a movie score from start to finish, and I liked it a lot.

All THAT being said, there are still some pretty nice moments where you remember who’s behind the lush string arrangements that conjure images of long, panning shots of the Tron world. But like most movies and stories in general, there is typically a huge buildup and climax, and this soundtrack is no exception. There are definitely some points in the middle when things sound distinctly Daft Punk (mainly the aforementioned “Derezzed” and “TRON Legacy (End Titles)”), but we found ourselves very OK with the fact that this sound wasn’t more abundant.

But for anyone who was let down, let this be an example of how expectation can drive our thoughts and emotions. It was clear since day 1 that this was essentially the score to a film, but I don’t think there’s one of us who didn’t expect banger after banger on this disc. Although, it was a bit unfair to promote the soundtrack with 1 of the 2 big tracks on the album. But point is, let’s all not get so excited about things. While the soundtrack was awesome in a way I definitely did not expect, I did not expect it to sound like that, and it clearly doesn’t make a ton of sense out of context. But the good news is, I learned that Daft Punk is a lot more than heavy beats, and I want to see this movie even more than I did before.

Final thoughts in a nutshell: This is not a killer Daft Punk album that will blow the roof off your next party, but it is an incredible movie score to a movie that has epic potential written all over it. If you came looking for the next big Daft Punk hit, you will most likely be sorely disappointed. But if you listened to the soundtrack for what it was – a soundtrack – you just might be surprised at Daft Punk was capable of putting together, most of the time with no beats anywhere to be found. And while it doesn’t happen too often, there are times when the orchestral sounds are married with the electronic, and that is when it’s pure bliss. Like this little ditty below.

Daft Punk – TRON Legacy (End Titles)

9 comments

07/07/2010

[album review] Ceo – White Magic

I’m not going to pretend that I know anything about Eric Berglund or The Tough Alliance, the Swedish band for which he is perhaps most well known. But what I do know is that I’ve been pretty excited to hear Berglund’s White Magic album, recorded under his ceo moniker, ever since I heard “Come With Me” about a month ago. And while I didn’t really know what to expect from the album, I can say I’m pretty satisfied with his fresh take on how electronic and live instrumentation can work together in perfect harmony.

Since the one track I’d heard was so electronic, I was pretty surprised to hear the album’s opening track “All Around” start with what sounded like a full orchestra, or at least a full string section. And that sort of became the theme throughout the whole album. Expect the subtle unexpected. For example, after the flowing first track, I was surprised by the immediate drop into the heavier beats of “Illuminata”. And also the extensive use of acoustic and electric guitar (plus the aforementioned string section), something I feel like we hear far too seldom on an electronic album.

I also really enjoyed the use of all kinds of subtle samples. Much like in “Come With Me”, voices are cut up and sampled and incorporated directly into the rhythm of the songs. I’m pretty sure I also heard some birds in a few tracks and I definitely heard the metallic sound of a sword being drawn from its holster in “No Mercy”. But make no mistake, despite all my talk of beats, samples and computer-generated music, it’s the bright and beautiful melodies that really shine on this album.

The album closes out with “Den Blomstertid Nu Kommer”, a track that at first sounds like musically it could be a viable alternative for the Swedish national anthem before building up into a wall of sound that fades away into the string section we heard at the start of the album. In fact, the melody, despite being in a different key, is almost identical to the first melody we heard in “All Around”. An ending that brings the whole album full circle and into nearly perfect symmetry, much like the album’s artwork.

ceo – Illuminata

buy the track on Illuminata

buy the album on White

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06/29/2010

[album review] Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti – Before Today

There are a lot of reasons to reign in your expectations for Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti. If you don’t know anything about this “hipster’s hipster,” it should be stated that Ariel Pink is label-mates with indie chiefs Animal Collective and that Ariel Pink’s hermit ways are a source of inspiration for the big names in the scene to take up home recordings. If a mysterious L.A. hipster living in seclusion with an 8-track doesn’t sound like your type of party, then Before Today might not be for you, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to take away from it. Look at it this way: if the big players in the indie and experimental pop fields are watching this guy closely, there is surely some kind of lesson to be learned.

And as it promises, Before Today is an album that successfully wanders through a few decades of pop without wasting too much time. It lays out like a tour of pop music from the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s, and is a decent primer for those who are unfamiliar with the influential sounds of today’s indie scene. It focuses on re- imagining the sounds of an AM radio tuned to forgettable 70’s pop and R&B, but invites other moments of 90’s grunge, shoegaze, New York punk, psychedelic, disco, and many others introduced at liberal entrance points between and in the middle of songs.

On a certain level, one could fault the album for a lack of originality. Taking the “experimental” tag literally, you could say the album is lazy or lackluster. But the tracks themselves are seamless and well-constructed, a big credit to an artist who is known for his decades of unreleased recordings in storage. With four albums under the name and a basement full of untapped material, you can’t really say Ariel Pink doesn’t know what he’s talking about. And Before Today has a few shining tracks: the ones that stood out for me were “Bright Lit Blue Skies,” a 70’s power ballad that recreates the sound of driving a Porsche along the Pacific shore, “Round and Round,” which has sort of a white-guy R&B vibe that begs for those sunglasses to come on at night, “Butt-House Blondies,” which sounds like early Soundgarden transplanted in the Nixon era, and finally “Menopause Man,” which sounds vintage and cool in a way I’m not sure I want to ruin through analysis.

And this is likely how many people will digest the album. Mr. Pink deserves credit for lovingly-constructing a revivalist effort that honors the sound through faithful recreation instead of personalized homage. To his credit, it also steps up the quality of other APHG releases of archived dust-sponge cassettes, and the chance to make a real record in a studio didn’t smooth the fuzz (a.k.a. the best part) off the edges.

Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti – Bright Lit Blue Skies

buy the track on Bright or amazon

buy the album on Before or amazon

This review was written by dailybeatz contributor PJ Nutting, a Boulder, CO DJ/journalist.

2 comments

06/23/2010

[album review] Flying Lotus – Cosmogramma

Steven Ellison could have gotten away with cloning 2008’s Los Angeles for his third Flying Lotus album. It would have been really easy – not to say that Los Angeles was artistically easy, only that “Los Angeles II” would have likely disappointed no one. Even with three different L.A. E.P.’s around, the complacency of following a highly successful sound would have been completely forgivable in this case. But Ellison decided to avoid that shortcut and NOT make the banger after-party album that I, for one, was absolutely hoping for. Cosmogramma heads in completely new directions; it’s 45 minutes of Ellison answering the question, “What is my next step?” And though the experiment doesn’t always have consistent momentum, there is still so much that deserves praise I can’t possibly blame him for pursuing something new.

On a first listen, it sounds like Cosmogramma is all over the place. “Clock Catcher” kicks things off with the album’s dirtiest bass line, only to fade into a shapeless interlude thirty seconds later. Then, in my most brief summary, the second and third tracks bust out into FlyLo’s brand of bebop and German electro, respectively. The entire album is similarly genre-spastic, but it definitely picks up by the fourth track, “Intro / A Cosmic Drama,” which sounds like the album’s real beginning to me. “Zodiac Shit” is the kind of beat I expected Los Angeles II would have sounded like, and the next ten minutes keep things so buttery smooth that I had no idea Thom Yorke was even on “…And the World Laughs With You” until I checked to see if the disembodied voice really was him.

What sticks out through Cosmogramma’s second half, and what I think becomes its greatest strength, is the abundance of guest instrumentalists that expand the sound. There’s harp, synths, strings, saxophone, and a bass that sounds like it was ripped right from 70’s prog rock. Each dissimilar element comes together in a product that isn’t hip-hop, isn’t neo-soul, isn’t Afro-futurist, or any genre that has described Flying Lotus. It straight-up sounds like a reinvention of jazz, and that is why Cosmogramma is a champion moment for Ellison. He is using his beats as a vehicle to bring him back to his jazz heritage, sometimes so far into them that tracks sound like live recordings done in one take. You knew that he’s John Coltrane’s nephew, right? I think Cosmogramma would have pleased Mr. Coltrane greatly.

Cosmogramma isn’t perfect, and I don’t think I will ever say it’s my favorite Flying Lotus album, but there are moments that really make me believe Ellison is poised for further transcendence. Where older material sounded like a one-man show (no doubt one of its strengths), moments in Cosmogramma come off as a group effort. Listen to “Dance of the Pseudo Nymphs” and think about how amazing it would sound as performed by a jazz combo. With Ellison texturing everything together as a bandleader, that performance would probably be chemically harmful to my brain. The most exciting and dizzying question about Cosmogramma is whether it will mark the moment when Ellison revitalized the spirit of jazz, and by extension, whether a cartoon program that aired Squidbillies was integral to that movement. He greatly succeeded in refining his signature, that sound that is distinctly his own, but the implications for his future border on scary.

Cosmogramma showed me that I underestimated the depths that FlyLo’s beat submarine could dive, and Cosmogramma is the sonic equivalent of Ellison steering it past all the pretty coral reefs and plunging towards the deep-sea trenches of his influences and his potential as an artist.

Flying Lotus – …And The World Laughs With You

buy it on ...And or amazon

This review was written by dailybeatz contributor PJ Nutting, a Boulder, CO DJ/journalist

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06/15/2010

[album review] Tame Impala – Innerspeaker

Tame Impala, the psychedelic trio from Perth, Australia, floats in to this summer’s soundsphere and the hearts of sun-drenched fest goers with their full-album debut Innerspeaker. The album projects the good vibes of the band’s wise spirit animal, the majestic impala, as it drives its 1969 Impala with Disraeli Gears blasting from the subs in its search for heady nugs and a little tail. It may be tame, but it is far from domesticated, and it stops the car for a moment to look at you, piercing into your soul with rainbow eyes and reveals that it’s a beautiful forest.

Innerspeaker borrows even further from the power blues of the 60’s and 70’s than on Tame Impala’s debut EP in 2008, digging further to find that which resonates well with their retro-psychedelic technique. The album is a constant flux of analog energy and a strong allegiance to how things were done back in the day, with powerful songwriting, tape echo and classic flange effects, and great production that holds it all together to ensure the three musicians get the most mileage out of their instruments. They seem to use the album’s full hour to squeeze out every last drop as individual band members rise in and out through the surface of the liquid wall of sound.

The songs are consistent in style, and only the even numbered tracks seem to jump out for attention. The album could very well could have skipped the first track and gone straight to the driving haze of “Desire Be Desire Go,” the first track on the EP. “Solitude is Bliss” is accessible and precise, and “I Don’t Really Mind” is sure to be a live stage staple. “Expectation” drags out a little too far, and “Runway, Houses, City, Clouds” definitely borrows more than a few of its seven minutes from a Pink Floyd mellow moment. But the important thing to know is that none of the songs were in a hurry to begin with, anyway. You probably shouldn’t be listening to the album if you urgently have to be somewhere, and the album comes through when you have a hefty joint that will take an entire hour to smoke. The sounds of individual songs are content to coast around each other like a game of bumper clouds, not overpowering you, but politely asking to wash over you.

They are much more mellow than fellow Aussies Wolfmother, but they do sound like they borrow their instruments from time to time. Vocalist Kevin Parker sure sounds a lot like John Lennon, whether by coincidence or by design. If that combination of Lennon fronting Wolfmother forms in your head into something completely awesome, chances are great that you’ll love this album. They share a similarilty with English rockers Kasabian, but it’s really hard to define; for lack of a better analogy, Tame Impala is weed if Kasabian is beer.

The album is surely great timing for the band, who is likely thrive in their summer appearances like at Sasquatch. “I Don’t Really Mind” is going to get some good festival attention, especially with the mid-song pause for a rave-synth interlude that’s approximate to the mental sound of standing in a field full of people on drugs. It’s the only moment that sounds like it came straight from the present, and it’s the exclamation point at the end of the album that says you can’t trust your expectations of what they will do in the future. With quite a few remixes floating around already, Tame Impala could become a completely different animal by next summer.

Tame Impala – Desire Be Desire Go

buy the track on Tame Impala - InnerSpeaker - Desire Be Desire Go

buy the album on Tame Impala - InnerSpeaker

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06/09/2010

[album review] Javelin – No Mas

Ever since I put together the Blogwave Summer mixtape last month, I’ve been wanting to hear more from Brooklyn Band Javelin. V over at Creamteam submitted “Vibrationz” as her quintessential summer track and it was love at first listen. I wanted to see what else these characters I had never even heard of had up their collective sleeve.

So upon my first listen, how would I describe this album in a few words? Eccentric, retro, laid back, playful and all around summery. The album starts out with “Vibrationz” which, if you have not heard it, ellicits visions of sunglasses, convertibles and a hot hot summer. Then there’s “Oh! Centra” which starts out sounding like any one of your favorite Nintendo games (the original Nintendo) with some of the best lyrics ever. The vocals almost remind me of an Uffie track that has been sped up. The result is a quasi-rap track that sounds like it’s being sung by children (children playing Nintendo less), but with some hot lyrics. An album highlight for me. And “On It On It” which conjures images of mid-80s electronic. You know, the kind that uses laser beam noises non a keyboard for music. There are also lots of really great instrumentals on the album like the laid back “Intervales Theme” which has a little bit of a tropical soul flare and then there’s “Tell Me, What Will it Be?” which sounds like it could be the soundtrack to a late 60s detective drama starring some bodacious babe. All of this mixed in with tracks like “Off My Mind” which has a much lighter sounding Ratatat-esque beat among some regal Disneyland electrical light parade melodies. And then there’s “Shadow Heart” whose horn section and bari saxophone give it almost a hint of Motown.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that while this album screams retro to me and is all pretty cohesive, Javelin manages to create retro in so many different ways representing so many different eras. Even the recording sounds like it was done in some old-timey way, which is sort of essential to the sound they’ve created. I don’t know if that’s what they were going for, but that’s how it feels to me, and for someone who wants to hear some music as diverse and colorful as this album cover above, check this one out.

Javelin – Tell Me, What Will It Be?

buy it on Javelin - No Más - Tell Me What Will It Be? or amazon

Javelin – Oh! Centra

buy it on Javelin - No Más - Oh! Centra or amazon

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