Joseph's Picks Of The Week 4/6/12 - Gentleman Jesse and Lee Ranaldo



In theory, the idea of a band playing unadulterated throwback power pop in 2012 might not seem all that promising. On Leaving Atlanta that’s just what Gentlemen Jesse does, and through a combination of impressive songs and an obvious love and understanding of the style, he manages to pull it off. And then some.

While power pop’s heyday is generally considered to be mid-‘70s through the early-‘80s, it has managed to make a dent on the charts in every decade since its decline, with Weezer and Matthew Sweet scoring hits with the stripped-down formula in the ‘90s and OK Go doing likewise in the ‘00s. But “Buddy Holly”, “Girlfriend” and “Here It Goes Again” were very contemporaneous appropriations of power pop tradition, extending that framework into the mainstream by sounding up to date, i.e. nobody was confusing any these bands with The Raspberries.

In the indie/underground scene, power pop hasn’t fared so well, particularly in contrast to its stylistic cousin garage rock.  This could be due to its generally upbeat disposition, for it’s a sub-genre not noted for being overtly angry or angsty. Or maybe it’s just preferable to be seen as not trying hard enough instead of trying too hard; no knock on the garage impulse, but it’s difficult to throw a rock and not hit a underachieving (or downright lazy) band of that stripe. And for every great garage act like The Mummies, The Gories or The Oblivians there are hundreds (each!) that barely qualify as also-rans. If garage often breeds a certain nonchalance, then power pop oozes commitment to a standard far beyond attitude (though attitude was something many great power pop bands did have in spades) and elevated competence. It’s about the patience of songwriting, especially the judicious crafting of hooks, and it very much concerns extensive practice and allegiance to the band dynamic. To display this sort of dedication only to be confronted with the crossed-arms of apathy or the catcalls of derision (what a bunch of posers) honestly isn’t something most humans wish to endure.

Thankfully, Jesse Smith isn’t concerned with the opprobrium of those that would deride him as being slavishly devoted to a sound that’s far beyond its sell expiration. Or it just might be that he resides in a large enough berg to avoid the harassment of wet-blanket brigade. Formerly of the rather slept on Atlanta garage punks Carbonas, Smith formed Gentleman Jesse and His Men and released a fine debut to almost no fanfare back in 2008. Since that time he’s suffered an uncommon level of personal strife, namely a physical assault and the death of five loved ones, so rather than feeling delayed, the appearance of Leaving Atlanta instead serves as the grand testament of one downtrodden survivor and the healing properties of his art.

Given Smith’s history in Carbonas, it might seem that his work as Gentleman Jesse would retain some of his former band’s ’77-ish firepower. But no, both the album with His Men and Leaving Atlanta (credited to Gentleman Jesse alone) collectively possess nary a trace of punk grit. Instead, they openly fondle the splendidly direct pop-rock spirit that thrived alongside punk as an alternative to the conceptual bloat of the 1970s rock scene; bands like The Nerves, The Real Kids, The Beat (Paul Collins’ L.A. band) and The Records serve as the direct precedent for Smith’s sensibility, as do more obvious sources such as early Cheap Trick and Costello and the Attractions circa This Year’s Model.

While many power pop bands released LPs, the era is best remembered retrospectively for certain highpoints in specific songs that feel custom designed for killer mix-tapes. Or for that matter compilations; anybody looking for a fix on the style should search out any of the four pop volumes of Rhino’s excellent DIY series or the Numero Group single disc dandy Yellow Pills: Prefill. In plain truth many of the records these bands issued were faulty, revealing weaknesses that can be chalked up in large part to commercial aspirations. Through engaging with the album format Gentlemen Jesse may be swimming against the tide of power pop’s lingering historical resonance, but his work refreshingly lacks any unfortunate marketplace maneuvers (in a word: sappiness) to inevitably gum up the works.

This shouldn’t infer that Leaving Atlanta isn’t completely conversant with its models. It’s just that Smith understands that repeating past mistakes is to be avoided when appropriating a form to his own ends. It’s the difference between shallow homage and the relevance of true stylistic extension. And happily Jesse shoots for a full-bodied, radio ready atmosphere, not being content to replicate the scaled-down studio traits of many modest, often self-released power pop obscurities. Everything here could’ve easily ended up on commercial radio playlists back in the late-‘70s without any sense of discord regarding production value. It’s not slick, it’s vivid.

And Leaving Atlanta greatly extends this Carter Administration radio-friendliness by grappling with a few of the era’s bigger and not immediately power pop taggable properties; “Take It Easy On Me” smartly splits the difference between Petty and Springsteen, particularly through the use of organ and a mildly Spector-esque bass line. Analogous to this are hints of a ‘50s jones that really steps up to the plate on penultimate track “Rooting For the Underdog”, its wickedly trim 1:39 sounding like something Rick Nielsen might’ve penned after being bowled over by a rerun of The Girl Can’t Help It on late-night Illinois TV.

A huge part of the record’s success derives from its top flight instrumentation. Milton Chapman’s keyboards add just the right amount of tonal color to the tunes, the rhythm section never lays a note wrong, and a dual guitar attack allows for ripping, Berry-descended solos without any loss of overall power. They even scored garage heavyweight King Louie Bankston (Royal Pendletons, The Persuaders, Bad Times) to contribute a little harmonica. Maybe the band’s best collective tactic is invigorating the up-tempo numbers with just enough hyperactivity to possibly inspire a live crowd mass pogo (or a big ol’ dogpile on the living room carpet), but not so much as to undermine the music’s essential power pop circuitry. Again, what really drives Leaving Atlanta home is that it’s never conflicted about what kind of record it wants to be; if the garage punk cats don’t “get” it, that’s just means there’s more room on the dance floor.

If anything punk-informed slips in here, it might be in the dark lyrical undercurrent to many of the record’s thirteen tracks. The relationship songs lack the la-la sweetness that undermined a lot of power pop (those commercial aspirations again, a quality that found many of the style’s purveyors labeled as “wimps”), and much of the material is focused instead on uncertainty and (as its title indicates) the desire to get away. This obviously has roots in Smith’s aforementioned personal struggles, but it never feels overly autobiographical; the love song’s words display common ground with The Ramones, and album closer “We Got to Get Out Of Here” is in the fine tradition of a similarly titled tuned by The Animals. Smith really seems to understand that great party music should always be leavened with undercurrents of emotional dissent in order to distinguish it from mere escapism. And he acquits himself as a fine lyricist here; “I saw an old friend yesterday/but I couldn’t recall his name/he told me that I have not changed” easily nails the nagging sense of loss that comes from time and distance, and “at night I sit in TV glow/watching reruns of the Popeye show”…well, that just speaks for itself.

The music on Leaving Atlanta is the stuff of great sweaty gigs in hole-in-the-wall dives and spirited, lease-breaking revelry. It’s also so successful in the recalibration of its chosen glories that an obvious temptation to overrate it creeps in. But no wheels are being reinvented here, and that shouldn’t be forgotten.

But the on the other hand, that won’t really be germane to the issue when three dozen people are up in your digs and another quick clean party platter is the only situational recourse. Cue this up and don’t be shocked if next morning some lout is sprawled out on the floor with the gatefold sleeve of Nick Lowe’s Jesus of Cool hovering over his slumbering mug like a tent. At least the dude has good taste.





After over three decades as one half of Sonic Youth’s estimable guitar tag-team, Lee Ranaldo finally delivers a traditional song-based solo album. While quite strong melodically and displaying the assurance and wisdom of a veteran musician, it also can’t help but register as a somewhat reserved affair.

Upon first seeing the cover of Between the Times and Tides, I couldn’t help being reminded of New York Eye and Ear Control, the wild and wooly free jazz soundtrack to Canadian multi-media artist Michael Snow’s experimental film released by the legendary ESP-Disk label way back in ’64, a record that features august avant-garde improvisers Albert Ayler, Don Cherry and Sunny Murray amongst others. But beside the use of black and white (frankly underutilized in album sleeve design), the images aren’t that much alike; yes they both feature human bodies and symbolic representations of same, but that’s really where the mild similarity ends. And yet I couldn’t help but be reminded of one by the other, and my thoughts on why have turned to the similarities between Snow and Ranaldo that just might’ve been residing in my subconscious.

For amongst other pursuits Michael Snow is involved with painting, film/video, photography, books and music. And so is Ranaldo. Unlike Thurston Moore, his prolific cohort in the currently on-hiatus Sonic Youth, Ranaldo is far less easily categorized as simply a guitarist with a few additional creative outlets. Yes, he’s been involved in a fair share of solo and collaborative music endeavors since the release of From Here to Infinity, a drone/loop/locked-groove project first issued by SST in 1987, but since that time his extracurricular concerns have been pretty evenly divided between music, visual art (often with his wife Leah Singer) and writing; he’s slowly acquired a reputation as a multi-media artist whose highest profile gig happens to be membership in what’s arguably the finest New York city rock ensemble since The Velvet Underground. By contrast, Moore can’t help being identified as a maddeningly prolific and indefatigably networking guitar slinger who just happens to dabble in small-press post-Beat poetry, music journalism and the running of the Ecstatic Peace! record label.

So it’s really no surprise that Between the Times and Tides is being touted by Matador as Ranaldo’s first “proper, song-oriented studio album”. That’s just simple truth in advertising. Up to now his recorded output has included grand drone statements like ‘93’s Scriptures of the Golden Eternity and 2000’s Amarillo Ramp (for Robert Smithson), some avant-improvisational splatter with drummer William Hooker and auto-harpist Zeena Parkins (‘95’s The Gift of Tongues), and the experimental film music project Text of Light. While Ranaldo has included honest-to-goodness songs on some of his solo outings (I particularly value his cover of Lennon’s “Isolation” from Amarillo Ramp), twenty-five years is a long time to deny the prospects of a full-fledged rock solo work, particularly when it’s been established through Sonic Youth’s proper albums that the guy can really deliver the goods in the style (e.g. “Hey Joni” from Daydream Nation, “Mote” from Goo and “Rats” from Rather Ripped).

In deciding that now’s the time to indulge his latent solo rock side, Ranaldo’s held nothing back in assembling an all-star cast; the core unit includes Wilco’s Nels Cline, bandmate Steve Shelley, Text of Light collaborator and former Love Child/Run On member Alan Licht, Medeski, Martin and Wood’s John Medeski and bassist Irwin Menken, with appearances by ex-SY members Bob Bert and Jim O’Rourke. But the work Ranaldo has signed is far from an indie-experimental jam session, indeed being far more song-oriented than expected from its measured promotional description.

Much of what’s here could easily fit onto any of the LPs that comprise Sonic Youth’s late work. But due to Ranaldo’s appealingly direct, almost conversational vocal delivery and his rather individual (if ultimately very accessible, even popish at times) approach to songwriting, the results are quite distinct from the feel of Sonic Youth’s work proper. Due to the limited exposure (some would say neglect) that his songs receive in the context of SY proper (he’s been described as the band’s George Harrison), Between the Times and Tides can give the impression of a solo record by absolute necessity; if he’d saved these tracks for upcoming Sonic Youth albums it would’ve taken ten more releases to actually hear them all. But the record lacks the aura of having something to prove, instead feeling assured and very relaxed. It did take this long to appear after all. This feeling of casualness comes to define the record, even when it occasionally starts to drift outward.

Opener “Waiting on a Dream” sets the course with a solid mid-tempo, the tune slowly building in forcefulness until it settles into an appealing (and familiar) pulse/chug rhythmic pattern meticulously layered with gliding string textures and the immediately welcoming tones of Ranaldo’s voice. From there the album is front-loaded with two of its standout tracks. The first is “Off the Wall”, an especially pretty and concise piece of guitar pop that succeeds through sheer melodic simplicity and a nice dynamic shift in the chorus. If Between the Times and Tides features a “single” (and why not?), “Off the Wall” is it. The second is “Xtina as I Knew Her”, a lengthy groove again in the mid-tempo (which honestly seems to be something of a songwriting comfort zone for Ranaldo) that’s simultaneously a multi-guitar showcase and a ample vehicle for some loose, imagery-laden storytelling.

And from there the album displays a consistency that is at once impressive and a slight bit disappointing. Impressive because of its clarity and variety, with the psych-inflected “Fire Island (Phases)” being quite a pleasant surprise, just for starters. And a bit disappointing due to a nagging sense that Ranaldo is playing it somewhat safe in crafting his first trad rock solo work. Naturally, “playing it safe” = my own mildly flouted expectations; all this firepower in one studio at the same time and they never manage even once to really let it fly. I understand that Between the Times and Tides is a collection of the guy’s very good, at times even exceptional melodic material and not an out-rock free for all, but I can’t deny thinking these songs could’ve benefited from some more chance taking, a few rougher edges and a greater helping of Ranaldo’s proven potential for general idiosyncrasy.

But I shouldn’t protest too strongly, for “safe” or not after a few listens it becomes clear that Ranaldo has made the album that he wanted. And touches of essential difference do sporadically assert themselves, with “Hammer Blows” skeletal acoustic structure serving as the platform for some nicely tweaked (if too brief) vocal action. And the use of Leah Singer’s spoken words in “Shouts” really adds to the songs already affecting Occupy-inspired atmosphere, forming what will likely remain the record’s finest track.

Between the Times and Tides is an admirable effort by an artist of distinction. Those who enjoy Sonic Youth purely for their more grounded inclinations will find much to like here. And if it doesn’t scratch the itch of those favorably disposed to the clime of outward-bound experimental exploration, well there’s always New York Eye and Ear Control.

Joseph's Picks Of The Week 3/30/12 - The Decemberists and Lambchop

After returning to relatively humble ambitions with their last studio album, The Decemberists have went triple-live gonzo with We All Raise Our Voices to the Air (Live Songs 04.11–08.11), and the results should easily meet their fans expectations. And while its contents may not convert the dubious, it might at least provide them with a clue to what the fuss is about.

A great many live records have been issued over the years by a diversity of pop and rock artists, and with a few notable exceptions, these documents generally serve two purposes. One, they stand as a commentary on the success of an act and a gift to those consumers who made that success possible. Second, they can provide proof that a performer or band can indeed put their thing across on the performance platform.

If pop and rock after the Beatles has largely been a phenomenon of greatness judged through studio albums, there has also been a persnickety attitude that those deemed great must also be able to exhibit their talent on the stage, the nude environment that doesn’t lie. This contrasts rather strongly with jazz, where it’s essentially considered a given that the players on a studio LP have made it there by already displaying their skill on the bandstand.

In rock in particular, those aforementioned exceptions to the standard of live albums as templates of success and proof have risen to some of the form’s most vital moments. For example, James Brown’s Live at the Apollo made it plain that the essence of soul music wasn’t located in the mind of a record label entrepreneur seeking chart success but in the mastery of one man and his crack band captured making history in front of a few hundred people in a jam-packed auditorium.

And if Jerry Lee Lewis’ Live at the Star Club was recorded with the intention of proving its leader could still bowl over a crowd and incinerate a club with reckless abandon, it was also a statement of defiance delivered to a public that had kicked him to the curb as unseemly and unworthy of their attention and respect.

Likewise, 1969: The Velvet Underground Live amplifies the achievement of a group very few people cared about while they actually existed, an apathy that doubtlessly shaped their status as rock’s greatest outsiders. And The Grateful Dead’s Live/Dead captures a single-minded and expansive band on a grand night making music that the confines of a studio simply couldn’t inspire or contain.

It should come as no great surprise that The Decemberists’ We All Raise Our Voices to the Air (Live Songs 04.11–08.11) doesn’t endeavor to the heights of the previous four examples. If its two plus hours spread over two compact discs or three vinyl LPs seems like a grandiose collection by a band that’s never been afraid of engaging with the maximal, the release is appealingly modest in its aims, the most immediate one being a condensed account of the band’s well-earned and somewhat unlikely success.

I say unlikely because their non-confessional, highly literary sensibility is frankly the stuff that cult status is made of. And I say well-earned because The Decemberists’ claimed their success through the traditional modes of high quality (and in their case, often thematically elaborate) albums and extensive touring, graduating from small clubs to larger halls and then to amphitheatres and multi-day outdoor festivals. So as an unabashed album band that can do it on the road, We All Raise Our Voices to the Air’s sheer length lacks arrogance or self-indulgence and instead testifies to the nature of a fan base where favorite songs are numerous and no one release has emerged as the consensus best.

We All Raise Our Voices to the Air also stands as a gesture of goodwill to the group’s devoted fans. But on closer inspection, it might have something more than just a statement on success and a thank you in mind, for its track listing, taken from a tour supporting their last studio album The King is Dead, insinuates that The Decemberists might have a little something to prove.

In this age of camera phones and copious YouTube clips, proving it as a live band is nowhere near as difficult as it used to be. And bands of their ilk don’t pull off shows playing in-sequence renderings of high-concept albums like ‘09’s The Hazards of Love via smoke and mirrors. But The King is Dead, while garnering its share of praise also seemed to divide critics and listeners over the perception of playing it safe and staking out the middle of a road paved with mere folk and Americana. ‘Tis true that King may have won back some folks put off by Hazards’ hints of prog-rock and metal, but for many listeners their last effort felt like The Decemberists minus the creative chutzpah.

Seven of We All Raise Our Voices to the Air’s songs originate from The King is Dead, and if that doesn’t seem surprising considering the shows partially included here were in support of that record, it also seems possible that The Decemberists are looking to integrate its less ambitious goals into the larger weave of their discography and maybe soften the expectation (a band instigated one, true) that in terms of scope every new release must equal or top the last one.

If the choice of seven songs from The King is Dead does contain a potential element of attempted validation regarding their most recent direction, their inclusion also simultaneously possesses an atmosphere of preaching to the choir. And this is okay. Actually it’s much more than okay, since We All Raise Our Voices to the Air’s surface unwieldiness is actually quite thoughtfully sequenced to deliver a pair of sets that build to very impressive climaxes.

If The Hazards of Love’s lofty concept is given an almost token acknowledgement via “The Rake’s Song”, that slight is softened (and immediately followed in the track order) by the inclusion of “The Crane Wife 1, 2 and 3”. While Colin Meloy partakes in a fair share of banter, crowd interaction and many humorous asides, it’s the sixteen minutes of “The Crane Wife” (which closes disc one, or side three of the vinyl) and the appropriately escalated grandeur of the already debonair “I Was Meant For the Stage” replete with an extended culminating orchestral skronk-fest (which ends disc two or side six) that provides ample evidence of the band’s ability to get right down to the business of playing live music.

And the band’s performances vary enough from their studio origins to make them worth the investment, but they also don’t lose the qualities that made them so appealing in the first place. This is particularly relevant to “The Soldiering Song” and obviously to “The Mariner’s Revenge Song”, which retains much of its splendor even after becoming a by now inevitable audience participation melee.

“Calamity Song” is also given a fine reading, and the concise pop of “O Valencia!” really shines in this atmosphere. Of course certain tunes are absent. I especially miss “Odalisque”, a track that would doubtlessly shine in the concert setting (and one I’ve unfortunately never heard them play), but if frustrated expectations are a part of the nature of seeing a band play live, this circumstance is certainly extended to live records.

We All Raise Our Voices to the Air is a very impressive document of some quite seamlessly selected (and sequenced) performances, but in the end it’s really no game-changer, which is to say The Decemberists are still largely the same band they were before its release. But if they keep on trucking, this 3LP set might end up becoming their Europe ’72. Its contents already provide a fine alternative to the underwhelming obviousness of a standard Greatest Hits collection.



After a wait of over three years, Kurt Wagner and his band of astute conspirators have delivered yet another highly distinguished album. Lambchop’s Mr. M unwinds as just one more example of Wagner and Co’s unfussy brilliance, and it adds to the oeuvre of one of the finest acts American music has produced in the last quarter century.   

Due to the nature of their early musical inclination, a rustic sound that held uneasy relationships with the comforts of both contemporaneousness and tradition, Lambchop has been frequently identified as one of the more eclectic examples of the alt-country genre, a circumstance that’s only been amplified by the group’s residence in Nashville, TN.  It’s a tag that Kurt Wagner and Co has never really bristled against, even after moving considerably beyond the template established by their first few albums, mainly because there really isn’t another genre that can comfortably house them.

However, Wagner can be grouped with Will Oldham, David Berman and Bill Callahan, all artists that charted paths out of the early ‘90s US indie boom to their own uniquely expressive ends. But of this foursome, Berman is no longer musically active, riding out on a high note, Oldham is a heavily collaborative and highly prolific operator continually shifting between on-again off-again bands and projects, and Callahan is most accurately sized-up as a solo artist. In this group it’s in Wagner alone that we find an artist so inclined to explore the possibilities of a gradually shifting (in membership as well as sound) long term collective.

Mr. M opens with “If Not I’ll Just Die”, four and a half minutes of lush, symphonic lounge, a song that if used as an introduction to Lambchop would surely bypass any alt-country connections and instead inspire an association with neo-easy listening. But for longtime listeners this development is par for the course, the use of strings being a longstanding component of the band’s arsenal asserting itself as far back as their second album How I Quit Smoking. If on “If Not I’ll Just Die” Lambchop are shooting for a Tormé /Sinatra vibe instead of the chamber-country of Smoking’s “We Never Argue” or the deep soul excavation of What Another Man Spills’ Curtis Mayfield cover “Give Me Your Love” (Love Song)”, well, that’s just gravy. And the song does feature the sterling piano of Tony Crow, traces of gentle noise adding brief and familiar commentary, and of course the immediately recognizable properties of Wagner’s voice and lyrics, all three casually establishing the group’s aural signature.

“If Not I’ll Just Die” is a study in contrast, another example of how Lambchop’s gorgeous arrangements and impeccable instrumentation sugar the pill of Wagner’s examinations of loss, dysfunction, alienation and despair. With the notable exception of some of their country-soul inflected stuff that sprung up on Thriller and What Another Man Spills (see the covers of Mayfield, Frederick Knight’s Stax nugget “I’ve Been Lonely For So Long” and even their vamping up of East River Pipe’s “Hey, Where’s Your Girl?”), this has largely been the band’s default mode. And while this mixture of beauty and darkness wisely avoids the maudlin, it’s also not exactly a barrel of laughs, which is one probable explanation for Lambchop’s small yet devoted core following stateside.

And Mr. M is an even darker album than usual for the band. For starters, it’s dedicated to the memory of Vic Chesnutt, a gifted musician stricken with long-term health problems who took his own life on Xmas day in 2009. Listening to the album with this tribute to a departed friend in mind (Lambchop backed Chesnutt on the outstanding 1998 LP The Salesman and Bernadette) only deepens this record’s moods of frustration, particularly those of emotional and physical separation examined on “2B2”. The song’s stripped down yet sturdy musical bed slowly grows into a sweet melancholy ache while Wagner’s loose yet resonant imagery and a muffled, troubled answering machine recording intensify the aura of isolation and the accumulation of otherwise insubstantial activity (taking down Xmas lights, watching TV, cooking a meal) that accompany it.

But there are moments on Mr. M that if not necessarily upbeat, at least provide a crucial sense of moderate uplift that helps shape the record into another smartly delivered tapestry of expressiveness. “Gone Tomorrow” and particularly both of the disc’s exceptional instrumentals “Gar” and “Betty’s Overture” prove that while not a band of astounding sonic diversity, Lambchop do possess impressive range within the confines of their well-established sound. And while a wealth of diversity can be admirable (if focused, natch), the sort of disciplined range this band has made a habit of displaying is perhaps a greater achievement.

Like most of Lambchop’s albums, the quality of the tracks and their relationship to each other makes it difficult to locate a high point. It certainly could be found in the expert tonal shifts of “Mr. Met”, a song where the Tosca String Quartet’s tough chamber feel contrasts with the lush contributions of the London String Ensemble on tracks like “If Not I’ll Just Die” or “Gone Tomorrow”. And like “2B2”, “Nice Without Mercy” foregoes strings, adapting a spare forcefulness that accents some of the album’s more liner storytelling. However, Wagner’s most straightforward lyrics come on “The Good Life (is wasted)”, the tune flaunting some of the C&W feel that he’s largely sidestepped on recent Lambchop releases in favor of a sort of Southern Leonard Cohen-ist vibe. If in the past he could come off like moodier Tom T. Hall, on “The Good Life” he sounds like a mixture of Don Williams and Lee Hazelwood.

That C&W feel was given a much more thorough examination on KORT: Invariable Heartache, Wagner’s collaboration with singer Courtney Tidwell that came out last year. It featured members of Lambchop in the band and found the vocalists paying tribute to obscure Nashville label Chart Records by indulging in some sly duets that recalled the prime discourse of George and Tammy. While Mr. M eschews this sensibility, Tidwell does appear in a backup role, and her turn on the instrumental “Gar” brings a subtle exotica flavor to what’s already a pleasant, airy tune. She’s also briefly on “Betty’s Overture”, lending a noirish feel to what sounds like a Shorty Rogers or Johnny Mandel composed theme for a TV show about a kickass yet emotionally troubled lady secret agent.

But everybody on the record contributes in top form, and in a way that resists singling out individuals for specific praise. Lambchop’s is an ensemble sound after all, low on flash and high on interaction. The group’s masterful maturity elevates Mr. M’s 11 songs into a simply superb document, the record denoting the third installment in a loose triumvirate of late-works with ‘06’s Damaged and ‘08’s OH (Ohio). For fans of the band it’s an indispensable purchase, but I can’t imagine there are many Lambchop partisans that haven’t already picked it up.

Please note that the 2LP edition includes four bonus tracks, three of them remixes, one a top-notch cover of Glen Campbell’s (Brian Wilson-penned) “Guess I’m Dumb”. All the extra stuff is located on side four, which smartly allows the album’s thematic integrity to remain intact. And along with the download coupon, the whole package clearly shows why Merge continues to thrive creatively after growing into one of the music scene’s bigger true indies. As does the fact that they’ve stuck with Lambchop’s stately accomplishments for nearly twenty years.

Joseph's Picks Of The Week 3/23/12 - feedtime and The Magnetic Fields

It’s a harsh fact of the ongoing musical discourse that vastly important and terribly underappreciated bands are constantly in danger of slipping through the cracks of time. In the spirit of spreading the word and clarifying the historical record, Sub Pop has done the world a great service by collecting in box-set form the first four LPs from one of the truly singular acts of the ‘80s underground, Sydney Australia’s feedtime.

As a listener whose life was forever changed by the steady avalanche of small bands that sprung up in the post-hardcore 1980s, it can be a little bit of a drag to see the retrospective mainstream validation of this movement focus so heavily on the same handful of names. Nearly all of these entities either found wider success in the ‘90s (Sonic Youth, J Mascis, Butthole Surfers) or held some direct influence or involvement with the decade’s crossroads of Alternative and indie culture (Steve Albini, Beat Happening).

Any witness to the defiant march of the subterranean ’80s can attest to the landscape holding far more than just a dozen or so groundbreaking groups. In fact, so many records were available through a network of grassroots channels (mail-order, independently owned shops, at shows) that a dysfunctional industry existed, one that was largely undisturbed by the snouts of Big Label snoopers until the rumblings and eventual explosion of what’s sometimes called The Year Punk Broke tore the lid off of everything.

And this outbreak of small, organic bands and scenes was very much a global one; it’s a very US-centric notion to posit that the music which helped to shape Grunge and indie-rock originated, with one or two bones tossed to the rest of the planet, inside the borders of the Continental United States. For just one instance, the continent of Australia fostered a thriving rock underground that rivaled the output of any other region on the map, and one of their greatest exports was feedtime.

The music of feedtime can be described as a very heavy extension of post-punk minimalism, and it can be counted as one of the earliest examples of noise-rock, a sub-genre that didn’t really gain a toe-hold until the latter part of the decade. But tagging them as post-punk misses explicating how feedtime was such an astonishing example of primitive, pummeling invention, the trio being one of the first punk-informed outfits to grapple with the blues as a launching pad for formal extremity. What’s more, their barbed assault registered as fundamentally different to the bluesy absorption of The Gun Club’s Fire of Love, feeling much closer to the back-to-basics gestalt of hardcore.

feedtime released four full-length albums between 1985 and 1989, all on their home country’s Aberrant label.  Through distribution deals via Rough Trade and Holland’s Megadisc their music reached far beyond the shores of Australia and developed a small yet devoted following, particularly stateside in the Pacific Northwest and in its noise-rocking mid-section.

It’s those four LPs that Sub Pop have collected in what can be best termed as a long gestating labor of love. Their self-titled debut finds the rudiments of the band’s potent, no-frills attack firmly in place. Rick (guitar, vocals), Al (bass) and Tom (drums) first began playing together in 1979, so the album’s startlingly well-formed structural basis shouldn’t be surprising. As a recording entity feedtime was always a tight unit, though so heavy and unrefined that to the casual ear their assault could be perceived as a barrage of low-end murk.

But feedtime simply weren’t a band for casual ears. Instead, they were about the abandonment of finesse and polish in favor of a throttling simplicity located not only in the logistics of the power-trio but also in the less urbane, more primal end of their aforementioned blues fixation. feedtime’s cover of Mississippi Fred McDowell’s “I Wonder What’s the Matter with Papa’s Little Angel Child” illustrates the link between the Delta and Down Under rather nicely.

And the music of McDowell provides even further illumination on the congruence between two seemingly disparate sensibilities. While the early country blues was acoustic by necessity, McDowell was a post-WWII discovery who had no problem plugging into an amplifier to boost the oomph of his already huge style, and cuing up his I Do Not Play No Rock ‘n’ Roll LP alongside feedtime really emphasizes the common ground between the bluesman and the Aussie trio.

But if Fred McDowell didn’t play rock ‘n’ roll, feedtime most assuredly did. And if their debut displayed an unusual level of confidence in conception, its follow-up Shovel still managed to impart a startling level of progress. Rick’s blade-sharp slide guitar was even more potent, as was the way he alternated its cutting aura with waves of engine-like grind. Tom’s drumming was tangibly heavier in its shrewd simplicity, and Al’s bass was the crucial not-secret weapon; while surely a key factor in the music’s rhythmic propulsion, the reality is that Al approached the bass like a lead instrument, allowing the bottom-end to move with a fleet density. While never playing all that fast, feedtime was a unit of such single-minded cohesion their songs felt like a well-kept vintage car being pushed into fifth gear by an expert (and slightly crazy) driver.

If not their best record, 1988’s Cooper-S is certainly the boldest. An all covers affair, it featured songs originally from The Beach Boys, Rolling Stones, Slade, Nancy Sinatra, Ramones, Stooges, Lee Hazelwood and even a poem by e. e. cummings (!), amongst others. What’s refreshing is how feedtime didn’t just steamroll over their sources; that would be far too predictable a maneuver. Instead, they simply choose to adapt them into their formidable sonic attack. With this said some songs are more recognizable than others; the point isn’t tribute but rather an expression of common ground. So it makes total sense considering feedtime’s non-purist blues bent that the Stones get tackled three times. Okay, maybe a little bit of tribute does slip in via home-country covers of The Easybeats’ “Sad, Lonely and Blue” and (the Aussie band) X’s anti-social anthem “I Don’t Wanna Go Out”. While Cooper-S is a fine LP that’s vital to understanding what made feedtime tick, it’s also not the best place for the uninitiated to start.

Suction however, might be. Arriving in 1989 and marking the end of their first phase, its mix courtesy of Butch Vig is a major component of what is probably feedtime’s friendliest record. So those unaccustomed to ‘80s u-ground noise-rock that are looking to dabble into feedtime’s fuel-injected waters might want to start here and perhaps work backward. In addition to the evolution of their blues influence, the band integrating acoustic moments that sit in agreeable contrast to their standard mode of operation, what’s maybe most impressive about Suction overall is how it shows with clarity that feedtime didn’t decline, they just chose to stop. That’s a nice balm for consumers curious over this group who are potentially weary of plunking down ducats for a box-set due to the format’s rep for including later and much lesser material.

While Suction is the last LP in this set, that’s by no means the end of feedtime’s story; the trio subsequently reconvened for 1996’s Billy, released through the Amphetamine Reptile. And while that record remains a particularly strong showing, its contents are sensibly not included here. Billy was an excellent release by the same smart unit, but it was frankly the product of another time.

Instead, The Aberrant Years generously fills out its CD and digital editions with hard to find singles and comp tracks from ’85-‘89. The result is a grand portrait of the massive movements of an outstanding band, and for anyone seeking a thorough understanding of the ‘80s underground rock scene, it’s absolutely essential.

On Love at the Bottom of the Sea The Magnetic Fields reengage with the synth-pop that made them one of the ‘90s most artistically fruitful acts. But something’s missing, or more accurately two things; the peaks of Stephin Merritt’s once exemplary songwriting and the music that made his tunes such a unique listening experience.

It was pretty much inevitable that 69 Love Songs, The Magnetic Fields’ massive 3-volume set of thematic yet emotionally diverse pop gems, while providing an embarrassment of riches that more than capped-off their distinguished ‘90’s work, would also prove to be an impossible act to follow. In fact Merritt seemed to sense this very fact by delving into three albums that have come to be called the “no-synth trilogy”; the first two, 2004’s i and 2008’s Distortion, were generally well received efforts that largely succeeded in their aims of stylistic divergence. However 2010’s Realism, by no means a failure, seemed to locate a certain weariness in the group and provoked restlessness from longtime fans of the band desirous for them to get back to what they did best.

Love at the Bottom of the Sea is intended as that record. After a three album departure to Nonesuch it finds The Magnetic Fields returning to Merge, the label that issued their most highly regarded work, and it features the synth-pop instrumentation that proved so crucial to the group’s sticking out in a clamorous sea of ‘90s indie guitar bands. But ultimately this new record sounds less like The Magnetic Fields of old and more like an inferior version of a once near-unimpeachable act.

A nagging part of the problem lies in a gradual change in Merritt’s songwriting. One interesting indulgence found on 69 Love Songs was its occasional flare-ups of wordplay that might inspire a laugh, a shake of the head, or an eye roll at the premeditative nature of their lack of subtlety. This tactic generally worked exceptionally well, mainly because Merritt’s style has never been about sincerity. Instead, it revels in an old, pre-rock artificiality; it’s not about the purging of the soul but the exaltation of the song. The infrequently blunt, sometimes even corny lines found on 69 Love Songs found him closer to Cole Porter than ever.

But on Love at the Bottom of the Sea, these head-shakers and eye-rollers have codified into a strategy of near or outright groaners. This causes “Your Girlfriend’s Face” (for just one example) to plummet from a song of broken-relationship revenge into an unappealing parody of one (in the evenings I devised your death/being buried alive on crystal meth). For every song that successfully navigates this sensibility, like the pre-release single “Andrew in Drag”, there is one that doesn’t, such as the abstinence mocking “God Wants Us to Wait”. It used to be that Merritt’s lyrics felt instantly classic. Now they too often feel calculatedly cheesy.

And it’s not that every song Merritt wrote in the ‘90s was brilliant and every release an impeccable masterwork. His batting average was impressively high, but 1995’s Get Lost was a less significant album than its predecessor from the previous year, The Charm of the Highway Strip. But if Get Lost was minor, it was still totally consistent with Merritt’s disciplined excavation of early pop tradition and even included one of his finest ever songs, “All the Umbrellas in London”. And Strip could engage with the tricky allure of country music while never once getting within spitting distance of shallowness or parody.

Love at the Bottom of the Sea holds a number of very good songs (“Andrew in Drag”, “The Only Boy in Town”, “I Don’t Like Your Tone” “All She Cares About is Mariachi”) but I’m hesitant to call any of them great, at least against the standard Merritt once set for his work. And the less than good ones (“God Wants Us to Wait” “Your Girlfriend’s Face” “Goin’ Back to the Country”, “The Horrible Party”) make the album unpalatable as a start to finish listen. Realism shouldered a similar problem, but that felt like an aberration. For a record touted as The Magnetic Fields’ return to synth-pop form to register as so hit-and-miss, and with its highs so earthbound, is distressing.

But this LP actually doesn’t sound very much like their synth-pop of old. Frankly, it’s much too slick. One of the finest qualities of the group’s music up to and including Get Lost is how they elevated cheap tech into a clinical prettiness that didn’t really recall any prior synth-pop models. Additionally, their attention to detail was magnificent, allowing a compilation track like “Take Ecstasy with Me” to be as strong as anything in the first half of their discography.

While it’s true that many of 69 Love Songs’ more techno informed tracks did radiate with a slicker quality, they also very often featured an appealing sparseness (and again, top-flight songwriting) that’s simply nowhere to be found on Love at the Bottom of the Sea. Minus the vocals of Merritt, Claudia Gonson and Shirley Simms it’s doubtful I’d recognize much of the music here as being The Magnetic Fields.

I want to be clear that I’m not penalizing the group for sounding different than they did in 1995. Bigger production and less inventive instrumentation wouldn’t be at all a problem if the songs were stronger. And regarding those songs, I’d welcome their change in direction if it was successful more often, but sadly that isn’t the case. And if I am unconsciously pining for a sound that’s over fifteen years old it’s in large part because Love at the Bottom of the Sea has been so heavily identified as a reengagement with the synth-pop that made them such a lauded band.

But The Magnetic Fields have delivered a record that amplifies a double meaning in “return to form”. Yes, in the strict sense they have reacquainted themselves with the formal aspects of synth-pop. But in terms of sheer quality, the band hasn’t returned to anything. Instead, they’ve made the least successful record in their long existence, a circumstance that finds them squarely in uncharted territory.