Dancing About Architecture 03.24.09
Posted by Ian Wright on 03.24.2009
Thoughts on the best debut album in years, Animal Collective remix Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Animal Collective boxset, exciting news for Spiritualized fans, Chamberlin quits the pumpkins and more.
The bit at the start
I realise that bloggers etc. tend to be rather prone to hyperbole and unthinkingly jumping off of the cliff when it comes to broad declarative statements but after 3 days of listening to almost no other music besides it I do declare that if Cymbals Eat Guitars' Why There Are Mountains isn't the best debut indie rock record I've heard since Arcade Fire put out Funeral than it's second only to Jay Reatard's Blood Visions.
It's easy to see why I'm as taken as I am with this album. There are nods to so many of my favourite bands on it there was little to no chance that, if given the opportunity to hear it, I'd feel ambiguous about it. Either I'd dismiss it as a second rate pastiche of US indie greats or would feel as I in fact do that the Staten Island 4-piece have deftly borrowed from a near impeccable set of influences to create something really great.
Within the 9 songs on the record I hear the mid-song tonal and structural changes of Sonic Youth and Pavement (Pavement does seem to be a big one for the band as many of the vocals are sung in a languid, disinterested style not dissimilar to Stephen Malkmus), I hear the shimmering drones of Deerhunter, at times there's the unapologetic poppiness of Yo La Tengo in there too and in the layers of overdubbed and multi-tracked guitars there are echos of Built To Spill and perhaps more accurately due to their roughness and importantly to me seeing as they're my all time favourite band The Wrens.
Right up my street basically.
Beg, borrow, buy, steal or download this album.
Stars Of The Lid – The Tired Sounds Of Stars Of The Lid
Get headphones and this album, go to bed; sweet dreams.
You news, you lose
Animal Collective, Yeah yeah yeah.
The Yeah Yeah Yeah's ludicrously titled It's Blitz is due to hit record shops on March 31 but if you're really anxious to get your hands on it quick but won't be getting out of your full body cast for a couple of weeks or if you're not quite that anxious and can stomach waiting a little longer for it you might want to pre-order with InSound as it will then come packaged with a free 7" featuring the band's first single "Zero" as well as an Animal Collective remix of the song. This, as you might expect will be an limited edition sorta thing.
Crackers.
For many long time and hardcore Animal Collective nerds (I'm not one of them, only started digging the last 2 records) there's been a long time yearning caused by constant rumours of a rarities boxset. Well it appears that it's finally on the way. A test pressing of the release, entitled Animal Crack Box is currently being auctioned on eBay by Catsup Plate records (who also previously released the, I think pretty dreadful, Campfire Songs) in aid of the Doctors Without Borders charity
Animal Crack Box will be a triple vinyl boxset limited to 1,000 copies that won't be available in any normal record store of material "recorded live to MiniDisc at various locations over the course of the course of the first three years or so of the band."
Tracklisting:
A1. Jimmy Raven
A2. Ahhh Good Country
A3. Iko Ovo
A1 and A2 recorded live to MiniDisc 18 September 2000 at the Cooler, NYC by Avey/Panda. A3 recorded live to MiniDisc fall 2000 at N. 4th Practice Space, Brooklyn by Avey/Panda.
B1 and B3 recorded live to MiniDisc February 2001 at N. 4th Practice Space, Brooklyn by Avey/Panda/Geologist. B2 recorded live to MiniDisc 25 February 2001 at Mercury Lounge, NYC by Avey/Panda/Geologist.
C1. Jungle Heat
C2. Hey Friend
C3. De Soto De Son
C1 and C2 recorded live to MiniDisc winter early 2001 at 67 Atlantic Ave, Brooklyn by Avey/Panda. C3 recorded live to MiniDisc August 2000 at Mercury Lounge, NYC by Avey/Panda.
D1. Oh Sweet
D2. Young Prayer #2
D3. Do the Nurse
D1 partly recorded live to MiniDisc summer 2002 at N. 4th Practice Space, Brooklyn by Avey/Deakin and partly recorded live to MiniDisc 18 October 2002 at Warsaw, Brooklyn by Avey. D2 recorded live to MiniDisc fall 2002 at Bard College, NYC by Avey/Panda. D3 recorded live to MiniDisc 18 October 2002 at Warsaw, Brooklyn by Avey.
E1. Ice Cream Factory
E2. Hey Light
E3. Two Sails
E1 and E3 recorded live to MiniDisc March 2002 at Tonic, NYC by Avey/Panda/Geologist/Deakin. E2 recorded live to MiniDisc winter early 2002 at N. 4th Practice Space, Brooklyn by Avey/Panda/Geologist/Deakin.
F1. Don't Believe the Pilot
F2. Who Could Win a Rabbit
F3. Mouth Wooed Her
F4. Covered in Frogs
F5. We Tigers
F1 and F2 recorded live to MiniDisc July 2003 at New World Brewery, Tampa, FL by Avey/Panda. F3 recorded live to MiniDisc June 2003 at a house party in Brooklyn by Avey/Panda. F4 recorded live to MiniDisc sometime and somewhere in 2003 (recording details are lost) by Avey/Panda. F5 recorded live to MiniDisc October 2003 at Concorde 2,
Brighton, UK by Avey/Panda.
Ladies and Gentlemen we're talking about a good, but massively overrated album.
October 12 and 13 will see Spiritualized take to the stage at London's Royal Festival Hall to play their 1997 album Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space in full as part of ATP's Don't Look Back Series. On the nights the band will be joined by gospel choir, string section and special guests to make it sound as much like the album as possible.
The gigs coincide with Sony's reissue of the album that night with "new packaging and added content."
No word on whether or not they'll bring the Don't Look Back shows on the road.
So now can we all agree that it's not the Pumpkin?
If I were you ask you to name the members of Smashing Pumpkins I'm pretty sure that you'd most likely come up with 4 names, Billy Corgan, Jimmy Chamberlin, D'arcy and James Iha. Maybe Melissa Auf Der Maur if you were feeling facetious. Of the 4 the first two are the most important to the band, The Pumpkins are of course mostly Corgan's ego-bloated vision but Chamberlin's drumming was a huge part of their at-their-peak sound and when the band reformed a couple of years back with only half the original members at least you could say that it was the important half.
At this point you can't even say that because last week Chamberlin left the band. According to a press release "Corgan will continue to write and record as the Smashing Pumpkins with plans to head into the studio this spring."
But at this point, how is this still The Smashing Pumpkins that we're talking about. It's slightly less silly than the version of Guns n' Roses that's trotting around these days but still, a fairly ridiculous conceit.
There actually apparently appears to nothing good announced in the past week.
Writing under the influence
Without which this column would not have been possible:
Talk Radio
The Antlers – Hospice
The bit at the end
Last weekend was pretty busy for me. 3 gigs in 2 nights as I saw Girl Talk on Friday and Mogwai and Paul Kalbrenner on Saturday night. Unsurprisingly I enjoyed Mogwai the most. Girl Talk was fun but got boring as I sobered up. I did feel a little old there too. Paul Kalbrenner was a little more banging than I'd usually listen to techno wise but enjoyable.
Seeing Animal Collective on Friday. Their recent trips to Dublin have been beset by illness and broken buses so I hope they tear out all the stops to make it up to their Irish fans that night. Can't wait.
You have no idea how happy I am to hear that the Stone Roses aren't in fact reforming.
