(Salto reviews records occasionally, label peeps! Send him free copies and he promises to review your jonks with gusto! Send him an email using the handy link on the right!)
...Note that the record covers pictured below are linked to the artists' webpages, where you can likely download some tracks.
10. Destroyer, Your Blues [Merge] [Buy it!]
Gorgeous, messy operatic pop with shades of Bowie and Pulp. Spare arrangements blossom, two minutes in, to something completely different. The kind of record where the drums come in three-quarters of the way through a song ... and you notice.
Reviews here and here and here.
9. The Album Leaf, In a Safe Place [Sub Pop] [Buy it!]
Soothing space-pop that reminds me of Mum (that's Mum the band, not my Mum, dear). For good reason, too, since one of those hottie twins from Mum plays on the record, along with a bunch of other Icelandic folx, including that dude from Sigur Ros who sings in a language he made up. The guy in charge of this action is actually from San Diego, though. Lots of synths in front of peppy, happy drums. Gorgeous melodies.
Reviews here and here.
Don't hate them (that much) for doing a commercial for Hummer. But hate them a little.
8. Architecture in Helsinki, Fingers Crossed [Bar None] [Buy it!]
Pretty, blippy electro-indiepop from an Australian band with great songwriting recalling Bacharach and David. Thirty-one instruments used on this record, including, to great effect, a bevy of analog synths. Highly tasty.
Reviews here and here and here.
7. Ratatat, Ratatat [XL] [Buy it!]
Air (or Daft Punk), but not French, not so into synths and more into guitars and guitar effects, and slightly grungier. A remarkable instrumental album with surprising twists and turns.
Reviews here and here and here.
6. A.C. Newman, The Slow Wonder [Matador] [Buy it!]
Powerpop reminiscent of the Shins or Spoon, but I like this album more. Newman, that New Pornographers guy, is a great songwriter, and this album is pretty in lots of ways. He wuz good in concert, too.
allmusic:
This is his first solo record and it delivers all the things one has come to expect and rejoice in from Newman. Things like witty, engaging songcraft that is full of surprises and exciting twists and turns, expertly produced and arranged songs, his perfect rock & roll voice, songs with big, fat hooks that call to mind power pop legends like the Raspberries, Redd Kross, and the Kinks, or plain old legends like Elton John, Harry Nilsson, or Todd Rundgren; songs that make you want to hit repeat as soon as the disc is over.Pitchfork:
Taken as a single document, The Slow Wonder fits together for a taut 34 minutes without lags or rough spots; viewed as collection of singles, all but a couple tracks would justifiably fill the A-side of a seven-inch. From the catchy drum-fill intro of "Miracle Drug" to "35 in the Shade"'s soaring exit guitar, there's not a misfire to be found. Time and time again, Newman showcases a quaint nostalgia and a layered sense of production that often feels similar to the inventive beauty that made The Shins' Chutes Too Narrow such a whopper of a sophomore release. Like the exquisite chamber pop that Richard Davies and Eric Matthews showcased as Cardinal, these songs have a comfortable Kinks-like feel while still sporting their own unique, keenly crafted hooks.
5. The Owls, Our Hopes and Dreams [Magic Marker] [Buy it!]
Devastatingly pretty and twee with some shockingly good songs.
Pitchfork:
The Owls' debut "mini LP," Our Hopes and Dreams, gracefully explores the vacuum left behind when they escape, like helium from a popped balloon afloat somewhere between Sarah Records and Past Masters Volume Two.Popmatters:
Opening track "Air" provides the pin. After an incantatory verse and skidding bass fill, multi-instrumentalist Maria May introduces the disc's koan-like vision with a deceptively simple couplet: "There is only air/ Where I used to care." A few tracks later she will be "looking down over everything" but for now, her breathy vocals are just beginning to flutter in the breeze, held aloft by acoustic guitars, piano, scattershot drums and-- nope, I don't even inhale-- a heavenly duet with The Legendary Jim Ruiz Group's Allison LaBonne.
Allison LaBonne drops her song in the second slot and the record begins to sound like a singles collection. She plays big bad wolf in a slurry patch of harmonizing with Maria May on "Do Ya?", a love song filtered through Little Red Hiding Hood metaphors. LaBonne's voice has a much thicker, huskier pull to it, like Laetitia Sadier from Stereolab. On "Luck", the Owls give themselves more fully to lament and yet it's the track where they hit some of the starkest, most achingly pretty notes, like a Sundays song drowning in a reflecting pool. "Baby Boy" could be a Belle & Sebastian duet with Peggy Lee; it's baroque pop with a bit of torched out drama. I kept expecting the timpani drums to roll in over crashing string swells from the orchestra pit. This song sounds literally like chamber pop, as in chamber music, not just songs with roomy interiors and stuck-up bombast for mood. The guitar work on Our Hopes and Dreams does much to fashion a muddy, ornate feel, because notes frequently sound like gently disturbed water surfaces, distorted enough to bleed but not enough to sound like feedback squawk.
4. Of Montreal, Satanic Panic in the Attic [Polyvinyl] [Buy it!]
I've listened to all of the Elephant 6 bands and I could never get into Of Montreal, because their twee psych-pop was just too psychedelic for me. And when I say that, I mean it was unbelievably weird.
This album changed everything. Perhaps Of Montreal had to "get through" their unreachable phase like the Beatles had to "get through" playing in Hamburg -- a different band emerged both times. That's obviously just speculation, but the songs on this record are jaw-dropping. The LSD is still in their system, but instead of chaos, they're doing nine-part overdubbed harmonies (in "Lysergic Bliss") and wistful confessions with bouncy McCartneyesque basslines ("Eros' Entropic Tundra").
allmusic's Dean of Pop Tim Sendra (and former Salto bandmate) elaborates:
From the opening synth handclaps and dual lead guitar harmonies of "Disconnect the Dots," the first song on Satanic Panic in the Attic, you know you are in for a different Of Montreal. Working on his own, save for a few helping hands on occasional strings and vocals, Kevin Barnes has crafted Of Montreal's most focused and powerful sounding record yet. Fans of the bursting-to-the-seams arrangements of the past may feel a bit let down by the stripped-down sound at first, but once you get past that feeling, the beautiful melodies and thrilling, immediate sound of the record are sure to reel you in. Besides, it isn't like this is a Matchbox Twenty record. Barnes is still as surreal lyrically and musically inventive as ever. Instead of treading closely to the conventions of the Elephant 6 chamber psych sound, Barnes expands his musical reach quite impressively to encompass disco-funk ("My British Tour Diary," which comes replete with drum breaks and cowbell; the lovely "Spike the Senses"), hard rock (the driving "How Lester Lost His Wife"), Beachwood Sparks-style cosmic country ("Erroneous Escape Into Erik Eckles"), power pop of the East Coast dB's variety (the gushing and surprisingly personal love song "Your Magic Is Working"), well-done Beach Boys homage ("Climb the Ladder"), and acoustic balladry (the wonderful "City Bird," which has one of the band's sweetest melodies and strips the sound all the way down to acoustic guitar and multitracked vocal harmonies). The last song on the record ("Vegan in Furs") even manages a breathtaking fusion of Afro-pop, disco, and freakbeat.Get it. Now.
3. The Unicorns, Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone? [Alien8 2003] [Buy it!]
This is a 2003 record; I first heard it in 2004. The Unicorns are a couple of young guys from Canada who make scatterbrained, shambolic pop with an attitude reminiscent of mid-90s Pavement (before Malkmus got "really skinny"). They're ambitious, though, with nothing resembling a traditional verse-chorus-verse song structure. But the songs work.
Delusions of Adequacy:
The Unicorns, a three-piece from Montreal, are notable for more than their unique take on their subject matter. They happen to be, in fact, one of the most outstanding, inventive, unique pop bands playing music today. Indeed, Canada scores another coup in a war that has already included the victories of Broken Social Scene, Stars, and the Dears. Sounding like an unholy mix of the Flaming Lips and the entire K Records catalog. Utilizing whizzing keyboards and scratchy guitars, the Unicorns inhabit a sonic space that is by no means uncharted, but is still wholly their own.Dusted:
The Unicorns manage to polish an array of pawn shop instruments into miniature masterpieces. From their signature “I Was Born (to Be a Unicorn)” to the “trilogy” of “Tuff Ghost”, “Ghost Mountain” and “Sea Ghost” (linked in title only), they’re never afraid to investigate new angles, even if the end result sometimes sounds like your baby sister banging on a Casio keyboard.Drowned in Sound:
Like an unstable isotope, The Unicorns could very well have disintegrated from their collective creative tension, by the time you read this but in the meantime, they’ve at least managed a minor miracle with Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone?.
Coming on like the Hewey and Dewey to Stephen Malkmus' Uncle Scrooge, the Unicorns' sophomore offering ‘Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone?’ (getting a release on Rough Trade almost a year after it was unleashed in the US) is a rare lo-fi indie-pop masterpiece that tackles death head on with humour, humility and penny whistles. Your Gimmick-o-meter may already be off the scale, especially if you've heard that live shows can often include puppet shows and finger buffets, but a couple listens to the mix of morbid humour and fundamental pop sensibilities rife through "Who Will Cut..." may well be enough to change your mind.
2. PAS/CAL, Oh, Honey, We're Ridiculous EP [Le Grand Magistery] [Buy it!]
The most important group in the United States. That's what I told Casimir Pascal, and I still think it's true. I know that PAS/CAL won't be for everyone. PAS/CAL is precisely, impeccably crafted pop music recorded with the type of obsessive intensity that reminds me of the La's Lee Mavers. In other words, it may not be healthy how seriously PAS/CAL take themselves, but the finished product is -- natch -- more than worth it.
Not that there's much of it. In four years, PAS/CAL has just two EPs out. Two. Each of them is breathtaking.
The songwriting on these two EPs is magical. Caz's voice is angelic. The band is ruthlessly tight.
I couldn't love them more than I do, and I can't wait for their LP to come out sometime in 2005.
Lots of reviews here.
1. Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti, The Doldrums [Paw Tracks] [Buy it!]
You're stuck in some remote town in the northernmost reaches of Canada, or somewhere, and you're snowed in. Exhausted, you pull over at a ramshackle motel to spend the night. It's late, past midnight, and before you sleep, you fiddle with the radio on your bedside table, expecting to pick up nothing so far away from civilization.
But you do pick up something, though it's terribly fuzzy. Something gorgeous. Probably some local nutjob, but the pure pop he's playing is unbelievably beautiful, even through the fuzz. You wonder if he's playing live -- it's certainly lo-fi enough.
Ariel Pink sounds like a million things that you adore -- as this review aptly puts it, "reminiscent of early Beck with the slight dementia of Gary Wilson or Scott Walker." I'd only suggest adding the Beach Boys, C86, Beat Happening, Syd Barrett, the Bee Gees, and Motown.
Dusted:
The defining characteristic of The Doldrums is the fidelity of the recording, which is very low — ambience shrouds the actual songs and becomes the most prominent player. The flatness, along with constant tape hiss and warble, create a landscape that is appealing and monotonous in the same way as Hockney's hilltop poolside scene. The intentional low fidelity, which might be an example from an audio engineering title entitled "How Not to Record Your Own Music," overshadows the songwriting, which may or may not be to Ariel Pink's advantage. It creates a hauntingly beautiful aural tableau, an environment of sameness that pushes the actual songs to the periphery — some of these songs lack the panache to be heard above the white noise.Sponic Zine:
The first time I listened to this release I was completely stoned out of my mind; I mean I was fucked up (yes, everyone always stresses that point, that they were so incredibly stoned like no one in life has ever achieved such a hierarchy of stoneddom [ok, that isn’t a word] – but trust me, I was fucked up). For the next 62 minutes it was, “Holy Hunter S. Thompson!!” I had never heard colours like this before, so many hues and tints it was stupefyingly awesome. Being coherent enough to realize I shouldn’t take any mental or written notes the first time around, I waited a couple of days until I was in a more “professional” reviewer’s state and hit play for the second time. Wouldn’t you fucking believe it, this sonbitch was practically taking me on the same trip!junkmedia:
Like transmissions from another galaxy, the music of Ariel Pink is touched by an otherworldly beauty. Distant echoes of the Moody Blues, Hall and Oates, the Residents, and R. Stevie Moore all waft through the crooked corridors of Pink's songs, which sound as if they've been collecting dust for twenty years.Buy the record.
In "For Kate I Wait," falsetto vocals and '70s Muzak strings glide atop a clip-clopping beat, which like all the drum sounds, are made entirely by Pink's voice. It's a strange concoction to be sure, but even stranger is the song's unmistakably commercial core, at least in a drugged out, soft rock kind of way.
Seemingly content with obscurity, Pink recorded the two albums compiled here on handmade CD-Rs from 1999 to 2003. Luckily, one copy found its way into the hands of the Animal Collective, who have reissued these works in hopes of exposing Ariel Pink to a wider audience. Whether or not people will get it is hard to say. But beneath these fractured gems lies a genuine talent and unique voice unlike any other in recent memory. In a word, baffling.
Honorable Mention: Saturday Looks Good to Me, Every Night (Polyvinyl), The Hidden Cameras, Mississauga Goddam (Rough Trade), Air, Talkie Walkie (Astralwerks), Animal Collective, Sung Tongs (Paw Tracks), Blonde Redhead, Misery is a Butterfly (4AD), Brian Wilson, Smile (Nonesuch), Madvillain, Madvillainy (Stones Throw), All Night Radio, Spirit Stereo Frequency (Sub Pop), Susanna And The Magical Orchestra, List Of Lights And Buoys (Rune Grammofon), Camera Obscura, Underachievers Please Try Harder (Merge), TV on the Radio, Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes (Touch & Go)
