Latest Posts

Dr. Dre and Detox

August 5, 2015

Last week, Dr. Dre, the notorious and elusive producer who had us salivating for 15 years for Detox, the final part of his solo album trilogy, announced that it has been scrapped. Instead, he is dropping Compton: A Soundtrack, inspired by the upcoming N.W.A. biopic on Thursday. Dre, who helped introduce a sort of street-level realism in the late 80s with N.W.A. and then came like a riot into white America’s living room with 1992’s The Chronic, is still perhaps hip hop’s most influential producer, despite ghosting out of the game entirely for the past decade. With The Chronic, Dre’s sun-bleached, 70’s funk samples mixed with surly, even darkly comic raps. For his sequel, Chronic 2001 or just 2001, he assembled a core of musicians, including studio-rat-turned-fallen-Greek-God Scott Storch, and bassist Mike Elizondo, to relaunch his brand of g-funk as airtight, cosmic and sample-less. He ended up going beyond what merely just passed[...]

Wilco – Star Wars

July 20, 2015

On “Cold Slope,” the 9th song off Wilco’s new album, Star Wars, Jeff Tweedy sings, “Some say you’re never really there, but you still take up space.” That line could be an indictment of the band over the past several years: touring endlessly but producing fewer albums. After a decade of hiring-and-firing, Tweedy and co. have been in cruise control with the same lineup for over 10 years now. What kind of band is Wilco today? They have mostly abandoned their experimental skin (which was really credited to Jay Bennett), and have since been approaching Springsteenian levels with their marathon live shows, pulling from a deep catalog. More and more, after 2009’s Wilco (The Album), which played out like a cheap greatest hits collection, and their last album, the uneven Whole Love, it seemed the band had reached their Grateful Dead moment: their studio albums don’t turn heads anymore, but[...]

Elvis Depressedly at the Space (7/18/15)

July 19, 2015

Minutes into his set Saturday night in Hamden, Connecticut, Mathew Cothran, mic chord snaked around his hands and neck, asked the crowd at the Space if they were into prophecy. He then launched into a bunch of authoritative lines that seemed like he was performing an exorcism. Cothran’s project, Elvis Depressedly, mixed introspective lyrics with a more high powered edge than the way the songs appear on his album, this year’s New Alhambra, which is in part an homage to the arena that used to host ECW wrestling. The songs are fairly downcast, reminiscent of early Bright Eyes, mixing refined production linked together with obscure samples of muddled dialogue. On stage, Cothran prowls around while the four members of his band bring his songs to life. Barely any of his songs hit three minutes, but he went the distance for each one, holding the mic with a vice grip and[...]

Is “FourFiveSeconds” Even A Song?

January 26, 2015

On paper, the Kanye West-Paul McCartney-Rihanna collaboration “FourFiveSeconds” looks huge, a swing-for-the-fences song that could actually change things. It features two of the world’s greatest pop stars, plus a Beatle, and other wild card talent, but virtually none of their presence is felt. The legendary Paul McCartney is reduced to tapping on a few keyboards—maybe guitar. Kanye deploys a brief, auto-tuneless vocal performance that is totally mailed in, and I have no idea what David Longstreth of the Dirty Projectors is doing here. For all we know, he was just hanging out in the same room while the song was recorded and got some props. A total of 10 people are credited here – a spare acoustic guitar song – that sounds like it was mixed down from just four tracks. The song’s uplifting, face-the-day tone feels like it could be sung at AA meetings or in one of those[...]

Panda Bear – Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper

January 11, 2015

Since his 2007 album Person Pitch, Noah Lennox’s Panda Bear has been the gateway drug into Animal Collective. Both outfits feature the same qualities: zone-out repetition, upfront rhythms, a swirl of ineffable sounds, and summer camp sing alongs. Their success both lies in combining something confusing with something instantly gratifying, a perfect distillation of modern times. But where Animal Collective’s music seems to occupy a beautiful but more chaotic place, Lennox has always gone for the sweet spot. Originally too hesitant to bring his own songs into the group, Lennox did so upon the urging of other members, and it all eventually came to a head on Merriweather Post Pavilion. Now it seems like Lennox’s music as Panda Bear, at least popularity wise, has surpassed that of his band’s. Following 2011’s Tomboy, an album Lennox wanted to revolve around just guitar, rhythm, and drums, on Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper,[...]

Panda Bear – “Boy Latin”

December 15, 2014

Panda Bear’s music has always felt like daydreaming, or recapturing that awe struck feeling of childhood. Those deceptively simple repetitions and stoned tempos seem like they could go on forever, and are on full display here. While Animal Collective’s Centipede Hz, and fellow band member Avey Tare’s latest album were too Saturday-morning-cartoons for even their music, the tracks on Panda Bear Meets The Grim Reaper are great and one of the first releases to look forward to in 2015. “Boys Latin” and its polyphonic lines are like a cubist painting, where everything is broken down into little facets to reveal a bigger picture. Then the next section is the choir boy of one, and the only words you can understand: “Dark clouds resurface again, and a shadow moves in.” In a more just world, this song would be played at FAO Schwarz during every holiday. Watch the video below.

Steve Gunn – Way Out Weather

October 13, 2014

Weather is probably the most common topic brought up amongst strangers. And its broad, unrevealing nature was something Steve Gunn had in mind when putting together his new album, “Way Out Weather. “Way out weather is a common song,” Gunn sings on the album’s opener. The Philadelphia-turned-New York City musician’s previous release, Time Off (2013), was the work of a purist not influenced by the exhausting nature of the city. It featured tumbling travis-picked acoustic guitar accented with light bass and guitar solos that wouldn’t dare wake up a sleeping baby, leaving the spare character of his songs almost wanting to be colored with something more. With his new album, Way Out Weather, they have been. Keys, banjo, and a sweeping pedal steel give a panoramic, widescreen feel to each of the album’s nine songs. Songs like “Wildwood” and “Fiction” bounce along some old country road. These are traditional roots-rock[...]

Steve Gunn – “Milly’s Garden”

July 9, 2014

Steve Gunn’s music sounds like coming home after a long journey from some far away place. Last year’s Time Off was a spare and easy album to fall into, comprising of Travis picking guitar figures that hint at the Dead circa American Beauty. I saw him earlier this year in an air condition-less club in Northampton, Mass., and I dug his set more than Kurt Vile’s, who Gunn opened for (and at one time backed up). On stage, Gunn seemed bothered and disinterested, telling the crowd that his music was on sale in the back before trailing off and mumbling, “It’s complicated.” His music, though, was the exact opposite: simple and serious, comprising of just him, a drummer, and a bassist. His guitar style feels like you are being strummed up and down by a thousand feathers, and his voice is pure. “Milly’s Garden,  the new single off his forthcoming[...]