popwreckoning

Listening to 12 Desperate Straight Lines can be a personal experience. Wounds from old, dead relationships are likely to tear open if the listener isn’t careful. Obviously the man behind Telekinesis, Michael Benjamin Lerner, has been through some pain. This is another in a long line of what I like to refer as “bitter about a woman” albums. It might not be the best ever made, but it’s the best I’ve heard in a quite awhile. Add to the fact that we’re talking about full on pop songs, instead of sad bastard folk music, and we have something special.

Routinely, I listen to the first three songs, and then start the album over. This is turning into something of an obsession.

The album starts with “You Turn Clear In The Sun.” An acoustic guitar kicks things off with the lyrics: “we fell in love in the summer/by the springtime we were done.” Then, shortly after: “I never loved you/I never loved anyone.” This is bitter, bitter stuff. As, the saying goes, however, a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. This is such joyous sounding stuff, I sing along every time. The song fully kicks in after a little more than a minute. It’s a synth driven thing, with xylophones and pulsing drums and bass. It’s only after you hear the words coming out of your own mouth that you think, “Oh. Damn.”

The next song is “Please Ask For Help,” and the fun continues: “I’m not going to let you down/but I’m not going to help you up.” The drums, bass and synths are straight out of early ‘80’s goth pop, but The Cure only ever sounded this boisterous when they were actually singing about something happy. The interesting thing is how the vocals sound slightly depressed. They’re in tune, but it sounds like singer Michael Benjamin Lerner can barely maintain the effort needed to accompany the song. Chris Walla’s production is incredible.

Next up, is my favorite song on the record, “50 Ways.” The power chords kick into my head like an angry mule. The song slows down, and wakes back up for the chorus. Sure, verse-chorus-verse/fast-slow-fast is songwriting 101, but when it’s done right it never fails.  A lot of music critics seem to dig when one song relies on awareness of another by a much more famous musician. I’m not an exception. Lerner sings, “Paul Simon probably said it the best/there truly are 50 ways.” If you don’t know what he’s talking about, go find out. Google is all powerful, and also your friend.

I seriously could talk about every song on this album. The “will I die alone” shout from “Car Crash,” and the alcohol fueled insanity of “Fever Chill” are both high points, but the album is pretty much solid throughout. The whole thing is tinged with sadness and desperate to the end. The last song “Gotta Get It Right Now” is probably the most desperate thing here. It’s a poppy sing along about needing love, immediately. Learner sings: “all my friends are so locked down/I’m 23, I should be screwing around.” The amazing thing is, he really is 23.

This is exactly what a sophomore album should be. It takes the promise of the first self-titled Telekinesis album, turns it on its head and improves it considerably. That album was full of slightly naïve love songs.   12 Desperate Straight Lines is nakedly honest and, even brutal in places. It’s an album borne of heartache transformed into melodies that will make your heart soar. If you haven’t figured out that you should buy this yet, then yes. Go. Go now.

12 Desperate Straight Lines is out tomorrow, February 15.

Track Listing:

1. You Turn Clear in the Sun
2. Please Ask for Help
3. 50 Ways
4. I Cannot Love You
5. Dirty Thing
6. Car Crash
7. Palm of Your Hand
8. I Got You
9. Fever Chill
10. Country Lane
11. Patterns
12. Gotta Get It Right Now

If you’re not smiling fifteen seconds into We Live In Rented Rooms by East River Pipe, you have no soul. “Back room deals,” sings F.M. Cornog. “The whole world is built on backroom deals. You better get used to it.” It’s business as usual for Cornog. He’s made a career of singing about the maladies of society. The drifters, the drunks, the homeless drug addicts standing at your favorite off ramp with a cardboard sign. Cornog has been there, which is why he sings about what he does. So have I, which is why I appreciate it. You probably haven’t heard his music, but you should.

The list of musicians that covered his songs is staggering: David Byrne, Okkervil River, Lambchop, The Mountain Goats and others. It’s a sad commentary on the music industry that a musician this talented has gone ignored. Cornog likes it this way, though. He has his wife, his daughter, his dog and a forty hour week job at Home Depot. He’s happy. For a person to come from the kind of lows he has experienced, happiness is a pretty big deal.

Cornog’s gift is stories. “Tommy Made A Movie” is about a guy who sits around in his bedroom making movies inside his head. Cornog says very little about Tommy. All we know is Tommy tries to write, but can’t. He sits around watching porn, and thinks about girls. It’s very, very sad. To the tune of simple keyboards recorded in a home studio I feel my heart breaking.

“When You Were Doing Cocaine” is a simple piano ballad about a guy who let his life get away from him. Cornog sings about what it looked like the guy had, and compares it to the reality. It’s the kind of common life stuff you don’t often hear in pop music. Even The Arcade Fire never have it this dead on. You want to know what life really looks like? Listen to an East River Pipe album.

We Live In Rented Rooms is as good an album as East River Pipe has ever made. This Average Joe making records alone in his bedroom has been responsible for some of the most brilliant songwriting of the last twenty years. Routinely, I put on two or three of his records at a time, lay back, and soak it in.  Buy this album. Then go buy everything else he has ever released. Start with The Gasoline Age, but don’t stop there.

We Live in Rented Rooms is out on February 15.

Track Listing:
1. Backroom Deals
2. Cold Ground
3. Payback Time
4. Summer Boy
5. I Don’t Care About Your Blue Wings
6. Tommy Made a Movie
7. The Flames Are Coming Back
8. When You Were Doing Cocaine
9. Conman
10. Three Ships

Melbourne’s synthpop act Cut Copy have released their third studio album Zonoscope, recorded over several months, in their hometown and then mixed by Ben Allen (Deerhunter, Animal Collective and Gnarls Barkley) in Atlanta. The album was released on Modular Recordings on February 8. With their fame being stabilized by their second album, In Ghost Colours, released in 2008, the new album has been in the making since the comedown of their second album. Zonoscope is in the same ballpark as LCD Soundsystem and Phoenix, but throw in some 70s and 80’s, with just a dash of tropical summer beats.

The band, being around about a decade now, is very ambitious in the sense that they devoted a 15 minute block to the song “Sun God.” The song is one of the more immediate tracks in the sense that it has a more distinct sound and an entire minute of the mantra: “You’ve got to live, you’ve got to die, so what’s the purpose of you and I?” Then the song is swept away into a spiraling instrumental until the end of the album.

Though in that ambition, it could alienate those who were looking for a continuation of In Ghost Colours. Especially with the stark contrast from 30-second fillers that filled In Ghost Colours to the abstract instrumentals that divide the tracks, giving the listener a flowing album and something that wasn’t expected. These could easily be mistaken as flukes instead of the miniature bits of genius they are.

Even in the small bits of chaos throughout the album, the band’s soul is in every note that they hold on to and every lyric that frontman Dan Whitford sings is a dazzling soft silky tone that also hides a bite. The band has it all for sound, upbeat kaleidoscopic synths, soothing vocal hooks, tropical percussions, bouncing disco beats and a Caribbean vibe. The album in itself is a melting pot of all of these ideas with the same shimmer that led to the band getting to where they are now. “Take Me Over” is a brilliant display of almost all of these aspects, and with the catchy hook: “take me over, take me out, through the jungle, through the night, to paradise,” it is one that can be instantly loved. “Where I’m Going” is an explosive festivity of a rock ’n’ roll core with kaleidoscope synth. It explores a new place that the band has yet to go and a possible hint into where they could be going.

Zonoscope is the most pure form of Cut Copy and their boldest effort to date. It is something new and the band has been consistently making new music and pursuing new territories. Also, keep in mind that the childish mindset that was seen in In Ghost Colour is still there at the core, but has started along the path of maturity and is shown through Zonoscope.

Track Listing:

1. Need You Now
2. Take Me Over
3. Where I’m Going
4. Pharaohs & Pyramids
5. Blink and You’ll Miss a Revolution
6. Strange Nostalgia for The Future
7. This Is All We’ve Got
8. Alisa
9. Hanging Onto Every Heartbeat
10. Corner of the Sky
11. Sun God

If only Jason Schwartzman were still a part of Rooney, then this tour with Eisley and the Chapin Sisters would have been a perfect family affair. It’s seriously amazing to see that much talent in shared among family members. Though I guess just as talent runs in families, so does the lack of talent – seriously, my sister and I tried to do karaoke together once and it was not pretty.

The Chapin Sisters started off the show with their brand of saccharine folk songs. Their voices together were great and my friend and I commented on how they sounded and even looked a bit like Zooey Deschanel of She & Him. I guess it was a sound comparison because shortly after making that comment, the sisters brought up their recent tour with She & Him in the past Fall.

Eisley followed and this Texas indie rock group of three sisters, one brother and cousin blew me away. I had always heard good things, but this was the first time I’ve ever been able to catch them live. The one sister, Sherri, had a voice like Canadian singer Lights. My friend and I kept saying she was our favorite vocalist, but then Stacy would start to sing and we’d be like, no we love her the most. In other words, we really just loved everything about whatever was happening at the most recent moment because it just got better and better. The harmonies were superb, while the instrumentals drivingly interesting and catchy.

Midway through the set I tweeted a pic of Eisley and immediately got a text back, “You’re at Eisley? I didn’t think they served your kind there.” I couldn’t help, but chuckle at the Star Wars joke, but it did make me curious about the band’s name – turns out the really are named for the Star Wars town of Mos Eisley.

The group mentioned some new music coming out this Spring and played a few new songs such as “Smarter” off the upcoming release. Definitely put this release on your radar.

Eisley Set List:
Better Heart
Golly Sandra
Many Funerals
Brightly Wound
Smarter
Valley
Invasion
I.W. Prepared
Sad
Ambulance
Mr. Moon

I must admit, I had been a little out of the Rooney loop for awhile. I was obsessed with them in high school, so I couldn’t wait to hear “Daisy Duke” and “I’m Shakin,” but I didn’t really know what to expect from the more recent material.

The set list was a great mix of old and new songs, so I was pleased to hear what I had originally fell in love with mixed in with new songs that I was pleasantly surprised by. The group also through in some covers – inviting the Chapin Sisters back out for a cover of “Magic.”

Rooney’s warm-sounding surf rock was perfect for the cold Winter night of this show and really, my only bone to pick with them were the dance moves of lead singer Robert – maybe a little bit less of the chicken-head bobbing. It just got a little cheesy as the show went on and the overdone gesture detracts from what is some really great music.

Rooney Set List:
Stay Away
Blueside
Don’t Look at Me
Daisy Duke
All or Nothing
Losing All Control
Don’t Come Around Again
Holdin On
Only Friend
Runaway – cover
Stars and Stripes
Magic – cover
Shakin
Ishbay
Can’t Get Enough
—
Not in My House
Heart

The tour is still going on, so if you get the chance to see it in your town, definitely check it out. Tour dates are here.

Foster the People just released a video for their radio single “Pumped Up Kicks.” The tune in a catch, danceable track perfect for all you Peter Bjorn and John lovers.

The band will be on tour in the Spring with dates including SXSW and Coachella.
Tour Dates:
03-08 Santa Barbara, CA – Soho
03-13 Santa Fe, NM – Corazon
03-21 Tempe, AZ – Sail Inn
03-22 Solana Beach, CA – Belly Up
03-23 San Francisco, CA -The Independent *
03-25 Portland, OR – Mississippi Studios
03-26 Seattle, WA – High Dive
03-29 Salt Lake City, UT – Kilby Court *
03-30 Denver, CO – Walnut Room *
03-31 Kansas City – The Record Bar *
04-01 Minneapolis, MN – 7th Street Entry *
04-02 Chicago, IL – Schubas Tavern *
04-03 Toronto, ON – Lee’s Palace *
04-05 Montreal, QC – Petit Campus *
04-07 Boston, MA – Brighton Music Hall *
04-08 New York, NY – Mercury Lounge *
04-09 Brooklyn, NY – Knitting Factory – Brooklyn *
04-10 Philadelphia, PA – Kung Fu Necktie *
04-11 Washington, DC – Red Palace *
04-17 Indio, CA – Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival

05-29 thru 31 Sasquatch Music Festival
*with Grouplove AND LeSands

London soul singer/songwriter Adele has announced plans to tour North America in May and June. The tour begins May 12 in Washington, DC and concludes on June 20 in Nashville. She will be touring in support of her second album, 21, which will be released on February 22 on XL Recordings. Presale tickets are already on sale but the general sale begins on Friday, February 11.

If you’d like to preview 21 before you can buy it, it’s available on NPR now but only for a limited time. It’s already done well in Adele‘s home country: when it was released in Great Britain on January 24, it hit #1 on the UK albums chart in its first week.

Tour Dates:
May 12 – 9:30 Club / Washington, DC
May 13 – Electric Factory / Philadelphia
May 15 – House of Blues / Boston
May 16 – Olympia Theater / Montreal
May 18 – Kool Haus / Toronto
May 19 – Beacon Theatre / New York City
May 23 – Royal Oak Music Theatre / Royal Oak
May 24 – Riviera Theater / Chicago
May 26 – First Avenue / Minneapolis
May 28 – Ogden Theatre / Denver
May 29 – Depot / Salt Lake City
May 31 – Commodore Ballroom / Vancouver, BC
June 01 – Showbox at the Market / Seattle
June 03 – Crystal Ballroom / Portland
June 04 – Warfield Theatre / San Francisco
June 08 – Humphreys Concerts by the Bay / San Diego
June 09 – Wiltern / Los Angeles
June 12 – Stubbs Waller Creek / Austin
June 15 – House of Blues / Dallas
June 17 – Tabernacle / Atlanta
June 18 – Orange Peel / Asheville
June 20 – Ryman Auditorium / Nashville

Adele: website | myspace

Former Thieves
Iowa
www.formerthieves.com
No Sleep Records
Hardcore

Former Thieves are new to the No Sleep family and have already toured throughout the Midwest creating a name for themselves.

The band recently flew out to Seattle to record their first full-length. One of the most anticipated hardcore albums of the year is set to release April 19. You can check out the teaser video at formertheives.com.

On their way to SXSW, they will be stopping in Kansas City on March 16 to play the Sports Complex with Xerxes.

SXSW shows include:
March 18 at the Mellow Mushroom w/ the Felix Culpa, Helen Earth Band, Pswingset, and Xerxes.
March 19 at the Red 7 for the No Sleep Records/Atticus SXSW Party, bands to be announced.

I first came upon the music of Darwin Deez by an, admittedly, slightly annoying song called “Radar Detector” that got a lot of airplay on BBC Radio in 2010. Darwin Deez, aka Darwin Smith, is one unusual character. A pretty talented guy, Smith wrote, performed, produced, arranged, engineered and mixed almost everything on this debut album. I guess he must just be mildly OCD about controlling his musical output, which is not all that uncommon among musicians. His guitar is definitely strange though: his axe only has 4 strings (no E string) and he has a secret tuning key for it. Okay…

Now I mentioned BBC Radio because Britain, better than any other country, has the ear to pick on a good thing and can do this much faster than America can. And indeed, they’ve already embraced his misfit pop stylings. Widely read British music magazine NME featured Deez as part of the top ten of the NME Cool List 2010, alongside ex-Libertine Carl Barat, Janelle Monae, and Laura Marling, just to name three others. NME describes Deez, in at #10, as follows: “All the Richard Dawkins acolytes who drone on about how all religion is benighted, all bollocks and basically pure evil, need a few elementary lessons in Darwin-ism. Darwin Deez is indie’s exemplar of all that’s positive of living according to your holy principles. His lifelong devotion to the teachings of Indian mystic Meher Baba seems to have gifted him with the warm, graceful, joss-stick hazy spiritual air…” Pretty heady stuff for a kid born under such spiritual confines who eventually gave up schooling at Wesleyan to entertain anti-folk lovers in New York City and now regularly sells out UK venues. Definitely a case of living the dream.

So far, “Radar Detector,” “Constellations,” and “Up in the Clouds” (an addictive, peppy, and cute apology / love song) have been released as singles in the UK, but in my view, the better tracks are still to be discovered when you buy Darwin Deez the album. If you don’t like programmed beats or deadpanned, nonmelodic singing, this is probably not the record for you. “Deep Sea Diver” is not about water sports, it’s Deez singing to his girlfriend, stop being depressed because “now you’re bringing me down, now I’m unhappy too.” A fun groove punctuates “The City.” Later on, “The Suicide Song” sounds far too happy as a real call for help. “Bed Space,” with its trippy dream like quality, lacks direction. “The Bomb Song” is trying to be a commentary on the end of the world by weapons of mass destruction, and it doesn’t fit on this otherwise happy album, it’s just too heavy subject matter.

The surprising gem in the bunch is the last track, “Bad Day.” This is not to be confused with “Bad Day” by Daniel Powter, the cloyingly sweet and empathetic song that we heard play every time another reject was booted, blinking back tears, from American Idol a couple years back. No, this is reined-in vitriol from one dude to another, served up Darwin Deez style. You have to laugh at the lyrics: “I hope the last page of your 800 page novel is missing / I hope that it rains if you leave the window down on your red Mustang” and “I would like to be your girlfriend so I could dump you / and I would like to be your garbage man / so I would never have to pick up your trash again”. Brilliant. It’s the kind of anthem you want to sing in the face of anyone who’s ever wronged you. In a sunny, not argumentative Darwin Deez way, and afterwards, you can skip off, happily, into the sunset.

Darwin Deez will be released on February 22 on Lucky Number Records.

Track Listing:
01. Constellations
02. Deep Sea Divers
03. The City
04. DNA
05. The Suicide Song
06. Up in the Clouds
07. Bed Space
08. The Bomb Song
09. Radar Detector
10. Bad Day

Tour Dates
Feb 09 – Spring Street Firehouse / Birmingham
Feb 10 – Club Downunder / Tallahassee
Feb 11 – Drunken Unicorn / Atlanta
Feb 12 – Snug Harbor / Charlotte
Feb 14 – Local 506 / Chapel Hill
Feb 15 – Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar / Charlottesville, VA
Feb 17 – Black Cat Backstage / Washington, DC
Feb 18 – Kung Fu Necktie / Philadelphia
Feb 19 – Bowery Ballroom / New York City

Darwin Deez: website | myspace | Darwin Deez to Tour North America This Winter, Will Release Self-Titled Debut in February

Four years after her acclaimed major label debut with Neptune City, Nicole Atkins has come back with sexy bluesy vigor on Mondo Amore.

To be perfectly honest, I’d never heard Atkins’ music before sitting down to take a listen to this new album, but now I’ve found myself wanted to listen to the rest of it. And checking to see when she’s touring in Seattle (turns out in less than a week!). Normally I’m not one to love female vocalists so easily. I’m pretty sure abut 80 percent of my music library is male vocalists. However, Atkins has such an traditional blues rock style on this album that I want to pick up a harmonica and slide guitar all of a sudden.

Opening with the strings-heavy dark and beautiful “Vultures,” Atkins’ soulful voice has both a sweet and haunting tone to it that hits a perfect spot between Alison Mosshart and Jenny Lewis. You never thought you’d see those two names in the same sentence, did you?

One stand out on the album is “My Baby Don’t Lie,” an up-tempo knee-slapping sing-along that conjures up thoughts of cowboy boots, tumble weeds, and plenty of pints of beer, but not campy in the slightest. I could say that this was country rock, but there’s so much attitude that to even call it country would downplay how dark and beautiful this album is.

“War is Hell,” another fabulous tune, is the one crooning ballad near the end of the album. It almost reminds me of Brandi Carlile‘s first album, with the low notes slowly crescendoing to the passionate high notes.

To finish out the album, we get the more contemporary “Heavy Boots,” tinged with psychedelic folk, and “The Tower,” a song that could have easily come right out of Woodstock ’69. I’m not kidding. This is going to sound cliche, but I can easily say that I haven’t heard anyone else Nicole Atkins lately. The mixture of the old-school vocals and vintage blues guitar on Mondo Amore is so ironically refreshing that I almost wonder what decade it is.

Wait, it’s 1970, right?

Go to http://mondoamore.nicoleatkins.com/ to stream “Vultures” and get tickets to her upcoming tour.

Tour Dates:

02/09 New York, NY Bowery Ballroom
02/11 Vancouver, BC Media Club
02/12 Seattle, WA Tractor Tavern
02/13 Portland, OR Mississippi Studios
02/15 San Francisco, CA Cafe Du Nord
02/16 West Hollywood, CA Troubadour
02/18 La Jolla, CA The Loft at UCSD
02/23 Boston,MA Brighton Music Hall
02/25 Montreal, QU La Sala Rossa
02/26 Toronto, ONT The Legendary Horseshoe Tavern
02/27 Detroit, MI Magic Stick
03/01 St. Paul, MN Turf Club
03/02 Madison, WI The Frequency
03/04 Chicago, IL Subterranean
03/05 St. Louis, MO The Firebird
03/07 Nashville, TN Mercy Lounge
03/09 Washington, DC The Rock and Roll Hotel
03/10 Philadelphia, PA Johnny Brenda’s

Hey, do you remember Freak Folk? I remember Freak Folk. Devendra Banhart got popular, and suddenly it seemed every guy with a beard had an acoustic guitar, and was making strange noises. Akron/Family got lumped into this category, and I can’t say it was entirely unjustified. The thing about Akron/Family is that, as the cliché goes, they kind of defy description. I saw them live in 2006, and it was one of the most blissed out, indecipherable things I have ever experienced. If you had an idea of my drug history, you would know not to take that statement lightly.

The fact that they don’t fit easily into a box is a good thing. A/F really must be experienced to be understood, but since this is an album review I must try to make sense of their insanity.

S/T II: The Cosmic Birth and Journey of Shinju TNT is their fourth full-length. It seems to me that they’ve managed to mellow out while somehow getting stranger at the same time. The album begins with “Silly Bears” which seems to be about bears, I think. The song starts with the banging of drums, and shouting, before a riff that sounds like a dull knife rips into the song. Then they begin singing, of course, about bears, and honey.

The album continues with “Island,” which, for reasons that escape me, reminds me of a Kanye West song. It’s a spacey breeze of a song, but it’s a little sedate for my tastes.

The fourth track and first single is “So It Goes.” I simply adore the riff that opens things up. The singer tells a story that seems a little strange. He talks about how, he, like other people, stopped giving his change to homeless people, but he changed back. He then tells us about how he saved $1.80 at Safeway. A woman outside the store asks him for $1.80, he gives it to her, and wonders if he was robbed. The song slows down, and the rest of it is the phrase “so it goes” sung a few times over an acoustic guitar. It’s easily the best song here.

I think the rest of the album sort of meanders along. There are some slow ones, some fast ones, but I have a hard time paying much attention to any of it, with one exception. Near the end of the album comes “Fuji II (Single Panel)”. It takes almost two minutes for it to get started, but once I hear the lyrics “we were living underground” I always perk up.

According to the album’s press release, a note was included with it when it was delivered to the label. This note claims to be a transcription of another note that suggests this:“Flourish.Flourish.Flourish. Fuck Shit Up.” The band claims to have taken this advice to heart. I’m all about fucking shit up, but the band doesn’t seem to be doing much of it on this album.

I enjoy the album, yes, but I’m not sure if I’ll still be listening to it six months from now. The band has definitely flourished, however. When I fell in love with their first album, five or six years ago, I never expected them to continue making music I enjoy. I also didn’t expect them to keep the shroud of mystery that surrounds them. It seems amazing to me that a band like Akron/Family can exist in the digital age. They deserve your attention.

Track Listing:

1. Silly Bears
2. Island
3. A AAA O A WAY
4. So It Goes
5. Another Sky
6. Light Emerges
7. Cast a Net
8. Tatsuya Neon Purple Walkby
9. Fuji I (Global Dub)
10. Say What You Want To
11. Fuji II (Single Pane)
12. Canopy
13. Creator