popwreckoning

For two sold-out nights, Londoners The xx proved that a minimalist approach can work, when it’s done well.

Having just arrived on the scene in 2009, The xx have earned a great deal of buzz and, judging by the crowd response, a sizable faction of ardent fans. Appearing shy, unassuming and a bit goth in their solid black attire, Oliver Sim on vocals and bass, Romy Madley Croft on vocals and guitar and Jamie Smith on percussion played to a packed house at San Francisco’s Great American Music Hall.

To start the show, I was excited to see Phantogram, a New York duo that I have been hearing so much about lately. I had heard about comparisons to Portishead, influences from Serge Gainsbourg and descriptions of their energetic live show. Based upon the crowd response, I don’t think I am alone in my assertion that the performance was a disappointment. The band’s point of reference seems good but there was simply no cohesion and each track seemed sloppier than the one before. There was no trace of an energetic live show and their lighting, which consisted of little more than the incessant, annoying flash of strobes, certainly didn’t help things.

The xx, on the other hand, conveyed exactly the opposite effect. Stacking detached, hazy vocals and thumping bass parts along with “live” drum machine beats, each sound seemed as it were specifically selected to enhance the vibe. Sounding like something that Robert Smith, Ian Curtis and Peter Hook might have cooked up in long-forgotten shed during the wee hours of night, The xx delivered an hour-long set consisting of most of the songs from their eponymous 2009 album. From the syncopated, overlapping lyrics of “Crystalised” to the half-awake “Islands” and “Shelter” the band gave the crowd a peek into their natural, more-mature-than-it-should-be style. The set continued with “VCR,” the R&B influenced “Basic Space” before closing with an energetic version of “Infinity.”

The show felt very intimate, as if the crowd was voyeuristically peeking into their dilapidated practice space while the band played simply for their own late-night enjoyment. That’s really what is so striking about The xx and their music: it’s seductive and tense there’s nothing pretentious about it. You’re left feeling fortunate that you’ve experienced it unfolding before you, as if it could vanish in an instant. Showing the band’s great mastery of restraint, all of the parts have an organic space between them, letting the tracks breathe and evolve in a very satisfying way.

It’s certainly impressive to see such a young band have such a brilliantly realized sound. Making unique noise from pedestrian instruments, these newcomers just might be on to something.

Polyvinyl Records is proud to release Aloha’s latest effort, Home Acres, on March 9, 2010. The band has announced a string of April tour dates in support of the album. After 2006’s Some Echoes and 2007’s Light Works, Aloha has put in three hard years for Home Acres, which pushes the tempos and dials up the guitars, with the band’s slow-burn intensity sometimes overflowing into huge moments. But even as the energy surges, Aloha casts an otherworldly glow, serving up ambience and attack with equal measure.

Album opener “Building a Fire” pairs gritty, persistent bass and drums with celestial, elusive melodies. An explosion of drums and a Peter Hook-high bass riff leads “Moonless March” into a minor-key catharsis. As the album hits its head-nodding, toe-tapping stride, you begin to realize that there’s darkness lurking under Tony Cavallario’s luminous melodies. In “White Wind,” ethereal harmonies stoke the flames as an era burns to the ground. Everywhere things seem to be slipping away, fading from view, going in and out of focus. Fuzzed-out marimbas, reverb-soaked organs and floating strings decorate wistful, chiming guitar chords while Cale Parks pounds away, powering the proceedings from behind the kit.

Lyrically, Home Acres (named for a quaint old suburb of Rochester, NY) tries to sort through the wreckage of the Great Lakes region and a way of life. Left abandoned “waiting for a getaway car that never came” in the record’s arena-rock-by-way-of-Silver Apples closer “Ruins,” we re left to think that maybe we ought to have dreamt bigger and fought the urge to disengage. A suggestion that Aloha has taken to heart for its biggest, brightest record to date.

Download “Moonless March” and  “Waterwheel” from Home Acres here.

Tour Dates:
Apr 09 – Terrace Club / Princeton, NJ
Apr 10 – Kung Fung Necktie / Philadelphia
Apr 12 – Will’s Pub / Orlando
Apr 13 – Drunken Unicorn / Atlanta
Apr 14 – Local 506 / Chapel Hill, NC
Apr 15 – DC9 / Washington DC
Apr 17 – Knitting Factory / Brooklyn
Apr 18 – The Middle East / Cambridge, Ma.
Apr 21 – The Pike Room / Pontiac, Mi.
Apr 22 – Empty Bottle / Chicago
Apr 24 – Grog Shop / Cleveland
Apr 25 – Brillobox / Pittsburgh

Aloha: myspace

Photo: Shawn Brackbill

It has been four long years since Doves released the organically experimental Brit-pop sound of their last album, Some Cities. The question “What exactly have they been up to?” was emphatically answered in front of a sold-out crowd at San Francisco’s venerable Fillmore Auditorium on May 18th. Maintaining the confident and consistent hollow-body sound, the new album allows them to stretch out in ways that old fans will still find comfortable. Bringing with them a bigger, more brash sound, Doves Jimi Goodwin, guitarist Jez Williams, drummer Andy Williams and Martin Rebelski on keys, began their live set just as they do on their new album Kingdom of Rust, with “Jetstream”. While KOR doesn’t seem to have the stand-out “Black and White Town”, it still maintains the urban soundscapes that are rarely done this well.

Live performances of old and new included the smooth “Winter Hill”, the lighter/cell phone-conjuring “10:03”, Blondie vibe “Compulsion” and the “The Greatest Denier” with its darkly grandiose lyrics: “The English skyline falls down to the future. But no one noticed in this empire.” The band then tore through the driving piano of “White and Black Town” and the muscular “The Outsiders” before returning for a much-appreciated four-song encore. The show was filled with tight, understated harmonies, shimmering guitar riffs and the occasional fuzzed out bass which would make even fellow Mancunian Peter Hook proud. Only missing from the set list in my mind was “House of Mirrors” which seems ready-made for an energetic live performance.

Comparisons to Radiohead, Coldplay and Elbow are inevitable but still there is something more humble, unpretentious and authentic about Doves and the music they deliver. In some ways, I was reminded more of Bob Mould and the way he can make such refined music seem so very simple and likeable. Even Jimi’s snarling, between-song banter is delivered with a charismatic smirk that makes you want to buy him a Boddingtons. In any case, it seems those four years were well spent.

Set List:
Jetstream
Snowden
Winter Hill
Rise
Pounding
Almost Forgot Myself
10:03
Compulsion
Words
The Greatest Denier
Kingdom Of Rust
Ambition
Black And White Town
The Outsiders
Caught By The River
//
Firesuit
Here It Comes
The Last Broadcast
There Goes The Fear

Doves: website | myspace