Orange County Music Blog

​Girls
Album
Album is a seemingly pill-popping-induced record that has its ups and downs--just like life, and just like pills. Girls are a San Francisco two-piece made up of Christopher Owens and Chet JR White. Now, there's no doubt that Album is made from the churning aftermath of a terrible breakup. But it feels like Owens is singing about his heartache on some sunny Californian beach with a pizza and a bottle of wine. Album shares musical qualities with artists like Elvis Costello, Buddy Holly and Conor Oberst. The production on this record suits the band very well, and works to their advantage. For anyone who's ever been hurt by someone else--which is uh, everyone--this is a must-have record.

​The cover of this album kinda says it all. 50 Cent's empire is crumbling. Some would say it's been a long process beginning around about 2007. You can almost time it with the public's growing disinterest in the record industry's profits.  Since the less-than-stellar release of his last album Curtis, most of 50's mystic and gangster appeal is relegated back to the glory days of his first couple albums. At least with his latest effort, Before I Self Destruct (out today, Nov. 17, on Interscope), he spared us the novelty image of his studly shirtlessness. Although within the album itself, not much has changed with hip-hop's baron of beef. Besides the fact that you're not gonna find too many club bangers on this album. No, this is  a darker side of 50 that we experience track after track, gun blast after gun blast. 

​With a sound surrounded with laser zaps, 8-bit nostalgia, Kraftwerk and cheesy elevator music, it's as if 21-year-old Alan Paolma (aka Ghosthustler, aka VEGA, aka some other hip moniker not-yet-named) had actually been old enough to make music in the 80s, instead of just shitting his diapers.

Like many artists in the new wave of synthpop acts (Passion Pit, MGMT), Paloma has managed to unearth the punch and glitter of the dance music of yesteryear and christen it with a new indie aesthetic. Though, that's not to say every one of these acts sound the same. For Paloma, whose record Psychic Chasms from newest project Neon Indian comes out today on Lefse Records, themes of lo-fi longing give his sound a balance between levitating dance anthems and cold opiate escape. Born in Mexico and raised in Texas, Paloma came up in a musical household, with his father Jorge Paloma embarking on a short run as a Mexican pop star. Alan even mentions sampling some of his work in Neon Indian.

​Sure, maybe it's a little naive to talk about the release of an album that's already been linked, streamed and downloaded since the beginning of the month, but for the sake of staying true to Built to Spill's '90s origins (you know, back when album release dates still mattered) we have no problem spotlighting their latest album, There is No Enemy, officially in stores today on Warner Bros. Records.

In fact, you can tell that the band themselves are re-examining their own past circa '97 with much of the work done on this album; three years in the making. Borrowing brush strokes from their landmark albums Perfect From Now On and Keep It Like a Secret, this iconic indie rock outfit has bent and stretched the parameters of  their layered guitar sound as well as the nasally howl of  front man Doug Martsch with a sage-like use of restraint and explosion on tracks like "Oh Yeah" and "Good Ol' Boredom". Not to mention the catchy guitar delays of album opener "Aisle 13".

​Three years after the release of their third album The Garden (with all its upbeat sonic pivots), UK trip-hop production duo Zero 7 have made a few constructive compromises between old and new sounds on their new album Yeah Ghost that most hardcore fans should find appealing. With a refreshing blend of galactic and earthy tones, core members Sam Hardaker and Henry Binns (along with sultry femme vocalists Eska Mtungwazi, Martha Tilston and Rowdy Superstar) offer plenty of high notes on this new release, making its stateside debut today.

You may have already gotten a taste of the album's fourth track "Everything's Up (Zizzou)", though it's icy, meandering synths aren't exactly a fair barometer of the entire album, even if Binns is handling half the vocals on this one. The album's second track "Mr. McGee" (some title, huh?) captures a dancier Garden-esque sound with searing vocal delays and driving beats. The fact that it follows the washy, esoteric opener, "Count Me Out", should let you know that interesting contrasts are afoot here.

​A week ago today, New York City band fun. (yes, that's how they spell it, don't blame us) played Chain Reaction in Anaheim along with OC veterans Hellogoodbye and Limbeck. Now, their debut album Aim and Ignite is in stores, and being that fun. lead singer Nate Ruess and myself are both former Phoenix residents, I reviewed the record in last week's edition of sister paper the Phoenix New Times. Since the album can now be bought, and all that, here's the review for what is sure to be a scintillating reading experience. (Oh, and they're playing an in-store at 7 p.m. this Sunday, August 30, at Fingerprints in Long Beach.)

The first lyric of "Be Calm," the opening track of Aim and Ignite, finds Nate Ruess narrating "as I walk through the streets of my new city." The former Format singer has always let his life affect his lyrics in very literal ways, and his move to New York City and work with new band fun. quickly prove no exception -- which means there's at least some level of umbrage Arizonans should take with the fact that the first single is called "At Least I'm Not As Sad (As I Used to Be)."

The Dead Weather
Horehound
(Third Man)

Jack White is a really good guitar player. In the White Stripes and the Raconteurs, he's shown off his proficiency in a variety of styles and genres (six years later, the faux-bassline of "Seven Nation Army" is still stuck in a lot of heads). He's a focus of upcoming documentary It Might Get Loud, where he joins certified six-string icons Jimmy Page and the Edge in gabbing about the history of the electric guitar.

So it's perplexing that in the Dead Weather, his current project and the most ubiquitously publicized band of 2009, he's playing...drums? It feels like a novelty for novelty's sake, like Michael Jordan trying baseball. On Horehound, he's got exactly one guitar appearance: album closer "Will There Be Enough Water?" He doesn't sing much on the record, either, with the bulk of the vocal duties going to Alison Mosshart--frontwoman of her own lo-fi duo, the Kills.

This album review runs in OC Weekly this week--summer guide issue!--but why wait until then? The record's out now! Yeah!

Elvis Costello
Secret, Profane & Sugarcane
(Hear Music)

In this phase of his career, Elvis Costello seems determined to convince people he can do just about anything--jazz (2003's North), classical (2004's Il Sogno), pop duets (2006's The River In Reverse, recorded with Alan Toussaint) and collaborations with indie-rock darlings (last year's Momofuku, which featured cameos from Jenny Lewis). He's even shown off his comedy skills on 30 Rock and The Colbert Report, hosted chat show Spectacle, and popped up in, improbably enough, a Fall Out Boy song. The latest from the reliably prolific Cos (his 11th album this decade) is the T-Bone Burnett-produced Secret, Profane & Sugarcane, which can broadly be called his "country album" (though the same can be said, with just about as much accuracy, of 2004's The Delivery Man).

I review the sophomore release from The Shortwave Set in the Weekly this week, but seeing as how the album's been out for like, forever, overseas, and it's out today in the states, why wait to read it? Read it here, now! The future is now! But actually the past! Think about it.

Happy Morrissey day, everyone! I review the album in this week's Weekly, but here it is a few days early. You Are the Quarry, Ringleader of the Tormentors and Years of Refusal are the Mozzer's Time Out of Mind, Love and Theft and Modern Times. Believe it!

The Smiths broke up in 1987, but people are still clinging onto hope that they'll eventually reunite. The rumor comes up every year as the announcement of a Coachella lineup looms, and every year, it turns out to be bunk. Routinely, you'll encounter people who may not have even been alive during the Smiths existence, who insist "Morrissey's solo stuff is OK, but what I really like is the Smiths."

Years of Refusal is Morrissey's ninth solo album, and the most compelling argument yet for fans to finally move on from his former life. Punctuating a career resurgence that started with 2004's You Are the Quarry and continued with 2006's Ringleader of the Tormentors, Morrissey's music has never quite rocked so hard, thanks to the youthful energy of his current band (guided by Moz veteran and "musical director" Boz Boorer). Lead track "Something is Squeezing My Skull" makes this quite clear, harkening back to the similarly raucous opener of the singer's excellent 1992 release, Your Arsenal ("You're Gonna Need Someone On Your Side"), but with an energy all its own.

I'm way behind the times when it comes to technology. Hell, I just got a cell phone six months ago and that was because my dad -- who works for a company that will not be named -- gave me one. But it's 2009 and I gotta get up to date on what the kids are doing. Hence, I got an external hard drive to store some records that I like but don't have the chance to listen to.

The good news is, my loss is your gain as I am getting rid of some good shit. What good shit, you ask? This good shit.

The Smoking Gun Web site exposed Akon earlier this year, unearthing police documents that show he's greatly exaggerated his arrest record and incarceration time. And so on his third album, Freedom, he downgrades himself from Konvicted (the title of his last CD) to "Troublemaker." Even this description refers more to his tendencies to steal women's hearts than their cars, however, and the album's title track is not so much about release from prison as existential cleansing. (Sonically, it's quite similar to George Michael's "Freedom '90," although one assumes Akon had different thoughts in his head while he recorded it.)

Elsewhere Freedom is mostly a snoozefest, with Akon riffing on love and sex on downbeat-saccharine-club ballads like "Beautiful," "Keep You Much Longer" and "Be With You." The only signs of life are the Wyclef Jean-assisted "Sunny Day" and the album's best track, "I'm So Paid." The latter sees Akon briefly returning to thug mode--well, driving over the speed limit while carrying an unlicensed firearm, at least. (Close enough.) It's enough to make one nostalgic for his previous, bogus persona. Sure, Akon's not a gangster. But neither is Robert De Niro, and everyone likes it when he plays one.

Though Sunday at Devil Dirt, the second collaboration between Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan, has been out overseas for months, it's just seeing a US release today. We've got a review in this week's Weekly, but here it is a few days early. Magical!

Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan
Sunday at Devil Dirt
(Vagrant)

The central appeal of the Isobel Campbell-Mark Lanegan pairing is simple. Their contrasting singing styles—hers is always soft and sweet; his, frequently gruff and gravelly—mesh with surprisingly effective results, like olive oil and vinegar or MSNBC pundits Rachel Maddow and Pat Buchanan.

What Sunday at Devil Dirt isn’t is anything like the bands that former Screaming Trees front man Lanegan and ex-Belle & Sebastian cellist/backing vocalist Campbell are primarily known for. Instead of psychedelic grunge or whimsical pop, it’s a collection of slow, often dark, Leonard Cohen-esque folk songs. As with their first effort, 2006’s Ballad of the Broken Seas, Campbell writes most of the songs while Lanegan does the heavy vocal lifting. But they’re a duo for a reason, and the best songs on the album are the ones in which the two work closely in tandem, like the menacingly seductive lead single “Come On Over, Turn Me On” and “Who Built the Road,” in which they trade off verses and join forces for the chorus. Too many tracks sound more like Mark Lanegan “featuring” Isobel Campbell, such as “The Flame That Burns,” a fair but ultimately hollow Tom Waits soundalike. The lyrics match the music well, fitting in perfectly with the bygone era Campbell and Lanegan successfully evoke, but it lacks genuine emotional depth, alternating between the manufactured moodiness of “The Raven” and the saccharine wistfulness of album closer “Sally Don’t You Cry.”

T-Pain
Thr33 Ringz
(Nappy Boy Entertainment)

How has T-Pain done it? He’s not attractive, his fashion-sense leaves much to be desired (for those without Dr. Seuss/ LSD fetishes, in any case), and without the benefit of auto-tune his voice is nothing special. And yet, considering his hip hop and R&B radio dominance, his claim to be “ringleader of the game” can’t be argued with.

The circus theme informs Pain’s third album, Thr33 Ringz, in which his task is moving beyond singles towards a memorable CD. Sadly, unfunny skits clog it up (“She had five different niggas’ names tattooed on her left ass cheek. That’s when a bitch gotta make a decision”) and the sexy songs, aren’t. “Chopped N Skrewed” is about…getting screwed, while big single “Can’t Believe It” is essentially about Pain stashing his women around the world. (Still, one must salute his ability to rhyme “mansion” with “Wisconsin.”) “Long Lap Dance” is about getting good value out of your stripper, while “Therapy” is about relationship conflict (“5, 6, 7, 8, I don’t need your sex/ I’ll masturbate”).

All told, Thr33 Ringz’s tracks aren’t unified, and it doesn’t work as full album. That doesn’t mean Pain’s not still R&B’s ringleader, it just means he’s not its Barnum & Bailey.

The Mighty Underdogs
Droppin' Science Fiction
(Definitive Jux)

Featuring Quannum Projects vets Gift of Gab (from Blackalicious) and Lateef the Truthspeaker (of Latyrx), and producer Headnodic (of Crown City Rockers), The Mighty Underdogs is a group that adds up to less than the sum of its parts. Problem is, the guys are trying to sound like they're not taking things seriously—even when they are. Take "Ill Vacation," featuring Lyrics Born. Over island-style brass and a relaxed bassline, Gift of Gab raps about meeting an army like "Private Ryan"'s on a "private island," fears he will be sacrificed to a "giant lion" but eventually escapes and finds "shiny diamonds." It's not nearly as whimsical or funny as it sets out to be. "Have fun, goddamit!" the guys are practically screaming on tracks like "Laughing At You," which features lame punchlines ("You're in your own world/ And no one else feels you/ Your breath smells like shit/ Your feet reek of mildew") over what sounds like a laughing hyena sample. The album's best moments are the tense, spaghetti-western flavored "Gun Fight"—easily the CD's highlight—and the by turns jaunty, by turns frantic "Escape." Elsewhere however, The Mighty Underdogs try to be cute and fail to live up to their super group billing.

This runs in the Weekly this week, but since the album is out already, here it is! Shiny Toy Guns have a new female singer in Sisely Treasure, from Long Beach. With a name like that, her only other career option than rock band member was "'70s Blaxploitation character." Since that's not exactly a lucrative market these days, it's lucky she ended up where she did.

Shiny Toy Guns
Season of Poison
(Universal Motown)

Shiny Toy Guns guitarist/singer Gregori Chad Petree and bassist/keyboardist Jeremy Dawson (the two creative forces behind the Los Angeles synth-pop band) evidently like to keep trying until they get things just the way they want it. They released their debut album, We Are Pilots, three different times and are now on their third female singer, Long Beach native Sisely Treasure.

So with that kind of dedication, it's surprising their sophomore effort—if you can call it that, as each version of We Are Pilots varied plenty—is as uneven as it is. Season of Poison tries to be a lot of different things, but not much of it is very good. There's the misguided attempt at a ballad, "I Owe You a Love Song"; the generic rock of "Money for That"; and the soulless pop pap "Turned to Real Life." To say nothing of the unfortunately titled "Poison," a meandering eight minutes of . . . something. Something boring.

Deerhunter
Microcastle
(Kranky)

Bradford Cox’s oversized persona threatens to overwhelm almost anything his band Deerhunter does. In concert, the singer/songwriter—who has Marfan Syndrome and is shockingly thin—often makes things bloody and uncomfortable. On his group’s blog, he battles music pirates and his own demons. But fans are wise to ignore the hype; almost two years after releasing the masterful Cryptograms, Deerhunter’s new Microcastle is equally stunning despite sounding almost completely different. Largely eschewing effect pedals and moving away from the dreamy, endless soundscapes that informed their earlier work, Microcastle features clean guitars and a poppy disposition.

The album’s tightly-coiled title track lurks quietly for a solid two and a half minutes before the drums kick in and it turns into a classic rock-style banger. “Nothing Ever Happened” maintains the rockin’ and rollin’ mentality, and the work as a whole should be immediately accessible for most listeners. There are still moments that feel like Dan Deacon DJ sets, but for the most part the songs are simpler and more focused. Call Microcastle the equivalent of Metallica’s Black Album. Though Deerhunter has risked alienating some of their core fans, most others will prefer this incarnation.

Phoenix's The Stiletto Formal are playing at Chain Reaction in Anaheim tonight. They just released their full-length debut album yesterday, and I reviewed it in this week's Weekly, on racks later this week. But here it is now, in case you're interested in knowing what they sound like before tonight's show. It's like time travel! And since the review actually ran on the New Times blog in Phoenix yesterday, it's like really wonky time travel.

As the New Times blog notes, I've been following the band for a while, and actually reviewed their initial EP while I was freelancing as a senior in college. Ah, memories. I can't find that review, but here's something I wrote about one of their live shows circa December 2006.

Is it too early to wax nostalgic for the music of the mid-2000s? Now that we're firmly in the late oughts, tunes from just a few years ago are re-emerging into the zeitgeist. The trailers for Guy Ritchie's "RocknRolla" used 2005 track "Rock & Roll Queen" by The Subways, and NBC reached a little further back, placing Kasabian's 2004 number "Club Foot" in promos for Christian Slater vehicle "My Own Worst Enemy."

So it feels right that a new Secret Machines record would be released this week. In 2004, the Dallas band's "Nowhere Again," off their excellent debut "Now Here is Nowhere," was similarly utilized in advertising (which, whether you like it or not, is more viable in breaking artists than radio airplay these days - just ask Feist, Chairlift or anyone else lucky enough to be in an iPod commercial), in their case for the short-lived series "Jack & Bobby." Follow-up record "Ten Silver Drops" was also well-received but didn't make much of an impact culturally.

VVM Web Music Editor David Downs calls 2007 the year of rehab. "For LiLo, Britney, Amy, and America as a whole. It'll be remembered as the year we hit rock bottom, and the getting up wasn't going to be easy. Here's how it sounded."

Queens of the Stone Age
Era Vulgaris
"Turning on the Screw"
Because no one rocks harder while still pulling in the girls. This album has at least five epic, shredder songs that kept me awake during several 2 a.m. burns down the pitch-black California Interstate 5 through the Central Valley. This is extreme, inlander music. Butt rock with a heart.

Radiohead
In Rainbows
"House of Cards"

Partly because of the size of their balls, but mostly because the songs are as good as their balls are big. Take the glitchy "15-Step", add the technical "Faust Aurp", throw in the burly "Bodysnatchers", mellow it out with "House of Cards" and you have so much good music, the other songs are just the sweet, shiny coating on the prozac.

See the rest of Downs' picks over at SF Weekly's music blog.

Matt Castille (Muz) drumming up some Mardi Gras exultation.

Costa Mesa resident Matt Castille appeared in the Weekly's 2007 Best Of issue as Best Genius Hermit Musician. Over the weekend, Castille emerged from his lair to bestow upon me his latest sonic creation: eight tracks he recorded solo under the moniker Muz. My weekend became immeasurably more psychedelic during those 35 minutes.

All musicians always say that their newest batch of songs are their “best yet,” but often this exuberance is delusional. Before we put the CD-R in the player, Castille—who also plays in Vas Deferens Organization—observed that these new joints “may be the best thing I've ever done.” As someone who's heard nearly everything he's recorded, I believed that his statement would likely ring true.

We listened to the disc twice. I was thunderstruck by the rich, lurid panoply of brain-scrambling sounds parading across the stereo field. The man had kept this word. These new songs are more tightly composed than the two sprawling pieces on his debut LP (see my review from Alternative Press here) and more memorable and vividly detailed than his second Muz album, Banana in Portuguese.

I'm still trying to process everything going on here. I feel in the sober light of day that I am ill-equipped (i.e., my mind is not sufficiently altered) to do justice to the teeming brilliance on display. All attempts at categorizing dissolve into so much irrelevant semantics. This new Muz release is one of those heavy trips to which you're lucky if you can eke out the occasional “WOW” as it coats your neurons in gaudy rivulets of psychotropic goo. (This album is currently untitled and without a label. Will some idiosyncratic philanthropist/music-industry renegade please release it? Soon? Thanks.)

Influenced by Nurse with Wound's legendary recommendations list of progressive/psychedelic/krautrock/experimental/avant-garde artists, Castille is one of those musicians who absorbs tons of fantastic, rarefied albums and then reconstitutes the base elements of said albums to his own perverse designs (his Vas Deferens Organization band mate Eric Lumbleau is one of the world's foremost collectors; for proof, see his contributions to the invaluable blog Mutant Sounds) . If names like Art Zoyd, Intersystems, Et Cetera, Brave New World and Severed Heads mean nothing to you, don't worry: Muz will still floor you with his extravagantly exotic tone painting and creative (de)arrangements. The only problem is, after you listen to Muz, nearly everything else in the sound spectrum will seem unbearably pedestrian.

Hurry! You immediately have to read OC Weekly freelancer Ned Raggett's review of In Rainbows, which will be running in our print edition next week; we thought you'd want to get an advance peek at what he has to say, as Radiohead's new album is the most important thing in the world this week.

Also, check out my VVM colleague/Riverfront Times music editor Annie Zaleski's late-night first impressions of In Rainbows.

Finally, do yourself a favor and read this wry history of musicians giving away their music... for free by LA Weekly's Randall Roberts.

Radiohead
In Rainbows
(www.radiohead.com)

After engineering the most attention-getting release news in a long while, Radiohead could—almost—be forgiven if the album itself turned out to be less than all that. Thankfully, that's not the case. In Rainbows, the group's seventh full-length, is not as much of a break with its past as Kid A, but neither is it the familiar recapitulation of its malleable sound like Hail to the Thief. Each song stands well on its own and there's plenty of low-key surprises in the mix, from cheering children to sudden rhythm bursts and time shifts.

In some cases the quintet looks to earlier styles—"Bodysnatchers" is a stirring take on the futuristic chug of krautrock legends like Neu!, the band's semi-signature chunky guitar blasts in full effect for the only time on the album, while "Weird Fish/Arpeggi" blends a quieter but no less quick take on that with hints of Philip Glass/Steve Reich minimalism, notes overlapping in a beautiful cascade. Elsewhere they show that this the 21st century rather than the 20th. "15 Step" finds drummer Phil Selway going off on acoustic and electronic beats that could easily have been hitting the charts in recent times (they'll surely be used on mixtapes before the year is out).

In Rainbows' overall feeling, though, is one of contemplative and lyrically direct fragility, with the type of ballads that are stadium-friendly—"House of Cards" being the standout, Thom Yorke's voice echoing over a gentle melody and deep feedback squalls—without feeling like hollow wave-your-lighter demonstrations. "Nude," finally appearing in studio form after years of irregular live appearances, is the kind of late-night-in-the-jazz-bar treat for which the band has always had a fondness, while the bass-heavy lope of the barbed "All I Need" and the glazed beauty of "Reckoner"—perhaps the best tribute to the elegant sound of Talk Talk circa Laughing Stock yet recorded—both succeed wonderfully. Yorke's can't-miss singing is as lovely as ever, as are the many other sonic details the eventual double-CD release will further showcase. But for now, as an immediately enjoyable release that justifies the whirlwind of hype as well as a blueprint of the economic road many musicians may travel in the future, In Rainbows is a quiet triumph.