REVISITING THE FOR CARNATION

I'm really looking forward to seeing the results of Pitchfork's "The People's List" when they start appearing on Wednesday. It'll be interesting to see what the balance is between "we know these are the important albums/great albums" (not the same thing, obviously, though often grouped together and even more often used as the guiding criteria for these kinds of lists) and genuine surprises, revelations, re-evaluations, etc. There's been a certain canon of indie that's crept up around Pitchfork over the fifteen years it's been around, and though that canon and the breadth of genres that contribute to it have expanded (in both good and bad ways), this seems like a moment of confirmation for that canon. In one sense, this list might actually rekindle a certain sense of "importance" that people feel is a diminishing aspect of music criticism and music writing. 

I won't start guessing at trends or trying to figure what those important albums might be, but one pleasant sign I've noticed from the lists I've seen so far is widespread love for the Dismemberment Plan's Emergency & I and one surprise has been the love for Sonic Nurse and Rather Ripped as the albums representative of Sonic Youth's second wind in the '00s. I went back and forth on whether to go with Sonic Nurse or Murray Street on my list, but "Karen Revisited/Karenology" carried the day. I was definitely not expecting to see Rather Ripped on as many lists as I have, nor was I expecting the total absence of The Eternal. One Sonic Youth related turn of events that I'd half-hoped would come to pass because of its potential for humour was a massive show of support for NYC Ghosts & Flowers that would see the recipient of one of the more damning reviews in Pitchfork's history suddenly held up as one of its readers' favourites. A missed opportunity, universe, but oh well (that was probably a little too far-fetched to hope for on my end, because aside from "Free City Rhymes" and the title track, nothing on that album is particularly great).

One album that compiling my list has made me go back and revisit--and which I'd been meaning to re-listen to anyway because bits of it have kept popping into my head recently--is the For Carnation's self-titled album from 2000. A pretty underrated and underacknowledged bit of American post-rock, it really is a gem, working the ground between folk, jazz, and rock largely by playing on the ideas about space and silence found in each genre. The songs often swing (not surprising given the help from Tortoise alumni), but gently, and for an album that relies as heavily on repetition as it does, it leans on the nagging rather than insistent side. It's also seriously quiet, to the point of almost non-existence at times--this is an album of dramatic pauses and calm-before-the-storm hushes that end up revealing themselves to be the storm. Most reviews talk quite rightly about the strong sense of dread and air of tension that permeates the release--and given the connections to Slint, that makes sense--but there's much more in common here with "For Dinner. . ." than "Good Morning, Captain." The album's not gothic in the way that Spiderland is, though it's very much a nighttime album--that the closer is called "Moonbeams" makes perfect sense, as do the intimate vocals. Most of this different sense of tension and dread comes from that focus on space and silence; where Spiderland is full of guitars, the For Carnation relies on the drums to carry the lead (quite literally on "Being Held") and various electronics to provide what colour there is. 

"Being Held"

For all that the album follows its own path, it's remarkably listenable: never slow despite the patience involved in the construction of the songs, and quite easy to fall under the spell of--there's mystery and suspense, which makes the whole thing seductive. In many ways, it's like Bark Psychosis' Hex in that you never really notice how strange or experimental the album as a whole might be because entering into its logic is so natural. On its own, "Being Held" is bizarre: a weird bell/siren, some dissonant keyboard washes, and a drum solo; taken in the context of the album, though, it feels every bit as natural and as songlike as "A Tribute To" and "Snoother," though both are more obviously "songs" in the traditional (which in this case, I guess, is taken to mean rockist) view. Indeed, "Snoother" is one of the highlights of the album, at once the most overtly jazzy and poppy song, a delicate waltz with some fantastic backing vocals by Rachel Haden shadowing Brian McMahon; when the pair sing "We are no less removed / than for that which she is known," my heart melts. The emptiness of its verses coupled with the sparseness of its instrumental section makes for one of the few moments during which the tension relaxes over the course of the album, but the droning organ (?) in the background throughout carries the dreaminess of the song into appropriately haunting and haunted territory.

"Snoother"

"Snoother" is followed by "Tales (Live From the Crypt)," the album's other highlight. Where "Snoother" was sparse, "Tales" is full, the busiest mix on the album, a weird amalgam of a pounding, almost post-punk intensity with science fiction synths (at times sounding right out of the Dr. Who theme) and a vocal performance that manages in its deadpan manner to go beyond Spiderland's darkest moments. Kim Deal's ghostly introduction to the song is a nice scene setter, especially with the way that the bassline seems to launch the song into the abyss after her final word. Everything that was bubbling under the surface of the album's first half comes to light here, though the dynamics feel very different from the standard rock explosion of tension. After this, "Moonbeams" is an aftermath, a ruin, and though the music threatens to become redemptive at times, the album trails off into sullen silence, anxiety looming large over everything.

"Tales (Live From the Crypt)"

I'm not expecting the For Carnation to place highly on "The People's List." I would actually be surprised if it placed at all, though I hope it does. I found out about Slint when I was starting high school, and, for whatever reason, the first thing I checked out after Spiderland and Tweez was the then newly released self-titled album by the For Carnation. Where my passion for Spiderland has faded a little over time (and my Spiderland t-shirt was stolen by an ex-girlfriend), I've remained consistently enchanted by the For Carnation. I doubt I could make a case for its importance or greatness if measured by influence--I've never heard anything else that sounds like it, nor have I heard or seen a band mention the For Carnation in an interview. What I can say is that the album means a great deal to me and that certain parts--the harmonies in "Snoother," the strings in "Emp. Man's Blues," the opening of "Tales (Live From the Crypt)"--are burned into my brain, coming forth from time to time to serenade me. If nothing else, it remains an intriguing, quiet road that few bands seem interested in traveling down. I'm waiting, but I doubt that anything will ever top it at what it does.

REVIEW: LEE RANALDO - BETWEEN THE TIMES AND THE TIDES

Lee Ranaldo - Between the Times and the Tides
Matador, 2012

I've been waiting for this album since grade nine. That's when I bought Goo, then an album that was ten years old (I didn't know who Chuck D was or why people made such a big deal in reviews about him being on the album, nor did I have any idea what the PMRC was or why I should smash it), and fell in love with not just Sonic Youth's music, but Lee Ranaldo's songs in particular. My brother had a handful of SY albums--Daydream Nation, Dirty, Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star, and A Thousand Leaves--but they'd never made sense to me. I knew they were supposed to be cool, though, and as I started to learn about things like "indie rock" and "college rock," I felt an obligation to go back to those albums. Daydream Nation was for me, as it was for many people, the way in: "Teen Age Riot," "Silver Rocket," and especially "Candle," but gradually "'Cross the Breeze," "The Sprawl," and "Trilogy." It took a long time for "Eric's Trip," "Hey Joni," and "Rain King" to make sense, but eventually they did. Something about "Mote," Lee's song on Goo helped with this. It was weird and alien. I didn't understand it or what it was trying to do. I did know that when he sang "I am airless / a vacuum child" it sounded so cool, but also so elegant. Thurston was effortlessly snotty, but Lee seemed intriguingly enigmatic and mysterious. Why didn't he get more songs?

By that time, I'd started listening to contemporary Sonic Youth. "Karen Revisited" [sadly, there are only edits on YouTube] was mindblowing; in his review of Murray Street, Rob Mitchum talks about the song's "ultraviolet feedback," which is such a perfect way of describing its beauty. Once that settled--and as I began to explore the back catalog more fully, finding gems like "In the Kingdom #19" and "Pipeline/Kill Time" or "Karen Koltrane" (those first notes! that first line!!!)--Lee continued pumping out great songs, even if he only got one or two per album: "Paper Cup Exit," "Rats," and "Walkin Blue" were all highlights of their respective albums. My friends and I used to talk all the time about an album full of Ranaldo-penned songs. We took our favourites from the various albums we owned and made each other mixtapes of them. I had a friend who was convinced that "Wish Fulfillment" was Lee's greatest song. I disagreed. I usually went with "Karen Koltrane."

About three years ago, I started to hear rumours that a Lee Ranaldo solo album was for sure in the works. When nothing came of it, I chalked it up to other things I really wanted but would never hear: a follow up to Loveless, a Nick McCabe solo album, a new For Carnation record (to pick just a few). Late last year, though, Matador announced that a Lee solo album was coming in March. By January, there was a single from the album, "Off the Wall". As of today, the entire album is available for streaming at Drowned in Sound (see the link in the photo caption). I was anxious before I pressed play. "Off the Wall" was decent, but it didn't really wow me, and if that was taken as the best way into the album, then I felt this did not bode well for my chances of enjoying Between the Times and the Tides as a whole.

Thankfully, mercifully, nothing could be further from the truth. This album is exactly what I want from a Ranaldo solo album and exactly what I needed that album to be (I should note: I know he's released other solo albums before; I mean a solo, song-based album). This is not to say that it is revolutionary or that Ranaldo is really doing anything new here: if you've been listening to college rock, indie rock, or some permutation thereof at any point in the last twenty years, you should feel pretty comfortable here. In some ways, this album is a lot like Murray Street in that it feels like a conscious engagement on Ranaldo's part with a kind of classic rock impulse. This is obviously the work of a man who loves Television and the Grateful Dead, but it's also the work of a man whose music helped to shape things like this and this. Indeed, not just due to the presence of Nels Cline on the album, Between the Times and the Tides most resembles Wilco, a distinctly American take on rock music of the past four decades, one that values Chapel Hill as much as Seattle, Southern California as much as downtown New York, though the dominant aesthetic is firmly shaped by early and mid-1990s indie.

The albums opens with the most Sonic Youth-sounding guitar line on the entire album (it wouldn't have sounded out of place on The Eternal), though one that quickly gets transformed into something like a '60s psych lead when the rest of the band comes in. "Waiting on a Dream" is relaxed and spacious even with its pounding drums, the kind of album opener that a 56 year old who's heading into his fourth decade of his recording career should be making. The mix is busy, full of guitars and touches of organ, but never overstuffed. If it wasn't such a pejorative, I'd say it sounds professional, a song that knows what it needs to do and goes about doing it. It feels much shorter than its six minute running time, and it gets the album off on the right foot. "Off the Wall" still feels slight, even in the context of the album--it's just slightly too close to an anonymous rocker--but it's followed by one of the album's highlights, "Xtina as I Knew Her," another dreamy, romantic reflection on lost time and lost people from a guy who can already claim at least two masterpieces in that category. The bridge and guitar break just past the halfway mark is stunningly beautiful and the long instrumental coda highlights just how the good the musicians Ranaldo has surrounded himself with are (aside from Cline, there's Jim O'Rourke, Alan Licht, John Medeski, and Steve Shelley, among others). Cline's solo--I'm assuming it's his--on "Angles" is unbelievable, a cross between a malfunctioning video game and a modem that possesses a weird, shimmery melodicism, and whoever is responsible for the warbling/screaming leads on "Hammer Blows" (is that an instrument or a voice?) deserves serious credit.

The second half of the album is the stronger of the two, though. "Fire Island (Phases)" cuts between molten rock and country-esque shuffle, exploding just past halfway into another furious guitar break (this is nothing if not a great guitar album--cf. the ecstatic solo on "Lost" for yet more proof) before finishing in breezy, lyrical territory that highlights Ranaldo's facility with hooks. "Shouts" with its cymbol wash and prominent organ reminds me of late period Talk Talk, of all things, while the lyrics seem to make reference to Ranaldo's participation in the Occupy Wall Street movement. The spoken word bridge (by Ranaldo's wife, Leah Singer) is an arresting moment, and the high point of the album for me.  Penultimate track "Stranded" actually one ups Thurston Moore at his own game, an acoustic ballad with some gorgeous pedal steel work that feels cut from the same cloth as "The Shape is in a Trance"/"Massage the History." Closer "Tomorrow Never Comes" is the great lost Alternative Rock single of 1995, all angular melody and casual vocals with an unashamedly big chorus and some more wonderful guitar. The way Ranaldo draws out "Survival" at the end of the second verse is just perfect, an example of one of the classiest deliveries in rock at work.

For as great an album as this is--and it is a great album whether you're a Lee Ranaldo fan or just a fan of interesting rock music--I can see an argument being made against it. Ultimately, there's little here that's going to assuage the fears of those who claim that rock is finally, once and for all, dead. It's difficult to imagine Between the Times and the Tides sounding any different had it been released at any point in the last 20 years. Really, it wouldn't have sounded totally out of place as a kind of double release with Thurston Moore's Psychic Hearts (1995), to say nothing of his Trees Outside the Academy (2007) or Demolished Thoughts (2011). Of course, the days of Sonic Youth as an actual revolutionary force were over long before they became the kind of band who marketed exclusive compilations through Starbucks. Nevertheless, it's hard to begrudge the fact that Ranaldo doesn't take more chances here given how lovely the results are. His previous solo ventures, and his ongoing Text of Light performance group, are plenty more in line with his avant leanings, for those who are interested.

For me, right now, I'm happy that one of my favourite singers and guitarists has made an album that celebrates and illuminates his voice as a songwriter. It doesn't tell the whole story--there's no "Eric's Trip," no "NYC Ghosts and Flowers," and no "Karen Revisited"--but it covers a remarkable amount of territory. In the liner notes, Ranaldo writes that "Songs can go a million different ways. Thanks to some amazing friends who stopped by to play and sing, this group of songs went to some wonderful places. Unexpected. I hope you like where they ended up." I can't say there are any places I wish these songs had gone instead. This is the best SY-related project since at least Murray Street, and I don't really expect to hear a better rock album this year. Thanks, Lee; it was worth the wait.

TEN SONGS I'VE LOVED IN 2011

I'm still trying to figure out some kind of albums of the year list (though the number of contenders is slowly but surely dwindling to a manageable number). I imagine that when I figure it out I'll post maybe one a day for ten days or something like that. A countdown! It might add some excitement to this space. Before I get to that, though, I thought I'd highlight, in no particular order, some songs that are off albums, EPs, and other such things that definitely won't be on my albums of the year list (I'm stealing this idea from Nick Southall). Think of this as something of a "Singles of the Year" list, though not all of these were singles.

Solange Knowles - "Left Side Drive"

Okay, yes, it's just Solange singing on top of the old Boards of Canada song of the same name (off the Trans Canada Highway EP), but she really manages to work well with the music. You could almost think (until the coda--although, this version is different than the one I've been listening to, and the vocals are a much better fit) that BoC had written the song for her. The chorus is particularly well done (dig that descending vocal line to kick it off), and I wouldn't be upset at all by a full album that sounded like this. 

Braids - "Lemonade" off Native Speaker

After hearing this song, I was really excited to hear the rest of the album. Unfortunately, it doesn't really live up to the promise of the single, but it's not bad for what it is. I'll be excited to hear their next album, at any rate. The sudden outburst of "Have you fucked / all the stray kids yet?" is a genuine surprise, but the real star is that gently burbling melody line that runs throughout the song.

Dum Dum Girls - "He Gets Me High" off He Gets Me High EP

This is basically just a classic girl group song sped up and with a little scuzz added to it (the start of the song always makes me think of something off Goo, but I can't think of what--"Kool Thing" I guess, but not quite), but damn if it isn't tight and well-written. Really, it's almost like some kind of platonic form--this genre distilled to its essence somehow. The explosion of the chorus is wonderful, and the long, stretched out "Be" at the end of the song  makes me dizzy with glee. Incidentally, I'd never seen this video until right now; I really like it out of sheer nostalgia--it looks like it was made in about 1992 (seriously, I swear there's an Eric's Trip video that looks exactly like this).

  

Efrim Manuel Menuck - "Our Lady of Parc Extension and Her Munificent Sorrows" off Plays "High Gospel"

The name alone conjures up ghosts of Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Thee Silver Mt. Zion etc., etc. (seriously, I could never keep track of all the things they added to that name), but this doesn't really fit either camp. It's obviously closer to SMZ, given that Efrim is in something like "rock" mode here and singing (quite well, too, though Katie Moore's vocals really steal the show), but the mood is different--less dire, more hopeful, almost triumphant at times. Disappointingly, nothing else of the album really reaches its power, though "I Am No Longer a Motherless Child" comes close.

Thundercat - "Daylight" off The Golden Age of Apocalypse 

Let me start by saying that I do love this album and I might yet convince myself to include it in my albums of the year list. There are a few dud tracks (the ones that sound a little too close to anonymous FlyLo demos/B-sides), but Thundercat's voice and playing are wonderful (I can see why Simon Reynolds included him as part of what he calls the rise of maximalism). This song isn't about chops (or is at least only incidentally about chops); when those sighing vocals come in with the trilling electric piano and tinkling bells, it feels exactly like daylight. Whereas a lot of the better songs sound very much like 1970s fusion, this wouldn't feel tremendously out of place on Cosmogramma, and it's stronger for that.

Tycho - "A Walk" off Dive

Put this and "Daylight" back to back in a playlist--they work really well together, with "Daylight's" synths trailing off into that gently distorted, echoing opening to "A Walk." There is a very obvious debt to Boards of Canada (especially c.The Campfire Headphase, cf. "Dayvan Cowboy," which puts it in a similar sonic environment to the Solange Knowles song above--possible collaboration? I'd listen to it) throughout Dive, but it's well-played and well-produced. If the songs aren't always quite there yet--Pitchfork's review is correct in pointing out that some dynamic shifts would be helpful, because your attention does want to wander--"A Walk" doesn't suffer from that problem. For five minutes while listening to "A Walk," everything about the world seems magical, and sometimes that's more than enough.

Radiohead - "Separator" off The King of Limbs

The highlight of a frustratingly uneven record, "Separator" wouldn't have sounded that out of place for the band sometime just after The Bends was released, if it weren't so relaxed and spacious. One of the advantages (though it can also lead to some deathly dull songs and albums) about bands having played together for a long time is that they play together well. If nothing else, "Separator" is the sound of a band who know how to play to each other's strengths doing just that. Thankfully, it is so much more: one of Thom Yorke's best vocals on the album; a nice, slightly funky, rhythm section; and those heavenly guitars that come in about halfway through. Why couldn't the whole album have sounded like this?!

EMA - "Breakfast" off Past Lives Martyred Saints

The "Fuck California / You made me boring" opening to "California" may have received much of the attention, but it's the uncomfortable "Marked" that has the album's most devastating line: "I wish that every time he touched me left a mark." Mark Richardson wrote an absolutely fabulous piece on "Marked" that, like most of the pieces he writes, says a lot more than I could ever hope to. My favourite song on Past Lives Martyred Saints, though, is "Breakfast" (sorry for the live version; there's no studio version on Youtube). It's relatively peaceful compared to the rest of the album, but as quietly heart-wrenching as anything else. It also reminds me of Deconstruction's self-titled album (especially some of the quieter songs on it, like "Son"), which remains an underappreciated moment in "alternative rock." And she sounds a good deal like Kim Gordon, though in singing mode, rather than grunting mode.

Fennesz - "Liminal" off Seven Stars EP

This is Fennesz in "Endless Summer" mode, unfurling gorgeous melodies wrapped in static. I can't say that it pushes his sound in any new directions, but it sounds great. Fennesz has mastered his own sound, one that's distinct enough to turn his name into an adjective, and this whole EP sounds like him playing with nothing to prove. Even the drums on "Seven Stars" just literalize Fennesz's deconstruction of early rock and roll, which he's been doing since Endless Summer (he does this better than more literal callbacks--like Deerhunter's recent stuff--manage to do, in my opinion). Anyway, "Liminal" (and the rest of the EP) sounds like a breather after the masterful, but quite dense, Black Sea, and it's a joy to hear.

Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks - "Senator" off Mirror Traffic

Speaking of songs that don't push an artist's sound forward. . . There's nothing about "Senator" that Malkmus wasn't doing with Pavement in the 1990s, and part of the pleasure is hearing Malkmus write a song as good as something he would've written in Pavement. The stop-start structure gives "Senator" a lot of momentum, and it sounds like Malkmus and the Jicks are having fun. The latter point has usually been a warning light when it comes to SM + the Jicks' releases (has a talented band jamming ever sounded so interminable?), but here the listener can have fun, too.