Indie and Lo-Fi music reviews

If you like the sound of a cross between Aphex Twin and Squarepusher, then this album should keep you happy. Strong electro-breakbeat with nice tunes to boot.

love this record, tho I don't play it much. they play it on cliqhop.com a lot, and lots of times when I check in to see what cool track they're playing, it's something from this record. i need to play it more.

"Flex" is a great shuffle, way too short; i wish that one track would spawn a mini-genre of lo-fi electro-skiffle.

this is the first lou barlow related full-length release since the folk implosion's 1999 masterpiece "one part lullaby," a length of time that was previusly unheard of in the songwriter's canon.
this record fits in well with lou's other sentridoh releases, and continues in the same vein as 1995's "winning losers."
his songwriting style has continued to evolve, and is now more straightforward than ever, yet continues to captivate and connect with the listener in the way only lou can.
in the sentridoh catalog ("original losing losers," "winning losers," "...and friends," "wasted pieces," "most of the worst," and "23 songs" (a comp.) plus various 7" and compilations), there is not a more immediately accessible disc. pick it up if you're new to this side of lou.

This is Lou's best work since Bakesale. A ton of songs mostly all acoustic and all great. It's sorta a comp of Lou's work but it does come off as an album which is a good thing, you can listen to this thing from start to finish(and I do alot)and it sounds as if it was meant to be an album. I love Lou's work in Sebadoh, Sentridoh and in Folk Implosion and even though he didn't write the songs he even made Dinosaur Jr sound better.

John Zorn has outdone himself with his "Radical Jewish Culture" series. This is a hilarious and good album of Marc Bolan covers by everyone from Arto Lindsay to Melvins, via Lloyd Cole and Gary Lucas. The covers are almost all very good, but rarely as good as the originals. The concept - MARC BOLAN: GREAT JEWISH MUSIC - is better than any other concept. It feels so good that this album exists.

This album is a must buy if you're a fan of Marc Bolan, T-Rex, Glam Rock, experimental covers, or if you bought Pat Boone 'In A Metal Mood'. Throughout this album you can't help but wonder if you're listening to a toungue-in-cheek tribute or a well disguised flambasting. To hear some of these songs (such as Chariot Choogle by Fantomas [god bless you Mike Patton!]) the word 'tribute' doesn't quite fit. Not to say this album isn't good (it's very good, it's great!) it's just a little quirky and ecentric. Much like Marc Bolan himself, and most of the albums colaborators. In closing I'll say this; don't play this album for a date, maybe when you're all alone at home with shades drawn, or when you're tired of listening to Leonard Nimoy sing 'I Walk The Line' and need a change of pace. 'Cause Baby, this album is most certainly that!

Fans of the Beatles and lo-fi recordings will eat this up like Froot Loops. This compilation of singles and "songles" might be better than any of Of Montreal's "proper" releases. Being from Athens, Ga., Of Montreal's music definitely betrays an Elephant 6 influence, but they're not as intense as Neutral Milk Hotel and not as far-out as Olivia Tremor Control. Of Montreal's music is much more catchy and concise. This isn't to say they're not experimental; this CD is chock full of bizarre chord changes and sections, weird little spoken word bits and occasionally grating bits of noise. But some of the melodies, which strike me as a combination of "Magical Mystery Tour" and old 1920s show tunes, are just devastatingly perfect and gorgeous: "A Celebration of H. Hare," a declaration of brotherly love which is practically tearjerking; "The Problem with April," which sounds like a rollicking marching band, "Nicki Lighthouse," which alternates a wonderful melody with kitchen sink instrumentation, "In the Army Kid," the stupendous, freakish "Ira's Brief Life as a Spider," and others. A handful of icky tracks mar the record a little bit, but there's at least 10 ace songs that make this collection well worth purchasing.

Even a band that you'll never find on the radio can have plenty of "singles and songles" lying around the place. "Horse & Elephant Eatery (No Elephants Allowed): The Singles & Songles Album" collects Of Montreal's assorted songles into one album, which has no cohesion, but it's enchanting anyway.

"It's strange how when we were young/ I was so mean to you/I didn't know the connection we had till we go older," Kevin Barnes croons in the opening song, an ode of brotherly love. And after that -- except for a few offbeat songs like the robust "Problem With April" -- the collection takes off into outer space, with songs about flaming swans, ghostly faces and stalker librarians.

Of Montreal runs the full gamut here, from enchanting love songs ("Spoonful of Sugar") to spoken stories about baby spiders, pudding and reincarnation. Barnes and Co. introduce us to Nicki Lighthouse (a psychedelic Pippi Longstocking), laments lost love, and plans a funeral. And, of course, it has some feel-good assurances: "You worry 'bout the sun/What's the use of worrying 'bout the big old sun?/You worry 'bout the rain/The rain keeps falling just the same..."

Of Montreal is best known for creating enchanting theme albums -- albums all about love, about magical dreamlike stories, or about the life of a love affair. "Horse & Elephant Eatery (No Elephants Allowed)" is the exception. Since it's entirely made out of songles, there's no flow from each song to the next. But strangely, it almost feels as if it did have.

Swirly guitar-and-tambourine pop is at the core of it, along with the required odd chords and strange sound effects. There is folk, pop, a tint of rock, and "The Problem with April" sounds like a drunken marching band doing a musical number. It fits the songwriting -- big-hearted, optimistic, loving and strange.

The general mood is one of love -- between lovers, brothers, and friends. The only exceptions are songs like "Julie the Mouse," where Barnes sings over a sparkling melody: "It's such a strange need to be deprived of/To just want love and feel happy." But that's an unusual song. More often, it's the upbeat "The You I Created" (the only one where a woman sings) or the surprisingly cheerful "Scenes From My Funeral." ("And just before whoever gives the command/to send my body down/I'll jump out of the box and tap dance/from head to bald head."

Somehow it's reassuring to hear Barnes sing, "What started with the Gay Parade/Will continue till the end of our days." If their future albums are anything like their singles'n'songles collection, then that is an excellent thing.

this is a wonderful batch of songs. my personal favorite is, "nickie lighthouse." they are just so cute!

With a style that sounds like a cross between the Kinks and Dire Straits, The George Fryer Combo has put out an album that combines elements of the 60's with those of the new millenium. Not many musicians could pull off a unique recording like this and still make it palatable. As it is, you can't predict or wait to hear what each track is going to sound like. This also contains one of the most sublime slurs in music history on the put-down track "Rock Star!". It closes with the line "You're a genius betwen the sheets, You be Shelley, I'll be Keats..." This is a great release by a very creative band, well worth your time if you've got an open mind.

If they are even trying anymore. As a resident of this entertainment mecca, I can't swing a guitar w/o hitting someone who feels they need to unload their pain of having to sit in traffic w/ absolutely nothing they can tolorate on the radio. Their custom self-burned "Traffic Mix" was pilfered by another more desperate. Fryer and his combo have nailed it w/ "Melodica". A mix of styles, w/ honest, relate-able lyrics by a truly gifted, thoughful man. Don't let his self-proclaimed egomania fool you.

Fryer makes use of his many influences and considerable music talent fearlessly. He has paid his dues, his time has come. Backed by like-minded, pro musicans, the George Fryer Combo really deserve a serious listen. I may even scan L.A. radio now and again, just in case.

Alastair seems slowly to be turning into a giant spider: with each album the songs become less like songs, more like nodes on a web, the struggles of trapped insects translated into delicate strings of vibration... Sometimes you still get an actual verse-and-chorus 'song' (albeit one which most likely came out on 7" vinyl three or four years ago!) but the rest are more like poems, or sketches: random noise-blossoms, palsied violin-scraping, delicate plucked accoustic guitar, a few whispered fragments of lyric. What the hell is going on down there in NZ, besides the normal processes of aging and entropy? Because other than the perenially reliable Tall Dwarfs, all the old Flying Nun and Xpressway alums have been noticeably silent in recent years, Galbraith included.

Check out his contributions to the Clean and Skip Spence tribute albums, also -- both are wonderful.

this album is truly excellent. it's beautiful experimental music, with backwards electric guitars, pasted on a canvas of what are essentially folk songs. at least that's what i hear, this album is about impossible to describe. check it out, you won't be regret it.

Previously available only in the Beat Happening boxed set Crashing Through, the recent release Music to Climb the Apple Tree By is a collection of singles, compilation tracks, and the like. Unfortunately, it suffers a similar fate to that of other bands' career-spanning anthologies--a marked lack of cohesion. For the same reason that Song Islands is my least favorite Microphones album (although I still listen to it often)--the inherent unevenness of singles compilations--Music to Climb the Apple Tree By is the least cohesive album in the Beat Happening catalog. Nevertheless, it remains immensely listenable and is a wonderful introduction to the sound of a band that remains viable even in the face of being called "influential"--usually the first step towards obsolescence.

The songs are great, but I'm not sure where to start. I suppose "Angel Gone" would be best, as it's the first cut on the album, and, until this compilation, my only introduction to Beat Happening. It appears on the Invisible Shield compilation and I was instantly struck by the power of vocalist (and K Records majordomo) Calvin Johnson's resonant tones. Besides being one of the few pop vocalists with whom I could conceivably harmonize, Johnson manages to bring an innocence to his world-weariness--something with which I can identify. Although I don't always understand exactly what is trying to be said in these tracks, I can sense the intent via the delivery. Johnson is ambitious, certainly, often writing notes for himself that are too low for even he to hit solidly, but that's all part of the DIY mentality (that's "do it yourself," for those of you who are used to having things done for you) for which the Happening have been known since their formation 1980s. (It's only a follower of minutiae like myself that would notice the irony of a member of the Halo Benders speaking to a presumably fallen angel in "Angel Gone" about "when [your halo] gets a little crooked.")

Invariably consisting of three members: Johnson (also of Dub Narcotic Sound System), Bret Lunsford (also plays in D+ and runs his own record label, Knw-Yr-Own, in Olympia's neighboring Anacortes), and Heather Lewis (about whom I, regrettably, know nothing else), Beat Happening is a band only in the technical sense of three people gathered together to create music. They feel no need to play the same instruments all the time and trade at will, and their musicianship can best be said to have been given "an A for effort." Nevertheless, the passion and their shared love for music seeps through and makes the songs enjoyable at the least. (After a few listens, the off notes and out-of-tune instruments don't seem to make an impression anymore and you'll begin to think of radio pop as "too polished.") "Angel Gone," released in 2000, benefits from the members' continual practice of their craft and is, in fact, beautiful in many ways, including the jangly guitar and love-strewn lyrics.

It is followed by an earlier track that nonetheless shares similar subject matter, the "good girl, bad girl" anthem, "Nancy Sin." Psychedelic-era grinding guitar plays counterpoint and support to Johnson's smooth, sex-laced vocals. Fascinating to hear Calvin dredge his dark side. "Sea Hunt," on the other hand, is too bland for its own good--and far too long as a result--but "Look Around" more than makes up for it with its uptempo unrequited love (a theme Beat covers often).

The influence of the 1960s on Beat Happening is evident in most of the tracks ("Dreamy," "Sea Babies," the surf rock of "Knock on Any Door"), but never more so than in "Zombie Limbo Time," a fun party tune that could easily underscore a counterculture Frankie and Annette flick. And in "Not a Care in the World," Heather Lewis takes a walk through the Calvin octave-range to solid effect. Lewis is also featured on the sweet "Foggy Eyes," a reassurance that a friend's decision to leave was the right one. It's as close to a mainstream pop song as this album gets.

"Tales of Brave Aphrodite" bears no resemblance to the classic Cream track from which its name was inspired, "Tales of Brave Ulysses," and I was tempted to believe that "Polly Pereguinn" was a recent recording--simply because of the level of production--before realizing it comes from the Beat Happening/Screaming Trees joint EP from 1988.

I would have ended there, but Beat Happening have other ideas, choosing instead the quick rocking "I Dig You," reminding us that, at the heart of this band is a punk ethic that strives for pop melody. Perhaps they don't always reach this ambition, but that could be why their fans love them so much. Music to Climb the Apple Tree By is a thorough testament to a trio whose music--and friendship--has stood the test of time.

all beat happening records are awesome. buy this album. you won't regret it! calvin johnson is awesome.

This is a great cd: 1 Part Hank Williams 1 Part Sebadoh III 1 Part Guitar Wolf Mix it all up and it rocks like nobodys business

If you listen to this album and don't like it you may just be retarded. Sorry but it is true. Sue Me.

Not being pleased with any other reviews for this album, I take it upon myself to change that.
This is the first offering we Americans got from these drunken Scots. This is possibly their most accessable record because it is their most simple. Like the rest of their work to come, it is sloppy, lo-fi, and anti-PC. Their style (on this album)is part country, part garage, and part the Fall, all served with all the drunken punk attitude you could ask for. The cover of "Stand by your man" is brilliant (especially following the lyrical content of the previous songs).
So throw back many beers crank this up and invite your PC friends over to watch them squirm.

This relatively unremarkable EP owes it's existence & importance to False Skorpion, apparently a Wowee Zowee outtake.

It would've been great right after Half a Canyon.

This is an album my friends. B-sides are at their best. Pavement is at their best here (I so dare to say). And you are at your best!

This was the first Julian H. disc that I ever bought, and it still remains among my favorites. It's as solid from start to finish as they come, and what a finish it is. I'm surprised that "A Crack in the Clouds" eluded the folks who put together the Floored Genius collections. I must have played "Pulsar" about a million times, and "Spacehopper" and "World Shut Your Mouth" are not that far behind. I also love the arrangements he was using at the time- check out the english horn on "Saint Julian", absolutely gorgeous and unique. Since this disc pre-dates both Jehovakill and Peggy Suicide, it is neither as heady and fulfilling as either, but it comes in a close third. Plus this one actually works at parties.

Cope is a lovable nut job. He tasted major stardom in Britain as the leader of The Teardrop Explodes from 1979-82. What followed after was the conspicuous consumption of enough LSD to make Grace Slick's head pop off, as well as some weird and very uneven solo work with flashes of brilliance. Fast forward to 1986. He curtailed his indulgences some and recorded a great, dare I say almost mainstream album with a band that rocks like Bowie's Spiders from Mars.

Saint Julian got him some long overdue exposure here, mainly on MTV, with two videos: "World Shut Your Mouth" and "Trampolene".
His image had changed radically from the clean cut, almost preppy looking lad from 1980, to a long haired acid head from 82-85, and then, the leather clad menace seen here, railing against God and the church. He was an atheist or agnostic at the time and would later claim a spiritual awakening which lead him into the study of Wicca and the ancient Druids. He has written a book also available here on the history of the mysterious stone circles of the British Isles.

Cope sings in two voices. His tenor is very unique and when he slips down into his lower register, he can sound remarkably like Jim Morrison or Iggy Pop, though he's a much better singer than either of them.
Saint Julian rocks hard, but has a poppy edge to some of it that often serves as counterpoint to his strange lyrics. He has always been able to write clever tunes with hooks that reach out and grab the listener, even on his more left field efforts.
I also recomend "Peggy Suicide" from 1991. The only other release of his from the 90's I'm up on is "20 Mothers", which was very uneven. Also, be sure to check out his Teardrop Explodes material, since it's been reissued. If he's ever on tour here again, don't miss him. I've had the pleasure 3 times.