Indie and Lo-Fi music reviews

Climate is the brainchild of Nathan, Grant, and co. and it only gets better with each additional listening. From Sally's on the phone, all the way through to the semi-hidden track Rock and Roll in Dallas, TX, Swallow all Letters is a perfect example of DIY edgy, fun, rock! Or as my friend Dave describes it, "Climate kind of has that dangerous Child-playing-with-an-electric-socket feel. Not for everyone, and yet all encompasing all at once. My personal fave:1999! If you have a soul at all, you will like this album. If you do not like this album, then you must be a robot. Or from Plano.

I must say, for an independent release, this album is excellent. I'm not normally a fan of these "garage bands" as some say, but this certainly is not a "garage band" (although a gar-age is mentioned in their music). They are devoted to producing a unique sound, and while I think poetry is silly, I like theirs. My only complaint with the album is the excessive use of "extra-curricular" sound which, in many cases, detracts from the primary sound. I also am not pleased with my excessive use of "quotes" in this review. Anyway, if you like music, I encourage you to purchase this album.

I recently saw "K2" starring Michael Biehn. Have you ever seen "K2"? It's about mountain climbing. I didn't really like it very much. But that same day, I finally got the new Climate album, "Swallow All Letters". Have you heard "Swallow All Letters"? It's about many things. I really like it. You should listen to it because it will make you forget about the time you saw "K2" (starring Michael Biehn). It reminds me of my childhood, yet urges me on toward my future. That's good. If you've heard their earlier music, you'll recognize a wonderful, suspenseful update of "The Executive Spouse." Take it with you.

Oh my, oh my! You will melt when you listen to this record.
Swirlies know some things about love. Closest thing to my heart.

A landmark full length for my record collection. This came out in 1995 and I have yet to hear another modern pop sound as thoughtful and flawless as this. Melding early synthesizers and electronics, brilliant sounding drums and guitars, and three dimensional vocal melodies, this had the same effect on me as The Beatles "Revolver", Beach Boys "Smile", and the Zombies "Odyssey Oracle". Every song is a gem but like the other records I listed, a complete (and ambitious) thought.

These songs sound quite different from one another. 'San Cristobal' rocks as much as any metal, some verges on stereolab's french vocal harmonies (if recorded in a wind tunnel), and a few also echo Stereolab's early guitar chords. Sunn begins with some interesting guitar chord overlays reminiscent of Glenn Branca's guitar orchestras (which ye experimental guitarists may have tried in your own bands), but proceeds on into a coherent song with a different sound (not atypical for swirlies). There are shades of Sonic Youth in here as well... rich, complex, diverse.

And you've got to love the album title, whatever it means.

As I said in my review of Blonde-Adder Baton, this band should be famous and fabulously rich.

I love this album! The songs are WAY better than Scout's debut album. This cd has a more beautiful, catchy feel to it. The songs are a little reminiscent of Stretch Princess in terms of the lead singers vocal similiarities which is great. I love the emotive vibe this cd gives off. Amazing album! Buy it!!!

saw them live and decided to buy a CD after the fact here. SO glad i did. this band is great. i recommend this one.

By far, the best cd of 2003. From beginning to end it is pure sonic perfection. Also, if you ever get a chance to see them live, DO IT!

I was sitting in a small bar, in Kitchener, Ontario Canada one night, when all of a sudden...in rolls SMOG! They had been on a tour and were just heading back to the U.S.A The bar owner didn't really know who they were, but he let them set up their instruments...and they played...and played...and PLAYED, all night long, while I sipped beer, sitting only a few feet away from the lead singer.

The band was currently promoting thier new "Knock,Knock" album but also sang most of WILD LOVE. I liked their sound so much, I bought this album in the bar, and got Bill to sign it!

SMOG is like a strange hint of Pink Floyd...and a familiar touch of Beck. A very similar flow and writing style....BUT still a very unique band. "Bathysphere" is just great!... like a hypnotic breeze, blowing ever so softly. I can listen to it over and over again. The lead singer is a very laid back guy, and I think the music reflects just how laid back he is.

I spoke to him for a few minutes while they were packing their instruments up. He seemed pretty mellow! I'll never forget that night and I'll always dig thier songs. check out Wild Love, for some very good and mellow music!

This album is very beautiful and very depressing. It will take you a while to appreciate this album, but once you get what Bill is trying to say on this album you will be blown away. The album is full of synth and string lines with hauntingly dead pan lyrics. I read a Jim O'Rourke interview once where he said that his favorite thing about Bill is his ability to say something deep that he is feeling in the simplest language. I agree.

Sometimes Smog uses the hemlock-----and sometimes the anti-venom------these songs of abandon------and impossibility-- of any but emphemeral satisfaction--unless you can supply some artifice, ------smell good enough to resign yourself to not bothering yourself much with the fruit falling on your head----and jumping with worms --the stains in your denim tuxedo compliment your dates inability to speak the language of small space, and restless devotion----even beaten up wood in the rain smells good--- Pa---Ma------and where is our sister Smog? In Wild Love-------we find the shutter rising and falling at a speed that invites open hearted understanding of something dressed up with pain--with too many places to go----if your sleepy---have gills---or can't swim until you turn 70-----the albums a super plus.

There is not a single fault with Stephen Jones' song-writing ability. He is the sort of man who twists words into an almost parable-esque form and leaves the listener wondering at the depths of both his mind and his despair. Every title conjures up a new image, a form of almost cinematic intensity. From the darkly sad hidden tracks to the essential work from his first five albums, these are beautiful tunes with emotion stamped all over their sleeve. The tunes worm their way into your head and bounce uneasily, yet effectively, until you become obsessed and begin to consider litening to nothing else. Find the first five albums (and the subsequent larger label releases) and see the full picture...or buy his book "The Bad Book" and see a totally new side to this all-round genius.

Have you ever gotten the feeling that a lunatic was making fun of you? You know, their words don't quite fit their tone, they take you 'round a verbal curve too fast, and make you feel an odd shade of uncomfortable? You want to react, either by walking away or confronting the source, but you're just too damn entertained by it?

Me, too.

This is a stunning collection of songs written with such imagination and intensity that you can easily overlook the 'basement quality of the recording. Checkout 'Aluminium Beach" on disk 1; and virtually every song on disk 2. An almost perfect album.

Fred Frith takes a stab at low-tech pop music, and he is quite successful. I say "low tech" because it was largely recorded at home, and the synthesizer of choice is the Casio 101. Frith does amazing things with it, his guitar, his guests (including Bill Laswell, Tina Curran & George Cartwright), his voice, his violin, and his homemade instruments. With the possible exception of Step Across the Border (which contains selections from this record), there is no other Fred Frith album like it. The CD bonus track ("True Love") is one of the best things on the record, but it's very hard to pick favorites. This eclectic record is filled with dark humor and trippy sonic textures. If you like Eno's Another Green World, you'll love this one!

This is almost as good as speechless and Gravity, which i consider to be Friths best...guitar solos is good too, though a bit more experimental and less melodic than those mentioned...On this one Fred sings a bit more, but check whats happening behind and also the structure of the songs...original great writting!

I love this album. It's not a major album; it's one of those small personal treasures that you stumble across accidentally. It's a gem that I listened into oblivion. :-( If you can get your hands on a copy, treasure it!

Why the hell aren't these guys around the top of the music scene? This album is amazing. Buy it!

it is just a great cd. especially when you may be surfing the net!!almost every song is a "repeater"if there is a such thing as 90's psychedelic music... well... this is it!!R.I.Y.L.:brian jonestown massacre, remy zero, flick, the dandy warhols andspacehog!! and this is all coming from a 42 year old guy!Michael B(good) :)

I saw this band at Martyr's in Chicago the day they opened for Dishwalla. I saw three guys who know how to put out a whole hell of a lotta good noise! A must-see live show! If you get the chance, don't miss it!!!

This cd is just a small example of their powers, I crave more!

I saw Wesley Willis at the Cactus Club
The rock show was awesome!
The rock show was the best
You can really lick a horses ass

Wesley Willis!
Wesley Willis!
Wesley Willis!
Wesley Willis!

I really like you a lot in the long run.
You are the rock star
You can really whoop a jaguar's ass.
You are my special god king.

Rock over London,
Rock on Chicago,

Wesley Willis really knows how to rock it out.
I listen to Wesley in the shower.
I sing Wesley songs when i brush my teeth.
I make Wesley figures out of my cereal.
Wesley Willis really rocks it out.
I make my dogs listen to it.
They ran away.
To find him I think.
They really like him too.

For so long I was fooled by the glossy veneer put up by overrated music genres such as classical and jazz music to cover their lack of real musical content and inspiration, but after listening to a Wesley Willis CD I have seen the error of my ways! This CD is not only a masterwork of epic proportions, but also a spiritual journey that will lead its listeners to the bright light of the musical promised land! I own all the Wesley Willis CDs. In fact, I play them at night while I sleep, hoping that some of his genius might be passed subconsciously into my pathetic mind, tragically devoid Willis's white-hot ball of pure creativity that continuously burns my soul and lights my fire. Needless to say, I highly recommend this CD to everyone out there in search of a true genius.

I'm totally for indie rock, and I gave this a chance, but it just plain isn't good. I had an inkling that it wouldn't when I realized one day that the songs (even by bands I love) produced by Calvin Johnson just end up sounding like crap. There's a Steve Albini kinda of raw, which I love; and his kind of raw, which is just not well thought out, lazy, unimaginiative, pretentious, technically inept, and basically without merit.

The Beat Happening vocals are horrible, off key, the guitars are minisucle in the mix, the lyrics are just plain bad. Only good for pretentious white-bred suburban kids who pray that enjoying something "different" (nonlistenable) will make them different from the other kids at school. If you are one of these people, enjoy this music made by one of your own.

i haven't experienced a band like this so deeply and so enthusiastically since pavement. and that's saying tons. i had one beat happening album, the last one, but then they came out with this ass-kicking box set last month which ate away at my brain everytime i saw it in my favorite record store until eventually i took the plunge and bought it. oh holy god, that is the best 60 bucks i ever spent (and i only had to spend about 30, cause i traded in some old cds). if you like any band that is even remotely outside of the mainstream, then you owe beat happening your appreciation. kurt cobain often cited the olympia, washington trio as an influence. hell, they basically created the seattle scene. the frontman, calvin johnson (known for his deeper-than-hell baritone voice) also created K records, which released early nirvana and early beck, as well as countless other groundbreaking bands. look his name up at allmusic.com, and gawk at his credits. they go on and on. but he'll never top beat happening, man. all of their albums went straight to my heart. i've listened to very little else besides those six discs in the past two weeks. and it's been wonderful.

let's see, the first, s/t album gets a 4, really rough stuff, but irresistable... jamboree gets an easy 5, black candy a 5, dreamy a 4, you turn me on a 4.5, and the odds and ends compilation, music to climb the apple tree by_ is a 4 or so. but all together with the great booklet and video disc, the set is a wonderful treasure. thank you, K records.

Great box set and a true testament to the power of independent music. For the most part the band is a very lo-fi sort of new wave band. Very comparable to the Vaselines. The liner notes are very interesting and documents the rise of this very unique band and record label. Don't miss out on this important part of indie rock history.

I first heard Julian Cope via his stoner-rock combo Brain Donor, and when I went to check out his solo stuff, I was expecting something along those lines. Boy, was I in for a surprise! The stuff on this album could probably be best described as glossy new-wave studio pop. You could even say that it is, to use the parlance of our times, kind of gay. Ironically enough, its the gayest song on the album, the ethereal "China Doll" that is probably my favorite. Ordinarily, such a description would be a deterrent to me, as I tend to go for harder stuff with a little bit of grungy edge to it.

Cope's music has a distinctly quirky, whimsical quality to it, slightly reminiscent of the Flaming Lips or perhaps Peter Gabriel. There is not much brooding anger on the surface, and you could even say that his better songs are propelled by a sort of naive innocence. He has quite a flair for singing in harmony, as well as for dense, layered arrangements that seem nonetheless to leave space between the many parts.

To be fair, I've only owned this album for a few weeks, so I still expect to have some of the material here grow on me in the future. Having said that, tracks 9-15 are some of the most sublime, gorgeous pop songs I've heard in recent years. "China Doll" is an especially great ballad. "Charlotte Anne" is a funky synth pop number with very subtle layering of sonic textures. The chorus of "World Shut Your Mouth" goes "put your head back in the clouds and shut your mouth...", and upon hearing it for the very first time I was struck by what a great line that is. "Trampolene" is head-bobbingly catchy, as is the boisterous "Spacehopper".

The rest of album hasn't really clicked with me yet, but my budding fascination with this guy seems to give me confidence that I will learn to love it one day yet.

Floored Genius is a great compilation of solo Cope and Teardrop Explodes. While I highly recommend it there are some songs that are pretty poor (old British new wave crap). The opening track "Reward" is worth the price of the cd alone though rest assured there are a lot of great tunes on this one.

I bought this CD after hearing three of the songs that appear on it ("World Shut Your Mouth," "Trampolene," and "Charlotte Anne"), thinking that Julian Cope must be a true musical genius to have penned and recorded such inspired pieces--and thus concluding that his greatest hits CD must overflow with more of the same. Unfortunately, the three aforementioned tunes are the clear highlight of the collection, and, to my ear, only two or three of the remaining cuts even come close to them. The early material from The Teardrop Explodes is pretty forgettable for anyone who doesn't associate it with the time and place whence it arose, and my pop sensibilities, so satisfied by the three aforementioned tunes, make the later material somewhat unpalatable.