Indie and Lo-Fi music reviews

The two extra tracks on this single, Ruby and the Kiss, are so beautiful and sublime as to justify, by themselves, the price of this three-track disc, even if you don't particularly care for the title track. "Ruby" is a creepy, minor mode masterpiece that sounds something like Avalon-era Roxy Music interspersed with grunge-metallic crushing guitars and lupine yeowlings. "The Kiss," an achingly sweet song by Judee Sill, is as maudlin and wrenching as anything Bonnie "Prince" Billy has written himself, and shows him to be (signature voice cracks notwithstanding) a world-class performer, a singer so affecting that he seems almost to lift the veil between heaven and earth, when he sings (in a style reminscent of Simon & Garfunkle in their most mystical moments) "and lately sparkling hosts come fill my dreams descending on fiery beams."

(Warning: the disc has a naughty picture on it that really does not do justice to the sweetness of the music; it's almost as if it's been put there to take the edge off of the music, which might otherwise make one cry.)

This disc is quite different from Greatest Palace Music (which, as listeners will discover is among the best, most poetic and most existential, countrypolitan records ever made -- like Witchitaw Lineman on heavy meds, but with much more authentic-sounding instrumental accompaniment by Nashville session cats that even the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band would be pround to work with) and from the other BPB albums, I See A Darkness, Ease Down The Road, Master And Everyone, and Superwolf, each of which is destined to be a classic of American popular music, up there with Stephen Foster's songs and Bob Dylan's good albums.

The title track is also interesting, and not at all typical of the main album from which it is taken. The disc also has a (weird, avant-garde, not particularly exciting) video on it. However, it is tracks 2 and 3 that make this a must-have for Will Oldham fans, music lovers, and human beings in general.

But, then again, I really like Art Brut, too.

I'm in love with this album. It's rockin', dark, and sorta cute at the same time. I was never really a fan of minus story until i heard this. It has great percussion and light piano that give it a great spooky and mysterious tone.
The one thing that could understandably turn someone away from this album is the singer's voice, which may take a little getting used to, but is definitely more enjoyable than Dan Boekner of Wolf Parade or Alec Ounsworth of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.

If you decide to give this album a listen, check out these key tracks:
In our Hands
Will I be Fighting?
Ringing in the Dark
I was Hit
Little Wet Head

but honestly... they're all awesome

If pitchfork is your main source for new music then you're probably missing out on this one. It definitely didn't get the praise that it deserved.

I would advise against using pitchfork as a crutch as many people do. You do get to find some cool stuff, but you miss out on some little jems like this. Just dont waste your time listening to worthless crap like sunn o))), M.I.A., or art brut.
Please.

unfortunately, i haven't much time to write an in-depth review of this album. however, i thought it was a shame that it hadn't been review yet. i had no idea who this artist was until i ventured over to the "secretly canadian" website and listened to one of the samples from there. i purchased the album the next day. this is a great double-album that i have basically been listening to non-stop for the past week. a fantastic lo-fi album with an accessible, warm 70's vibe throughout. recomended to any fan of the singer/sonwriter genre. RIYL: cody chesnutt, m. ward, sufjan stevens, dennison witmer, iron & wine, bonnie "prince" billy. warning: this album cause daydreaming/nostalgia.

This is his debut album and it's a masterpiece. When I first heard it I just couldn't believe it -- it's that good, complete, well scored, and beautifully finished. His lyrics are superb, and his melodies are right there all the way through--Wainwright who needs ya? :-)

Very very very pleasantly surprised by this new artist and hope to hear more, much much more, from him in the years to come.

This is a review of one of the discs in this collection. The other is fabulous as well.

I encountered this disc through my love of Frank Lenz' music. Knowing that Lenz was friends with Swift, I took a chance and bought the special edition version of "The Novelist." I popped it in my player and was blown away from the very first track to the final note on the disc. The disc is only 19 minutes and 38 seconds, but there is no note that is misused. There is no dead time on this disc. It's every second is worth every penny spent on it. Swift opted for a disc that was tight, compact, and perfect rather than put out a disc that has some hits laced with mediocre songs.

This disc emanates nostalgia. "The good old days" as it were. These are the things Swift is able to display in the style of "The Novelist." Set in 1938, "The Novelist" is an EP that sounds like it could have been a favorite of your great-grandmother's in her youth. A mixture of rag-time, jazz, and modern pop sensibilities, Swift has effected a masterpiece. Although nostalgic in it's music, the lyrics accomplish a melancholy realism that nostalgia usually disowns. The realism and down to earth lyrics bring the past into a more present reality.

The opening track invites the listener into the world of 1938. It sounds like the opening to a movie from the 40's that turns into a short ragtime introduction. After ushering in the listener, Swift begins his first full track crooning "Holiday!" It is a slow tempo song that is laced with piano, various percussion sounds, Swift's signature keyboards and light guitar. All of it's sparse arrangements make for a wonderfully complex song that is pleasant to the ears. Swift's vocals emanate longing for times gone by. He sings "Holiday/would you be my wife/ if you just name the price....breathing you in just to let me go/when nobody makes mistakes/I'm a lovely thing." His lyrics are poetic and graceful. Wonderful to hear.

Every part of the disc is superb, but I would say that Lovely Night and The Novelist are the highlights for me. Lovely Night is a great ragtime style song. Medium tempo with fantastic snare in the background and a "can-can" style crash in the chorus. The tension of the melancholy and old time nature of the song comes through his lyrics: "Cause tonight it's going to be a lovely night/With everybody looking oh so nice/and I wish that we were never born/ It's going to be a hazy day." Swift is an artist who has the ability to combine bright, upbeat sounds with a melancholy flavor with perfection.

The title track, "The Novelist," is fantastic in it's scope and artistic accomplishment. The lyrics are worth quoting in full here.

Greasy like unwashed hair. Frantic like a smack addict looking for a fix. Dirty like an inner city squat. The Kills make music that feels like it's been made in a filthy apartment with no d�cor save for an ashtray full of yellowing cigarette stubs and a couch smeared with indecipherable stains. Like the Mickey and Mallory of the US alternative music scene, Alison `VV' Mosshart and Jamie `Hotel' Hince have created a snarling opus on No Wow that seductively recalls PJ Harvey at her most enthralling. After making a name for themselves on the back of 2004 debut Keep On Your Mean Side, the second album found the partnership between VV and Hotel laying down their sound in a Michigan ghost town. Resulting single The Good Ones is currently getting plenty of radio play and Rage is enjoying the sexy presentation of VV in the video, yet there's a sinister element to the music of The Kills that can't be underestimated. Lyrics such as `I can't get full. Please could you fix my shakes' indicate that I Hate The Way shares more than just a tempo shift with The Velvet Underground's incredible tune Heroin, while the aloof lyrics of Rodeo Town - `If I am so evil, why are you satisfied?' - offer further evidence of a bleak partnership. Of course, like Natural Born Killers, it's bound to end in violence and murder, but No Wow's still a neat ride through makeshift percussion, panicky guitar and haunted vocals. A DVD is included so you can make up your own mind about their chemical and personal addictions, but it's fairly obvious The Kills are more Black Plague than White Stripe.

I had no idea what to expect when I popped in the CD. I only bought it because of vague good memories of the reviews and because I liked the name of their previous album (Keep On Your Mean Side). I popped it in, and...
1. No Wow- ...I was greeted by a sinister, strangely compelling fuzz. After I was comptetely addicted to the sound itself, the voice came, and I was hooked. Telephone Radio Germany is at the end of this or the beginning of Love Is A Deserter. I can't quite tell, but that's the only part of the album I regularly skip anyway.
2. Love Is A Deserter- I love a song where, when the singer tells you to sleep, you suddenly become wide awake and watchful. This is one of them ("Hammering In My Head" by Garbage is another).
3. Dead Road 7- I can feel the lonely, winding road...
4. The Good Ones- Seemingly wistful, maybe even happy, until they start talking about being self-destructive to make yourself appreciate what is around.
5. I Hate The Way You Love- My favorite. It has some of the best lyrics on the CD, as well as a nicely insane feeling.
6. I Hate The Way You Love Pt. 2- She mournfully, beautifully sings "I hate the way you love" over and over.
7. At The Back Of The Shell- Playground hand clapping and boldly attacking words.
8. Sweet Cloud- More good lyrics: "I love him so, in turn I kill. I know no words to make it right."
9. Rodeo Town- She bitterly asks, "If I'm so evil, why are you satisfied?"
10. Murdermile- A fast, wild, raucous song interspersed with a guy saying "You've got me on the wrong track honey."
11. Ticket Man- A nicely melancholy song that sounds like it was sung during the Great Depression, at least to me, because of the simplicity and worry.

Wow. And really, really wow, not just 'cos it's like the album's name. This one's a stunner. No Wow is the sort of album that after one listen might not impress much. Then you listen again, and again, and it quickly becomes a favourite. Or at least it has for me.
Having heard 4 or 5 of the album tracks already, I knew what to expect. But I really isn't until you listen to the whole album that you hear such songs as lead single 'The Good Ones' and forthcoming single 'Love Is A Deserter', in context, at their best. Every song literally bristles with sexiness, with tension, as VV's moaning, strained vocals hover perfectly matched to Hotel's fuzzy guitar. Surely, if ever there was a match made in heaven, this was it.
It's an album on which you have to take a long, long time to choose stand out tracks. For me, it's the songs where VV really lets loose, where you hear what she can really do with that voice of hers. On 'Rodeo Town', the most calm and, in my opinion, most beautiful, of all the album's songs, VV's vocals are gorgeous, the song itself is amazing. 'Sweet Cloud' is notable for its particularly bitter chorus 'I know no words to fix my killing, but I'd do anything to bring my brother alive', and its nagging hook, that will absolutely stick in your head for days.
Now I've only mentioned the end half of the album so far, where the beginning is equally as good. The first 5 songs are just full of tension, the sort of pent up rock music that just makes you wanna pick up a guitar, or have sex, or drink, a lot. Something extreme anyway. As a record's beginning, they really knock you for six. Single 'The Good Ones' is the singular most sex-filled song I've ever known, it just bristles with energy, and it's dark lyrics really shine amongst The Kills' other babies. Then there's 'Dead Road 7' - phwoar, that girl can't half yell. It's a real shocker this one, but absolutely beautiful all at once. Future single 'Love Is A Deserter' asks us to 'Get the guns out' repeatedly, to a point where the message is so much hammered home that it is tempting to, indeed, get a gun out. Title track 'No Wow' really does deserve a wow, after all, what other song could pull off the first line: 'Gonna have to step over my dead body, before you walk out that door.' Now that, my friends is real music.
Then, what other band could pull off this record? The Kills have successfully created a stand out album, which will be a definitive album this year. It's sexual, it's tense, it's taut, it's bare, sparse, torn apart, put back together again and bloody well put in a dual case for your listening pleasure.
Now THAT's music. Again, altogether now, WOW.

This set really is a bargain. Where else can you get such a high quanity of music for such a low price? But what's really amazing is the diversity of the songs included. There really is something for everyone, regardless whether your tastes lean towards pop, folk, ambient, rock or noise. Of course this means that most everyone will be dissatisfied with a number of the tracks as well. I myself find some of the neo-folk and Canadian pop/rock a bit tedious. However the tracks by Colin Potter, Black Noise, Thighpaulsandra, William Basinski, Mirror and many others are wonderful. I was rather disappointed with the tracks by Nurse With Wound and Coil, though. They are two of my favorite groups, but their contributions here are underwhelming. the NWW track is nothing more than the lyrics to "Black is the color of my Love so Fair" recited into a vocoder, and Coil's Broccoli is a live recording that consists mainly of John Balance talking about being abused by his stepfather.
Overall, though, it is well worth the cost and you will likely discover some new favorite artists.

Handsomely packaged in a white slide-open box, the set comes with 5 discs and one rather thick liner book.

Unfortunately, we don't get the lyrics in this book. However, there is a nice description of the charity and of the genesis of this compilation project. The important thing to remember is that the proceeds from this generous 5-disc box set go to the noble non-profit group, Doctors Without Borders (or Medecins Sans Frontieres, hence MSF), an independent humanitarian medical group which targets the African HIV/AIDS epidemic amongst dozens of other international emergency health crises.

By my count, there are 86 songs total. How many of them do I like? About half, so far, which isn't bad. 43 excellent songs for $33 is a tremendous deal. You might dig all the tracks; who knows?

"Not Alone" is a solid collection of artists who donated their songs for a good cause. Think of it as a benefit fundraising concert that you get to take home with you. The vocal tracks range from good to amazingly beautiful, and the genre spread is comfortably diverse. You'll find a swooning song from Antony of "Antony of the Johnsons," a tune from the prodigious Devendra Banhart, one from our old friend Marc Almond, the sublime psychedelic-folk group Pearls Before Swine and several others like Current 93, Vashti Bunyun, Angels of Light, Baby Dee, William Basinksi (who sounds a bit like Bowie) along with many more. Genres include rock, alternative, electronica, neo-folk, prog-rock, cabaret, and other categories.

I was admittedly a bit dissatisfied that nearly half of the songs are instrumental; lyricless. I don't have an automatic aversion to instrumental songs, but a good chunk of the instrumental tracks are just synthesized computer noise. But don't let that discourage you, because you will certainly enjoy many of the instrumental songs as much as the gorgeous vocal tracks. I just wish Jnana Records had told me up front that not all of the songs had vocalists.

All in all, it's worth the asking price, because many of the songs are excellent and the proceeds go to a magnificent charity.

A hint: buy it from the Jnana Records website. Currently, it's $32.50 including shipping/handling.