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This Week\'s Best Albums: January 25, 2011

John Vanderslice with The Magik*Magik Orchestra: White Wilderness (Dead Oceans)

John Vanderslice with The Magik*Magik Orchestra: "Sea Salt"

White Wilderness, the newest full-length from John Vanderslice, is a first for the indie singer/songwriter, recorded in collaboration with Minna Choi and The Magik*Magik Orchestra.  A malleable ensemble that bills itself as a “modular orchestra” of 18-35 people, the MMO performed live with Vanderslice a few years ago, and it has a résumé that includes collaborations with lots of other great rock and neoclassical musicians, including Jonny Greenwood, Tin Hat Trio, Hauschka, and Ben Johnston.

The group's addition here has really elevated Vanderslice’s material, which now breathes with a cinematic quality while backed by string, horn, and percussion sections. The material is replete with spare, delicate moments of respite — the result of Choi’s adaptable arrangements.   From its stirring and delicate opener, "Sea Salt," White Wilderness is an incredibly layered album that shows the depth of Vanderslice’s writing.

Phil Manley: Life Coach (Thrill Jockey)

Phil Manley: "Make Good Choices"

As a founding member of post-rock/dance-punk trio Trans Am – and as a recording engineer and member of The Fucking Champs and Oneida – guitarist Phil Manley has become endeared to fans and fellow musicians alike.  Now, after two decades of work, he has released his first solo album, Life Coach, and it’s unlike anything that he’s done prior.

The music, by and large, is a group of long-form instrumentals that build and swell with loops, effects, and overdubs.  Both electric and steel-string acoustic guitars are at the fore, with a handful of synthesizers and a touch of drum machine in the background.  Life Coach showcases both technical talent and melodic musicianship, and in the process, it reveals a side of Manley not frequently seen in his other projects.

Andre Afram Asmar: Harmonic Emergency (Mush)

Andre Afram Asmar: “Onward Farword”

Back in 2003 and 2004, Palestinian-American dub musician Andre Afram Asmar made waves for his unorthodox blend of hip hop, reggae, and Middle Eastern music. His debut for Mush Records and his subsequent full-length collaboration with MC Circus garnered critical acclaim, and Asmar made other notable associations, including work with rappers Busdriver and AWOL One and reggae singer Majek Fashek.

But as he was preparing for a big tour in late 2004, Asmar suffered a serious brain aneurysm, and his recovery since that time has been a slow and arduous process.  As a result of the aneurysm, Asmar lost ability in the left side of his body and lost vision in his left eye.  But he remained undeterred in his musical journey, and he has since had some help to complete Harmonic Emergency, the follow-up to Racetothebottom.

Originally begun being tracked in 2001, Harmonic Emergency is a strange and trippy dub creation, with sung, half-sung, and spoken-word vocals bouncing off rubbery thuds and beats.  Electronics and breakbeats get things moving, and plenty of Middle Eastern melodies and timbres maintain that “world fusion” vibe.

Bruce Lamont: Feral Songs for the Epic Decline (At A Loss)

Bruce Lamont: "2 Then the 3"

From the psych- and jazz-tinged metal band Yakuza, to the industrial homage Circle of Animals, to local improv jams, and even to fronting a touring Led Zeppelin cover band — saxophonist/singer Bruce Lamont has lent his assorted skills to a boatload of notable projects.  Now the multitalented frontman has unveiled his long-stewing solo debut, Feral Songs for the Epic Decline, on At a Loss Recordings.

Composed of seven free-flowing tracks, the album features more acoustic guitar, synthesizer, and unearthly vocals than some might expect.  The album’s foreboding atmospherics are its most consistent attribute, as it unfolds almost as a long-form singer/songwriter experiment.  Dark folk refrains give way to distorted tribal percussion, wailing sax lines, and noise-filled passages, but they’re all united by Lamont’s elongated – and surprisingly potent – chants and croons.

Monotonix: Not Yet (Drag City)

Monotonix: "Give Me More"

Hailing from Tel Aviv, Israel, the garage-rock trio Monotonix has attained surprising amounts of exposure in the Western hemisphere.  Much of that is due to the group’s wild live shows, which have caused consternation at venues in Israel.  As a result, the band hit the road and played hundreds of shows in Europe and America before it even had an EP out in the States.  But clearly, the band has connected with audiences thanks to its loud, raw, and unpolished sound, and now it has released Not Yet, its second full-length album for Drag City Records.

Previously, Monotonix has recorded with American musicians/engineers such as The Fucking Champs’ Tim Green and Shellac’s Steve Albini, and the latter was again tapped for work on Not Yet.  With extra fuzz and low end, it’s another disc of aggressive, straightforward, three-minute rock tunes with wailing, off-pitch vocals and errant solos.  To say that the base riffs are minimalist might be assigning too much complexity to it; some of them are built around just two chords.  But regardless, Not Yet is another musical fireball, achieving its appeal with rock energy rather than expertise.

Talib Kweli: Gutter Rainbows (Javotti Media / Duck Down)

Talib Kweli: "Cold Rain"

Following a handful of underground releases in the mid-‘90s, Talib Kweli burst on the national stage a few years later as part of Black Star, his highly successful hip-hop duo with Mos Def.  The two parted ways after one album, but Kweli went on to countless other collaborations and a series of acclaimed solo efforts. Gutter Rainbows is his fifth and newest solo release – his first since 2007 and first in a long time to be released without the aid of a major label.  It’s out now but only digitally in North America; it’s available elsewhere on CD thanks to Duck Down Records.

Compared to his last album, Eardrum, the music has a much fuller sound while striking a nice balance between soulful, funky, and bassy styles and a harder edge. It doesn’t have the big-name producers of Eardrum – which included Kanye West, Will.I.Am, Pete Rock, and Madlib – but it sounds like a more realized album.  Whether it’s with a diversity of instruments and samples, great backing performances, or just Kweli’s relentless flow, Gutter Rainbows is an exciting addition to his catalog.

Honorable Mentions

Banquet of the Spirits / Cyro Baptista / John Zorn: Caym: The Book of Angels, Vol. 17 (Tzadik)

Bill Frisell and Vinicius Cantuária: Lagrimas Mexicanas (E1)

Charles Bradley: No Time For Dreaming (Daptone)

Caroline: Verdugo Hills (Temporary Residence)

Deerhoof: Deerhoof vs. Evil (Polyvinyl)

Destroyer: Kaputt (Merge)

Ensemble: Excerpts (Fat Cat)

Lia Ices: Grown Unknown (Jagjaguwar)

Iron and Wine: Kiss Each Other Clean (Warner Bros.)

Kodo: Akatsuki (Otodaiku)

Georgia Anne Muldrow: Vweto

Thank You: Golden Worry (Thrill Jockey)

Sidi Touré: Sahel Folk (Thrill Jockey)

Zs: New Slaves Part II: Essence Implosion! (The Social Registry)

NOMO & Shawn Lee: Upside Down tour seven-inch (Ubiquity, 1/18/11)

Instrumental collective NOMO combines funk, Afrobeat, electronica, jazz, and more for a unique fusion of good-time jams.  Unclassifiable producer/multi-instrumentalist Shawn Lee, a label-mate on Ubiquity, has tackled dozens (perhaps hundreds?) of styles over his dynamic career.

Together, the two sides have collaborated to create "Upside Down," the A-side of a tour-exclusive seven-inch that NOMO officially released today.  Featuring guest vocals by Natalie Bergman, the sister of NOMO bandleader Elliot Bergman, the tune builds its groove with loops of an electric kalimba, a funky bass line, steel drums, and a flanged synthesizer.

The seven-inch is limited to 300 copies, and it also features NOMO’s “Nocturne” on side B.  It originally was available on the band's fall tour with Iron and Wine; it's now available at Amazon.com and through iTunes.

Iron and Wine: Kiss Each Other Clean (Warner Bros., 1/25/11)

Iron and Wine: "Walking Far from Home"

When Iron and Wine made its debut in 2002 with underground sensation The Creek Drank the Cradle, it immediately became apparent that there was something special at hand. The album — anchored by lo-fi acoustic finger-picking set to Sam Beam’s hushed, harmonized vocals — featured no bells and whistles.  It remains a blunt testament of Beam’s humble offerings as a songwriter and the splendor that he can achieve through it.  Today, when listening to the album, you still get the feeling that the songs were written by Beam while he sat on the front porch of a ramshackle home, located on a dirt farm somewhere down south, singing “Upward Over the Mountain” as the late summer sun sets beyond the horizon.

After releasing the similarly arranged The Sea and the Rhythm EP in 2003, Beam moved forward with a slightly varied approach. However, while 2004 album Our Endless, Numbered Days reintroduced Iron and Wine to the indie world through cleaner production and subtly varied instrumentation, Beam’s uncanny ability to write a song so straightforward yet elegant was still intact. Elements of The Creek Drank the Cradle still shined through, and it seemed that Beam was the new Elliott Smith, the new tender soul, the new whipping boy who endured the battlements of love and loss.

But after three straight years of supplying listeners with remarkable song craftsmanship and an unparalleled dulcet voice, Iron and Wine reemerged in 2005 with the Woman King EP — and something had changed. No longer was Beam content with the hushed, folk-ridden lullabies that he had crafted so perfectly in the previous few years. Instead, he was determined to make noise, to make you notice him. In 2007, The Shepherd’s Dog confirmed this, featuring drums and a barrage of percussion, electronic effects, keyboards, flanged vocals, jangly pianos, and a number of other tricks. It was as if Beam were trying to prove that he wasn’t a one-trick pony — that he could be just as experimental as he could melodic.

Now, with Kiss Each Other Clean — the band’s first major-label effort since leaving native indie label Sub Pop — Beam has written another chapter in the ever-evolving songbook of Iron and Wine. If The Shepherd’s Dog’s purpose was to marry Beam’s old-world folk hymns with his more experimental, stylized jamborees, then Kiss Each Other Clean is his attempt to abandon his roots entirely.

The album picks up where The Shepherd’s Dog left off and doesn’t look back — ever. From the onset, it’s apparent that this will not be a typical Iron and Wine album. Though the opening track, “Walking Far From Home,” features a confident, catchy melody at the forefront, always so prevalent in Beam’s songs, the vocals are flanked by fuzz, piano, spacey harmonies, drums, keyboards, and fizzling digital effects—a far cry from a band that started out with one man and an acoustic guitar.

And the album only gets more diverse from there. “Monkeys Uptown” features an Of Montreal-esque bass line paired with strange sound effects, percussion, xylophone, and an electric-guitar solo; “Big Burned Hand” features a clownish saxophone, a rock organ, and hokey keyboard effect akin to Super Furry Animals; and “Rabbit Will Run,” featuring a recorder and a variety of tribal drumming, sounds like a stripped-down experimental collaboration with Four Tet. But perhaps the most interesting aspect is that, in addition to the band’s new-found love for experimentation, there is scarcely an acoustic guitar present on the album at all.

Aside from a few tracks, Beam has abandoned the instrument completely. The bright side, though, is that he is able to orchestrate his lovelorn song structures and melodies by other means. With a barrage of instruments present at all times throughout each track, Beam has left no room for the simple sanctity on which his songs were once founded. Instead, he has taken those delicate melodies to a higher level, as it is apparent that he’s trying to achieve something bigger, something better, something magnificent. (Perhaps that’s why he jumped from an indie label to a major one.)

Fans might want to think of this as Iron And Wine’s The Age of Adz. (Beam even drops an F-bomb, just as Sufjan Stevens did, to the shock of loyal fans). And like Stevens’ unique songwriting tendencies that are still being displayed on his latest effort despite the drastic change in approach, Beam’s gift for writing and arranging quality tunes is able to shine through all the digital ornamentation and multi-instrumental adornment.

When you strip these songs down, it’s very likely that Beam originally crafted them on an acoustic guitar, just like the old days. On a track like “Tree By The River,” you’re able to understand that the original Iron and Wine is still at the heart of each song. Kiss Each Other Clean is the antithesis of where Iron and Wine once stood; it is the anti-Creek Drank the Cradle. But to Beam’s credit, he’s made all the right moves.  A band should evolve, not remain static, and this latest effort is certainly a sign of that. It should be interesting to see where Beam takes his brainchild from here.

Rummaging through Nostalgia
by Katie Haegele

I've been thinking a lot about nostalgia lately. Actually, I've thought about it in one way or another for years, since I was old enough to want to buy my own clothing but didn't have any money and started hunting the Salvation Army for the grandma jewelry and waitress uniforms I turned into outfits.

I love old things, especially kitschy, outmoded, and obsolete ones, and I spend a fair amount of time digging for them at rummage sales and thrift stores, even in the trash. These things call to me, and I have spent a lot of time trying to understand and articulate exactly why that is, but it's hard to grasp the feeling. There's something about the sadness of castoff things that touches me, for sure, but it's not only that. It's also the feeling that each object has a story, a history that's not my own. That history is both loaded and freeing at once. For next to no money, you can buy the thing and take it home. That coffee canister or wicker handbag or owl figurine will be yours, but it will never feel like it's only yours.

More than an owner, you're like a caretaker. In exchange, you get to borrow the thing's history and have a piece of its ready-made comfort — a comfort like the feeling you had in the cozy living room in your grandparents' house, or the kitchen of a friend from grade school who's grown fuzzy in your mind over time. You can, in fact, feel nostalgic for something you don't even remember.

Zine-making is another huge part of my life. For several years now, I've made print zines — ones with poems in them or collections of interviews or stories about my adventures at rummage sales (White Elephants No. 4)  — and brought them to zine fairs to hang out with my fellow nerds. I first started making zines because I'd been working as a writer for newspapers and magazines, and though I liked this work and was proud to do it (most of the time), it did not always afford me the freedom to say whatever I wanted, however I wanted. I craved that, so I took a handful of found poems I'd written, and I published the collection as a zine. By doing so, I plugged into a vibrant community of other people who want to say what they think with no restriction. It has been tremendously inspiring and a lot of fun.

But these zine folks, a lot of them are nostalgic too. As digital becomes the default mode of communication, these little handmade books only become more special — "fetish objects," says N. Katherine Hayles, editor of Electronic Literature: New Horizons for the Literary — and the physical experience of holding paper in your hands is a palpable pleasure.

Beyond that, I've noticed some younger folks in the zine community holding up the riot-grrrl zines of the early '90s as a kind of standard, preferring to use only typewriters and clip art, and putting it all together the cut-and-paste way (which, incidentally, is the only way I’ve ever done it because it’s the only way I know how). Riot grrrl was a cultural revolution that many of these writers are too young to remember, but it excites them still. I'd venture to say they feel nostalgic for it even though they didn't experience it, that they enjoy borrowing that history and building on it, echoing it, referencing it, and making it their own. Zines may be all about freedom of expression, but they have their conventions too.

One thing I see in a lot of "perzines" (zines of personal, memoir-style writing) is a back page that reads "This zine was made to the sounds of…" with a list of bands or songs. It has become a zine standard — a staple of the genre — and though I've made dozens of zines over the years, I've never included a playlist in one, so I'd like to do that now. This mixtape is composed entirely of music I've discovered in zines, through zine friends, and from zine readers who have sent me mix CDs and tapes in the mail as trades or gifts. What a treat. I guess I should add that to my ever-growing list of reasons to be a zinester: new music from new friends.

PS: If you E-mail me (katie@thelalatheory.com), I'll send you this mix. It sounds really good.

The "I Heart Zinesters" Mix
By Katie, with thanks to the makers of these fine zines: Childlike Empress, Functionally Ill, Today Terrific, The Internet – Enriching and Sucking My Life Away Five Hours At a Time, Ampersand After Ampersand, and Dumb/Sulk Trigg-er

1. Dylan Campbell: "Diggers"
2. Iron and Wine: "Resurrection Fern"
3. Beach House: "Master of None"
4. Ann Peebles: "I'm Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down"
5. Cats on Fire: "Higher Grounds"
6. Plumerai: "Home Again"
7. Lush: "Hey Hey Helen"
8. Captain Beefheart: "Tropical Hot Dog Night"
9. Hot Chip: "Thieves in the Night"
10. Santogold: "You'll Find A Way"

Sage Francis

Sage Francis' new album features Brian Deck (Modest Mouse, Iron and Wine), Jim Becker and Tim Rutili (Califone), and songwriting by Jason Lytle (Grandaddy), Chris Walla (Death Cab for Cutie), Tim Fite, and members of Calexico, DeVotchKa, and Sparklehorse.

"We specifically sought out songwriters who had never worked with a rapper," Francis explains.

The record's title Li(f)e is a deliberate amalgamation of the words life and lie. As Francis says, "What about life is a lie? What we're told about God is a lie. What we're told about race, gender roles, beauty, war, food, drugs, sexuality, capitalism, history, the nature of humankind…a gang of lies. I feel it in my gut, I think it in my brain, I write it with my hands and I speak it with my mouth. That's what makes Li(f)e the general theme of this album."

Apparently words are being formed, points and jokes trying to be made — was that a laugh or cough? — on the other side of the phone, but my ear bones and those little sensory hairs that "hear" aren't doing their job. My brain is struggling to decipher large chunks of this guy's murmurs. I fear I'm blowing this interview each time I fail to ask "huh?" and I silently curse the telephone as well as the distance between us (Austin, TX and Bethlehem, PA). But shouldn't I have expected this?

Sam Beam, aka Iron and Wine, has been making quiet sound glorious since his 2002 Sub Pop debut The Creek Drank the Cradle. No synonym for "hushed" or "serene" has failed to be employed when describing Beam and his music.

His signature indie-folk, lo-fi home recordings beg volume knobs to turn clockwise and even make cynics sigh; the resonance of his melodic exhalations can charm any cochleae close enough to perceive them. Any time spent straining to hear what Sam Beam has to say or sing is worth the effort.

On the phone, his pauses and vowels give away his birth region (the South), and his voice gets even softer when we talk about fame — warmer when talk turns to family. As someone who spent adolescence resenting the labels "quiet" and "shy," I'm hesitant to carry on pigeonholing Beam as such.

Lest you misunderstand: his volume is no measure of his nerve or his might. As fans of his can attest, Beam can three-Kleenex stagger a listener with a mere "oh oh" and a banjo pluck; his quietness is that strong. Shoddy speaker-phone acoustics aside, what relays clearly is Beam's eagerness to communicate — to (however gently) convey what he's about.

"Well, yeah… this one's a louder, faster record."

Transmission received; point taken. Sam Beam has some forthcoming surprises for his listeners, although he's not about to shout about them.

Beam's story begins the same as many optimistic youngsters': with a guitar at the age of 14. When asked if his family was especially musical (Beam is often joined on stage and record by his sister Sarah), he just replies, "Well, we liked to listen to the radio." So how did a scrappy teen Beam become the full-fledged, fully bearded Iron and Wine we know today?

"I started [playing] just kind of as a hobby," he says. "I had never really studied music, I just played by ear… just started writing songs in my spare time, recording stuff I played so I wouldn't forget the words, the chord progressions. Then Sub Pop got a hold of them and gave me a call. That's basically the long and short of it" It's an understated account, but understatements seem his way.

Beam has made four recordings with Sub Pop thus far, and each has served as a stylistic evolutionary link to the next. The aforementioned The Creek Drank the Cradle and 2003's five-song EP The Sea and the Rhythm were noted for their aching simplicity, poeticism, and lo-fi hiss.

Our Endless Numbered Days (2004) featured the addition of more slide guitar, harmonies, occasional piano, and less hiss. Its lyrics were preoccupied with babies and death, what comes and goes, and at the forefront of the still largely slow-tempo tunes were Beam's ear-tickling vocals.

In 2005, Iron and Wine gave us the six-song EP Woman King, which introduced hand percussion and electricity into the mix. The songs were still mostly tied up in strings, but there were more of them — plucking, strumming, rubbing, bowing, and sliding. Density was realized with the addition of tin cans, piano, and cowbells alongside the EP's lyrical focus: women.

About here it may be necessary for me to remind us why Sam Beam might know a thing about the fairer sex: "[My wife and I] have four daughters, so that keeps us very busy." The youngest Beam is only two months old. Before images of fabric softener rock-a-byes and father-daughter sing-alongs are fully formed, Beam says, "They don't like my music too much, though."

Are they his biggest little critics? "No, but my wife's a big enough critic as it is. I'm sure they'll come around to it." They don't quite spend time with dad on tour, but when he plays in town they'll occasionally take in a show. But he adds, "They all seem to fall asleep before I go on. They usually seem to sleep through it." He doesn't find their sleepy indifference offensive, he assures me.

Although his kin remain unimpressed (for now), the mainstream public has embraced Sam Beam's intimate music. About two years ago, Beam was able to quit his day job (as a film lecturer at a Florida university) and rely solely on his music. Was that a triumphant moment?

"Well, it felt like a big step off a diving board. I don't know if it was triumphant, really, but it was worth it." His music has since led him on several cross-country and international tours, including one this past January with Calexico to Japan, which Beam describes as "surreal" and just a bit "heavy;" he says he still has plenty of moments when he can't quite believe so many people know and like his songs.

Then Beam should prepare himself. Because when the third Iron and Wine full-length, The Shepherd's Dog, was released this September, that number was projected (at least by me after three listens) to grow massively.

This album mixes African rhythms, Blues, hand percussion, Southern psych-rock, paradisiacal jams, Waitsian electronic scrapple, touches of dub, a waltz, and enough acoustic guitar and Beam's voice — still staid and magnetic in the midst of the reined musical bedlam — to maintain a level of familiarity.

Beam claims this one is less like the other records on which, with the lyrics, he "was trying to find peace in certain situations." Is this absence of peace and presence of musical disorder somehow a response to the current political climate? "Yeah, I guess there's always some fucked-up kind of things going on, but [recent] stuff's been churning around in my head."

Not overtly political but notably gutsier, The Shepherd's Dog demonstrates how effective and cathartic noise made by, and raised voices of, the formerly "quiet" and "serene" can be.

Will this album surprise fans? "Some of them, probably," he says with a snicker, followed by something I can't quite will my eardrums enough to hear. There's the word "optimism," though, which is not entirely unexpected or unwelcome.