4/24/16

"Biting my clothes to keep from screaming
Taking pills to keep from dreaming
I want to break something important
I want to kick my dad in the shins

I was referring to the present in past tense
It was the only way that I could survive it
I want to close my head in the car door
I want to sing this song like I'm dying
Heavy boots on my throat, I need
I need somethin soon, I need somethin soon
I can't talk to my folks, I need
I need somethin soon, I need somethin soon
All of my fingers are froze, I need
I need somethin soon, I need somethin soon
Only one change of clothes, I need
I need somethin soon, I need somethin soon
My head is, my head is, my head is..."
~Something Soon
Car Seat Headrest, Teens of Style

It's easy to find good music - and it's easy to be impressed, or enjoy something you hear for the first time. I don't buy it when people say music too homogenized and prepackaged and overproduced these days -- so many new releases are these intricate blends of modern sounds, and it's an adventure to see what trends feed of the last. Somewhere in all that, the real authentic stuff is there, and occasionally you'll make the rare find of an artist who continues to wow you to that same level over and over again, where you keep listening and discover layer upon layer and layer of who they are, and where these songs are coming from.

For me, Car Seat Headrest is becoming one of those artists. Every song I hear from this guy I like more than the last, every performance I watch leaves me wanting more. Will Toledo's songs are more confessional rock than folk, but they have a storytelling narrative nonetheless. Musically, there's a lo-fi, grungy vibe, but his chord choices are poppy and melodic enough to carry the occasional hook (no better exemplified than his biggest single, "Something Soon"), and these surf-rock style solos.

I love Toledo's emphasis on his anxieties and insanities. For this, I will listen over and over again, because he's smart and observing without whining. He's carrying indie rock's torch in its natural direction, and in the process divulging so much of himself with these little details about his self-image ("If I could split me in two/I would just take my fists/So I could beat up the rest of me") and inner monologues. His songs have a way of driving forward without getting bogged down in the depressive, though, due mostly to these wailing guitar parts and pop rock rhythms.

I think Toledo's songs, notably on "Teens of Style", are pretty solid reflections of the early 21st century, teen or 20-something experience. While some artists are direct about this, referencing texts and selfies to the point of making it a gimmick, Toledo cuts to the chase of loneliness and the longing that this time produces, and the unending, seemingly inescapable cycle of dreaming and flailing and failing that's supposed to provide whatever happiness there is to be achieved in this great wide world of ours. It is one of the best rock albums I have discovered in my recent memory, perfectly weird and wistful and wandering.

I'm so excited for the upcoming "Teens of Denial" to get a fresh taste of an album approach. Car Seat Headrest has a discography that dates back three years and shows a real maturation -- there plenty to choose from and each release has its own style, whether its production room tweaks or scratchy-record style harmonies. You can tell Toledo just grinds out songwriting, toying with new techniques along the way. I've spent a fair amount of time with the recent single, called "Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales," and I think Toledo is pushing himself in a bigger musical direction and better off for it. I think this is a sound worth paying attention to.



"All of my friends are getting married
All of my friends are right with God
All of my friends are making money
But art gets what it wants and art gets what it deserves
I think I’m gonna build a giant hotel
Lest we be scattered, I’ll stack it sky-high
It’s not symbolic, it’s just human nature
Under the foundations, there is a graveyard

We’ve all had better times to die
We’ve all seen better times to die
We’ve all had better times to die
We all had better times to die."
~Time to Die
Car Seat Headrest, Teens of Style

4/17/16

Discovering Steve Gunn shortly before a cross-country road-trip turned out to be excellent timing, as listening to him now has me longing for wide-open Oklahoma skies and the unending New Mexico horizons. I've been in a solid folk-country mode lately, underscored by classic rock like CSNY and Dylan and unknown tracks by way of random desert radio stations. But Gunn provides a modern update to all this - his guitar playing is intricate, and spacey, and worth a live performance viewing to truly appreciate. His songwriting has a definite flow, with the divisions between verse and chorus more ballad than pop, with the kind of two, two-and-half minute solos that reel in the listener and reflective, observational lyrics that give them something to chew on once they're there.

His newest single "Conditions Wild" showcases his playing and explores a wide, open world with intrigue, albeit understated. It feels purposefully restrained, as if Gunn's voice carrying the melody is holding back all hell from breaking loose. Diving into his back catalog reveals more of this, along with slide guitar and delay and six-minute-plus songs brimming with warm acoustic tones.

I love the space in his music, created through multiple guitar parts with meandering solos on top. Intros and outros twist and turn around every corner of a scale although, for better or worse, it seems like his newer releases are getting shorter. Overall, Gunn's style reminds of that rambling jam-band genre with a little bit more of a literary, subdued element -- he seems to indulge in the depth of a song, opting for a six-track LP on 2013's "Time Off" in favor of six, seven minute jams. It's fantastic road trip music, especially with the windows down and a taste of the desert breeze.

Given that Steve Gunn is as East Coast as they come (Brooklyn via PA), his music is hardly of this place that it references and suits so well, but therein lies the magic of acoustic lead guitars and big, mysterious rock music -- it can be inspired by the promise of something bigger, something greater. Isn't that what the westward journey is all about? There's probably a lot more to be said about music that is from one place and sounds reminiscent of another, but perhaps a task for an academic or another day.

For now, I'm enjoying all the space, the slow-down, the openness. 

"Wind so bad, the woods will move
They’re hanging in the ai

Who am I?
Soon can sayTake into the young old land
It’s how he wants to rock

It’s how he wants to rock

You know it runs
The private river out
Into the night
Its fruit will help you listen
Keep you outta sight


Moon so bad the doors won’t move
They don’t seem to care
Ask so plain, the runners so forward
It’s time to move, the brave the storm
A different stop a day
Move and make your way

You know it runs
The private river out into the night
Its fruit will help you listen

Keep you outta sight."
~Wildwood
Steve Gunn, Way Out Weather

3/31/16

"But I was late for this, late for that, 
Late for the love of my life.
And when I die alone, when I die alone, 
When I die I'll be on time."
~Cleopatra
The Lumineers, Cleopatra

Looking forward to the new album from The Lumineers album despite my very select knowledge of their early music. Mostly excited about this new single, "Cleopatra," a delightfully dark character-driven retrospective. I'm enjoying how this band uses rhythm to move a song along, with a lot of drums and piano and tambourine, they're not guitar-reliant and that's a really powerful thing, as their breakthrough single "Ho Hey" similarly suggests.

A band like The Lumineers is at an interesting point in their career - most likely, any single they release will not have the immense popularity that that first hit did. "Ho Hey" was everywhere - on radio, TV shows, just shepherding hipster folk to the masses through a charming, catchy love song. How can a band top that? Maybe that's why they took their time in coming out with a sophomore effort four years after their Grammy-nominated self-titled debut, maybe because the pressure to be great was weighty and they thought it better to simmer for awhile.

In music, as other efforts, it's a lot easier to make a splash as something new and great rather than sustain that popularity. Easy to get to the top, harder to stay there, as the saying goes. It's freshness and newness an artist brings to the table that makes them so popular in the first place - in the case of The Lumineers, I call it the right sound at the right time. As a creator, how do you live up to that expectation of greatness after you have already achieved it? If you make the same sound, how can it popularized a second time? Are you pressured to recreate out of appeasement, or do you dive into new territory and hope the fanbase comes along for the ride?  From the sound of "Cleopatra" and "Ophelia," they've focused on their melodic and auxiliary strengths,  those qualities that earned them the nomination nod for Best New Artist. As a relatively new fan, I hope to find these same sincere, sad themes, these roosty-bluesy riffs and spine-tingling harmonies.

"I, I got a little paycheck, you got big plans and you gotta move

And I don't feel nothing at all
And you can't feel nothing small

'Honey I love you,' that's all she wrote.

Oh, Ophelia, you've been on my mind girl like a drug
Oh, Ophelia, heaven help a fool who falls in love

Oh, Ophelia, you've been on my mind girl since the flood
Oh, Ophelia, heaven help a fool who falls in love

Oh, Ophelia, you've been on my mind girl like a drug
Oh, Ophelia, heaven help a fool who falls in love."

~Ophelia, 

The Lumineers, Cleopatra

3/29/16

"You are the hole in my head
I am the pain in your neck
You are the lump in my throat
I am the aching in your heart

We are tangled
We are stolen
We are living where things are hidden."

One of the things I truly enjoyed about Judd Apatow's "Love" Netflix series was the closing credit soundtrack - each song was a cynical, desperate kiss-off to match the episode's screwball relationship defeats. I have an extra reason to love it now, because it reminded me that this song exists - probably my favorite thing Eddie Vedder has ever recorded.

I've never been much of a Pearl Jam fan - I just wasn't around at the right time!! And there's only so much retrospective listening one can do!! - but any time I hear Vedder's solo work and folk-acoustic tracks it leaves such a good impression on me. His voice will go down in history as one of the most recognizable of our generation, and one of the most unforgettable, too. This cover of John Doe's (of the formative punk rock band X) "The Golden State" is probably one of my all-time surprise favorites - I rediscover this song every year in some form or fashion, via TV or Pandora or whatever, and fall in love with all over again.

The harmonies are so, so perfect, using this really open, obvious counterpoint that makes the two voices sound like they're in different worlds but still meshing purposely. The result, and the sentiment, is really quite fitting. I ought to stop forgetting to put this on every playlist I ever make, learn to play it, and find out more of John Doe's original work because I would love to hear more of this.

"We are luck
We are fate
We are the feeling you get in the golden state
 
We are love
We are hate
We are the feeling I get when you walk away."~The Golden State
John Doe feat. Kathleen Edwards, The Golden State, as covered by Eddie Vedder and Corin Tucker

3/25/16

"They need a heart. 
I relapse on memory. 
I got numb again. 
I feel the scar, but I need the money.
I think I’m lost again. 

I think my life is disappearing." 
~Punch Drunk,
Young and Heartless, Stay Awake

As much as I've been hooked on the arena-synth emo likes of the new record from  The 1975 (eveyr night) and the alt-country twinges of Brian Fallon's "Painkillers," (every morning) I keep adding ot he list of what I must l isten to that is new and different (during the day). Today that is the Young and Heartless, a Hopeless Records band that I'd heard of but hadn't heard and listening to their new record provides a much more mature, complex sound than I imagined.

And to make it that much better - I checked out their Bandcamp and found out they are from my beloved Harrisburg.

There's a darkness and edginess to their lyrics, about money and drugs and losing grip on one's life. But their ever-so-slightly nu wave guitars elevate their sound to something silky, smooth and cohesive. The vocals are throaty baritone without the screamy-screeching that seems (finally) to be going out of fashion in favor for more technical, on-point melodies and backing harmonies. There are echoes of grungier emo, like Citizen, but also the introspective notions of Into It. Over It., and the shoegaze tint of Title Fight. Every song seems to be about not being able to get it, or keep it, together.

"Stay Awake" Is an incredibly digestible listen, but not necessarily a comfortable one - it's not a happy record, by any means, but it is really beautifully crafted mid-tempo rock and roll. Each song, prior to its final chorus, seems to build a tension that breaks down in a feisty drum part and ever-so-dissonant chord choices. It's a sound that feels absolutely trendy and on-point, but only because it has been fashioned out of years of work. However long they've been around, Young and Heartless are good enough at writing tight, deep groves together, which just so happens to be the sound of the moment. But you don't get to sound this seasoned without a run-up, and something tells me this sound has been brewing in their garages and studios for awhile. 

I'm so happy to have stumbled upon this band on their record release day, as they start what is very likely a successful run and I seek anything new, relevant, present and different to enthrall myself in. As wonderful as it is to have new music from old favorites (and there is so much of that this year, notably new LPS from Aaron West, The Hotelier, and Thrice coming up this spring) having a new band with a new style and a new story provide punctuation to the phases of life, like the bookends in between what's old and new.



"What am I doing? 
Carve me a new love.
Open the blinds.
Your life deserves light."
~Misery on Misery 
Young and Heartless, Stay Awake