Roundup: Maps & Atlases, School of Seven Bells, and Lauren O'Connell

So I'm now a Boston resident. And I finally got my desk set up today, so I can actually sit comfortably at my computer. So here's some stuff I've been listening to recently:

Maps & Atlases - Perch Patchwork - Debuting the Silver Medal with this one. This album is good. Very good. Perhaps not great, but certainly very good. Reminiscent of TV on the Radio in vocals, with some beautiful guitar work and a little bit of a folk feel. I may write a full review at some point, but for now, I highly recommend it.

Maps & Atlases - "Solid Ground"

School of Seven Bells - Disconnect From Desire - I loved this at first. Especially the song Windstorm (streaming below). Solid shoegazy, dreamy pop. But, where I found their debut Alpinisms kind of edgy and hard to get into (especially compared to stuff I was listening to at the time, e.g. Asobi Seksu and Friendly Fires), I found this one to be a bit too poppy and generally saccharine for my tastes.

School of Seven Bells - "Windstorm"

Lauren O'Connell / My Terrible Friend - A young folk singer from California / her and her friend. It seems they're getting their start via YouTube - I found them through a recent feature on the front page and they have quite a large array of videos of them performing. They're both quite talented, especially in lyric writing. And I really enjoy Lauren's voice (most of the time). But after you get past the initial excitement of having found a young, talented, and reasonably unknown artist, you realize the sound is pretty standard folk-pop. The stuff they play on adult-alternative radio stations. You know, the stuff my dad's really into. Not to say that it's bad, just that it wouldn't stand out in a crowd.


Also, here are some free downloads I'd recommend: Cut Copy - "Where I'm Going" | Wild Palms - "Night Gallery" | White Ring - "Suffocation (Los Campesinos! Remix)" | Cults - "Oh My God"

Photos of Matt & Kim, The Antlers, and Warpaint

About a month ago I got the chance to see Matt & Kim, The Antlers, and Warpaint all for free at a mini music festival called Make Music Pasadena. Warpaint was very good, and Matt & Kim were amazing - they got the entire crowd involved in a fairly intense mosh pit and didn't lose energy once throughout the entire set. The Antlers left something to be desired - all of the songs kind of blended together and not much really seemed to, you know, happen. Check out some photos here, and more on my Flickr. Also, check out a video of Matt & Kim playing "Daylight" at the concert below (posted by a user named chasmahtaz, no less).

The Problem with Formula-Based Pop Music / Why I Hate Pop Music

So it turns out Kesha and Katie Perry's latest singles are pretty much exactly the same. Similar tempo, similar rhythm, similar song structure, similar melody...

DJ "Placeboing" (interesting name choice) combined them:



Well, shit.

(sorry, "Ke$ha" and "Katy" Perry)

Review: Baths - Cerulean

Chris came up to LA last weekend to catch a Daedelus and El Ten Eleven show at the Troubadour with me. Surprisingly, some artist named Baths was headlining instead of Daedelus - neither of us had ever heard of him.

El Ten Eleven was great. Daedelus was great. Baths was... well... we left halfway through. We gave the guy credit - he seemed talented, he knew what he was doing, and his sound was technically very impressive. But the performance was just... goofy. And confusing. After Daedelus had played a dance set to a crowd of baffled hipsters who'd rather head-bob and look apathetic, it was just silly to see so many bald guys with mustaches geek out to a nerdy-looking guy with mutton chops.

Then Chris informed me yesterday that Pitchfork gave Baths' debut LP Cerulean a fucking 8.2. So I gave it a few listens. And my first impression from the concert was kind of wrong - this music isn't terrible. But it certainly isn't an 8.2 out of 10.

The album has a few highlights. Generally, anything where Will Wiesenfeld (A.K.A. Baths) isn't singing isn't half bad. I particularly enjoy his more relaxed, ambient songs like "Rafting Starlit Everglades" and "Rain Smell" - the latter has some very pretty sounding piano work in it too, and the singing isn't too distracting. And, to be honest, the single released to Pitchfork and Stereogum - "Hall" - is quite catchy and fun.

But the rest of the album is, frankly, kind of annoying. I find the vocals on almost every track to be far too quirky, inconsistent and effect-laden - it's like a vocoder on acid. And everything about it is overproduced. Too many effects, too many breakbeats... It seems like Cerulean has fallen victim to Way-Too-Much-Shit-Going-On syndrome. I recommend listening to the album on bad speakers to simplify it a bit, and stay away good headphones - it's at least distracting and at most painful.

Imagine an electronic "chillwave" album sped up about 10x - all the effects get mushed together and the vocals get way too high - and you get Cerulean.

I was gonna debut the Junk Medal for this album, but I don't think it's quite that bad. It's not awful, I just don't like it very much. And if you do like it, I recommend watching the video of Baths' performance below - it may just be that I don't like it because I can't get his goofy dancing out of my head.


Fuck it, after that, I think I do have to give it the Junk Medal. Congratulations!

[The Good] Rafting Starlit Everglades:

[The Bad] Lovely Bloodflow:

Review: Avi Buffalo

I found Avi Buffalo through The A.V. Club's very positive review of their self-titled debut album. At first I absolutely loved it - it's sophisticated writing but with a youthful feel (and genuinely young musicians - lead singer Avigdor Zahner-Isenberg is apparently only 19). The first single, "What's It In For," (listen below) is reminiscent of The Shins, and the rest of the record at times presents MGMT-esque vocals along with classic rock guitar solos. And even an occasionally folky vibe; I get that feeling from "One Last" (listen below) in particular. I love the female vocals on that track too. (Frankly, I almost always enjoy female vocals in indie bands.)

But the album didn't really have staying power with me. The once quirky-but-endearing vocals started to become kind of annoying, and I found myself skipping over several tracks after only a few listens.

That said, I still think it's a good album. These guys (and girls) are talented musicians, and this is a very commendable piece of work. Thus the Bronze Medal above. (Click here for an explanation of the medals.)

What's It In For:


One Last:


P.S. If you're really die hard into Avi Buffalo, you can buy the deluxe release of the band's debut LP - complete with the CD, the record, another record, a T-shirt, a personalized copy of the EP, a hip tote bag, and even a sticker - for $64.99 at the band's website.

Arab on Radar Returns, Indie Rock Radars Suddenly Filled with More Noise

One of the seminal bands of the mid- to late-90s Providence noise scene, Arab on Radar, recently reunited. They played their second show of this incarnation at hometown venue as220 on Saturday night. The band's sound is heavily influenced by 70s no wave as well a surprisingly dancey sound given the four piece's lack of bass (particularly on their last album, 2001's Yahweh or the Highway).




This video captures the intensity of the black-clad band's presence during the as220 performance. The song, "#1 9-12-98", is the quasi-title track of 1999's Soak the Saddle and highlights the noisier side of the band's work.

It was tough to find a track clean enough to play on my radio show tonight ("My Mind is a Muffler" kicks off Yahweh with the lyrics "Some-times, I just gotta jerk off/ My nuts are a pressure cooker"), but I think one of my favorites from, and the closing track of, Yahweh, "Birth Control Blues" should work just fine. One of their tamer songs, its relative spaciousness allows for the guitars to twist around each other in between the thumps of the kick drum and snare hits. Check it out below.

Arab on Radar - "Birth Control Blues"

New Magic Man Video: "Darling (Reprise)"

Just came across a new video of a Magic Man live performance. It isn't the best recording, obviously - slight singing mistakes and some accidental tempo shifts - and the video is appropriately hip with camera movements throughout, performers cut out of frame, and playful focusing. Regardless of such nit-picky critiques, though, the video is wholly endearing, and looks and sounds great to me. Check it out below.



P.S. It was shot with a Canon 5D Mark II, a dSLR camera I really wish I could afford because it can shoot videos like this.