forkcast tracks

Friday, April 24, 2009

"Idiot Heart"

Sunset Rubdown
"Idiot Heart"

[Jagjaguwar]

6

When I saw that Dragonslayer promo shot of Sunset Rubdown in a hot tub, I was like, "Hey, good for you, Spencer Krug." Hell-bent on becoming the James Brown of indie rock, one would assume that Krug would probably benefit from a little downtime between Wolf Parade, Swan Lake and SR, but my first impression of Dragonslayer's "Idiot Heart" leads me to believe that Krug's output has little to no effect on the man's fortitude.

"Heart" seems anxious to abandon the ornate nerdiness of 2007's Random Spirit Lover by ramping up a frenzied claustrophobia that seems more befitting of, well, any of Krug's other bands. But it's still unmistakably a Sunset Rubdown affair, packing so many ideas into its six minutes that you fear it might burst. The maddening pace shifts, the "Aww yeah!"-inducing Thin Lizzy guitar biting (where'd that come from?), and their trademark willingness to play apparently anything that's lying around make for a wild little ride, but it kind of feels like reading a chapter out of sequence. Brain Howe's Pitchfork review of Lover noted that SR were "making a strong case for the album" in a "song-driven era", and while "Heart" has enough merit to fly solo, it might be best to dig into Dragonslayer from top to bottom. Only then will we finally understand what the "Icarus in your blood" is. Yeah, probably not.

MP3:> Sunset Rubdown: "Idiot Heart"

— Zach Kelly

"Raindrops"

Basement Jaxx
"Raindrops"

[XL]

8
 

Basement Jaxx aren't gauche enough to use words like "comeback," but they're confident enough in their new material to tour in advance of, not in support of, its release, and "Raindrops" suggests they're right. Perhaps it's not surprising that the band has spent a while at the sidelines of club music-- if ever there was a group not cut out for "minimal," here they are. Their best songs have always been riots of gorgeous detail, detonated-- and then barely controlled-- by their way with a drum pattern. "Raindrops" is one of those, set firmly in the exploded sweetshop that is a Jaxx fan's comfort zone.

What's interesting is the sounds they're picking. Earlier records have plundered diva house, electropop, and post-punk-- but with its fuzzy keys and sitar runs "Raindrops" is unashamedly psychedelic. Without losing its disco heart: The beat reprises the band's own glorious "Romeo", and the vocals are pure giddy Sylvester. The combinations never let up-- even as the track fades, toybox chimes collide with cheeky blurts of bass. This compulsive restlessness should make for uneasy listening, but Basement Jaxx are the molecular gastronomists of pop, and they've turned their songs into taster dishes, as precisely and surprisingly delicious as bacon ice cream.

— Tom Ewing

"I Wanna Kill"

Crocodiles
"I Wanna Kill"

[Fat Possum]

4

To state the obvious, pop music has always involved sampling. You borrow a riff, a line, even a whole song structure, then you re-arrange or tweak some small part of it and it becomes your own. The line between "inspiration" and "theft" has always been fuzzy. Even so, there's something very strange going on with the copy-and-paste aesthetic in this song by San Diego garage rockers Crocodiles. They played these parts on real instruments in some kind of recording studio, but the songwriting is pure Gregg Gillis. There's a gurgling drone borrowed from Spacemen 3's "Suicide", a four-note guitar riff nicked from the Crystals' iconic "Then He Kissed Me", the verse melody from the Jesus and Mary Chain's "Head On", and then a chorus that sounds awfully familiar, but which I can't quite place. We'll give 'em that one. But the important question is the one we should always ask eventually: How does it sound? The answer: not so bad. No matter who wrote them, these hooks have stood the test of time. And I kind of enjoy the Girl Talk-like sense of cognitive dissonance while listening, as a bunch of stored memories associated with these bits bump and collide, even if it is a weird thing to have happening with a new song. In the end, though, "I Wanna Kill" feels more like an object of study, a song to think about when you're contemplating whether there's anything new under the sun, rather than a tune to jam in a car.

MP3:> Crocodiles: "I Wanna Kill"

— Mark Richardson

Thursday, April 23, 2009

"Sacred Trickster"

Sonic Youth
"Sacred Trickster"

[Matador]

7

If any other rock band entered its middle age making the same sort of music as they were playing 15 years ago, it would seem a bit depressing and signal creative stagnation. But somehow when Sonic Youth lean hard on their old tricks, their obvious comfort in just being themselves comes out sounding inspirational. "Sacred Trickster", the opening track from their forthcoming Matador debut, The Eternal, is essentially a throwback to the quartet's early 1990s high-gloss hardcore phase, but unlike classics such as "Kool Thing" and "Swimsuit Issue", the arrangement feels more light than heavy, and zooms along with the grace of a band who has long since mastered its sense of dynamics. As the music lifts off and accelerates, Kim Gordon excitedly demands to be levitated, invoking the French artist Yves Klein's iconic photograph "The Leap Into the Void", but shifting the context of its sentiment from high art to punk rock. In either case, the point is simple: Artists must throw themselves into space in order to create transcendental work. "Sacred Trickster" may not actually launch anyone into the air like a missile, but its ecstatic rush certainly evokes the sensation of weightlessness and momentum. The effectiveness of the track is likely the reason why the band has settled into a familiar set of sounds and rhythms over the years-- it's their proven path to an exalted place.

MP3:> Sonic Youth: "Sacred Trickster"

— Matthew Perpetua

"Angela"

Jarvis Cocker
"Angela"

[Rough Trade]

5

"Angela", an early track from Jarvis Cocker's forthcoming LP, Further Complications, isn't so much a song about a girl as "a song about a girl." You can hear the bluff, play-by-numbers garage rocker down below, but it's more fun to visit Cocker's website and watch the former Pulp leader, all gangly limbs and black-rimmed spectacles, assemble his own name in uncooperative, plastic display letters. The implication: Jarvis Cocker isn't a pop star, indie rock icon, or working class hero, but a flimsy self-construction of such saleable commodities. Did I mention Steve Albini prod... er, engineered the track?

So maybe that's why I feel hoodwinked for enjoying a song that invokes some of the most ludicrous clichés this side of Spinal Tap-- cock-rock riffs, dunderheaded euphemisms ("you blew my mind", stuff about sticks and branches), a fake-out ending. It's fortunate Cocker already dresses like a hip English professor; these days, music seems to pose a pedagogical opportunity (remember "Running the World"?). Which explains but not, perhaps, excuses lines like, "And she's nearly 23/ Making four-fifty an hour/ Complimentary shower." That young thang you're scoping? Exploited labor.

MP3:> Jarvis Cocker: "Angela"

— Amy Granzin

"No Compass"

Blank Dogs
"No Compass"

[In the Red]

6

It's kind of a shame that Blank Dogs' full-length Under and Under is coming out at the beginning of June, because stuff like "No Compass" could easily soundtrack a totally badass Halloween party. But everyday is like Halloween for pop-damager Mr. Blank Dog, who performs masked and clearly spends a great deal of time in his room crafting fuzzy, panic-attack inducing spook-outs like this one. They're usually solid and typically manage to excite and unnerve, but if you don't happen to live in underneath a Parisian opera house, it can be difficult to overcome the novelty.

"Compass" has a lot going for it, namely that nasty guitar line that perfectly marries a punchy surf aesthetic with the kinetic, dark-polish of British post-punk. Over those unglued junkyard drums, "Compass" gleefully threatens to careen off the embankment, boosting the song's already shaky insistence. But what could've been a certified barnburner is dragged down by deliberately cartoonish details (the funhouse synths, the anginal Transformers vocals) that are hard to shake, unless you're costumed and there's dry ice in the punch bowl. The real question is if we'll remember to pull out "No Compass" by the time October rolls around.

— Zach Kelly

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

"Zero (Animal Collective Remix)"

Yeah Yeah Yeahs
"Zero (Animal Collective Remix)"

[Interscope]

3

Part of me wants to hand it to Animal Collective for at least giving it the old college try: I mean, they could've easily thrown Karen O's vocals over something like "Summertime Clothes" and we all would've squealed like idiots. The problem, however, is that giving them the benefit of the doubt would require me to believe that they actually spent some time on this little project, instead of half-assing it in between "Lost" reruns. Hey, I wasn't there, so I can't really say, but I'm pretty sure that if Animal Collective's idea of "getting their leather on" happens to be an experiment in patience this sexless and tedious, maybe someone should get to work on that "Summertime Clothes" thing after all.

Part of it is probably just a matter of expectations. This isn't to say we should suppress our Pavlovian instinct to salivate over news of fresh Animal Collective product, but were we honestly expecting this to accomplish something the original cut of "Zero" didn't already? Was it worth the weeks of blog speculation? (And did this really warrant a teaser snippet?) Not really, but it shouldn't be of any real surprise that the track is such a non-starter. The few good ideas that get thrown into the mix are quickly marred by awkward ones: O's vocals sound hauntingly regal floating alone in space, so why challenge us to stifle a giggle when they're pointlessly pitch-shifted? Why tease us with those little ejaculatory spurts of noodled synths? But most importantly, why question something this seemingly dashed off? Maybe it's that we simply hold A.C. to a higher set of standards than the rest of 'em. It just sucks getting all excited for something that's ultimately nothing more than a quick autograph.

Stream:> Yeah Yeah Yeahs: "Zero (Animal Collective Remix)"

— Zach Kelly

"Rainwater Cassette Exchange"

Deerhunter
"Rainwater Cassette Exchange"

[Kranky]

7

When Bradford Cox sings about love and desire, he always sounds so wistful and defeated. It's as though he's already given up on the possibility that his feelings may be requited, but he's too lost in infatuation to avoid diving into self-destructive romantic obsession. This is particularly true of "Rainwater Cassette Exchange", in which he writes about a particularly painful crush in terms of passive self-harm, inviting the object of his affection to destroy his body and mind in a tone so fragile and drowsy that the darkness of his lyrics barely registers in casual listening. The song's mood owes a lot to the sound of Cox's voice. It comes across as a quiet sigh at the center of an arrangement that buries the gentle rhythmic bump and earnest sweetness of a vintage girl-group number beneath the band's usual haze of reverb and distortion. It doesn't break any thematic or aesthetic ground for Deerhunter-- it's essentially the halfway point between the lyrics of Microcastle's "Agoraphobia" and the music of "Vox Humana" from Weird Era Cont.-- but "Rainwater Cassette Exchange" is nevertheless a solid addition to the Deerhunter canon, and it absolutely nails the blend of naked yearning and neurotic passivity that makes Cox one of the most consistently compelling figures in contemporary indie rock.

MP3:> Deerhunter: "Rainwater Cassette Exchange"

— Matthew Perpetua

"Know Your Enemy"

Green Day
"Know Your Enemy"

[Warner Bros.]

5

While American Idiot transformed tenured punk-poppers Green Day into an Important Rock Band, they thankfully tempered the record's spirited topical vagaries with some of their patented melodic vigor. In other words, their beat-on-the-brat tuneage went a long way towards making their browbeating verbiage palatable. "Know Your Enemy", unfortunately, doesn't do listeners any such favors. Billie Joe & co. turn the song's title-- a perfectly fine piece of timeless sloganeering-- into the sort of uninspired oi-flavored rallying cry that anchors hundreds of listless, politically aware punk tunes. With Butch Vig now behind the boards, the group's certainly not at a loss when it comes to retaining their radio-friendly high-gloss sheen. The shininess of the track, however, serves to emphasize its pedantic stiffness. Maybe this song sounds better as part of 21st Century Breakdown's album-spanning narrative, but as a stand-alone single, it's nothing more than a rote protest song preaching to the converted.

— David Raposa

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

"Crescent"

NOMO
"Crescent"

[Ubiquity]

7

Ann Arbor, Mich., six-piece NOMO generally gets branded as an Afrobeat and stateside funk descendent that tweaks their heavy horn-and-rhythm jams with electronic and gamelan undercurrents. Allegiant to reputation, then, "Crescent" opens with a gamelan loop, beaten bits of metal percolating in a miniature pattern that creates a warm ripple of distortion when it peaks. But where you'd normally expect big beats and brass to drop, NOMO delivers shaking shells and a stunted flute scale, rising stepwise before plunging suddenly. The band builds on that foundation with the patience and diligence of a high-rise construction crew-- a wood block and faint handclaps enter here, a thick bassline and staccato electronics join there. Not to be outdone, the flutes mirror this additive process, multiple tracks of the same gentle tone twining around the meter and through one other. The track continually swells but fades just before it has a chance to burst, the various tiny pings and melodies seeping out of the mix one by one. It's not the most immediate NOMO track you'll hear, and it’s not the one that will send people into fits of dancing live. But "Crescent" proves this is a band playing with a bigger deck than imagined, and-- bearing traces of Duke Ellington and Neu! along the way-- they've learned how to deal it slowly.

— Grayson Currin

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