forkcast tracks

Monday, June 8, 2009

"Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell (Wallpaper. Remix)"

Das Racist
"Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell (Wallpaper. Remix)"

8
 

It's just a couple of dudes on cell phones trying to meet at a 2-for-1 Yum! Brands franchise-- "I'm at the Pizza Hut," "No, I'm at the Pizza Hut," it pretty much goes on like that-- but somehow it's going to be one of the songs of the summer. Reactions within our staff have ranged from "I'd like to punch these guys in the face" and "this was sent here to destroy my interest in music" to "Harold and Kumar existentialism" (this wasn't me) and "a critique of commercialism/lack of a leisure culture" (um, this was). At its heart though, "Combination"-- especially this superior Wallpaper. remix-- is just a funny, stupid, silly, brainy, knowing song all at once.

Where smug hipster hip-hop like "Thou Shalt Always Kill" is all posture and preening, "Combination" retains its inner Cheech and Chong and still seems leagues smarter for it. Sure, it's a one-idea track, but that idea somehow becomes more endearing as it rolls on, and in the end this is the song you'll hear this that you're most likely to immediately turn around and want to share with someone, good or bad. After a dozen listens last week, I'm still siding with good.

MP3:> Das Racist: "Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell (Wallpaper. Remix)"

— Scott Plagenhoef

"False Jesii Part 2"

Pissed Jeans
"False Jesii Part 2"

[Sub Pop]

6

Three records in, Pissed Jeans are still fearlessly charting the waters of the crushingly mundane, but things may be looking just a little less harrowing this time. "False Jesii Part 2" is a jolt in tempo with a scrap of melody that the (nonetheless great) Hope for Men could have used once or twice-- if the brightest spot on your album sounds like "I've Still Got You (Ice Cream)", it's a pretty unrelenting listen. But whether they were about scrapbooks or semen, many of the band's songs focused frustration and shame internally; "Jesii", from the forthcoming King of Jeans, turns the disdain outward with equal parts venom and glee, with just a little added heft in production and boneheaded brawn, over which singer Matt Korvette offers a spirited defense of inconsideration and sloth-- our narrator sounding close to being comfortable with his own slovenly self. There's a more conspicuous chorus here (even if the lyrics on said chorus amount to "aughgauaghaugh") and an unwavering power chord riff with little of the incidental noise and wiry runs they've used previously. The bass still shifts and stretches into notes that are in key, but here the feel uncomfortable and "off," as if the ground could be shifting underneath them. Even as the band drags their knuckles a few more inches towards the middle, they maintain their unpredictable feel.

MP3:> Pissed Jeans: "False Jesii Part 2"

— Jason Crock

"Scott Walker's Fault" [ft. Colin Meloy]

The Minus 5
"Scott Walker's Fault" [ft. Colin Meloy]

[Yep Roc]

6

Scott McCaughey's nothing if not subtle. He's not a spotlight name but a buzzing thinker behind Peter Buck, Wilco, last year's woefully missed debut by the Baseball Project, and his own perpetually makeshift Minus 5. Subtlety is probably what Colin Meloy could use more of at this point, having gullied beneath the weight of his increasingly absurd lyrical pretensions with The Hazards of Love this year. Bless McCaughey, then, for scaling Meloy back with his gauzy, studio-bound crew (double whammy considering the very un-low-key subject of the song) on this twangy duel between pedal steel and accordion from M5's upcoming Killingsworth. The call-response vocals take some of the burden off Meloy's ego and ha, the girl gets all the catchy parts. Meloy mumbles a Stipe-ian "Voice under, voice over" chant toward the climax while the Shee Bee Gees cheer, "It's Scott Walker's fault/ And I thank him for us all." Maybe someday a humbled Meloy will sing "Scott McCaughey's Fault".


— Dan Weiss

Friday, June 5, 2009

"Nashville Shores"

Jemina Pearl
"Nashville Shores"

4

Photo by Andrew Kesin

Nashville Shores is a waterpark, or "family recreation destination," located on Percy Priest Lake. Tennessee native Jemina Pearl, formerly of Be Your Own Pet, wrote a song about it. Needless to say this tune won't be featured in any literature or advertisements for the park-- "Broken swings and empty cans/ Is it still a beach with no sand?" Pearl lists her not-so-favorite things about the park (and, by proxy, being a bored teenager stuck with dopey relatives or dopey friends at said park) in a vaguely pissed-off manner, which isn't so different than what she used to do in BYOP. But there's none of the energy or swagger, either musically or vocally, that made Be Your Own Pet so much fun. What Pearl provides here (and on the other two tunes she recently posted on her MySpace page) are raucous and mannered eager-to-please pop songs that don't quite pop or please. Granted, some of the blame could be put on the crap fidelity provided by MySpace's media player-- while BYOP's spastic jams would thrive in these scuzzy conditions, Pearl's new songs require a polish and shine that Tom's technology just can't provide. Unfortunately, a lot of the song's failings are simply because of the song. "Nashville Shores" doesn't really suck; it just kinda sucks.

Stream:> Jemina Pearl: "Nashville Shores"

— David Raposa

"Josephine"

Magnolia Electric Co.
"Josephine"

[Secretly Canadian]

6

Much ado has been made about Magnolia Electric Co.'s forthcoming Josephine-- it's Jason Molina's first album in three years and a renewal of his recording partnership with Steve Albini. Tragically, it has also become a kind of memorial for recently departed Magnolia Electric Co. bassist Evan Farrell. Although Molina described Josephine as a record about dislocation, the title track is a remarkably grounded song-- austere without turning dull, moving without becoming maudlin.

Although Molina has openly expressed a desire to get away from comparisons to Crazy Horse, "Josephine" still sounds a bit like the musings of a less-cranky Neil Young, with a little Willie Nelson thrown in for good measure. After snapping to attention with a few measures of missed beat-syncopation, the song mellows considerably but evades folksy blandness thanks to its quiet maturity. Due to its minimal instrumentation and easygoing tone, it's not as immediately arresting as many of Molina's other songs ("Farewell Transmission" being a personal favorite), but the rhythmic heft of those pianos against Molina's reedy, plaintive voice lend "Josephine" understated gravity.

MP3:> Magnolia Electric Co.: "Josephine"

— Susannah Young

"Overjoyed"

Circulatory System
"Overjoyed"

[Cloud]

7

There are two schools of thought in psychedelic music: one that values trance-inducing repetition and another that favors jump-cuts and confusion. William Cullen Hart is basically the dean of that latter group. His songwriting contributions to both the pioneering psych-pop outfit Olivia Tremor Control and his later band Circulatory System tend to swing wildly from eerily orchestrated pop to dense, John Cage-style tape collage every 30-or-so seconds. "Overjoyed", from Signal Morning, Circulatory System's first proper album since 2001, follows that same methodology. Over the course of two and a half minutes, the song pivots from a swarm of overdubbed cellos, to pulsing percussion, to lo-fi recorder grit with all the logic of a rich but incomprehensible dream. Which is to say, "Overjoyed" is a pretty strong comeback. Hart artfully cakes on the embellishments-- gurgling tape noise, guitar fuzz, layered childlike vocals--packing every available nook and cranny with sound until the whole thing pops like a balloon full of confetti. No wonder it took eight years to get it finished.

MP3:> Circulatory System: "Overjoyed"

— Aaron Leitko

Thursday, June 4, 2009

"The Countess"

Jacuzzi Boys
"The Countess"

[Needless]

6

Just for giggles, Google "greatest Florida bands -wedding -marching" and a couple of variations thereof. Aside from AOR-radio staples Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Allman Brothers Band, results are skimpy. Live music doesn't seem to fare much better in the Sunshine State: Weak ticket sales KO'ed this year's Langerado Music Festival and most indie bands on a budget tour no farther south than Atlanta. So what's a young Florida band to do? Miami's Jacuzzi Boys revive the sounds of the state's fertile 1960s garage-rock scene-- or scenes. While the Nightcrawlers' "Little Black Egg" may be that era's most famous export, towns from Jacksonville to Orlando to Sarasota boasted a band a block back in the day and recorded hundreds of local-hit singles that never got anywhere near a Nuggets comp.

Jacuzzi Boys list lost natives like the Everglades as influences, but their live sets probably segue pretty smoothly into those of garage-eclectics and sometime-tourmates King Khan and the Shrines. Still, there's something warm and swampy and, at the same time, slick and air-conditioned, about the Boys-- something distinctly Florida. On single "The Countess" (a split 7" with Woven Bones), singer Gabriel employs both hot n' bothered Mick Jaggerisms and Lou Reed's cooler-than-thou tics to bemoan an imperious, noblesse-obliging girlfriend. A bass drum drives the song straight and steady, but heavy reverb makes the beats sound like they're volleying off damp dungeon walls at unpredictable angles, a sultry and sinister atmosphere enhanced by ghostly surf guitar lines. Jacuzzi Boys do the grimy, gutter-sniping psychedelic-garage thing really well. I just wish they'd rethink a name that (Floridian as it might be) sounds like some kind of electro-clash parody.

— Amy Granzin

"Sideways"

Playboy Tre
"Sideways"

[Georgia Dirt]

7

"Sometimes I wake up and be like, 'Man, fuck you even wake up for?'" Playboy Tre grumbles at the beginning of "Sideways". To call this sentiment "vintage Playboy Tre" would be disorienting to the 90% of the world that has never heard of him, so introductions are in order: Tre is a 30-something Atlanta vet with a history of almost-made-its in his past (ran with Bohagon when he was a Lil Jon signee; writes occasional hooks for T.I. and others) and a penchant for the kind of grown-ass-man introspection that almost nobody outside of Scarface bothers with anymore. (For the record, whiny navel-gazing doesn't count as introspection.) "Sideways", a deep cut off of his new mixtape Liquor Store Mascot, deals with pretty conventional stuff on the surface: it's the "struggles of an underground artist," list-of-grievances type record that is obligatory on every rapper's debut album. The difference is that most rappers keep these songs safely in the past tense, whereas Playboy's is happening right now, and he takes us right to his sofa. It's 4 a.m.: cable and internet's cut; an instrumental is flowing through the speakers, and Tre's drinking and writing, with "bills on my mind and bills on the table." (In case the mixtape title didn't make it clear, Playboy does a lot of drinking and rhyming about drinking.) "If something don't change and change quick/ Man, I hate when I'm feelin like this," he sighs on the hook-- no bluster, no bullshit, just a beautifully rendered, honest, and human-sized moment of doubt.



— Jayson Greene

"Love the Nite Away (Tiedye Mix)"

DJ Kaos
"Love the Nite Away (Tiedye Mix)"

[Rong/DFA]

9
 

Is there a greater joy in life than total immersion of feeling, losing yourself completely and pushing aside all cynicism and self-consciousness? It's why you drink, dance, and throw yourself into a vast, unknowable nightlife despite the uncertainty, the possibility of failure and of heartbreak; it's why we love the night away. Tiedye, a duo known for a nearly flawless string of gorgeous tropical-inflected tracks on the Italians Do It Better label, have taken on the task of remixing DJ Kaos' already-excellent "Love the Nite Away," and effortlessly re-framed the striking vocals into a shimmering pop masterpiece. The bongos are pure Balearic disco, and the gruff, assertive, and sincere vocals firmly in the tradition of Italo classics. But the end result is a passionate dancefloor slow burn of intense beauty, an incomparable summer soundtrack.

"Love the Nite Away (Tiedye Remix)" represents a timeless, universally recognized, frequently-chased, and seldom-realized intangible feeling. Uninterested in merely being the sum of its influences, it aims for transcendence with such confidence, and for the pop jugular so unabashedly, that you start drawing up dream collaborations for comparison-- perhaps the Avalanches remixing the New Radicals. Tiedye's keys and marimbas, guitars, and beach-party FX are a slow-motion head rush, all tonal colors, swirling musical flower petals dancing behind your eyelids, each chord teasing resolution as if to imitate the uncertainty and instability of that weightless moment of love at first sight. The lyrics invoke the optimism and confusion of possibility ("Will it last? Or is it gonna be a one-time love affair?"), and the song is about these questions, not the answers. The vocals reject the reflective in favor of the immediate, tactile sensations ("I'm touching you, you're touching me!") and anticipation. After the torrential guitar solo showers down upon the dancefloor, and when all the harmonic elements swirl in concert, and the driving one-note "Your Love"-style bassline hits for the final chorus, the song entirely overwhelms. "Love the Nite Away (Tiedye Remix)" is a perfect embodiment of that instant blend of lust and hope and potential, the timeless, youthful search for sensation, visceral feeling and social unity and love, even if it's only real for that one night, or even that one moment; it's about losing yourself to another person, when joyful emotion overpowers everything else, neuroses ignored in the wake of unconcerned bliss. How pure and simple life can be.

MP3:> DJ Kaos: "Love the Nite Away (Tiedye Mix)"

— David Drake

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

"Asleep at a Party"

Memory Cassette
"Asleep at a Party"

[Acéphale/Sincerely Yours]

7

As evocative band names go, Memory Cassette is up there. You get an image of the sound just from seeing those two words next to each other. And what do you know: the music delivers it precisely. As you might suspect, details on the project are hard to come by. We know that it includes at least one contributor to the modest homebrew recording outfit Weird Tapes and there might be a connection to Hail Social. The Nexus is somewhere in the greater Philadelphia area, maybe including parts of New Jersey. A blog, We're Tapes, features a steady stream of new music and ephemera, including lots of bent remixes, a fair percentage of which are interesting.

This track was posted there a number of months ago, and has made its way around; later this month, it'll come out on a 7" EP co-released by simpatico imprints Acéphale (who put out SALEM) and Sincerely Yours (you know them for the Tough Alliance and Air France). Which is good: it belongs on a turntable. During the early days of computing, back when tape players engaged in recording a new kind of memory, digital data, this is what music sounded like when it leaked out of cheap radios. "Asleep at a Party" is lush but flecked with static, heavily orchestrated but with an off-hand charm, kinda celebratory but still consumed with longing. "Sleep with one eye open," a voice sings on the chorus, but there's certainly nothing to be afraid of; I think it's more about not wanting to miss whatever happens next.

— Mark Richardson

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