tUnE-yArDs - w h o k i l l [4AD]

8.4

There is no greater joy then finally "getting" music or a certain angle an artist is trying to get across. Another fantastic joy is hearing different angles from someone else that heard the same album or song you heard and they feel a completely different vibe but you still see where their coming from. Merrill Garbus is one of those artists. Her experimental solo project tUnE-yArDs' sophomore LP w h o k i l l stretches vast ranges of experimentation while staying a consistently nice, comfortable motion of sound for easy listeners.

Garbus almost has a "Captain Beefheart effect" on me. Maybe not as experimental, but she has the qualities of being a modern day, more polished Beefheart. "Riotriot" is the best example of this experimental delve then catchy finish; a tense and dissonant intro with staccato guitar flicks with very eerie drum machine underneath Garbus's unique vocals which all builds into the fuzzy bridge which saxaphone squaks, random piano notes and then silence where Garbus sings out, "There is a freedom in violence that I don't understand!/And like I've never felt before!" After that bold statement, a bombastic jam breakout with jazzy saxophones floating around with a heavy guitar strumming along in perfect pace, but just as quick as it came, it floats away back to the tense, dissonant sound from before.

Garbus really is onto something when making the sounds for w h o k i l l. Another album highlight "Es-So" has a constant beat that may be offsetting on the first few listens, but it really makes the song come together as a unique input to w h o k i l l. Other offsetting and random things Garbus does is her weird vocal manipulations and loops on "My Country" and "Bizness". I hated them at first, but they truly added to the sound of those two tracks. Speaking of vocals, Garbus's voice is very unique. It has the same quality that Beach House singer Victoria Legrand, very warm and distinctive and honestly it can sometimes sound like a male voice. Her high point in vocals is the steady and catchy "Powa" with her very lengthy vocal range.

One of the only down points to w h o k i l l is the slowed down, lo-fi "Wolly Wolly Gong" which sounds out of place and drags on too long. I much prefer Garbus's fast paced jams like "Bizness" or "My Country". Not that "Wolly Wolly Gong" is a god-awful track, it just sticks out as an anti-climatic point to w h o k i l l. Garbus sticks herself out as an extraordinary musician through her high energy jams with experimental conks and clinks here and there. The moment that her very fun, high energy songwriting gets to you, you find yourself easily jamming to her tunes.

Merrill Garbus is one of the music community’s most fun experimental artists out there. Taking the elements that make other, less experimental artists have and transforming it into her own crazy, wacky image is fun to listen to. Only a couple of low points like the slowed down "Wolly Wolly Gong" and other minor flaws, tUnE-yArDs are a very enjoyable listen for any music fan with a taste for something very fresh and inventive.

Sample:

The Pains of Being Pure At Heart - Belong [Slumberland]

4.9

The Pains of Being Pure At Heart introduced themselves in 2009 with a fairly solid self-titled debut that was a addition to the ever growing indie pop genre of music that is rapidly filling up the indie community. On The Pain's sophomore effort, Belong, a much more bland and trite sound ruins the entire LP with layers upon layers of synths, occasional heavy guitars, and simple drum beats.

The only thing I can think of when listening to The Pains is unoriginality and blandness that their music truly is. Take some very soft, innocent vocals against heavily layered sound walls with heavy twee and noise pop influences and you have The Pains' sound. Occasionally there are some good melodies out there like on "Heavens Gonna Happen Now" or "Strange". But, I can't hate everything about Belong; it's pretty catchy at points. The beginning of the album is its strongest point starting off strong with "Belong" a heavy guitar rocker followed by the highlight of Belong "Heavens Gonna Happen Now" with Kip Berman's moans of "So don't sit there and look scared."

All of the songs have cliched themes of love and forgiveness backed by Berman's almost unlistenable vocals. They aren't bad at first, but with more delve into Belong, they are bland and almost emotionless and they have an almost irritable quality to the sounds he make that seem to stick out in the layering of instruments. The instrumentation is weak and has overly simple indie pop hooks that have been used for years by previous indie pop groups.

The ideas of Belong are exactly getting across to me as well. One minute their breaking out into a guitar frenzy of noise and then they are going into this synth odyssey. I understand it's variation on the album, but it doesn't work for a twee pop band like The Pains. In the end, blandness is the ultimate downfall of Belong and lack of originality; an obvious step down from their debut and ultimately their sound.

Sample:

Panda Bear - Tomboy [Paw Tracks]

7.4

The psych/avant-folk genre is a bizarre one. It's by no means boring, but I always find other critics and music enthusiasts hype it up far to much. Animal Collective has this tendency to be quite enjoyable one track but then fall short on the next track. This "roller coaster" aspect is present in the highly loved Panda Bear or Noah Lennox of Animal Collective on his fourth studio album Tomboy.

I still can't understand the universal acclaim Lennox's previous LP Person Pitch received. I found the LP to be all over the place and didn't have a consistent, coherent theme that is really reached through most quality LPs with me, not saying that every albums has to have a definite theme as in a Pink Floyd-like album theme, but just so that the songs mesh together well in a whole. Tomboy does a better job than Person Pitch did at creating a centralized theme of emotions that Lennox is trying to convey through his often chaotic and muddy sound of intense use of reverb in his vocals and keyboards.

"You Can Count On Me", Tomboy's opener is structure a lot like Person Pitch's intro "Comfy In Nautica" as a "chant" song with heavy dramatic drums. The chanting "no you can't count on me!" leads us into the leading single, "Tomboy", that was actually released a year ahead of time. "Tomboy" is an easy highlight for the whole LP, it has bouncy rhythm that is different from the single which was more guitar oriented, now it is more murky and the beat is a backdrop to Lennox's gorgeous vocals.

Lennox is at his best when he simply jams, like on the ending to "Alsatian Darn" with the steady clapping with a melodic back drops of a watery guitar and other miscellaneous electronic noises. Lennox can also be quite good when he slows things down with a mysterious, eerie feel like on "Scheherazade" which sounds like it could be the theme to some black and white neo-noir film. The second half of Tomboy is far more strong than the beginning with purely creative tracks. The seven minute jam "Afterburner" is along with lines of the twelve minute "Bros" on Person Pitch.

The weaker tracks in the first half of the album like "Surfer's Hymn" and "Drone" have that "Animal Collective curse" on them where they are simply just annoying. They have growth value to them and are hard to be liked, the chaotic "Surfer's Hymn" has so much going on like the sound of waves, random flickers of electronic noises, and other random background noises, it's all not appealing compared to the rest of the LP. "Drone" is like an attempt for Lennox to create a really appealing "out-there" track to balance out the pop values of the album, but it fails with overly done unattractive long drones of keyboard.

Tomboy can be taken in both direction, I guess I took it in between. I saw the beauty in some of the jams Lennox created, but was annoyed by some of the unimpressive tracks that dragged the whole entire Tomboy experience down. Highlight like "Tomboy" and "Alsatian Darn" will keep you entertained for a fairly solid album with qualities of fun tracks that are easily darkly dancey. Headphones/quality stereo system required.

Sample:

Gang Gang Dance - Eye Contact [4AD]

7.0

Gang Gang Dance are based out of the big apple yet make music that sounds straight out of a psychedelic Indian night club. Starting their careers off as noise-makers and experimental clunkers; describing themselves as "insane, rule-breaking almost-noise." Now they have centralized around a more cohesive sound that is, despite not being noise rock, is all over the place in context of a foreign listener. The most broad genre placement of Gang Gang Dance is simply electropop with experimental twangs. Their latest LP, Eye Contact, is incredibly dancey and way out there.

Starting an album off with a phrase such as "it's everything time," but one of the band mates, could shoot this album straight off into the wrong direction, but luckily "Glass Jar" is a momentous intro that conceives itself into an epic climax of worldly club beats. Lead singer Lizzi Bougatsos manipulates her voice into an image of Eastern origins, when really she isn't. Her vocals are off-setting at any listen, her voice doesn't exactly grow into its own, but rather stays shrill and over-the-top for such brash music. Her best moments are on the mellow bridge in "Chinese High" with her soft vocals gently grazing over beautiful instrumentation.

"Mindkilla", Eye Contact's midpoint, points itself into the ultimate decision maker towards enjoying this album, or despising it. The ending of a siren echoing throughout solidifies my thoughts toward "Mindkilla"; annoyingly over-the-top close to electronic doodling with a steady beat that never catches my attention to centralizing an overlying emotional appeal to Eye Contact. The breaks in between sounds that are infinity signs are a hit and miss, the one between "Mindkilla" and "Romance Layers" sets the latter up perfectly with a nice, romantic electropop tune. The other "infinity" signs in other parts of the album are the misses, creating dissonant randomness that doesn't diverge with the rest of the album.

The overall appearance to Eye Contact is a huge hit and miss scenario. "Glass Jar" is an epic electronica fiesta (probably wrong word choice there) and weaker tracks have their eye-opening moments that really fit well within yourself like mellowed out bridge in "Chinese High" and the overall beat to "Sacer". Though Eye Contact is largely considered average, there are some amazing moments that are worth a couple of listens just to hear these transcending moments within the album. I guess the band really did mean it when they say it is "everything time..."

Sample:

Tyler, the Creator - Goblin [XL]

8.5

What more can I say that I'm sure all of you music fanatics out there haven't heard about this crazy, rambunctious LA hip-hop collective weirdly named Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All (or OFWGKTA for short)? They are made up of some of hip-hop's future (Tyler, the Creator, Hodgy Beats, and Earl Sweatshirt (currently M.I.A.)) and some not so prestigious (Mike G, Domo Gensis, and others). A lot call them the "modern day Wu-Tang Clan". The familiarities are there, but they are reported to hate that comparison. I would too.

So there you have it, a very brief introduction to such a un-introductory group of hooligans. Their infamous leader Tyler, the Creator has been rolling on a very fast and pounding hype train that is called Goblin. I'd admit that this album has had me going for a couple of months now. Now that it's here, my disappointment wasn't high, but it's still present. Beginning with a very simliar intro as Tyler's debut Bastard, "Goblin" immediately got my hopes up for a great contender for album of the year. Goblin is a hip-hop emotional rollercoaster with some of the most off-the-wall beats around.

The theme of Bastard returns where Tyler is in a therapist's office "telling all of his problems". If you listened closely to Bastard you will see tons of good old previous album references in Goblin. First complaint -- Goblin probably should be the last album he uses this therapist office theme with him mentioning the same stuff with a couple of different thoughts he strings together with some pretty good intentions. Immediately after the very interesting intro, Goblin hits off with the leading single "Yonkers" which might be one of the best hip-hop songs I've ever heard. It's introduced with an abrasive that is immediately off setting on the first listen, but immediately grows on you with multiple listens. The more and more you listen to "Yonkers", the more you bring in Tyler's hilarious twisting rapping, "Oh, not again, another critic report/I'm stabbing any faggot hipster with a Pitchfork".

Probably the most obvious reason why I was so turned on to OFWGKTA's music is through their experimental hip-hop production that compares with the best of the abstract hip-hop of MF Doom and Cannibal Ox. My favorite OFWGKTA release by the elusive Earl Sweatshirt, Earl, has haunting, near minimalistic beats and production that keeps me hooked onto its slick sound. Goblin has some of the same qualities, but it lacks in staying consistent throughout. Standouts like "Fish", "Radicals", and "AU79" create this perfect balance of abstract beats mixed with modern beats. But one atrocity that infest maybe the whole image of Goblin is the obvious Waka Flocka Flame spoof "B***h Suck D**k". The hip-hop genre of "crunk" is plain terrible. It's all shock value with annoying fast electronic beats. In an attempt to be funny and jab at Waka Flocka, Tyler creates his single worst tracks with the inclusions of the most irrelevant OFWGKTA members Taco and Jasper.

The inclusions of Hodgy Beats and the smooth Frank Ocean is gladly taken in though on tracks like "Sandwitches" and "She". They are the more talented members of OFWGKTA that actually deserve to be on the work that Tyler has put together. Goblin is very similar to Bastard, it has awesome, killer tracks like "Yonkers", "Sandwitches", and "Goblin", but has atrocious tracks already mentioned, a lot like Bastard. Can Tyler continue to put out good albums that have amazing songs and bad ones? Hopefully not, hopefully Tyler can up his game even more on his next album Wolf. Yeah that's right, another one coming at you in 2012 (most likely).

Sample:

To explicit. So here's an instrumental of "Yonkers".

Explosions In the Sky - Take Care, Take Care, Take Care [Temporary Residence]

7.5

Typically, to get the best effect of a post-rock album, you must be relaxed with no distractions to take you away from the noise and beautiful landscapes post-rock takes you to. Explosions In the Sky are no exception for this delicate ritual my friends and I have towards the enjoyment of the genre of post-rock. Take Care, Take Care, Take Care, Explosions' latest effort, succeeds and fails in varying categories.

When I first delve into an Explosions in the Sky album, I always take a look at the track listings to see what epic titles they come up with this time. "Last Known Surroundings" and "Be Comfortable, Creature" are my personal favorites in the aspect of song titles. As well as making epic song titles, Explosions have a knack for choosing the appropriate song title for a track; for example, "Be Comfortable Creature" has that instruments that are like trying to comfort a unstable, miserable creature with the wailing, ambient guitar tones being the creature's wails with the very "Explosions in the Sky-esque" guitar plucks being the "tamer". Explosions In the Sky do have a knack for creating fun, insightful imagery in your head while you listen to them equaling making their music very emotionally draining.

The downfall of Take Care is the lack of any guitar diversity. Explosions have been doing the same epic long toned clashes against the subtle guitar picks for ages now. Though it is enjoyable to an extent, the guitar moments go down as unmemorable. The one member that really stands out on Take Care is the versatile drummer Chris Hrasky. His use of build up and intuition with the rest of the band member’s sound is absolutely spot on. Hrasky’s entrance in “Postcards From 1952” simply puts a smile on your face with a simple guitar beat that works to magically with the attitude of the rest of the album.

Any Explosions In the Sky fan will find something pleasing in Take Care. It is simple Explosions In the Sky, nothing more, nothing less; which is good and bad, but mostly good. No expansion in ambition holds back Take Care from really “exploding” to an instant classic. With the spot on drumming to the imaginative imagery the sounds create.

Sample: