I Love You But Ive Chosen Facebook

Regular readers of Palebear (all 3-4 of you) will note that I love to complain. I love to hijack other people’s reviews to spout forth my own nefarious propaganda from upon the blog soapbox. I love to put a damper on the party with doom and gloom about the current direction of the music biz. I love to self-aggrandize with exaggerated and mixed metaphors.

Well, this review is going to be another of those. So I apologize in advance to anyone who’s here looking for a real Bitchforkian or Rolling Boneian review of Iron and Wine’s new album The Shepherd’s Dog. Go view those publications to get the real, actual scoop by writers that are paid millions of bucks.

But really, Mr. Sam Beam doesn’t need any of my help. The album is quite different from his earlier ones and if you’ve gone straight through from those skipping the Woman King EP or the Boy with a Coin single, you might be a bit shocked. But add those little releases in (and note the ubiquitous Postal Service cover) and you’ll see that there’s continuity; the direction he was going in was easily foreshadowed by those EPs and he continues to hold the torch of one of the best bands currently on Sub Pop.

I really like the album, although he’s muted the lo-fi Appalachian folk presentation in favor of fuller instrumentation. Beam’s voice still, well, BEAMS - a bright beacon on songs that in others hands might be bloated currency filled with unnecessary meandering. I suspect that far from alienating his current fans, he’s bound to pick up a few new ones, maybe some avant-garde musicologists and those who thought that his earlier work was too hushed or slow. A few songs are sorta wacky - in particular I thought the end of “Wolves (The Song of the Shepherd’s Dog)” was positively funky street. But there’s enough of the old folky Beam in the other songs to tide me over until he the day where he goes completely back to his old stuff. I dunno if he will do that, though - I think he’s too restless musically to go for a reprise of “Creek”.

Ok, so I promised some complaining. You can just skip down to the links below if you’d rather not hear it. Here is my unstructured grousing: I’m a part-time music reviewer who’s supposed to reviewing for “fun”. Long ago, I gave up any illusions of making a career out of this. I’m just not a good enough wordsmith to command music-moola from Spin and too old to be a collegiately wide-eyed music reviewer who writes reams of reviews for free just because “it’s the music, man.”

No, it’s gotta be that I write for 1. “Fun” in my spare time 2. The dubious pleasure of receiving promos in advance of the music buying public.

Let’s talk about “Fun”. Sure, it’s fun to write about an album once in awhile. However, the catch is that if you can write a halfway decent review (or, as it’s come down to, even a decent 100 word blurb), then bands, songwriters, record labels and publicity houses by the thousands will beat a path to your door. There are just so many emails and packages that I get from these people, who I actually sympathize with. We used to run a record label and it was so difficult trying to figure out who to send stuff to. So when you did find a music reviewer that you thought was good and whose taste fit the style of what you were releasing, you’d be sure to send them a CD.

But it’s a Catch-22 for a one-man reviewing operation: the better and more open you are, the more stuff that you receive and the more your workload increases, and consequently the greater the chance of the quality of your writing suffering. And at some point, it stops being “fun” and more like a job. But, as I’ve said I’m just not into working myself to the bone for free. I don’t have a crapload of time or patience on hand. You just get Burnt Out On Blogs™.

So, it comes down to this. Other than to unburden myself in diatribes like this or to promote the occasional release that I absolutely feel needs to be supported because it’s such a great album and no one knows about it, I’m writing for the occasional feeling of Specialness. The great feeling that, hey, look I got an album from one of my favorite songwriters - and I got it before anyone else did, and for free, and it’s such an awesome album. And I get to talk about it so my 3 readers will know what its like before it comes out Whoo-hoo! I rock!

And then I go on the internet and it turns out that the album has already been in the filesharers hands for months.

I hate to dredge up cliches, but digital music is such a blessing and a curse for people involved in music. On the one hand you’ve got super-wide distribution and a larger audience, and on the other hand, that same ease of accesibility makes it so easy for people to get music without paying for it. I’m not going to get all high and mighty - I don’t use the filesharing systems, but I’ve gotten music illegally for free online before. Guilty.

So maybe it’ll seem I’m somewhat of a petulant hypocrite to say this - but man, you gotta give me SOMETHING to keep me writing reviews day in and day out for free. My love of music is large, but reviewing just cannot exist in a vacuum for long unless you’re in college or being paid by the word. I need to be able to feel that I got something out of it, and I get sort of depressed by all the MP3s being slung like jai-alai balls between people who have no idea that they are slowly but surely KILLING the one thing that sometimes keeps me writing.

CDs aren’t worth anything nowadys. Trust me, I’ve gone to Amoeba and tried to sell back copies of CDs. I think I tried to sell back 100 CDs and they took maybe 3. So if CDs aren’t worth the paper and plastic they’re made out of, and the songs are already online for free, what’s so special about receiving a promo?

A side note: this is recently why I’m interested in vinyl LPs. At least there’s something physical there to collect. Please do send me all the promo LPs you have!

If I was a much more sane music reviewer, I’d just ignore all that shit and just count myself lucky that I’m in the game. I do get promos, sometimes even fairly far in advance. I get to compete with 500,000,000 or so other indie music review bloggers for the attention of the music-buying public. I get to occasionally receive snide comments on posts (thank you, to the few who do actually write nice comments). I get to wade, nay swim through manilla envelopes and online press releases for fun. I get to be ignored by a lot of big major music blogs that I try to make friends with, but when I do happen to make a small complaint about them in a post, I get a one word comment or sad face from them in return and then they go back to ignoring me. I get to feel guilty about not reviewing really great indie bands even though they really deserve a well-written review.

Oh, it’s a wonderful life. But for some reason I just refuse to play along. </endrant>

p.s. Subpop reps, please ignore this post. =)

On Itunes:
Woman King EP
In the Reins (w/ Calexico)
Our Endless Numbered Days
The Creek Drank The Cradle

Visit:
Iron and Wine website
Subpop website

by Palebear | No Comments

I’ll be the first to admit I’m woefully behind on the whole Broken Social Scene scene. So while we’re admitting inadequacies, why not go whole hog and give a link to a video of them covering another artist I know absolutely nothing about - Kevin Drew. Two unknowns make a known - that sort of thing.

I did like the song, and the video, which also features members of Dino Jr. I think that is J in the foreground with the long hair in the photo. The song is actually from a whole album of BSS playing Kevin Drew’s Spirit If…

Watch:
Backed Out On The…
Broken Social Scene Presents: Kevin Drew Spirit If…
on Arts & Crafts

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I’m actually not quite sure why I’m making this post. Smith is certainly not indie music headline news (anymore), and New Moon has come and gone without me making even an attempt at a review. I guess I just felt like writing about him today (at 7 in the morning), and I wanted to talk about a very peculiar phenomenon regarding him.

Nearly 4 years after he passed, Elliott still finds one way or another to remind me of him. One interesting way is that he appears in my dreams at night. I’m sure there’s a psychoFreudian dude out there who will be able to neatly dissect these cameos - so I won’t. But what strikes me about these dreams is how completely, utterly ordinary they are. I was, like many, a huge fan. So I might have expected him to be some sort of super-human guitar hero in my sleep. You’d also think that the dreams would take place at a club or some other music-related venue.

Nope, usually he just appears as just another character in my dreams. Like last night, when he was a buddy at a family camping trip. Or a few months ago when he was at college with me taking an English midterm. He wasn’t giving me help or anything - he was just a friend taking the test with me. He’s always doing completely ordinary things.

To be sure, he does play the guitar and other musical instruments occasionally in the dreams. One time, he sat down at an upright piano and played an entire song that I’d never heard before. It sounded more like classical music than anything else. After I woke up, I wrote down the chords I could remember, and that became the last song on Shape of Trees. Strangeness.

Smith appears in my dreams infrequently, though he’s always just a regular character. I’m told that it’s extremely common to have people who have passed on appear in dreams. It’s just interesting because I think he is the only non-family or friend who regularly comes to visit.

There’s really no point to this post. In 2003, when I found out about his passing I was planning on writing a memorial post about the ways that his music and life affected me. I never got around to it - or perhaps more honestly, I wasn’t able to do it.

So this small blurb years after the fact will have to do for now. Elliott Smith passed on, but he became a part of my subconsciousness in more ways than one. I never met him in person, but I’ve gotten to know him through the endless possibilities of sleep.

Me doing a bad cover of Roman Candle in 2000
for the Head Full of Stars tribute

by Palebear | 1 Comment

The Val Papadins
No One Wants To Move The Piano

I’m trying to decide if the Val Papadins put me in more of a “smoky jazz nightclub lounge” type of mood or a “backwater deserted Mojave Desert road” type of mood. I’m sorta leaning toward the latter feeling, even though the vocals on the CD are definitely going for that Walkman / Waits battered and bruised vibe. I don’t know too much about the band except that they are from Northern Cal, I believe the Sonoma area? If that’s indeed their origins, it would make sense that their music sounds the way it does. I drove through that area twice and except for the wine-seeking tourists, it’s a sleepy, slightly lonesome town - just perfect to make music like this.

As far as band comparisons go, it’s a bit difficult to put a finger on it - but the Walkmen comparison is fair. For me, I actually like the music which is ominous and uneasy, but not so much that it makes you feel like heading for the hills. There is something very unsettling about this band that made me leave the CD in the player - kind of like how you end up picking up a sketchy hitchhiker that you probably shouldn’t have.

On certain songs the singing sounds almost like Frank Black, but not as screechy. The additional instrumentation includes piano, mandolin, ebow, accordian (or melodica?) and definitely contributes to the slightly creepy atmosphere. Many songs have a sort of faster folk, south-western or alt-country feel to them.

Listen:
The Val Papadins on Myspace

On Itunes:
No One Wants To Move The Piano

Visit:
Val Papadins website

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The High Water Marks
Polar

Hi there. I just spent about 40 minutes looking for a photo of the cover of the new High Water Marks CD “Polar” for this review. Hint to bands: please put up a high res image of your front cover BEFORE you send out yer stuff. The reason is I am so darn lazy to connect my scanner up and import the image. Thanks muchly (and yes, they had a smaller image on HHBTM but I need a 130×130 image for all the reviews, and yes I’m obsessive compulsive like that in that I absolutely have to have a perfect sized image and hate upsampling).

But anyhow, whew, now I’m glad I actually wrote about that because I swore to myself that I wouldn’t start off this post with the phrase “The High Water Marks earn high marks…” because I was sure that someone else had used it (or would think to use it). But yeah, they do earn high marks for all the songs on their latest poppy and tuneful release. There are really excellent songs here - definite sounds like E6, maybe Beulah or Apples. I feel they’re a little more straightforward forward and less twee-ish, though.

According to their bio, I’m not supposed to call them an indie “supergroup” of any sorts. But darn, when you know that members hail from Apples In Stereo, Palermo and Oranger it all starts to make sense. And this definitely dovetails nicely with the used copy of Oranger’s “New Comes and Goes” release I picked up the other day. Energetic, head-bopping stuff out on HHBTM that is getting its own temporary playlist slot on my Ipod for now.

Listen:
on Myspace

On Itunes:
Songs About The Ocean

Visit:
The High Water Marks website
HHBTM website

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Various bands whose CDs I haven’t been able to write up in full:

1. Strings Break - The Union Trade (Shoegazey and Hazy)

2. The Boy Who Loved Birds - Heroes and Heroines (Good Morning Butterglory)

3. I Always See The Sun Rise - Little Name (OMG Belle and Sebastian OMG)

4. Eohippus - Justin Potts (Elliott The Letter Ostrich whistling Beck)

5. What We Had - Handsome Furs (Chad Van Gaalen meets Modest Mouse)

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I have to admit I’m kinda surprised that Imperial Teen is still alive and kickin’. I got into them pretty early on, right when they released Seasick and they’ve remained a staple in my Ipod “Walking Music” playlist because of their bouncy pop masterpieces. Turns out that they’re back with a new album on Merge after 5 years or so.

They’re sorta getting on their in years - I mean Roddy and company weren’t exactly young to start with when they started playing as Imperial Teen. Dude, Will used to look (and slightly sound like) this wiry young punk - now he’s aged Lee Ranaldo-like complete with a little wisp of gray hair in the front.

But, then who cares what they look like, right? In their press photos it’s like they’re almost embracing their middle-agedness gleefully. “So pretty” indeedy. And their album, “The Hair the TV the Baby & the Band” has some of the same simple yet strong tunes that made me like them in the first place. “Shim Sham” stands out as one of the hits, and while they’ve definitely found a successful formula to milk again, it ain’t no lazy cow. By the way, the album is available to be streamed at Merge…

Listen:
The Hair the TV the Baby & the Band

Visit:
Imperial Teen website

by Palebear | 1 Comment

Tramplini
Hallo, Mazie!

I don’t normally get to many CDs sent from Latvia. Oh, heck with it - I haven’t EVER gotten a CD from Latvia. The lady at the post office was like, you have friends there? I’ve given up trying to explain to them that everyone and their mom will send CDs from any number of countries - they just don’t get why people send me stuff.

Since I haven’t gotten any other music from Latvia, I don’t have anything to compare Tramplini to. (And by the way, you are going to forgive me in advance if I omit some of the punctuation on any of the titles and stuff, because everything’s in Latvian?) But it doesn’t matter what country this CD/EP is from. “Hallo, Mazie” is, how do you say, Amazieng. Haha.. ahaha.

Really, it is. In fact, it’s one of the best releases I’ve gotten from bands so far this summer, not counting the obvious bigger indie ones. The sound would fit right in with some of the best smaller indie pop bands in the States. According to their Myspace, they formed in 1997 and this their second EP. Some of the comparisons might be to Luna, Viva Voce, Yum-Yum, Yo La Tengo, Amanset, Imperial Teen, and Joy Zipper. The list could go on too… I just hear so many different bands that I like in their style, which is a delicious sort of slo-core meets indie pop.

The EP starts off with the laid back and lazy pop gem “Pargajiens”. I love the use of keyboards and the tiny bells in the background. I don’t understand a word of what they’re saying, and it simply doesn’t matter at all. That might be a good indicator of how good the band is. I’m sure it would add to the songs to know the words they’re singing, but unlike many bands who sing in languages I don’t understand, I’m able to enjoy it for the music.

One of my favorite tracks is “Tas Pats” which completely switches gears by adding distortion and drone. It sounds a bit like Yo La Tengo’s cover of Little Honda plus a Viva Voce song plus a bit of My Bloody Valentine. I like the understated vocals on this one, as well as the trumpet squeals and keyboard in the middle section. That one middle part is pretty much as experimental as they get, however.

A lot of times they do remind me of Luna, and the song “Sobizness” is a perfect example. This could be taken right out of Luna’s “Penthouse” album. Great vibrato on the electric guitar, a mellow beat, simple chords and understated vocals. So nice. “Rudeni” has a beautifully chiming drone going on with vocals that really remind me of Yum-Yum while the music might be a Masters of the Hemisphere song.

“Millenia” is an instrumental piece with a loping sort of groove that might be part of a Tristeza album. As a bonus, there’s a video for “Tas Pats” on the EP, though you can also find that on Gootube. I dunno if I’ve done described in justice how good the songs are, you’ll have to listen to them yourself. But for me, I have not been able to stop listening to their songs for a few weeks now.

Listen:
MP3 snippets
Tramplini Myspace

Watch:
Tas Pats on Gootube

Visit:
Tramplini website

Buy it at:
Tonevendor

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Between The Pines
S/T EP

I’ve run across the music from this band quite a few times already over the past couple months, so I finally decided to make a proper post about them. Between the Pine actually has a free EP available at the 80H Records site, so there’s no excuse to give them a listen. If you like mopy lo-fi acoustic songs, you’ll be glad you downloaded the 3 songs. They also have a full length available on Itunes and CDBaby and I believe they’re currently working on a new album.

The three songs are beautiful, sparsely populated, somewhat folksy tunes that seem informed from such diverse musical sources as Sea and Cake, Tarnation, Norfolk and Western, Birddog and Ponies In The Surf (and other Asaurus bands).

I’m making all this stuff up out of my ass again - rather than reading my lame attempts to compare them to various bands, why not just go and download these amazing songs yourself and see?

Listen:
Please Sit Down
I’ll Carry On My Father’s Joke
We Awoke

On Itunes:
S/T

Watch:
CocaCola
weird song, sequenced to an old Casper the Friendly Ghost film

Visit:
Between The Pine website

by Palebear | 1 Comment

The Cape May
Glass Mountain Roads

Here’s another great album that got lost in the shuffle. The Cape May gives you a moody soundtrack of not-quite-post rock that calls to mind the subdued angst in Pedro the Lion and Bedhead matched with some of the complexity of the artsy Chicago rock scene and the more complex denizens on Touch and Go. Oh, and by the way they’re yet another Canadian band - seem to see a lot of good bands from Canada that play this type of music.

The focus is on dreamy soundscapes and musical textures rather than bang-em-out 4 minute pop gems. Needless to say, it might take a few listens to get really comfortable with the album. However, their occasional Built to Spill prog-like excursions don’t leave you with the uncomfortable feeling that they’re out to try to prove some musical theory. I find that happens sometimes with bands that play this type of music.

The experimental stuff is heavily tempered by a layering of instruments like various strings, accordian, keyboard and theremin. The acoustic leanings of the band sort of remind me of Norfolk and Western at times. Vocally, I hear the aforementioned David Bazan along with something like Thom Yorke plus maybe Jason Molina. This is a solid, interesting CD that earned its place in my CD collection the hard way through repeated listening.

Listen:
Spring Flight to the Land of Fire
Copper Tied

On Itunes:
Glass Mountain Roads

Visit:
The Cape May website
Flemish Eye website

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