Zack Mexico, Jane Jane Pollack, Old Bricks (Kings, Raleigh, 5/26/12)

I've been running a little behind lately... what was this show, 3 weeks ago?  Personal life's been hectic; what can I say?  Built a sand castle.  Watched the sun come up on the ocean.  Worked to keep my autistic boy sane and happy (he is, and he is).  

Nevertheless, this was yet another great (free!) show sponsored by DiggUp Tapes and PBR, at Kings Barcade.  IMHO, local label DiggUp Tapes has great taste in music... an opinion only strengthened by Zack Mexico.  They opened, and were the band I came for, having heard good things.  They've recently released their Aberration of Celestial Kokomo CD (free! here, but they have some connection with DiggUp; maybe their next CD?).  

Being from the Outer Banks, their surfy base is not unexpected.  But with them, it's just that, a base... like a good soup has.  A jumping off point.  But this soup also includes dark vocals, an artsy/indie edge, and a certain eerieness.  The dual guitars sound as much like Archers or Jawbox as the Ventures.  Vocals are as pensive and deep as the Feelies (coming in September!).  There's a lot mixed in here, which is good because, frankly, surf music can be kind of boring (I love me some Man... or Astroman?, but if it wasn't for the "show" they put on, I don't know...).  

No danger of being bored by Zack Mexico.  They took many unexpected twists and turns, between songs and within them, and were electric on stage.  Meanwhile, up front, artist Brad Vuyovich (BroRad for short) sat up front, painting a skimboard which was raffled off at the end of the night.  The first picture features him at work.  

Zack Mexico...

Next came Jane Jane Pollack.  I had neard nothing of them, except they were a quirky bunch making quirky music holed up in rural Georgia.  Sounds sorta Elephant 6-ish... and they were.  Odd, off-kilter pop, with the appropriately odd mix of instrumentation. Don't really know how to categorize them, having only heard them once, and it being so different.  But I enjoyed it.  They had their art show going as well (someone "painting" weird, amoeboa-like moving shapes on an old school projector).  

  

Jane Jane Pollack...

Last was our own Old Bricks, who I hadn't seen in awhile.  Their rootsy, thudding, brand of indie has gotten more polished since then.  I always liked their heavy use of percussion, a trend of which I think they were kind of vanguards (now, everybody's doing it).  It especially works for what can otherwise be a somewhat quiet band. The contrast suits their dark, tremulous style.  Stuart Edwards vocals are reminiscent of folk troubadour Dave Dondero, and when they rock out more, it makes me miss Dave's little-known band from his (and my) Pensacola years, Flatwheelers (MAN they were good!  Old Bricks is good, too.  They've recently released a new CD, City Lights, available here.  It's on Grip Tapes (another great local label, cousins-once-removed to DiggUp?)

Old Bricks...

BroRad's (almost) finished board...

Crystal Bright and the Silver Hands - Muses and Bones

When I first listened to this CD two or three of months ago, it immediately struck me as the best NC album I'd heard since the Love Language's Libraries (the recent T0W3RS release is in that mix now, too). Now, to qualify that, I hardly listen to every release from every local band, and there's a plethora of great recordings coming out around here every year.  So before gushing ridiculously, I thought I'd wait awhile and let it digest. Plus I hadn't yet gotten back into the milieu of CD reviews. Since then, however, I've reviewed a few good local releases, and this one is way overdue.  So now for the ridiculous gushing...

Muses and Bones is, quite simply, a stunningly beautiful collection of music. But you need to give it time. It starts with a deceptively upbeat tone, and if you don't get past the first two or three songs, you're won't get the full breadth of this album. On the opener, Especially Your Mother, the accordion gets moving, and it feels like a party is starting. Crystal sings of a spirited flirtation destined to failure ("You walked around me to see what's on the other side, what's behind / you walked beside me and before you walked out the door, I adored you").  But in a playful -- and danceable -- way, the idea of being stuck in an unhealthy relationship, and the difficulty one has in finding the strength to extricate oneself from it, is introduced.

By the sixth song, Today, this same idea will break your heart.

Drowned Out follows the opener, and it's a rollicking number bemoaning the over-consumption and hubris of humanity.  Jumpy accordion and a marching beat are backed by trumpet, with the overall feel of a manic cabaret.  It's a great song, and may be many listeners' favorite.  But I think it somewhat interrupts the flow of what is otherwise a very cohesive album.  Once past it, and you really get into the meat of Muses.  A gentler, darker tone begins with The Misplaced Zygote: Down the Wrong Chimney. Vocals and other instrumentation really start to shine, and the arrangements, in sparseness, blossom. Diego Diaz' spanish-influenced guitar softy accompanies Crystal's high, soft voice and some eerie musical saw, before accordion, trumpets, and percussion kick in.  Her vocals are earthy, mysterious... Kate Bush perhaps an octave lower.  Zygote introduces the ideas of empowerment and independence that run throughout the album: "I will be free of this and everything you want me to be"; "I can no longer feel this way if I ever want to live again."  There's also some neat animal imagery: "feeding me worms when I'm meant to eat lilies and violets, chickweed and hay."

The next three songs grab the themes and feel of Muses and Bones and run with them.  First comes Adungu, a sensual, spellbinding song of someone who is themselves spellbound, against all better judgement.  She knows it's wrong, but she begs the lover to "lie to me lie to me..." and promises to "stay right here where you want me to be".  The song's namesake, the adungu (an African harp), hypnotically draws the listener in, and is joined by a symphony of percussion (exceptional on this cut).  Ghostly electric slide and soft trumpet fill in the spaces.

Corpus Callosum is Adungu re-cast, sort of an organic remix.  In fact in some ways, it's almost the same song... a gutsy move, and one that probably takes someone with an advanced musical education (which Crystal has) to pull off (which she does).   Where many of the lyrics ("lie to me, lie to me") and some of the musical progression are shared, the instrumentation and arrangement are totally different.  But moreso, the delivery and resultant meaning are 180 degrees from Adungu.  This is a person who is coming to a realization... waking up.  Now, when she sings "so what if everything works out fine and I stayed right where you've always wanted to be", it's with disdain, if not outright contempt.  At least with eyes open, as she adds "But there's always the chance of leaving, and I told you to stop waiting / It's true, I do, continue to play this game with you".   At the end, she proclaims anyone who can explain this dichotomy within as worthy of "taking my paw in yours and resting upon my floor all night."  The word "night" is delivered with bite.  And she'll only go so far... you can rest on her floor.  Love the animal imagery again.  In short, Corpus Callosum is Adungu with a push rather than a pull.

By the time Today softly begins, the push has become a break, complete with the deep sadness that comes with it.  There's still the doubt ("Why must you stay, why must you take"), but there is realization, and strength, found in the grief ("I could be so kind, but I am not blind").  And on Today, the beautiful piano Crystal plays makes it's first real appearance.  I'm reminded of George Winston, whom I never really liked.  But this... it just works.  It accentuates the heart-rending feel of the song.  Simply beautiful.  And the wonderful percussion and trumpet also highlight what is a very minimalist song. 

As the album gets quieter, more goes on.  December continues pulling at your heart.  The quiet piano continues, this time accented by musical saw and accordion.  It's another minimal tune with a lot in it.  When the piano starts jumping and rolling about two-thirds of the way through, I'm thinking Broadway... another genre I don't especially like.  But again, it just works. 

Now, I don't want to give the impression that this is just some technically proficient, show tune-new age hybrid of a band.  There is clearly accomplished songwriting and playing at work here, but also spark and originality.  Plus, the Silver Hands understand the importance of a little chaos... especially among such beautifully orchestrated music.   Amid the beauty of swelling keys and vocals, mystical guitar, and more exotic stringed instruments, room is made for groaning, squealing, and at times just slamming the keyboard.   This comes off even more in their live show, where they seem more like a gypsy troupe, circus rejects in the Spanish countryside.  It's a feel captured somewhat by the first three songs, Toy Hammer, and the little interludes Bones and Lilies and Chimera March (you half expect Tom Waits to chime in with his inimitable growl during March).

The last third or so of the CD -- December / Killing Table / Spiral Sky / Bones and Lilies / Little Match Girl -- work together as a stunning unit, in the same way Kate Bush's Ninth Wave (the B-side from her classic Hounds of Love album) did.   Frankly, they'd make a damn fine musical... one even I'd pay to see.  It's not surprising that the band often collaborates with circus performers, dancers, and other artists, as they recently did in at FlowJo in Chapel Hill.

Crystal has said that Muses and Bones is not meant to be autobiographical, that the aim was to write a song cycle about a woman's journey of discovery and self-realization. It's hard to believe, as the songs sound so intimate and personal.  But what that does make clear is we are listening to a first-rate songwriter, singer, and musician (one who backed by equally accomplished players).  Crystal Bright and the Silver Hands are one of the best North Carolina acts I've heard of any genre...  hell, they're sort of "of every genre".  They're scheduled to tour all over the Southeast in the coming months, so you should have plenty of chances to see them, beginning this Thursday at the Cave in Chapel Hill.  While the fun, gypsy vibe of the live show is somewhat different from much of this album, it's equally as good.  Go see them!   

Lilac Shadows - A Shallow Madness EP (DiggUp Tapes)

Okay, for starters at least, I have to compare Lilac Shadows' A Shallow Madness EP to T0W3RS recent release, If All We Have Is Time. There are just too many commonalities. The bands share 3 members (Sam Logan, Derek Torres, Karen Blanco; the other Shadows are Zack Oden and Nathan Price). Derek produced this one, and Sam produced T0W3RS' record. When you add the number of letters of "Shadows" and the numbers in Lincoln's birthdate, you mysteriously get... well, okay, maybe it stops there, but you get the point. There's some overlap. Nevertheless, they ARE two distinct bands, and sounds.

Based on these two releases, T0W3RS frontman Torres is John, and Lilac frontman Logan is George (don't go gettin' swelled heads, guys). Whereas ...Time was gritty, a little bluesy, and full of pain, heartbreak and redemption, A Shallow Madness is much more ethereal and contemplative. Not to psychoanalyze in a record review, but I'd venture a guess that Logan has had less tumult and heartbreak in his life, but more concerned with meditations about mysteries of consciousness, the universe, and the nature of reality. Okay, I'll put away my Jung.

But seriously, this EP deals with the realms of the mind much more than the heart or the nuts-and-bolts of living. It takes a trip into the subconscious, and the soundscape matches. When this space wrote up their release show a few weeks back, they were compared to '80s-'90s British pop and 'gaze. As you listen to A Shallow Madness more, you also hear further back in time. Bowie, Pink Floyd, all in a current indie context. Part of it, I guess, is the slightly Brit-sounding vocals. Still think there's a little VU in there, too.

The EP is basically 4 songs, though each is separated by an atmospheric intro which segues the EP together in a flowing manner, not unlike a dream. The title song sings of a madness that is indeed shallow, even  pleasant. Lotus, anyone? You're lulled in by a galloping, jangly beat and swirling guitars and synth. But from the first words, you're forced to doubt reality ("When you open up your eyes / do you see what isn't there?"), and wonder whether it's a healthy place to be or not ("and the sun that runs behind you eyes / is floating only for darker times"). What Dreams keeps us going in this sleep-like state (or are we awake?). It's a lullaby of sorts, but one that doesn't exactly reassure you. As in the first song, images of insecurity and seeking out comfort in darkness (figurative and literal) recur. The dark fairy tale feel is slower at the start, a simple echoing guitar line backed by quiet/chaotic noise. But it eventually opens up to rock out in segments. As the band's bio describes them, this song is, also, "Bright. Dark. Quiet. Loud."

Bloodworth picks it up, a really driving number that's a bit of an '80s throwback. It relies more on bass and drum, with guitar being mostly used for droning background and touches. Spiteful lyrics liken someone to a fallen star "comin' down through the clouds", their lies, and fires, burning. This one's mostly just "Dark. Loud." Rise wakes us up: "Rise up slowly, lift your eyes from the warnings / nightmares and longings, they won't find you in the morning". It's the first time the EP gets a little uplifting. But at the same time, it still longs for the subconscious: "It's simpler in dreams / as simple as nothing, only breathing gracefully". You know, back to being Jung, I'm sure there's a lot intended here about the power of dreams, as dark and scary as they can be, to heal. As the song, and EP, come to a close, neat little organ blurbs (steel drums?) pop in and out, giving us a little blips of contentment without the scary undertones.

Musically, A Shallow Madness soars. You just aren't sure where (or if) you're going to land.  And, thankfully, there's not a Ringo number on it (or on All We Have Is Time).  No Octopus' Garden, no (shudder) Act Naturally. Okay. Enough Jung. Enough Beatles. Just get the EP and go see Lilac Shadows next time they play... including Friday, May 4th at Kings, at the Vote AGAINST Amendment One Party, with Cassis Orange, and First Person Plural.  They also play Friday, May 11th, at the Cave.

Boykiller (Tir Na Nog, Raleigh, 4/19/12)

Another Local Beer Local Band night, another revelation.

The bill was Flesh Wounds, Boykiller, and Fan Modine.  Flesh Wounds, with members of the Moaners, Last Year's Men, and Future Kings of Nowhere, play very garage-y, screaming trash rock in the oldest of skools.  Nothing too original, but very high energy, and fun.  Fan Modine has been around awhile, though it's the first time I've seen them.  They didn't light my world on fire, very well made and played indie pop... I'll have to see'em again to make up my mind.  

Boykiller was the revelation.  Boykiller is Theresa Stone (ex-Organos, North Elementary), Ginger Wagg (ex-Veelee), and Catherine Steele (ex-Animal Alphabet).  This trio has a ragged, fun, stripped-down sound,  driven by keyboards (Catherine), drums (Ginger), and ukelele and/or guitar (Theresa).  Theresa is usually up front singing, but they all chime in with harmonies at times, or pick up a second guitar now and then.

What makes them interesting is that there's a sort of melancholic poppiness, and a serrated edge. Despite the fuzz and fun in the live show, there's a bittersweet undercurrent.  They remind me of '90s great Cub, who were bubblegum on the surface, but had a lot more depth than that -- as do Boykiller.  And sort of like that band at times (probably moreso), they sing unapologetically about sex, love, and heartbreak.  Oh yeah, and pornography.  Can't forget the pornography.  They closed with a hilarious medley of Let's Talk About Sex and What's Your Fantasy ("Lick-lick-lick-lick you from your head to your TOES...").

Two of their songs on Bandcamp pretty much give you the idea of what they're about.  Get Get is them gettin' Ludacris in their own white girl, punky way ("You just wanna get get, you just wanna get get... naked naked naked all the time!").  Funny and fun stuff.  Then Double Feature's beautiful and sad harmonies go in a completely different direction.  And I LOVE the banner.  It doesn't merely say "BOYKILLER".  It says "BOYKILLER BANNER!".  They took the time to sew in the word "banner".  That also reminded me of another (obscure and long dead) band they have a bit in common with, The Furies, who did a great song called Arts and Crafts!  So they're artsy, crafty, AND sexy!  I mean, check out those Sugarbaker dresses.  Seriously.

Boykiller play next at the Casbah in Durham, Friday, May 4th, with Twelve Thousand Armies and Little Bull Lee.

T0W3RS - If All We Have Is Time (DiggUp Tapes)

T0W3RS began as a solo project of Derek Torres (ex-Soft Company, etc.).  I was intrigued early on.  Before seeing them play some months ago, I checked 'em out online, and it surprised me that their recent EP prominently featured a cover from another local band, Summertime (by Lonnie Walker).  Kind of a gutsy (foolish?) move by an upstart local.  But I had been wearing out my copy of These Times, Old Times, Lonnie Walker's debut, so I'm curious: "What are these guys going to do with it?  And more to the point, why?"

My answer was immediate.  They were paying respects to fellow travellers, yet somehow simultaneously breaking totally new ground.  See, Lonnie Walker is a pretty rootsy, twangy band.  While still exerting a little twang, T0W3RS turned the song completely on end... into an electronic, slow-dance apparition of its former self.  Then there was another song, OUR5!, an Animal Collective-inspired rave-up released in support of the Occupy movement.  It had nary a string in earshot, but plenty of rolling keys, beeps, and a steady kick drum.  Okay.  I was interested.

Now, after giving their debut full-length, If All We Have Is Time, a few listens... well, let's just say I'm still interested.

...Time starts with the slow plucking of electric guitar and Torres' plaintive wail on Swim In, bemoaning an obviously dysfunctional relationship ("Your love's like a drain or a hole in boat / I should be swimmin'").  It's a brief, dark intro, which somehow jumps seemlessly into the upbeat pop bliss of eee!  This song realizes the meld of geetar & electronic hinted at by the earlier EP.  It's driven by jaunty acoustic strumming, echo-y electric, and knocking drumsticks.  But there's so much more clatter, warped static-y noises, and vocal cleverness that it goes way beyond relying on a pop hook.  And, really, how can you NOT love a song called eee!?

Over & Ov'r then detours us towards a darker, slower side of T0W3RS.  It's an unexpected, albeit welcome, development; one which sets the tone for the album.  The mournful waltz is punctuated mid-song by the swell of nightmarish organ that calls to mind some tripped out, mid-70s, midnight movie.  It's a bluesy, shadowy number with lyrics full of bite and spite ("Oh, you've got me tonight / that's when I act like I gave a fuck about you / and your kind...").  Next is Scout/, which begins with simple, sustained piano keys, but is buoyed when the gentle electric beat kicks in.  We get the feeling Torres is lifting out of a fog., a feeling accentuated by segueing into the (slightly) more up-tempo The Cardinal/The Finch, which continues the sparse piano and drums before sweet lilting vocals begin to pull us back into the sunlight.  

Before going much further, I should mention Torres' voice.  It's a great voice, but not in a typical way.  More in the way that Robert Pollard's voice is great... just the way he uses it.  A similar range to Noah Lennox (Panda Bear), and perhaps in the way it's mixed, explaining some of the Animal Collective comparisons.  But there's a vocal cleverness in the way he uses lyrics and sounds; from wordplay like "so keep what you make-k-K/your capital" ("you're capital"?), to simple breaths and croaks at just the right times.  It's one of the highlights of the band.  And although most of the album's vocals are Derek's, the addition of female vocals to the band really adds something to the sound, and the live show. 

Another highlight of T0W3RS is that the songs are always moving. By that I mean something is always going on, at every turn of every song.  Beyond the main song structures, under the surface, in the background, are surprising little tweaks and touches.  It's easy to throw a bunch of sounds together and call yourself "experimental".  Making it all flow together is the tricky part, a trick T0W3RS has mastered.  Even the quiet, slow songs, or parts of songs, are never boring.  Again, this is something captured well by the full band.  Multiple, varied instrumentation and voices come and go to great, restless effect, making for a very fun live show.

But back to the LP.  Each song sounds like a movement, progressing into the next.  After exiting the fog, we get to, appropriately, Big Sky (which, although they do cover Kate Bush live, is NOT the Bush song of that name).  Reverb-laden guitar and thumping drums make you almost see the distance and space.  The title cut then continues into the more optimistic bent, spare piano and strumming building to the realization that "If all we have is time, then we'd be allright".  Darla picks it back up, with a jumpy guitar line invoking Texas blues.  This most upbeat song on the album is followed by perhaps the simplest, quietest number, Logan.  While it may sound like the album is a bit of a roller coaster (and maybe it is), every hill and valley work together.  Darla and Logan, for instance, share a penchant for Deep Southern musical roots.  Logan is almost country, plucking it's way through Georgia, Austin, and back to Carolina, and "hoping for someone to soothe my heartache".  But then it's back on the coaster for the closer, the psychedelic (and again, a little Southern) rocker, The Seams, The Tangles & The Sum of My Brain.

T0W3RS is nothing if not diverse.  Influences are all over the place.  There's the afore-mentioned southern rock, blues, and electronic/experimental.  But I also hear a bit of 70's arena rock... can't really place it... Emerson, Lake, and Palmer?   But they rarely wear them on their sleeves.  There are just too many ingredients going into the pot to come out sounding like anything but, well T0W3RS.  Though this was recorded largely before the band took shape, props to the what has now become a great live band (Sam Logan, Karen Blanco, Jacki Lee Huntington, Zeke Krautwurst), and to the production by Logan.

T0W3RS play at Kings Barcade in Raleigh Friday, April 27th, to celebrate the release of If All We Have Is Time on DiggUp Tapes.  They're playing with Lonnie Walker (also great, see here), and Coastal Vision (who I haven't seen, but if the bill is any indicator...).  Plus, it's FREE!  You can put your money towards getting the LP.  It's worth it.

PS:  Derek's got a thing for math, numbers, punctuation, etc. (or should that be #s/punctuation/3TC?).  He and Robert Schneider, apparently.  Thus the band name and some of the song titles.  So no, not a bunch of typos above.

Organos - Concha

Durham's Organos is the brainchild of Maria Albani, member of Schooner and co-creator Minus Sound Research, an outlet for local musical artists to express their visual side. In keeping with that idea, Maria did the cover art for the new album, Concha, which appears to be some sort of goose/squid/phoenix rising out of the side of a woman. Whatever it is, it's very organic (no pun intended), like Concha.

Organos shows that you can do a lot with a little. Theirs is a pretty minimal sound, heavy on bass and many percussive instruments and noises. On the opener, First Night, Albani's mid-register voice is accompanied by high harmonies and breathy vocalizations. Guitar is more-or-less an accent.

That's the pattern for many of the songs. Nevertheless, the sound is still full, even on the basically a capella second cut, the very sweet Side Girl, in which only finger-snaps and wood-claps accompany vocals. Maybe the minimalism fills up the space because it's simply not what's expected. Off-kilter notes and harmonies, chaotic feedback, and minor keys abound on songs like the dark but emboldening Same Eyes.

The theme of inspiration and encouragement, often in the face of doubt, runs through that song and others. It'll Never Come begins with admonishments like "Hanging out in bars, aren't you too old / keep on messing up, haven't you been told", but quickly dismisses such nonsense with a forward-looking message, urging the listener to take chances. Sometimes you just need to light a fire. Fits and Fears returns (briefly) to doubt and insecurity, the atypical vocals sounding like a record speeding up and slowing down, perfectly capturing the theme of the song.

The closer, At the End of the Ride, stakes out more conventional folk territory on what is generally a pretty unconventional collection. With its quietly picked guitar, tinklings from a xylophone, and spare harmonies, it is both sad and beautiful. Despite the palpable sense of loss, however, it's yet another tale of moving on -- despite it all.

Gross Ghost - Brer Rabbit (Grip Tapes)

Spring has sprung, and local releases are popping out like the ubiquitous tree pollen. So I'm gonna use the next few blog entries to give my humble opinion of a few of them.

Let's start with Carrboro's Gross Ghost. What started as Mike Dillon (Spader, Old Bricks), roommate Tre Acklen, and a tape machine, has grown into a full-fledged band. Their new album, Brer Rabbit (on Grip Tapes), lives up to its namesake. It hides a sharp edge behind a veneer of breeziness, luring us into a thorny patch that, thankfully, Gross Ghost has no problem navigating.

From the beginning, on Architect, Dillon's vocals darkly echo like a plugged-in Donovan in front of a wall of guitars. The feel from the get-go is one of summer, but in a contemplative, end-of-the-day kind of way. The second song, Leslie is a real highlight. It's very "beachy" the way he the name is wailed in a high 5 or 6 syllables... but then you hit the briars, when it's followed by "feels like I'm watching you but no one's watching me".

Up next is maybe the best cut on the album, Meltdown. It's a soaring melody that starts with "Giving up on you today" and proceeds through falling chords that sing of "every boy, every girl, having meltdowns". The song captures the feeling of a meltdown, but in an oh-so-sweet way. Right about now, the guitars are getting about as dense as a Built to Spill/Jesus and Mary Chain mash-up (see Hopscotch lineup!).

Rabbit gets even poppier with Lurker (is there a stalker theme going here?), complete with clap-clap-claps, before heading down a dark alley or two with the gutsy jazz/pop/zen meld of Lazy Little Walk, and the Hurdy-Gurdy-esque Soft Focus.

There are a couple of pop-punk "singles" -- driving bass, slightly snarly vocals -- on songs like Devious (which definitely owes a debt to the Descendents) and Sooner or Later, great songs on their own. That's how, to me, the band struck me live: garage-y fun punk. But that's normal for a band's live alter-ego. The strength the Gross Ghost, however, and of Brer Rabbit , comes when it merges that sense of pop with odder, darker elements... something it does very well.