March Top 10 List

1.   Blanche Blanche Blanche- Talk Out Loud 7"

2.   Peaking Lights- 936

3.   Sleep- Sleep's Holy Mountain

4.   Brainbombs- Urge to Kill

5.   Velvet Underground- White Light/White Heat

6.   Pax Titania- Cult of the Colonist

7.   Bird Names- Sings the Browns

8.   Christine 23 Onna- Acid Eater

9.   45 Grave- Black Cross 7"

10. Vaselines- Way of the Vaselines

Blanche Blanche Blanche- Talk Out Loud 7"

I came across this single by Vermont based weirdos Blanche Blanche Blanche while checking, 7 Inches several times a day, impatiently waiting for the Trophy Wife EP to get reviewed (it eventually did and I was very happy).  Before reading even a word, I was immediately taken with the cover art, a washed out color copy of a grainy photo bearing an ancient looking synth sandwiched between the bored expressionless faces of the two band members.  I was also very into their name, which I felt was so dumb it crossed into brilliance, and the fact that they had inexplicably included the dumb/brilliant name twice on the record cover.

I read the review, which made the record sound pretty good, and so, being as I was, already quite impressed with the tone of the visual aesthetic, I decided to check out the video that had been made for the A-Side track, Talk Out Loud.  The video was great, (obviously shot and edited on VHS, it echoed the tone of the record cover nicely), but the song itself was even better.  The arrangement of this track is so minimal that the first time I listened to it, I honestly thought for sure that at any moment slick beats programmed on Ableton or ProTools would kick in in an effort to 'complete' the sound and prepared myself for disappointment.  After the hook (which is instantly addictive) played through for the second time, I started to get excited, and said out loud in my head "If shitty beats don't ruin this in a second, I have to buy it immediately".  A few moments later, the song ended.  No shitty beats.  I hurriedly started the song over again and opened a new tab in my browser so I could listen to it while I ordered the record.  I probably listened to it ten more times that night alone.

I suppose the closest reference point to describe the duo's music would be new wave, though while it's obvious that parts of their style have that influence, they are considerably more obtuse than a band like say, Devo, who while relatively odd, were still for the most part just putting their own idiosyncratic spin on guitar based rock.  Blanche Blanche Blanche does not play guitar based rock.  The instrumentation instead is apparently made up only of layered synths, and sounds just slightly more modern than the demo on the battery powered keyboard you got for your birthday in 1988.   On Talk Out Loud, garbled arpeggio loops set the backdrop, complimented by the occasional  melody played on the synth's organ setting, as both members sing in voices which are similar in tone to the puzzling expressions they display on the cover.  Sarah (the female member of the band) half-whispers rhythmically before moving into a more traditional, but restrained, pop vocal style during the rad hook.  Zach (the male member) sings in a kind of weird effeminate robot voice, not entirely unlike that of C3P0 from Star Wars.

The lyrics on Talk Out Loud are, as far as I can tell (remember, some of them are nearly whispered), about feelings of anxiety and social awkwardness. They are, I feel, as equally compelling as the music itself, featuring totally bizarre metaphors that I don't really get, such as: "When I was in the shredder / I had a shred of respect" and "Can't I believe the loaded gun? / There's nothing in it".

The B-Side, Water to Wine, is a more down tempo affair and as a result, it isn't quite as dynamic or catchy as Talk Out Loud, but it's still quite good and thankfully in no way resembles a throwaway track put in place just to back up the single.

Apparently BBB have been turning some heads, as according to their label, they have been featured on Pitchfork and in the French version of Vogue.  I don't read either one, but I'm glad to see a really neat band getting some well deserved attention from entities that will no doubt increase their visibility.      

You can buy the record here and check out their videos here.

Peaking Lights- 936

Peaking Lights, of Madison Wisconsin, have evolved a very odd course over the last five or so years...the band is made up of lovely couple Aaron (formerly of defunct Bay Area drone maestros Rahdunes), and Indra (an ex-member of fried new-wave cyborg geniuses the Numbers).  A friend turned me on to the band several years ago with their first release (I think), the Clearvoiant cassette EP on Night People.  It was a fantastic little piece of music and one that I still throw on fairly often.

The sound of Clearvoiant is that of a band hidden by shadows; the songs are mellow folk and synth numbers and the music is very peaceful and relaxing, but it always seems like you're hearing the band play from the other side of a wall or from a room down the hall; somehow the music remains barely audible no matter how loudly you play it.  This effects the listening experience in that it forces one to either tune in closely or not at all.  If you were, say, reading a book the first time you listened to it, though the overall feeling of the sounds you were hearing would likely still come across as warm, you might not even realize there were actual songs.

After jamming Clearvoiant for months, I was quite excited when the band released their first full length LP, Imaginary Falcons, also on Night People.  This record is similar to Clearvoiant in that it finds the band continuing to employ the less is more strategy, creating music that is both warm and sparse.  However, Imaginary Falcons also sees the band taking massive steps in several different directions.  While Clearvoiant had relied mostly upon simple guitar and keyboard melodies buried in fuzz to make it's point, this record introduces several stylistic oddities seeming perhaps to have manifested due to long term obsessions with (I'm guessing) Prince Buster, France Gall, Syd Barrett, and astrology.

Of course that feeble list of references which this record brings to mind really comes nowhere near an accurate description of what it actually sounds like even if you think you have an idea of what all those things mixed together might sound like... How could you possibly account for the the dry and tinny sounding drum machine loops of 'Wedding Song' or the terrifying last few minutes of 'News News' which sounds like nature attempting to wipe you off the face of the Earth?   Or what about the completely fucked up Everly Brothers on heroin vibe of 'All the Good Songs Have Been Written'?  How could you explain that one? 

Imaginary Falcons is one weird record for sure, and a fucking great one at that.  But I digress.  Wasn't this supposed to be about the new Peaking Lights album, 936?  Well, I've been trying to build up to that.  I suppose since I've been into this band for awhile now and 936 is such another massive leap for them, I feel that putting the band's history into context helps me make better sense of the new record.

So what is 936 all about?  Well, it certainly isn't sparse; the minimal arrangements have been replaced by electronic tribal/tropical sounding beats (reminiscent of 'Wedding Song' from Imaginary Falcons, but much more textured), massive dub style bass lines, weaving organ and synth melodies, and trippy ska/reggae influenced guitar work.  The vocals are no longer bogged down under layers of effects and the lyrics are (for the most part) no longer vague and difficult to comprehend; Indra's voice soars as she emits genuinely heartfelt, if not inspiring lyrical gems such as "All the sun that shines, shines for you" or "you are burning like a campfire / wonderful / wonderful". 

The overall result sounds something like psychedelic disco for new age healers, and honestly I wasn't quite sure what I thought of it at first.  While I was glad that the band decided to made 936 as far removed from Imaginary Falcons as that record was from it's predecessor, the sound just didn't do it for me initially.  I missed the sparseness, the mangled weirdness and inexplicable turns.  This album is after all, unlike Imaginary Falcons, an exercise in trying to perfect a specifically cultivated style, even if said style is not at once identifiable.

But after a few spins this record really began to grow on me; the song writing is great, catchy as hell, and there are plenty of weird lingering subtleties to pick up on through repeated listens.  I knew I dug it when the songs began to pop into my head unexpectedly.  Usually if I'm not sure how I feel about a piece of music I assume that getting it frequently stuck in my head and it not annoying me means that I probably like it despite whatever reservations I may have previously harbored regarding it's possible shortcomings.  These songs have been stuck in my head on a near constant basis for weeks now.   

It is worth noting that on the band's Facebook page they have their genre listed as "reggae"; I find this very interesting.  While the record is heavily influenced by reggae and dub elements, I feel the overall sound is a pretty far cry from what most individuals would generally consider to constitute either genre; given that, it seems pretty ballsy for two white folks living in Wisconsin in this day in age to outright refer to their weird, psychedelic indie rock as reggae.  Of course, while some bands might exploit such a classification for the sake of misguided ironic humor, I really don't think that was Peaking Lights' intention; I believe that they really were trying to make their own version of reggae, and they actually did a pretty amazing job.  In the often shameful arena of reggae re-interpretation by white people, I'd say Peaking Lights are at least up there with the Slits and certainly better than the Clash in most cases (but not 'Guns of Brixton', that song is the shit).

I'm looking forward to jamming this album on the regular for the next few months straight as this music has summer written all over it.  It really does seem like it would be the perfect soundtrack for just about any fun summer activity I can think of: hanging out at the beach, road tripping with the windows down, having a picnic, eating an ice cream cone in the heat, or just kicking back with the AC blasting after a nice walk or bike ride.  Another great record by a very awesome band.  I can't wait to see what they do next.  Highly recommended listening for your hazier moments.  Go buy it here, then go check out the vintage clothing and record boutique that Aaron and Indra run in Madison called The Good Style Shop.

Sleep- Sleep's Holy Mountain

Lately I've been realizing how much my listening habits change during periods of time when I'm frequently driving a car around.  Since I generally find most of the music on the radio intolerable to say the least, that's usually not a viable option for me; this of course creates a situation in which I am at the mercy of whatever music hardware format a particular car's stereo face will accept.  The best possibility is that the stereo will have an input into which I can plug my i-Pod (or at least that was the best possibility until my i-Pod was accidentally stolen by a very nice girl at a party, who despite the fact that it was plugged in and playing at the time, took it to prevent it from being stolen, then misplaced it while she was moving, in effect creating the exact same situation for me as if it were actually stolen).  Otherwise, it's left up to either a tape deck or CD player to do the job.  If I had a choice, I would always choose the tape deck.  There are several reasons for this, not the least of which is that I own considerably more cassettes than CDs; But the main reason is that I really dislike CDs.  Despite the luxury of being able to skip from track to track, which is the only upside to this over rated format in my opinion, these two cent pieces of plastic have been the scourge of my existence for quite sometime.  Honestly, can anyone reading this say they own a CD from the early nineties that still plays through all the way without issue?  I doubt it;  I certainly cannot.  That's because CDs deteriorate with time, whether you play them or not!  CD-Rs, of course, are even worse; some of my favorite releases of the past decade have been on CD-R and several of them I may never hear again because they rot even faster.  Just think of all the music made available only on CD that will be gone forever in fifty to a hundred more years!  It bums me out....like a lot.      

So anyway, while my own motorized vehicle continues to rust disdainfully, fully visible from my kitchen window, I've lately been given somewhat steady access to two cars by people who are close to me.  Suffice it to say, both have CD players in them.  Despite my tangent in the last paragraph, I actually don't consider this to be that bad of a situation.  I did after all grow up in the nineties, which means I have a shitload of CDs collecting dust in a box under my bed.  Since I don't own a CD player (and since the i-Pod all my CDs were loaded onto is gone like so much wasted plastic) this has given me the opportunity to break out some old favorites from back in the day as well as spin some of the discs that reside in the cars I've been driving.

Without a doubt the album that's gotten more play in the car than any other is this stoner/doom rock classic from Sleep.  Though this album was first released on Earache in 1992, I first came across Sleep sometime around the year 2000 after hearing their music in the film Gummo.  After repeated viewings, a friend and I became obsessed with the movie's soundtrack, particularly the song in a scene towards the beginning in which two main characters ride their bikes down a street full of dilapidated houses in a fictionalized version of Xenia, Ohio (actually shot in the slums of north Nashville, I was on that street yesterday, and it still looks almost exactly the same).  Eventually I ordered the Gummo soundtrack, and my friend and I discovered the identity of the mystery band and immediately ordered this album. 

Already a Melvins fan for half a decade, and quite familiar at that point in my life with Black Sabbath and the idea of hardcore and punk derived 'sludge' rock such as Grief and Noothgrush (the latter being a band which was founded by a former member of Asbestosdeath, the band that proceeded Sleep), this was obviously the next step.  Sleep effortlessly combined the crunch pioneered by Sabbath and later reinterpreted by the Melvins with the intensity of hardcore and the stellar musicianship typical of most seventies classic rock; add in  drugged out, psychedelic vocals and lyrical themes seemingly indebted to a fascination with D&D style role playing games, and you have this album which is practically perfect.  My friend and I jammed it pretty much non-stop for at least a year, if not longer, and more than once attempted to attach meaning to the group's absurd, pot addled lyrics ("but really dude, where is the valley of the evil one?").  Ah, to be young and idiotic...

If you're curious, the members of Sleep went on to form the bands High on Fire (a similar sounding, but in my opinion much less engaging band), and Om (a not very similar sounding, but nonetheless quite engaging band).  I assume that most people who would like this record already do, but then my mother once told me something about making assumptions....so go check it out here.

Brainbombs- Urge to Kill

It's strange, but the era in which we live seems to be one in which both everything and nothing is sacred.  This means for example, that if a song is enjoyed by more than a few thousand people it will at some point inevitably played ad nauseam on commercial radio before being thrown into advertisements for tennis shoes and luxury cars, and then just generally milked until the point at which it not only feels nearly impossible to achieve or maintain any real connection with the damned thing, but also begins to give the feeling that it's impossible that anyone ever had a real connection with it (think Iggy Pop's 'The Passenger', the entire Dark Side of the Moon LP, and pretty much everything the Stones ever recorded).

On the other hand of course, this means that a long-forgotten band with virtually no following whatsoever can be re-discovered and then given the royal treatment by taste-making, culture revising indie labels who awkwardly hold up and herald their discoveries as engenius stalwarts, always far ahead of their time; it's a mixed blessing to say the least.  The Brainbombs, out of Sweden, are kind of like one of those bands; the only things that really separate them from the others are the fact that in their case the taste-making label they're attached to, Load Records, has been releasing their records since the late nineties, and that for the last twenty five years, the band has remained constantly extant. 

I've personally been seeing the Brainbombs' name around for several years, but never really did much about it until recently when I was being rushed out of a record store having only made it halfway through the B section of the LP's (I'd already scoured both the new and used bins of 7"s of course).  Furiously, flipping as quickly as I could, looking for any piece of 12" vinyl which seemed the least bit appropriate to buy, I finally seized upon a re-issue of the Breeders' Pod, a record I love; sitting right behind it was Load's recent vinyl issue of the Brainbombs' 1999 album Urge To Kill.  Without hesitation, I grabbed it as well and ran for the register, checking out in just the right amount of time to not be abandoned at the store.

On Urge to Kill, as well as in general, the Brainbombs traffic in a sort of slowed down, messier, detuned version of garage punk, comparable somewhat to other bands of the mid to late eighties (the Brainbombs were founded in 1985) with a similar slow, noisy sound such as Fang or Steel Pole Bathtub.  The songs are often quite long by punk standards, often topping five minutes, and have few changes.  The band is at their best in my opinion, when they beat a riff so hard into the ground for so long it sort of creates a trance like tension.  Over the grinding pulse of the drums, bass, and gnarled guitar, a trumpeter belts out sour notes left and right and some asshole yells a lot about raping and murdering women.                 

Though this is a great record musically and I've enjoyed listening to it, all the stuff about rape and hurting women really turned me off.  I normally try to keep to the policy that I should judge the art and not the artist; some people say that's bullshit, and I understand their point of view but I feel my politics lie in my personal choices and actions, not the music I listen to.  Still, it's strange, I can watch violent movies all day long, listen to black metal made by (and for) racists, and even dig music insensitive to the plight of rape by other artists if I feel they're doing something especially unique (Whitehouse and the Geto Boys come to mind immediately), and it doesn't really bother me much; but something about the way the Brainbombs exploit rape really bums me out.  It reminds me of the way boring death metal bands like Cannibal Corpse approach the subject, using it only for shock value, or shits and giggles, never bothering to consider whether or not their lyrics have anything to do with the tone of the music they're making, no real thought process behind it, just trotting out some uncreative bullshit because they think it will make them sound mean and tough.  If you're going that route, why not just sing about children dying of cancer?  It would at least be something new....           

I guess that's not a very shining endorsement, but it is what it is.  I don't really think it's my place to judge an artist personally on the basis of their art; all I'm doing on this blog (and all anyone does on any music blog for that matter) is giving subjective assessments of records that have entered my life through one facet or another; I prefer to remain truthful and have no interest in pretending to not have been into the music or bothered by the lyrical content on this record in order to save face.  So there.      

...anyway, if you can stomach the lyrical content and need a dose of totally discordant punk noise, I don't discourage you from checking it out here.  If you want to buy the record or would like to write an angry letter, go here.

The Velvet Underground- White Light/White Heat

This one is a CD that lives in the other car I often drive, (the one without the Sleep CD), and man, what a great record.  In my little piece on The Index last month I made the comment that the music they were making on their self titled debut probably didn't have a very large or loyal audience at the time; regardless of the fact that WL/WH reached a considerably larger audience upon release during the same time period and has now become considered a legit 'classic' (even in the eyes of the worst, most played out 'music' publication of all time), the mutant weirdness the VU was blasting on this platter was even less accessible, substantially so in fact.  I would guess that even a lot of folks that consider themselves VU fans can't handle this monster.   

This is the record I always think of when bands like the Strokes get compared to the VU, or claim them as an influence.  I immediately wonder if they've even heard this record...Just imagine what would happen if the Strokes released a record containing even a tenth of the insanity on this album; people would fucking lose it, and no one would get it. 

Though I do enjoy the Velvet Underground and Nico, as well as Lou Reed's first few solo records, I'm not a fan of much of anything the VU did after this (no John Cale? no thanks), and if it weren't for this record I really don't think I would care nearly as much about this band as I do.  This is seriously about as out there as 'rock' music gets even still today, it's every single inch covered by obscenely noisy distortion and feedback, gloriously crude lyrics, and enough weirdness to outdo the rest of the band's entire studio recorded output; and the fucking thing came out over forty years ago.  Beyond genius.  Perfect 

If you haven't heard this album, you absolutely must do so as soon as humanly possible, though I'm not including a link for this one since you can find it just about anywhere that sells music, other than maybe Wal-Mart (which is fine because you shouldn't be buying music there anyway).

Pax Titania- Cult of the Colonist

Believe it or not, the world of short run underground noise cassettes doesn't often tend to spawn too many 'classics', at least not in any traditionally agreed-upon sense of the word.  This tape however, initially released several years ago by Hanson Records (the label run by former Wolf Eyes member and current globe trotting esoteric weirdo Aaron Dilloway) may be an exception.  The fact that it's been kept in print for nearly half a decade is a testament to the quality of the release.

Pax Titania is a dude named Chris who lives in either Florida or Kentucky and makes music on an insane synth modulator that he built himself.  The results are definitely out there, yet surprisingly tuneful and make me think of the type of music people probably imagined would be popular at this point in time during the 70s or 80s; all swirling ambience and pseudo-futuristic sounding arpeggios producing alien melodies from unfamiliar sounds.  The noise tag (Hanson is after all, most definitely if nothing else, a noise label) doesn't really fit this very well, as I would say it's far too groovy for that...the most obvious and recognizable reference point for this music would probably be the tradition of minimalist composition, though I can't think of any particular artist this stuff reminds me of (which is likely due to the fact that I don't know much about the history of minimalist composition).  Sometimes it seems almost danceable, but only in fleeting moments.

If the idea of 'noise' music has always sort of fascinated you but put you off because you always thought it would just be, well, a bunch of noise, you should definitely check this stuff out, as it is significantly more interesting than what you're imagining.  Buy it here now!

Bird Names- Sings the Browns

Once again, Bird Names makes my list.  I do have to admit that this has a lot to do with the whole car CD player thing I was discussing earlier (it lives in the car with the VU CD), though that doesn't mean this isn't a great record...this might even be my favorite Bird Names album...it's at least in the Top 3 for sure (they have like 8 now I think)...(For a general, yet fairly vague, description of the band's sound and my feelings on it, please refer to last month's post).

If Metabloism is Bird Names' beach spy record, then this one is like the soundtrack to a musical about mid 20th century coal miners who happen upon a Hansel and Gretal style candy-house and then have adventures involving break dancing skeletons in business suits and giants juggling children juggling swords...pop music too bizarre to comprehend, but certainly too rare to dismiss.

I guess other people just call it psychedelic pop; but I like my description much better.  Pretty much everything they've ever done is fantastic, so go buy all their shit here.   

Christine 23 Onna- Acid Eater

So, this is an interesting one, legendary Japanese noise guy Masonna (hence the 'onna') has this project where he and a collaborator jam out 60s and 70s style go-go music (as in the type go-go dancers would shake to) and then layer/obliterate it with psychedelic noise.  Simple description, but that's pretty much it really... I think it's pretty damn cool, it's been a record I put on when I got to bed for awhile, but it would also work at a party, assuming it wasn't packed with squares that is...I would think that most people would probably either really dig this or hate it...check it out here out and see what you think.

45 Grave- Black Cross 7"

Though it seems they're generally remembered as a sort of, gothy, death rock-type band (mostly due to the tone of their debut album Sleep in Safety),  LA's 45 Grave actually had several different phases; I would say that they're quite notable for being probably the only LA group, which was a part, however marginally, of Hollywood's late 70s pre-hardcore punk scene, the much more musically damaged LAFMS (Los Angeles Free Music Society) scene, and the hair metal scene of Hollywood in the mid-80s.  Not that all those groups existed in vacuums; reality is of course always more complex than that, but I can't think of any other musicians involved with the LAFMS that went on to some success as poodle-haired party animals the way this band did...in a way, it's actually pretty impressive... 

This single was the group's first release after their appearance on the LAFMS comp. Darker Skratcher.  The A-side is a great mid-tempo track which always reminds me of how much creativity can be thrown into the standard 'melodic punk' formula, if the goal is actually to try to make the song good rather than to try and make it sound like some other band; the song is populated by all kinds of weird stop/start parts and noisy breakdowns, and of course there are the awesome vocals of Dinah Cancer, in my opinion one of punk's most underrated female vocalists.  The B-side track, Wax, is a slower, more plodding sort of affair, punctuated by short thrashy outbursts, strange Eastern sounding guitar leads, and lots of cowbell.  I guess some people consider this song to be a metal tinged goth song, but to me it just sounds like a punk band playing something interesting in the time before punk began to mean only one thing to a bunch of assholes.

I suppose this record isn't essential listening or anything, but it's one I really enjoy for its unique vibe and style.  Check it out here.        

The Vaselines- The Way of the Vaselines

Thank the lord for Kurt Cobain; if not for him we (see: most everyone) may never have learned of the music of the Vaselines, a band in my mind, that got as close to indie-pop perfection as anyone has ever come. Generally I don't even really care for what's tagged as indie-pop most of the time, but the catchy, sugary sweet songs of Frances McKee and Eugene Kelly (or at least a generous handful of them) are undeniably irresistible.  This collection compiles both of the band's 7" EPs as well as their first album, Dum Dum, all originally released in the late 80s. 

I first came into contact with the Vaselines, I suspect like many, when aforementioned Vaselines uber-fan Kurt Cobain's band (what were they called again?) included covers of two of their songs (Son of a Gun and Molly's Lips) on their b-sides collection, Insecticide (or something like that).  Cobain always said he appreciated the music of the Vaselines because of it's child-like qualities, and that makes a lot of sense to me.  Perhaps the reason I don't generally care for what is thought of as indie-pop is because the term brings to mind boring and utterly adult seeming bands like TV on the Radio, The Arcade Fire, or the Decemberists...I am an adult of course, but whatever those bands are doing speaks absolutely nothing to me; the Vaselines on the other hand come off as naively sweet and very warm, the complete opposite of what I think of when I think of bad adult 'indie pop'. 

While the the cover versions weren't terrible, they really can't compare with the real thing, as Nirvana chose to buzz quickly through both tracks sounding not unlike a mediocre pop punk band in the process and losing pretty much all that was subtle about the originals.  Son of a Gun for example, features, a false 'hard rock' intro, understated piano melodies, and fabulous male/female harmonizing among other things that were skipped over in the cover.  I'm not complaining, or calling the cover version bad, I'm just saying if that's all you've heard, you're really missing out.   

While not every track on this is a winner (I'm not a fan of their cover of Divine's You Think You're a Man, and several of the songs from the Dum Dum LP sound more like a cocky garage band than a jangly love-in) songs like the two previously mentioned, Jesus Wants Me For a Sunbeam (also covered by you know who), The Day I Was a Horse, Monsterpussy, and Rory Rides Me Raw are near-perfect pop gems.

I guess this release is actually a bit out of date, as a couple of years back, Sub Pop released the triple LP set Enter the Vaselines, which features everything included on this collection (which was originally issued only on CD) as well as demos and live songs from the band's heyday.  If that wasn't enough, the band just released their second proper album, and first in over twenty years, Sex With an X (oh yeah, did I mention they're really into sexual double entendres?  well, they are) also on Sub Pop.

You can, and I suggest you do, go buy their shit here.