It can boil down to the question on whether or not the distillation of the raw energy of sound in a open space competes well with that of the closed session. It may even determine the movement of the masses or the travel of the bits downstream to the many peer-to-peer network jackers. Jacked in and into the stream of consciousness that can be given and taken from the aural stimulants found breathing and pulsating on the shiny side of things to come. If it works, it works. If it doesn't, regrets and misgivings for the future to come.
Belvedere Jehosophat - Monday, April 28, 2008
Kid Koala records are, by and large, fairly consistent affairs, and this, the third Kid Koala LP now to offer the same charming mixture of nonsense samples and expert turntablism clinging to a skeleton of old jazz and funk records, doesn't disappoint. As per usual, Your Mom's Favorite DJ flaunts Kid Koala's excellent nose (ear?) for samples, which range from the terribly hip (Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant) to the incredibly banal (CSI: NY) to the completely obscure (just about everything else).
Whilst there is nothing on the new record that is as fully realised as "Basin Street Blues" or as emotive as "Space Cadet 2," both from 2003's Some of My Best Friends Are DJ's, this is not to suggest that the new record is devoid of great moments. Rather, the focus this time around seems to have been on putting together a party album, and, at this, Kid Koala succeeds admirably.
Read the rest of Kid Koala - Your Mom's Favorite DJ review
Belvedere Jehosophat - Tuesday, April 1, 2008
(The Jicks now feature Janet Weiss of the late Sleater-Kinney.)
It's somewhat disconcerting to note that Malkmus' latest effort despite being a song shorter than its predecessor is actually a good twelve minutes longer. Even more disconcerting are the opening guitars — which wail quite readily — and the opening lyrics, "of all my stoned digressions..." In short, Real Emotional Trash threatens to be a stoner nightmare, full of never-ending guitar jams and short on what could comfortably be described as songs.
Read the rest of Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks - Real Emotional Trash review
Belvedere Jehosophat - Tuesday, March 25, 2008
How does My Disco top Cancer, that exercise in harsh, mechanical, angular, minimalist rock music? Well, by becoming harsher, more mechanical, more angular and manifestly more minimalist than one could imagine possible.
"|," the first song, is a statement of purpose: essentially, the same note is struck again and again with a little percussion thrown in for good measure. This, then, becomes a rough template for the rest to come on Paradise — the bass hitting one or two notes, often in odd meter, the drums crashing along with mind-boggling precision and the guitars producing all sorts of ungodly noise.
Read the rest of My Disco - Paradise review
Belvedere Jehosophat - Sunday, January 20, 2008
La Cucaracha is the brown-sounding album that Deaner promised quebec would be all those years ago. It's hard to tell whether Ween are sounding more manic than usual (or at least since Chocolate and Cheese) or whether it just seems like that because La Cucaracha, in terms of production, lacks the sheen of their previous few records.
Whichever way and for whatever reason, La Cucaracha is a diverse record, and one in which Ween hops between genres with their usual astounding ease. The woozy reggae of "The Fruit Man" comes instantly to mind, as does the weird bluegrass-ish "Learnin' to Love." The former, though perhaps this is a contentious statement, is the best song on the album.
Read the rest of Ween - La Cucaracha review
Belvedere Jehosophat - Thursday, January 17, 2008
It's been twelve-odd years since Thurston last released a record of what could comfortably be described as pop music, and Trees Outside the Academy is a seamless collection of catchy, catchy pop songs.
Contrary to the picture on the cover of the record, Thurston in fact spends the bulk of his time playing an acoustic guitar. If that weren't unexpected enough, his principal cohort (apart from fellow yoofer, Steve Shelley, on drums) is violinist, Samara Lubelski. These rather unpredictable developments, it must be said, gel completely to make for a record that is criminally catchy and criminally well written.
Read the rest of Thurston Moore - Trees Outside the Academy review
Belvedere Jehosophat - Wednesday, October 3, 2007
None Shall Pass is conceptual, I'm sure of it, though the concept I've yet to penetrate. And in the crafting of this alleged concept, Aesop Rock has twisted together a claustrophobic, dark collection of songs whose sounds waver between three points demarcated, somewhat roughly, by Labor Days, the nicer parts of Bazooka Tooth and Fast Cars, Danger, Fire and Knives.
Cage, Rob Sonic, Breezly Brewin' and El-P each drop a verse, and all, as might be expected, do exceptionally fine work, though they never come close to shining, rhyme-wise, as brightly as Aesop does. John Darnielle, of The Mountain Goats, also guests on the final final track of the album — the one that appears after the silence that follows the actual final track — a nice folksy little song about pigs — pigs perhaps metaphorical, perhaps just literal.
Read the rest of Aesop Rock - None Shall Pass review
Belvedere Jehosophat - Thursday, September 6, 2007
It's been a few years now since Shellac released their last record, 1000 Hurts, and, luckily, nothing has happened during this time to compromise their tendency to be completely unaccommodating and unpersonable. Shellac is still Shellac, and for this we should be thankful. The skronky guitars are still in play, as are the bizarre time signatures and that strange Albini production wherein the vocals are so low in the mix that it's hard to make out the lyrics.
Excellent Italian Greyhound kicks off with "The End of Radio," a song which easily rates as one of Shellac's best. This song is a little reminiscent of Terraform's "Didn't We Deserve a Look At You the Way You Really Are," but only in that both songs are constructed around a very basic set of repeated notes. There, though, the similarity ends - there being nothing else quite like Albini's philosophical rant about the end of radio. This song is simply stunning.
Read the rest of Shellac - Excellent Italian Greyhound review
Belvedere Jehosophat - Wednesday, May 16, 2007
No Shouts No Calls is an undemanding record, perhaps the most undemanding of Electrelane's career, and the reason looks to be a simple one: Verity Susman's heart has broken, and, as a result, abstract artiness has given way to candor.
An inverse of Axes, No Shouts No Calls is mostly songs with vocals with a few instrumentals thrown in for good measure, and it is, of course, with the help of the lyrics that we get an impression of the heartbroken nature of the album. These are the most personal lyrics that Susman has yet written — or, if not the most personal, then certainly the most explicit. The candidness meshes well Electrelane's customarily bittersweet music.
Read the rest of Electrelane - No Shouts No Calls review
Belvedere Jehosophat - Tuesday, May 1, 2007
It's been a few years since El-P unleashed his last monstrosity, Fantastic Damage, onto the world. It's nice to see that, in what is relatively quite a long time, none of El-P's misanthropy has been compromised. Make no mistake, I'll Sleep When You're Dead is a jarring, irate record. Aided by a misfit collection of guests: Aesop Rock, Cage, Cat Power, The Mars Volta and Trent Reznor, plus some additional backing vocals from several other notable figures, I'll Sleep When You're Dead is, too, ambitious in scope, stitching together a vast array of clashing sounds. And therein lies the genius of both this record and El-P: the production. El-P's beats are a spectacular mess, so mind-bogglingly removed from the typical kick-kick-snare, that they leave you feeling a little off-kilter, trying to find some semblance of pattern or consonance.
I'll Sleep When You're Dead is also, on par with the music, quite lyrically dense, mixing three parts paranoia to two schizophrenia. Naturally, El-P's typical bragging and self-aggrandisement is in no short supply here. And, just as naturally, it's hard to begrudge the man when it's quite clear that his hyperbole is backed by some of the best production and rapping in the game.
Read the rest of El-P - I'll Sleep When You're Dead review
Belvedere Jehosophat - Monday, March 19, 2007
Squeezing eight songs into a slender 24-minutes, My Disco's Cancer is a jarring, incredibly noisy record that marries mechanical, angular guitars with a superbly tight rhythm section.
My Disco sound like Shellac, and judging by the "Recorded and mixed in analogue..." on the back of the record, it would seem that they also share similar aesthetics, perhaps even politics. Whichever way (and not making any mention of the fact that they are most probably named after a Big Black song) My Disco do sound like they have borrowed, at the very least, a little of Albini and co.'s taste for clinically precise music. This, I mention, not as a criticism, but rather to give you an idea of the type of sound My Disco have cultivated. Sure, there are musical cues, there is reminiscence, but My Disco are their own band, and, accordingly, they've written a pretty decent batch of songs and collected them into a pretty decent record.
Read the rest of My Disco - Cancer review
Belvedere Jehosophat - Monday, February 19, 2007
From the outset The Destroyed Room sounds, more than anything else, like something that would be found on the SYR series. After all, of the eleven tracks, only three have vocals, and, even then, one of those, an outtake from Experimental Jet Set, Trash & No Star, lasts only a little over a minute. (To qualify, that particular track, "Razor Blade," is as sweet as the liner-notes suggest.)
The second track with vocals, "Blink," recorded in 1999 for inclusion in a French film, is also very sweet — albeit in a folkish/droning way — and interesting in that it sounds very much like a Yo La Tengo song. The final non-instrumental, and the reason I suspect quite a few people will have purchased this record is the almost 26-minute long version of "The Diamond Sea." I'm not sure if this particular version, the unedited take of what ended up on the Washing Machine album, has ever been released, whether as a b-side or for download, but it is quite spectacular, and certainly worth owning.
Read the rest of Sonic Youth - The Destroyed Room: B-Sides and Rarities review
Belvedere Jehosophat - Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Stepping Stones is essentially a best-of and remix record in one. Taking songs from as far back as 1994's Strictly Turntablized, Krush collects and presents some of his best tracks — some reworked gently, others more drastically.
Stepping Stones is split into two discs, lyricism and soundscapes — the concept behind each being decidedly self-explanatory.
Read the rest of DJ Krush - Stepping Stones; the self-remixed best review
Belvedere Jehosophat - Thursday, January 11, 2007
The Coup: Boots Riley on vocals; Pam the Funkstress on turntables; and, various friends with things that make noise.
The Coup's fifth effort, Pick a Bigger Weapon, is, much like their previous records, a relentlessly funky, politically astute affair.
Read the rest of The Coup - Pick a Bigger Weapon review
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