Photograph by Alex Cairncross
As summer dies down, Library Voices return with their second LP, Summer of Lust. Produced by the Besnard Lakes’ Jace Lasek, who is becoming the go-to guy for Canadian indie rock, Summer of Lust feels more reined in and focused than Denim on Denim, which is surprising for a band of seven people. On Summer of Lust, Library Voices have managed to maintain their pop sensibilities and make another solid, if brief, album.
Playing up their literary moniker, the album is introduced and closed by a narrator, and a multitude of allusions that go completely over my head are included. ‘The Prime Minister’s Daughter’, however, is a clear rebuke of recent cuts to art funding, which may be lost in the lightness of the song. The album’s highlight comes with the first song, ‘If Raymond Carver Were Born in the 90′s’, with a surprisingly poignant theme of coming to grips with the people around you growing up, while remaining in a sort of arrested development. In a recurring motif, the melancholy lyrics are paired with bouncy background music. Even ‘Generation Handclap’, the most upbeat song on the record, seems to have a bit of sadness to it.
At just over a half-hour in length, Summer of Lust comes and goes rather quickly. It’s usually a good sign if a band leaves you wanting more, and it looks like that desire will have to be satiated with their perpetual touring. It’s a wonder they aren’t more well known, but hopefully Summer of Lust will bring Library Voices the respect they deserve.
Library Voices – If Raymond Carver Were Born in the 90′s
Library Voices – Generation Handclap
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Photograph by Alex Southam
I Break Horses are Swedish duo Maria Lindén and Fredrik Balck, who, as the story goes, met online while both were visiting a medical site catering to hypochondriacs. The two were able to connect and decided to put their worries into music. The resulting catharsis is Hearts. Finding themselves labelmates with Fleet Foxes and Explosions in the Sky on Bella Union, I suspect they feel pretty good right about now.
The first two singles ‘Hearts’ and ‘Winter Beats’ have been available for some time, and being a devout follower of all things shoegaze (typically the floppy haired guitar variety), these offerings had me excited for things to come, even if the noise I Break Horses generates is created electronically. These songs gently layer into an astonishing and repetitive, beautiful sound, with the vocals softly adding to the atmosphere.
Although there are some obvious older guitar-based influences, most notably My Bloody Valentine with Loveless and Ride with Nowhere, I Break Horses still come off sounding fresh and relevant. The comparison with M83 has been made, but I would argue that this material could rival anything Anthony Gonzalez has to offer, especially as he seems to have progressed little since Saturdays = Youth with his latest single.
Hearts as a whole doesn’t sound like the first two singles, but overall the remaining seven songs tend to take on the same formula, shifting and progressing slowly. ‘Wired’ deconstructs itself and becomes somewhat foggy and unrecognizable near the end, while ‘Pulse’ utilizes hazy vocals that swell with beautiful harmonies. I never thought I would use the word ethereal to describe a song entitled ‘Cancer’, but somehow I think this is what I Break Horses had in mind, perhaps trying to understand something that they have both professed to fear greatly. And while the album as a whole could hardly be described as positive, the finale ‘No Way Outro’ certainly ends with a triumphant drum roll.
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Photograph by Will Govus
Two years ago, Atlanta, Georgia-based multi-instrumentalist Ernest Greene, going by the name Washed Out, released Life of Leisure. The EP was an admirable laptop-created debut for Greene, and he was widely acknowledged as one of the pioneers of the chillwave genre alongside like-minded Toro Y Moi’s Chaz Bundick, Small Black’s Ryan Heyner and Josh Kolenik, and Teen Daze’s Teen Daze (who prefers to not go by his name). Now, signed to a major indie label and enjoying the true in-studio process it entails (including working with Ben Allen of Merriweather Post Pavilion and Halycon Digest fame), Washed Out has returned with Within and Without, one of the most infectious albums of the summer, and possibly 2011.
Aside from the advances in recording, which resulted in a more polished sophomore effort, it is the duality of Within and Without that makes it outshine other electronic acts that have the tendency to fall into a static motif. The upbeat tracks slowly flood your ears, while the more somber tracks leave you in a melancholy, yet appreciative state. Whether under the shine of the sun or the glow of streetlights, Within and Without’s rich electronic dreamscapes provide the perfect music for a drive this time of year. ‘Amor Fati’ is the epitome of a summer song. With its pulsating synth, a steady beat, and some of the most uplifting lyrics ever, the track encourages its listeners to understand that the world is theirs and that they can decide their own fate.
The attention paid to balance in the album is noteworthy. The opening of ‘Far Away’ sounds similar to a Chromatics song, but then morphs into the unfamiliar sound of cellos over a minimalistic bass that leaves your ears vulnerably and cautiously awaiting what’s next to come. Fortunately, lifting you out of that trance is the sunny disposition of ‘Before’, but before long you are placed right back into the darker corners of Washed Out’s repertoire with ‘You and I’.
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Photograph by Danny Clinch
When Death Cab for Cutie released their first single from Codes and Keys, ‘You Are a Tourist’, I wasn’t very into it. It sounded like a hit single with its melody and lyrics written for a third grade school choir, but I was worried that it would be a case of releasing the best song first, much like the Strokes earlier this year with ‘Under Cover of Darkness’. While it may be the lead single, it is also the weakest song on the record. A week or so later Death Cab released ‘Some Boys’, and all my worries disappeared.
Codes and Keys finds Death Cab exploring new territory with electronic sounds, using Ben Gibbard’s voice as an instrument, almost reminiscent of Animal Collective’s most radio-friendly track ‘Fireworks’. When I first heard ‘Some Boys’, I instantly thought of ‘Fireworks’, and sat amazed that this sound fit Death Cab for Cutie so well. Opening track ‘Home Is a Fire’ dips its toes quite far into the electronic sound, almost sounding like a Postal Service b-side. The precise picking and rapid scattering drum beat can sound at times electronic, yet still organic enough to question whether or not it is.
Codes and Keys is probably Death Cab’s biggest change in sound from one album to another, both lyrically and musically. Narrow Stairs was a very raw and at times depressing record. Codes and Keys has a very studio-centric sound to most of its tracks, and lyrically may be Death Cab’s happiest and most charming record. Narrow Stairs left listeners with a tear jerking break up song, while Codes and Keys‘ closer leaves you wanting and happy to be in love.
Death Cab for Cutie are at a strange place in their career following their first number one record. Each record they put out in this stage of their career will always make early followers of the band ask if they are still relevant. It’s asking myself this where I realized that it doesn’t matter. I don’t expect them to put out a masterpiece by any means anymore, they are a pop band, and their new record demonstrates their ability to continue to create wonderfully melodic and jangly guitar pop songs they have come to be known for.
Death Cab for Cutie – You Are a Tourist
Death Cab for Cutie – Some Boys
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Photograph by D.L. Anderson
How do you follow a universally adored debut like For Emma, Forever Ago? Give the masses more of what you know they love? Fight the current, tear off in a wild new direction, and dare them all to follow?* Bon Iver’s sophomore, self-titled record tries for a mix of both with mixed results, renewing and expanding For Emma without really improving on it.
Where For Emma, Forever Ago was built out of little more than an acoustic guitar and Justin Vernon’s overdubbed falsetto, sounding as dusty and spare as the secluded winter cabin in which it was famously written and recorded, Bon Iver goes electric and beyond with an ambitious arsenal of synths, drums, autotune, and yes, that is a saxophone a-wailing on the album’s closing track ‘Beth/Rest’. The tinkering is welcome, but it yields an inconsistent batch of songs with some sublime highs and a few baffling lows, in contrast to For Emma all of whose nine tracks were solidly worth knowing by heart.
Four of Bon Iver’s tracks do stand out as excellent. ‘Towers’ is accessible and catchy; ‘Michicant’ is mournful and wintry, Vernon’s bread and butter, playing with a pointillistic 3/4 rhythm. ‘Perth’ and ‘Calgary’ are two of the band’s strongest songs to date, the most emotionally touching pieces on this album and the most likely to wind up on mixtapes and moody playlists. Like the overlooked gems on the Blood Bank EP, their structural essentials would have them sounding just like missing For Emma tracks if stripped down to guitar and vocals, while their arrangements here on Bon Iver make strong use of the band’s new electric toys to add power and weight. As a matter of staying in character while going electric, Sufjan Stevens should be taking notes. Although then you get to a track like the aforementioned ‘Beth/Rest’ and it all seems to come apart in chunks of post-Roger Waters Pink Floyd b-side power ballad, which is really and truly not a phrase I ever expected to type about this particular band.
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