No Respect: Flashy Python

Flashy Python-Skin and Bones

    Ok, this is a new one, so it remains to be seen if this album picks up any steam.  But as of right now, one of the best releases of the year has garnered almost no real praise from anyone outside my apartment (or so it seems).  Perhaps because Clap Your Hands Say Yeah got too much attention and backlash for Ounsworth's side project to be considered as new act worthy of new fans.  I suspect that this fuzzy in your face album further distances Mr. Ounsworth from reclaiming his once large appeal, and I also suspect he could give a fuck.  And that is exactly why this album sounds to fresh to my ears. 
    As underrated as Some Loud Thunder was, it still is largely a bridge burning, intentionally notching up the weirdness and sacrificing the hooks.  It's easy to respect but at times hard to actually enjoy.  Skin and Bones basically puts the hooks back into the equation, and thanks to his new bandmates (including members of the Walkmen and Man Man), he's also added some, er um, balls to his sound.  It reminds me a lot of Destroyer's Rubies in the way Ounsworth seems free and easy to fly his freak flag.  Though not as sprawling or epic as Rubies, it's thrilling to hear someone so brash and confident and totally unconcerned with current trends while still being concerned with making a fantastic album on his own terms.
    The production is at times gratingly distorted, but it at least maintains a dynamic range if only because of the performers.  And, unlike the generic lofi sound being abused right now (often by bands who really don't need it) it actually suits the music incredibly well.  Unfortunately, the production plus Ounsworth's unhinged vocals render his lyrics all but unintelligible. Overall, I'd describe the sound as drunk and sweaty, and if that sounds disgusting to you, I guarantee this isn't for you.  But for me, this sounds like a show I'd really like to go to.
    Without a doubt, this is Ounsworth working at his best, and as albums go, it may be my favorite of his so far.  It may not be as anthemic as his original band's debut, but it's much less self-conscious, much more off the cuff.  And through the whole album, he sounds completely ON.  I'm not completely sure why so many of his former fans have completely jumped ship.  Perhaps it's the singer not the song, and well, it could just be plain ol' fickle trendspotting.  And to be fair, Alec should maybe sober up spend more than 30 seconds before naming his next band.  But I hope that the albums creators don't feel as ambivalent about it as most of their reviewers do, because they're certainly off to a great start.

No Respect: Evergreen

Evergreen - S/T

   It could be a stretch to say this album doesn't get any respect. Most people who've listened to it have been impressed, and it'd be a fruitless search to find a bad review of this album. Evergreen wasn't missing appreciation, but wide attention. Call it a case of right place, wrong time. Evergreen was formed in the fruitful Louisville scene of the 90's, a scene that produced both Slint and Will Oldham's many guises. But the album was released in the mid 90's by a small Chicago label during a time when arty post rock was reaching full steam. Also during a time when Chicago noise rock and Wicker Park as the new Seattle weren't punch lines. Although Evergreen played garage rock not too distant from the sound of grimy Chicago at the time (Shellac, Urge Overkill, Jesus Lizard, etc.) and featured Slint's Brit Walford on drums (while the music world was beginning to appreciate Spiderland) Evergreen didn't last past one album. I wasn't around at the time, so I can't begin to speak to how or why. But when I listen to this album in the context of the rest of the 90's midwest underground (a diverse scene and arguably an apex, at least in Chicago) this album doesn't sit well with its peers, even though it bears enough similarities.

   It's also worth mentioning that this album was recorded by James Murphy and Nicolas Vernhes at the Rare Book Room. James Murphy's career need no introduction after the early aughts and Nicholas Vernes has since produced masterpieces with the Silver Jews, Animal Collective, and Deerhunter and his studio is arguably one of the most revered in independent music.

   I mention Murphy because he's arguably why this album was re-released a couple of years ago. Either that or Slint's newfound cultural significance at the time. This is how I heard of Evergreen, through a promotional MP3 of "Plastic Bag," which I should mention, is not a particularly strong track. I knew nothing about this band at the time, just a weird song that creeped along with a bizarre Fall style chorus. It was hard to find more of their stuff on the illegal internet, but I eventually tracked down "New York City" and "Whip Cream Bottle" which were stronger and even stranger. I couldn't place what it was that had me hooked, but once I found out that Walford was the drummer, it was enough track down a physical copy.

   I want to say it was near summer when I finally got the CD. I'd also like think the first time I listened to it the whole way through was driving back to South Bend alone, but this seems implausible. I can say that it's perfect driving music, especially if your driving through a place that's not entirely beautiful. The music is dark, muscular, muddy, and inebriated, some of my favorite qualities in music by far. It's also a bit obtuse and diffused, which is a strange thing to say about a garage band. Some of this is thanks to Murphy and Vernhes production, which here owes a lot to Steve Albini, maybe turned down a little. Every sound lives in physical space, nothing is in the red or right in your face, a risky proposition for such a powerful band. It works, especially when turned up really loud and the band sounds like it's actually in your room, or your car is a small music venue.

   The band has some simple goals here, get drunk, get loud, get weird, rock out. By all accounts they succeed. In the process they also created an album that could be mistaken for the debut of a much greater band. Despite the fuck-all attitude and disinterest in saying anything coherent, Evergreen made a well paced album that has more than enough golden moments, the kind of moments that push a pretty good album into the realm of great albums. It's a stretch to call this a lost great album let alone a forgotten masterpiece. Yet, there are enough signs that this band took it's music seriously, and it's those moments that keep me coming back to this record. One of these moments falls right after the breakdown in "Klark Kent." After a pound your door down beginning, the band falls into tight mid-tempo stomp, guitars wobbling around like they're out of breath and then Sean McLoughlin slurs "We were suckled in the swamplands... Raised on revolution..." This moment of accidental brilliance is like dancing your ass off at a party then bullshitting with your friends until three in the morning, and right as the conversation is winding down, as everyone reaches the end of their raucous laughter, your buddy suddenly says something cryptic and strangely poignant. Half of your friends look at each other like WTF while you wonder drunkenly whether or not you just heard some strange confession or prophecy. It's not elegant or even very poetic, but within the context it's a beautiful moment, a moment where words and music push you back into your messy unconscious where everything is profound and strange.

   From the what-the-fuck-is-that cover art to the plodding synth lines of the instrumental "New York City" Evergreen is perfectly at home confounding any expectation, even to a fault. I suppose they wouldn't have any of this mystique had I been around Kentucky in 1995. But then again, maybe I would have been proud to have such a singular rock act hail from my hometown. Either way, I'm happy to let this album make me believe I'm there: drunk in someones basement deep in the hilly woods of suburban Louisville, listening to the best band no one's ever heard of.

See if it works for you here

Some poeple can't get No Respect: One Time Bells

Introducing the No Respect series, a new project dedicated to praising the unappreciated or overlooked. Well see how long this lasts, but I hope this will pull me away from the pointless ranting (raving) that I've become fond of. Today, I start with early aughts post punk revival also-rans and current d-listers, the French Kick's first album, One Time Bells.

French Kicks - One Time Bells

   First, a little history (skip down a couple paragraphs for the real review if this bores you to tears). I found out about this album while searching amazon.com for similar artists to the Strokes while in Newspaper class. Just sorta killing time while I pissed away the first two class periods of the day. On Amazon there was an ad banner for "Hot New York bands" which advertised both the Walkmen's debut album and this little forgotten gem. Interesting that the ad was not much more than the above words and pictures of said albums. Also interesting that this was all it took to convince me that I desperately needed both albums immediately, a distant time of nievete for both the internet and myself. Also, who knew the tiny Startime label had such a marketing budget? The hunt had begun. I listened closely to 30 second clips of all the songs and thought, oh boy, this is like the Strokes but a bit more distant and cold, more rough around the edges, more believably a real underground band. I had to have it.
   A few weeks later I was in Chicago for a youth group midwinter formal. Like prom for frustrated christian kids set in Chicago featuring shopping at Watertower, a night at the Holiday Inn, dinner at fuck if I can remember, and classical music brought to you by the Moody Bible Institute's symphony orchestra. Honestly not the worst evening I've ever spent in Chicago. I snuck off to the poolroom that night to stare at the skyline and dream of urban fantasies. The next day while shopping, I made my way to Borders on Michigan determined to buy this album to soundtrack said fantasies. I asked the clerk for the album and she said she'd hadn't heard of it (YES!! I WIN!) but was able to track it down. $14 dollars later I cradled the digipak in my hands and basked in the glow of a perfect find. I was at this point, surely the coolest kid in my youth group, and not too secretly breaking away from the pack.
   I didn't get to listen to the album until I got home due to a draconian no headphones rule in the church van. At this point, I think I was about to kill someone as I watched the skyline disappear as we made our way back to the permagrey of northwestern Indiana.
   When I finally got home, CD on deck, headphones in and pushed play, I can't say I was blown to pieces. But my ears were perked. Something about the angular warbly guitars, the never totally on key singing, and the incredibly dry production almost put me off. But the songs were good, and most had one or two oh-shit moments. It wasn't much like anything else I'd heard. Eventually those quirks would be what made this album so unlike some of my other favorites at that time. I can tell now that the rough aesthetic is a choice, but it isn't put overtop the music, it worked within the dynamics of the songs. It gives the album a hungry almost amateur quality. The use of space in the production is disjointed and boxy, some sounds sounding stuffed in a corner, some right in your face, usually in the reverse order you expect. It all could just be amateur recording techniques, but it works very well for the album.
   And the songs. Again, they're not gonna change your life (although, at a certain age, they could), but they are solid and original. Built from a little hardcore, some garage rock, some modish power pop, and a little falsetto, the tracks sounded familiar enough to be uncanny, and they just barely seem to work. Honestly, there are moments that grate (the falsetto on Close to Modern) that risk making the rest of the work feel tenuous. But the Kicks keep it up and deliver assuredly. So much so that they pull off some tricks that in the hands of a lesser band would sound like total shit. The vocals for instance are lazy and a little sardonic, the tender spots almost bordering on parody. Add the fact that none of their voices are instantly memorable, I start to wonder how they even pulled this off. And yet, there's something unassuming about the album that stands in stark relief to everything that came out of New York at this time (since for that matter). Funny that the understated quality is what I find so comforting and lasting about this album, when it's not really what I was looking for at the time, and that this trait has arguably been a hindrance for the band. Much like the Walkmen, the songs make me pine for a time that never existed.* That really is an interesting emotion and rare quality, one that has to be hard to pull off.
   Unfortunately, the Kicks' career has been short of illustrious. Every once in a (great) while I'll read an apologetic review of a new French Kicks release, the long and short of which are always "these guys are alright, I feel bad for them though." As much as I love their debut, their proceeding albums have tended toward slick pop and are (from what I've heard) kinda boring. Which is something you could say about One Time Bells, but you'd be missing on the perfect pop gems like "When you heard you" or "1985" and a propulsive if obtuse line up of songs that have amazingly only gotten better with age.

*This I have to credit to Andy X