Run to Ruin

One genre of music I have frequently encountered in my writings so far is folk.  Folk music (using the commercial meaning, not the traditional one) continues to be a vibrant, vagrant style even with roots that stretch for years and years.  Woody Guthrie may be the pioneer, Bob Dylan its primary beacon, but folk music has had a wide number of artists come and go.  We all probably have our own definition of “folk music”.  When I think of it, I tend to think “political song” or “themes of the common man”, but in reality you could just as easily have songs of love or hymns.  Folk is all over the place.

So far, I have heard folk or folk-related (folk rock, indie folk, etc) albums from Bob Dylan (three, in fact), Devendra Banhart, Fleet Foxes,  Bon Iver, Joanna Newsom, Lucinda Williams, Patty Griffin, Emmylou Harris, Gillian Welch, Steve Earle, and Songs: Ohia.  Adding to this growing list is Nina Nastasia’s Run to Ruin.  As a little background on her, Nina Nastasia was born in Hollywood, CA, but now resides in New York City.  She moved to NYC on a whim, hoping to grow her career as a folk artist.  She lived and worked in New York for nine years before finally releasing her first album, Dogs, in 1999.  Run to Ruin, released in 2003, is her third release and the subject of this posting.

# 194 – Nina Nastasia, Run to Ruin (Metascore = 85)

Dogs was released on a tiny independent label, Socialist Records, when it was released, and initially the label only pressed 1,500 copies.  It was produced by world-renowned producer/engineer Steve Albini, who has worked with the likes of Nirvana, Helmet, Robert Plant, and Joanna Newsom (to name but a few) and who has produced all of Nastasia’s solo records.  Albini has always been a champion for Nastasia, even commenting that Dogs is one of the few albums he has heard many times over yet never tired of.  Even though Socialist Records wasn’t able to release anymore of Dogs due to costs, the album did reach many people, including legendary DJ John Peel of the BBC, whose praise (along with that of many others) helped land Nastasia a record deal with Touch and Go Records.

Dogs and its follow-up, The Blackened Air, feature Nastasia’s quiet yet beautiful vocals backed usually by her acoustic guitar and a few stringed instruments.  Occasionally you’ll hear a bass guitar and drums and even an electric guitar, but for the most part she keeps things simple.  Dogs is the more typical-sounding folk album, with its gentle flowing songs and third person lyrics.  In this case, Nastasia uses a “dog” or “dogs” to symbolize different relationships, heartbreaks, and dramas that she has encountered/experienced.  I liked it for the most part, particularly tracks like “Oblivion”, “Judy’s in the Sandbox”, and “Stormy Weather”, but sometimes I just grew weary from it.  The Blackened Air adds an element of country folk music to her already soft, haunting songs (giving it a sort-of Decemberists’ The King is Dead feel).  Some of my favorites from it include the somewhat off-kilter “This Is What It Is” and “In the Graveyard”.  Dogs has twelve songs that are typically under 3 minutes long; The Blackened Air has sixteen tracks, many of which are also under 3 minutes long.

Run to Ruin is far shorter in terms of number of songs (8) and length (just over 31 minutes long, whereas the other two run about 43 minutes each).  Unlike the other two, though, Run to Ruin feels more concise and takes the best elements from the earlier two records.  Nastasia turns inward, as well, avoiding the symbols and metaphors present throughout Dogs and The Blackened Air and becomes the subject herself.  The topics never really change, but inserting herself and her emotions into the stories gives each song a more intimate feel.  Some of my favorites just for this reason are “We Never Talk”, “Regrets”, and “You Her and Me”.

Another strength of this record is the music.  Like the other records, the music feels appropriate for the song, as if she knew going in exactly what would play when and knew how to draw the emotions she was pouring into the songs out of the musicians that helped craft this record.  I especially like the support she receives in “On Teasing”, “I Say That I Will Go”, and “You Her and Me”.  I also like the sparsely populated songs (my way of saying her voice, her acoustic, and maybe another instrument) like “Regrets” and “Superstar”.

All in all Run to Ruin is a good record.  Each listen I gain a little more from it and a better appreciation for Nastasia’s voice.  If I were to make any kind of comparison in terms of music, I would say the Cowboy Junkies would be close, so if you like them, chances are you’ll like Nina Nastasia.  While some of the songs did grow tiring after several listens, I ultimately do like the record.

New Jersey Indie

I realized yesterday while doing the Amon Tobin post that I do myself a disservice each time I write one of these posts.  My modus operandi during this blog writing process has been to listen to the specific album on my list and write about it, not bothering to listen to other material (particularly earlier material) from that artist unless I just happened to already like that artist (for instance, Spoon, Bob Dylan or Brad Paisley). By not educating myself on other material my post artist has recorded, I have no basis to compare, no direction to discern, etc.  This lack of further investigation is a disservice to my readers, too, because I cannot provide as effective of a review as I would like.  I am going to do my best to educate myself further.

What sparked this realization (which has really been brewing for a long time but just wasn’t something I wanted to admit right away) was listening to today’s entry from the Wrens, The Meadowlands.  I was listening to the album and reading about the band at the time, and reviewers and writers wrote frequently about their songwriting style on previous records (recorded in the mid- to late-1990s) and how drastically that style had changed with The Meadowlands.  The Wrens went through a lot in between the time they released Secaucus in 1996 and Meadowlands in 2002.

# 196 – The Wrens, The Meadowlands (Metascore = 85)

Many events led to the eventual creation and release of The Meadowlands.  The Wrens released their second full length record, Secaucus, in 1996 on Grass Records; Secaucus was widely praised for being one of the best power pop records of the era, and the band’s popularity grew more and more following its release.  Midway through touring behind the record, though, Grass Records was bought by Alan Meltzer, who wanted to refocus the label towards a more mainstream audience (which he eventually achieved a few years later when the label’s name changed to Wind-Up and released major hits by Creed and Evanescence).  The prize of the label in Meltzer’s eyes (as well as many others) was the Wrens, and he wanted to sign them.  Grass offered the band a very lucrative contract, but the catch was conformity to this new theme of the label.  They also gave them an ultimatum—sign the new contract, or the label will pull all promotion of Secaucus.  The band refused to sign the contract, and the label promptly stopped promoting them.  The band demoed for many labels (including Interscope Records), but none of the talks led to a new deal.  At that point, the members were forced to find full time jobs to support themselves and their families, essentially making the Wrens a weekend and vacation thing.

The buzz around Silver (their first full-length) and Secaucus was about their strong hooks and clever third-person songwriting.  The Wrens also put on an incredible live show, so it is hard to believe that nary a label would sign them.  With six years between records, there is bound to be change, and The Meadowlands documents that change.  The Meadowlands, unlike their previous two records and various EPs, was deeply personal.  By the time of its release, they were all working other jobs, and a couple of the guys had families to support.  The Meadowlands embodies their problems with record labels and dealing with everyday life.

What moved me about The Meadowlands was not so much the music itself as it was the lyrics and the vocals.  Musically the band kept many of the same sounds they had in Secaucus, and the sounds really fit in with some of the music that had been released the same year (Welcome Interstate Managers by Fountains of Wayne, Transatlanticism by Death Cab For Cutie, Yours, Mine & Ours by the Pernice Brothers, to name but a few).  Lyrically, this was a band that had endured failures, rejections, heartbreaks, and other issues in the six years since their last record—maybe not something necessarily new, but the way Charles Bissell and Kevin Whelan sang them, you felt their pain.  My favorite songs off the record are “She Sends Kisses”, “This Boy is Exhausted”, “Faster Gun”, “Per Second Second”, and the album’s best song (in my opinion), “Everyone Choose Sides”, because they all seem to embody the challenges they had encountered.

So, how does this record stack with other records I have heard on my list?  From a critical standpoint, many reviewers loved this record, considering it a power pop masterpiece at the time.  It’s certainly a strong record, but where I lose it is that some of the songs just didn’t move me the way other records have.  The lyrics are so-so in some spots, and in other spots the songs drag.  Still, having heard it, I sort of understand the hype.  These guys went through a lot to get to this point; in some ways it’s amazing they managed to stay together for so long, but that tells me they love what they do, love playing as a band, and that they are going to do what they want to do.  I say good for them.

Supermodified

My apologies to my readers out there that were awaiting a new blog post.  I have been extremely busy and a little rundown in my listenings, but I am hoping to reboot this blog and push forward.  There are only 209 days left in 2012.

Before delving into today’s listen, I should briefly touch on the artist, Amon Tobin.  Tobin was born in Brazil but left there with his family when he was 2 to live in numerous places around the world, including Morocco, the Netherlands, and England.  Most of his life he has lived in Brighton, England, until he settled in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2008.  Tobin began experimenting with samplers and other audio equipment while a teenager in Brighton, but he never really got involved in the music scene, let along release anything, until he responded to a magazine promotion by London record label Ninebar by sending a demo.  His career has taken off since then.

Electronic dance music (EDM), while it has been around a long, long time, really took off in the early 1990s, particularly in England.  Tobin consumed the sounds coming from DJs and began incorporating his own ideas.  He started sampling long before it became a popular style, yet he went largely unnoticed because he could not be associated with one style.  He released two critically acclaimed records, Bricolage (1997) and Permutation (1998), which set the stage for his first commercially-driven record, Supermodified.

# 200 – Amon Tobin, Supermodified (Metascore = 85)

Harking back to my reviews of Rounds and Pause by Four Tet, I am nowhere near an expert in EDM, let alone regular listener.  I know what moves me, and for the first half of this record, I really liked what Tobin put together.  ”Get Your Snack On” sounds like it would have fit in perfectly with any one of the Ocean’s movies.  The mixture of the organs, fast-paced drums, and flutes give this a Vegas vibe that is hard to shake off.  One of the appeals in this record is the wide assortment of sounds on each song, as if Tobin was trying to tell his biography through sounds he had heard in places he has lived or visited.  Equally impressive to me is the sequencing of those sounds, which always seem to be fluid (check out “Slowly”).  “Precursor” is an interesting track to me because Tobin, combined with beatboxer Quadraceptor, sounds like an android working in outer space.  “Chocolate Jockey”, which follows “Percursor”, sounds nothing like a robot working; “Chocolate Jockey” is more of a proper soundscape with its steady groove and interesting blends of sounds.

Not all of the album worked for me, though.  I first got lost with “Golfer vrs Boxer”; otherworldly in its sound, the track at times felt like it was bordering on losing control.  Perhaps that was the effect Tobin was going for, but for me the track just felt less fluid than the first four tracks.  It would be one thing if it effectively led into the next phase in the album, but “Deo” does not sound (to me) to be in the same solar system.  I also felt the record would drag at times, making me wish this thing would move forward.

Despite these minor issues, this record had a great vibe to it and introduced me to someone new I had not heard.  Tobin’s use of samples and instruments help create lush soundscapes that venture from Vegas cool to outer space weirdness.  The “85” score seems reasonable to me; the record does not feel groundbreaking, yet it does not feel like a rehash either.  I would be interested to hear more from him, particularly Bricolage.  I would recommend this record.

Didn’t It Rain

Not completely driven by this list (but certainly helped by it), I have been on a folk/Americana/alt-country music kick lately.  Yes, I still listen to rock ‘n roll regularly, but I have found myself very intrigued by the richness of the music.  Fleet Foxes and Gillian Welch certainly contributed to my enjoyment, as well as artists such as Abigail Washburn, Steve Earle, and Uncle Tupelo.  I wouldn’t call any of these as dying music forms, but you typically do not hear these songs on regular radio very much, if at all.

One name that I have come upon while doing this blog is Jason Molina.  One of his music projects, Songs: Ohia, has two records on this list.  I recently listened to Didn’t It Rain and was immediately drawn by its spirit, its sparseness, its richness.  Molina himself has an interesting background.  He played bass guitar for various heavy metal bands in his home state of Ohio, but eventually he decided he wanted to release his own material.  This sound deviated sharply from the metal he had been playing.  Molina released ten LPs and four EPs under the Songs: Ohia moniker.

# 160 – Songs: Ohia, Didn’t It Rain (Metascore = 85)

Didn’t It Rain opens with the title track, a quiet piece with Molina on vocals and guitars and Jennie Benford providing backing vocals.  You really feel like you are sitting in the room with Molina singing this song, his voice the loan sound (for the most part) to be heard in a hollowed out, abandoned house that had been around for decades.  Midway through the song the pace picks up slightly, and Molina’s guitar is accompanied by mandolin, but the mood stays the same.  Despite the storm that’s over them, Molina perseveres through it and offers a helping hand to his fellow but careful not to cover his own back.

The vibe in “Didn’t It Rain” carries throughout the record.  As he progresses through “Steve Albini’s Blues” to “Blue Factory Flame”, Molina’s mood grows darker and darker.  This seems to peak in the two-song suite of “Ring the Bell” and “Cross the Road, Molina”, where Molina sounds like he’s pouring his heart out on the ground, drained from the crumbling of an emotional breakdown.  “Blue Factory Flame” is like the post-fallout point, where he’s looking at himself, where he lives, and convinced of the inevitable doom that sits in front of him.

There is a quiet intensity throughout this record, something Neil Young-ish about the record, like Harvest or the acoustic moments in After the Gold Rush.  The music is very bare boned early in the record…mostly Molina strumming his acoustic with occasional accompaniment via banjo or mandolin (few percussion instruments appear on the record; the percussion comes from the strumming).  Starting with “Ring the Bell” and carrying through the rest of the album, the music has a broodier electric sound to it, something more akin to “Cortez the Killer” or “Down by the River”, but still dark and intense.

I must say I was transfixed by the sound of this record.  The raw emotion that Molina bleeds into the lyrics and music made this a really interesting listen for me, especially on a rainy day here.  Did it blow me away?  No, but it certainly has given me another record to consider buying.

Keep It Clean

I don’t know a whole lot about Canadian hardcore band F*cked Up other than their last two records—The Chemistry of Common Life and David Comes to Life—have been widely hailed for their subject matter as well as their music.  However, in reading more about them, they are a band that has released a ton of material as well as collaborated with a wide number of artists, including Danko Jones, Nelly Furtado, the Circle Jerks, and many others.  To call their music hardcore punk (as referred on some websites) would be sort of false because they have diverged from that early path to a more experimental hardcore sound.

F*cked Up is not afraid to push boundaries with their music or album artwork, as they have had some legal troubles with a few of their records.  But within the records themselves there is a depth not always characteristic to punk and hardcore bands.  How many hardcore or punk bands have you heard sing about plants?  (Ok, maybe mushrooms, but I’m referring to other plants.)  F*cked Up likes to stretch boundaries, and nowhere is this more evident than on their first big success, The Chemistry of Common Life.

#189 – F*cked Up, The Chemistry of Common Life (Metascore = 85)

“Son the Father” opens with a short flute prelude before the guitars come churning in.  Soon lead singer Pink Eyes (aka Damian Abraham) comes pummeling in.  When I hear his voice, he reminds of the lead singer of Green Jelly on “Three Little Pigs” but singing far more intelligent lyrics (songs that involve Rambo at the end are campy at best).  When I listen to “Son the Father”, I feel like I’m hearing Adam’s tale (Adam from the Bible) of his bloodline, spoken in a way where he questions whether or not his descendants deserve a second chance.  It’s something different for sure.

Questioning and understanding faith is the underlying theme here.  Whether the band is ultimately successful or not (doubtful), through each song they ask questions and seek answers why people believe what they believe, what it means for them, etc.  Pink Eyes doesn’t try to be judgmental or arrogant about the questions; he’s just trying to understand the meaning of life and death.  Some of his musings are done under the influence, perhaps needing that hallucinogenic push to better understand.

Whatever the outcome, this is a lyrically dense record.  One would think based on their band name alone or sound that lyrics would take a back seat to the overall edge they portray.  You would be wrong, as this grafting together of intelligent lyrics with a sometimes hard, more times melodic sound make a very intriguing record.  The critical reviews of this record tended to focus on the edginess of the band while casually mentioning the lyrics.  The lyrics make this record more than the sound, in my opinion.  This was an interesting listen.

More Utensil Artwork

Today’s entry comes from a previously discussed band, Spoon.  I left off discussing one of their earlier records, Girls Can Tell, an album that seemed to lay the groundwork for where the band would go in future releases.  Why I think Spoon is unique, I don’t know.  To me they are not like other bands I have heard…at least with the sounds put together the way they are.  Perhaps it is the way they employ different sounds, whether one of the members is beat-boxing (“Stay Don’t Go”) or Britt Daniel is playing unusual chord patterns on guitar.  Or maybe it is Daniel’s lyrics, which are frequently personal but come off in a strange, goofy fashion.

Something about Spoon is unique to me, and Kill the Moonlight (#63, Metascore = 88) does not change my opinion.  The sounds are different but build upon the foundation established by Girls Can Tell.  Every song sounds more concise, more focused than they did on Girls Can Tell.  The record itself clocks in at 34:50 and has no songs over 4 minutes in length (unlike Girls Can Tell, which had two songs over 4 minutes and is about a minute-and-a-half longer).  When you listen to the record, there are sounds coming from both sides, from behind you and in front of you, from all over.  Some bands have trouble filling in the empty space; Spoon does not.

While I thought I liked Girls Can Tell, I enjoyed Kill the Moonlight more.  There’s a great opener – “Small Stakes” – with a great organ riff and pumped up vibe, and there’s a beautiful closer – “Vittorio E.” – that is very minimal yet very full.  Lyrically (when I pay close attention) Daniel is able to weave in stories and feelings in a non-cliché way; I don’t feel like I’ve heard this story before or he’s rambling about the same stuff all over again.  There is never a particular rhyme scheme, just times of what feels like stream-of-consciousness that flow from his mouth.  I do not know whether this is his writing style or not, but I feel as if most of the songs he develops the sound ideas first and builds the lyrics around the sound.  Or maybe Daniel does both at the same time. I like many songs off the record, but “Someone Something” I probably like the most.  Musically it is an odd song, non-traditional in a chordal sense.  I like the harmonies with the “someone somethings” throughout, and the lyrics, while choppy, get the theme across.

I find Kill the Moonlight more accessible, more refreshing than some of their other albums I have heard.  What Spoon has put together here is a well-written album that baffled the critics when it came out because, while it was definitely a Spoon album with their sound, Kill the Moonlight took the best elements of all of their earlier work and made it sound commercial without being commercial.  The album sounds like a band that knows what it does best, knows how to write interesting melodies, and knows how to deliver them.  Their later albums (Gimme Fiction, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, and Transference) do not reach this level of sophistication; they have their individual moments, but the albums themselves lack the cohesion of Kill the Moonlight.