F*cked Up Are Back!

"Paper the House"

Fucked Up's 2011 masterpiece, David Comes to Life, remains a goto record for me. The long, weird, totally meta rock opera saw the band expanding on their old hardcore sound. Fucked Up drew on some of the late 60s / early 70s sounds of bands like The Who as they transformed themselves into the world's hardest, most aggressive power pop band.

David Comes to Life has been one of my favorite albums to take with me on a run after a morning filled with soul-crushing, corporate meetings. The band's new single, "Paper the House," features their now trademark arena-sized, hook-laden wall of guitar noise with Damian "Pink Eyes" Abraham shouting lyrics like, "The way I make my living is driving me insane!"

"Paper the House" will be on Fucked Up's follow-up to David Comes to Life -- Glass Boys -- which comes out via Matador on June 3rd.

It may be enough to get me running again.

New Kurt Vile

Infomercial for "Never Run Away"

Philadelphia's Kurt Vile bought some ad time on the CW affiliate in his home city last night to premiere a single from his upcoming Wakin on a Pretty Daze, the follow-up to 2011's wonderful Smoke Rings For My Halo.

The song has the same easy-going vibe as Smoke Rings For My Halo and should please fans, like me, of that record. It turns out that Vile also has a large vinyl collection and a beautiful daughter.



You can grab a free download of "Never Run Away" now, and Wakin on a Pretty Daze is out April 9th on Matador.

Yo La Tengo Streaming at P4K

Fade

Godfathers of indie rock and pride of Hoboken, NJ, Yo La Tengo, have made their upcoming Fade available for streaming over at Pitchfork Advance.

I'll have plenty to say about the record, I'm sure, following its release via Matador on January 15th; but so far, I'm enjoying the preview immensely.  While you listen, you may also want to check out Jesse Jarnow's Big Day Coming:  Yo La Tengo and the Rise of Indie Rock.  It's a great history not only of the band, but also of the indie music industry and the part of its origin story that takes place in the great state of New Jersey.

Interpol, Turn on the Bright Lights, 2002

Friday Flashback Mini Review

Matador just announced a special Tenth Anniversary Edition of Interpol's debut LP, Turn on the Bright Lights.  I listened to that record almost non-stop following its 2002 release.  Interpol were New York indie darlings back then and even ended up beating out Wilco for the top spot on Pitchfork's 2002 year-end list.  I hadn't listened to Turn on the Bright Lights in a while, so I decided to put it on today and put down some quick thoughts.

There are some strange lyrics on Turn on the Bright Lights.  "NYC" includes the line "The subway, she is a porno.  The pavements, they are a mess."  We get "Sleep tight, grim rite, we have 200 couches where you can...  Sleep tight," etc. on "PDA."  One of my favorite lines opens "Obstacle 2:"  "I'm gonna pull you in close.  Gonna wrap you up tight.  Gonna play with the braids that you came here with tonight."  Those lyrics, though, are part of the whole feel of the album.  There's a distance, a coolness that allows the listener to just go with it when Paul Banks is at his most indecipherable.

Carlos D's pummeling bass, Daniel Kessler's post-punk riffs, and Paul Banks's voice and delivery drew lots of comparisons to Joy Division at the time; but, to me, the sound of Turn on the Bright Lights, while somewhat revivalist, sits firmly in early aughts New York.  Just beneath the exterior of steely calmness and cool lie the emotions of pain and loss, ready to break through at any moment.

Rock on...

Video for "Cherokee"

Chan Marshall-Directed Video from Sun

Cat Power, a.k.a. Chan Marshall, maintains a very interesting and active Twitter account.  It was there that she announced the completion of her new album, and it was there that she posted several behind the scenes shots and insights during the making of the video for Sun's opening track, "Cherokee."

Well, the video is finished.  A newly-blonde Chan Marshall directed it, and it takes place in a post-apocalyptic, zombie-infested desert.

Cat Power, Sun, 2012

Tuesday Run Album Review

People change.  Kind of.  They get older.  They have experiences. They begin to get a better sense of their place in the world.  That's the key, I think.  Most people stay the same at their core.  But they learn to relate to the outside world much better as they get older.

Chan Marshall had a reputation for being shy, introverted, even scared.  My own introduction to her music as Cat Power was a song on which she seemed to be saying that she understood why Kurt Cobain committed suicide.  Her early live shows, apparently, were characterized by her constantly apologizing to the audience and suddenly cutting sets short.  Her songs were delivered in her beautifully pained voice over spare arrangements.

Then, on 2006's The Greatest, Marshall teamed with the Memphis Rhythm Band for a set of more upbeat-sounding, if not necessarily more upbeat, songs.  According to this 2006 New York Times piece, Marshall had sobered up and had developed a new, more positive outlook.  This showed in her live shows.

Sun, which came out last week on Matador, finds Marshall looking out from herself, recognizing her place in a universe that doesn't revolve around her, and asking her listeners to do the same.  The spareness of her early work is gone.  The band is gone.  Sun is self-produced, self-performed and includes loops, drum machines, electronic effects, and in some cases *gasp!* Auto-tune.

Marshall chastises herself for "bitchin', complainin' when some people ain't got shit to eat" over a looping keyboard riff on single "Ruin."  She's traveled the world and seen things and gained perspective.  On "Real Life," it turns out that Marshall's met people, too:  a doctor who wants to be a dancer, a teacher who wants to be a dreamer.  But she sings that, "real life is ordinary."  Real life on "Human Being," though, also means using your own voice to sing, using your two hands to build things, and recognizing that there are people getting "shot on their own street."  "Nothin But Time," an eleven-minute track featuring an assist from Iggy Pop on vocals, rolls along with advice for a kid who could just as easily be a younger version of Marshall herself.  "You got nothing but time... ...never give away what you always wanted."

This is all wrapped up in some very un-Cat Power-like music.  In a recent Pitchfork feature, Marshall said that her songs used to be all down-tempo because she felt that she wasn't a particularly good musician.  The electronics, while sure to give pause to some long-time fans, have obviously freed her to pick up the pace while maintaining her usual unorthodox song structures.  And her voice is still there.  That smoky southern drawl comes through and makes all the songs on Sun Cat Power songs.

Cat Power sounds different on Sun because Chan Marshall's changed.  Kind of.  She's still Cat Power, sensitive singer / songwriter.  It's just that now she sounds almost thankful for it.

New A.C. Newman Track

"I'm Not Talking"

If you start with the New Pornographers, then A.C. Newman has been churning out expertly crafted pop songs for over a decade.  Songs like "Letter from an Occupant," "The Laws Have Changed," "Loose Translation," "All for Swinging You Around," "Use It," "Sing Me Spanish Techno," "Stacked Crooked," "Mutiny, I Promise You," "Crash Years," and so many more from the New Pornographers' catalog are almost-perfect pop gems.  And Newman has produced several gems as a solo artist as well, like "Miracle Drug," and "Like a Hitman, Like a Dancer."

Many of Newman's best songs benefit from some beautiful vocals from the likes of Neko Case, Kathryn Calder, and Nicole Atkins.  "I'm Not Talking," the first song from Newman's upcoming Shut Down the Streets, is more mellow than much of the New Pornographers' or Newman's own more power-poppy work; but the clever lyrics and the lovely backing vocals are all there.  One of the decade's best songwriters is still in fine form.

Shut Down the Streets arrives on October 9th via Matador.

You can download "I'm Not Talking" for the price of a Facebook "like," or stream it via YouTube.