MMFRR#10 -- Metavari

Severe apologies for the non-updates. Life happens.

You know what else happens? Myspace music friend requests. This, of course, leads us to another edition of Myspace Music Friend Request Reviews.

I used to have a bunch of these in my inbox, but for some reason they've all disappeared, wiped out by Tom. All except for Metavari's request. Prepare to have the spotlight shoned upon thee.

Before I go on I have to mention that Ty-from-Metavari frequents this here blog. This has no bearing on what I think of the band (honestly!), but it is good to know that readership exists.

Metavari








(featuring the talents of four disembodied heads and a fellow who really digs his horizontal stripes)

A lot of bands (a LOT) shoot themselves in their collective feet with bad vocals. How many times have you been jammin' to a rockin' intro only to have awful singing ruin your special little moment? COUNT THE TIMES RIGHT NOW. When this happens while I'm driving it makes me want to jerk the wheel. But anyway, as a band the best way to get around this is not to sing at all. Let the instrumentation say what needs to be said. Let the listener translate the music into a language that speaks best to him or her.

In the past fifteen years instrumental indie-rock (indie-mental rock?) has become quite fashionable. Fortunately it's a fashion I don't mind wearing. Explosions in the Sky, GY!BE, and Unwed Sailor are, in my opinion, the best purveyors of the genre. But what they don't do is add the boopy and beepy influence of indie electronica (indie-tron?).

The electro-rock wire is a shaky one to walk, especially for an instrumental band. Too far in one direction and suddenly your techno; fun but full of headaches. Too far in another (eliminating the beats, for example) and you become overly atmospheric and quite boring. Air and Zero 7, at least in the chillout department where Metavari qualifies, balance themselves in this manner quite excellently (albeit with the use of vocals). Done just right the music can hover around unobstructively in the background OR it can be the fascinating center of attention.

Do Metavari successfully accomplish the same? Shoot yeah they do. Without employing pesky words either.

I'd be interested to catch the band live (like, in person... Youtube performances exist) where their shows become multimedia events. Also they've been incorporating Beach Boys music into their sets, and I am completely interested to hear how well and how differently they rearrange those songs. In fact, Metavari is releasing a digital nine song Beach Boys cover album FREE this summer, and that is something I cannot wait for.

My only complaint is that there are only these two-minute samples on their Myspace page. Fools, I want to hear the whole song. Even if it's ten minutes long. ESPECIALLY if it's ten minutes long.

Anyway, highly recommended, blah blah blah.

I rate Metavari 10 moogs out of 10.

The Letter P

In this series I spotlight five bands and/or artists whose names begin with the same letter. I try to feature active (or recently active... it's hard to keep current with all the break-ups) performers so as to reflect who I'm listening to and enjoying at the moment.


P


Britta Persson
It may or may not be worth mentioning that Ms. Persson is from Sweden (though it would explain why, despite not having an entry on the regular ol' English Wikipedia, she does get a brief nod in the Svenska Wikipedia). There is a detectible accent, but it certainly doesn't detract from the goodness of her music. It's probably a very ethnocentric thing to assume that it would, and you're a very bad person for having thought so. ANYWAY, Britta sings wide-eyed whole-voiced mellow rock. I detect some 1970s influence (even though she herself was birthed in the 1980s) in a lot of her singer-songwritery tunes, especially the ones I've heard from her newest album, Kill Hollywood Me. I think I also detect a lot of lyrical wryness (see, 'cause I've got a wrydar detector). Good stuff, all of it. Even her forlorny songs have enough groove and bop to them to warrant a casual hip shake (except for "Defrag My Heart"... I don't know what's up with that song OR the video).
There are four streamies (all from the new album) and some videos on her Myspace.
Also, "You Are Not My Boyfriend" (.mp3).


The Psyke Project
On the same side of the pond, but in a different realm of music altogether, from Denmark here's the brutal doomy metalcore stylings of the Psyke Project. The Nordic region is renown for its metal progeny, and this band represents well. As you would expect, the music is dense with atmosphere and at times slogs along. But in a blink of an eye (or a punch of a fist) things can/do get violent and speedy. The vocals are well-done, too. Not too shrill, not too gutteral... very enthusiastic. I hope one day they come stateside (Canadianprovinceside?) so I can see them in action. The Psyke Project: something excellent in the state of Denmark.
They've got a bunch of streamed songs on their neat-lookin' website.
Their four songs on Myspace are awesome and downloadable.


Pure Horsehair
I think they're a duo, though sometimes it's just one guy, other times there's a full band. Other than that I don't know much about Pure Horsehair. I know the music is nice in a folksyrootsy sort of way. I also know it's experimental as much as it is traditional, which is actually very refreshing. After hundreds of years of backwoods gee-tar strummin', sometimes it's hard to do something new with the genre. Somehow they/he/they make music that is both haunting and inspiring at the same time.
Those first two songs on their Myspace page, "Grasshopper" and "Trees (EEG)", are really good.
"H.D. Told Me" (.mp3)


Panda Bear
The man who calls himself Panda Bear is probably a mad genius. His work, both as a member of Animal Collective and his own solo material, is so far out in left field that he has to be completely nuts to have ever conceived it in the first place. And he calls himself Panda Bear. But when you try to peel back the layers and sort it all out (the rhythms, the instrumentations, the meanings) you'll find it's like figuring out a pulsing rubik's cube. Of course sometimes it's just too much and therefore too annoying. But Panda Bear's good parts far outweigh the bad, and if you can acquire the tastes he offers, then you'll ultimately end up redeemed.
Two streamed Myspace songs.
If you like "Comfy In Nautica" then you can download that one and three others over at Insound.com.


Poni Hoax
You like crafty Euro-disco, you say? A lot, you say? Weirdo. But Poni Hoax is good. They make groove-able shake-able funk-able remix-able SLIGHTLY PARANOID dance rock from France. Their music creeps around nice and rhythmically and allows you, with your huge tinted glasses and European trash 'stache, to scope out the fine foxes scattered about the club. Their music also reaches loud and triumphant apices, doing so as you simultaneously come across the one hot fox who won't throw her Red Bull and vodka cocktail (black market and expensive, of course) into your face.
Poni Hoax's pièce de résistance is the song "Budapest", a pseudo-apocolyptic and catchy ditty about... I don't know... Budapest, or something. Listen to it and like it. Do so from their Myspace space.

1987

In 1987 the hip 80's were still awesome as the awkward transition to the cool 90's hadn't yet begun. By this point most rock 'n' roll sub-genres had reached their aesthetic peaks and the procreators of such were either just now easing into bland obscurity or, for better or worse, they were taking their art to the next level.

Although at the time I favored the music of Raffi over that of The Smiths, I've since come around, aged twenty-one years, grown a few feet taller, and have forgotten the words (though not the melody) to "Baby Beluga". The Smiths probably would've warped this five-year-old's mind anyway.

As much about re-discovery as it is about the regular sort of discovery, here are five kickin' songs from 1987. Reoccuring themes include life after punk rawk, bitter ends, and disturbing stories. Enjoy!


Husker Du - Ice Cold Ice
In January of 1987 Husker Du released Warehouse: Songs and Stories. In December of that same year the band unexpectedly broke up following a show in Columbia, Missouri. It was unexpected in the sense that they were in the middle of a tour, but drugs and strained relationships, those things that slowly wedge bands apart, things Husker Du had been trying to work through for years, finally culminated and destroyed the band. You'd never know that by listening to this album, though. They sound great. There's the odd 80's production that makes these songs feel a bit dated, but the tunes themselves are brilliant. As far as "Ice Cold Ice" is concerned, revel in the sweet melody, the desperate vocals, the harmonies... even some call-and-response. And underneath it all is the aggressiveness and attitude that made them such an awesome early 80's hXc punk band. By the way, if you turn the volume up to listen to the fade-out, watch out for that final chord. BWAAAAANG.


New Order - 1963
Murder you can dance to! The lyrical story is a bit vague, but evidently Bernard Sumner wrote this about the Kennedy assassination. The story goes that JFK hired Jack Ruby to take care of Jackie O. so that he and Marilyn Monroe could live together happily ever after. Ruby turned to Lee Harvey Oswald to make the actual hit. The hit was a miss and the bullet got JFK instead. Monroe, distressed that her lover had been killed, committed suicide. Ruby, miffed that Oswald screwed up the job, shot him in the stomach on national television. Obviously this isn't a story to be taken literally (Kennedy had been hit with two bullets, and Monroe died in 1962), so you can take the song to mean whatever you want. "1963" was released as a b-side to "True Faith" in July and appeared on the Substance compilation in August.


The Smiths - Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me
Probably the most depressing song EVER. I don't know what's up with the intro at the beginning, but it sets a weird mood. Two minutes of piano and an angry mob(?) and orca sounds(???)... only to be crushed by a sudden wall of sadness when the real song begins. If it annoys you then pick up the 7-inch single, which omits the intro. But if you're a big enough Smiths fan to purchase vinyl singles then you're probably not going to care either way. This appears on the band's final studio album, Strangeways, Here We Come, and is in fact their final single (apart from re-issues, which obviously don't count). A downer song on multiple levels.


Rites of Spring - Patience
Time to get emo, but in the original post-hardcore definition of the word. Forerunners of the now-mislabeled genre, vocalist Guy Picciotto (later to join Fugazi) attacks and wrestles with the lyrics in a manner that is definitely reminiscent of punk and hardcore. The instrumentation, on the other hand, is almost subdued and even kind of jazzy. It all comes together, though, to create this brief and intensely emotional package. "Patience" appears on their 4-song All Through a Life EP, but you might as well get End on End compilation which contains the entire EP as well as their entire self-titled 1985 album. (Each of these releases, by the way, was produced by Ian Mackaye.)


The Sugarcubes - Birthday
You know what this post needs? More Bjork. Though this song appears on 1988's Life's Too Good, "Birthday" was released as a single in October of 1987. It was the band's first hit and was voted the #1 song that year on John Peel's radio show. It's got that doomy Icelandic feel to it, but this is most certainly a chipper pop song about love between a five-year-old and the... bearded guy... who lives... next... door... ew. If you don't want to admire the lyrics then you can admire Bjork's enormous pipes. She's, like, five feet tall but has a voice that can knock down a brick house.

il Buono, il Brutto, il AlbumArto: Depeche Mode

il Buono, il Brutto, il AlbumArto
Take a band. Take its album cover highlights. Take its album cover lowlights.
Swish it all around in your mouth. Comment.


DEPECHE MODE

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This is the cover to Depeche Mode's 1982 album A Broken Frame. It features an absolutely beautiful scene photographed by Brian Griffen. It's such an awesome image that Life Magazine named it one of the "World's Greatest Pictures" from the 1980s. According to Pop Rock Gallery, "this photo was shot in Hertfordshire, just off the Motorway M11, and all effects were achieved in camera." Half the album is comprised of synth-poppy fun beats, but though Depeche Mode wouldn't perfect their electro-gloom sound until later, the other half of the album is dramatic enough to warrent the use of this particular cover image. My only real gripe is the purple text at the top. Yucko.


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This is from Depeche Mode's follow-up album, Construction Time Again, released in 1983. Same photographer, cheesier photograph. It features an industrial worker about to smash himself some Matterhorn. At least, that's what it's supposed to be. Forced perspective works only to a point, and we know that when this fellow brings down the hammer he's not going to hit anything. In fact, I bet immediately following this snapshot he found himself tumbling down the Alps. And once again I don't like what the cover designer did with the text. I understand that it's slanted to mirror the mountain, but doing that forces it to become a (distracting) part of the image. Interesting note, though: you'll notice that in this picture and the one before the subject is facing away from the camera. Griffen purposely did this because he felt that it would allow the viewer to more easily place his or herself in the subject's shoes.


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This is the cover to Depeche Mode's Only When I Lose Myself single released in 1998. Here we have what appears to be a very stark and very orange hotel room. Rick Guest with the photography credit here (though Brian Griffen did do the surreal "Only When I Lose Myself" music video). I don't really know why this image appeals to me so much. Maybe it's because hotels remind me of travel, and I love to travel. Maybe I'm oddly attracted to simple geometric shapes. I do know that the blank television set is jarring, but somehow completely appropriate. The band logo in the mirror creeps me out just a little bit, and I don't know if the letters themselves are actually backwards, or if the entire image itself was flipped around after the picture was taken. Anyway, several different versions of the single were released, and as with differing versions there are varying (though thematically similar) covers as well. Example, example, example.

404'd

From my new file hoster, Boxstr.com:

"We are going under major server troubles. We will be back up asap."

I can't win. My filing patronage is like the kiss of death.
Hopefully Boxstr WILL be back up and you WILL once again be able to sample those groovy tunes.

In the meantime I've got some more myspace band friend requests primed and ready to exploit.

Album covers, too, if I can decide who's next.

Anyway, as soon as I can once again host a file we'll jaunt on over to 1987.

1968

If 1967 had the summer of love, then 1968 had the summer of HATE, right? No, of course not. Hippies still existed in abundant numbers and those motivated enough to write songs in '67 got around to recording and releasing them in '68. These would be rock 'n' roll's last innocent years, though, as arena rock would soon rear it's ugly head.

I'm actually featuring a variety of song-styles here. We've got the Motown sound, a British band, an Irish folky guy who likes his jazz, Nederpop, alt-country in its infancy, and, um, Lee Hazelwood.

Also, I'm trying out a new file hoster, so if things don't work correctly then please let me know.


Edwin Starr - Twenty-Five Miles
Starr is more well-known for asking what war is good for (answer: absolutely nuthin'), but here we have him huffin' and hawin' out this thigh-slappin' song about walking a bunch of miles. There are a lot of numbers mentioned (twenty-five miles, three days, two nights, etc) but if you can keep everything straight you'll find this guy's serious about his devotion to his woman. Best part of the song? The countdown near the end.


Lee Hazelwood & Nancy Sinatra - Some Velvet Morning
When they did the dead people montage during the Grammys the other night, I was disappointed that they didn't play this song when they put up Lee Hazelwood's picture. Instead they played "These Boots were Made For Walking", which Hazelwood wrote. But that in itself showed how inseparable Hazelwood was from Nancy Sinatra. Hazelwood was a gritty cowboy-type character, and Sinatra was a smokin' minxy little songstress. Yet somehow they joined forces during the 1960s to create music most excellent. "Some Velvet Morning" is, if nothing else, their most interesting collaborative effort. It's flowery, pastoral, orchesteral, and lyrically bizarre. The song see-saws between Hazelwood's tough-as-bark vocals and Sinatras heavenly "Phaedra" presence. He says he's gonna open up your gate. I don't know what that means.

Van Morrison - The Way Young Lovers Do
This is by far the most pop-friendly song from the super-awesome Astral Weeks, and it's probably for accessibility reasons that I chose it. A nine-and-a-half minute song about a transvestite makes sharing awkward, so here we have "The Way Young Lovers Do". The rest of the album moseys along, so it's a little bit startling to encounter this swingin' jazzy tune. The instrumentation is outstanding, and Morrison's voice is at its soulful best. It's that Richard Davis double-bass that really sets this song apart from any others, though. It ambles along with little regard for what the rest of the song is doing and dang near leads the charge into musical destruction about halfway through. Then everything somehow snaps back into sweet cohesion and things continue as if nothing had happened. Awesome.

The Zombies - A Rose for Emily
In 1930 William Faulkner published a short story called "A Rose for Emily". It's about a shut-in named Emily who kept the dead body of her lover upstairs. Southern gothic necrophilia is the way to go. This song, released thirty-eight years later, has absolutely nothing to do with that story. Instead it's about a woman named Emily who tends a rose garden. Couples in love pluck her roses, but nobody gives her any. So her garden withers and she withers and everything dies. The music itself is very stripped down and features Colin Blunstone's wistful vocals, a simple piano melody, and some sweet Zombie harmonies.

The Shocking Blue - Send Me a Postcard
Apart from "Venus" (yeah baby, she's got it), Shocking Blue didn't do very well Stateside. That's really too bad because they had a handful of very good songs. Take "Send Me a Postcard" for instance. Super-fuzzed guitars, moments of elated rock frenzy, Mariska Veres's big Dutch pipes... it all kinda makes me want to run through a wall. Though released as a single in 1968, this song didn't peak on Euro-charts until 1969 and didn't appear on an album until 1970's The Shocking Blue compilation.

BONUS TRACK

The Byrds - Pretty Polly
This song was recorded for Sweetheart of the Rodeo but ultimately didn't make the final cut. When Sweetheart was reissued in 1997 "Pretty Polly" was featured as one of the bonus tracks. Personally I think this song is better than the original eleven. It's a traditional murder ballad rearranged and country-rockified by Chris Hillman and Roger McGuinn. The instrumentation is appropriately blue-grass inspired but comes across as a little frantic. The song gallops along at a steady rate and seems like a sweet little hillbilly love song until, terrifyingly, pretty Polly gets stabbed IN THE HEART. Two-part harmonies are used here for optimal effect and kick in when murderous intentions are discovered. If you're interested, on Roger McGuinn's Folk Den blog you'll find the lyrics and a more traditional recording of the song.

Quick Kathleen Edwards Update

For the Kathleen Edwards fans out there (which should be all of you) half of her not-yet-released album, Asking For Flowers, can be streamed on her website. Also found on her website are new tour dates and a handful of .mp3s from her previous two albums (all of which I highly recommend listening to).

The new songs are quite good and I look forward to hearing the rest of the album.

That's all.