Pretty Goes with Pretty

My Listening Hours: Looking Forward

What would a hopelessly belabored look back be without a giddy and optimistic look forward? Well, giddy might be too strong a word—looking at the next three months, there’s not a lot that looks totally essential. For me, I’ll be at the record store on a Tuesday for just one release, the New Pornographers’ Challengers. (I know, I know, I can get it now—but as I understand it it’s only as a stream, which is not a convenient format for me; and I’m also fighting my own battle against the need for bands to unleash their b-sides and demos upon the world; I find it unnecessary and often debilitating). The rest look good and I’ll be paying attention to the advance word on all of them. If the time and money is right, they’ll come home with me from Amoeba. What are you looking forward to? Whether I’ve got it listed or not—especially if I don’t—tell me what’s coming down the pike that’s got you camped outside your local record shop come Monday night.

I should say first that there’s one other album I’m eager to hear, and it just came out last week: Tied & Tickled Trio’s Aelita. I’ve been listening to their last album, 2003’s Observing Systems, pretty regularly since it came out—yes, regularly for a full four years. I just never tire of it. Most people paying attention to the German indie scene have been eagerly awaiting the next Notwist album; I am too, sure, but in fact I find this side project to be much more satisfying. You can expect me to go into more detail once I’ve tracked down a copy.

Interpol, Our Love to Admire (7/10)
Spoon, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga (7/10)
Two veteran bands that are likely to put out records that don’t travel too far afield from there previous albums. I’ve heard one song from Interpol so far and it’s disappointingly too similar to all they’ve done before. Spoon, meanwhile, have been getting all the internet buzz lately and I do love the three albums I have by them. I’ll probably pick this up and I’ll probably like it.

Tegan & Sara, The Con (7/24)
So Jealous turned out to be one of my singalong albums of 2006, so I’m looking forward to hearing their new stuff to see if they’ve continued in that direction. Earlier material from these sisters is largely insufferable, so I am the tiniest bit wary; but So Jealous was such an unequivocal departure that I can’t imagine they’ll regress.

Okkervil River, The Stage Names (8/7)
Never did buy Black Sheep Boy, nor any other albums by these critics’ darlings. I’ve nevertheless accumulated five or six songs without even trying, and I find a couple of them simply outstanding. The rest occupy territory I mined pretty well in the 90s when I bought everything on Drag City. Okkervil River can often sound like the also-rans of that era—Appendix Out, Royal City, Lullaby for the Working Class, early Songs: Ohia, et al. Sometimes a little melodramatic, sometimes a little cliché. But when it’s on it’s great, and it seems like these guys are more than capable of being on. So I’m paying attention.

New Pornographers, Challengers (8/21)
My brilliant wife inexplicably cannot get into the New Pornographers. She tries, because she knows I love them. Occasionally a song from one of their other three albums will come on and she’ll pipe up, “I like this one!” but play two tracks in a row and she starts to get a pained look on her face. I am cautiously optimistic about the fact that she is all over “My Rights vs. Yours.” I am irresponsibly optimistic about the fact that I am all over this song too.

Shout Out Louds, Our Ill Wills (9/11)
I saw the video for their song “Tonight I Have to Leave It” and thought it was okay—not terribly different from the songs on their debut, Howl Howl Gaff Gaff. That turned out to be a pretty fun album, if a touch samey. I’ll keep my ears open for more songs from this album and may plunk down some cash. I got into these guys at the same time I got into the Futureheads and the Kaiser Chiefs, neither of whom were able to replicate the fun of their debuts. Fingers crossed for the Shout Out Louds. At least they're from Northern Europe; they’re drinking the right water (see Peter Bjorn & John, Radio Dept., Jose Gonzalez, Kings of Convenience, Sondre Lerche, et al.)

Kevin Drew, Spirit If… (9/18)
I fucking love the last Broken Social Scene album, way more than it seems a lot of other people do, even. (I for one think it towers over You Forgot it in People.) I also liked Drew’s cameo on The Reminder. Why then am I wary of this album? I have no legitimate reason to be.

Iron & Wine, Shepherd’s Dog (9/25)
Jose Gonzalez, In Our Nature (9/25)
Taken in small doses, Gonzalez’s debut album was a moody gem—it sounds almost like James Taylor covering the entirety of Pink Moon. But too many similar songs in a row made that record too dour for me. I’ll likely only be interested in his next album if he brings some variety to his arrangements and dynamics. As for Sam Beam’s Iron & Wine, I only have his wonderfully spare first album (also a very samey record), which I like. I never got around to picking up his later material so I don’t really know that I’ll get this one either, unless someone comes around and convinces me otherwise.

My Listening Hours: Looking Forward

The last few posts (here, here, here) have been concerned with January–March, but there’s a lot to look forward to in the coming months—just have a look at this list. Here are some thoughts on a few of them.

Blonde Redhead: 23 (4/10)
I’ve managed to own every Blonde Redhead album ever produced, while at the same time not really caring about them since Fake Can Be Just as Good. How that has happened, I’m not sure. That’s not to say I haven’t liked the albums that have come after them. If nothing else the band has grown into their own sound over the years and have remained interesting—so sue me if I liked them better when they were a cross between Sonic Youth and Unwound! Did I hear right that one of the brothers is no longer in the band? I remain curious.

Feist: The Reminder (5/1)
Of everything on the horizon, my hopes are highest for this album. My wife and I bought Let it Die while we were on vacation in Paris in 2004 and it has been on steady rotation in our house ever since. That album had its share of songs that crossed way over the line into Adult Contemporary, which has never really sat well with me. But Feist has redeemed herself on those counts for two reasons: first, she said in print that she sort of cobbled together this album, including a few “cheeky” moments, and she had no intention of or idea that it would blow up the way it did. Supposedly the new stuff is more like the good parts of Let it Die (you know which parts those are); second, in her not-to-be-missed fantastic wonderful live shows, she those same awful songs are the highlight of the concerts thanks to the way she reworked them. I have tremendous respect for her songwriting abilities so she better not let me down. Or else!

Bjork: Volta (5/8)
Talk about tremendous respect for songwriting ability. There’s no one that applies to more than Bjork. I wasn’t too fond of her last, Medulla, from the standpoint of wanting an enjoyable listening experience. But I have great respect and appreciation for what she set out to do. And the new one includes collaborations with Timbaland and Lightning Bolt? I wish it was all on the same song.

Mice Parade: s/t (5/8)
Elliott Smith: New Moon (2xCD rarities) (5/8)
Sea & Cake: Everybody (5/8)
Tarwater: Spider Smile (5/8)
Remind me on May 8th to great drunk and wax nostalgic for my senior year of college. If you’re wondering what I was listening to in 1999, this is a pretty good summary. I don’t know if I’ll actually purchase any of these records when they come out, but I will be paying attention to how they’re received and will check the mp3s as they come. If any of them represent a drastic creative resurgence, you’ll see me at Amoeba plunking down some bills.

Keren Ann: s/t (5/8)
I enjoyed most of Nolita, though it got a little somnambulant after a while. Has she grown?

Rufus Wainwright: Release the Stars (5/15)
Some time after Poses came out I had decided that I probably didn’t really need much more Rufus in my life. He does sort of sing the same melody all the time. In a state of supreme ambivalence I listened to Want One in a Virgin Megastore while waiting to meet up with my wife—and I had a conniption right then and there because “Oh What a World” was so wonderful. The whole of Want One, for me, still stands has Wainwright’s creative peak. Want Two, its companion, is his depth. There are some good songs there but that album just did not take. So I find myself back where I was in 2004, ambivalent. Will he surprise me again?

Battles: Mirrored (5/15)
I left the overly complicated mathy shit behind a long time ago, but Battles somehow strikes the right chord. I haven’t liked everything by then—sometimes it’s too techy for me—but their new song and video are great, so I’m getting stoked on this one.

Dungen: Tio Bitar (5/15)
Ta det Lugnt, surprise to me, really got a hold of me. In terms of my own reaction to them (not necessarily their own ability), it might have been a lightning-in-a-bottle moment, but I’ll be curious to hear this.

Wilco: Sky Blue Sky (5/15)
Word is Wilco has retreated from the more abstract direction they were headed on Ghost is Born. I have mixed feelings about that. Ghost is Born really didn’t sit well with me when it first came out but after seeing them on Austin City Limits I went back to it and it really started to grow on me (though it’s still not my favorite). Nels Cline’s guitarwork is just stupendous. But on the other hand they are apparently going back to a more rootsy sound, something closer to their first couple records. Summerteeth remains my favorite Wilco album, so if they could get in that vicinity again I sure wouldn’t complain.

Interpol: tba (6/5)
These guys are going to have to get really interesting for me to give two shits.

Shellac: Excellent Italian Greyhound (6/5)
I’m not a rabid Shellac fan—in fact I think I’ve never heard 1,000 Hurts—but I have a soft spot for At Action Park and the early 7”s, plus I used to really get off on the ten-minute opener to Terraform (but not so much the rest of the album—I was like the Bizarro Shellac Fan that year). I went through a phase from about ’98–’05 where loud records just didn’t do much for me. I’m out of that phase now, so perhaps I should return to Shellac.

Spoon: Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga (7/10)
These guys deliver every time. I’m looking forward to this the same way I’m looking forward to the next Spider-Man movie: I know what to expect, and I expect to enjoy it.

Tegan & Sara: The Con (7/24)
Who ever would have thought I’d be looking forward to a couple lesbians and an acoustic guitar? Yet here I am. I absolutely loathe everything I’ve heard by T&S that came before 2006’s So Jealous. But that album, even with all its whiny self-esteem issues, is inescapably tuneful.

New Pornographers: Challengers (late August)
“It is maybe slightly more epic,” says Carl Newman. I was late to the NP train and am currently in mad love with all three of their albums simultaneously. I’m in a sort of blind-love mode where I think that as long as it’s a new New Pornographers album, I’m going to think it’s brilliant. You’ll likely have to take everything I say with a grain of salt.