Jóhann Jóhannsson - IBM 1401: A User's Manual(4AD)

Picked up a promo copy of this used for $4 at a store in Arlington I happened to stop by riding around in the snow after buying my new bike (yay!). For how much hype this album has gotten and the high concept of it all, I sort of expected a little more. Johannsson used the Prague Symphony Orchestra on this, apparently the go-to orchestra for people who don't want to pay a lot, esp. metal bands such as Dimmu Borgir. This is funny because the style of writing reminds me a lot of another composer who recently used the services of that orchestra, Angelo Badalamenti (on the Mulholland Drive sdtrk). The music is mostly less dark than that Badalamenti's (more melancholy like Godspeed), but has a similar level of melodic and rhythmic complexity (low). There is of course much more emotional resonance to this album being that it's a requiem for a computer that Johannsson's father worked on, and yet I wonder if it couldn't have all been done more interestingly. Because really, there's not a whole hell of a lot here besides Track 2 with its pre-recorded IBM instructions (which get very annoying after the first minute or two) to indicate that this is what the album is about. Apparently Johannsson also used samples of music his father made on that computer, but fucked if I can find those elements in the recording, meaning that its effect is almost entirely an impressionistic one, which doesnt exactly go very far, as far as conceptual music goes. In short, this album is pleasant enough, but its almost like Godpseed without the intensity. There are crescendoes, sure, but there's never that cathartic payoff you get with really good post rock (Mono for example).

LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver

Umm yeah, I don't know about this one. Which is really a shame because the first three songs are fucking fantastic. "Get Innocuous" has that Talking Heads feel that Murphy captures so well (speaking of which, Murphy was namechecked in the Times article on David Byrne). "North American Scum" is all spoken word in that nasally Jonathan Richman voice and has a great line about how "New York is the greatest if you can find someone to pay your rent". But then the next two songs are all slow and about relationships or some shit and you're like what the fuck? Cause LCD isn't about that; it's about crazy hedonism and hipster coke parties, the whole ridiculous lifestyle that Vice magazine tried to promote (is still promoting? does anyone care anymore?), right? Well half of this album is like the morning after when you wake up with a terrible hangover and try and reassess your life. Except instead of making really angry music that sounds like your mind feels you make this terrible sappy shit. I mean, for fuck's sake, Track 5 is called "All My Friends," at the end of which he sings "Where are my friends tonaaaaaight?" sounding like the guy from The Killers. There was exactly one song like this on the first album, "Never as Tired as When I'm Waking Up," and it was all psychedelic and dreamy where these are just boring and flat. But then, the next track, "Us v. Them" is a classic 8-minute LCD track and it's the shit. After that, "Watch the Tapes" is pretty short and neither here nor there. Then it's the title track which is fucking fantastic with these great Laid Back "White Horse" vocals. And then he ends the album with this stupid piano ballad about how New York is full of boring people who fill up the bars he thought he would drink at and now its no fun anymore at which point I no longer give a shit about whether it's ironic or not, I just want it all to end. That's kind of the interesting thing: it seems like Murphy's torn between making the older-style LCD tracks and the newer shorter ones which showcase his "songwriting abilities" so he tries to mix the first with the second. Now I guess this makes sense since the first album was essentially a compilation of singles, but this new method sure makes for some uneven listening. The great thing about the first album was that the songs were all epic and long and took you places like very little other dance music out there. Take "Yeah (Pretentious Version)" for example and how it explodes in the middle; there is nothing like that on here. And the production is honestly pretty boring. Like yeah, there's cowbell all over it, but who really gives a shit when you can't stand half the songs?

The Juan MacLean - Less than Human (Astralwerks)

So it takes me a little while to get into a lot of stuff, especially when it's really hyped up by the likes of Pitchfork; no surprise there, I rarely bother to research and get into pop music (well moreso lately). Which happened doubly with this album: got it a couple of months ago, thought "ehh, doesn't really do it for me" and just left it on my iPod meaning to give it another chance at some point. Fast forward a few weeks, I am sitting at Sparky's (btw what the fuck is up with their website making it look like a swank club!?!?!) with my friends Tony and Rebecca, and this sort of half-familiar song comes on and I'm totally into it. So I ask the guy in charge of music what it is and he says it's Juan MacLean which instantly makes sense and I listen to the album on the walk home. I guess this shows the value of repeated listening but even more so the way that context changes the way you feel about music. "Music sounds better with you", well it sounds even better hanging out with your friends at a coffee shop on a Sunday afternoon and it's something you've heard before but can't quite place so there's that little bit of nostalgia there to reel you in. Anyway this album actually makes you want to dance unlike most of the hipster shit and is much less overtly referential. I like the vocals a lot too, especially on the last song "Dance With Me," and that little spoken thing at the end of "In the Afternoon". Plus there's this production thing that both MacLean and James Murphy do where they use cold, synthesized sounds for the first part of a song and then bring in a piano or a slightly more organic synth sound later on which can be totally jarring. In a good way. Kinda want to check out Six Finger Satellite now to see what they sounded like.

KTL-S/T (Mego)

Man, is this album fucking great. Kind of like the best Sunn album ever in that it a: doesn't get bogged down in trying to be Metal, b: varies things up a lot among the tracks (almost a survey of things Sunn has done over the years), c: adds electronic elements to the drone, and d: the tracks actually go somewhere unlike a lot of Sunn's shit. The only thing that kind of bothers me a little is the fact that you can tell usually which of the two guys is doing what (guitar for O'Malley, electronics for Rehberg) and that because of this it doesn't feel completely synthetic. Like on parts of the first and second tracks, where the organic and the electronic are sometimes too distinct. When it does work though, especially on track four, it's fucking incredible. Better also, in my opinion, than the last Boris/Merzbow split (Sun-Baked Snow Cave), although that was great in its own right and I hear they have a third collaboration coming out sometime soon. It's kind of mind-boggling that these guys (Rehberg and O'Malley) can put out so much material that is of such consistently high quality, my hat goes off to both of them. I definitely want to check out the Denis Johnson-scripted performance that this was based on, the last thing I saw Pita do music for (a contemporary dance performance in Vienna during my study abroad there, with vocals by Tujiko Noriko) was so completely unique as was his show here in DC about a year ago, that I can't imagine it'd be anything but great.