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Time Enough To Pass (Joan Shelley, Joan Shelley review)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

An age-old problem of music, if it’s a shorter album, we’ll complain that it feels weak, and it comes in over sixty minutes we can’t believe what a slog it is.

Is forty minutes the sweet spot though?

 

Joan Shelley – Joan Shelley

released April 28, 2017
******** 8/10

Joan Shelley is a Kentucky based American singer-songwriter who has been making professional music since at least 2014, as that was when she released her first full-length album Electric Ursa.

Her fourth album is self-titled as Joan Shelley, and that’s usually a sign of intent on the behalf of a recording artist, a demonstrable shift in tone, content and genre(s). This album is no exception to that rule, at all. Joan Shelley is an intimate record, chalk full of dense material and featuring production efforts from Jeff Tweedy of Wilco fame.

But that doesn’t mean it’s a more complex album with tons of instrumentation and production value. No, it manages to tells it’s story with considerably less – vocals, guitars, ukulele, piano, organ, bass, and drums. The staples of folk music and this album most definitely has a folk feel to it. Just listen to Wild Indifference over a couple of listens and you’ll be at the heart of it.

Acoustic fingerpicking is a key element opening every track up and spreading the message out either simple and sweet or with a whiskey tinged bitter accommodation. Isn’t That Enough is a great example of that pull, especially since we experience both innocence and finality in it’s notes.

Where we best see the contributions of Jeff Tweedy come through are on I Got What I Wanted, Where I’ll Find You and If The Storms Never Came, but Shelley’s vocals almost come through, demonstrating the wisdom of Mr. Tweedy.

There is a great deal of beauty too to be found in these songs. And that all starts with track number one We’d Be Home, and quickly followed up by Even Though in the space following the second, third and fourth songs on the record. And man does the piano ever bring the attention on Pull Me Up One More Time, thanks be to James Elkington for that.

But I would be remiss if I didn’t at least mention my favourite song on the album – I Got What I Wanted. It must be the lingering outlaw country flourishes of Willie Nelson, but I cannot stop tapping my toe and feeling remorseful for Shelley.

Pros: The vocals of course. Joan Shelley has all the makings of a great country artist, and The Push and Pull demonstrates this well. And while this is a shorter album, the length suits the ideas perfectly.

Cons: At the great risk of being a contrived self-referential mess, Shelley manages to avoid this for the most part, but sometimes it feels blah. Go Wild I’m looking directly at you.

Runtime: 34 minutes

Points of Interest: This self-titled album began with a fiddle, of all instruments. Though Joan Shelley wasn’t able to articulate herself well with the fiddle, she took the direction of that instrument and applied it to the guitar. And it is indeed self-titled because it features her most assured and complete thoughts so far.

It’s difficult to add something new to folk music, but with some help (or should we say non-help help?) Joan Shelley has managed to craft a well-worn album from the bare minimum of instruments. And her ability to spread ideas across moments in time comes across quite well.

theories Summarized

All that considered, I think that Joan Shelley is a master of her chosen form, and we should be happy to have her work out there on display. It never manages to overstay it’s welcome and it sounds amazing both in your car and at home. At least, that’s my theory.

Tim!

Dream Time (Wilsen, I Go Missing In My Sleep review)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

Death and sleep. I don’t know how I manage to link up these themes so easily, but maybe it’s just my nature to find patterns where others would rather enjoy the state of rest.

A departure from the waking state would serve us all well.

 

Wilsen – I Go Missing In My Sleep

released April 28, 2017
******* 7/10

 

Wilsen is an American rock band comprised of Tamsin Wilson, Drew Arndt, and Johnny Simon. Now, while they have been playing together since 2013 and are based out of of Brooklyn, New York, Wilson is in fact a Canadian, so yay for unintended Canadian content! Also, this is the debut album of Wilsen and it was recorded in both the UK and the USA, which means I might want to be gentle with them, though they’ve already done that work for me.

I Go Missing in My Sleep is one of those albums that pays out over repeating viewings, listening to it over and and over again is a must. But thankfully, all of this exploration gives them a ton of opportunity to take new directions on future albums and learn from what they’ve accomplished thus far.

Tracks like Otto, Dusk and Heavy Steps represent the best of the band, and while songs like Garden and Centipede are a bit of lighter fare, they are still incredibly appealing and will do well in drawing in new fans.

This is one of this records which you would want to listen to in the early hours of the morning or while out on a casual excursion, and it’s because the group spent a great deal of time sorting it out in the wee hours of the morning, like something out of a  Frank Sinatra song. But it works for them, and you really do feel a little boozy by the time you get to closer Told You, with Emperor helping create that dreamlike state.

Pros: This album is amazingly good at being intricate, detailed, thoughtful and letting the space between sounds work for it. Wilson has every right to be at the lead of this band. They excel at the warm and melodic.

Cons: Where the album lacks depth is in when things sound just a little to clean and straightforward. It’s as if those tracks were an experiment for Wilsen, like single Centipede. They decided to try something new but couldn’t quite figure out what to do with the melodic arrangements.

Runtime: 44 minutes

Points of Interest: After a couple of small EPs in Sirens and Magnolia, Wilsen carefully constructed I Go Missing In My Sleep. Comparisons will be made to another band they toured with, Daughter, but Wilsen have a distinct voice.

The thoughtfulness of I Go Missing In My Sleep is not lost in all of this reflection, with tracks like Final there to help ease us into the morning. Wilsen are crafting their own sound with a sadness in the lyrics and joy in the melody, I just hope that range continues throughout their career.

theories Summarized

As much as there can never be a perfect album, this is a good album. The vocals are engaging, the arrangements are entertaining, and the production value reaches some heights not uncommon in todays world of pop and hip hop masters, considering this is an alt-folk record, that’s a good thing. But maybe we should just sleep on it?

Tim!

Family Matters (The Flaming Lips, Oczy Mlody review)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

Families are weird. And almost everyone thinks they have the weirdest of all, but let me assure you, they’re dead wrong.

These guys are the weirdest.

 

 

 

The Flaming Lips – Oczy Mlody
released February 13, 2017
********* 9/10

The Flaming Lips are an American rock band that loves their alternative, experimental, post-punk, psychedelic style, and I don’t expect them to give it up anytime soon.

Also, I’m just going to throw this out there, because I’m quite confident that it’s true. When I hear the songs on this album I can’t help but hear that distinctive Gorillaz sound intermingled in there, which makes me ponder upon the past for a minute or two… The Flaming Lips have been around for the better part of 3 decades, first forming in 1983, right? And Gorillaz only came to be in 1998, a definitive fifteen years later. So they have to have been influenced by The Flaming Lips right?

Which tells you something about me. This is my first Flaming Lips album.

I mean, I know about them. I’ve been fortunate enough to know they’ve made fourteen studio length albums in their career, but I never picked them up, mostly because I wasn’t too sure whether I’d like their sound.

It’s always the surprise albums that take your breath away.

What starts as a rather slow foray into the the fantasy world of castles, unicorns, wizards, frogs, et al. slowly becomes a backdrop for a message about the resurgence of hope. This is because Oczy Mlody, roughly translates to “eyes of the young,” from a Polish phrase these guys found. It makes sense given present company.

Over recent years Miley Cyrus has become something of an unofficial muse for The Flaming Lips. They even helped produce a twenty-three track album called Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz with her back in 2015. So it’s fitting that the old solidify the reputation of the young, and the young provide energy and relevance for the old. Best exemplified in closer track, We A Family, it is here that we get to witness some serious leg stretching on the part of The Flaming Lips.

As a track, it doesn’t really fit in with the rest of the album, but is also the best part of it. It serves as an anthem of love, but it also ties all of us together into one big happy metaphor family.

Some of my other favourite tracks are The Castle, a perfect semblance of all that is sow and somber on this album, which is most of it. For instance, James Earl Jones delivers a monologue on unicorns in There Should Be Unicorns. It’s one of the saddest and loneliest space operas I’ve ever had the pleasure of listening to.

I don’t care that Metacritic scored it as a 6.9, most of those reviewers missed the mark here. This is a slowburn which only gets warmer and brighter upon subsequent listens, this I can be sure of.

 

The Flaming Lips have been experimenting for years, and I wish I had seen them for the loving weirdos they are so much earlier in my art career. Because I would have fit right in with them. And now they’ve managed to make me appreciate Miley Cyrus as the weird sister I never thought I wanted. Through the eyes of the young we are reborn. A beautiful melody indeed. But that’s just a theory right?

Tim!

They’re Barking In The Wrong Key (AFI, AFI (The Blood Album) review)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

When a band has been around for over 25 years, you probably should stand up when they enter the room and definitely stop talking out of respect when they say something, unless you’re a dick. If you’re a dick, you can just close your ears and pretend it never happened. Probably to your detriment.

This week we explore an album which I personally think deserves your attention. An early entry that might make my top 10 for 2017, but we’ll just have to dig in for now.

 

 

 

AFI – Self-titled (The Blood Album)
released January 20, 2017
********** 10/10

afi-the-blood-album

A Fire Inside, better known as AFI, are an American rock group that focuses on punk, alternative and emo music. The lineup hasn’t changed in almost twenty years, but only features two of the original four members – Davey Havok on vocals and drummer Adam Carson. Hunter Burgan provides bass support and Jade Puget is the guitarist, but all three instrumentalists share backup vocals. Having released tend studio-length albums now, AFI is the first self-titled album that AFI has completed.

Affectionately called “the blood album,” this record has been released on vinyl in four limited edition color variants matching the four blood types (A | O | B | AB). But is it any good, you ask?

Well, yeah.

I’ve been a fan of AFI since Sing The Sorrow hit the ground running, earning the band mainstream attention and Billboard attention for almost a year, just shy of a week. Then Decemberunderground came out and I was hooked, I picked up their back catalogue and haven’t looked back since. Granted, I don’t think Crash Love or Burials had quite the same visceral impact as AFI’s sixth and seventh efforts, but dammit if this self-titled album doesn’t remind me of Sing The Sorrow. And well, everything else they’ve ever done.

You see dear readers, at this point in their career AFI don’t have to take any real risks, but they are more than capable of revisiting genres they’ve already explored and giving a tempered reflection of what preceded, this even application of sonics is what reminds me of Sing The Sorrow – it’s intentional subdued but infinitely more thoughtful and considered.

Some of my favourite tracks include Aurelia, Hidden Knives, So Beneath You, Dumb Kids, Pink Eyes, and The Wind That Carries Me Away. None of these tracks are much like the other one, but each are familiar because AFI has been down these roads before.

Now before you accuse me of accepting this as a middle-of-the-road AFI and not A Fire Inside, you should know that Havok and Puget wrote over 60 songs before they got to this 14 track offering. And you need to listen to the whole album more than once, it gets better on subsequent viewings, like any good piece of art.

This is AFI committed to their art, and it’s a beautiful thing to witness.

 

 

 

 

As I sit with the realization that one of the last mega-stores of music and film is dying off and that I’ll have to change my own tactics going forward (read: goodbye HMV), it’s satisfying to know that music will still find a way. AFI are still relevant and that means more to me than cheap prices and the convenience of online shopping. But maybe I’ll learn to embrace that too. No harm in checking out a new theory.

Tim!

Ubiquitous Synergy Seeker (USS, New World Alphabet review)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

Ubiquitous. Present, appearing or found everywhere.

Synergy. The interaction or cooperation of two or more organizations, substances or other agents to produce a combined effort greater than the sum of their separate effects.

Seeker. A person who is attempting to find or obtain something.

USS – New World Alphabet
released January 13, 2017
********** 10/10

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Ubiquitous Synergy Seeker (USS) is a Canadian alternative rock musical duo – namely a musical duo that is sonically out there. They got their start performing in Toronto, Ontario and the band includes the talents of vocalist, guitarist, and ehru player Ashley Buchholz (aka Ash Boo-Schultz) backed by turntable and hype man Jason “Human Kebab” Parsons.

Fun fact, as DJ Human Kebab, Parsons hosts not one but two alternative rock radio remix shows in his spare time. The first one began four years ago in 2013 on Edmonton, Alberta station SONiC 102.9 with the show SubSONiC. Last year Human Kebab got another gig with Rock Paper Mixers on KX 93.5 in Laguna Beach, California.

As already mentioned, the USS sound is an eclectic mix of guitar, beats that include drum AND bass, and 2-step rhythms that bleeds into electro-pop. Filled to the brim with energy, and all kinds of enthusiasm for musical hard work, New World Alphabet is the sophmore album that follows 2009’s Questamation. That’s right, their second full-length effort comes eight years later. Yes, there were some EP’s inbetween, but nothing quite beats a record you play over and over again for at least an hour. Though admittedly this one doesn’t quite meet that mark – It’s barely half an hour long, after all.

But maybe that isn’t a bad thing. Their music is after all infectious, and the first single, Work Shoes starts the eight track album on a high note. I saw them live in the summer of 2013 and this energy transfers well whether in studio or playing to an outdoor arena. Work shoes fits like, well, like a well worn shoe. Followed up by the track Who’s With Me, USS keep the energy going and maintain the positive vibes which we’ve come to to love, warning us not to paint their rainbow grey. Domino shows the other side of the band, that quizzical and abstract thinking that I’ve come to love.

California Medication makes waaaaay more sense now that I know Human Kebab DJs for a Laguna Beach radio station, but it’s effectively a call to action to escape our harsh Canadian winters and have fun somewhere in the sun. Sounds just peachy to me.

Alien is probably my LEAST favourite track of the moment, but I’m willing to bet it’ll grow on my over time if I let it. It’s probably the striped down production of the track that’s throwing me off, but I wish there was more oomph behind it. Track no. 6 gets us right back on track with Us. Say that three times fast. But don’t let that fool you because this is a slow jam, featuring some peanuts.

Broken Smile and Vulcan close out the album, and they shouldn’t be missed. Broken Smile is probably my favourite song, but I won’t say anything else about it. Vulcan is haunting too.

Other reviewers will try to convince you that this is the fifth album by USS, but don’t be followed creative cuties, and accept no substitutes. This is Ash Boo-Schultz and Human Kebab at full strengh, set phasers to stun.

 

 

 

Ubiquitous Synergy Seeker remain clever and relevant. They are the perfect blend of Canadian witticisms and energy. They deserve all the success in the world, and I hope they obtain whatever they are looking for by combining their efforts and being everywhere all at once. That’s just my theory anyway.

Tim!