I’ve been told that a live album is usually the wrongest way possible to get introduced to a band (the Who’s Live at Leeds perhaps being the exception). So this band, this bunch of old, English punkers, release this platter I’m holding and hearing, and I like it a lot. Very much the jam-style rock plus the Fall’s repetition and abrasiveness (plus sung by a guy who can keep a solid tone). They’ve got their three chorders like “Viva la Rock ’n’ Roll” (which sounds more evil than pop) and “Urban Kids” and a whole whack of others that wouldn’t be outta place among the Buzzcocks and banks of their kind. Y’know, snotty and fun. Their run-throughs of the Ramones’ “Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue” and their piss on “Louie Louie,” titled “Plastic People,” is spit out and played with that middle-finger-up barre chord sass that punk used to be about. There are some longer songs that show another side of the band, a noisier, experimental, avant garde band that played how they wanted to play. “Release the Natives” is bleak, Glenn Branca-style guitar noise. “Splitting in Two,” this one too surpassing the six-minute mark, builds for a few minutes before exploding into a Mission of Burma-like rock assault. This live album, full of tape hiss and audible audience chatter, captures a band lighting fires on whatever stage they play. Shit, man, if this is how these geezers sound now, I’m gonna step into the wayback machine and hear how they sounded before I was born. If anyone ever tells you that the live album intro is the wrong way to go, slap ’em across the head with this one. (Bongobeat, www.bongobeat.com) Patrick Michalishyn
Review: Happy Birthday – Happy Birthday
Snotty, lo-fi rock and roll styled after the British invasion of the ’60s may not seem as refreshing as it did a decade ago, and with bands like Girls currently enjoying massive success, the self-titled debut from Vermont’s Happy Birthday is unlikely to evoke many strong reactions from critics. It’s really too bad, because Happy Birthday have made one hell of a summer record. Taking his cue from Apples in Stereo, frontman Kyle Thomas has crafted a seemingly endless supply of tight pop hooks that borrow from pretty much everyone. “I Want to Stay (I Run Away)” is a perfect mash of late-’80s goth-rock and California surf-pop. Thomas has the perfect voice for this sort of reckless abandon: immature, obnoxious and whiney. Opener “Girls FM” is a carefree jingle that perfectly parodies radio schlock, while the oddly affecting “Fun” ends the album by breaking through all the irony, and sees Thomas admitting “all I really need is love/ And I won’t fade away.” Let’s hope he finds it. (Sub Pop, www.subpop.com) Jonathan Dyck
Review: Eluvium – Similies
It’s always a risky move when an ambient artist transitions from experimental soundscapes to the more familiar territories of pop music. Eluvium is the moniker of Matthew Cooper, whose work is influenced by neoclassical musicians like Erik Satie and Philip Glass, and, more recently, takes its cue from Brian Eno’s work in the mid-’70s. Similies is Cooper’s fifth full-length and first since his breakthrough 2007 album Copia, which was a wash of lush, airy textures and conflicting emotions. On this outing, fans of Eluvium are introduced to Cooper’s unpolished baritone voice (think Ian Curtis), processed through a more traditional song structure. It all works surprisingly well, especially with lyrics that echo the mysteries of Cooper’s dream-like compositions. On “The Motion Makes Me Last,” Cooper sings, “I am surprised/ that shapes are for looking at/ and their colours create my mood/ I’m a vessel between two places I’ve never been.” Cooper’s work is still grounded in ambient sounds, but they’ve never been as absorbing or as revelatory as they are here. (Temporary Residence Limited, www.temporaryresidence.com) Jonathan Dyck
Review: Frog Eyes – Paul’s Tomb: A Triumph
No, the members of Frog Eyes did not lack foresight when they agreed to subtitle this album “A Triumph.” Recorded live off the floor, Paul’s Tomb is Frog Eyes in complete control of the battlefield. Of course, frontman Carey Mercer (who now splits his time between Frog Eyes and his supergroup, Swan Lake) still struggles through each hard-won war cry, shooting what he calls “contrapuntal sharp blasts or hope” at anyone who dares to listen. The result is what is probably Frog Eyes’ most accessible album to date; and with an opening track (“A Flower in a Glove”) that surpasses nine minutes—not to mention Mercer’s characteristically cryptic lyrics howled at an inhuman pace—it’s really quite a feat. “Rebel Horns” has a thumping bass-driven hook that erupts into unrelenting walls of feedback, while “Violent Psalms” makes wonderful use of new band member Megan Boddy’s serene voice as a foil for Mercer’s affliction. Few fans of Frog Eyes will consider this album an equal to Mercer’s previous work (Folded Palm, anyone?), but Paul’s Tomb: A Triumph is another little victory for one of Canada’s most underrated bands. (Dead Oceans, www.deadoceans.com) Jonathan Dyck
Review: Kaki King – Junior
With such a personal arsenal of talent, Kaki King should succeed. But Junior, her sixth album, is a bit of a disappointment. It’s not terrible, but she’s capable of a better, more focused collection. As songs like “Sloan Shore” and “Spit It Back in My Mouth” demonstrate, King is a gifted songwriter and a truly singular guitarist (after all, there’s a reason she won a Golden Globe for Into the Wild’s original score), but her bland vocals and uninspired lyrics tend to undercut each song that uses them. Inspired by spy novels, her lead single, “The Betrayer,” (which might be the worst song on the album), is an attempt at angular punk that tries to turn the idea of infidelity into one of political intrigue. For all its energy and urgency, “The Betrayer” falls as flat as an opener as the angsty, high school journal entry “Sunnyside” does as a closer. The album’s best moments are those in which King plays to her strengths, and her producer, Malcom Burn, allows those strengths to stand on their own (as they do on “Sloan Shore”). Someone also needs to tell King that the espionage concept is kind of lame. (Rounder, www.rounder.com) Jonathan Dyck
Review: Nice Nice – Extra Wow
Nice Nice, an experimental duo from Portland, Ore., know how to have fun. On their third full-length (and their first for Warp), Nice Nice try to capture the energy of their bombastic live performances, and believe it or not, they actually pull it off. “Set and Setting” sees the band kicking up dust in a slow swell as it readies itself for the massive, driving power of “One Hit.” Somewhere between Battles, Holy Fuck and Animal Collective, Nice Nice have carved out a space for themselves with the unrelenting ambition of Extra Wow. “Big Bounce” is an irresistible dub-infused summer jam that uses what seems like a nursery rhyme melody, while “Make It Gold” sounds like it could be a shoegaze anthem. What’s really surprising about Extra Wow is how full and diverse it sounds. At fifty minutes, the album can get a bit overwhelming and repetitive, but for the most part, Nice Nice have assembled a cohesive collection of material that will get your body moving and may just leave you feeling a bit dizzy. (Warp Records, www.warprecords.com) Jonathan Dyck
Review: Roky Erickson with Okkervil River – True Love Cast Out All Evil
Roger Kynard “Roky” Erickson’s entire life has been like an extended episode of HBO’s Carnevale. Complete with an early life in a rather psychically jarring family setting through to his voluminous drugs intake in the 1960s, proto-garage rock history-making leading to eventual incarceration in a twisted, cuckoo’s nest-like mental institute Erickson is far beyond being lucky to be alive. His formative work with the 13th Floor Elevators has stood the test of time and represents itself admirably to this day. His solo career has been a mish-mash of official releases and questionable bootlegs, all equally varied in musical approach but always full of Roky’s frenzied, at times messianic, musings and even some blistering, spunky, Texas rock and roll. With True Love, Erickson is back in the game with a vengeance, and with the jaw-droppingly feral support of new kids Austin’s Okkervil River he can no longer be labeled a desperate casualty looking to make a feeble comeback for some quick cash. Track for track this album is a stunner. Opening and closing with the sound of Roky, on gloomy acoustic guitar from a recording he made while locked up it’s apparent that this is going to be an interesting listen. The Okkervils add much heft to what can only be termed devastatingly poignant lyrics courtesy of Roky, or whatever being inhabits him presently. He is still the saviour sage in his mind and yet in these troubled times of media and digital communication overload you can almost understand why, for a time, he kept multiple radios and televisions blazing at full volume in his living space. It drowned out the voices in his head and, it seems, the other heinous life crap that Erickson was unfortunately destined to have to filter for the rest of us for some ungodly reason. Roky’s former gauzy reality has cleared of late and his shattered soul lyrical bent has been upturned toward some hopefulness, albeit with an almost childlike bearing. It is within these lyrics that Roky’s personal truth is revealed. The larger meaning is there on tracks like “Good Bye Sweet Dreams,” “Forever” and the stunning “Please Judge.” Okkervil River has apparently been working live with Roky for a while and they have created a respectful and boundary-pushing din that is perfectly suited to Erickson’s troubled personality. Guitars feed back with tight control; strings sluice through lyrical passages and the addition of a brass section makes this a hearty listen that is at once disturbing yet optimistic. At nearly 63, Roky Erickson remains something of a musical and creative wonderment. His weird, disembodied howl reeks of past injustices wrought upon him yet there is a sparkling hopefulness even in his darkest passages. He has come through his demon-filled past to be perfectly in the here and now and with the able support of a group of respectful younger musicians it gives one pause and the sincere hope that this man can yet reach the heights of creative power that were stolen from him all those years ago. (Anti-, www.anti.com) Jeff Monk
Review: Duplex! – Worser
For the little ones with discriminating tastes comes Worser, a clever collection of tunes for budding indie kids and indeed, their parents’ inner children, too. This second album from Vancouverites Duplex! features a wide and varied array of topics, from same-sex divorcees to the origin of species to sweater-wearing canines, served up with a healthy dose of genre-hopping. There’s a twee-pop ode to an older brother, a faux-Rush rocker about the seven noble gasses, a jaunty psychedelic fuzz-pop song about popsicles, a cheery instructional about how to make a sandwich and a bittersweet piano ballad about the changing of the autumn leaves. Plenty of tongue-in-cheek humour and a solid assemblage of musical talent only enhance this little gem of a kids record, resulting in cute, compelling stuff that will manage to engage wandering attention spans without being condescending. Parents will be perfectly pleased and the wee hipsters will eat this up, they’ll love it so. (Mint Records, www.mintrecs.com) Tiff Bartel
Bob Wiseman–Musician, Playwright, Wiseguy
By Kevan Hannah
Musician, songwriter, director, actor, playwright—Toronto’s Bob Wiseman has built a 25 year career upon finding new roles to play, crashing and bleeding into each other to create an art that is uniquely his own. It’s transformed Wiseman’s live performances into an audio-visual spectacle, backing his music with evocative, original films written and directed by the man himself. He was kind enough to spend some time talking to Stylus about his performances, which Winnipeg audiences can experience for themselves at the Ragpickers Theatre this Saturday, May 1.
Stylus: You seem to be constantly spinning as many creative plates as you can. How are things going for you these days?
Bob Wiseman: Pretty good. I wrote a play about my experiences with lawyers and the music business. A lot of that is funny, and I’m mounting that at the Uno Festival in Victoria later in May, and then at several Fringe festivals over the summer, including Winnipeg. And I just was in Europe, over the last six weeks.
Stylus: How did you branch out into writing for theatre?
BW: I’m not sure, there’s a few stories I could tell. But I guess foremost, being from Winnipeg, originally, you move to a bigger place like Toronto and it’s thrilling that there are so many arts, there’s a critical mass of people to make a lot of independent art viable and I like attending a lot of things. So I’ve always been interested in theatre. Specifically, I wrote this play because this theatre festival in Toronto called SummerWorks, and they have a music component. They asked me if I would play a party several months before the festival was going to begin, because they thought I would be one of the music people. But they were kind of charmed with the films that I have that three of them by the end of the night were like, “You know, you should just do this as a play.”
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Review: Meshuggah – Alive DVD/CD
Meshuggah play a style of music unlike any other. Their complexity is not due to them performing well; rather it has to do with the unusual time signatures used in their songs. Don’t expect to ever hear something in 4/4 at 120 BPM in one of their songs (unless it’s in an odd number of bars). What you should expect is to hear the guitars, bass, and even the drums playing in three completely different time signatures and only syncing up every 12 bars. It might even hurt your head to listen to but it’s all mathematically correct. With that in mind, try to imagine the difficulty in performing such a feat live. Sounds hard, but Meshuggah has been doing it for years and they have archived some recent tour dates on a new live DVD. The performances were recorded in Tokyo, New York, Toronto, and Montreal. As cool as it is to have Canada represented in over half of the songs, it may have been a better choice to use only the Tokyo footage. The stage in Tokyo was the largest, and best of all they had a camera on a track in front of the barricades moving back and forth, catching everything onstage up-close. Even if the other cities had better audio recordings, the visual appeal of the Tokyo footage would have made up for it. The only visual advantage of the smaller venues is that the stage was better lit because the lights were not spread as wide apart. Between each song was backstage footage and brief interviews, some relating to performing a show, some related to songwriting. It is a relatively enjoyable DVD about a very unique band. If you have never heard Meshuggah before, you probably should, not because you might like them but rather they’re a good point of reference. (Nuclear Blast, www.nuclearblastusa.com) Paul Nordin