Saturday, June 30, 2012

Look ma! I'm Still Single!

Doug Mosurak decided to let me write for the unflinching Still Single. What follows is my first batch, and be sure to follow the link at the bottom to read reviews by my synonym finder (Andrew Earles) including Dichroics, Infinity People In Love With the Light, False Tropics Sample Based Beats, Criminal Code, Knock Knock We Will Raise Your Child and Looks Like Miaou.

Jennifer Castle – Castlemusic LP (Flemish Eye)


Although the first in her oeuvre to be released under her real name, Jennifer Castle’s Castlemusic is even more fractured and detached from self than what brought criticism to her previous albums. But the decision to nominally shift, while carrying the previous moniker of Castlemusic along for the ride as the album title, is one Castle admitted to not giving much forethought.

Nothing wrong with working on intuition. This album seems to be the result of disparate impulses to pick up instruments honed to craft, and indulge in a kind of anti-autobiographical therapy like some find in running or knitting. Imprinted here is a survey of Castle’s technical abilities, available tones, vocal range and evocations of style; a pretty impressive resume pitting Joni Mitchell against Mazzy Star in an atmospheric mystical Mad-Lib that’s got “the blues,” Canada-style.

It’s not that there isn’t something that can move here. “Neverride” employs a note-change that can bank on it as Castle ushers in some of the album’s most concrete lyrics, but the paper-thin falsetto confuses the sentiment. Something definitely stirs once the dandy, ready-made elfin morning of “Remembering” turns a dark corner. The mic’d ether is compromised in “The Friend,” a realistic representation of Fahey if it weren’t for the faint sound of a cell phone vibrating in the room. “Poor As Him” could be an uncompromising country punch if the guitar weren’t completely drowning in someone’s new tremelo toy. This album has resounding potential energy, effectively so in the first pass; a half hour spent in traction, bracing for the emotionally slaying knockout that never happens.

But why do people listen to music? Surely not always to be slayed, especially if you are from Canada. By the way, I am aware of Castle’s contributions to Fucked Up albums and that Fucked Up is also from Canada and that they happen to slay. Considering this, Castlemusic is a suitable soundtrack (funded by the country itself) to match any residual melancholy and hold it at bay. From American soil, all that technical talent seems distilled, like the bottle of whiskey I want to give Castle in hopes of dislodging something raw, devoid of cosmic wheelies.
(http://www.flemisheye.com)
(Elizabeth Murphy)



Catatonic Youth – “PISS SCENE” 7” EP (Perennial)

RECOMMENDED

How aggravating is it when you send someone a very comprehensive text message and their response is, “what?” JUST READ IT AGAIN. Wait, do I have to send it again? Compelled to re-send the original message is how Diltz Barrett of Catatonic Youth must feel, because I will be goddammed if the two A-siders found here, “I’ve Had It” and “Out of Control”, aren’t the same … a man, a bedroom, a drum machine … songs on the FUCK JAZZ CD-R (ltd. ed. 30) from 2007. Save an additional song on the B-side (culled from The World’s Lousy With Ideas Vol. 5 comp –Ed.), it is the exact same 7” the condiment-barons at Hozac got their grubby hands on in 2008, which remains the mustard (mmmmm) of the label’s catalog. And that’s it: four years, four songs. I’d like to liken the re-re-release of these songs to the senior thesis of a sneaky Situationist art school devil behind the curtains, because when the affliction of a particular low-income refurb cottage industry is that it all sounds the same, and you are the proprietor of two consummate examples working within the limits of the genre, how hilarious is it to RE-RELEASE THE SAME TWO SONGS OVER AND OVER? Call it over-thinking-man’s lo-fi, but seriously … Catatonic Youth? The devil drawing on the cover and label? “PISS SCENE”? Which is actually printed on the cover in quotes, acknowledging the incredulity of its own existence. Here we are, four years later and “PISS SCENE” remains the shit-shine specimen of what one man with a four-track mind and a bladder full of piss and vinegar can do. That is legitimate urgency you’re hearing folks! How did he do it? Locked in his bedroom, he literally had to take a piss. (http://www.perennialdeath.com)
(Elizabeth Murphy)



The Croissants – s/t 7” EP (Sacramento)


This punk rock band should be called The Scones because this feels like a chore and they aren’t even French. Someone should tell them they don’t have to do this. Here is my review:

“This is some bratty pop punk. Short songs, quick execution and minimal lyrics. Four songs straight out of the RAMONES play book. All that is missing is the 1-2-3-4 count before each song.”  -Maximum Rock N Roll

“Trashy pop punk of the highest order is what you get from this Sacramento three-piece. Lo-fi and DIY, these Croissants are filled with distorted guitars and snotty, sneering vocals. These numbers are also incredibly peppy and catchy, with lots of “Oh Yeah” choruses. Reatards and/or Nobunny fans will rejoice with this little gem of a record”  -Razorcake Magazine
(http://www.sacramaniacs.com)
(Elizabeth Murphy)



Final Club – Blank Entertainment LP (Adagio830)

RECOMMENDED

“Everything has been done” has been done. The hard kernel at the center of punk ideology has been mimicked ad infinitum itself, but it is easy to discern those using it as affectation, and those really feeling its effect. Above any redundancy of love, mimeographed joy or remembrance at odds with the day it is this – the nihilistic constraints that exist when you are just four guys toting guitar, drums, bass and vox – that Final Club are waxing passionate about. Like molasses, writhing tunefulness folds over this record’s austere packaging and signifiers, encasing a quality that sneaks in with a grade A “banger” or whatever in “Tragic World”. But more than this song running laps around your average flappy garage disavowal is that it’s a gatekeeper, ushering in the masses with an innocuous party invite. Are you listening? This is meant only for you. “Buy Into It” pulls in lyrically before turning its lilting nostalgia into a portable welt distributor that services the rest of the album; making turns and drawing corners at odd, exciting moments. Alternate universes are revealed in slight, then SIKE! A tangible chorus. Hair-raising, but tangible. Bite-size psychedelic asides begot catchy pop, and vice-versa. The methods all seem so coherent but they swell; see “Wizard Wells”, the return to zero song – the song that makes you want to listen to the whole album again at once. And a note on the guitar: Holy shit. Diverse and demanding of your attention: think Polvo. Also demanding are the lyrics. They poke out with bleak awareness, yet this all ends without infecting emptiness. For the dose was a placebo, all you felt was real; this is no empty gesture. Now we all know one can be too smart for their own good. Intelligence can compromise integrity, especially as one gets older and it becomes laced with anxiety. If this record has propriety on any finitude, it’s in its specificity. Captured on Blank Entertainment is the result of precise amounts of self-awareness, musical ability and youthful energy; all operating on the exact frequencies needed for it to happen.
(http://www.adagio830.de)
(Elizabeth Murphy)

Mattress – Eldorado 12” EP (Malt Duck)


Bedroom rockabilly, or what a sober Jim Morrison would be doing if he had continued to partake full-steam ahead until around Y2K. Eldorado is classic DDIY (literally – this is a vinyl reissue of his first CD-R, dating back to 2006), effects keyboard-reliant song type things with vocals that seem to be making fun of Danzig and Alan Vega, or touched people. It’s the local art guy that incidentally chose music as his medium. His thesis is to incessantly create and his inspiration is the perpetual lack of any coherent fan base. There is at least one in every town, with their yearly message board diatribes bent on uncloaking the secret society of those in town that can “get shows.” Stillborn zinger factories and purveyors of inoperable puns (underground rappers do this too), they implement phrasememes and malapropisms in vain, as they operate on only one level.

Hey, not all dorks are smart, some are just dorks. But it is all about context. Hypothetically, if I was on a grueling, ill-attended month-long US tour with my, say, mid-to-low level indie rock band and Mattress were opening for us in Eureka, California, it is a safe bet that there would be some R. Stevie Moore inspired rhetoric surrounding his performance in a very drunk van on the way to the hotel. And with that said, what really makes this much different than a John Maus, other than Mattress not understanding the value in lo-fi swashbuckling? Maybe it is who you know. But don’t worry Mattress, you will get yours. I would be ahead of my time to give Eldorado an unabashedly glowing review in the present. This is not the music people like in real time, but rather the music people will be digging up in 30 years, vying for the rights to reissue it.
(http://www.maltduckrecords.com)
(Elizabeth Murphy)



William Cody Watson – Bill Murray LP (Bathetic)


Looped incidental music; the kind played to induce calm when you get a colonic or bikini wax. Your kooky buddy has a Buddha Box that he named Bill Murray (doesn’t make sense! So funny!). This record includes an insert that simply states, “They Will Never Believe You”, which is (allegedly) what Bill Murray said to some guy after temporarily blinding him before passing him on the street. It turns out Bill Murray was incorrect: Everyone believes him. The story would not be so widely disseminated otherwise, yet it is only due to Murray’s reflexive supposition that the incident is worth retelling in the first place. That is called situational irony. This record, sonically nondescript and nonrepresentational, is an underscore to an anecdote.
(http://www.batheticrecords.com/bill_murray)
(Elizabeth Murphy)


                                                                                                                                        -from Still Single