Month: August 2015 (Page 1 of 2)

 

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Helena Hauff Sworn To Secrecy Part II
‘Helena Hauff executes a strong 2nd album of one-take machine workouts ranging from icy, beat-less moments to hi-NRG and darkwave pop with Discreet Desires for Werk Discs/Ninja Tune. Arriving 6 months after her very limited debut, A Tape, by contrast this effort is a far more polished and organised affair, but still with the requisite amounta muck under her talons’ chipped lacquer. It offers ten tracks, each improvised and recorded at her bedroom studio in Hamburg and tested on the road between her countless international DJ gigs and closer to home at Golden Püdel. In a marked difference to all her previous releases, it sounds like she’s just got a posher bit of hardware, buoying the whole album with super wide basslines whilst her Roland rhythms bite and jab with patented venom. If we’re picking highlights, the salty NRG lash of ‘Piece of Pleasure’ is a must, as are the darkwave jag of ‘Sworn To Secrecy Part II’ and the Dopplereffekt-like cadence of ‘Silver Sand & Boxes of Mould’.’ — Bookman

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Midday Veil Empire is No More
‘The band’s preceding full-length album – 2013’s The Current, named one of the year’s best avant-rock releases by The Wire – could be viewed as the band emerging from their kosmische chrysalis, unfurling previously unheard banners of both color and control. This Wilderness is the sound of the band under the self-imposed hypnosis of that emergence, extending the voyage with even more discipline than ever before. The beating musical heart of This Wilderness remains the out-sized synth wizardry of co-founder David Golightly, who seems to have ingested every possible mind-altering sound from Stockhausen to Cybotron to the “Love to Love You” of Donna Summer. They’re all on display here, made especially ornate by the driving percussion of Garrett Moore, the deep, submerging bass of Jayson Kochan, and the often-explosive, reptilian guitar lines of multi-instrumentalist Timm Mason.’ — Beyond Beyond is Beyond

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Fuck the Facts Solitude
‘Despite steadily unleashing new material over the past few years, including two EPs and a split, Desire Will Rot is Fuck the Facts’ first full-length since 2011’s Die Miserable. The new LP from the progressive grindcore warriors is exactly what fans have been waiting for, featuring 11 tracks of the band’s unique brand of visceral grind. It’s an onslaught of harsh, blazing force, starting with the whiplash-fast opener “Everywhere Yet Nowhere,” which contains a surge of aggression that carries on throughout “Shadows Collide.” Tracks like “La Mort II” and “Solitude” are blistering and overwhelmingly powerful, but Fuck the Facts’ sound is anything but limited. Desire Will Rot is incredibly diverse, containing varied structures and incorporating many different styles and elements: “The Path of Most Resistance” has a groove-based approach and “La Mort I” is melody-centric, while “Storm of Silence” features a punk vibe and “Circle” is characterized by experimental noise.’ — Exclaim

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MXLX O Faithful Erection
‘In two years Matt Loveridge has released over twenty albums/EP’s, spilt over different aliases Klad Hest, Fairhorns, Gnar Hest, Knife Liibrary, Speed the Plough, Matt Williams and now MXLX, as well as being a member of BEAK. Not bad going, his latest album, Go Away, released through the excellent French label Valeur d’usage Records, is a lo-fi ambient acoustic affair (Loveridge calls the music Autistic Blues). This is a fair description as his music is abstract and sketch like in places, some tracks consisting of nothing more than beautiful chord progressions, laced with a misty drone. In Loveridge’s own words this was born of “Combination of misery and poverty and having nothing else to do brought this record on”, an apt description, but there is beauty here too.’ — god is in the tv

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Mercury Rev Queen of Swans
‘Mercury Rev’s The Light In You is filled with wondrous and voluminous kaleidoscopic detail, but also intimate moments of calm, and altogether stands up to the very best that this notable band of maverick explorers has ever created. Its ecstatic highs and shivery comedowns also reflect a particularly turbulent era in the lives of Grasshopper and fellow co-founder Jonathan Donahue, of calamities both personal and physical, but also rebirths and real births (Grasshopper became a father for the first time in 2014). There’s a reason for the seven-year gap since the band’s last album, Snowflake Midnight. “It was one of those otherworldly life sequences, when everythi
ng you think is solid turns molten,” explains Jonathan. “But also, when something is worth saying, it can take a long time to say it, rather than just blurt it out.”’ — Bella Union

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Kuedo Boundary Regulation
‘We can see the same efficient production in the general drama-dynamics of Kuedo’s Assertion of a Surrounding Presence. Its swelling pads, gamelan, and titular images form a swill of affect primed for sound systems that are themselves capitalized by the counter-market of counterculture. The record pairs relatively accessible music with a disruptive language and agenda. Tracks like “Vertical Stack” weep with a hyper-pathos that pull spindly synth riffs over Reichian bass runs and soaring flute, literally mobilizing an ambient storm of “unbending futurist focus” key to Kuedo’s agenda. That agenda is described as a hyperreal spatialization of genre, specifically footwork, drill, and techno; these are surrounding presences becoming “asserted” as focused affect — something charged, powerful, even emotional regarding its approach to “the zeitgeist.” The ambience is honed in sharp tracks like “Boundary Regulation,” a brill cut that features Night Slugs affiliate Egyptrixx, or “Border State Collapse,” where spatial resonance is tempered by Kuedo’s signature skittering hi-hats. The tracks are quick, incisive, and full of mass appeal.’ — Tiny Mix Tapes

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Helen Motorcycle
‘In case you missed their excellent 7″ single from a couple years back, Liz Harris of Grouper also plays in a “pop group” called Helen with some Portland friends (Jed Bindeman of Eternal Tapestry + Scott Simmons of Eat Skull). The band has just announced their debut LP, and today they unveil the awesome lead single: “Motorcycle” starts off with all the beautiful, delicate haze of a Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill-era Grouper song, before erupting into a glorious, blown-out fuzz-pop jam. Helen’s the original faces — which also features previous tracks “Felt This Way” + “Dying All the Time“ — is out September 4 on Kranky.’ — collaged

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Erraunt The Portent
‘The Portent is the debut release by Chicago one-man atmospheric black metal outfit Erraunt. In technical terms, there are lots of odd but seemingly deliberate choices of melody and note placement — like major 7th intervals that imply a certain key or chord followed by notes that establish a completely different key center — that constantly throw the listener off and reveal composer Oneiric’s penchant for unorthodox arrangements and song structures. The only thing I can possibly compare it to is a mixture of the softer portions of Emperor’s Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk and the unrelenting difficulty of Paysage d’Hiver’s noisy layering. The Portent constantly and intentionally finds itself at the junction of “atmospheric” and “unhinged,” with Oneiric meticulously driving the listener further and further away from recognizable repetition in melody and rhythm. I have no idea what his artistic background is, but one gets the sense that this is far from his first rodeo.’ — Reign in Blog

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Tallesen Emmel
‘Tallesen wants to make his audience move. Especially with inca. Because a lot of his music is audibly contorted and melted, stretched and stifled, etc. and etc., bodies tap or move (uncontrollably, even) to a potentially non-existent, perhaps constantly decaying rhythm. Yet, as Tallesen tries to shift both with and without this confinement of beat, there’s an insatiable twitch inside us that wants to move with one or all melodies, a fleshy desire for audible nihilism. inca is progressive club, dabbed and tabbed into a lush neon light, flickering to a broken metronome in a trash-bagged window, emitting dense smoke from every seam: it steams for your arrival, and it’s looking to create some dance-floor transcendence.’ — Tiny Mix Tapes

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Low What Part of Me
‘Despite the purity of their configuration — Sparhawk on guitar and vocals, Parker on drums and vocals, and a bass player (currently Steve Garrington) — Low’s catalog is surprisingly diverse. While pristine minimalism and Sparhawk and Parker’s dolorous vocal harmonies have always been at the core of the band’s aesthetic, working with a variety of producers over the years (Kramer, Steve Fisk, Steve Albini, Dave Fridmann) has managed to push and pull the band’s sound in interesting directions. 2013’s The Invisible Way — produced by Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy — was widely considered the most classically Low-sounding album the band had released in years: a missive that pretty evenly split the difference between the plaintive nature of the band’s early work and the ragged noisiness and sonic experimentation of later releases. Ones And Sixes largely continues that theme. Produced by BJ Burton, the record nicely balances the band’s trademark immediacy (“Into You” and “Kid In The Corner”) with more sprawling, experimental fare (the blistering, nearly 10-minute “Landslide” or “DJ,” a track that could be a spiritual cousin to Trust’s “Shots & Ladders”). Throughout the record, electronic flourishes bubble under the surface while the cavernous-sounding guitars rip and echo around the corners.’ — Stereogum

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WOLD Sol
‘Freermasonry:— the obliterative sixth album from Wold, the Saskatchewan act led by the incredibly named Fortress Crookedjaw– is ultimately enigmatic and entirely unknowable, an intersection of noise, metal, and electronics that doesn’t yield to such plainclothes criticism. Mean, dense and multivalent, with a lyrical conceit based on Masonic symbolism and Biblical scripture, it’s the rare loud music that begs to be louder still if you’re to have any chance of understanding it. Freermasonry: is a case study in controlling the illusion of chaos, an elegantly constructed nightmare of sound where hearing one layer of serrated screams, static bursts, and feedback flares means you’ve missed some mass of activity somewhere else. Weirdly seductive rhythms tumble beneath a laundromat of blown-out tones and crackling vocals, generally pulling your attention a dozen different ways. I’ve been listening to the album consistently for three months now, and somehow, I’m still surprised by what its 58 minutes sound like and accomplish. Paradoxically disorienting and direct, Freermasonry: is a constant tumult of surprising activity, more unf
orgiving than most everything in the noise, metal, and drone scenes, places where Wold kind of fits.’ — Grayson Currin

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Chelsea Wolfe Carrion Flowers
‘Abyss is as black and as grim as its name would suggest. The bass line that introduces album-opener “Carrion Flowers” recalls Sunn O))) in its density and minimalism. It rumbles like the warning growl of some infernal beast about to slip its chain, untamed and untamable, even as the rest of the instrumentation — the scraped guitars, the plodding drums, the moaning synth — struggle to hem it in on all sides. At odds with the ugliness surrounding her stands Wolfe herself. Her voice reverberates like that of a nightingale swallowed whole, crying for rescue from within the song’s monstrous belly. Abyss may be Wolfe’s heaviest set to date, abetted perhaps by the presence of Russian Circles’ guitarist Mike Sullivan, who lends an axe to the album’s most crushing tracks. Wolfe has stated that many of the songs were inspired by her lifelong affliction with sleep paralysis, an experience of immobility while in a semiconscious state that is often accompanied by nightmarish hallucinations. I can’t comprehend the terror of such an affliction, to be so viciously betrayed by both mind and body, but the immensity of songs like “Dragged Out” and “Iron Moon” evoke a similar sense of helplessness in the listener, like we too are rendered prostrate before forces beyond our comprehension and control.’ — Tiny Mix Tapes

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Slayer Repentless
‘We started this process, like, four years ago [before Jeff died]. It’s been a long time coming. We started with the idea that we needed to do an album — well, our management was, like, ‘You know, it’s about time you guys do another record.’ and we said, ‘Oh, okay.’ [Laughs] So we start working on ideas and put together some new songs, and then four years later, a lot has happened. Kerry [King, guitar] had a lot of stuff written, and Jeff was working ideas out, but he was very limited because he had a tough time playing his guitar. Jeff was always writing music, so he had demos and stuff that he liked, and he started cutting and pasting those together and trying to make them work. So, we had a lot of material already, but I was a little apprehensive, because Jeff and Kerry wrote the music for SLAYER. We all contributed to the lyrics, but music was written between the two of them. So you have half of SLAYER — musically you have half of SLAYER — and physically you have two-thirds of SLAYER, so it’s a big percentage of the band. Two-thirds is still a big percentage, and, like I said, I was a little apprehensive because they each wrote differently, so it would be a lopsided wheel, you know what I mean?’ — Tom Araya

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Okkyung Lee The Crow Flew After Yi Sang
‘A native of Korea, cellist/composer Okkyung Lee has been developing her unique voice in both improvised and composed music by blending her wide interests and influences. Since moving to New York in 2000, she has worked with numerous artists ranging from Laurie Anderson, David Behrman, Douglas Gordon, Vijay Iyer, Christian Marclay, Jim O’Rourke, Evan Parker and John Zorn just to name a few, while leading her own projects and releasing more than 20 albums and touring extensively in the US and Europe. Okkyung was a recipient of Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grant in 2010. Ghil was recorded and produced by the Norwegian artist Lasse Marhaug. Instead of recording in what has become the standard in modern contempoary music, with high-end equipment and in controlled studio settings, Marhaug wanted to record Ghil in an expressionistic way – to purposely use crude equipment and unorthodox microphone placement in order to give a more raw and direct depiction of Okkyung playing her music. Marhaug says if it they were making a film, it would be like shooting on grainy 16mm black&white; with close-ups instead of 35mm colour cinemascope.’ — Ideologic Organ

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p.s. Hey. If anyone reading this is now or will be in Paris around September 11th, tickets have just gone on sale for the world premiere of LIKE CATTLE TOWARDS GLOW, and, if you’re 16 years of age or older, you can buy them here. ** Thomas Moore, Hi, T. Nothing better than a zing. Or nothing I can think of. Cool, or, you know, about the tunnel post coaxing a self-examination. New thing for your work’s arsenal maybe? That’s the way I seem to think about most everything. I’ll google Harry Proctor then. I couldn’t find anything yesterday. I have that Genesis/Laura Jane thing cued up. Definitely will listen to JS on Bret’s thing. I love JS. Cool. Thank you! Friday morning is good. Post-p.s., meaning between, like, 11 am and noon Paris time? Which would be, what, … 10 and 11 your time? I’ll email you my phone # and Skype if you don’t have them. ** David Ehrenstein, They’re adorable, that’s for sure. Shit, I can’t even fully open the Hulu page over here. It’s blocked in France. Lucky everybody else, though. Everyone, Mr. Ehrenstein has thoughtfully pointed out that for the next four — or maybe three by now — days, you in the US of A can watch films by Robert Bresson for absolutely free on Hulu, and since, in my humble opinion, Bresson is greatest artist who ever lived, I obviously highly encourage you to take advantage. Go here. ** Bill, Hi. Sweet about that Mike Kuchar event, yeah, Envy. Yes, I was emailed the day of the post from someone who pointed out that it was just a Photoshop job. What a shame. It’s a good job, but if you really look close, there are total implausibilities here and there. Dang. ** Bernard Welt, Hi, B. A McDowell Day from you would obviously rock everything. Yeah, of course, the raid on Rentboy was a total shock, really blind-siding. Which, yeah, lends it to theorizing galore. I wonder if the actual ‘why’ will come out. Really, really fucked and mind boggling. Luckily, I guess, I haven’t seen any of the gay-on-gay bashing of sex workers that you say is going on. Not a surprise, disgustingly, though. I would guess that, unless this renders them gun-shy, the resorts can migrate to men4rentnow, or whatever Rentboy’s main competitor is called exactly. No, I had not read that Jacques Audiard is adapting Patrick’s novel. Holy shit, that’s amazing! Wow! I’m really excited for Patrick’s soon to be released new novel. That Pattinson guy is really turning his career around, isn’t he? I have yet to understand exactly what excellent filmmakers like Denis see in him, but it’s a really nice thing to see him do for some reason. ** Steevee, Hi. Yeah, I too have not seen any of the escort-bashing by gay guys. So depressing when centric gay guys’ small-mindedness and geriatric morals are yanked into the fore, but good to know, I guess. ** Étienne, Hi! Glad you came back! If it makes a difference, my experiences in French bookstores when it is r
evealed to the employees that the guy (me) buying some complicated French tome doesn’t speak French, is that the discrepancy seems to charm their pants off. I’m sure there’s some condescension in that charm explosion, but, being the Francophile that I am, I don’t mind a little humbling. I’m so totally on board with your love affair with Paris. I’ve been here for-almost-ever-now, and I’m still like you. So I encourage you to embrace and wallow in that love, not that you need the slightest encouragement. Double cheek kiss. ** Torn porter, Mr. Porter! You’re here in Paris right this second? Whoa. Is it raining cats and dogs this morning or what? Oh, yeah, let’s hang. Best for me would be, like, Friday or over the weekend sometime because then I take off for Geneva for a bit. Write or text or call me, and let’s sort it. Do you still have my email and phone #? See you soon, man. Hey to Ratty! ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. I think you’ll like the Kuchars stuff, Just a guess, but that feels right. No, seeing their stuff on DVD is good. Or you can use the links in the post or search the Kuchars on youtube/Vimeo. There are a fair number of their films available to stream/watch online. ** H, Hi. Okay, sounds good. Thank you! ** Misanthrope, Right, I get it, about he word ‘fakery’. Maybe ‘scripted’, ‘choreographed’. Man, we tried hard to find the entrance to the tunnel. We looked at old maps, even conferred with the people who did the architectural changes on the building, and the the thing is there, but the entrance is not marked anywhere. But if anybody can find it, it’s you, eagle-eye. I sure made forts, or, rather, tunnels, as a kid, not just in the living room either. In the kitchen, the bathroom, you name it. ** Nemo, Hi, Joey. Cool that you guys’ll get to meet the one and only and singular Nick Hudson. Give him a bear hug on my behalf please. Well, bad pay aside, that’s cool that she was offered the NYU gig, no? Big hi and more back to Jarrod! ** Chris Dankland, Cool, cool, about the blog’s ensconced films getting you into them. Loved the videos. Your talent is a mega thing, if you don’t know. Hopefully you, at the very least, suspect that’s the case. ** Brendan, Oh, 1st and 2nd, but … wobblingly (that’s not a word?) so. I think, I hope, I think I’ll get to LA in October at some point for some Halloween spooky house exploration. I’m trying to sort out if and how and when now, but it looks pretty good. Assuming they’re still in season play then, hitting the Stadium would be positively and tearfully nice. Love to you, B-ster. ** Armando, Hi. No, shit, I haven’t read them yet, which is horrible of me, I’m so sorry, but I’ve been juggling four big projects at once for the past months, and it’s made me worse than usual about doing other things I want and need to do. I’ll be in the semi-clear soonish, and my brain will be reopened, if that’s okay. So sorry. ** Right. Today’s one of those gigs where I present stuff that I’m listening to right now and like enough to try sharing. If you like, find out if our tastes have things in common. See you tomorrow.

‘Ya know where Greaser’s Palace ends? That solar burst. The zoot suit Jesus returns to light. Physical atomic end. Well that’s where Todd’s record begins. Side one is pure brain rocket. Rock and roll for the skull. Todd Rundgren’s season in hell.

‘Put the record on. Internal voyage is not burnt out. Thank the stars for that. Now you got your system of brain travel, Todd got the plane. You’re gonna zoom but beware. What he does is very tricky. Mildly sinister. But I give you the satisfaction that all pain on his ticket is well spent. It beings glowing enough. Like a sacred drug. “International Feel.” Very Baudelaire. Very godhead. And when he moves to “I Know I Know” you know. For one ecstatic moment you’ve gone beyond the point of pain into the realm of pure intellect.

‘I know, here is where I got caught. Not prepared for a transition like “Neverland.” Brutally nostalgic. I got that era under my belt. All about toyland. Once you leave no turning back. Well, why did Todd pull us back? The terror of beauty makes one momentarily bitter. First star to the right and straight on till morning. “Neverland” permanently poisons and sweetens. Gives a subconscious aftertaste. Tinges the whole record with Walt Disney. Also torments and slides you into journey a little weak above the belt. As side one progresses you age. There’s hair on your fingers.

‘Tic tic. Like the crocodile alarm that pleasantly ticked away Captain Hook’s lifeline, goodie good is wearing off. The move is maniac. Screeching monotone which eliminates mouth, limb and crotch but exalts in brain power. MIT science fiction. The next religion.

‘Even more ear-itating is “Rock’n’Roll Pussy.” Autobiographic as a brainiac. “I’m in the Clique” comes back as “Shove it up your ass, I’m the clique myself.” Sexual power is moving up the spine into the skull. It’s manic it’s magnificent.

‘Am I getting abstract? It doesn’t matter. Music is pure mathematics. And what is more abstract than trigonometry? Todd is further mystery than Greek. You can’t plot out his journey so easy. Marco Polo was a natural. Electric exploitation is never predictable.

‘But beauty is just that. The flamingos that wave you into “Zen Archer” leave you breathless. Happy death. And “Zen Archer” is full of wonder. Beautiful. I’m almost embarrassed to get so worked up over its brilliance. An elegy. Very German. Who did kill Cock Robin? An expression of his guilt? It makes one dizzy. Uncomfortable. He exhibits certain powers, certain confusions. Naked emotion is very frightening. It’s extended by Dave Sanborn’s saxophone. Elegant and moving as a high and spiraling tombstone.

‘His language is getting more sophisticated as is his humor and anger. Moving in a very valiant poetry.

‘The blessings of the turtles/ the eggs lay on the lawn.

‘Obscure images in “Da Da Dali.” Very painterly. Also very Rodgers and Hart. Oh Jesus where are we on this journey; All adolescence out the window. Fags, fag hags, weaklings, minor visionaries and paranoids caught in the cyclone. For the chosen ones there is one last splash in drug soup and up the yellow brick road to Utopia.

‘That’s how it hit me. Sound you can’t describe, only experience. Side one is double dose. It takes the bull by the brain. Another point to be examined. He’s always been eclectic. Why didn’t he care? The evidence is here. Something very magical is happening. The man is magi chef. His influences are homogenizings. Like a coat of many colors. May be someone else’s paintbox but the coat is all his. A Gershwin tone some Mr. Kite solid Motown early Rundgren. Several other colors. Telescoping sounds. All manipulated by a higher force. Production itself a form to be reckoned with. The conductor is often more blessed than the orchestra.

‘There are two sides to every record. Excluding Second Winter. So turn over. This is de soul side. White boys got it you know. Especially ones from Philadelphia. “Sometimes I Don’t Know What to Feel” is eighty per cent spade. It touches. I hope Motown grabs it and pumps it Top 40. “I Don’t Want to Tie You Down” touches too. “The balance of our minds together/ The perfect give and take.” Girl and boy move to man and woman.

‘Todd does a soul medley. The way he does “Ooo Baby Baby.” I know he’s no Smokey but I’m addicted to his throat. Cracks and all. I find Todd’s voice very sexy; it makes me feel teen-age. Less than perfect but a bit boozier than last shots. The way he does “Cool Jerk” is genius. Real cartoon. Goofy and Daffy Duck are there. Roller skates, Coney Island laughter, the mad bomber. Jesus, sometimes I think he’s crazy. Certainly not an earthling. The way he transforms mundane to miracle.

‘The motherfucker is “Is It My Name?” All the animal energy is in this one. A song that self-destructs. Dirty joke…flaming guitar…the cunt…the man to kick in your brains. It’s all there. I love it. Never has he seemed more like a son of a bitch. In fact that’s another move on this album. Not only is the quality of his intellect heightened but his emotions. This is the least predictable. The one closest to sainthood and hatchet murder.

‘Moving into “Just One Victory.” A Rundgren classic. Very much a single. Though I would die to hear “International Feel” on the radio. To cruise at suicidal speed down the great highway with “I.F.” at full blast.

‘Each album he vomits like a diary. Each page closer to the stars. Process is the point. A kaleidoscoping view. Blasphemy even the gods smile on. Rock and roll for the skull. A very noble concept. Past present and tomorrow in one glance. Understanding through musical sensation. Todd Rundgren is preparing us for a generation of frenzied children who will dream in animation.’ — Patti Smith, 1973

 

 

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In And Out The Chakras We Go (1974)
‘Maybe some listeners thought that the sonic trip A Wizard, A True Star was a necessary exercise and that Todd Rundgren would return to the sweet pop of Something/Anything? for its follow-up. Not a chance. Its follow-up was Todd, a double album filled with detours, side roads, collisions and the occasional pop tune. Conceptually, A Wizard, A True Star may be the wilder record, but Todd is a more difficult listen, thanks to the layers of guitar solos and blind synth tunes, such as “In and Out the Chakras We Go.” Large stretches of the album are purely instrumental, foreshadowing the years of synth experiments with Utopia that were just around the corner.’ — allmusic

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All the Children Sing (1978)
‘Hermit of Mink Hollow is the first record Rundgren recorded completely alone since Something/ Anything? Where that record sounded like the inner workings of a madman, with each song providing no indication what the next would sound like, Hermit is more cohesive. It also feels less brilliant, even if it is, in many ways, nearly as excellent as Rundgren’s masterwork, mainly because it doesn’t have such a wide scope. Still, the reason The Hermit of Mink Hollow is such a milestone in Rundgren’s career is because it’s a small album, filled with details, and easily the most emotional record he made.’ — allmusic

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Is It My Name? (1973)
‘Todd Rundgren’s album A Wizard, A True Star, and especially the first side of the vinyl recording, is an extended medley after the fashion of the Beatles’ late recordings; brief songs segue into one another, and the lyrics are frequently humorous or hallucinatory. The first side features a cover version of “Never Never Land” from the Broadway version of Peter Pan; the second side features a medley of covers of R&B; hits. The album’s length (55:56) pushed the limits of how much music could fit on a long-playing record; as a result, the sound quality is a little lower in comparison. Acknowledging that on the album’s inner sleeve, which was packed with his handwritten notes, Rundgren advised listeners to turn up the volume on their speakers, being that each side of the record is about 6 or 7 minutes longer than standard records.’ — collaged

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It Takes Two To Tango (1972)
‘By the time Rundgren started recording the album Something/Anything, he had already achieved commercial success as a solo artist, and a producer, and this increased his self-confidence. He had also become dissatisfied with other musicians playing on his recordings, recalling, “I’d never played drums or bass before, though I would hector those that did.” This led him to decide to record the entire album by himself using multi-tracking. Rundgren wrote the material for the album at a prolific rate. He attributed his productivity to Ritalin and cannabis, stating that the drugs “caused me to crank out songs at an incredible pace. ‘I Saw the Light’ took me all of 20 minutes.” He found some of the other songs quick to write, too, noting “they were all basically starting out with C Major 7th, and I’d start moving my hand around in predictable patterns until a song came out.”‘ — collaged

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Don’t You Ever Learn? (1974)
‘Todd is the fifth album and second double album by Todd Rundgren, released in February 1974. It was an expansion of his experimentation on his previous album, A Wizard, a True Star. It showed his growing interest in the synthesizer, and its ability to expand the textures of rock music. Release of the album, originally conceived as (but too long for) a single disc, was delayed by a vinyl shortage caused by the 1973 oil crisis. This was further compounded by reluctance from the record label, Bearsville, to release a new album when his song “Hello It’s Me” from Something/Anything? remained strong on the singles charts.’ — collaged

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I Went to the Mirror (1972)
‘Listening to Something/Anything? is a mind-altering trip in itself, no matter how many instantly memorable, shamelessly accessible pop songs are scattered throughout the album. Each side of the double album is a concept onto itself. The first side is “a bouquet of ear-catching melodies”; side two is “the cerebral side”; on side three “the kid gets heavy”; side four is his mock pop operetta, recorded with a full band including the Sales brothers. It’s an amazing journey that’s remarkably unpretentious. He may have contributed self-penned liner notes, but Rundgren peppers his writing with self-aware, self-deprecating asides, and he also indulges his bizarre sense of humor with gross-outs (“Piss Aaron”) and sheer quirkiness, such as an aural tour of the studio at the beginning of side two. Something/Anything? has a ton of loose ends throughout: plenty of studio tricks, slight songs (but no filler), snippets of dialogue, and purposely botched beginnings, but all these throwaways simply add context — they’re what makes the album into a kaleidoscopic odyssey through the mind of an insanely gifted pop music obsessive.’ — allmusic

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Sidewalk Cafe (1974)
‘For all the evidence of Rundgren as a hitmaker, there’s just as much to show that he has a deserved place among the avant garde, the experimentalists, the weirdos. He was never satisfied with only being a singer/songwriter who produces hits, so while he was charting, he was also messing around in the studio on his own psychedelic albums, and making a name as an adventurous producer for others. Rundgren is the sort of studio wizard who made it a pers
onal challenge to cover Beatles and Beach Boys songs as faithfully as possible.’ — Pitchfork

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Too Far Gone (1978)
‘After the musical gymnastics of albums like A Wizard, A True Star and Todd pushing the boundaries of rock and roll, Rundgren settled into more comfortable terrain on Hermit of Mink Hollow, and fans and critics alike gave it a thumbs-up. “I wasn’t trying to create incredibly new styles,” Rundgren said of the LP, “I was trying to come up with simple, accessible but emotionally rich songs and bring it to a logical conclusion.” As mentioned, Rundgren plays all the instruments here and does all the vocal harmonies. He makes it sound effortless as it all blends together seamlessly and stands as one of the most perfect self-assembled recordings ever made. Ten years on from his recording debut with the Nazz, Rundgren was able to condense all he had learned up to that point and mold it into a near-perfect LP.’ — UCR

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Song Of The Viking (1972)
‘By the start of the ‘70s, portable multi-track technology had enabled multi-talented types like Paul McCartney and Pete Townshend to create an entire album’s worth of material unassisted. Todd Rundgren, a budding producer (whose credits included the Band’s Stage Fright and Badfinger’s Straight Up) and virtual one-man band, was not to be outdone. Late in 1971, Rundgren set up shop inside I.D. Sound, a small Los Angeles studio, and began work on his first full-fledged solo effort. Manning the controls was James Lowe, an L.A.-based engineer and frontman for ‘60s roots-rockers the Electric Prunes. “I.D. was one of the first independents in Los Angeles,” recalls Lowe, “the kind of place where you could go and really get hands-on and no one would bother you. Plus, it had the full compliment of Sennheiser and Neumann mics, and really nice homemade effects as well.” Rundgren arrived at I.D. with a large parcel of ideas -“a bouquet of ear-grabbing melodies” as he’d later call them – few of them fully formed. “Todd didn’t have any demos, because as it turns out, the album was the demo – it all went down right there,” says Lowe. “In fact, a lot of times Todd only had a rough sketch of a song, and it would just develop through the recording. It’s a great way to work – things are happening spontaneously and that’s when the real magic can happen.”’ — BMI

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Black and White (1976)
‘On his album Faithful, for the first time since Something/Anything?, Rundgren allows himself to write and — more importantly — record straight-ahead pop songs. Certainly, A Wizard, A True Star, Todd and Initiation had their share of great songs, but they weren’t delivered as pop songs; they were telegraphed as art. Here, Rundgren delivers pop and rock songs with ease, letting the melodies glide to the forefront. There are embellishments, of course, but the end result is a lushness that’s apparent even on the hard rockers.’ — allmusic

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Breathless (1972)
‘There are a small handful of people who consider Todd Rundgren to be God. Or Godd, if you prefer. There’s a good reason: 1972’s epic Something/Anything?, one of pop rock’s most enduring and perfect double albums. It’s a record (or records, plural) where Rundgren proves, for once and for all, that he was a visionary talent, and quite capably, too, by playing every instrument on three out of the four sides, all of which are pure music nirvana with hardly any filler anywhere in sight.’ — Drowned in Sound

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Everybody’s Going To Heaven / King Kong Reggae (1974)
‘I can see why this album is often written off as a pretentious mess by certain close-minded critics. It is a pretentious self-indulgent mess, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t really good in a White Album kind of way. No, it’s not that good, but this album likewise has a dizzying array of styles, from futuristic electronica, trippy psychedelia, hard rocking glam, jokey show tunes, jazz fusion, and of course soulful, well-crafted pop, prog, and many more points in between. This album is extremely long and challenging and is therefore more for hardcore Rundgren fans than beginners, but Todd takes you on a real trip that’s worth persevering through if you’re a patient listener with adventurous tastes. The hard charging fusion chug of the two-part “Everybody’s Going To Heaven/King Kong Reggae” reaches a frenzied, metallic fervor, that is until its silly but fun reggaefied fadeout.’ — sfloman.com

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When The Shit Hits The Fan (1973)
‘Something/Anything? proved that Todd Rundgren could write a pop classic as gracefully as any of his peers, but buried beneath the surface were signs that he would never be satisfied as merely a pop singer/songwriter. A close listen to the album reveals the eccentricities and restless spirit that surges to the forefront on its follow-up, A Wizard, a True Star. Anyone expecting the third record of Something/Anything?, filled with variations on “I Saw the Light” and “Hello It’s Me,” will be shocked by A Wizard. As much a mind-f*ck as an album, A Wizard, a True Star rarely breaks down to full-fledged songs, especially on the first side, where songs and melodies float in and out of a hazy post-psychedelic mist. It’s one of those rare rock albums that demands full attention and, depending on your own vantage, it may even reward such close listening.’ — allmusic

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I Think You Know (1974)
‘Rundgren’s fifth album, Todd, was released in 1974, and on the double album he continued to experiment with synthesizers and featured The Brecker Brothers (the horn playing jazz brothers from Cheltenham) on horns and “Moogy” Klingman who Todd went on to form Utopia with. A lot of Todd fans felt he was getting increasingly more musically self-indulgent with this record, but the album has more than it’s share of Rundgren classics including: “A Dream Goes On Forever,” “I Think You Know,” the slow burning “The Last Ride,” a metal-reggae jam in “Everybody’s Gone To Heaven/King Kong Reggae,” the brilliant guitar studded “No 1. Common Lowest Denominator,” the pleading “Useless Begging,” and the anthemic “Heavy Metal Kids
.”’ — The Key

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You Need Your Head (1973)
‘A Wizard, a True Star, Todd Rundgren’s masterpiece (here on in referred to by its ‘head’ acronym, “AWATS”) was a tremendously ambitious statement and a lofty epistle to dippy as it was a never-ending gallery of truly amazing sounds and astonishing music. Todd sought to construct a cosmic calling card to the universe in full blown 16-track stereo with an album about as post-psychedelic, progressive and glam all at once like nothing else. No other album sounds like “AWATS.” It turns from segments trippier than anything from 1967, campier than Sparks and as electronically progressive as anything with a smooth soul medley tossed in to complete a grand universal interface as all of Todd’s subjectivities were cast upon a grand cosmic scheme of things where buoyancy, compassion and all the Rock in his head could not clash at all but only arranged themselves into perfect interlocking-ness that explored, divined and revealed all at once. (And that’s just the first song.)’ — Julian Cope

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It Wouldn’t Have Made Any Difference (1972)
‘Q: You were smoking marijuana for the recording of 1971’s Runt: the Ballad of Todd Rundgren, taking Ritalin and peyote buttons for 1972’s Something/Anything? and on mescaline for 1973’s A Wizard, A True Star. A: Well, I know I wasn’t high on Jesus. That was still within the window of my psychedelic era – the thing about psychedelic drugs is they don’t always wear off. At least in my case, they didn’t. Every once in a while I took a trip and never came back. I’d be like, “Whoops! Mismanaged my dosage.”‘ — Todd Rundgren

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Real Man (1975)
‘Returning to solo recording almost immediately after forming Utopia, Todd Rundgren continued with the synth-heavy prog rock he pioneered with Todd Rundgren’s Utopia on Initiation. The differences immediately resonate with “Real Man,” a terrific song that encapsulates not only his newfound fondness for electronics, but also his burgeoning spirituality and his knack for pop craft. “Real Man” is so good, it’s tempting to believe that the remainder of Initiation will follow in the same direction, resulting in an inspired, truly progressive fusion of classic Rundgren and synthesizers. As soon as the second track, an a cappella vocoder opus called “Born to Synthesize,” it’s clear that Rundgren has no intention of following that path, choosing to push the limits of synth technology and recorded music instead of constructing an album.’ — Thomas Erlewine

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International Feel (1973)
‘The umbrella title “The International (In 8)” comprises all of side one in a run-on sentence of messy epiphanies hung with electronic siding while an alarming amount of portals through the twisting realms of the psychotropically cleansed mind of Todd open, close and lead to others. Side one is abstract and nimble, beginning with the sputtering of a Moog-propelled lift off that sputters and fails quickly, nose diving safely into fizziness and then into the treacle-impeding trudge of super-phased piano/keyboard chords that sound exactly the way cheap C-90 cassettes did when their slack wasn’t universally distributed and taut throughout (and moments later, either snapping or spooling out into your portable player.) The drums slowly and stridently finish a roll in under 20 seconds flat to crack open the cosmic egg that is “The International Feel” where everything gently swirls, unfolds and blossoms all around his tremulous vocals, and we’re truly in “Never Never Land” with a repeat of the incantation, “I know…I know…I know…” as though signaling that the quest for knowledge has begun. Endless volley of fully-formed-though-short-as-hell-non-vignettes continually confound expectation as they whiz by fantastically at the speed of genius.’ — Julian Cope

*

p.s. Hey. ** H, Hi. Hope you like Brainard interview. Yes, I should look into digitizing the run of Little Caesar Magazine, but I don’t even have copies of all of them. Someone probably does. The Tibor de Nagy catalog sounds nice. Ha ha, I don’t know if only liking gay male writers is a malady. Many people seem to have it, if so. Not me, but I’m … something, I don’t know. “The ups”? I don’t know what that is. What’s the context? I mean, people will say something had its ‘ups and downs’ meaning it was both good and bad. Maybe ‘ups’ as shorthand for ‘uppers’, which is the term people used to use for speedy drugs? “Ups” as in the mail delivery service? I don’t know. Yes, definitely don’t kill that guy. ** David Ehrenstein, Lovely take on theme park rides. Indeed. Like sex, ha ha. Everyone, Mr. E has recommended that you read an article/essay on Virginia Woolf that begins with the sentence ‘How much sex did Virginia Woolf want?’ Intrigued? Go here. ** James, Hi. And I didn’t even need to get a degree, that’s cool. Uh, I’ll let my next possibly under known writer be a surprise. I like blog-enclosed surprises. Oh, October 1st isn’t a bad delay at all. Hardly even a delay. Good. Yes, I saw the email. It looks great! Thank you so much! ** Nick Toti, Hi, Nick! Welcome to here, and thank you a lot for coming in. Yes, it’s curious that yesterday’s post coincided with the day when you couldn’t scroll an inch anywhere on the internet without coming across a link to some article about Banksy’s theme park thing. I’m kind of the opposite about Banksy, or semi-opposite. I’ve never liked his stuff, and even though, via my no doubt askew take on him, the theme park project seems as dumb and obvious as everything else he does, I mean, I’m such a theme park … aficionado, addict, … diehard … that I would nonetheless zoom over to the UK to see that thing, if I could. Nice to meet you! Come back! ** Mark Gluth, Hi, Mark. Yeah, in the scene from which the teaser was taken, both characters, at one point, put on headphones separately in different rooms and start listening to two different tracks by Bee Mask, and then, when they converge, the two tracks mess together to become a fucked up soundtrack. Oh, yeah, I love the script. It’s super dark and weird, and, as I told Michael, I kept getting strong Kristof vibes from it, whether that was intentional or not. You guys are going to need someone really good to play the dad, especially given that really complicated, great monologue near the end, and I know you will.  “I’m kinda thinking of the film as a black version of this machine, and my next book as a light filled one.”: Wow, that’s fantastically put and very intriguing and exciting! Boomerang love, Dennis. ** Krayton, Oh, gosh, thanks, buddy. I bet people in the mid-west say ‘buddy’ a lot. I don’t know why. That’s probably off. Cool ab
out the new story! ** Styrofoamcastle, Hey, C! Yeah, I got the emails. Life/work/film stuff cranked way, way up in the last few days, but I’ll write back very soon. I’ll definitely watch that Earl Sweatshirt video as soon as I sign out of this place. I quite like Earl Sweatshirt’s stuff. Thanks, man! Love, me. ** Thomas Moronic, Hi. Oh, my pleasure. It was really great to be able to publish that in Little Caesar back when. Man, if RS don’t grab it, or even if they ‘want’ to grab it, there are many, many other great places that I can only imagine will grab hold. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. No, either those parks had nothing new planned for 2016 or what they did have planned didn’t catch my fancy. Good day to you, B!  ** Chilly Jay Chill, Thanks a bunch, Jeff. Yeah, there’s this traveling, pop-up museum project called Museum of Everything that’s gradually going around the world, and it was planted in Paris for about a year and a half, and one of their shows was Jim’s ‘The Hidden World’, so I saw it in the flesh. It’s probably better as a book. It did feel like a book scattered on the walls more than a proper art show. It’s cool. Jim’s work, whether made by him or collected by him, is pretty much always great. Wow, yes, I am a fan of early Lou Christie. I think I might have a done a post on him at some point or at least had selections by him in group posts. He’s very, very uneven, but he occasionally wrote and did these really weird, eccentric pop songs that make him kind of an oddball auteur. They’re scattered over his first four or so albums, and, unfortunately, there’s not a really good comp out there that concentrates on the weird, great stuff solely. Probably the ‘Lightnin’ Strikes’ album has the most number of curious tracks on it. I should do a gig concentrating on what I think are really good tracks by him a la the Rundgren thing I did today. Yeah, maybe I will, That’s a good idea. ** Douglas Payne, Hi, Douglas! Yeah, totally, about the new Dollywood coaster, right? Also that new advanced wooden one in the Swedish park. Ghost Rider rules! You bet! How are you? You good? What’s going on? ** Postitbreakup, Hi, Josh, Me too. I’ve wanted to go to Cedar Point since I was young and before it was even the great park it is now. Congrats to you on the sex! Whoo hoo! Yes, I still eat at least one microwaved cheese quesadilla every day if I am home. If I was going to do a drug right now? MDMA. ** Brendan. Ha ha, as I no doubt have told you more than many times already, I saw Black Sabbath play at the Whisky-A-Go-Go on their first US tour, so I got damn close to Mr. Iommi, but that’s the extent of his my personal relationship, I fear. Sorry about the Giants, but if that means the Dodgers might actually, ha ha, *swallow* go all the way, my sympathies are very slightly tempered. Reading right now? Wow, that’s tough, man. I read so much these days, and I can’t single stuff out so easily. Eeny-meeny-miney-mo … Lidia Yuknavitch’s ‘The Small Backs of Children’ maybe? ** Steevee, Hi. Oh, awesome about interviewing Maddin! I’m really excited for that film. It’s in L’Etrange Festival where Zac’s and my film is premiering. I’m as bad with computer/tech stuff as you are, but I’ll pass your query along. Everyone, writer, filmmaker, d.l., and more Steevee needs some computer advice. Can anyone say something that will help him out? Here he is with his query: ‘For some reason, the version of Chrome I’m using now is incompatible with YouTube. When I try watching videos on YouTube, I get a black circle running around the screen endlessly. Safari is somewhat better – I can actually watch videos – but still fucked-up; for instance, I can’t pause.I haven’t tried Firefox yet. Does anyone out there know what might be wrong and how I might be able to fix it?’ ** Misanthrope, More sleep is more good. Gooder. Can a D- be far away? Are you willing to work for it, young man? I think they’re called fluffers. ** Right. Back in the early 70s, I was a massive fan of Todd Rundgren. There’s a poem in my book ‘The Weaklings’ where I mention my giant collection of Todd Rundgren collectibles and rarities that people probably think is a joke, but it’s not. When punk came along, I kind of faded out on Rundgren, but I remain one of those select people who think what he did in early-to-mid 70s is really brilliant. So, I got in some mood where he came to mind for some reason and mattered within my mind for the duration of the recollection which inspired me to organize this sampler of tracks by him from that period that I think are great. And that’s the entire story. See you tomorrow.