Vertigo Venus - Success or Suicide

In the beginning, there were two: brothers Jeff and Chris Cannon. These Michiganders, transplanted to the Land of Enchantment otherwise known as New Mexico, started a band–a boisterous beast named Vertigo Venus. With their first release in 2004, they commanded (like the bossiest of stage mothers) that we listeners Sing Pretty! Then in 2007 with their second album, new band members came on board and things got a little ominous, as we were told to Run for Your Lives.

Now in 2010, VV's latest five-member incarnation comes at us, teeth bared, as their new CD fiercely proclaims Success Or Suicide (also known by the abbreviation S.O.S.). In addition to the Brothers Cannon, the band roster also includes bassist Ken Cornell (also the mastermind behind experimental noise outfit Alchemical Burn); drummer and noted solo electronic artist Brian Botkiller; and lead synth/keyboard player Jessica Crockett.

It's appropriate to refer to this most recent Vertigo Venus album–which features four re-releases, two new original tracks and one cover–by either its full title or the abbreviation; both get the point across. The full title conveys the group's absolute determination to give this rock band thing everything they've got, while S.O.S., better known as the Morse code distress signal, shows a band anxious to be seen, heard, and ultimately rescued by discerning listeners from the miasma of today's musical landscape.

Vertigo Venus is certainly gifted at getting attention, most notably during a 2009 mini-tour of California, and as opening acts performing with such groups as Mindless Self Indulgence and The Birthday Massacre. The accolades have started coming in, too. New song/S.O.S. opening track “Spy Vs. Spy” won a production award at the 2010 New Mexico Music Awards.

As a band, VV defines itself both by who they are (defiant metal-infused synthpunk monsters) and who they hate (phonies, corporate America, and brooding self-indulgent whiners of the goth/emo persuasion). Lead singer/synth player Jeff Cannon cheerfully spits antagonistic vitriol on every song. Highlights include “Monday Mourning” (with the ranting chorus “Shut up and die/ Everybody hates you”) and “Boob Tube” (which smacks apathetic distractable hipsters in the face and reminds us that “you can't say shit without big tits”).

Their most noteworthy song, however, would have to be “Punk Rock Cheerleader,” originally released on Sing Pretty! Described in a press release as a “sing-along-like-you-mean-it” anthem, this scathing indictment of phony mall-bought rebellion is the song for which they are best known. Auto-Tune and vocoder abound in the emo-mocking bridge before transitioning into a rallying cry complete with claps and stomps. There is a certain glorious irony in shining an accusatory spotlight on poseurs with rousing fist-pumping anthems.

Not everybody's going to like Vertigo Venus. They're loud. They're angry. They're bratty. That's okay, though. Vertigo Venus doesn't need–or want–mass approval. Which, in my mind, is exactly what makes them so likable and so deserving of fame.

Review by M. Brianna Stallings

Tobacco - Maniac Meat

Anticon

Sometimes I can send off a record review in ten minutes. Excited by the tunes in my headphones or emanating from my computer’s tinny speakers, my fingers fly across the keys with artistic inspiration. Other times, it takes time and a few repeat spins of the disc to let the music settle into my brain. Tobacco’s Maniac Meat is one such record.

You could ask, what’s happening here? A better question is, what isn’t? So many sounds merge on this album that it can be difficult to discern how these arrangements were conceived, let alone constructed. Tobacco, who is also the frontman of Pittsburgh’s experimental psychedelic outfit Black Moth Super Rainbow, is known as much for his borderline hip-hop beats as he is for his solo analog-based electronic collages. Rolling Stone called his first album “stoner-rock.” Since I don’t indulge, you’ll have to find out about this one yourself.

The entirety of Maniac Meat sounds like a cross between an underwater concert, some synthed-out Dosh, and a few Daft Punk samples. “Creepy Phone Calls” is a dance hit of epic proportion. Less distortion and more danceable synth, the track is lyric-less but soulful. “New Juices From the Hot Tub Freaks” brings some serious rock to the mix with heavy guitars—or at least, a vocoder sample that sounds exactly like them.

The album’s two tracks featuring guest instrumentation or vocals, “Fresh Hex” and “Grape Aerosmith” sound like Beck songs for a reason. Mr. Hansen, auteur of noise, makes a guest appearance, though according to Tobacco, the two never met during their collaboration. The wonders of lo-fi genius at work in our modern world.

BMSR may be SXSW darlings, but Tobacco also gets away with doing few interviews. I like privacy in the age of oversharing. I like artistic merit in a time of paparazzi-based acclaim. And I like anyone who uses a tape machine when a Mac with some audio software will do. Because for some of us, it won’t.

Review by Brittany Shoot

LCD Soundsystem - This Is Happening

DFA

This can go one of two ways. You can put this album on the loudspeakers of your choice and busy yourself with life until the best beats drop and you are unable to stop yourself from dancing around wildly, close to whatever said speakers you chose. Or, you can do as I do: ready the tunes, put on the headphones, and sit down. You’re going to need to fully absorb the genius before you try to dance to this record.

How does one come to produce some of the greatest ironic dance music of the decade? As co-founding producer of DFA Records, James Murphy certainly learned from some of the best. For me, his legacy is a blend of Le Tigre remixes, that forty-five minute album he made for Nike, and LCD Soundsystem songs about distance, love, and sorrow.

The Sound of Silver singles—namely, “All My Friends” and “Someone Great”—defined my grad school years in Boston, a time of healing from heartbreak, strangely disappointing friendships, and a renewed sense of self and personal goals. What will This Is Happening mean to my life? What will it mean to yours?

Though “Pow Pow” was released on Record Store Day, I have been told that “Drunk Girls” is the album’s first official single. There’s likely one driving factor behind that decision: it’s the album’s shortest song, clocking in at 3:44. Every other tune pushes the six, seven, eight, or nine-minute mark. I also hear early album critics don’t like the track. No matter; I don’t believe in that baby/bathwater dichotomy.

Most acts wouldn’t open a nine-track album with a nine-minute song, but most groups are not this type of brilliant. It takes more than three minutes for “Dance Yrself Clean” to move from a few handclaps, cow bell, and deadpan chants to a full-fledged synth-infused dance-punk anthem, but then, that is the point.

Similarly, the build-up in a song like “You Wanted A Hit” is—at least for me—one of the main reasons to listen to a band like LCD Soundsystem. Three minutes into the track, you’re still waiting for the chorus to kick in, for the heavier beats to drop. “You wanted a hit/But we don’t do hits,” Murphy chants. Only he’s wrong; they do hits in every single song.

Should I be comforted or absolutely fucking terrified that Murphy, a man twelve years my senior, sings about the very things that plague me? How can an album so closely mirror my entire existence? Consider some of the lyrics of “Home:”

This is the trick
Forget a terrible year
This is what you waited for

If you’re afraid of what you need
Look around you, you’re surrounded
It won’t get any better

What can I say about This Is Happening that Murphy does not himself include in the lyrics? “I can change/If it helps you fall in love.”

I could bemoan the Internet rumors that this is the band’s last album. Instead, I will cherish what I have, now. With references to moving to the back of the bus and the desire to wake up next to the girl you took home last night, this album is the perfect blend of indispensable '00s hipster aesthetic and thoughtful analysis of our cultural zeitgeist.

Review by Brittany Shoot

Future Islands - In Evening Air

Thrill Jockey

Synthpop is my steeze. I like to dance, I like to daydream staring out of train windows, and I’m a woman-child passing for an adult on the days that I’m forced to leave the house. This sappy, manufactured genre could have been created just for me and my wild ideas about the big world in which I am so small. I don’t care in which decade it was produced; I’ve been known to adore anything from Modern Talking to Pet Shop Boys to Freezepop. Are there multi-layered keyboards involved in the making of the music? Then I’ll probably like it.

Future Islands, a Baltimore band signed to Thrill Jockey just last year, makes the sort of goofy romantic tunes I love. I can imagine dancing at my best friend’s impending nuptials to “Walking Through That Door,” arms outstretched, spinning in circles in front of the outdated DJ booth in the corner of a Middle American banquet hall. I can even imagine looking at the video fifteen years later, thinking, “That dress is awesomely retro, and so is that song!” I never tire of feeling like it’s 1986 and love is in the air. This song evokes this feeling; every time I put it on, I am elated.

As the second half of the album rolls on, the formerly upbeat party music segues into softer, mellowed pop. Songs like “Tin Man” make use of what sounds like steel drums and a marimba, while “An Apology” puts vocalist Sam Herring’s raspy vocals to the test a la Tom Waits. “Swept Inside,” which is lovely and worth a slow two-step around your living room, is also the sort of song that could end up backing a tearful moment on The City, Brooklyn in the background, sort of gray and mournful, much like your life is supposed to be. This isn’t a criticism; it’s just the way this music works. And it does that–it works.

The album winds down in the way a sappy television show wraps up, or the way the aforementioned wedding will probably end. Everyone will hug and cry and there will be slow-motion laughter that will seem even better looking back. In Evening Air is a complete album experience, from jubilant beginning to bittersweet end.

Review by Brittany Shoot

Saadi - Bad City

Paper Garden Records

Saadi is in love with music. It's fun to guess where the loops and tracks come from on their debut album, Bad City. Their influences are far-ranging, and combine '70s dance, '80s synth, choir vocals, and traditional Arabic music.

The title track is a solid dance anthem. The song's companion remix is particularly hot, too. It evokes a busy cityscape inflected with tribal beats.

"Birds" reminds me of Blondie dancing to a slower tempo around her heart of glass. In "Pollen-Seeking Bees," I think the DJ stumbled upon an endearing piano piece and wanted to put it to use somehow. If this album is a dance party, then "Pollen-Seeking Bees" is the book-reading wallflower refusing beer at said party.

The final track is a cover of Bob Dylan's "Daddy You've Been On My Mind." This is not just another sober guest on this album, but a surprisingly somber one as well. This song is filled with choir vocals and heartfelt sentiment. Saadi's vocals seem to be pleading, eulogistic, or possibly both.

It is unclear who "Daddy" is to Saadi. Maybe it's her father, or a nickname for some other (presumably male) person in her life. I'm leaning towards it being her father, because she references to "the language of my father" in the title track. Regardless, Saadi's unique take on this often revisited classic made me feel both moved and empathetic.

Bad City is not a bad album. It's well mixed with interesting sources, floating vocals, and an overall smooth disposition. However, they're difficult to pigeonhole into a particular genre due to the diversity and disparateness of their influences and sound. Sometimes they make me want to dance; at other times, I ruminate with their hymns. I don't think Saadi wants to be limited by category or genre, although they do give the impression that they're still exploring their signature sound.

Review by Jacquie Piasta

Martyn - Fabric 50

Fabric Records

The ever-prolific Fabric series returns with this effort from Dutch producer Martyn. Known for his work in dubstep, the mix starts out perfectly with Hudson Mohawke’s incredibly funky song “Joy Fantastic.” Martyn follows it up with two more drum-heavy tracks designed to get you dancing, and by the end of Nubian Mindz’s “Bossa Boogie,” which has an insanely catchy synth line, I was fully committed to dancing hard to this album.

Many of the tracks have a sound distinctly influenced by African and South American rhythms, like the two Zomby tracks, “Little Miss Naughty” especially. But even as Martyn looks to many places for influence, all of the tracks have a common theme of looking to the future to find new ways to make people dance, and perhaps more importantly, always be interesting to listen to.

Martyn’s track mixing is impeccable, as I hardly noticed when one track ended and the next began because of his subtle and masterful mixes. The songs all bring something different to the album, but they blend to create a perfectly curated mix that is a must have for your Saturday night play list.

Review by Dana Reinoos

Peasant - Shady Retreat

Paper Garden Records

Here’s the dilemma: I like a lot of divergent genres. Living in northern Europe the past eighteen months, I’ve been able to embrace my unabashed love of electronic club music and synthpop. I live in the birthplace of Eurovision, in the land of ABBA. Well, I’m twenty miles south of Sweden, but you get the idea.

My partner and I are making plans to move home within the calendar year, though “home” may become anywhere from NYC to Silicon Valley because he’s a start-up guy looking for funding. On an intercontinental phone call with my Indiana-based best friend the other night, I lamented how much I would miss The Voice, a European answer to what MTV was when it actually played music. I can switch on the appallingly commercial station at almost any hour of the day and catch a mix of Danish bubblegum pop, American hip-hop, and French club music. “When I get back, I’ll have to go back to listening to my college radio cry rock again,” I moaned to my pal, only then fully realizing just how far removed I’d become from the world I’d once inhabited.

To ease back into the idea of being stateside, I’ve been listening to Peasant. A bit more heavy-handed production-wise compared to Damien Derose’s first album, Shady Retreat is an excellent follow-up for folks who dig mellow songwriter jams—or people like me, who have to force themselves back into a once-loved genre.

The opening track, “Thinking,” starts rather abruptly, almost as though the producer meant to fade up the track but got excited at the last minute. Thankfully, other songs make up for the unsettling intro. “Prescriptions” is a cross between mellow folk-rock and a country ballad, complete with the clop-clop horse trotting sound effect in the background. It may be nothing more elaborate than a block being hit with a stick a la elementary school music class, but it produced an endearing, lo-fi quality for a wanna-be country gal like myself. I even felt my own Midwestern instincts kicking back in as I listened to “Into the Woods.” “Don’t go out into the woods,” Derose croons. No joke. I can get behind staying home where it’s safe and warm.

If you think you’re a club kid who hates sad bastard singer-songwriters, think again.

Review by Brittany Shoot