KWCW

Will somebody please make Dan Snaith an honorary Whittie? This is the guy whose moniker “Caribou” was the product of an acid-induced vision quest in the wildest of Canadian backwoods. This is the same guy who earned his Ph.D. in algebraic number theory, just to belittle academics everywhere with claims of making gold records in his spare time. Snaith’s fascination with nature and foreign countries continues on the remarkably lush “Andorra”, but this time he’s thrown people into the equation; girl people, specifically. However, don’t mistake his transition from hammerhead sharks to women named Desiree as losing his edge. These are some of his fiercest songs to date.

There are some humble artists out there that never want to admit that they knew which of their songs would be the hit single. Ben Bridwell of Band of Horses thought people would really dig “Wicked Gil”, but the captivating crescendos of “The Funeral” have become their calling-card. I can’t imagine this naiveté would be possible with the lead track “Melody Day” on “Andorra”. The pulsing, infectious ditty is unmistakably a hit. It’s the aural equivalent of playing the Rainbow Road level in MarioKart64 well into the early hours of the morning. I challenge you to avoid imagining butterflies, birds, or some other cute shit when you hear the twittering flutes and jangling guitars. Snaith has really hit his stride with his vocals too; his voice gently reverberates across each sonic landscape he constructs. And he seems to be inviting the awkward concert round-of-applause-before-the-song-is-actually-over with a late-song lull only to return more ferociously than before. Suffice to say, goodness gracious.

Andorra is one of the sunniest albums you’ll hear all year. Snaith takes the best parts of every post 60’s musical era, and condenses them into roughly four and a half minute audio collages. There are elements of the Beatles (imagine ?uestlove on the drums instead of Mr. Conductor from Shining Time Station) and a heavy dose of psychedelic influences. The rampant use of heavy reverb lends an eerie, ethereal tone that can only described as a true stardust fantasy. Each meticulous arrangement is entirely his own, as Snaith notoriously maintains a death-grip on the production of each song, start to finish. Surprisingly absent are the drums on one of the album’s finest tracks “Desiree”. Barring a few clangs of a triangle, Snaith’s complex, signature drumming is replaced by strings and a hypnotic chant of the stripper-esque moniker. The percussion on “Irene” is entirely drum machine and coupled with the slightly off-kilter melody, it is enjoyably haunting.

It’s remarkable to think that the man formerly known as Manitoba has been able to produce such a consistently excellent level of music on each of his albums. It seems as if he uses any instrument he can get his hands on and seamlessly incorporates it into a distinctly Caribou song. As an album, “Andorra” does not disappoint. Each song seems to exist naturally and cohesively with the rest. My only advice is to play this record before summer’s end for maximum effect.

Grade: A

-Kyle Gilkeson

Throughout his decade-plus career, Aesop Rock has always seemed to be a man who followed his own muse. Even when he essentially became the Def Jux label’s flagship MC a few years back, he still retained a very distinct identity, never really feeling like a mere appendage of the label, unlike, say, El-P or Cannibal Ox. Most telling of his iconoclasm, perhaps, was his 2003 release, “Bazooka Tooth.” After the very positive response to 2001’s “Labor Days,” Aesop decided to produce most of his next album himself, ending his two-album run with producer Blockhead, and ended up with one of the least accessible (though quite interesting) rap albums this side of cLOUDDEAD. If “Labor Days” had attracted a following, “Bazooka Tooth” almost seemed like an attempt to shed those new fans.

In light of this history, “None Shall Pass” is quite a surprise in its immediacy. Blockhead returns to the production seat in a big way, helming half of the album’s 14 tracks (five of the

Even if nothing has changed in his words, “None Shall Pass” contains some of the best songs Aesop has ever made. The title track, “Bring Back Pluto,” and “No City,” all of which were produced by Blockhead, are fantastic and stand with some of Aesop’s all-time greatest songs. El-P shows up for two songs, “39 Thieves” and “Gun for the Whole Family,” the latter of which he produced, and their collaborations are as satisfying as they always are. The album’s best song, though, is “The Harbor is Yours,” a pirate tale (who doesn’t love pirates?) featuring Aesop Rock’s clearest storytelling lyrics since “Labor Days’” “No Regrets,” a great stuttering vocal line and a deliciously funky beat from Blockhead. Also of note is the final track, “Coffee,” which features, oddly enough, John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats. Best of all, unlike many hip-hop albums, the momentum is kept up throughout the album and the last half doesn’t drag much.

Despite the strong track list, somehow “None Shall Pass” feels like it lacks cohesion. While “Labor Days” (perhaps because it was a concept album) and his pre-Def Jux albums all felt like unified wholes, “None Shall Pass” feels more like a slightly unfocused collection of tracks, albeit very good ones. This, admittedly, is something of a minor gripe and is only really apparent if you’re familiar with Aesop’s earlier work. Even if you are, though, it’s hard to argue with the quality of the songs here, especially after the relative disappointments of “Bazooka Tooth” and the “Fast Cars, Danger, Fire and Knives” EP, released in 2005. All in all, “None Shall Pass” feels like both a return to form and a consolidation of Aesop Rock’s (and Blockhead’s) strengths. And if it feels a little thrown together, that doesn’t change the fact that it’s one of the best albums of Aesop’s career and certainly one of the best hip-hop albums to come out this year.

Grade: A-

-Ben Stevens

There is a particular tremor of feeling that all music fans search for, the shudder that begins in the ears and trickles on through the rest of the body. It is the joy of discovering a new sound, of hearing a band take familiar elements and make them new again. In their modest way, that is the accomplishment of alt-folk group Bowerbirds on their debut album “Hymns for a Dark Horse.” Using guitar, accordion, drums, violin and pleasing vocals, the band creates a kind of jazzy folk that is dark, compact, and glittering. A hunk of obsidian in a forest clearing. Everything is driven forward with powerful melodies and a confident beat, quiet moments of musical doodling nicely balanced with loud, exuberant choruses. The lyrics revolve around environmental issues, calling humankind out for its disrespect and destruction. That may sound impossibly heavy-handed on paper, but set to their delicate, propulsive, and beautiful tunes it is the most natural thing in the world.

Grade: B

-Graham Trail

Hey Venus!, Super Furry Animals’ eighth album, is their shortest and quite possibly their most straightforward. Unlike the expansive, sometimes challenging, and significantly slowed-down Love Kraft, this album shows its hand quickly and works through a series of brief and relatively successful pop songs, summarizing everything that makes the Welsh band so great.

The first single, “Show Your Hand,” opens with a Beatlesque harpsichord line and expands into a fine piece of psych-pop, complete with strings and fuzzed-out guitars, followed up by “The Gift That Keeps Giving,” which sounds like it would’ve fit on any of the band’s nineties releases. “Suckers” and “Let The Wolves Howl At The Moon” are pretty typical slow Furries songs and the latter does a fine job closing the album.

What makes the album so frustrating, however, is the fact that it doesn’t show any progress or innovation from the band’s previous outings. It doesn’t make a cohesive statement and it lacks the sudden surprises and relentless experimentation of the rest of the band’s back catalog. It’s a good starting point, and consistent throughout, but from a band as creative as Super Furry Animals it’s hard not to want more.

C+

-Andrew Hall

Maya Arulpragasam has released one of the year’s most accomplished pop albums and proved that, even with allegations of terrorist sympathies, you can get major label distribution in America. Standout tracks like “Jimmy”, three and a half minutes of loopy, saccharine disco, showcase M.I.A’s sonically ambitious style and remarkable talent for incorporating an eclectic array of influences within the framework of a cohesive album. Arulpragasam traveled extensively during the recording of the album, and as a result, it resembles a sort of musical travelogue—including Bollywood samples, a collaboration with Australian child-rappers Wilcannia Mob, production credits from Baltimore’s Blaqstarr, and the recurring lyrical motif of Africa. All of these factors render a final product that is conceptually fascinating, but more importantly, a lot of fun.

Grade: A

-Bryan Sonderman

It’s official: Minus the Bear are stuck in a serious holding pattern. 2005’s “Menos el Oso” failed to break any new ground on the catchy, pseudo-math rock they had developed so well on their first album and two EPs, but usually such water treading is limited to one album for most bands worth hearing. Sadly, “Planet of Ice” continues along exactly as the previous albums did. The band almost feels afraid to try anything new, as little glimpses of experimentation periodically surface throughout the album, but are never allowed to develop. Granted, this isn’t a bad album, some of the songs are actually quite nice, it’s just stagnant and a letdown considering how good “Highly Refined Pirates” and their two EPs were.

Grade: C+

-Ben Stevens

The best way to describe Le Loup, a septuplet from Washington D.C., is with this mathematical equation that is just about as complex and
long winded as their debut album title: Arcade Fire + Sufjan Stevens+ rhythmic experimentations + Animal Collective= Le Loup. The album is titled after artist James Hampton’s life long work, which I encourage you to check out. “Le Loup (Fear Not)” is the centerpiece and easily one of the best songs on the album; a song that begins with the twanging of the banjo followed by the swelling of layered vocals, guitars, samples, handclaps, and other instruments. And this seems to be the formula for every song on the album. “The Throne” is short and the banjo and the prentiousness of it all becomes tiring. After listening to Le Loup, I just want to listen to more Animal Collective.

Grade: C-

-Matt Coleman

Call it “mature,” if you want. I call it boring. “Challengers,” the newest album from Canada’s sweethearts the New Pornographers, has made a change for the demure that is ill at ease when played for fans of their older, more fun-loving sound. A personification of this change: old songs = walking to class in the sun and dancing. New songs = background fodder for conversations in long car rides. Neko Case, one of the two lady singers for the pop outfit, takes a backseat for this album, which only hurts the effort. The lack of her intense vocals makes too much A.C. Newman just sound whiny, and even the well-honed harmonizing this band excels at can’t take away the annoyance factor in the many overly-repetitive hooks throughout “Challengers.” Where before the Pornos were young at heart and playful, fewer instruments and less creative production make their new sound simply sophomoric. Only a few of the songs here are really actually bad, but even the best doesn’t match up to the worst song on 2003’s “Mass Romantic.”

Grade: C+

-Katie Presley

Andrew Bird must be some sort of wizard. A Suzuki-trained violinist, he recorded several albums with his backing band, the Bowl of Fire, then began making solo albums in a barn-turned-studio outside Chicago, starting with 2003’s Weather Systems. He learned to play guitar in 2004 and sounded pretty competent by 2005, when he released The Mysterious Production of Eggs. He used his skills to create a remarkably accessible yet experimental pop record and became notorious for his live shows, in which he violently switches between instruments during songs and uses a system of pedals to create, through loops, the sound of several instruments at work while playing alone.

On this year’s Armchair Apocrypha, he delivers a very different album. However, this isn’t a bad thing. Whereas Eggs was rooted in acoustics, Armchair is driven almost as much by electric guitar, electronics and percussion as it is by Bird’s violin. Recent collaborator, tourmate, and Anticon member Martin Dosh contributes drums, beats, and piano work, adding another layer to Bird’s music and giving many of the new songs the sound of a full band to wonderful effect.

On opener “Fiery Crash,” Bird establishes his more electric approach immediately, starting the album with subdued guitar and allowing strings to weave in and out between verses, his voice sounding confident as always. Better yet is “Darkmatter,” on which Bird’s voice soars, reaching an unexpected high as the song comes to its chorus, letting drums and guitar rock out for the only time on the album. It’s stunning on first listen and pretty damn impressive five times later.

The album’s centerpiece is the seven-minute “Armchairs,” building over a minimal guitar riff, then slowly inflating as the verses are accompanied by Dosh’s piano playing, a variety of electronic sounds, and Bird’s strings, which come to demand attention as the song comes to a climax and Bird sings that “Time’s a crooked bow.” After a moment of relief, everything comes back to life, carrying the song to a striking conclusion. It’s been likened to Jeff Buckley’s “Lover, You Should’ve Come Over,” and with good reason. It’s easily one of the best songs Bird has written in this solo phase of his career.

Once again, Bird recycles his old ideas and creates something new, yet familiar, in the process. Much like “Skin is, My” was based off of a melody from “Skin” on Weather Systems, he reuses a melody from that album’s “I” to create “Imitosis.” “Simple X” is a Dosh instrumental with new vocals and lyrics by Bird, and it fits perfectly with the new material.

As a whole, Armchair Apocrypha proves that Eggs was no fluke, though given he’s now been making music for over a decade, that shouldn’t really be much of a concern. He’s willing to take risks, but he makes his new sound conform to his trademarks – his whistling, his violin, and his clever as hell lyrics – and as a result, he’s created one of the best albums of the first few months of 2007.

Grade: A

-Andrew Hall

I’ll just come out and say it: The Day I Turned to Glass is fantastic. Honeycut has crafted an album here that molds a myriad of styles into an eclectic, fascinating sound that is truly their own. But what is perhaps most impressive about this album is Honeycut’s ability to create something so varied and creative that at the same time is completely accessible and immediately familiar. Even when three or four styles are being combined in a wholly original and unexpected fashion, the music still feels entirely coherent and fully realized.

To say that Honeycut’s influences are diverse is certainly an understatement. As the album progresses, splashes of soul, funk, jazz, techno, bossa nova, pop, ambient, and rock, among others, come up, flowing together in unexpected, but incredibly pleasing ways. But what is perhaps most fascinating about the album is its apparent inability to fix itself on any of these styles. The focus of the songs is constantly shifting and evolving, bringing in new elements and discarding old ones long before they become stale. This may sound jarring, but Honeycut does it with such a smooth flow and such assuredness that the music never once loses you over the course of the album’s twelve songs.

The star of the show is unquestionably Hervé Salters, who provides keyboards, displaying a remarkable versatility with the instrument. Lulling, sweeping chords are accompanied by sharp, angular riffs and extremely funky basslines, making a rich milieu where one never knows what will come next, but when it does come it always seems perfectly natural and accessible. Bart Davenport’s distinct vocals, meanwhile, come in a confident, soulful croon, one of the only constants throughout the album, and Tony Sevener’s live, played-by-hand MIDI Production Center provides the drumbeats. Live horns and strings are also mixed in, contrasting the often electronic feel in a way that feels just as natural and exciting as the band’s constant genre mixing.

The songs themselves run a gamut of moods almost as wide-ranging as the styles they employ. The dark and funky title track, the simultaneously smooth and angular “Tough Kid”, a lush rock/pop number called “Shadows” and the horn-filled, Prince-inspired R&B of “Crowded Avenue” are the standout tracks, and all of them only reveal more and more subtle and often wonderful touches with each listen. Not all of the tracks are quite up to the standard of those four, but none of them are by any means weak and absolutely none of the album sounds out of place or like filler.

Honeycut, ultimately, almost defies classification. They’re extremely fun (often danceable, even), endlessly creative, and at the same time sound organic and electronic. It all adds up to a hugely enjoyable album that can be played through almost endlessly without losing its charm and makes a good soundtrack to almost any occasion or mood. It gets my vote for the best album of 2006, and if you give it a listen, I think it’ll at least make your top ten.

-Ben Stevens