Charlotte Gainsbourg - Stage Whisper

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Although Charlotte Gainsbourg has increasingly embraced the world of acting in recent years, she still finds time to reconnect with her showbiz roots and, subsequently, cuts a fresh music album here and there. Gainsbourg isn't necessarily the brains behind these endeavors, but she does apply her trademark hush-tones to music orchestrated and arranged by more indie rock stars than you can shake a bag of glass at, including Jarvis Cocker, Air and Beck.

Her latest album, Stage Whisper, is actually left overs from her previous record, IRM, which was largely the baby of Mr. Two Turn-Tables himself. It's particularly ironic in my mind, because I felt the material on IRM was uninspired, sloppy and too crazy grab-bag eclectic for its own good. Stage Whisper seems much more concise and in control of it's destiny - almost as if someone grabbed Beck by the shoulders and said, "STOP IT", loudly, right into his deadpan face.

Stage Whisper has far more stark definition to it, roaming from burning midnight discotheques to old, crumbling ballet and opera halls full of reverb. Gone is the lackadaisical baroque electronica of IRM, and in comes its darker, bittersweet sister. I would actually even go so far as to compare this "odds and ends are better than the prime cuts" idea to Radiohead's Kid A and Amnesiac. Most folks tend to get all rah-rah for Kid A automatically, but I've always found myself drawn closer to the trickled down bits of Amnesiac. It's definitely not as cohesive as its better-received comrade, but there is this exciting, palpable disjointedness that makes the album so much more interesting. So, while Stage Whisper may be full of second-string rejects, the underdog factor prevails, and the album is far more of a triumph.

You don't need to sweep your flashlight down the album's darkened ballet halls for long to discover irresistible trinkets like "Terrible Angels" with it's grimy pulsations and the nocturnal, inverted funk of "Paradisco". "All the Rain" tosses in some reverbed drums and ambient synthesizers, Gainsbourg's mouse-like delivery simultaneously providing a strange comfort and disturbance, like a bi-polar ghost, forever haunting decrepit passageways and stairwells of a once beautiful venue.

Of course, when the first chiming tones of "Got to Let Go" march into your ears, then you know you've discovered the long lost heart of the old hall. The luminous white-lit space of the song is a portal directly to the deeply felt rigors of remorse and acceptance. Gainbourg laments delicately, "you've got to be strong when they call it a day/got to realize when there's nothing left to say," then quietly dissolves with a wavering resignation, "good things come and go/one day you will know/you've got to let go". These aren't particularly deep lyrics but there is a profundity and smiling sense of loss to be found - the way the '80s keys tap along, the tight, echoed drum machine snaps and the singer's vibrantly diminutive vocals coalesce - there is real love in this song. Add to it a striking duet with singer Charles Fink, and you've got a fantastic little number dedicated to the heartbroken, the scorned, the neglected, the weary and everything in between.

I'd say the only thing this very solid album suffers from is a short track-listing. There are only 8 previously unreleased tracks on the album, the rest consists of throw-away live performances and remixes. You'll find that the proper portion of Stage Whisper is gone within a few short breaths and few flutters of the eyelashes. But the impact remains. The ghost has passed through you, in all of her make-shift tragedy and though she may never be at the forefront of your passions, she will always be around when you need her.

The Clash - London Calling

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The Clash are one of those bands that most folks are railroaded into appreciating, kind of like The Beatles or Nirvana or David Bowie, because of the cultural impact they had on music during their heyday. Critics and fans alike beat you senseless with bludgeons of melodramatic praise and sometimes you can't help but blindly agree as their irrational (or skewed) energy seeps into your brain. I think it's fair to recognize (and respect) the significance such bands have drawn in the history of pop music, but I don't think people should confuse "respect" with "enjoyment".

So it is with The Clash, a band I certainly respect but cannot say I enjoy on any consistent level. People are always quick to point to their album, London Calling, as the band's definitive statement to the world. I remember buying the album strictly because of its reputation when I was in high school. I had the "if critics like it, then I should too" mentality going on strong back then. However, upon listening to the much-lauded record, I discovered a lot of inconsistency, as if all the songs didn't make much sense together, but might have been better off spaced across several albums, each dedicated exclusively to a chosen style. As it stands, the album is really just a series of anomalies.

"London Calling" isn't a terrible opener, with it's pulsating guitar chords and playful bass line, but it doesn't have the gravity that Joe Strummer clearly thinks it does. He groans out a series of implicit, rally-cry phrases like "Phony Beatlemania has bitten the dust", "London calling to the zombies of death/quit holdin' out as I draw another breath" and, of course, "London has drowned, and I live by the river". It's a song that critiques consumerism and the stifling of world awareness, but the midnight-punk music lacks enough power to hold it all up.

"London Calling" is followed closely by excursions into surf ("Brand New Cadillac"), lounge-lizard ska ("Jimmy Jazz") and straight-up reggae ("Rudie Can't Fail"). This is a jostling rotation of styles that conjures a feeling of uneasy disconnection. You almost already feel exhausted as The Clash sing "Rudie can't faaaailll" over and over at the close of the first chunk of the record. Then, in comes "Spanish Bombs" to knock your socks off in the right direction. The easy-going lead guitar is a hunky '50s pin-up, filled out by a quick and cautious drum beat. This bubblegum sound ironically frames the ultra political words by Strummer, where he teaches a violent history lesson. The song has this gratifying poignancy to it, thanks to the intersection of sweet melodies and horrendous lyrical imagery.

And the album seems to follow suit from there, a collection of strange influence-infused explorations that would become hallmarks for The Clash down the line, as well as tried and true punk rock anthems that jettisons the blood through your veins. London Calling sounds like a small old cigar box you'd discover by chance in someone's closet. The box would contain old war metals, pamphlets on radical liberalism, pictures of sun-burned vistas and grungy slums from far off places, pictures of old friends, lovers, pimps and thieves - and probably some leftover weed. It's a box that's interesting, but ultimately too jumbled to care about as a whole.

It's an odd sensation holding on to London Calling for so long. It's an album too sloppy to really get your hands around and too intriguing to get rid of. You feel the intensity in all of the songs, but the energy is too scatter-shot to be completely enjoyable. Palpable and righteous songs like "Clampdown" and "Train in Vain" are a perfect fit for the anthem rock archetype of The Clash, but at other times, such as the low-down reggae of "The Guns of Brixton", you can't help but feel how silly and ponderous they are. I can give credit to the band for stepping out of their tattered punk rock sneakers to throw a no-holds-barred soiree of world music, but when the overall direction isn't magnified, you're left with a bunch of good songs meant to be heard on a dozen different albums.

Love Inks - E.S.P.

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On the surface, Love Inks' debut album, E.S.P. sounds a bit like a hipster dreaming of a girl-angel caught in a box. The Austin, Texas-based band employs that forward-moving chug of bass and oscillating guitar that has become synonymous with most indie pop and rock acts of the last 11 years. It's not necessarily an aesthetic that is devoid of value just because it saturates the market, but then again, it makes distinction an elusive attribute to obtain. It was only upon full listening that I discovered Love Inks actually do have the goods.

Stripping their sound down to guitar, bass and an analog drum machine, the band stand tall in the face of fashionable reverb and delay. The ambience in their music comes not from a layered wall of sound, but from the empty, hollowed space that stretches above them. "Blackeye" is a pristine example - it's a song that ushers you into a lovelorn diner at 3 in the morning. The mood is set by a gentle cycle of guitar notes and a consistent swish of drums. The soft-sold delivery of singer Sherry LeBlanc comes off like an inquisitive but compassionate waitress, "you've got a black eye on your eye/tell me was it from a fight" and the chorus, "did it happen last night?".

Throughout E.S.P., LeBlanc offers a lot of simple, repetitious lyrics with slight twists into cheek. It's a handy device that stems the tides of gushy sentiment and nostalgia. Instead, the album feels like a bunch of enigmatic stories told during a twilight drive across the Southwestern United States. You, naturally, are the driver, while LeBlanc mutters yarns on love, pain, indecision and surrealism in the passenger seat. The other band members sit in back, lazily strumming their instruments in time, making your moonbeam journey a gentle success.

However, E.S.P. isn't perfect and Love Inks find themselves taking two slight detours over the course of their 10 song set list. "Can't Be Wrong" and "Skeleton Key" push the album into more generic territory, with the chunk-flop shift of the bass in "Can't Be Wrong" and the spaced out chords of "Skeleton Key" evoking bands that you and I have heard over and over and over and over. It's a marked disappointment that effectively breaks up the flow of the album, like a shallow pothole surrounded by gleaming asphalt.

Despite this, I feel Love Inks carve out their quiet fire in a thoughtful and consequential way. E.S.P. isn't immaculate but it does point to a band looking to claw their way out of easy trends and shallow expectations. All of this, while retaining a style that they are passionate about and that accurately synthesizes the bright corners of their influences. Personally, I love the idea of a band embracing minimal music arrangement and still coming off as ethereal.  It's a breath of fresh air in a market that is dominated by obligatory '80s synthesizers, cascades of delayed guitar lines, noise crescendos galore and humdrum female stand-ins. Love Inks may be lumped in with the recent rash of candy-coated girl bands, such as the mind-numbingly dull Dum Dum Girls, but it's important to not be fooled by lazy critics and publications (basically all of them), Love Inks have a potential all of their own.

Television - Marquee Moon

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Marquee Moon is one of the biggest pre-cum albums of all time. After just four songs, Television blows its glorious load all over your face. The remainder of the album is exactly like post-sex exhaustion - it's unfocused, it's messy, it's completely flaccid. As the final guitar notes of the song "Marquee Moon" ring out and fade, you can feel a palpable sense of disappointment and inadequacy coming on. You were right there, on the verge of ecstasy, but -someone- got a little too excited.

I've had Marquee Moon rattling around the old music collection since I was a junior in high school. Several times throughout the following years, the idea of keeping it or selling it for like, maybe, four dollars became a point of serious contention. There was a lot of hemming and a lot of hawing and a lot of forgetting all about it, but ultimately I decided to keep the album. Those first four songs held on to me for dear life and now? Now I'm stuck with children I'm extremely proud of and illegitimate run-off that I'd just as soon put up for adoption.

The first half of Marquee Moon - "See No Evil", "Venus", "Friction" and "Marquee Moon" - is an absolute thrill. "See No Evil" and "Venus" feature a tornado of guitar chimes, which splatter and invert upon arrival at their respective choruses. "Friction" is a short but sticky blast of energy, while "Marquee Moon" is an epic ten-minute rock crescendo that rises, falls and finally soars, reaching an orgasmic cloud of guitar arpeggios. Singer and guitarist Tom Verlaine squeals out a heavy dose of magical realism to match the theatricality of the first four songs. He mulls over a drug trip, "Broadway it looked so medieval/it seemed to flap like little pages/and I fell sideways laughing/with a friend from many stages" on "Venus" and tests the fragility of existence, "life in the hive puckered up at night/the kiss of death/the embrace of life/there I stand waiting 'neath the marquee moon/just waiting", on "Marquee Moon".

And then, it's spent. "Elevation" is a deflated counterpoint to "Marquee Moon". It comes on so sluggish and weak, it's hard to believe you're still even listening to the same Television album. "Guiding Light" drags things down even further, slopping in a piano to fill out the drudge of a mediocre ballad. "Prove It" is the only song of the last four that even comes close to sounding interesting, but even it's sprightly repetition wears thin after about a minute and a half. Finally, you have "Torn Curtain" which has one of the most annoying refrains that I've ever heard on a classic rock/classic punk/whatever album. When you hear the entire band sneering, "tears, tears, holding back the years" you'll know what I mean. They bring back the piano to reinforce the exhaustive guitar solos, trying their best to close out Marquee Moon in full poignancy, but it all just sounds lethargic and uninvolved.

It's funny, some might argue that, after the first four songs of Marquee Moon, the rest of the band's career was ALL post-sex exhaustion. I can't speak entirely well to that point, although I did find their sophomore album, Adventure, to be extremely dull. I do know, however, that Marquee Moon is too inconsistent to love and too interesting to ignore. The frustration from this duality has lead me to rarely listen to the album at all, yet I think I will always keep it around to remind myself good songs on subpar albums deserve as much affection as I can muster.

Justice - Audio, Video, Disco

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Ever since their arrival on the international music scene in 2007, many people have shafted Justice as a slightly rough-around-the-edges clone of Daft Punk. It's a sentiment that's not completely without merit: both groups are French, both are duos, they're both lovers of disco, funk and house music, they both relish in the gurgling buzz of the "Saw" preset found on basically every synthesizer, they're both fans of CD-skipping chord progressions and so on. However, I think people fail to realize that, while Daft Punk massively popularized that particular sound,  it doesn't mean it belongs strictly to them. No, Justice and Daft Punk are merely cut from the same initial cloth.

It would be one thing if Justice sounded completely derivative of Daft Punk (who themselves borrow heavily from '70s funk groups), like that gross watered-down Dr. Pepper you get at Burger King when the soda machine hasn't been refilled in a while. But Justice manage to carve out their own stellar direction - just look at their debut album, Cross, for proof. It's like listening to an epic biblical film with God spinning some fat funk behind his monstrous decks. The album gradually sling-shots all across the ages, everyone and everything caught in a thick, groovy vortex of gold-dust and thunder.

Cross is an album that has something to say. It says, "dance music can be fun AND somewhat conceptual." Even the pretentious biker-bar hipster look that both members (Gaspar Auge and Xavier de Rosney) adopt cannot derail or muddle the sheer power of their debut. Which can be a curse in disguise for a lot of artists, because, how do you effectively follow up on such greatness?

Justice make an admirable attempt with their new album, Audio, Video, Disco. I can't say that the album is perfect back to front, but I can say that, even from the outset, it serves up bombastic energy and synthesizers tossed into an abattoir. What's funny is that Audio, Video, Disco wouldn't be out of place at a progressive rock concert, what with the theatrical structure of songs like "Civilization" and "Ohio" and the multi-layered melodies of "Cannon" and "Brianvision". Through the course of the album, you get the distinct sensation that Justice could open for Rush (but not Dream Theater because they're awful) and the audience wouldn't immediately default to a "what the fuck is this?" mentality.

I also got the distinct sensation that I was watching an early '80s post-apocalyptic science fiction movie, probably starring Harrison Ford - oh, fuck it - I thought of a movie like Blade Runner. Not Blade Runner itself, but something similar to it. A cult classic that's waaay better than Blade Runner. The album seems to have this noir gospel quality that points towards rear-projected advertisements, dusty cityscapes and burning barrels. I guess "Civilization" is the prime song to target in this metaphor, with it's sliding distortion patrolling the streets and the duet of pulp-ified rebel yells, all for a future promised but never delivered.

It's important to keep in mind that Audio, Video, Disco never becomes too serious or up it's own ass, though. The album is above all groovy and intensely catchy. Just listen to the smoothy-bear hook on "Ohio" once and you'll be singing it in the shower, in the car going to work, at work, at dinner, while brushing your teeth, before you go to bed - those harmonious vocals and that playful bass line just won't leave your head. Lucky for you, it's a song you can be proud to have stuck on repeat in the old noggin.

Austra - Feel It Break

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It's a personal victory for me when I'm able to find new music that I genuinely feel I will be listening to 5 years down the line and beyond. So many people fall into this vicious cycle of gratification and disposition, where they'll obtain an album, play the shit out of it, fall in love with it, be distracted by something else that's newer and completely forget about it within three months - rinse and repeat. I think that a number of exposed, overexposed and underexposed music artists are accommodating this behavior by making music that, while initially serviceable, is found dead and mangled on a barge in a New York City river not long after the music's introduction to its audience.

This idea, I feel, supports my theory that a lot of music - popular and unpopular, past and present, across the spectrum of genres - is not necessarily -bad-, it's just boring. Which is just taking the long way around to being bad again. Why is it boring? Because, wittingly or unwittingly, it was made to be boring. It's boring with a hint of enjoyment - just enough to deceive you into feeling something kindred with the album. This is so you can apply some transient meaning to otherwise life-shaping events, like that shitty relationship you're in, or that elation from getting promoted at work, or that ramble-on road trip you always wanted to take from Columbia, Missouri to Pasadena, California.

But this particular music never sticks around. You won't fondly look back on it, you'll think about the experience by itself. The spell of that music will have long since dissipated, as the endless roulette of new artists and bands spins onwards and onwards. I feel like I know myself well enough to proactively avoid these kinds of groups and save my time for something I find to have personal and preferential longevity. That doesn't stop me completely from being snake-oiled into liking certain cardboard artists, but I do try. Regardless of whether or not you feel that the last three paragraphs are the rantings of a pretentious twat, I think we can all appreciate the idea of an artist or band sticking with us for the long haul, like a devoted friend, through the ravages of taste and time.

I've been having that very hum of assurance with a small-time (working towards medium-time) Canadian group called Austra, who recently released their debut LP, Feel It Break on Domino Records. The first song I heard from the album was the single "Lose It," something I initially didn't know what to make of. All these cacophonous women singing over analog synthesizers and 808 drum machines - I felt that maybe it was just fodder for current aesthetic trends. Big mistake. The seed was planted in my head, I couldn't stop thinking about "Lose It" for weeks and eventually I listened to it again. The way vocalist Katie Stelmanis delivered desperate lines like the recurring "don't want to lose you, don't want to lose," and "I get impatient with every word/ the more you ask me, the more I've heard," over punctuated analog synthesizers sent the most electrifying chills down my spine.

And, honestly, the rest of Feel It Break follows "Lose It" in mystifying glory. Traveling to these deep, dark woods that Austra has created is a journey into a foreboding place. A place where pale green light shimmers through the openings of dense, intertwined branches. It's almost as if Stelmanis and the Tasseomancy twins are three seductive witches, conjuring vast amounts of reverb and electricity to ensure that you never leave the forest again. The album has a very distinctive tug and pull between obsidian gothic and buzz-saw groove that is nigh impossible to resist, especially on repeated listenings. Songs like "The Beat and the Pulse" and "Spellwork" suggest that, although the forest is possessed,  the spirits know how to get down and shake a leg.  

Yet, the album retains a sense of gravity by conveying memories of anguish, likely to do with precarious, wavering relationships. On "The Beast", Stelmanis speaks on emotional liberty wrought by relational expectations, singing "The morning I was born again, I was made into a beast," and "Am I free now, am I at peace/Is that the ground below me or your feet?" built up with a rolling, grandiose piano.

Other songs highlight strands of abrupt backlash, where Stelmanis weaves phrases like, "I want your blood, I want it in my hair" on "Shoot the Water" and "Feeding on bones or anything grown," on "Spellwork". There's also, "I came so hard in your mouth/I saw the future, it was dark," on "The Future", which may be a playful (or resentful) allusion to oral sex, and if it is, bravo to Austra. It was a genius move fitting a blatant but engaging line into such operatic music.

In the end, Feel It Break is a strange, bewitched offering of nocturnal ritual dances and spectral tone-poems, an album that works its electro-magic consistently from front to back. There isn't a weak link in this chain. Austra's debut, in my eyes, is a testament to the merits of unfiltered genesis. It's music that has the distinct potential for sticking around despite the boring music that constantly out-surrounds them. And I couldn't ask for more than that.

The Kills - No Wow

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The Kills are a strange little dish. They aren't a band I can wholeheartedly embrace and they aren't a band I can outright dismiss. I initially became interested in them when I heard the luminous growl of "Monkey 23" strutting around during a night-driving scene in The Beat That My Heart Skipped. The song was so complimentary to the lush visuals of the film I could have sworn it was recorded explicitly to be placed in that scene. It wasn't until later on that I found out the song was part of the duo's debut album, Keep On Your Mean Side.

Imagine my disappoint when I discovered that none of the other songs on the album sounded even remotely like "Monkey 23". The rest of Mean Side is bogged down by tiresome riffs and smokey vocal moans that don't leave much of an impression. I felt especially insulted because they enticed me with such a nice piece of candy, just to pad it with heat-soaked Crasins. Needless to say, I left The Kills high and dry. I didn't touch, taste, smell or think of them for numerous years to follow.

As the years went on, I began to wonder what happened to the pair. Did they burn out? Did they evolve into something ridiculous? Did those comparisons to the White Stripes drive them to suicide? It turns out that only one of those things happened. They became ridiculous. But not before they made a tight, snarling collection of songs that blew me so far away that I'm still trying to figure out where I landed.

No Wow is like a brief, hard slap in the face. The exact kind of slap that comes from a jilted lover. With the methodical pitter-patter of a subdued drum machine in the background, guitarist Jamie Hince fires off palm-muted clicks, roaring hammer-ons and thick, thick, thick chords. That masterful touch of controlled reverb and tone-doubling found on tracks like "Love is a Deserter" and "Murdermile" provides some authentic satisfaction. Imagine an electric guitar combined with an air horn, shrunk down and thrown into a glass jar filled halfway with sand. That's the sound of The Kills in this particular instance.

Throughout the album, Alison Mosshart groans out curtailed, skinny-white soul. It's a just-right mix of deep attitude and melodic mindfulness - something that many other lady singers (both popstars and indie darlings) tend to forget as they drown themselves in vibrato and general fat-assery. Mosshart's lyrical imagery is cool, dark and dangerous - on "At the Back of the Shell," she sings, "kiss all your fingers, what's that for?/ you'll never get to heaven with your shirt all torn," then wheezing in the chorus, "it ain't such a thrill." It's clear that she wants to be cryptically hip, but it works through the entirety of No Wow. There's a lot of murder, sex and guns that come out of Mosshart's mouth and it works with the sleazy sensuality that the music conjures.

I suppose the best way to look at No Wow, is a brief but powerful moment of genius by a contemporary rock act that sort of fell back into the sea of mediocrity once the album was done. Honestly, it's giving The Kills a lot of credit - many, many, many bands these days can't seem to work their way out of superficial expectations to make a decent rock album, let alone several. The Kills pulled it off, though, and they should be commended for that.