silversun pickups

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silversun pickups
no place like home
COACHELLA
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COVER PHOTO BY STEVE GULLICK
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6 FILTER GOOD MUSIC GUIDE
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Yeah Yeah Yeahs’
Guide to Spring Fever in New York City
BY PATRICK JAMES
FOR FROZEN MONTHS ON END, New Yorkers have hidden beneath mounds of scarves and overcoats, waiting
and hoping for the sweet heat of spring. Now, as the seasons change, and as those denizens trade layers of covering for days of sunshine, a renewed city opens its streets—and its heart—to the heat of passion. It’s a welcome
shift, but how is one to navigate through the endless possibilities of love? If only some New York-savvy sages could
provide consultation…
Enter Yeah Yeah Yeahs: Drummer Brian Chase and guitarist Nick Zinner, whose new record It’s Blitz has been sending heart rates out of control since late March, are more than keen to play tour guides for the Guide. Here they offer the
ins and outs of New York in springtime, from Coney Island to high concept art to the regrettable reality of visible feet.
Springtime New York’s…
BEST PLACE TO DINE OUTSIDE:
Nick Zinner: I’m not much of an outdoors person, but
I really like Atlas on 2nd Avenue; all the people who
work there are really charming. It’s sort of Moroccanthemed and vegan-friendly.
BEST PLACE TO FALL IN LOVE:
Zinner: On the subway. The 6 train. I think when I first
moved to New York, I fell in love on the subway a lot.
But, you know, you’re in and out of love in two minutes.
BEST REASON TO CALL-IN SICK TO WORK:
Brian Chase: Maybe to take that mid-week trip to
Coney Island, because it’s too crowded on the weekends.
The last time I went it was a really, really cold night in
late-November and all the rides were closed and the
whole place was shut down. The wind coming off the
beach was really cold. The place is creepy at night, but
it’s kind of fun to walk around on the boardwalk when it’s
empty. On a nice sunny day, it’s really overcrowded.
UGLIEST FASHION TREND:
Zinner: That’s easy…dudes in sandals.
Chase: Agreed.
Zinner: Personally, I just don’t like looking at people’s
feet. Some things are better left covered up.
NEIGHBORHOOD TO MOST AVOID:
Chase: It’s weird; I should say Times Square, but I’ve
started to like Times Square—that’s a common one that New
Yorkers say they try to avoid. But there’s an element of Old
New York—there’s people that have been living and working
there for the past few decades and haven’t ever moved.
So on the surface you still get the Disney and tourists, but
embedded within that is an older element of New York.
Zinner: On those really hot days, if you go to 45th by 67th
and you look up, there’s always like five people hanging
outside their windows who look like they’re extras in ’70s
films—they’re in wifebeaters, staring out, looking like
they’ve been there for 40 years. It’s good because you don’t
see that in neighborhoods as much anymore.
8 FILTER GOOD MUSIC GUIDE
Chase: Yeah, I think the most boring part of Manhattan
is Park Avenue. There’s nothing for an outsider just
wandering the streets.
Zinner: No, wait. I thought of a good answer: Ludlow
Street on a Saturday night. It’s full of bars and restaurants, but on Saturday, it’s just out of control.
Chase: Yeah, that’s it right there. Avoid that. Totally.
BEST PLACE IN WHICH TO DISAPPEAR:
Chase: The outer boroughs can always be good for
that, but it doesn’t take much if you walk outside of
your comfort zone. I have the neighborhoods where
I identify the most with my own social crowd, but
then you can just walk a few blocks outside and go
anywhere, really.
BEST PLACE TO GO IF YOU HAVE NO MONEY:
Zinner: Art openings are a good place to get free booze.
Chase: There’s the La Monte Young Dream House
installation, which is free on Thursdays. It’s remarkable,
and kind of a New York institution.
La Monte Young is a composer who started premiering pieces in the late ’50s. He’s kind of considered
the founding father of the minimalist aesthetic. He started
a band with Tony Conrad and John Cale. He was a part
of this early ’60s Downtown New York loft art happening
scene, but then he’s really a pioneer with art installations.
When you walk into the Dream House… Well, it can be
best described as a sound and light environment. You just
kind of sit there and you lose yourself.
Zinner: Isn’t it like one rhythm of drums or tones that
haven’t been turned off for 30 years or something?
Chase: Yeah, pretty much. It’s been running continuously for years.
BEST RESPONSE TO FINDING A SUITCASE
OF CASH IN CENTRAL PARK:
Chase: Keep walking.
Zinner: Take a photo, then keep walking.
F
GOOD MUSIC GUIDE FILTER 9
GRIZZLY
BEAR
Taming New Territory
BY CAMERON BIRD | PHOTO BY TOM HINES
Ed Droste stands alone at an intersection in Oakland, where he’s drifted to get closer to a cell phone tower. It’s
less than a week after a parolee gunned down four local cops and the sun’s tucked away, both literally and spiritually. The living have banded black over their sleeves and Grizzly Bear’s 30-year-old vocalist, fuzzy on details of the
rampage, waits in the disquieted, darkened metropolis for his own kind of mourning.
He jetted to the Bay Area to relax, ironically, leaving an empty throne in the City of the Violet Crown,
Austin, Texas, where he and his band played a select
number of shows to over-capacity crowds at the South
by Southwest festival. The cross-town music showcase
has ended, and now Droste has a release date to skip
towards. Countless others have already got an earful of
Veckatimest, the band’s third full-length disc, thanks to
its pirating and a subsequent leak across the Web by
some unknown turncoat.
The blogosphere bulged. Droste, who along with his
mates poured years into the self-made production, prophesied it. He’s not much of a soothsayer, given the ubiquity
of premature mp3s, and when an unpolished version of the
album started making the rounds, Droste injected himself
into a discussion that might be better termed “Choose
Your Battles 101.” Later, when press copies of Veckatimest
began arriving watermarked and warning-laden in editorial departments, Droste became an accidental heat lamp
to that glacier called the recording industry.
“The main thing that frustrates me is that it leaked in
such poor quality,” he reflects, “and that people are really quick to jump to armchair critic status and do a little
quick blog review on an album they haven’t even heard
in its full quality… Of course the enthusiasm behind it is
really heartening and exciting, so there’s a lot of me that
says this is maybe not as detrimental as it may sound.”
A romantic wave on Veckatimest crashes over lowercase defeatism, a girl’s choir occasionally warms the
edges, and proggy textures carve out an entry point for
both refined and poppy antennae. It’s an album with
ample built-in anticipation, and as such, it has drawn
Grizzly Bear into the hearing range of heavy hitters and
lifters: Radiohead, orchestrator Nico Muhly, and the
Brooklyn Philharmonic, which recently played back-up
during a Grizzly Bear set, are all taking notice. Droste,
whose mom taught tunes to school kids, is embossed.
Unlike the other three in the group, he can’t read mu10 FILTER GOOD MUSIC GUIDE
sic, and so working with the magnitudinous likes of a
40-piece orchestra feels like culture shock—and not
just for him. “We basically needed a translator to translate,” he says.
Nothing, it seems, comes easy.
The collective sound of all the music in the world
also serves to scramble two-way communication.
Droste pregnantly pauses after a question about which
songwriters from the past have stuck with him indefinitely, then replies that it’s impossible to answer. Six
Degrees of Grizzly Bear might’ve been playable before
the dawn of the Internet; today, there’s no telling whose
pollutants have leaked in from the thousands of download streams.
“It’s really hard to pinpoint influences, especially in
an interview context in which it needs to be summarized
in an easy, digestible way,” says Droste. “Everything I
listen to influences me both positively and negatively. I
think it’s really interesting when a band can summarize,
like, ‘This is my blah blah blah album.’ Really, is it that
simple? Is that all it comes down to?”
From 2004’s Horn of Plenty to 2006’s Yellow House,
with its suites, ’scapes, and solid capsules of craftsmanship, the band has leaped descriptive bounds. Veckatimest, recorded in part across the sea from an uninhabited island in Massachusetts, goes further still.
At the street corner, Droste gazes beyond the immediate moment, which ought to be reserved for reveling.
His voice radiates in and out of the coverage area, turning quotes into bytes and rendering some of his words
lost to the ether. He beams with satisfaction, but as a release date nears, it’s getting time to start thinking about
what’s next. Like Oakland, Grizzly Bear is putting something important to sleep. But that also means building
something else—something new—from nothing.
“We keep asking, ‘How are we going to do this
again?’ Because we never really know,” he says. “It’s
just so strange.” F
GOOD MUSIC GUIDE FILTER 11
K_\<m\ip[XpN`qXi[ipf]J`cm\ijleG`Zblgj
BY KYLE MacKINNEL + PHOTO BY STEVE GULLICK
12 FILTER GOOD MUSIC GUIDE
GOOD MUSIC GUIDE FILTER 13
14 FILTER GOOD MUSIC GUIDE
hard as these four do, that’s only natural.
After touring in support of the widely acclaimed, searing Carnavas for two years straight, 2008 rolled in and
the band decided to cool their jets and take a “break.”
Lester squirms in his chair upon hearing the last word.
“It wasn’t like we went to Fiji or something,” he says.
“We all sat at our house and stared at the walls for the
first time in a while.” This lasted for about a month, and
after a few one-off shows, Silversun Pickups were already
making preparations by February ’08 for what would become Swoon, the group’s latest release and second LP.
They wanted to do things differently this time and upgrade from the sordid party house of the Carnavas days.
They rented a “ramshackle” basement apartment, which
they nicknamed “The Dark,” added a potted plant that
was given the same name, and began writing songs. The
plant was thrifted before long, but the name stuck—a
decision that Aubert now somewhat regrets.
“It seems like such a pompous thing to call something—The Dark,” he says. “[The apartment] was tiny
and falling apart, but it was ours.” By the time the
writing process was complete, the band already found
themselves behind schedule, at least according to industry expectations.
“That February, our pie-in-the-sky idea was that we
were going to be done with the record in July,” Lester
explains. “Everyone else around you starts going, ‘Alright, book shows! We’re going to do this!’ And then
in June we’re like, ‘I didn’t really mean July—that was
just a guess.’”
All four members point to Silversun Pickups’ obligations offstage and away from the studio as the most unexpected aspect of stardom. “Even if we’re headlining,
it’s an hour and fifteen minutes a day, and when you’re
on tour, probably a good 10 hours of the day you’re doing stuff,” Lester says. “Nine hours of that is press and
radio, so you realize there’s a commitment to be made.
Obviously it hasn’t deterred any of us.” Aubert agrees.
“We are lucky, and we wouldn’t want to do anything
else, but it is all relative. I think it would be a very unfair world if everything was always great for us.”
The mentality of compromise surely helped when
it came time to record Swoon. For the new record, the
band chose to reenlist Carnavas producer Dave Cooley, as well as engineer Stephen Rhodes. To say these
two are professional acquaintances would be a gross
PHOTO BY TIMOTHY NORRIS
There is more to Sunset Boulevard than meets the myth.
Beyond the flashy nightclubs of the “Strip,” past the fallen
fairytale that is Hollyweird, this legendary street bends
south, running parallel to the 101 freeway. If you were to
follow the yellow brick road awhile, you’d soon find yourself in a wonderland of strip malls, liquor stores and dive
bars. This is the place where hipsters-at-large and bohemian eccentrics roam free and proud. This is the artist’s
Oz of L.A., where impromptu galleries and crammed music venues carry a spiritual grace. This is Silver Lake.
Amid the mélange of counterculture, right across
the street from a regular dive, Silverlake Lounge, sits
an unassuming store called Silversun Liquor. It is not
far removed from your average Mom & Pop, except for
the neighborhood and eclectic clientele that it services.
It also served Silversun Pickups their band name, as it
has a great deal of liquid inspiration.
“A place is the people you’re surrounded by,” says
guitarist/vocalist Brian Aubert. “When you start planning out things you want to do in life, it’s probably with
your friends.” His best friends, bassist/vocalist Nikki
Monninger, keyboardist Joe Lester and drummer Chris
Guanlao, sit beside him on the second story of an abandoned house-turned-PR firm, just a couple blocks from
the liquor store. They sip their staple cocktail, Jameson on the rocks, and talk of the familial atmosphere
they have come to know from playing in a Silver Lake
band. An indie block party of sorts, the neighborhood
has been home to a gaggle of bands and artists, including Rilo Kiley’s Jenny Lewis, Earlimart, and Everest.
Everybody knows everyone else. It is very much a collective vibe, one that extends beyond just musicians in
the area. “Everyone not involved with playing music is
a fan of going to see music,” Aubert explains.
Everything one could know about the Silver Lake
attitude can be studied in Silversun Pickups’ demeanor.
Jolly and fraternal (in a co-ed sort of way), they jettison
seamlessly in conversation from the rigors of studio
recording to lighthearted discussions concerning “jealousy toward Goth kids for how focused they are.” It’d
be easy to believe that even the strangest topics must
be old hat by now, as the band had played together for
six years before 2006 saw their debut full-length, Carnavas, and the world caught up with Silversun Pickups.
Despite the good humor, there is a weary air about the
band tonight. Of course, when you work as consistently
understatement. “So fucking fun, they’re like my family forever,” says Aubert. “From July until December, I
saw these guys every day.”
But, as with any relationship, the recording process
wasn’t entirely a walk through the flowers, and the fragile dynamic that exists between producers and artists
saw frequent bouts between the band and Cooley. “As
we were writing the songs, we were getting ready for
the fights that we knew were going to happen,” says
Lester. As though harmonizing mid-song, Monninger
and Aubert describe the process. “We already knew
what all [Cooley’s] comments were going to be,” she begins. “He won’t go, ‘You should do it like this.’” Aubert
adds, “He’ll say, ‘Why don’t you figure it out?’”
The band continued to trudge through such producer-artist dialogue “brick by brick” during an extremely
drawn-out process. “We started these champagne toasts
for every little moment, and by the end we had so many,”
Aubert says cheerfully. “It was ‘end of guitars,’ ‘end of vocals,’ ‘end of guitars again,’ ‘end of guitars for realz…’”
The many bottles of bubbly were not popped entirely
in vain. Swoon is a “big” record on a number of levels. Its
feel could be called cinematic; a word that especially excites Aubert, who says that to describe the songs, the band
“would talk to each other using film references.” The progression from Carnavas is certainly traceable, but Swoon
packs an even bigger punch. Lead single “Panic Switch”
is an especially hard-hitter, and sounds like the perfect
gear for the band’s alternative sonic assault.
Aubert thinks of the record somewhat alternately,
dubbing it “the sound of a nervous breakdown.” The
sudden vulnerability in his voice might explain why Silversun Pickups can be so lighthearted outside of their
music, which is heavy both in temper and tone. “I don’t
know what I would be like if we weren’t in the band,”
he says. “I’d probably be really miserable.” Considering how loud the reaction to its predecessor was and
the more fully-realized sound of Swoon, Aubert can
likely rest assured that his band isn’t going anywhere
it doesn’t intend to.
One of the most interesting and endearing things
about Silversun Pickups is, despite their fast success,
just how down to earth they are. Perhaps this can be
best attributed to their beloved Silver Lake; a place they
describe as having a “small town feel,” with the added
benefit of Los Angeles’ giant stage and magnified eye
right next door. Guanlao, who was born just six blocks
away—across from what is now the Church of Scientology—tells me that they “all live within walking distance of
each other,” and cites the building in which we sit as an
approximate center of the world as they know it.
Even though many bands from Silver Lake have already broken out, Aubert insists that the close-knit rapport among its music scene is well intact—“You have
barbeques and listen to each others’ CDs”—and Monninger attests that neighborhood venues were a big
part of their development as a band. “I think places like
Spaceland, or Silverlake Lounge and The Echo really
helped us,” she says. “You don’t go to a bar and watch a
football game and get fucked up [in Silver Lake],” adds
Lester. “You go see music on Tuesdays.”
And so it goes in the everyday existence of Silver
Lake’s finest—four good friends who love what they do,
working together. Silversun Pickups walk the storied
road as regular people, putting in their dues like everyone else, laying down the yellow bricks. And it’s all worth
it for that fraction of time when they are free to play, and
the music shines on like sunlit champagne. F
GOOD MUSIC GUIDE FILTER 15
EMPEROR OF
SNARK
All Hail David Cross
BY LAUREN HARRIS | PHOTO BY SUZANNE HANOVER
Like some foul-mouthed Renaissance man for the hipster set, comedian/actor David Cross is expanding his empire
of snark to include “author.” Having just completed I Drink for a Reason—described as a collection of essays, false
memoirs and laugh-out-loud strangeness—Cross is set to appear in new films Demoted as well as Harold Ramis’
Year One with old pals Jack Black and Michael Cera. There’s also the matter of the forthcoming, top-secret Arrested
Development movie, his brand of vigilante justice for corporate America, and, naturally, vagina puppetry…
You have a number of movies coming up, first
of which is Demoted. What’s that about?
I play a guy who is promoted above two co-workers
who are always harassing him, and he fires them and
gives them jobs in the secretarial pool as the only way
they can keep their jobs. They’re kind of sexist at first
but then by getting in the secretarial pool, they learn
their lesson at the end, and they get their comeuppance and they turn into decent men.
Rather timely with the state of the economy.
Have you been affected?
Not personally, only because I don’t really have a
luxurious lifestyle. I sold half of my yacht. I’ve got the
front half, and you don’t really need a bathroom on a
yacht. You can just go off the side. Everybody on every
project I’m working on, every studio down the line
has cried “poverty.” They’ve squeezed the budget on
literally everything.
If it were up to you, what type of justice would
you mete out to the AIGs and Bernie Madoffs?
What I’d really like is to bring back the idea of public
shame, where you’d have someone in the town square
in the stocks. You could throw garbage and shit on
them, but you couldn’t throw anything that would
really be harmful. They would have to spend half the
week there, and half the week in a jail cell—a small
one—rape is optional.
You’re in a similar setting in the trailer for
Year One—what’s your role?
“Biblical Cain.” Jack Black and Michael Cera [play
16 FILTER GOOD MUSIC GUIDE
characters who] leave their tribe. It’s basically their
journey throughout biblical, Old Testament times.
And they meet people—some biblical, some not biblical—who exist in this world.
How did Year One come about?
This is very rare, and I know and appreciate how
rare this is. I got a call [asking me to] participate in a
read-through for this new script Harold Ramis wrote.
Harold Ramis is an icon in the comedy community, and
I said, “Sure.” I got the script and it was really funny,
and I really liked the Cain part. I’d never done this
before, but I called my manager after the table read
and said, “Let’s try and see if there’s any way they’d
consider me for it.” I said that knowing that’s not the
way it works, there’s no promise to a table read. Also,
I come cheap. I’m probably cheaper than the other
actors they were looking at. I’m not kidding.
You’ve also got a book coming out, I Drink
for a Reason. How’d that come about?
Like almost everything I’ve ever done in my life:
Someone approached me with the idea. Somebody
somewhere, I don’t even know who it was, approached
me with the idea, and I said, “Yeah.”
Do you have a favorite piece in it, or are the
pieces like children?
They’re like other people’s children. I like other people’s
kids. I just don’t mind seeing them put down…as much
as if they were my kids. I like the ideas more. There
are some pieces that allude to other pieces directly or
indirectly but further on in the book. I plant little things
that pay off or are referenced in a funny way in another
piece that have nothing to do with it. Also, scattered
throughout the book are URL addresses, and if you go
to the links, there’ll be addendums to the piece you’re
reading. Out of context it won’t mean that much, in
context it’s like bonus stuff; everything from me speaking
directly to camera to an animated piece that takes off
where one piece ends to something I’ll put together like
a sketch. It’s more than just a book.
You’ve directed, written, and have been on
shows, in movies and music videos. Is there
any form of media you’re looking to get into?
Well, yeah. The one thing you’re leaving out is puppetry. I’m working on a show that’s the female answer
to Puppetry of the Penis, which is still popular after all
these years. It’s Puppetry of the Vulva—I’m trying to
reach out to Eve Ensler. She’s got a big, fat hairy bush,
and I want her to take the lead on this.
What can you say about the Arrested
Development movie?
I can tell you it’s definitely almost positively going to
be shot. They’re trying to nail everyone down now.
The script’s been ordered and has been green-lit, and
they’re hoping to shoot in fall or winter of this year.
I’m actually—whatever the legal term is—engendered
to not discuss, but I can tell you: I know the idea, and
the idea is fucking awesome. And it’s very Arrested
Development. F
GOOD MUSIC GUIDE FILTER 17
THURSDAY 16
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SATURDAY 18
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(Go to FILTERmagazine.com or pick up Filter Magazine’s Spring Issue for full reviews of these albums)
COMPANY FLOW
94%
Funcrusher Plus [reissue]
DEFINITIVE JUX
This stunning standalone from alt-hop’s
crazy kings injected lethal doses of
literate rap into a mainstream drunk on
gin, juice and bling.
SONIC YOUTH
81%
The Eternal
MATADOR
Still noisy and irreverent, but they seem
to be nodding at mainstream relevancy.
Sister, please.
AKRON/FAMILY
80%
Set ’em Wild, Set ’em Free
DEAD OCEANS
The trio ditches the family business for
grimy, hard-drinking metal riffs. Say
hello to mom, will ya?
RONI SIZE/REPRAZENT
90%
New Forms 2 [reissue]
UNIVERSAL
This Mercury Prize-winner—re-jigged
and with new songs—took the Bristol
blueprint and wired it into the bullet
train engine of techno.
JANE’S ADDICTION
A Cabinet of Curiosities
77%
[box set]
RHINO
With the band back together and set
to tour, an odds-and-ends box seems
pretty convenient…but effortless and
even a bit lazy. Jane says: meh.
PHOENIX
Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix 87%
GLASSNOTE/LOYAUTE
Ridiculous title aside, it’s a lean, mean
groove-tastic machine. Mm, play it
again…Wolfgang.
M. WARD
HOLD TIME
SUPERCHUNK
LEAVES IN THE GUTTER EP
SCORE!
ALASDAIR ROBERTS
76%
Spoils
DRAG CITY
This is what happens when you drink heavily
in a Scottish pub with James Joyce’s rambling
nephew-in-law and press “record.”
DOOM
86%
Born Like This
LEX
Hip-hop’s misanthrope-in-chief is back
behind the mask, tiptoeing through
mouth-numbing one-liners like he’s the
Filter Good Music Guide.
MODERAT
68%
Moderat
BPITCH CONTROL
The disappointing product of two party
boys that just don’t mix. Gulp…I think
we’re going to be sick.
FILTER
ALBUM
RATINGS
JASON LYTLE
Yours Truly, The Commuter 84%
ANTIIf this is what Montana inspires, maybe
it’s time we all pack our guitars and head
out to Heartbreak Mountain.
20 FILTER GOOD MUSIC GUIDE
AND THE MYSTIC VALLEY BAND / OUTER SOUTH
VIVA VOCE
78%
Rose City
BARSUK
Still lovely, yet much less intoxicating. With
this former duo, four’s definitely a crowd.
DIRTY PROJECTORS
88%
Bitte Orca
DOMINO
Complex rhythm makes the songs
climax just after you expect. The longer
the lovin’, the better.
THE CRYSTAL METHOD
82%
Divided by Night
TINY E
Their method is making beats sound so,
so sexy. Electro wizards worldwide say,
“Schwing!”
CONOR OBERST
91-100% 8
81-90% 8
71-80% 8
61-70% 8
Below 60% 8
a great album
above par, below genius
respectable, but flawed
not in my CD player
please God, tell us why
20 YEARS OF MERGE RECORDS : THE COVERS!
TELEKINESIS
TELEKINESIS!
ARCADE FIRE
MIROIR NOIR DVD / STANDARD & DELUXE EDITIONS
Bjh^X!ZiX#
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DEPECHE MODE
89%
Sounds of the Universe
MUTE
The louder you play a Depeche Mode
song, the better it will sound. “Personal
Jesus” sounds good at 5—crank it to 10 and you’re
making your dog dream in synth. Unfortunately, since
Violator, it’s been necessary to crank the newer songs
louder and louder to get that classic Depeche bombast,
but with Sounds, you can give the dog a break. A return
to its old glory, Depeche Mode delivers with such
return-to-form songs as “Peace” and “Wrong,” and this
record will sound good at any level. MAX READ
MEAT PUPPETS
86%
Sewn Together
MEGAFORCE
The brief time in the rock radio/
Nirvana spotlight didn’t really
suit the Meat Puppets. The brothers Kirkwood
always flourished under the radar, and as the band
approaches its 30th anniversary, it can lay claim
to being one of—if not the—most respected and
influential American indie bands. Sewn Together
does not disappoint. The album probably won’t get
the Puppets on TV, but it brims with more creativity
and talent (in the form of dark and moody tunes) than
most bands on the tube anyway. ADAM POLLOCK
THE VEILS
90%
Sun Gangs
ROUGH TRADE
There’s a moment, mere seconds into
The Veils’ enthralling new record, when
the glorious Finn Andrews howls, “the complicated
beauty of a river run dry,” like every hope in the
universe depends on it. Indeed, Sun Gangs thrashes
vividly and wildly from emotion to emotion with all
life’s joys, miseries and bemusements visited only at
their most distant and harrowing reaches. Andrews,
one of the best young songwriters around, comes on
like a wounded Nick Cave or a seductive Thom Yorke.
“Where I am going, you can’t save me,” he vows. We’ll
pray for him, all the same. KEN SCRUDATO
BLACK MOTH SUPER RAINBOW
83%
Eating Us
GRAVEFACE
The latest transmission from basement
chemists Black Moth Super Rainbow
finds the mysterious group beefing up the beats and
bordering on clarity. Ever since Black Moth member
Tobacco got his heavy beats on with last year’s
Fucked Up Friends, it seems the rest of the gang is
22 FILTER GOOD MUSIC GUIDE
down for some more tightly-packed slabs of snare
and bass drum. But the wafting clouds of vocoder
and organ smoke maintain the obligatory dreamtime
drift. BERNARDO RONDEAU
THE PRESETS
69%
Apocalypso [deluxe]
MODULAR
Less than a year after releasing the
presumed musical counterpart to Mel
Gibson’s filmic take on the Mayan disappearance,
the dynamic duo of Aussie dance returns with a
deluxe edition of Apocalypso. Bonzer, that was
swift! Well, in this case, “deluxe” means tacking on
a second disc of various elongated club-pumped
remixes of fewer than half the album’s original
tracks. It’s worth owning if you’re on the uninspired
DJ circuit, but otherwise, might as well stock up on
Vegemite instead. KYLE MacKINNEL
Wdd`
INA RAE HARK
80%
Star Trek
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
With director J.J. Abrams’ bigbudget Star Trek set to blast off
this summer, it’s only natural that
Trekkies everywhere would want to check-out—and
cash-in on—the Spock-and-Captain Kirk buzz. In
Ina Rae Hark’s appropriately titled Star Trek, the
University of South Carolina professor does exactly
that, but from an academic, pedantic approach.
Juxtaposing the Star Trek saga with issues of
technology, evolutionary change and the integration
of the “other,” Hark makes a hardened philosophy
out of sci-fi entertainment. This is an intellectual
Trek geek’s wet dream. ERIK NOWLAN
SUPER FURRY ANIMALS
81%
Dark Days/Light Years
ROUGH TRADE
Whereas Hey Venus! was a bunch of
great pop songs and some mind-fuck
psychobabble, this seems to be a psychedelic inversion
of that formula. From opener “Crazy Naked Girls,”
this swirls with garage-groove riffs, poly-rhythms and
even German rap, as heard in “Inaugural Trams.”
Tracks eight and nine are glorious pop: “Helium
Hearts” is wonderfully addictive with instant melodies,
and “Where do You Wanna Go?” is driving music
for the next dimension—making for a more testing,
rewarding album. JONATHAN FALCONE
Out
Now
at M
e
lissF
X.co
m
ERASURE
Total Pop! The First 40 Hits
82%
[box set]
MUTE/RHINO
Erasure was born in 1985 when the
outwardly-staid keyboardist Vince Clarke
(Depeche Mode) found a flighty singer/counterpoint in
the openly gay 21-year-old ex-butcher Andy Bell. They
were the opulent flipside to Pet Shop Boys’ cerebral pop,
and the distinction is even clearer with this second Total
Pop! singles collection. Unfortunately, Erasure devolved
into favoring Broadway kitsch over finely crafted synth
pop in the ’90s, a fact which this set emphatically proves.
However, a DVD compiling Erasure’s multiple BBC
appearances saves the release. KYLE LEMMON
YkY
86%
Squidbillies Vol. 2
WARNER
The folks over at Adult
Swim are churning out one
cartoon series after the other
like hotcakes, or in this case,
southern buttered flapjacks. In the hills of North
Georgia resides a family of redneck, irreverent
squid that womanize, drink, brawl and wreak
general hillbilly havoc. Featuring all 20 episodes
of the second season, this set has it all: patriarch
Early Cuyler attacks a gay robot marriage, son
Rusty becomes a magnet for celebrity pedophiles,
and the Sheriff gets his face blown off by a
shotgun. Yee haw! ERIK NOWLAN
FISCHERSPOONER
88%
Entertainment
LO
These shockingly grim, post-fabulous
times find Fischerspooner soberly
reminding us that “money can’t dance” and how “it’s hard
to be heard.” Um…huh? But in all truth, the ennui fits
Fischerspooner like Comme des Garçons on its third LP
release. And rigorously following the cultural doctrine
of “mediocrity borrows, genius steals,” they brilliantly
nick the best bits of Roxy Music, Ultravox and Pet Shop
Boys, while lyrically proffering a trenchant but poignant
overview of our ruined hopes and dreams. Apparently,
there is life after situationism. KEN SCRUDATO
AU REVOIR SIMONE
85%
Still Night, Still Light
OUR SECRET RECORD COMPANY
Au Revoir Simone’s earnest, whispered
pop is alluring in its varied successes,
as well as its regimented, distanced joylessness. Tracks
“Shadows” and “All or Nothing” are where Steve Reich
meets twee pop; the harmonies and keyboards are tides
of monumental energy that beg for full orchestration.
Others are in the ilk of the track entitled “Only You Can
Make You Happy,” oscillating between post-rock-guitar24 FILTER GOOD MUSIC GUIDE
lines and keyboard pitter-patter, which in the end, give
ultimatey positive results. JONATHAN FALCONE
k^YZd\VbZ
Puzzle Quest:
87%
Galactrix
360, PC, DS
D3
Puzzle Quest was a deep and
inventive take on the industrystandard Bejeweled regime.
Galactrix takes it further by re-imagining the
playing field from top-down square to all-directions
hexagonal, and adding more (but familiar) RPGlike elements…you now can upgrade your ship
and pilot in different ways, as well as craft new
items to use. If you’re lost, just know that Galactrix
is a simple puzzle game that will suck up all of your
spare time. Who said puzzles were only meant for
kids? ZACH ROSENBERG
BLACK DICE
88%
Repo
PAW TRACKS
At this point, it’s safe to say we’ve all taken
Black Dice for granted. The symbiotic
trio has always stood as a requisite vanguard: all-in
experimentalism in the face of the perennial zeitgeistbaiters. The group’s sour sound got more insular and
microscopic around the time it lost drummer Hisham
Bharoocha, but true to its title, Repo finds Black Dice
reclaiming rhythm. Tripping out on stir crazy circuitry,
epileptic synths, electrocuted gizmos and spastic samplers,
the group has produced its best album in years. Black Dice
is a sure bet. BERNARDO RONDEAU
soul sojourns through country, R&B and pop, his classic
“America the Beautiful,” and a live “Hallelujah, I Love Her
So” that is absolutely euphoric. PAUL ZOLLO
THE DATSUNS
63%
Head Stunts
COOKING VINYL
If New Zealand’s The Datsuns don’t regret
naming themselves after a Japanese DAT
Motors’ marque, then they should feel some deep-seeded
remorse for holding onto bloated garage-rock tropes for
this long. Self-limitation is the secret to great garage music:
The Hives and The White Stripes know this. Even Jet does.
The Datsuns thankfully self-edit some of their misogynistic
habits, but as a fourth effort, Head Stunts is self-indulgent,
muddled and gratingly puerile. KYLE LEMMON
PAPERCUTS
You Can Have What You Want 84%
GNOMONSONG
This is lo-fi bliss. Papercuts (aka producer
Jason Quever) serves up fizzling ballads
in the opener “Once We Walked in the Sunlight”—with a
concoction of euphoric down-tempo akin to Slowdive and
Christian Fennesz. In “Dead Love,” Quever sounds like
he’s mixing Scritti Politti and the brass arrangements (on
Casio keyboard, of course) of Pet Sounds. There’s at once
a joy and sadness, and the result is moving, peaceful and
superb throughout. JONATHAN FALCONE
EMPIRE OF THE SUN
87%
Walking on a Dream
CAPITOL
I feel confident that this synth-pop band
will soundtrack some CW show within the
next couple months, and yet, I can’t hate: The production is
flawless, the accents endearing, the lyrics incomprehensible,
and the album cover bizarre. Plus, these guys (Aussies Luke
Steele from The Sleepy Jackson and Nick Littlemore of
Pnau) have pop hooks like the global economy has job loss.
It’s enough to make you watch Gossip Girl. MAX READ
BOB MOULD
87%
Life & Times
ANTIPassion, beauty, intelligence, grace: It’s
all here. Mould’s new songs are intense
and beautiful as anything he did in his solo or Hüsker Dü
past, but this is very much about now…about kicking up
the dust of yesteryear to make something new. That he
played everything save drums here is remarkable, as the
heat of a band playing together burns through. A dark,
dimensional merger of isolation and rapture, this is a lavishly
consequential collection of songs. PAUL ZOLLO
RODRIGUEZ
Coming From Reality [reissue] 89%
LIGHT IN THE ATTIC
When Sixto Diaz Rodriguez’s 1970
debut, Cold Fact, was reissued last year,
many encountered his music for the first time. The man
was ousted from the music world after just two records,
but Fact and Coming From Reality could easily be
mistaken for two tried-and-true classics. Let “I Think of
You” and “Cause” serve as hard evidence. On the latter,
Rodriguez sings that the perfume of a lost lover “echoes
in my head still,” just as his music probably should be
doing in yours. KYLE MacKINNEL
RAY CHARLES
Genius: The Ultimate Collection
94%
[box set]
CONCORD
JusthisrenditionofMcCartney’s“Yesterday”
is reason to rejoice, so pure of heart and soul it is. But all the
great Ray hits are here, immaculately re-mastered, yet still
soulful and oh so right. The full scope of grandeur that was
Ray and only Ray is showcased—the exultant hits, the
GOOD MUSIC GUIDE FILTER 25
YkY
Wilco: Ashes of
88%
American Flags
NONESUCH
With Ashes of American Flags,
Christoph Green and Fugazi’s
Brendan Canty have made a
concert film to reflect the face of
our country, and have done so in the context of a
band that has come to represent post-9/11 America
perhaps better than any other: Wilco. Ashes follows
Tweedy and the gang through five quintessential
American venues, from Cain’s Ballroom in Tulsa,
Oklahoma, to the 9:30 Club in Washington, DC.
All fans should indulge by all means, but if you can
only afford one film about Wilco, then I am Trying
to Break Your Heart. KYLE MacKINNEL
RICHARD SWIFT
85%
The Atlantic Ocean
SECRETLY CANADIAN
This is a weirdly wonderful record. Swift
writes archly melodic, unexpectedly
charming songs, and sings them with warm, knowing
Harry Nilsson-like sweetness wrapped in lush layers
of vocal harmonies. The tracks, however, often sound
like demos produced by a kid in a basement with a
slew of K-Mart synths and a cheesy drum machine.
But, somewhere between this separation of church and
circus resides Richard Swift, and it’s well worth the
journey to follow him there. PAUL ZOLLO
Wdd`
GREG PRATO
84%
Grunge is Dead
ECW PRESS
Fifteen years after Kurt Cobain’s
suicide comes an exhaustive tome
(nearly 500 pages) retracing the
steps of early grunge. Over 130
original interviews are contained,
including Jerry Cantrell of Alice in Chains, Sub
Pop Records founders Bruce Pavitt and Jonathan
Poneman, and of course, Eddie Vedder. With
hundreds of pages of questions and answers,
Grunge is Dead could make you feel like dying, but
if you are still embracing the plaid button-ups of
yesteryear, you might actually feel like you’ve died
and gone to heaven. ERIK NOWLAN
THE PEEKERS
80%
Life in the Air
PARK THE VAN
At first glance, The Peekers’ second LP
seems like the sort of twee Saturday
morning pop that soundtracked The Electric Company, its
round guitars and wide-eyed melodies gumming up the TV.
But as Life in the Air spins on, it blossoms to reveal intricate,
unfurling pop songs full of suburban groans. It’s a gauzy
26 FILTER GOOD MUSIC GUIDE
throwback at times, but as they sing on “Sinking In,” “It’s the
memories that make life beautiful.” MARTY GARNER
YOUTH GROUP
73%
The Night is Ours
IVY LEAGUE
Australian stars Youth Group make
genteel indie rock primed for the Gossip
Girl devotee. Where the quartet’s former attempts came
across as dialed-in mope pop, its fourth release begins
goading the band out from underneath Death Cab for
Cutie’s auspices (Chris Walla, coincidentally, helped
with mixing). The Night is Ours’ seaside love nocturnes
are hummable when buttressed by lithe string and horn
arrangements, but they can be as incidental as your
average Keane song when left bare. KYLE LEMMON
PREFUSE 73
Everything She Touched
79%
Turned Ampexian
WARP
No one will dispute the force (and openendedness) of a metaphor summoned by Scott Herren.
Herren, releasing the fifth full-length album under
his alias Prefuse 73, offers 29 tracks—many running
under a minute—building instrumental structures that
force you to recognize the monotony of sound and
its absence. The album, not unlike the anachronistic
Ampex electronics company that its title references,
hinges on technology to communicate, but grapples
with the implicit sense of obsolescence that underpins
this reliance. A.J. PACITTI
THE FELICE BROTHERS
87%
Yonder is the Clock
TEAM LOVE
Like Springsteen circa Nebraska, The
Felice Brothers have dug deep into the
aching souls of people who the good times forgot to
save. But what separates The Felices’ mud-stomping
folk from that of their peers is their no-winking
honesty—the sense that these songs and the places and
people they’re singing about aren’t literary devices but
actual people doing their damnedest to rage against the
growing darkness. MARTY GARNER
k^YZd\VbZ
Patapon 2
84%
PSP
SONY
Unique rhythm-based gameplay and
a colorful art style make Patapon 2 a
must-have. The killer combo returns
with more items and more than 80
levels in which to generally wreak havoc. You can
also bring friends to the party, playing with up to
four people in ad hoc mode with one UMD. Anyone
looking for a unique rhythm game needs this little
gem—patapon on! ZACH ROSENBERG
YOU'RE PASSIONATE ABOUT MUSIC. WE'RE PASSIONATE ABOUT BEER.
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Budweiser, the perfect combination of flavor and refreshment.
And the choice of musicians everywhere since 1876.
Stop by the Budweiser Lager Sessions Tent at these festivals:
35KD
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©2009 Anheuser-Busch, Inc., Budweiser® Beer, St. Louis, MO
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