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HELLO AND WELCOME to the interactive version of Filter Good Music Guide We’re best viewed
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FILM FESTIVAL
ISSUE
15 JAN.-FEB. ’07
# •
Elijah Wood
Britt Daniel
Air
THE FILTER MAILBAG
We get a lot of mail here at the Filter offices—some good, some bad,
some…well, completely unclassifiable. Send us something strange and
you might see it here.
We were tickled rosy to receive a
bottle of “Bong Vodka,” imported
direct from the most inebriated
country we know, Holland. While
the bottle seems less shaped like a
bong and more like a large phallus—
neither of which are pleasant to
drink from—in the course of some
very austere research, we discovered
that the liquor was “smooth,”
“warming” and “wingly tingly.”
IN THE GUIDE
You can download the Filter Good Music Guide at
filter-mag.com. While there, be sure to check out our
back-issues (formerly Filter Mini), the latest of which
features the Mars Volta, Oasis, the Decemberists, TV
on the Radio, and more. In honor of the 2007
Sundance Film Festival, Filter has given this issue of
the Guide a cinematic slant. If you’re planning on
braving those snow-covered lines in Park City, Utah, be
sure to keep an eye out for us. We’ll be there.
ON THE WEB
Go to filter-mag.com for music news, downloads, contests
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Seattle, Philadelphia, Dallas, Chicago, Miami, San Francisco, Denver,
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AT THE STANDS
Out now: Filter Issue 23. Hilarity ensues as The
Office’s leading man, John Krasinski, teams up
with pop-rock sweethearts the Shins in sunny
Hollywood, California. Filter takes a seat next
to these wise guys to discuss the transformation
from indie to international, what it means to be
funny, and the Shins’ latest release, Wincing the
Night Away. Also, we’re set straight on robots
and artistic spontaneity by Brian Eno; John
Lurie takes us fishing with a few of entertainment’s most notable characters; Lily Allen
strikes a pose; Elvis Perkins grants us his first interview; and Stones Throw
Records throws a barbeque. Plus: Silver Jews, Cold War Kids, Catherine
Wheel, Jeremy Enigk, Fast Food Nation, Of Montreal, Sondre Lerche,
Subtle, Fields, and Bootsy Collins, and special appearances from David Cross,
SNL’s Fred Armisen, Jim Jarmusch, Willem Dafoe and Dennis Hopper.
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COVER PHOTO: SOREN STARBIRD
info
cheat sheet
Your Guide to Innovations in Entertainment
Pzizz
Wake up, eat, work, eat, sleep, repeat. Wake
up, eat, work, eat, sleep, repeat. Stressed
out? Tired? Unmotivated? Well say hello to
your new best friend and “personal life
coaching system,” Pzizz. Developed by
Britain’s Brainwave Enterprises, Pzizz uses a
complex algorithm to generate unique sleepenhancing soundscapes (ambience + voice)
and broadcast them from iPod to ear. The
program’s current modules include “Sleep”
(designed to switch you off at the end of the
day) and “Energize” (to put you down and
then pick you up with one of those fancy
power naps Da Vinci, Beethoven and
Einstein were always yakking about), each of which run for a user-defined
length of time, from 10 to 60 minutes. Just download (pzizz.com), generate
your ideal track, and bump those binaural beats all the way to dreamland.
Finally, we can be fitter, happier, and more productive. COLIN STUTZ
Austin City
Limits Season 32
If there’s only one thing that geriatrics and hipsters
can both appreciate, it’s Austin City Limits. The
public television show renowned for its intimate and
often rumbustious performances (we defy you to
think of a better word to describe Wayne Coyne
swinging a utility light around by the extension cord
while the Lips play backup to Beck) just wrapped up
its 32nd season and continues to be America’s longest
running televised concert series. While the show
always books established and acclaimed acts, it has
also acknowledged emerging artists more likely to be
praised on a blog than found in a dusty vinyl bin. This
past season glowed with that patent diversity, featuring Etta James, Ray Davies, and Van Morrison
alongside Cat Power, the Raconteurs, Franz
Ferdinand, and Sufjan Stevens. And by making concert downloads available from their annual festival on
iTunes, this institution is doing even more to reach
out to the next generation. “My dream would be for
every minute of every recorded performance we’ve
ever done to be available to download,” says veteran
ACL producer Terry Lickona. “We need to open the
doors to our archives; it’s a treasure chest of
American music and beyond.” DAN FRAZIER
Sundance
Global Short
Film Project
for Mobile
Robert Redford has given us so much over the
years: The Sting, The Natural, The Horse
Whisperer and one of the funniest episodes of
South Park in recent memory. Now, the
Sundance Kid and his Park City pardners give
us the “Global Short Film Project.” While it
might sound like some sinister master plan to
take over the world through a series of brainwashing vignettes, it’s actually an extension of
the acclaimed indie film festival served
straight to your cell phone. Instead of getting
the overplayed Chamillionaire videos or Lost
reruns that are the norm for handheld multimedia content, this project has six indie filmmakers (including Little Miss Sunshine’s Jonathan
Dayton and Valerie Faris) creating original three to five-minute films intended specifically for
mobile movie-watching. It’s just like Sundance, minus the hordes of Starbucks-sipping studio
execs and Sidekick-tapping starlets. BRYAN CHENAULT
4 FILTER GOOD MUSIC GUIDE
Dimeadozen.org
Welcome to a seemingly endless supply of live recordings from bands and singers of nearly every stripe.
Dimeadozen.org is a BitTorrent peer-to-peer network designed for (and upheld by) the music completist. Here
unreleased performances are traded at will, as long as users adhere to a lengthy “banned” list (alternate recordings of otherwise officially released performances are outlawed alongside those simply of poor quality; artists
that wish to opt out may do so). The variety is impressive, and the ability to listen to old favorites (from Abba,
the Beatles and Costello to Zevon) at your favorite point in their respective careers is unparalleled. Also
enticing is the imposing array of material from modern troubadours like Jim James and Conor Oberst. These
aren’t your average dorm-room copyright violators; Dimeadozen.org has tapped into an underground network
of gem-salvaging audiophiles dedicated to bringing these shows back to the masses. RICHARD MARTINS
Yes.com
There’s nothing worse than
hearing a really kickass song on
the radio, then craning an ear for
the title while the person in the
passenger seat insensibly rattles
on. Time and time again, we find
ourselves singing generic riffs
(“Da-da-da-da,
nah-nah-nahnah…”) to friends/co-workers/
anyone who’ll listen in desperate
hope of tracking down the artist
who anonymously blessed our
ears. Fortunately, the Internet
has the solution: Yes.com is a
service that allows users to type in
the call letters of a radio station
and receive a listing of every song
that the station has played in the
last week, down to the exact minute. Lists are updated as soon as the tune hits
the air and include links to purchase the music online. Yes.com also provides
handy pages that itemize the nationwide plays of tracks by a specific artist, and
if you’re lucky, you might be able to hear your favorite artist coming in loud
and clear from the town you grew up in. EWAN ANDERSON
GOOD MUSIC GUIDE FILTER 4
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party in your inbox.
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Air’s
Guide
to Paris, France
BY SAM ROUDMAN
IT PAINS ME DEEPLY TO SAY IT, but the French are cooler than us. Not better, not smarter, and certainly not
stronger: just cooler. Rolling down Rue Saint whatever-the-fuck with their baguette in one pocket and a white flag
in the other, there’s no way for us hot dog-chomping, petroleum-slurpers to aspire to even a fractional portion of
their elegance. We are Pert Plus; they are Vidal Sassoon. And it’s time to deal with it.
Luckily, hope for reconciliation is not lost (remember: they’re the black turtle-necked existentialists; we’re the
nation of puppy-dog optimists). Take Air, a well-conditioned French duo dealing in calm and supremely tasteful
electronic whimsy for almost a decade now. Recently, Nicolas Godin and JB Dunckel were polite enough to guide
the Guide through the best of their native Paris, marking a new era of Franco-American warm fuzziness, if not
perfect communication or correct syntax. Nonetheless, let the healing begin.
The Best…
…museum to visit?
JB: I like a lot the Centre Georges Pompidou. You have
some artistic expeditions [exhibitions], and it changes
every two months, and recently I saw this marvelous
expedition about the artist Yves Klein. He is a French
artist from the late ’50s who invented this very famous
blue color. So you have some beautiful expeditions, and
also you can visit the bibliothèque, where you can read
some books and find out many, many things, and on the
last floor you have this marvelous restaurant, called the
Georges restaurant, with this beautiful view of Paris.
…historical site?
Nicolas: Not too original, but I would say the Louvre.
It’s like a sanctuary where I feel protected from the rest
of the world and nothing can happen and time is
mashed up. It’s magic and romantic and enigmatic, and
so many beautiful arts, you know? It’s where I used to
go when I was kid all the time.
…area for French fashion?
JB: Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. On this street you
have all the big luxurious marks—like, you know, Prada,
Dior—and the waiters [store attendants] are really nice;
you can try the clothes. Usually in June and July they
can have discounts, and they have all the good stuff.
…place to get crêpes?
JB: To get a what?
you know the Mariage Tea?
Oh, yeah [total lie].
JB: You go there, you choose some teas, and have some
really, really nice cake. There’s teas from everywhere in
the world. It’s peaceful and good. They have a really
nice coffee and croissant or pain au chocolat.
…venue for a show?
Nicolas: I would say the Trabendo, because this is
where you can see all the new bands that are big
enough—the new bands that are on their way. I go
there every week to get some inspiration because
they are fresh.
…late-night lounge?
JB: I know a very nice nightclub called Le Pulp, like the
band Pulp. And it’s a lesbian place. You go at night, you
have a lot of lesbians. But Thursday night, it’s heterosexual, and they have some DJs playing some really, really,
trendy, strange dancing music: new wave electronic rock
stuff. It is really great because there is a nice atmosphere.
…music shop?
Nicolas: Man, there were hundreds of them, and
fucking eBay fucked up everything. There’s this street
in Paris called Rue de Douai and that’s where all the
music shops are—like 50 or 60 music shops. So this is
the place to find synthesizers, all the Moogs and all the
Rolands. Of course, now it’s all on eBay.
Crêpes?
JB: A what—sorry?
…view of the Eiffel Tower?
Umm…the pancakes they put fillings in?
Nicolas: I would say my apartment [laughs]. You’d be welcome to come, but you’d have to be really nice with me.
JB: Ohhh [laughs]. I know a place, in the fourth
arrondissement, in the fourth district of Paris. It’s called
Le Fleur Mariage. I think it’s pretty well-known. Do
6 FILTER GOOD MUSIC GUIDE
Really?
Nicolas: Yeah.
F
GOOD MUSIC GUIDE FILTER 6
He’s a Believer!
Elijah Wood Puts on a Monkey Suit
BY PATRICK JAMES
A SMOKING-HOT GYPSY-PUNK GIRLFRIEND and an outspoken affinity for Billy Corgan aside, as far as the
music world is concerned, Elijah Wood is just like the rest of us: a fan. At least he was, until he recently became
an exec. In a collaborative effort with a revived Elephant 6 Collective, Mr. Wood will release the latest album from
the Apples in Stereo this February on his newly founded and aptly named Simian Records. We say “aptly named”
for a number of reasons, not the least of which being that the first cassette he ever owned was The Best of the
Monkees, which, by his own admission, he “wore the shit out of.” Here the Guide called on Mr. Wood, a man of
literate rock virtu and exceeding passion for all things musical, to shed some light on all this monkey business.
What’s new at Simian headquarters?
I’m actually in the editing room at the moment finishing up an Apples in Stereo video.
Video? So you’re quite involved in every facet
of Simian.
Well, it was never going to be a vanity project. I’ll definitely be involved in as much of the process as makes
sense.
If I found or discovered a really incredible bluegrass
singer-songwriter tomorrow and I thought it was awesome, I’d release that. There’s a band out of New York
called Eloise & the Savoir Faire that I’m a huge fan of.
We’re planning on a full-length record and probably a
preliminary EP with them. It’s nice to begin work on
something else beyond the Apples because they were a
finished product. To start something with Eloise is really
exciting. And it’s a totally different kind of music. I think,
largely, categorizing music has always been a bit tired.
Getting your hands dirty, as they say.
I don’t know if I’m going to get my hands fully dirty. It’s
extremely important to know when to step back. It’s not
my record. I just want to facilitate the band. The whole
interest in wanting to do this in the first place was
simply out of love of music and wanting to put out
music that I believe in.
Like, for instance, the “indie” genre?
The thing that’s frustrating about people referring to
bands as indie is that people have forgotten what it
actually means. There are a lot of bands on major labels
who are being referred to as indie bands. That’s definitely the case with “emo.” People started going apeshit
for that term and then emo was done.
Why call the label Simian?
It relates to my childhood. When I was younger, my
mom referred to me as a monkey because I would
climb into cupboards and was constantly scaling things.
That monkey theme has carried throughout my life.
And the name is relatively benign in that it doesn’t necessarily make reference to any specific kind of music. It
doesn’t really speak for the themes of the label. It’s just
a word, almost totally detached from meaning. When I
conceived of doing this, I wanted the label to be indicative of my taste, which is kind of all over the place.
Apeshit indeed. Does that mean indie is done?
It’s not going anywhere. As long as there’s quoteunquote independent music, there will always be the
label.
And you’re not leery of starting Simian at a time
when Tower Records is going out of business?
We’re slowly approaching the end of an era, but I feel
like music itself is being, and will always be, distributed.
So the means don’t really matter?
Give us some examples.
Lately I’ve been listening to a lot of old soul, like Irma
Thomas and Etta James. Betty Davis. Also a lot of
blues; I recently discovered Hound Dog, and that stuff
is fucking incredible. I love Field Music, the band from
England. I saw Witchcraft the other night, so I’ve been
listening to them lately.
So you’re not chasing any particulars?
7 FILTER GOOD MUSIC GUIDE
Well…not as much. There’s nothing that anybody can
really do about it. It matters, and I really hope we don’t see
the loss of the record store for the same reason that I don’t
want to see the loss of the movie theatre. Going to a record
store and talking to a clerk and getting a recommendation
is so much more meaningful than getting a recommendation from iTunes. But Amoeba Records in Los Angeles is
constantly packed. Constantly. I don’t see it truly dying off
anytime soon. F
GOOD MUSIC GUIDE FILTER 7
IF YOU’VE SEEN THE LATEST Will Ferrell-as-lovable-dolt flick, Stranger Than Fiction (or even the trailer),
it’s about as hard to escape Spoon’s signature sound as it is for the protagonist to escape his literary fate. You can
thank ex-Redd Kross drummer/music supervisor/Sofia Coppola secret weapon Brian Reitzell, who scores the film
with four Spoon songs (including one original) and three instrumental collaborations helmed by Spoon master
Britt Daniel himself. The Guide caught Britt in the studio in Austin to discuss movie music, the genius of Solaris
and the weird science behind the Gimme Fiction follow-up, tentatively titled Stroke Their Brains (one must
imagine Daniel saying this in depraved Igor voice).
Gimme
Strange
Fiction
So what makes a good soundtrack?
Usually I actually don’t want to listen to them, because they
seem like a thrown-together batch of songs that don’t have
any relation to one another and don’t have any pacing. It’s
like, for financial reasons, these songs are going to need to
be collected. A good soundtrack has to be a consistent
batch that you want to hear together, like any album.
How did you become involved in this project?
Brian got in touch with me maybe three years ago and
we talked about at some point working on some instrumental music together. We discovered that we were
both obsessed with the Solaris soundtrack—a film most
people can’t stand, but I thought was amazing—and I
think the music had a lot to do with that. The score to
Solaris is really unique, emotional and affecting, but it’s
slow, just like the movie. I tried to turn my girlfriend
and my bandmates on to the soundtrack, and everybody that heard it was like, “Eh, yeah…it’s fine, I
guess.” But Brian was equally obsessed with it. Once he
started working on this movie about a year ago, he
asked if I could come down. He had already put a
bunch of Spoon songs in the movie, so it was like being
in charge of a big chunk of the music.
Talkin’ Movie Music with Britt Daniel
BY BRYAN CHENAULT
Is this the first time you’ve done any composing?
For a big thing, yeah. I think I tried composing once
before for a friend’s film, but it didn’t work out.
And this time around?
I had read the script, and then when I went to visit
Brian in L.A. the first thing I did was watch a rough
edit of the movie as it was at that time. He just
pointed out which scenes still needed music or
instrumental cues, and then we went through one by
one and talked about what each scene needed. We
had our direction: this one needs to make you feel
like this, this one needs to make you feel that.
How was the writing process different?
Instead of just a free-form, totally abstract situation
where you’re writing a new song that has no anchor,
there were very specific things that needed to happen
with the music, so it actually seemed kind of easier
than writing a pop song.
So is there a post-Spoon career for you in
scoring films, a la Stewart Copeland?
[Deadpan] There is no post-Spoon. [Laughs] Yeah
maybe, I don’t know. It was really fun to do, but my
main concern is rock and roll.
Was “The Book I Write” a leftover from Gimme
Fiction or something new?
Brian wanted a new Spoon song on the soundtrack,
and I played him several old sketches and that was
the one that worked best for a kind of end-of-movie
tune.
So the title is just a coincidence?
Yeah. We both were a little weary of using something
so literal: Is it going to be too goofy or is it perfect or
what? In the end we just decided to go with it.
If you were acting in a film, and could have your
own bit of theme music playing every time you
entered a scene—think Shaft or Superfly—what
would it be?
Maybe the first few seconds from Sketches of Spain.
That first song, with the castanets going…that would
be so cool.
What seems to be influencing the new record?
King Tubby. And there’s this Swedish band called
Peter Bjorn & John; I really like their production.
Mid-period Prince records. And Johnny Mathis, of
course. F
AUTUMN DEWILDE
Britt Daniel’s Five Favorite Soundtracks
8 FILTER GOOD MUSIC GUIDE
Solaris
(2002)
The Harder They
Come (1972)
Marie Antoinette
(2006)
Urban Cowboy
(1980)
Rushmore
(1998)
GOOD MUSIC GUIDE FILTER 8
FOUR MUSICIANS WALK INTO A ROOM and plug in. There’s a hum in the air, an electricity
that’s impossible to fake. Between them, these unassuming looking fellows have helped shape some
of the greatest records of all time: London Calling, Parklife, Urban Hymns, Fela Kuti’s Progress…
A gathering this impressive is the musical equivalent of the dinners Gertrude Stein hosted in Paris
for the likes of Hemingway and Fitzgerald. Brought together by Damon Albarn (Blur, Gorillaz) in
the spring of 2005, they are a nameless collective (an oblique homage to freeform jazz musicians,
“The Good, the Bad & the Queen” is the name of the project, not the band) composed of Albarn,
Clash bassist Paul Simonon, the Verve guitarist Simon Tong, Afrobeat legend Tony Allen on drums,
and Danger Mouse behind the mixing desk.
Unlike some of the supercrap “supergroups” that have been foisted upon the listening public in
the past few years (Velvet Revolver and Audioslave, take note) these guys aren’t trying to cash in on
their former glories. Their debut, The Good, the Bad & the Queen, is a studied and compelling collection of tunes that are distinctly uninterested in synthesizing previous hits into radio-friendly unitshifters. The lyrics relish in the bleakness of the English experience, while slinking along on slow
grooves perfectly shaped for chilling out. It’s a heady combination, a post-modern cocktail of
dubbed-out beats, hipster melodies and sly social commentary.
The day of our interview, the group is scattered across England, lounging in their respective
homes, studios and crashpads. All of them are a little fried after a long day of appeasing the promotion machine, but nonetheless they’re all warm and forthright. BY NEVIN MARTELL + PHOTOS BY SOREN STARBIRD
10 FILTER GOOD MUSIC GUIDE
GOOD MUSIC GUIDE FILTER 10
How did the four of you end up in a room
together?
Simon Tong: When Graham [Coxon] left Blur, I filled
in for him on the tour for Think Tank, which then led to
the Mali Music album [a compilation of African sessions
hosted by Albarn] and working on Gorillaz with Damon.
So, we’ve been knocking around together for a while.
Tony Allen: On the Blur song “Music Is My Radar”
[from The Best of Blur] Damon sang about Tony Allen
getting him dancing and that caught my attention. So I
invited him to sing on my album HomeCooking. That was
a very good experience and some time after that I asked
him to come down to my studio in Nigeria and he brought
Simon, who I didn’t know, but I liked him immediately.
Paul Simonon: After the Nigeria sessions, Damon
thought they needed another ingredient and maybe I
was the cure. I went down to the studio and listened to
some tracks, then spent the rest of the time talking with
Damon about our lives and the books we’re interested
in. We discovered that we’re neighbors, figuratively
speaking. We basically just started jamming and
playing, which just turned into what you hear now.
Damon Albarn: Growing up, I was never the rock and
roll guy. I listened to Arabic, African and Indian music,
so this record is an extension of my interest in less
Western forms of pop music.
What was that first time together like?
Paul: We soon realized we had to turn down rather
than turn up. With the sound down, everyone could
really hear what everyone else was playing. It was an
ego-less way of making music.
Simon: It wasn’t instantaneous in the sense that we
wrote an amazing song the first day together, but we
knew from the first few moments that there was something special going on.
What was the first song you guys wrote that
made you realize that you’d come up with
something completely your own?
Paul: “History Song” was the first we all did together
and it partly defined our sound. It came about by us sitting in Damon’s studio, hitting the record button and
then seeing what happened. Everyone brought their
musical luggage into that room, so it was all very organic.
Why did you decide to not come up with a name?
Paul: When you’re 17 years old and you’re just starting
out, it’s the attitude of having a name that unifies you.
The album’s title comes from a lyric on the last song
and it’s a reflection on the nation as a whole. I’m not
one of those flag-wavers; I’m an internationalist.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of things that I don’t
stand by my government doing over the last couple of
years, so it was our way of commenting on that.
Damon, you do melancholy so well. Songs like
“Kingdom of Doom” and “Northern Whale” are
certainly no exception.
Damon: I do write songs that are sad, but they do have
11 FILTER GOOD MUSIC GUIDE
a sense of humor. Well, not all of them; some of them
have no sense of humor at all. It’s an English thing.
Look at Gorillaz, the bloody album’s called Demon
Days. That’s why they’re such a lethal combination,
because I don’t think people can resist the cartoons and
sadness. They work together beautifully.
I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t ask about
the future of your simian alter-egos and Blur.
Damon: There may be another Blur album at some
point. All the stars have to be aligned and Venus has to
be in ascendance. As far as Gorillaz, we really would
like to do a feature film. We’ve actually started, but
who knows how many years before we finish it. We’re
talking philosophy, films and the state of the world
with [Monty Python and 12 Monkeys director] Terry
Gilliam, so I’m sure some of his mad genius would
find his way in there.
The Gang’s All Here
The Guide asked the GBQ crew for their all-time favorite character archetypes.
GOOD GUYS?
Robin Hood was my childhood hero, because he took from the rich
and gave to the poor. — Paul
I like the good guys who are the voices inside all of us, constantly
trying to be heard above the din of evil catalysts. — Damon
BAD GUYS?
Jack Palance in Shane is quintessential. — Paul
It’s very hard to identify villains, because they’re usually doing the
work of other villains. Who is truly the top villain? Is George Bush a
villain or is he just a puppet? If I had to choose one though, the
Penguin always seemed like a good cold-hearted bad guy. Excuse the pun. — Damon
Sounds like there’s a lot going on in your world.
QUEENS?
Damon: There’s always madness. That’s just the way
it is. F
Marc Almond of Soft Cell, for sure. Tunes like “Tainted Love” and “Bedsitter” are classics. — Simon
I’m more of a Republican [i.e. anti-monarchy], so I’m not good with queens and kings. — Paul
GOOD MUSIC GUIDE FILTER 11
One-Liners:
A miniature take on selected Filter Magazine reviews
...........................................................................................................................
Reviews
...........................................................................................................................
(Go to Filter-Mag.com or pick up Filter Magazine’s Holiday Issue for full reviews of the albums covered here.)
DEERHOOF
Friend Opportunity
91%
KILL ROCK STARS
A beautifully crafted puzzle of WTF?
delivered by art rock’s most eccentric
and eclectic squad.
MALAJUBE
Trompe-L’Oeil
86%
DARE TO CARE
Canada keeps gate-crashing, and this
time it’s francophones with an affinity
for well-layered indie-rock. Sacré Bleu!
120 DAYS
120 Days
90%
VICE
A post-punk, post-rave, post-preArmageddon masterpiece of sleazy,
chaos-worshipping industrial rock.
PJ HARVEY
The Peel Sessions...
86%
ISLAND
High expectations are met with moderate results, leaving a lesson learned:
Stick to your own blues, sister.
TOM WAITS
Orphans...
90%
ANTIGood, sad and ugly: three discs that testify to Wait’s immortal junky brilliance.
YOUTH GROUP
Casino Twilight Dogs
84%
ANTITaking cues from The O.C.’s dramatic
flare, these Aussies aren’t about to reinvent rock for the sweater set.
CLAP YOUR HANDS SAY YEAH
Some Loud Thunder
89%
CYHSY kick in the speaker cones and
bang out a bloody mix of F-you aimed
at the sophomore slump.
JOANNA NEWSOM
Ys
89%
DRAG CITY
An award-worthy original, bewildering and jaw-dropping, ambitious
GOLDFRAPP
We Are Glitter
82%
MUTE
G-Frapp sets the abstinence movement
back a couple years via a collection of
club-humping remixes.
…TRAIL OF DEAD
So Divided
80%
INTERSCOPE
The ever grandiloquent TOD deliver a
masterfully woven set of almosts.
and awesome.
THE WALKMEN
Pussy Cats
89%
RECORD COLLECTION
N.Y.C.’s best-known boozehounds find
success covering a cover record, paying
homage to Lennon, Nilsson and themselves.
DAMIEN RICE
9
77%
WARNER
A hard, depressing listen accessible
only if your girlfriend just died in a
puppy-related car crash.
WILLIE NELSON
Songbird
89%
LOST HIGHWAY
With the help of Ryan Adams, our
drug-busted hero surprises with his
most relevant record in recent memory.
12 FILTER GOOD MUSIC GUIDE
FILTER
ALBUM
RATINGS
SWAN LAKE
Swan Lake
87%
JAGJAGUWAR
Canada produces yet another experimental indie supergroup: one part New
Pornos, one part Wolf Parade, one part Frog Eyes.
TENACIOUS D
The Pick of Destiny
61%
EPIC
They are not angels; they are but men,
and men do make mistakes.
91-100% 81-90% 71-80% 61-70% Below 60% a great album
above par, below genius
respectable, but flawed
not in my CD player
please God, tell us why
OF MONTREAL
Hissing Fauna, Are
86%
You the Destroyer?
POLYVINYL
If last year’s sublime Sunlandic Twins
was Kevin Barnes’ ode to “Oslo in the Summertime,”
Hissing Fauna recalls his Winter of Discontent. Listen
closely and you’ll hear the cause and effect of a fragile
figure who, put quite simply, lost his shit during
Norway’s harshest season. While lyrically much more
personal/much less playful than anything prior, the
album’s shiny, happy electro-pop (complete with
Barnes’ usual bells + whistles, white funk and dance
beats) serves as the sun finally melting all that snow.
BRYAN CHENAULT
RJD2
The Third Hand
90%
XL
Artistic about-faces are hard to come
by, and—for the most part—even
harder to listen to, but God bless the exception. RJ has
ditched all the melodic soul samples, pretty much
ignoring the edifice of instrumental hip-hop to which
his previous Def Jux releases have been pillars. The
one-man result: breezy soul tracks with pop structures,
chill vocals and a grab bag of flourishes recalling everything from McCartney to Prince. It’s not hip-hop, but
it’s got flow. SAM ROUDMAN
VARIOUS ARTISTS
Fast Food Nation OST
81%
PARK THE VAN
What’s more American than the road
trip? Well, maybe hamburgers, french
fries and milk shakes, but thanks to Fast Food Nation,
those are out. That’s where the Friends of Dean
Martinez, Spoon, Elvis Perkins and the rest of this
soundtrack’s players come in—sorta. While this collection might be fit for a midnight drive through Malibu or
smuggling migrant workers across the border, removed
from the big screen this compilation struggles for new
context to latch onto. COLIN STUTZ
SLOAN
Never Hear the End of It
87%
YEP ROC
Like a Beatles “best of” that no one had
discovered, Sloan’s eighth LP, Never
Hear the End of It, packs a mammoth 30 tracks onto
one thrill-filled disc. This embarrassment of riches is
the disc’s greatest strength—even the tracks that come
and go in less than a minute could be cornerstones of a
decent album—but also its weakness, as the shiniest
gems lose their sheen in light of the album’s grand
scale. EWAN ANDERSON
book
South Park and
87%
Philosophy
Edited by Robert Arp
BLACKWELL
For all the yammering, blabbering punditry flashing daily
across our screens, Trey Parker
and Matt Stone’s animated juggernaut never fails to intellectually obliterate them all, from the tree-huggers to
the gay-bashers to the maniacal world leaders.
Fittingly, here, several modern philosophers
charmingly pontificate on the show’s brilliant, thinly
veiled riffs on existentialism, libertarianism, “genethics” and even the eternal “problem of evil.” By
the end, you can’t help but think South Park may,
indeed, be our last line of defense against total
oblivion. Sweet. KEN SCRUDATO
N.W.A.
The Strength of Street
78%
Knowledge: The Best of N.W.A.
CAPITOL/PRIORITY
No, N.W.A. didn’t invent gangsta rap;
they just made it impossible for white people to ignore.
While the threatened raised hell over the hell-raising
sound, the true followers—black, white or other—
knew that Ice Cube’s ferocious rhymes and the depth of
Dr. Dre’s production made the music too good to overlook. Unfortunately, any attempt to contain the
strength of N.W.A. in a single disc caters to the terrified
rubber-neckers more than the aficionados, though the
DVD footage of the boys drinking 40s in the studio
almost justifies the purchase. MAX READ
SONDRE LERCHE
Phantom Punch
88%
ASTRALWERKS
I gotta admit: I kinda have a man crush
on Sondre Lerche. And lately, with
Phantom Punch, the Nordic wunderkind is more at
ease indulging his global pop fetishes than ever before.
Whether it’s hand-clapping robot disco, swirling Bossa
Nova surrealism or coffee shop acoustic confessions,
Lerche croons and swoons between styles like a
prophet of postmodern pomp. Subtract the droning
moper “Happy Birthday Girl,” and I’d finally have the
balls to ask him to prom. PHIL EASTMAN
GOOD MUSIC GUIDE FILTER 12
THE APPLES IN STEREO
New Magnetic Wonder
86%
SIMIAN
Who knew that the Apples in Stereo
would still be working their pop skills a
decade after the Elephant 6 sound hit? While most of
the movement’s first wave have settled into the sidelines, Apples’ Robert Schneider has continued to hack
away at the ins-and-outs of the most perfect psychedelic pop formations ever, and New Magnetic Wonder
offers proof. “Can You Feel It” is so full of energy that
Daft Punk could have penned it, and “7 Stars” is watertight in Beach Boys/Beatles stylization and form. The
orchard’s still bloomin’. JONATHAN PRUETT
SONIC YOUTH
The Destroyed Room
91%
GEFFEN
Referencing the 25-minute mindfuckingly good rendering of “The
Diamond Sea” that appears on The Destroyed
Room—an impeccably selected hodgepodge of
experimental B-sides from 1994 to 2003—Sonic
Youth notes in their liner that the track was “probably the culmination of [their] wanting to blur the
lines between composition and improvisation.”
Maybe it is. But the blurry saga of a song (which
closed each night of 1995’s Lollapalooza) is also one
of 11 reminders of Sonic Youth’s perennial curve-setting greatness. PATRICK JAMES
dvd
Nirvana: Live!
92%
Tonight! Sold Out!
GEFFEN
Chuck those shitty bootlegs; this is
the long out-of-print document of
Nirvana’s ’91-’92 tour behind
Nevermind, in its entirety and positively up to its scruffy neck in nail-biting live performances and interviews. Sixteen tunes, plus five
from a show in Amsterdam (and a hidden ’91
rehearsal perf of “On a Plain”) make this as good a
document of the band’s sonic power as one can
hope for. PAUL GAITA
MENOMENA
Friend and Foe
89%
BARSUK
It took a while, but indie rock is
finally moving into the realm of hifidelity. Menomena, working with a program called
Deeler—described as “a glorified guitar-loop
pedal”—creates songs that leap beyond simple
verse/chorus/bridge arrangements into a realm of
complex post-rock compositions with savant-like
vocal wails over cacophonic guitars cutting chords
into broken shards that sever the bass and drum
interplay just enough to squeeze in staccato horn
stabs. [Whew.] Ranging from the epic to the under-
stated, Menomena manages to be innovative and
accessible. KEVIN FRIEDMAN
VARIOUS ARTISTS
Music from the OC Mix 6:
85%
Covering Our Tracks
WARNER
Consider this mix another in a long line
of The O.C. inside jokes. The premise is indie bands
covering other bands’ indie songs (most of which—
songs and bands—have been previously used in the
show). Given the anonymity of some of the artists and
the recent popularity of most of the original versions,
this comp is completely unnecessary and over-the-top.
Of course, that is trademark O.C. territory, and when
Band of Horses does the New Year’s “The End’s Not
Near,” even outsiders will revel in the excess like a seasoned Newpsie. JEREMY MOEHLMANN
book
Bling: The Hip-Hip
82%
Jewelry Book
By Reggie Ossé and
Gabriel Tolliver
BLOOMSBURY
Though this paper celebration of
diamond-encrusted gold-plated excess seems custommade to line the shelves of an Urban Outfitters near
you, a genuinely curious reader wouldn’t be too ironic in
having this on her/his coffee table. Naturally there’s a fair
share of unwitty and predictable exclamatory blurbs
accompanying the dazzling photos (“His grill is so
dope!”), but the comedy sometimes hits (James
Bond’s arch-nemesis Jaws makes a cameo) and the
research can’t be beat with a golden scepter
(chronologies, definitions, and interviews with dentists, jewelers, rappers and taggers). LOUIS VLACK
DEAN & BRITTA
Back Numbers
86%
ZOË
Former Luna frontman Dean Wareham
and bassist Britta Phillips cull elements
from ’60s Europop and ’70s soft rock to craft an album as
sweet and intimate as pillow talk in the first flush of new
romance. No longer the sly ironist, Dean brings a welcome warmth to his flirtatious vocal interplay with Britta,
who at last emerges from her partner’s shadow. Subdued
guitar work and sleepy rhythms provide a solid underpinning for the airy melodies, keeping them from drifting
away like freshly-blown bubbles. ANTHONY RAYBORN
THE EARLIES
The Enemy Chorus
83%
SECRETLY CANADIAN
Long distance relationships are a bitch,
but on rare occasions that physical gap
breeds unity over separation. Such has apparently been
the case with the Earlies, whose members are split
between Texas and northern England. Thanks to technology, that 5,000-mile gap is bridged with a shared
love for progressive psychedelic folk rock and mutual
dedication to the cause. Here, on their sophomore LP,
these pen pals have dotted their Is and crossed their Ts
flowing in and out of tracks that appropriately run the
line of both personal and distant. COLIN STUTZ
dvd
Dynamic: 1 –
87%
The Best of
DavidLynch.com
SUBVERSIVE
Those who didn’t want to pony
up to view Lynch’s original
short films and animation on
his web site can check out two
hours’ worth of his mindexpanding material on this disc. In addition to
seven films, you also get footage of Lynch building
a lamp, a short with his son Austin, and a creep-o
mini-feature with Jordan Ladd and Cerina Vincent
from Cabin Fever, as well as Lynch answering
questions posed to him by site members. Like a
kiss in the dark, it’s quick, bewildering, and entirely
memorable. PAUL GAITA
BABYSHAMBLES
The Blinding EP
31%
EMI
Amid the drugs, arrests, court
appearances and subsequent tabloid
overexposure, it’s easy to forget that Pete Doherty is
even in a band. The Blinding EP merely confirms
that even Pete has forgotten, with brief flashes of
talent only serving as a sad reminder that the ability
is there, as in the glam-rock stomp of the title track,
but woefully underutilized. The result is an EP of
filler material (an embarrassing concept), taking the
garage rock aesthetic of the Libertines into the
realm of self-parody. EWAN ANDERSON
ARBOURETUM
Rites of Uncovering
90%
THRILL JOCKEY
Baltimore’s Dave Heumann has
played with Will Oldham, Cass
McCombs, members of Lungfish and David Pajo, but
despite the impressive guest list, not once are we kept
from seeing his band Arbouretum for the trees. The
star here is Heumann, who wrote all the songs and
flexes his folk rock guitar-god chops on several 8minute-plus jams like “Sleep of Shiloam” and “Pale
Rider Blues.” The songs titles aren’t the only things
that sound like Oldham, but trust me, you’d be right
to uncover this one. PAT MCGUIRE
14 FILTER GOOD MUSIC GUIDE
EMERSON, LAKE & PALMER
The Essential Emerson,
75%
Lake & Palmer
SHOUT! FACTORY
The Cliff’s Notes to Emerson Lake &
Palmer’s 20-minute suite “Tarkus”: an armadillo-tank
hybrid named Tarkus is born in an ancient volcano,
fights a manticore, dies, and is reborn as Aquatarkus.
Let me make it simple: if that sounded vomit-inducingly irritating, don’t even bother. If it sounded like the
coolest thing you’ve ever heard, go out and get The
Essential ELP and enter a world where “taste,” “subtlety” and “restraint” have no meaning. MAX READ
LONEY, DEAR
Loney, Noir
86%
SUB POP
You know the kind of sex that’s not
fucking so much as lovemaking? The
kind that starts out so slow and gentle you’re not even
sure that it’s going to progress to actual intercourse but
once it does, there’s not only tenderness there but also a
sadness, as if all the joy of love was wrapped up with eventual heartbreak, yet you do it anyway because it makes
you feel alive? That’s Loney, Dear. (To say that this disc is
merely great “psych-folk from Sweden” would be to
ignore its more, um, intimate qualities.) BENJY EISEN
dvd
ELVIS COSTELLO &
ALLEN TOUSSAINT
Hot as a Pistol,
89%
Keen as a Blade
HIP-O
Riveting DVD of the
shouldn’t-work-but-it-does
pairing of Elvis Costello and
New Orleans writer/producer
extraordinaire Allen Toussaint
as they work out tunes from their superior collaboration, The River in Reverse, as well as material from their
own classic songbooks before an audience in Montreal.
Costello adds fire and grit to Toussaint’s groove, and the
Crescent City legend heightens the dark and bitterlovely soul of Costello’s work with his arrangements.
Extras include an in-studio spin through “Alison,” interviews, and Costello’s tour diary. PAUL GAITA
LILY ALLEN
Alright, Still
88%
EMI
It’s odd listening to Lily Allen when it’s
30 degrees outside. A saucy mix of
twee, calypso, dancehall and grime-ish raps, Alright,
Still is a seeping, heaving summer album through and
through, with Allen’s sweet voice managing to make
everything sound wholesome, even when she’s singing
of “bitches” and “lazy asses,” or conceding, “Alright,
buy us a drink then.” But if I turn my heat up really
high and sit around in my undies while drinking
daiquiris and blasting fuck-off track “Knock ’Em Out,”
thanks to Lily, it feels like July again. CARRIE TUCKER
HELLA
There’s No 666 in Outerspace 78%
IPECAC
Meet the newly revamped Hella, known
for years as two guys—Spencer Selm,
Zach Hill—whose sobbingly brilliant melding of the
Minutemen and Don Caballero made progressive punkjazz sound like the best idea in the world. On 666, the
duo’s become a five-piece, with a real singer whose
Bixler/Enigk croon makes this heady brew an easy-enough
swallow for new recruits. No one outside of Lightning Bolt
can pound their away into an infernal abyss of rhythmless
funk like these guys, but Hella’s old guard are likely to be
wicked pissed. JONATHAN PRUETT
THE TWILIGHT SINGERS
A Stitch in Time
86%
ONE LITTLE INDIAN
Since the Twilight Singer’s 2006 release of
Powder Burns, something has changed.
Namely, that brooding crooner Mark Lanegan has been
hanging out more than usual and, well, he and Greg Dulli
have really hit it off in a smoking-in-the-boys-room kind of
way. Gearing up for their release as the Gutter Twins,
these two are already starting trouble on this EP with a
hypnotic cover of Massive Attack’s “Live with Me” and the
attitude-fueled “Flashback”; elsewhere fellow libertine
Joseph Arthur helps channel Marvin Gaye on “Sublime.”
Nitty and gritty. COLIN STUTZ
GILLES PETERSON & PATRICK
FORGE PRESENT...
Sunday Afternoon at
66%
Dingwalls
ETHER
It’s fitting that this is titled Sunday Afternoon… The sense
of letdown at the end of a weekend when you realize
you’ve wasted most of your time is an apt metaphor for the
listening experience. Continually holding onto the hope
that the next track will be that hidden jazzy gem that
redeems the filler before it is a futile exercise. There are
several good songs (mostly confined to the second disc),
but not one adequately compensates for the lack of inspiration pervading the rest of the mix. Here’s looking to next
weekend. JEREMY MOEHLMANN
GREENSKEEPERS
Polo Club
88%
OM
Polo Club is a departure for OM, a label
famed for its über-soul house mixes a la
badasses Mark Farina and Kaskade. But draw closer,
dear reader: self-destruction, love, fame and cowboys
are addressed via vocals sincere in tone, sardonic in
composition and riveted together in patchwork mimicry of Byrne, Ferry and Ramone. Most cuts would be
well-received in a club but are rendered with real
instruments on the main. It’s like a jar of peanut butter
swirled with jelly, except with a lot more “spreads” in
the arsenal. MARK VON PFEIFFER
U.K.
Imports presented by
...........................................................................................................................
BLOC PARTY
A Weekend in the City
WICHITA
dvd
Factotum
85%
IFC FILMS
Bukowski acolytes will
either love or loathe Matt
Dillon’s
portrayal
of
Chuck’s fictional alter-ego
in Norwegian director
Bent Hamer’s take on this
story of love and art among
the lowlifes. Dillon doesn’t
quite approach Mickey Rourke’s Hank Chinaski
from Barfly, but he’s got the burnt-out nobility
and looks good with a drink in his paw; Marisa
Tomei, Lili Taylor, and the late, lamented
Adrienne Shelly are more successful as velvetand-sandpaper distractions. PAUL GAITA
Inspired by what frontman Kele
Okereke calls “the living noise of a metropolis,” Bloc
Party’s second album sees them delve further into the
dense, melancholic soundscapes that their first album
only hinted at. “Song for Clay (Disappear Here)” is a
bloody, brutal opening salvo—guitars sparring relentlessly—save for Okereke’s calm, considered vocal.
“Waiting for the 7.18” is an angular-pop neo-classic,
whilst the chopped-up rhythms of “Hunting for
Witches” see the band dipping a toe into the jarring
electronica that’s characterized noughties Radiohead. It
might lack some of the killer choruses of their debut,
but A Weekend in the City furthers Bloc Party’s reputation as one of the U.K.’s boldest, bravest bands.
NIALL DOHERTY
THE VIEW
Hats Off to the Buskers
1965
Dundee’s teenage whiz-kids the View
drop three-minute pop songs like most of us leak farts.
Second single “Superstar Tradesman” comes on like
Pete ’n’ Carl riding a next-generation Trident missile
sidesaddle, while fellow chart-botherer “Wasted Little
DJs” sports the kind of killer la-la-la-along that’ll keep
Kaiser Chief Ricky Wilson’s eyelids permanently peeled
during those pre-second album sleepless nights. Then
comes the tumbledown Levellers-on-speed cacophony
of new single “Same Jeans,” a triumph that proves the
View’s shit don’t stink. Hats off indeed. JJ DUNNING
KLAXONS
Myths of the Near Future
RINSE
Following up on unrelenting hype with
their debut album could’ve seen Klaxons, 2006’s new
rave pioneers, come unstuck. The trick that makes
Myths of the Near Future tick, though, is that it’s delivered in much of the same frenetic force of the threepiece’s euphoric, party-’til-you-puke live shows.
“Atlantis to Interzone” rides on a DayGlo wave of juddering, righteous basslines before breaking out into a
snarling, mischievous chorus whilst the jittery-punk
groove of “Gravity’s Rainbow” ensures the hype
obstacle is well and truly hurdled. Myth or not, the near
future is theirs for the taking. NIALL DOHERTY
JARVIS COCKER
Jarvis
ROUGH TRADE
As Jacko will testify, Jarvis Cocker is not
one to keep his mouth shut, and in a year that sees
fellow Britpop luminaries Nicky Wire and James Dean
Bradfield release solo albums, it seems only fitting that
the ex-Pulp frontman should have his say. Jarvis finds
the speccy songwriter on top form, warbling over his
most infectious melodies for years and letting us all in
on his latest eccentric musings on life with typically
quick-witted lyrics. Majestic. CAMILLA PIA
MOGWAI
Zidane: An Original Soundtrack
PIAS/WALL OF SOUND
Zidane was never the fastest man on
the football pitch and this recording, like the film it
accompanies, also takes its leisurely time to work its
magic. Everything on this record is done with gentle
flourishes but there’s always a threat of violence, much
like the man himself. Free of the hyperbole that film
soundtracks often succumb to, it works its way by suggestion and intuition and moves with the same ambient
fluidity as the moving image, one moment seamlessly
integrated into the next. HANS LUCAS
BRAKES
The Beatific Visions
ROUGH TRADE
Brakes new album starts brilliantly—
“Hold Me in the River,” the greatest song the
Ramones never wrote—and gets better. This is a 28minute U.S. road-trip of a second album—taking in
punk stomps, country ballads and West Coast
melody—and, like Kowalski’s jaunt across the States
to deliver a 1970 Dodge, it’s one hell of a fast trip.
The country-tinged “Isabel” and “If I Die Tonight”
border on Bonnie “Prince” Billy in places, but possess a tautness and focus that makes this one a sure
contender for any album of the year list you care to
mention. JON-PAUL WADDINGTON
The Fly is the U.K.’s second largest circulated music magazine. Focusing on emerging talent, it’s the essential
guide to new music in the U.K. Subscriptions are available, priced at £40 for 12 months (11 issues),
by contacting [email protected], or online at www.the-fly.co.uk.
GOOD MUSIC GUIDE FILTER 15
Goods from the Guide
Robotech: The
Shadow Chronicles
Full-length feature DVD
available Feb. 6
funimation.com
Ben Sherman
City Shirt
bensherman.com
Fluevog
Executor: Capone
Gray Patent Leather
$259
fluevog.com
Kidrobot
Madvillain and
Gorillaz vinyl figures
$19.95-$34.95
kidrobot.com
16 FILTER GOOD MUSIC GUIDE
FILTER mini 16