Your Ears Only

This is a late breaking musical update, thanks to an unanticipated slew of problems here in the old office. The things you just have to hear this week are as follows.  Links to real music to come as soon as I have a moment!

M83 released their fifth proper studio album a couple of months ago, and it’s brilliant. The sort-of-electronica outfit made up solely of one Anthony Gonzalez has toyed with a sound and style strikingly reminiscent of 1980’s shoegaze since the eponymous debut some seven years ago. The results never really clicked, at least to my ear. I thought, here is an artist with an incredible palette of sound and an imagination to take it places, but without any compelling songs. Its My Bloody Valentine without the guitars, or at least it meant to be. Gonzalez always reached for the kind of reverb-drenched shoegaze lightning that made Loveless the cultural monolith it is, but the results always settled into electronica meanderings with some unusual flair and punch. Saturdays = Youth has finally hit the mark. By fully embracing the kind of 80’s production aesthetic he’s always idolized, and bumping up piano and guitar in the mix so that the songs have actual, y’know, hooks, Gonzalez has produced an absolutely riveting opus. The man clearly spends as much time at the mixing board as he does behind any instrument, and the results are crystal clear pop songs that never outstay their welcome. Every single sound has been crafted to perfection, creating the kind of glorious sonic gems that linger in ones mind for days.
M83 – Skin of the Night

Crystal Castles hail from Toronto, and their self-titled first album has generated an ungodly amount of buzz over the past six month, something which makes me nervous. Not because it reflects one way or another on the band, but because I’m liable to have half a dozen hipsters leap through my sternum before I can finish uttering their name. The crux of the band’s appeal is this: they’re remix and electronica artists extraordinaire and their medium of choice is a seemingly limitless cascade of vintage Atari bleeps and boops. The songs are never complex, rarely deviating from a quick one-two punch of “this is our awesome verse, this is our awesome refrain, etc.” but the sound is creative as hell. Singer Alice Glass adds an incredibly raw element to about half the songs on the album, and the juxtaposition of such a forcefully sensual element (more than a little like Karen O) against such a thrillingly artificial background is mesmerizing. These artists may be disposable, but they’re far from forgettable.
Crystal Castles – Black Panther (editor’s note: weird video to be ignored)

Parts & Labor’s last full length, Mapmaker, came out in 2007, and I loved it. For about fifteen minutes. The band’s gorgeously raucous music was overshadowed by the strangely more accessible Battles, and I forgot about them for some time. I’m glad I gave them a second try. The three-piece play rock music with an eye for soaring, crunchy choruses and fantastic melodies underscored by metal’s intensity, a style that’s thrilling without succumbing to wall-of-noise syndrome (not that there’s anything wrong with that). Singer Dan Friel has a remarkable voice that cuts chasms of melody across the riot of sound that roils below him in the mix, not unlike Isaac Brock without the warble. The choruses this man belts out are long and deep, I love them. The real special ingredient in this group is the expert manipulation of keyboards and feedback into an unusual and compelling accompaniment to guitars and simple drums. While the very notion of such a knob-turning wizardry is enough to turn away the unwary, the product is the most natural fit of noise in rock I’ve ever heard. Combined with a truly uncommon knack for elegant song structure and restraint, this may be the best rock out there right now. And that should be something rare enough to get your attention.
Parts & Labor – The Gold We’re Digging