More Recent Acquisitions
Feist
Let It Die
My Short Take
If the idea of a musical collaborative coming together and busting apart in turn isn't a Canadian invention, those from the Great White North seem to have made it a national speciality. From Neil Young's sporadic couplings with The Buffalo Springfield/Crosby, Stills & Nash/Crazy Horse to The New Pornographers as Vancouver "supergroup," the m.o. seems to suit our Canadian cousins. Following that path now is Broken Social Scene, a Toronto collective into and out of which drift several members, including Leslie Feist. Let It Die is her first full-length album in five years and it showcases what makes her great: jazzy songs, interesting covers, spare arrangements, breathy vocals and serious guitar chops when necessary. Watch her on "Morning Becomes Eclectic" here.
Others Write
"Let It Die finds Feist in a radically different state of mind, completely abandoning her guitars-and-strings indie rock shorthand in favor of folk, jazz, French pop, and disco accoutrements. While her propensity for serial genre-hopping makes it difficult for the album to congeal into a whole (Let It Die's scattered closing trilogy comprises covers of songs by Ron Sexsmith, The Bee Gees and 1940s vocalist Dick Haymes), it is nonetheless held together by her wistful song selection and an airy, summery aesthetic."
Pitchfork
"Her hushed croon evokes the jazz tingle of Peggy Lee and her melodicism hearkens back to Tin Pan Alley, but Feist proves she's a modern gal with a sparse yet varied sound that draws from chamber pop, chill-out, postmodern folk, Burt Bacharach and beyond. Feist's own songs on the disc's first half segue imperceptibly into a string of well-chosen cover tunes that confirm her nuanced good taste, particularly as she gently renders Ron Sexsmith's "Secret Heart" and the Bee Gees' "Love You Inside Out" as if they were penned by the same lovesick soul: herself."
Rolling Stone
"With no shame at all, Feist shifts from sultry to sweet, temptress to sprite, eventually melding the two without a single hint of irony. "Mushaboom" is a skipping tale of longing not only for love, but for the trappings of home and hearth that eventually accompany it, while the dark fingersnap percussion of "Leisure Suite" and the sleek AM-disco harmony of "One Evening" celebrate the far more intimate connections that can come and go in a single night. "Lonely Lonely" is a heartbreaker of spare guitar chords, tamborine and sustain. Even the slow pulse tempo and get-out-of-my-life lyrics of the title track have a sweetness that washes over the finality of a message with hope."
Jive Magazine
"She's playful with her design and the overall composition flows nicely. Feist has varied styles and sounds just right, and that's what makes Let It Die the secret treasure that it is."
All Music Guide
Fischerspooner
#1
My Short Take
"Emerge" has emerged in the last few months as something of a cult hit in our house. At the moment I have 12 different versions of the song on my iTunes, including the two found on this album and a mash-up with Nirvana called "Smells Like Emerge." All of them are on my iPod as well, and Noreen's iPod, and Cait's iPod. If my Tess had an iPod they would probably be on there as well. "Uh-huh, that's right" has become an oft-heard catch phrase, even if most of its recipients don't even realize that it is a catchphrase. Thanks, Fischerspooner!
Others Write
"I'm not going to deny that the group's visual flair rivals Peter Gabriel's in the early-80s, but they paint themselves as an "art collective," and it seems to me that art ought to do something more than mock itself. These guys are talented in only one respect, and are receiving attention in the wrong medium-- this half-hearted full-length is an excuse to push the band's studious fashion sense."
Pitchfork
"Chances are, you've seen Fischerspooner, or perhaps heard people talking about them before you've even had a chance to hear their music, and it's admittedly hard to get their striking visual images out of your head once you do give their debut album, #1, a listen. However, if you do manage to just let the music speak for itself, you'd be surprised at how good it actually is. Over the past few years, the burgeoning genre of urban hipster, retro-style techno music commonly known as "no wave", or "electroclash" has spawned a large amount of mediocre outfits (Mount Sims), a fair number of reasonably good acts (Miss Kittin, Ladytron, Chicks on Speed), and only a couple of truly original artists. Foul-mouthed electro-queen Peaches is one of them, and take my word for it, Fischerspooner is the other."
Pop Matters
"#1 is the sound of 1980 as filtered by two new wave revivalists in 2002. The nine songs here have been remastered and resequenced from Casey Spooner and Warren Fischer's original take on a debut (released in 2001 on International DJ Gigolos). Though they're known primarily for their campy, elaborate live-concerts-as-dramas, Fischerspooner prove themselves to be as talented working studio boards as they are at staging those Ziggy Stardust-style freakouts. "
All Music Guide
"Like Britney Spears, New York performance act Fischerspooner generates theater, video, fashion and hype that's as much of a creation as the music itself. And like Spears' music, the debut album from Warren Fischer and Casey Spooner only sometimes stands on its own. Long stretches of #1 sound like the synth-pop soundtrack to a vintage video game: thin and static. But its woozy high points can make you forget the self-described "hypermediocrity" elsewhere. "
Rolling Stone
The White Stripes
Get Behind Me Satan
My Short Take
Why in the hell is "The Nurse" even on this album, much less the second track? "Blue Orchid" starts the party right -- full-on Jack White in stomp-out mode -- "I Turn My Camera On" at 78 speed. "The Nurse" builds on that by...what?...dropping dead? Some seem to like it as a new direction for the band, to me it's wankery. The rest of the album is spent recovering -- eventually very nicely -- from this debacle. The key sonic step is the substitution of piano for guitar on several tracks. Case in point is "My Doorbell," where the piano is a one-for-one substitute -- providing as much thrash as a piano can provide. The song itself is pretty standard issue White Stripes, but the tone is a little more Ben Folds. Nice combo. "Take, Take, Take" provides a late highlight. Love it, hate "The Nurse."
Others Write
"(T)he music is so wild, it could make you weep over how pitilessly the Stripes keep crushing the other bands out there. Having clocked all rivals, the Stripes have to settle for topping their 2003 masterpiece, Elephant, the way Elephant topped White Blood Cells. If you happen to be a rock band, and you don't happen to be either of the White Stripes, it so sucks to be you right now."
Rolling Stone
"But despite Get Behind Me Satan's hairpin turns, its inspired imagery and complicated feelings about love hold it together. Though "the ideal of truth" sounds cut-and-dried, the album is filled with ambiguities; even its title, which shortens the biblical phrase "get thee behind me Satan," has a murky meaning -- is it support, or deliverance, from Lucifer that the Stripes are asking for?"
All Music Guide
"Too much of it -- both on the "experimental" tracks and the "traditional White Stripes" tracks -- feels like unfinished sketches. As if the White Stripes couldn't wait to get done with the loud-and-nasty stuff, but that they also felt tentative about the exciting new sound. It's easy to hear something like "My Doorbell", which doesn't have a lot of substance to go along with its insane piano hook, and wonder what could have been if the song had stayed in the oven a little longer. But lord, Jack White's pop sensibilities are so strong that his piano riffs -- which often seem rooted in vintage R&B -- latch right onto your brain and make you enjoy the songs anyway."
Pop Matters
"White Stripes fans have always known that the time would eventually come when Jack White's abilities and ambitions would outpace the duo's deliberately limited musical vocabulary. And while it may be too soon to proclaim that fated day to be at hand, there are definitely signs on their bold, bewildering fifth album, Get Behind Me Satan, that Jack might be beginning to strain a bit at his self-fashioned yoke."
Pitchfork
posted by dgags @ 11:12 AM
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