Jakob rolls 1d4, 1d12 and 1d20 to select a CD from his collection to review.
Today’s roll: 2 – 6 – 14.
Result: i by The Magnetic Fields.

 
Last week The Magnetic Fields released an album, Realism, to almost universally “meh” reviews. Fitting, since it’s an almost universally meh album. It really highlights what’s been Stephen Merrit’s Achilles heel for a long time—his voice. It’s just not a voice you can take seriously.

This had been fine in the past since his career has been built on lyrics so firmly planted in cheek, he looks like he’s miming a blowjob. Realism strips away the humour and the wit, which leaves some pleasant but boring ditties with a voice suited better to musical comedy than popular song. It’s the kind of disappointing offering that might make one question Merritt’s reputation as one of the top songwriters of his generation.

The last album of his to geniunely back-up that reputation up was probably 2004’s elegantly titled, i.

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Jakob rolls 1d4, 1d12 and 1d20 to select a CD from his collection to review.
Today’s roll: 4 – 4 – 14.
Result: Folk Waste 3 by Various Artists.

This out-of-print, limited edition three-way split put out by micro-label Folk Waste features Hat City Intuitive, Rocks In My Pillow and Imp(s).  A fair introduction to this free-folk/free-jazz/free-noise  imprint, it’s a shame this material isn’t (yet?) available to a wider audience.

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Jakob rolls 1d4, 1d12 and 1d20 to select a CD from his collection to review.
Today’s roll: 4 – 2 – 3.
Result: Bandwagonesque by Teenage Fanclub.

Making good on the promises made by their debut, A Catholic Education, Teenage Fanclub created one of the few timeless classics of the 90s alt-rock heyday. Aptly—and cheekily—titled, Bandwagonesque has weathered better than many of its trendsetting counterparts. Time and distance set it apart from the glut of  post-Nirvana bandwagon jumpers revealing it to be a truly enjoyable set of fuzzed-out, Big Star and Byrds-inspired pop-rock ditties in its own right. Continue Reading…

Jakob rolls 1d4, 1d12 and 1d20 to select a CD from his collection to review.
Today’s roll: 1 – 5 – 13.
Result: Unlimited Edition by Can.

 
The danger with odds’n'ends collections is they tend towards half-baked experiments and an overall incohesive listening experience. Aggravatingly, there’s usually at least one of the band’s essential tracks on the thing. Can’s 1976 rarities compilation, Unlimited Edition, is no exception.

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Jakob rolls 1d4, 1d12 and 1d20 to select a CD from his collection to review.
Today’s roll: 1 – 1 – 2.
Result: High Voltage by AC/DC.

 
The award for most CDs by a band I hate on my shelf goes to AC/DC. The total is a whopping three titles by the audaciously long-running Aussie rockers. I should qualify my use of the word “hate” here. What I mean when I write that I “hate” AC/DC is that I absolutely loathe them. That is I loathe them, and the weak parody they’ve become, now.

But AC/DC circa 1975/76 were one of the best rock’n'roll bands to ever have their glorious, grimy, debauched, sleazy lunacy committed to wax. High Voltage combines the the best of their first two Australian platters (one confusingly also titled High Voltage) to serve up as perfect a set of gutter-rock as you could hope to find this side of the first two Stooges albums. Continue Reading…

Jakob rolls 1d4, 1d12 and 1d20 to select a CD from his collection to review.
Today’s roll: 2 – 5 – 3.
Result: Starless and Bible Black by King Crimson.

 
With their first five albums, King Crimson precariously balanced a tightrope between progressive rock and that four-letter-word, prog. In 1974 they finally lost their balance and their sixth album, Starless and Bible Black, proves what many had always believed. King Crimson were total wankers. Continue Reading…

Jakob rolls 1d4, 1d12 and 1d20 to select a CD from his collection to review.
Today’s roll: 4 – 6 – 11.
Result: The Olatunji Concert: The Last Live Recording by John Coltrane.

I was beginning to doubt my 1d4 was ever going to roll a four. I’m glad it finally did because CD tower #4 is where all my jazz, world music and hip-hop is located and it’s nice to write about it for a change. Now that I think about it, my CD filing system kind of smacks of segregation or apartheid or ghettoization. Well, I tried to mix my CDs in the past and it didn’t really work. That doesn’t make me a racist. Just a little OCD.

But themes of ghettoization and segregation are fitting for this review. The last recorded live performace of John Coltrane (before succumbing to liver cancer in 1967) was captured at the newly opened Olatunji Center for African Culture in New York. Here, Coltrane’s “second quartet” are in their prime and they’re playing as if the sheer force of their music could raise every black man, woman and child up from under oppression across America and the globe. Continue Reading…

I found 2009 to be an unusually strong year for music. Or perhaps more specifically, the kind of indie rock  I like. Pop music moves in cycles. At times the cycles seem to be revving at a million RPM and at others they all have flat tires.

The beginning of the decade saw everyone was trying to sound like Gang of Four, New Order and PIL. I was pretty happy until wagon-jumpers started cloning the clones and the genes got too diluted.

Then the ‘00s seemed to hit a dry spell for indie rock. Free-psyche took its place for a while but by 2007-08 it seemed like everything was hitting a drought. I’m not sure I’ve been able to scrape an end-of-year top five together for the last three years much less a top ten.

This year I was able to jot down 13 titles without even thinking about it. Was it a strong year? Was I just more receptive to new music? Is it just that once again, like 1999-2003, one of the kinds of music I like (this time it’s noise-pop) is back in style and is being given a dust-off and a fresh coat of paint? Perhaps.

I’ve written about some of these albums already, and not all fall under the “noise-pop” umbrella, but here is, by my reckoning, the Top 13 Albums of 2009 in No Particular Order. Continue Reading…

Jakob rolls 1d4, 1d12 and 1d20 to select a CD from his collection to review.
Today’s roll: 2 – 4 – 9.
Result: Finbegin by Lazycame.

After the Jesus and Mary Chain hot-rod sputtered to rickety halt in 1998, the brothers Reid popped up here and there in a few projects. In 2005 Sister Vanilla saw their sister Linda on board as a singer for probably their best record  since Honey’s Dead. Yet it wasn’t so good a record as to inspire anybody notice or care. Too bad because it’s a great slice of poppy rock’n'roll (aptly titled Little Pop Rock). Though a bit smoother and shinier than JAMC ever tried to be, the chrome finish is still a little rusted, dusty and scuffed. Of course, if Scarlett Johansson (who’d sang with them at their Coachella reunion show) had been the vocalist, then maybe things would have gone differently. Perhaps in the worst possible way.

Jakob rolls 1d4, 1d12 and 1d20 to select a CD from his collection to review.
Today’s roll: 3 – 6 – 16.
Result: VIVIsectVI by Skinny Puppy.

Perhaps an appropriate soundtrack for a week defined by uncertainty, fear and a general mood of doom and gloom here at Simply Syndicated.

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