"those old songs sound like they've been here forever" (Built To Spill - Untethered Moon)

Built To Spill
Untethered Moon
Why you'll love it: Positive energy.  Wild guitars

Why you'll hate it: Buncha plain white dorks

Once something is labeled "an institution", it starts to become taken for granted.  It's a term I see more commonly used as an excuse rather than a complement.  Built To Spill more than earned a reputation in the 90s.  Bands like Dinosaur Jr. nudged it, but it was Built To Spill (among others, hello Pavement) that marked a sea change from the era of Nirvana's doom & gloom into a more charming and witty dawn of indie rock.  Doug Martsch's twee lyrics met with his threatening guitar skills made for an effective bait-and-switch.  Especially in their crowning achievement, Keep It Like A Secret (1999).

Call it a poor decision, or a lack of pop inspiration, but the 2000's saw Built To Spill going in the opposite direction of what made Keep It Like Secret such a fan favorite record.  Instead, the complex noodling of Perfect For Now on (1997) became the style Built To Spill pushed into the next 15 years of records.  A direction that yield mixed results.  Ancient Melodies of The Future (2000) is a yawn of an album, and 2009's There is No Enemy is as pleasant (and uneventful) as a Sunday drive.  Only You in Reverse (2007) stands out for really pushing the limits of long adventurous songwriting.  Thanks to the instrumental talent, Built To Spill's "boring years" have been an easy pill to swallow.  Although, that "but they're an institution" excuse had started to creep in...

Doug Martsch admitted writer's block in the years after There is No Enemy, which eventually led to a breakdown between him and a long-standing rhythm section.  With a new backup band, Martsch has seemingly found the fountain of youth in Untethered Moon.  There is an undeniable kick of energy from the very start of "All Our Songs".  The pace has packed up.  The drums are louder.  The guitars once again have a stinging ring to them.  The very next song, "Living Zoo" proves that what you just heard before was no fluke.  Built To Spill is finally picking up where they left off in the late 90's!  As the intro revs up, "Living Zoo" has electricity that still gives me goosebumps on the 20th listen.  That youthful feeling goes as far back as 1994's There's Nothing Wrong With Love, with "On The Way"'s authoritative acoustic guitar stroking and "Never Be The Same"s cute as all get-out chorus baseline.

Long twisted songs still are a staple of the band.  "C.R.E.B" and "Some Other Song" represent the best of what Martsch has been composing for the last fifteen years, well accented with a heavy dose of fuzz.  The real goliaths are saved for last, though.  "So" has such an epic build.  A BTS staple often heard in the late 90's but hardly replicated in the 00's.  Finally, there's the experimental closer "When I'm Blind".  This song JUST GOES!  Six minutes of Martsch in a clumsy back-alley fistfight with his guitar.  It is the They Live of guitar solos!

All the while, Doug Martsch emanates positive charm.  The sharp wit of his early years have dulled, but there is a real enjoyable tone in his voice, and lovable dorkiness to his introspection.  A lot of people may be turned off by a band that sounds like it's fronted by Ned Flanders, but Built To Spill's... Idaho-ness juxtaposes their gritty experimental sound in a way that sets them apart from most indie acts.  There is just something more genuine to a musical act that isn't always trying to be cool.

Untethered Moon is the follow up to Keep it Like A Secret that everyone was afraid to ask for, in the presence of how good Built To Spill's previous two records have been.  It's so clear now; this is the sound Built To Spill has existed for.

"01100111 01101100 01101001 01110100 01100011 01101000" (Squarepusher - Damogen Furies)

Squarepusher
Damogen Furies

why you'll love it: incredible glitchy madness

why you'll hate it: sounds like total nonsense

Too much of a good thing is very real.  For decades, Squarepusher has been serving up jazz influenced electronic music, with production and concepts far ahead of its time.  From 1995 to 1999 alone, we’re talking nearly 6 hours of instrumentals.  Many of which spit directly into the eye of ABACB pop song formatting.   Many use deafening static, or periods of silence/drone to accent that jazz trope of “the notes he’s not playing.  Every so often, a live bass guitar makes an appearance, but Squarepusher’s core sound is a mash up of Futurama’s Hypnotoad, playing a YMO LP at 77 RPM, and that one weird channel on your TV you’re not quite sure why you get.

I couldn’t be happier that this kind of music exists.  As a fan of “glitch art” in general (yes, I know how trite that sounds in 2015, but I’d be lying otherwise), Squarepusher’s aggressive outputs aim to stay one step ahead of, and against the trends of electronic music.  I anticipate every one of his releases, but the Squarepusher bulldozer of crushing machines seemingly never stops.  Those 6 hours of instrumentals have more than doubled over the past fifteen years (and that isn’t including his side projects, such as Shobaleader One).  I went into Damogen Furies with an expectation to be initially floored; but knowing it’s all just going to go into the Squarepusher vat to congeal with all of his other (mostly) similiar sounding tunes.

Damogen Furies may stick a bit longer, though, for one very good reason.  Clocking in at under 45 minutes, it’s mercifully short.  It could stand to be two tracks shorter, but some fat trimming really has come a long way to get much more repeated listens than even my favorite Squarepusher albums (Hello Everything or Feed Me Weird Things).  Having only 8 songs helps keep more tracks in your memory bank by the end of the album as well; because, believe me, Damogen Furies packs just as much shell shock as any other hard hitting Squarepusher album.  The fucking ballistic live video for “Rayc Fire 2” (wordlessly) says it all.  The construction of this song is like a high speed Rube Goldberg machine infused with a world-record breaking domino track, powered by the infamous Max Headroom cable hacker.  “Baltang Arg” is a fucking wormhole in audio form.  When I finished listening to that song, I expected to see Maggie Simpson tell me “this is indeed a disturbing universe”.  “Kontenjaz” and “Stor Eiglass” share tinges of twee melodies, but as you can tell by the song titles, Squarepusher isn’t trying to make you dance.  Any fun you have is purely coincidental.  This is art music.  Either you are drawn to it, or you aren’t.

I hate to break down a work of art to something as glib as that last sentence, but Squarepusher isn’t changing for anyone.  It’s still a whole lot of glitchy noise, which I somewhat mean as a term of endearment.  Damogen Furies, like most of Squarepusher’s vicious archive, sounds like a beatdown by gang of coked up Xerox machines.  Is that a good or bad thing?  That’s for my therapist to determine….

"remember the past, diving into the future" (The Go! Team - The Scene Between)

The Go! Team
The Scene Between

Why you'll love it: good impersonation of 70's pop

Why you'll hate it: too sugary, lacks attitude

Are things changing or staying the same for The Go! Team?  It's hard to tell.  Depending on how much knowledge you have of the project's history and background, that answer can vary drastically.  The Go! Team's architect, Ian Parton, reportedly disengaged with his entire ensemble on the build up to creating The Scene Between.  The resulting product has much less of an aggressive old-school hip hop tinge.  Replaced instead with bubblegum pop, hippie folk-rock, and cult-like anthems.

The sound and lineup changes have led to a lot of pouting by fans on the internet.  It seems no one can agree on what the "real" Go! Team is.  From my understanding, The Go! Team albums are scrapbook like collaborations composed by Ian Parton, and whatever guests he can hook up with.  The touring band then goes out and essentially covers those songs.  People that feel let down by touring members like "Ninja" not being on the new album may not realize how little contribution they actually had in the studio.  Looking at things this way allows The Go! Team sound to be whatever the hell Parton wants it to be.  On this album, it happens to be lo-fi pop music.

Much appreciation to Parton for finding some little known indie gems in the musical world for this album.  Shoegaze pop artist Samira Winter sugarcoats the boisterous opening track "What D'You Say?"  Doreen Kirchner performs on my favorite song on here, "Blowtorch".  If not for Annabelle Cazes' contribution on "Catch Me on The Rebound" I would not have discovered her wacky sounds of Glockabelle.  "Did You Know?" is practically raining sprinkles and gumdrops on Shi Lu for her equally sweet delivery.  The Scene Between replaces the aggressive dance-offs of the past two albums with kissing booths.  Another point of chagrin for certain fans if they don't have an affinity for the sugary pop of yesteryear.

Essentially, The Go! Team still has the basics.  Dusty old samples that sound like they've been duct taped together.  A Shibuya-kei like remixing of retro pop.  Rolling Blackouts (2011) was probably as good as mashing up jock jams, Sonic Youth, and Run DMC could get; so it's good to hear the project moving on to new ventures.  There isn't as much diversity on The Scene Between, but the wink of subversiveness when things start to get over the top keeps things from getting stale.  There is a strange underlying tone in a few of the songs, like they're written from the point of view of a cult, trying to recruit new members with a catchy pop song.

While it gets a bit samey at times, The Scene Between is a lock for 2015's best summer album, and maybe one of the best by the end of the year.  Only its confusing interludes of radio feedback slow down the ALL THE TIME GOOD VIBES this album pours from start to finish.

"OLD MAN YELLS AT CLOUD" - (capsule - Wave Runner)

capsule
Wave Runner

why you'll love it: molly

why you'll hate it: rave-by-numbers

Heads up: I have nothing nice to say in this post.  Wave Runner is such a crater of disappointment, that I felt like just pretending it didn't exist.  What changed my mind this weekend was Coachella.  As a white guy with thick glasses that likes music hardly anyone else does, there is a surprising amount of Coachella that does the opposite of appeal to me.  Though, there's always about 5 bands that I would really like to see, so I always tune into the live streams with fingers crossed.  This year, luck was not on my side.  Ratatat didn't play until 3AM (east coast time), Bad Religion's stream was cut short, Built To Spill & Squarepusher didn't even get air time.  I was attending actual live music during Belle & Sebastian.  And maybe it was better off Drive Like Jehu wasn't live streamed.

What I did see a whole lot of when tuning into Coachella were DJ tents.  DJ sets are essentially one moment of party, repeated about 30 times for an hour.  It's T.G.I. McScratchy's Goodtime Fooddrinkery ("where it's constantly New Year's Eve. Here we go again! Three, two..."), filled with America's most insufferable millennials.  And now capsule wants in on the party.

Capsule had been stumbling their way into the club for almost a decade, when suddenly in 2013 a true curveball was thrown in CAPS LOCK.  Dropping all of the party cliches, CAPS LOCK was a fun experimental pop record.  Not the most bombastic, but by far, capsule's most creative effort to date.  I actually thought capsule had turned a corner, and finally given up their laughable attempts at being cool.  Wave Runner not only falls back into old habits, but is embarrassingly derivative of EDM tactics that I had thought were long outdated.  After a weekend of Coachella's "PUT YOUR FUCKIN HANDS UP!" laser and smoke mobius strip, maybe I'm wrong.  It seems like it's still widely popular (at least in a live setting).

Here are the only "highlights" of Wave Runner.

• The self titled intro is nothing but a glorified "start sequence", but at sounds like something out of a cool cyberpunk espionage film.
• "Dancing Planet" still falls into "let's oscillate a beat to get hype" trappings, but otherwise has a fun and bouncy melody.  It sounds like Sega Dreamcast music more than anything.  If I could pick any song from 2015 that I would want to select my car in Ridge Racer to, it would be this one.
• "Depth" is the only song on here with vocals on it that I enjoy.  I applaud it for being the most formula breaking track on here.  It's a good classic dubstep song (from back when dubstep songs weren't obsessed with "the drop")
• "Beyond The Sky" is a fine instrumental, and the only track that sort of calls back to capsule's Shibuya-kei-ish fashion runway era.  

The other 25 minutes are some of the most disposable EDM you'll ever hear.  Capsule is like WWE.  Sacrificing innovation, confidence, and integrity to try and be something they just aren't.  But, they did one cool thing recently, and I have fuzzy memories of the past, so... yeah, I'll be checking out what they do next.

"Do they think it's a trick that I pull when I'm sick?" (Screaming Females - Rose Mountain)

Screaming Females
Rose Mountain

why you'll love it: Old school raw rock

why you'll hate it: Watered down compared to older material.

Bands that catch on with a fiery rage have got to have it the worst.  When Screaming Females started out, they were college kids, self-releasing albums.  One was the explosive What If Someone Is Watching Their T.V.?, packed with filthy guitar solos and unfiltered wailing vocals.  The other was Baby Teeth; just as lo-fi, but with a more straightforward and restrained songwriting approach.  Guess which one left an impression on the scene?

In 2010, the band was riding high off its first album on a label.  Power Move, continued down the trail of destruction What if... had begun.  When you saw Marissa Paternoster take the stage as a fragile little thing, then explode like an atomic bomb, it's hard to imagine Screaming Females as anything else but monsters of rock.  Little did anyone know, change was around the corner...

With the release of Castle Talk came an ironic cooldown of Screaming Females.  Despite the predictable snark of "she don't even scream anymore" ringing true, Castle Talk is a personal favorite of mine.  Marissa's guitar work had only gotten more impressive, and the trio had formed a rock Voltron of powerful harmony.  On their follow up, Ugly, it started to become obvious that Screaming Females wanted to be known for more than just making noise.  This also coincided with a health issue that sidelined Paternoster.  The 2013 Chalk Tape EP was so experimental in "being normal" that not even I could get into it.  I wondered what all those people practically rioting at Screaming Females shows in 2009 thought of the band in 2014...

All this uncertainty has made Rose Mountain a very anticipated release.  "Empty Head" stumbles out of the gate in a disappointingly predictable fashion.  It sounds like the band is going through the motions.  OH NO!  THEY'VE LOST THEIR TOUCH!  MARISSA'S TOO SICK TO ROCK!  THIS IS THE END!

    

Then "Ripe" happens.

"Ripe" rips fiercer than anything the band has done for the past five years.  It has disgusting lyrics, blood-pumping tension, and killer precision.  Yeah, there's still no screaming, but who cares?  You don't need an R rating to make a great horror movie.  You don't need to scream to rock; and there is plenty of rock to go around on Rose Mountain.  Ironically enough, not in the title track. Chalk Tape may have been a failed experiment, but it's starting to seem like a necessary one.  The songs "Rose Mountain" and "Wishing Well" finely tune the band's softer side without sacrificing any of their classic rock and roll charm accrued from the last two LPs.  I particularly like how "Broken Neck" deceptively rolls back and forth between their soft and hard sides.

The biggest moments are saved for the last few tracks.  "Triumph" has an inspiring pace too it that makes you feel like you just climbed a mountain; and waiting at the peak is "Criminal Image", a rocket ship aimed straight at the sun.  The two songs suffer just a bit by being so close together on the track list, but they're both powerfully epic.

Rose Mountain marks a pretty important transition.  Aside from the forgettable "Hopeless", Screaming Females has proven here they can play nice.  Aggression is what they'll probably always be known for, but these toned down songs feel just as natural.  The burden of expectation has all but been lifted in my eyes.  When I hear a new Screaming Females song in the future, I won't be quite sure what I'll get.  For a band with 6 albums under its belt, that is a very good thing.