Woah, that 8-tracks embedded player really fucks with safari. Here's a link.
http://8tracks.com/roomrunner/songs-from-jan-feb-2015
2/23/15
The 10 best Polysics songs of the last 5 years
Let me catch you up on the last five years of Polysics by plucking out the very best of this new and (for Western audiences) obscure era.
10. "Smile To Me" (Oh! No! It's Heavy Polysick!!!) : At their best, Polysics has a dangerous and abrasive sound. After so many records of that, sometimes a straightforward tune can seem like the most refreshing thing. "Smile To Me" has no tricks up its sleeve. It's just a fun rock song with a bouncy bass line. A great song to test out on "normies". If this freaks your friends out, next serve them up "Kaja Kaja Goo" from behind protected glass.
9. "発見動物探検隊" (Action!!!) : Most Polysics songs are fireworks shows with little breathing room. What "発見動物探検隊" does to stand out is play with pacing and buildup. A fragile delivery opens each verse, building to a faster beat, followed up with a few spaced apart blasts, and then "ACTION".
8. "Steam Pack" (Weeeeeeeeee!!!) : No one really knew what Polysics was going to sound like as a trio. I remember briefly entertaining the concept of almost entirely dropping synthesizers. At the time, Man or Astro-Man? had reformed, and We Are The Physics were killing it (two similar bands with a ton of energy and stage presence that stick mainly to guitars and drums.) "Steam Pack" is a song reinforces that concept. Without any electronic presence, "Steam Pack" still manages to sound undeniably Polysics.
7. "Everybody Say No" (Weeeeeeeeee!!!) : Given the right push, I honestly believe "Everybody Say No" would have been the Polysics song that reached the most widespread audience. In most cases, the songs chosen for singles have an awkward English catchphrase. "Everybody Say No" is both strange enough to turn a head, but not so much as to make someone cynically roll their eyes. Aside from being a downright catchy song, "Everybody Say No" is unique for being their only fully vocoded single. I'm a big fan of the vocoder, especially since Hayashi's voice has become unnaturally higher over the years.
6. "Cough Cough" (Oh! No! It's Heavy Polysick!!!) : Think, and you'll miss it. In this short instrumental, Polysics overclocks their sequencers and performs in lock step with them. It seems more like a proof of concept than an actual song, but one hell of ride, nonetheless.
5. "Post Post" (Action!!!) : Another great example of the band's talent and comfort in performing alongside pinballing sequencers. An entirely unpredictable song on first listen. With repeated listens, its charming pop moments are highlighted. "Post Post" isn't just that perfect mix of guitars and synthesizers Polysics stands for; but also a perfect balance of positive energized pop, bleeding with manic punk rock acid.
4. "How are you?" (eee-P!!!) : "How are you?" was how Polysics resurfaced as a trio in 2010. It was a sigh of relief. Fumi's fire-charged vocals gave confidence that she had no intentions of attempting to impersonate the flowery delivery of her departed bandmate. Between the impossibly fast spitting of lyrics in the pre-chorus, and Hayashi's haphazard shredding, "How are you?" let fans know everything was going to be just fine.
3. "Sparky" (Action!!!) : The biggest setback to this era of Polysics has been how shallow the range of the synthesizers have been. With more of an electronic presence than ever, sometimes the tone of the sequencers can become dull by the end of an album, or the tricks can become predictable. 2014's Action!!! fixed a lot of this, with a much wider range of electronic sounds; my favorite of which being the buzzsaw of death that rips through "Sparky". As stated earlier, Polysics is best when dangerous and abrasive; and you can feel those synths tearing "Sparky" apart. It makes an already explosive song even better.
2. "Why" (Weeeeeeeeee!!!) : The pounding march of "Why" is hypnotizing. There is a certain feel to it that sets it apart from most Polysics songs. While not lacking in energetic force whatsoever, it has a slightly darker edge than most of their songs. Especially after the chorus, when it just spins into oblivion. For the last ten years, Polysics has almost exclusively been a "come have fun and be crazy with us" sort of band, but not since National P (2003) has there been something as unfriendly and alien as this.
1. "Turbo Five" (Action!!!) : I feel like this is the song Hayashi has been trying to make (and probably will continue to keep trying at) his entire career. It's blazing fast non-stop action, with guitar solos exploding out from around every corner. Fun from top to bottom without resorting to any corny sing along catch phrases. "Turbo Five" is his fireworks powered waterslide into a trampoline ball-pit. It has become the Polysics song I sample to newcomers. I don't even bother explaining to people in words what kind of band they are anymore. I've found their description carries to many "dealbreaker" words that manage to conflict each other ("punk" "synthesizer" "Japanese" "technopop"). I just throw "Turbo Five" at them and let them figure it out.
So what's next for a band that has seemingly finally created the song that perfectly encapsulates them? I don't know. It's a wonderful thing that a band like this is still around after going through such a major lineup and songwriting change. It's sort of like these years are bonus DLC. Heck, when they released We Ate The Machine back in 2008, my takeaway was "Yup, this is everything I ever asked for in a discography. For now on, it's just icing."
Polysics releases Hen 愛 Let's Go! on March 25. An EP apparently about food. The treats keep on coming.
2/17/15
"Ready to climb out from under concrete" (Sleater-Kinney - No Cities To Love)
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| Sleater-Kinney No Cities To Love Why you'll love it: Insanely cool guitar sounds Why you'll hate it: Some corny lyrics |
The first impression that washed over me in the opening tracks of No Cities To Love are how wonderfully unique the guitars sound. They aren't the loudest, the cleanest, or best performed, but I can't think of anything quite like the effects used here. In the verses to "Price Tag", the guitars sing like violin strings fed through a synthesizer. In the chorus, they transform into a weird, warbly, shambling, pounding riff. It sounds like what you would imagine Night of The Living Dead would look like on an old TV while fiddling with the antenna. Then comes their final form in the bridge. Everything gets gritty and disgusting. The lyrics reach absolute darkness. The effects pedals sound broken or possessed until it's too much and the song just shuts down. "Price Tag" is one fucking - rad - song. I didn't really know what to expect, but it wasn't something like this.
While nothing else quite hits the apocalyptic tone of "Price Tag", guitar experimentation continues throughout No Cities To Love in a whole bunch of different and enjoyable ways. The not quite post-punk hop in "Fangless" is made better with a strange underwater effect in the guitars and arpeggiated play style. "A New Wave" hangs on guitar riffs that are both catchy and dirty as hell. I'd say S-K is drinking Screaming Females' milkshake with riffs like this, but they've probably been making songs like this for decades. Maybe it was their milkshake that got drank, and now they're drinking it back aga- you know this analogy is uninformed, confusing, and getting a bit gross, let's move on. Anyway, S-K was smart to perform "A New Wave" on Letterman, as it's the the most fun and accessible song on the album.
The second half of the album re-explores their dark side. "No Anthems" writhes around in fuzz and a low-voiced delivery reminiscent of Brainiac. "Gimmie Love" is a wicked burst of cynical energy that doesn't overstay its welcome. I get serious Marnie Stern vibes from the cut-throat main riff in "Bury Our Friends", and once again start to wonder who is influencing who...
My only bone to pick with No Cites To Love is that there is sometimes an embarrassing disparity between the mediocrity in a few lyrics and their overconfident delivery. I had this same exact problem with Wild Flag. The choruses of "Surface Envy" and "Hey Darling" are typically sing-songy and obvious in the worst way possible, only magnified when belted with such vigor. It's so jarring that it completely takes me out of the song. In "Surface Envy"s case, it's a shame, because it's an otherwise killer track.
A few corny lines wedge their way in, but the problem is nowhere near as widespread as say, Dave Grohl's modern songwriting. The music steals the show on this album. The innovation that goes into the tone and production is dead on. I don't know if the sound of No Cites is new ground for S-K, or this kind of experimentation goes into all their albums. Bottom line is that I'm impressed.
2/11/15
"never thinking if it's wrong or right" (Belle & Sebastian - Girls in Peacetime Want To Dance)
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| Belle & Sebastian Girls in Peacetime Want To Dance Why you'll love it: Perfectly executed and well rounded pop album Why you'll hate it: Very long, full of "first world problems" |
When Belle & Sebastian "plugged in" over ten years ago, it caused a great divide in the fan base. Those who preferred Stuart Murdoch's original intimate and muted songwriting approach of the late 90s will have their plates full with songs like "The Cat And The Cream" and "Ever Had A Little Faith". The rest of us who have grown to love his more modern half-smile pop delivery will dig in on "Perfect Couples", "Allie", and "The Book of You". These songs are so cheesy and catchy, you can easily picture them as 90's TGIF lineup themes. It's the most common cause of malign thrown at B&S, but I wouldn't have it any other way.
For the most part, Girls... plays like a greatest hits album for Belle & Sebastian; but the group has one more trick up their sleeve for their ninth album... In what has got to be the biggest dare the group has taken since Dear Catastrophe Waitress (2003), a few tracks take on dance floor synth-pop. "The Party Line" has turned a lot of heads. Some see this new venture as Murdoch losing touch, and desperate to connect with a younger audience. I greet it with optimism. "The Party Line" grounds itself with a 60's pop style principal melody typical to Belle & Sebastian. Behind all the bells-and-whistles, it's undeniably a B&S song. "Enter Sylvia Plath", on the other hand, is the only sour spot on the album. It sounds like the demo button on a Casio keyboard. Even with missteps, I always applaud experimentation, and love it when a band does anything to give an album a little extra character. Is the discotheque where a twee act belongs? Probably not, but this group has earned the right to pay a visit.
An hour passes, and Belle & Sebastian end up right back where they were; just angering people for being themselves. Those of us who spend less time getting infuriated over what the band isn't doing should enjoy this album to a great degree just for what it is. It's over an hour long, and dammit, almost all of it is good! While Murdoch's songwriting jumped the shark in some minds, he does nothing here to make my eyes roll. Almost every song is fun and the ballads feel honest. Even the more extravagant numbers such as "Nobody's Empire" and "Play For Today" manage to keep together as they grow into breathtaking crescendos.
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[AND NOW - THE EXTRA SONGS]
OK, above the line break was perspective of this album as if you downloaded it off Amazon or whatever. Now, I'm going to share some thoughts on the 120+ minute double LP vinyl version. On this version, the track listing has been drastically shuffled (for the better, mostly), and there are four bonus songs.
At first I was dumbfounded as to why these extra songs aren't included on the original album. "Two Birds" is not only the most fun B&S song I've heard since "The Blues Are Still Blue", but a much more successful attempt at electronic Eurovision pop than anything that made the cut. "Piggy in The Middle" would have been another highlight, and why it wasn't on the album was a nagging question. I may have discovered an answer though. The other two bonus tracks ("Born To Act" and "A Politician's Silence") borrow from The Clash's "The Card Cheat" and David Bowie's "The Man Who Sold The World" quite egregiously. Maybe all four of these songs were considered a bit too influenced to be included on the final product.
Despite tacking on more time to an already long album, the double LP version of Girls in Peacetime Want To Dance is an impressive effort by Belle & Sebastian. Even without the extra songs (which you totally should track down!), it's still a solid release that will probably hold onto my top ten by the end of the year
2/5/15
"gone forever"? (Erase Errata - Lost Weekend)
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| Erase Errata Lost Weekend why you'll love it: America's premier "art-punk" act returns. why you'll hate it: shorter and slower than their most popular works. |
"History of Handclaps" brings Erase Eratta back to the world of the living with a familiar lack of fanfare or buildup. The principal melody kicks in as if the band had never really stopped, and a near decade long absence was only a skip in the cd. "Handclaps" both mocks and plays along with the addictive, yet frivolous & overexposed dance-punk genre. An off-beat trumpet (an obscure signature of EE) worms its way into the song, and a comforting peace washes over me. Despite this being one of the most rousing songs on Lost Weekend, you gotta treat every little gift as precious once in a while...
In its remaining 18 minutes, Lost Weekend builds off of some of the subtly most intriguing parts of 2006's Nightlife; dark and atmospheric songwriting. Thanks to a more deliberate bass-heavy pace, "In Death I Suffer" and "Galveston, Dark Tides" are the highlights of this album. A daring move, especially after a long absence where most of EE's remaining fan base is most likely eager to hear the aggressive calamity they're loved for. Only once in their career has a song clocked in at over four minutes, in Lost Weekend's case, three songs around that mark make up more than half of the album's length. It's a lot to ask of a fan, but something I appreciate. The dark and creepy "Hotel Suicide" is my favorite cut off Nightlife, and it's a pleasant surprise to hear them evolve from that on their next effort.
Lost Weekend abruptly powers down a good 10 minutes too early. The successful application of their slower songwriting technique gives confidence that they could finally cut a record that crosses the 30 minute mark, but alas we only get 20. I enjoy every minute of its short stay though. If this release happens to serve as a welcome mat to new listeners, that would be great too. Erase Errata is one of punk's best kept secrets. Just being able to say "is" instead of "was" in 2015 feels amazing. I hope this isn't the last we hear from the trio. Singer, Jenny Hoyston, insists the band never broke up, and perhaps never will. Fingers crossed.
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