CD review - Pinkunoizu, Free Time! (2012)

Exploratory variation and sonic experimentation create a rich series of musical worlds

2011's PEEP EP (review here) was a first taste of Pinkunoizu's musical subconscious. Now the European experimentalists have followed up with a full length debut album, Free Time! Where PEEP EP followed a twisted dream logic path, Free Time! drifts through clouds of experimental loops, dream pop, rhythmic ambience, and indie rock. Pinkunoizu's musical soul is dedicated to an exploratory variation, so these songs bounce around quite a bit. But they maintain a trippy, noise pop coherence.

Two tracks from PEEP EP turn up again, Time Is Like a Melody and Everything is Broken or Stolen. The meandering synth sounds of the latter are a welcome taste of Pink Floyd's More cast against hypnotic poly rhythms.

But the new tracks offer their own intrigue. Myriad Pyramid toys with creaky ambient sounds before settling into a groove like Radiohead covering Bowie's The Man Who Sold the World. Death is Not a Lover mutates from a soft, moody beginning to juxtapose folky Americana against a trippy background chaos. Then it collapses into a staccato chant before evolving into jangling new wave groove. Each track plays like a grab-bag of disparate parts that somehow always form a greater whole.

The peak is The Abyss. The percussive start is dark and trippy, but was sharp chops of guitar are looped in, the vibe resolves into something more dream poppy. The bass line and climbing fill guitar hint at Pink Floyd's Sisyphus. The layered parts play like loops, full of details that rise and fall in the mix as the song unfolds. As the song drifts forward, each twist and turn seems unplanned but inevitable. The groove builds intensity and supports some Jerry Garcia style guitar noodling. At every moment the music makes perfect sense, but it's not a linear development of ideas.

This is Pinkunoizu's blueprint for Free Time! Musical moments blend into one another in a collection of happy accidents. Detailed loops indicate planned out production, but the tracks evolve and flow like improvisation.

Further listening
The first single, Parabolic Delusions, is both the most accessible and least interesting track on Free Time! It's lyrically quirky, but the cheery pop shows less complexity than te rest of the album.

Music news - Send in the clowns

Social network or criminal gang? It's all who you ask. Horrorcore rappers Insane Clown Posse have built a loyal following that responds to their outsider message and unique perspective. Their Juggalo community has their own slang, their own festival (The Gathering of the Juggalos), and now they have their own social media site, Juggalobook.com.

The site is just now splashing the media with a heavily borrowed look and feel. They've made changes, like the prompt for status updates is "What up Ninja?" instead of "What's on your mind?" But these tweaks are very minor. It probably won't be long before they get the cease and desist from Facebook. Their servers are already overloaded just keeping up the current user load, so that may not matter.

The more interesting question is who started it. ICP has no mention of JuggaloBook on their site. It may have just been an enthusiastic fan that registered the site with GoDaddy. For the paranoid, it could even be a government plot to track the Juggalos, given that the FBI named the Juggalos as a "loosely organized hybrid gang" last year.

Regardless, JuggaloBook joins a host of ICP-centric forums and chat spaces. It's an interesting paradigm shift to the past. While Facebook and Google+ aim to be general appeal portal sites, JuggaloBook reaches back to the era of specialized bulletin boards. While the site pays lip service to building communities of "homies", almost everybody shares their updates with the world because on JuggaloBook, everybody's a homie.

Whoop! Whoop!

CD review - Justin Levinson and the Valcours, This Side of Me, This Side of You (2012)

Optimistic acceptance and effortless hooks

Like Ben Folds and Fountains of Wayne, Justin Levinson has an intuitive sense for cheery, uptempo pop and effortless hooks. The production on This Side of Me, This Side of You is slick and polished to a shine that primarily reflects Levinson's singer-songwriter style and open personality. Where Folds or FoW can never resist throwing in their trademarked irony, Levinson delivers each track with a direct simplicity.

This imbues the album with an optimistic acceptance. Even when the songs wander familiar trails of breakups and loss, Levinson's breathy vocals never engage the pain. On Water Wears the Rock, the title line serves as a philosophical bandaid:

Love isn't what you thought
Because eventually the water wears the rock...

All the while, the music bounces to a retro poppy groove with hints of easy listening jazz. The bridge music builds into an affirmation that promises it will all work out, even if the lyrics aren't quite sure. The contrast suggests a Buddhist resolution, allowing for the conflict but not being tied to it.

My favorite track, You Became a Ghost, covers similar ground. The chorus talks betrayal but the music isn't burdened:

So cue the spot light and strike a pose
Blame the ones you love, hide behind your vintage clothes
In my darkest hour, when I needed you the most
You became a ghost

The synth strings soften the blows and the production almost sounds triumphant. This mix of light and dark seems to be Levinson's sweet spot.

For all of the poppy sweetness, Levinson's music has a nice depth to it, avoiding cliched 1-4-5 structures. So the songs stand up to repeated listenings. His band, the Valcours, don't inject a lot of personality to compete with the vocals, but like a good set of studio musicians, their competence and tasteful additions round out the arrangements. The songs aren't locked into a formula. One can pair a simple piano with a light Americana guitar and add a dusting of strings to set up a clean ballad feel (Let You Go). Another has the perfect jaunty bass and horns to match Levinson's vaudevillian vocals (I'll Be Ok).

Maybe Levinson is hiding his anguish, but his unapologetic cheer sounds fresh. Give him a listen and see what you think.

Front Range - Recommended shows, 3/5

This week I'm faced with a tough decision: Gogol Bordello or Los Lobos. A friend made the choice easy with free tickets, but either show will prove to be excellent, I'm sure.

7 March - Hi Dive, Boulder CO
Reptar

If you're looking for a great party band, but can't swing Gogol Bordello tickets, drop into Denver's Hi Dive for Reptar's show. They're known for turning simple bar gigs into riotous house party scenes. Goofy danceable pop is the order of the day. Drop in so you'll have the cool stories to tell later.

7 March - Boulder Theater, Boulder CO
8 March - Odgen Theatre, Denver CO
Gogol Bordello

Gogol Bordello concerts are a sideshow mix of gypsy carnival, political theater, and ecstatic dance. Their musical foundation spans eastern European and western influence, supporting a heady mix of gypsy punk. If you haven't seen them before, make your plans NOW.

8 March - Aggie Theatre, Ft. Collins CO
9 March - Boulder Theater, Boulder CO
Los Lobos

In a world of glitz and shallow connections, Los Lobos stands out as a solid example of depth -- depth of history, musical roots, and sincerity. Ft. Collins and Boulder will feel the love this time through.

10 March - Ogden Theatre, Denver CO
G. Love & Special Sauce

G. Love was here in Ft. Collins last summer and showed that he still has the same lazy beat groove that he had back in the day. He lays down his freestyle hip hop vocals over jazzy blues jams, driven by stumble beat rhythms. Like Jackie Chan's Drunken Master, it all looks sloppy until you realize every beat and every note are where they need to be.