CD review - Nobunny, First Blood (2010)

First Blood is Justin Champlin's second studio album under his Nobunny alter ego. The rabbit head and other zany performance stunts can sell a live show and, by all means, catch them on their current February tour. But the First Blood sells itself just fine as a back-to-basics rock and roll album. Like the Violent Femmes or the Ramones, Nobunny idolizes a simpler era of pounding guitars, tightly focused arrangements, and straight ahead vocals. The musical aesthetics are all retro, but the lyrical perspective is much more modern.

There's humor and sincerity, but absolutely no irony. From the opener, Ain't It Shame, where he offers no apology for being a self centered horn dog, to the pure love of Breathe, which channels T.Rex's Bang a Gong (Get it On), Nobunny cuts straight to the heart of each song.

My favorite track is Blow Dumb, which kicks off as a straight lift of Sister Ray:

He's in the wagon, he's smokin' Copenhagen
We listen to the latest tapes
We's in the moon, for feelin' good
We take a burger break
We blow dumb
Yeah yeah yeah yeah
We blow dumb
B-L-O-W dumb

Unlike Lou Reed searching for his mainline, Nobunny is exuberant.

First Blood is full of familiar sounding bits like this. Something about Nobunny's frank love and manic joy avoids the sense of appropriation or poser derivation. Instead, the mix of Holly, Who, Stones, Ramones, Kinks, and Rocky Erickson is exultant. Nobunny's garage rock may be less punk than the Ramones, less quirky than the Femmes, and less hazed than the Velvet Underground, but it's a purely distilled essence of rock.

CD review - The Luyas, Too Beautiful To Work (2011)

The Luyas' Too Beautiful to Work (due out Feb 22), is a study in atmospheric textures. Jessie Stein's waifish vocals permeate the album with a dreamy vagueness, fitting in well with the quavery, quirky backing music. Flanged, rotating synth sounds meld with fluid, electronic washes, and echoed orchestral horns. With help from Arcade Fire's Sarah Neufeld, Owen Pallett (Final Fantasy), Colin Stetson, and others, the Luyas have created a moody exploration of experimental space.

On the upbeat, poppy side, Too Beautiful to Work, lays out an indie pop vibe, with an underlying dance aesthetic. The dreamy undercurrent is propagated by the off beat phrasing of Stein's sweet voice and the odd collection of supporting sounds. This yields to to the spacey psychedelic pop of Tiny Head. Here the sparse, echoed start works against a steady pop beat. The song fills up with busy percussion. Ultimately, it evokes a dream state where nothing quite fits together on a rational level but somehow it all makes sense at the time.

The tension of Canary, adds depth to the album. Here, the dreams shift to the uncontrolled edges of nightmare. The lyrics about sacrifice and the sonic mood are disquieting, contrasting with Stein's childlike voice to create a macabre feel. The threatening vibe is heightened by the single sustained chord in the background at the start. A bit like a missing tooth, I came back to this track again and again. The cotton swathed horns in the middle and the pulsating tones at the end further the sense of chaos for Canary. Too Beautiful to Work would have been a shallower experience without this darkness.

A smoky fire, a touch of brandy, and a room filled with candles provide the perfect listening room for the Luyas. Keep an eye out as they start their US tour in March.

Concert review - Kraddy with Archnemesis, Seth Abrums

3 February 2011 (Aggie Theatre, Ft. Collins CO)

It's a treat getting world grade electronic artists like Kraddy here in Ft. Collins. At first, I thought it might have been wasted on us because the crowd was sparse and some of the first people to show were more into the scene rather than knowing Kraddy. I shouldn't have worried. As the audience swelled, it was clear that the fans were out in force. It was rave night at the Aggie and all was well.

Seth Abrumz

DJ Seth Abrumz led off the show, starting to an almost empty house. Tapped into his own private zone, the lack of an audience didn't seem to phase him. In classic DJ fashion, Abrumz ran his set on the fly, maintaining an active hand in the mix.

The mix featured a dance heavy sound, with elements of techno, drum and bass, and acid house. The grinding bottom end filled out the room and set the mood, even when the crowd was still thin. Between the growing crowd, the light stick jugglers, and the powerful beats, the set developed a cool rave vibe.

Abrumz DJ skills were pretty good, slicing and mutating tracks with a casual flow. He laid out a some nice break beats, especially on I Like My Bass Phat.

All in all, it was a strong set, I just wish he'd have interacted more with the audience. In addition to last night's show, he'll be part of the Got Bass lineup at the Aggie on 5 February.

Archnemesis

Archnemesis nailed the electronic band feel. With two DJs, they could build a heavily layered sound with more interaction between the parts. Laying out echoes thick enough to get lost in, the two (Telepath and MO Theory) guys traded off foreground and background roles. Their grooves were spectacularly heavy, but there were plenty of subtle details to fixate on beyond the bass and beat.

Archnemesis' strongest ace was how they mixed in some great retro samples -- soul, bop style jazz, and early R&B. The horn parts they stirred in were particularly spicy. This gave them a unique mix of old and modern, while they wandered through electro funk, glitchy, drum and bass, and some experimental something or other. The sound was more cerebral, adding a trippy crystalline vibe here or a heady bit of trance there.

This is where the energy really started to flow. Always in motion, Archnemesis connected with the crowd. Even though they didn't say much beyond greeting us, counting, and asking us how we were doing, their exuberance on stage was contagious.

The track Diamonds and Glass was a great example showing off their horn and soul mixing. This is the title cut off a free EP you can download here. The trance drive break in the live show bounced off some time interactive work between the two DJs.

Archnemesis brought their game, now the crowd was psyched for Kraddy.

Kraddy

Kraddy casually took the stage and promised us a good mix of new stuff and music off Labyrinth, his recent EP (my review here). The press release for Labyrinth suggested "Led Zeppelin 3000" as its inspiration. Kraddy's set delivered on that idea. By the end of the show, we had been rocked with bassy crunch that had throbbed through us like some kind of infrasound scanner. This physical sensation paired perfectly with Kraddy's grindy, glitchy, dub step, drum and bass sound. With the dancing and the lights, this low end groove was like a rave set inside a boom car.

Kraddy's show was more of a standard DJ style, because the tracks were basically already laid out in his studio. Kraddy played them with some minor mixing and loops, but it wasn't built as interactively as the Archnemesis set. The secret here, though, was that most of the familiar tracks sounded fresh and remixed for the show. Between the fresh take on the tunes, the occasional breaks mixed in, and Kraddy's constant motion, this created a full live band vibe.

Kraddy's giant physical presence -- whether he was goading the crowd or interpretively dancing to the track -- was key to building the party mood. While he's gesturing for the crowd to bounce or triumphantly raising his hands, all eyes are on him.

As promised he hit most of the Labyrinth tracks, with a heavy remix of Minotaur being especially good. He also laid out a new remix of one of his notable tracks Android Porn. This version was more laid back and dreamier than the original. The slower progression built up the intensity that set up a nice dub break.

Rhythmic light dances by the audience, pounding beats, sub-bass rattles, and an ecstatic DJ. Ft. Collins got its club on. And there were giant robots in my dreams...

More photos on my Flickr.

CD review - Delicate Steve, Wondervisions (2011)

Let's get a couple of things out of the way. Delicate Steve is a stupid name for a band and their press release tries way too hard for hipster quirk:

Like a hydro-electric Mothra rising from the ashes of an African village burned to the ground by post-rock minotaurs, the music of Delicate Steve will literally make you the happiest person who has never lived.

One more swing and a miss like that, and I can save myself from contributing more attention to another "ironic" band already working out their next in-joke. I'll give it the short browse listen: sampling bits of two or three random tracks. Then I can move on to something more worthwhile.

I think it was sometime in the middle of track 2 (The Ballad of Speck and Pebble) that I realized I was forgetting to skip ahead. By track 8, I was arguing with myself over whether to finish the album before I started it over again. The several electronic Source interludes looked to be a foul tip, but then Source ((BRIDGE)) redeemed the set with a cool ambient Fripp-Eno sound.

Wondervisions, just out yesterday, could be called experimental instrumental, but it's effectively genre-less. Many of the songs are layered guitar centered compositions that made me think of Eric Johnson with rougher edges. There's a primitive element to the guitar parts, emphasized by the heavy percussion. But the combination, along with bits of keyboard is intriguing. The short pieces feel like small display boxes or dioramas. Repetition and layering unfold to reveal unexpected details in each one's theme.

While there is continuity from track to track, the sounds vary all over the map. The Ballad of Speck and Pebble is a psychedelic mix of Paul Simon and the Beatles' Two Of Us. And none of either, as it bounces to a more modern indie rock sound.

Similarly, Don't Get Stuck (Proud Elephants) takes the descending chord line from Alice Cooper's Only Women Bleed and erects a joyous affirmation that destroys any sense of direct derivation. The mood shift is particularly elegant and savory. Each time around the changes adds in a little more detail. Bits early Pink Floyd (Free Four) and George Harrison round out the arrangement.

Elsewhere on Wondervisions, there are Adrian Belew moments, Brian May style chorused guitar lines, and more surprises. More from the press release:

...Wondervisions, the indescribable 12-track instrumental debut that reconstructs influences as diverse as Yes, Vampire Weekend, The Fall, Ravi Shankur, 10 cc, The Orbital, Jann Hammer, the first half of OK Computer, the second act of The Wizard of Oz, and the final pages of Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom.

What Delicate Steve really has is a sense of more-ness. Like sampling the perfect mix of malt and hops, that taste left afterwards is the desire for... more. Ignore the overblown press and listen for yourself. Ultimately, the music is all that matters.