ALBUM REVIEWS: Sisyphus- Sisyphus
Sufjan Steven’s work in the past few years sure has been interesting to watch, and to say his various endeavors have been peculiar in nature would be an understatement. His out-of-nowhere (and still to this day phenomenal) EP All Delighted People, his turn to explosive electronics on the similarly phenomenal Age of Adz, orchestral endeavors about planets, another giant Christmas box set, plus popping up randomly now and then to sing for The National or talk shit about Savages’ album cover. So, at this point, it’s not surprising that this Indie Super Group is such a delightfully weird combination.
Sisyphus is a combination of Stevens, Trip-Hop and Electronic maestro Son Lux, and abstract Hip-Hop MC Serengeti. The group (formerly known as s/s/s) dropped a fine-but-forgettable EP back in 2012, which made their expansion into album territory a bit more questionable. That EP clearly had a lot of talent spread across it, but Son Lux couldn’t properly paint an electronic landscape for Serengeti to play in, and Stevens sounded downright goofy next to Serengeti (Although I was thankful that Stevens decided to work with a more abstract MC, since that’s the only kind of rapper that could ever really work well with Stevens). Luckily, however, Sisyphus has found the trio flesh out their collaboration and really show that this is a fully formed sound and group.
It’s completely noticeable all over this self-titled album that the three men have worked hard to mesh their sounds together. The sprawling and multifaceted Calm It Down manages to establish all three musicians in one song, allowing Serengeti to drop bars, Son Lux to create some gorgeous and interesting noise, and we get some great Sufjan crooning. One of the finest songs on here is the huge sounding Rhythm of Devotion, which includes an absolutely great verse from Serengeti (The delivery outdoes the lyricism on this song and many others, but Serengeti has a Das Racist charm about him that makes everything fine). The song finds Serengeti almost yelling in front of some loud and off-kilter electronic noise, almost sounding like a Ratking track. Sufjan then comes in front of this wall of noise and sings with a quiet soulful whisper that somehow isn’t drowned out. The robot voices here are also a nice touch.
Serengeti actually gets a lot of chances to shine here, especially with delivery. Shorter Serengeti-centric tracks like Flying Ace and Booty Call aren’t really the best tracks on the album, but they really show off how much this collaboration works. Serengeti’s delivery falls right into place with Son Lux’s contemplative electronics and Sufjan Stevens’ haunting oos and big synths. Sufjan Stevens actually gets a chance to shine throughout the album, with the Illinoise-esque interjections on My Oh My and the entirety of Take Me, which wouldn’t be out of place on a Stevens album (In fact, it’s exactly the kind of song that sounds GREAT on a Stevens album). Son Lux isn’t nearly as exposed as the other two, only interjecting every once in a while with some great effects (The wiping synth at the end of My Oh My is pretty great, even if the singing behind it isn’t).
Sisyphus is an album that shouldn’t work, but somehow it does. It’s a messy collaboration, which shows allover the thing (Some songs can’t quite decide if they’re a collaboration or a solo effort, even if some of these songs are my favorite off the album (Take Me)). But there are subtle details each member contributes that helps with repeat listens. I Won’t Be Affraid, a gorgeous track in the second half, at first comes across as being another Sufjan-solo effort. But behind Steven’s bare delivery is a huge amount of Son Lux production that shines through more and more with repeat listens. Booty Call similarly feels like it’s just a Serengeti solo track, but clearly Son Lux is there. Son Lux is all over this album, it’s just not obvious at first.
There are flaws here and there, with some of the more ambitious songs faltering and the album having some amazing tracks that make others meek in comparison. But even the weakest tracks here are intensely enjoyable. Booty Call is stupid, but it’s an incredibly fun form of stupid (And it’s the best way to deliver stupid- Short). Dishes In the Sink, probably the weakest song here, is a bit too off-kilter for it’s own good, but it still has some great ideas imbedded within it that make it worth hearing. Sisyphus is a weird and confusing album, but it’s also one of the sonically boldest records you’ll hear this year.
Summary: Sisyphus is a major improvement on this Super-Trio’s first EP, meshing 3 very different sounds together to create a surprisingly cohesive and profoundly interesting experience, with even the weakest of songs having a sense of wonder and experimentation about them. The greatest songs here can deftly mesh experimental electronics, abstract Hip-Hop, and chamber pop together in a satisfying cauldron.
Choice Cuts: Rhythm of Devotion, Take Me, I Won’t Be Afraid, Alcohol
Leftovers: Dishes in the Sink
B
You can stream the entire project below. Sisyphus is out now on Asthmatic Kitty.
EP REVIEW/RISING ARTIST: Paul White- Watch the Ants
A lot of Hip-Hop producers will drop beat tapes. The problem with these tapes, as enjoyable as some of them are, is that a lot of instrumental Hip-Hop can sound a bit bland. The music is meant to be rapped over; beats missing raps tend to just be…well…beats. Even some of the better producers today like Clams Casino and Alchemist (producers I like quite a bit) have beat tapes that kind of ware out their welcome by the end. However, when I stumbled upon Paul White’s newest EP, it was something truly special.
Paul White is a South London producer who makes beats of a more experimental and ornamental variety. Lately, he’s been palling around with big name rappers like Danny Brown (who, apparently, used White quite a bit on his upcoming album Old). Why would someone like Danny work with a guy like Paul White? Just listen to this EP.
White’s beats have a way of coming together in a strangely natural way. At first, most of these tracks sound haphazard and nonsensical. There will be ghastly vocals and ambient synths and bagpipe/guitars all clashing against each other in the first few seconds of the song. But within a couple of seconds, all of these elements settle into a solid rhythm and form something breathless and stunning. Paul White is like a production Macgyver. That’s on top of the fact that White did most of the instrumentation on this record himself. From some of the great percussion to the ghoulish vocals, White made most of the sounds and crafted them into some really great soundscapes.
What strikes an even greater chord is that, save the tracks with actual rappers, this tape doesn’t sound at all like one of those “Beat tapes” I mentioned earlier. Songs traverse across several genres and mix them up beautifully. Slugs Don’t Hug opens with a Godspeed You Black Emperor-worthy drone of bagpipes, mixes in some jangly percussion, poppy bass, and a vicious Sean Price perfectly. Minus, in my opinion the record’s opus, sounds like a moody synth piece until some amazingly sparse claps and percussion join in. Then there are explosions of ambiance that take everything to a more resonant level. Resonant Hip-Hop beats sounds a bit weird on paper, but White absolutely nails it here.
The only thing that really grounds this as Instrumental Hip-Hop (save some of the more typical production) are the rappers White uses. Danny Brown really brings a heavy street bravado to the creepy and creaky Street Lights, making it a very rounded Hip-Hop track. It helps that he decides to use his normal voice when he raps, something I haven’t heard since his XXX mixtape. Sean Price takes full advantage of the fantastic beat provided on Slugs Don’t Hug. Trim manages to make the most of one of White’s weaker beats on Get Your Head Round This, a track that is more interesting than it is entertaining. Hell, even though Homeboy Sandman isn’t a revelation, he still makes Find a Way a pretty worthwhile track.
This EP is vibrant yet dark, unorthodox but natural, and really great. Even some of the weaker tracks are wild and interesting. I’m excited for whatever this guy produces next, and I’m even more excited for Old.
Summary: Watch the Ants is a mystifying and beautiful project, full of some amazing beats, great ideas, wonderful experimentation, and some nice use of guest features.
Choice Cuts: Street Lights, Slugs Don’t Hug, Minus
Leftovers: Find a Way
B+ (4/5)
You can stream the entire project below.
ALBUM REVIEW: The Knife- Shaking the Habitual
I’ll just throw this out there before I start: I didn’t care for this album. I’ve listened to it thrice now, this 90 minute expansive and dark epic. But it just hasn’t stuck with me.
The Knife is a experimental synthpop/art pop/ electropop group from Sweden. They’ve been around for a while, and their last album, 2006’s Silent Shout, was heavily acclaimed. The album was OK, since I wasn’t the biggest fan of the sonics. But there were some nice pop songs underneath the darker elements. Plus, they’ve had quite a few truly great tracks, like breakout single Heartbeats (Which, if you’re unfamiliar with their version, you’ve probably heard the one by Jose Gonzalez). 7 years later, they’re back with their 90 minute comeback, Shaking the Habitual. If 90 minutes sounds grueling to you already, just wait.
The album’s opener, A Tooth For an Eye, is probably the best track on here. It uses the same formula as the rest of the albums, except it does it with some kind of immediacy and memorability. While some may find Karin Dreijer’s vocals off-putting, I happen to like them here. They’re weird and unorthodox, and there’s a sense of pain and power to her delivery on this song. The moments where she stretches her voice out to a hungry strain are particularly powerful. That combined with the cool synth work and the awesome production makes this a song worthy of 7 years of anticipation.
However, after that, it kind of goes downhill. Sure, there are songs on Shaking the Habitual that are shorter than the 6 minute A Tooth For an Eye. But there are also a ton that are excruciatingly longer. The main problem this album has is pace: it doesn’t know when songs should be over. The lead single, Full of Fire, is just over 9 minutes long, but could it could have easily been 4 or 5 minutes. At the long length, the track begins to feel like a monotonous trudge. The wild electronic noise at the end of the track is cool, but it comes in 4 minutes too late.
Full of Fire isn’t the only song on here that overstays its welcome. In fact, I’d say pretty much every song on here overstays its welcome. A Cherry On Top is an idea that would suit a short interlude, but instead it’s an 8 minute song. I’d give more examples, but it’s the same thing every time. Several tracks have cool ideas and sounds and experiments, yet they meander for so long that interest in them begins to wane. There are many moments where I had to check the play bar to see how far along I was in a song, and I became frustrated to learn I was only 2 minutes into an 8 minute track. And don’t get me started on Old Dreams Waiting to be Realized. You know what I was waiting for? That song to be over. I’m not against ambient music, but I don’t like it on an album by The Knife.
If this album were shorter, I’d probably like it a bit more. Not by a lot, because I’ve never been a big fan of their dark electronic aesthetic. I thought Silent Shout was just kind of…OK. But the reason it was OK rather than somewhat mediocre was because, despite the slight indulgence, there was some great pop on it. There is no semblance of any pop on this album. It’s just a lot of creepy, creepy electronic music. Which, at some points, works alright. A lot of these songs, on paper, are OK. But the execution (Specifically, the pace) is really off. I’m not saying the album is bad, because I’m sure some people will love this. In fact, I’m positive that a lot of people like this. There are cool ideas, like some super scary vocals on Fracking Fluid Injection and some cello work on A Cherry On Top. Plus, there are more plain songs like Ready to Lose that work nicely. I just didn’t enjoy the whole thing.
Summary: While Shaking the Habitual has some cool ideas and instruments (and objectively awesome vocals), it suffers from a severely dragging pace, which takes songs and stretches them beyond their limits.
Choice Cuts- A Tooth For an Eye, Ready to Lose
Leftovers- Crake, Old Dreams Waiting to be Realized
2-2.5/5
Stream Full of Fire and A Tooth For an Eye below. Shaking the Habitual is out now on Mute
ALBUM REVIEW: Atoms For Peace- AMOK
The other week, I decided it would be a good day to revisit Radiohead’s divisive The King of Limbs. Since it’s been out, I’ve considered it to be the worst Radiohead album. I mean, most people would argue that Pablo Honey is their worst, but at least that album had Creep and Blow Out, and at least sounded full of potential (Which, thank god, was fully realized). On The King of Limbs, everything is pretty and ominous, but it is a trudge. It was basically the sonic equivalent of watching paint dry. Save the alright Lotus Flower, there was something that just felt off. And it’s not like the songs themselves were bad. The From the Basement session they did was absolutely stunning. However, when all this stuff was recorded, there’s just a lack of passion…almost a lack of humanity.
That’s the same problem I got from this new effort from this “Spin-off” super group. Atoms For Peace has Radiohead vocalist Thom Yorke and producer Nigel Godrich, Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Flea, Joey Waronker (who has worked with Beck and R.E.M.), and Mauro Refosco (No clue). The album sounds heavily electronic, spacious, and eerie. It often feels like a balancing act on a tight rope. There’s never any sense of comfort, and there are moments where it seems like it’s going to fall off. Atoms For Peace kind of pull off the balancing act, but they almost hit the ground hard many times.
There are moments that are sonically great. Default is a song that’s grown on me quite a bit. It’s complex, and it’s full of electronic clicks and ominous bass that really make it stick out. But then there’s a lot where things get either monotonous or ugly. The repeated synths on Ingenue are awkward, and Yorke’s singing on the song feels more weak and wimpy than soft and sensitive.
The album’s incredibly sparse, with a whole lot of open space. There are parts where it begins to fill, but most of the time it feels compressed. That gives a lot of the clicks and synths little wiggle room, which makes a lot of things jut kind of…not work. Synths often overwhelm nearly everything else in the mix, save Yorke’s whispers. While his voice is weak, it’s still louder than nearly everything else. While it’s nice to hear Yorke’s whisper every once in a while, there’s no change dynamically at all during all of his vocals. Even the more intense moments maintain an uncomfortable quiet.
Also, there aren’t any songs that really stick out. Sure, there are some albums that have a bunch of songs with equal quality. But this album’s consistent level of quality is relatively mediocre. None of the songs bring much to the table, and after a while each song sounds the same. The first half of the album is somewhat good, but the second half becomes a test of endurance. The songs are complex, but after a while you begin to see the patterns, and the wonder in that complexity begins to wane.
This album really just feels OK. The sonic ideas are somewhat interesting (if inconsistent), but after a while they just get monotonous. Songs just repeat the same patterns. The King of Limbs was a bit monotonous, but at least it kind of felt like the songs grew as they went along. Here, the plant dies in the first two minutes, and then it’s extended for two more verses of the same thing.
Other than Yorke and Producer Godrich, you can’t hear a lot of the efforts of the other band mates. The percussion is nice, but rarely heard. And I could only hear Flea on two or three songs. It really just feels like a Yorke solo album. One that’s really underwhelming.
However, the album isn’t unlistenable. Most of it is pleasant, and there isn’t much that’s terribly offensive. It’s just boring. All of these guys (Save Refosco, who I’ve never heard of before) have done better work before, and this album underwhelms when towered over by all the other projects that proceeded it.
Summary: It sounds nice enough, but Amok suffers from monotony and weak production.
Choice Cuts: Default
2.5/5
Stream Default and Judge Jury and Executioner below. AMOK is out Tuesday (3/26) on XL Recordings.
Vantage Point Music 