“Made of chicken liver parts.”

Polly Jean Harvey and John Parish have been collaborating in the recording studio for the better part 20 years, initially with Harvey adding guitar and vocals to Parish’s band, Automatic Dlamini, in the late eighties, and later with Parish performing on and producing many of Harvey’s solo albums. A Woman A Man Walked By is the second duo album recorded by the pair - the first being 1996’s Dance Hall At Louse Point - in which Harvey writes and sings all of the vocals while Parish writes all of the music.

The album’s opening track and first single, “Black Hearted Love,” gets things started in the best possible way - with a dark celebration of a miscreant eroticism (a familiar lyrical theme for fans of PJ Harvey). Parish’s grungy guitar lines move the song forward, establishing an early sense of anxiety, as Harvey’s delayed vocals come in to add some suspense: I think I saw you in the shadows / I move in closer beneath your windows / who would suspect me of this rapture?.  Also, the video, like most PJ Harvey videos, is equally sensual, creepy, and awesome.

A good chunk of the album could be summarized aptly as a series of nightmarish folk tales and soured love songs.  ”Sixteen, Fifteen, Fourteen” is a driving, layered banjo composition with a horrifying narration of a hide-and-go-seek game in the woods gone wrong.  ”The Soldier,” in which Harvey’s narrator imagines a dream and seemingly shifts between the nightmare and a desolate reality, is similarly composed on the banjo, and backed by a ringing saloon piano.

“Leaving California” and “The Chair” are a pair of lost-love songs paired together on the front-half of the album, with dissimilar relationships to love and place.  In “Leaving California,” the narrator decides once and for all that she’s leaving whoever she followed there, but spends most of her time saying goodbye to the state itself - asking it for some shade, and inquiring “How could I believe that I could live and breath in you?” instead of saying her piece to the person she appears to be leaving behind.  In “The Chair” a damaged matron is bereft when her son can’t be found sitting in his favorite chair.  The layered vocals build as another saloon-style piano bit drunkenly fuses with the rest of the composition, and the narrator recalls a menacing, dire story of her son “washed away in the water.”

“A Woman A Man Walked By/ The Crow Knows Where All The Little Children Go” and “Pig Will Not” mix up the album’s predominantly possessed and somber tone with something more vibrantly angry.  ”A Woman A Man Walked By” is memorable for Parish’s initial punk-acoustic riff and for Harvey’s playful bitterness and rage, which culminate with her growling “I want your fucking ass,” before the instrumental “The Crow Knows Where All The Little Children Go” gives Parish a turn to explore similar sentiments.  ”Pig Will Not” is essentially the ultimate rejection.  Defiant, loud, and straight bumptious, the raucity continues until the yelping and noise is unceremoniously shoved to the rear and the saloon-piano diligently returns, which seems pretty mature.

And with that, “Passionless, Pointless” mourns the night a stubborn argument (developing into some notorious back-turning, wall-facing, and brooding) allows you to see when an intimate relationship is totally fucked, and wonder “how did we ever?”  The finale, “Cracks In The Canvas,” is a speak-sing, organ-drone in which the now body-less narrator, perhaps performing the funeral she never got, brusquely tells the big something out there “I’m looking for an answer / need a million of those” and requests “Dear god, you’d better not let me down this time,” before it all ends.

The Builders and the Butchers are a little Portland outfit that is slowly coming to the attention of mainstream fringe indie music aficionados.  It’s hard to classify what they do as their thematic inspiration appears to come from a West Pennsylvania coal mining town in the ’30s, but I prefer to think of their music as acoustic indie power pop, infused with a little Appalachian Spirit. Whatever genre you want to classify them, they’ve got a good beat, and a frenetic live show.  I had the pleasure of seeing them at last year’s Noise Pop Festival and look forward to what they’ve put together since then—and hope they revisit my old favorites—at this year’s Sasquatch Music Festival.  To get an understanding of the band, you need to see them on stage. Their arrangement: One Bassist, Acoustic; One Guitarist, Acoustic; One Multi-Instrumentalist (Playing Mandolin, Banjo, or whatever random stringed instrument is required); and Two Drummers playing a drum kit as if they had forgotten to bolt it together and strewn it across the floor, hitting it with whatever percussive tools are within arms reach.  With that setup, you get this:

Bottom Of The Lake (Cleaner Audio)

Given what most bands do with acoustic guitar—use it as a break from energetic pacing, usually presented as a B side—The Builders and the Butchers have managed to take the euphonic nature of acoustic music and permeated it with the unadulterated power of rock. Check out their myspace to see where they’ll be next, if you’re so inclined: http://www.myspace.com/thebuildersandthebutchers

We have new friends and lovers. Check them out to the right. Of particular note:

KZSU 90.1 FM - The mother ship. Listen live at kzsu.stanford.edu.

Never Learned to Swim - The North Cali music blog of our buddy Pra.

The Bathysphere - Some crazy kids in Columbia, Missouri.

So, Valentines Day is over. But that doesn’t mean romance is dead! Keep it alive with these ideas, originally published in The Stanford Daily.

Remember that post-break up montage in “Say Anything”? The one with John Cusak playing a really bad 80’s song on a really big 80’s boombox? The scene where he wins back his ex-girlfriend through the power of music?

Well, this Valentine’s Day, you too can put music to use in your love life: make a romantic mixtape!

Mixtapes are the perfect gift: they’re thoughtful, neatly encapsulate emotions and memories, and they’re super cheap.

Here, then, are song suggestions to get you started on making mixtapes for your special beau:

Playlist Suggestionss #1: “I’m Dating a Hipster”

Don’t expect to get a romantic rise out of your hipster beau this Valentine’s Day - excitement and pleasure are just not that cool.

You can expect, however, to soften their American Apparel-clad heart through the power of obscure bands. Burn these particular tracks onto a CD and you may just end up fogging up your hipster lover’s ironic nerd glasses this weekend.

1)      “Paris” by Friendly Fires – This tune gets the love party started. This British band stitches indie pop hooks to dance-floor beats. “One day, we’re going to live in Paris/I promise/I’m on it . . .” they sing to a lover. Perfect mix of yearning, optimism, with a touch of uncertainty.

2)      “Beat Health Life and Fire” by Thao with The Get Down Stay Down – This song shuffles along with acoustic guitars and some understated electric guitar. The mood is bitter-sweet. Indeed, the narrator is worried that his love may be one-sided. Regardless, the song exudes the warmth of the narrator’s feelings.

3)       “Oviedo” by Blind Pilot – This Portland band is on the verge of getting big, so you have to make use of their music while they’re still relatively unknown. This tune channels fragile longing through some shakers and guitar and lyrics about bars.

Playlist Suggestions #2 “I’m dating a Generation X-er”

So, you’re dating somebody in their 30’s. If you’re an undergraduate, that’s kind of weird. But- hey- the heart wants what it wants. So I’m told.

Anyway, Generation X came of age in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, so their particularly perfect mixtape should include a healthy dose of grunge, sultry R&B, Melissa Ethridge, and these tracks:

1)      “Black Gold” by Soul Asylum – To be honest, I’m not sure what’s going with this song. It’s like John Mellencamp and Nirvana combined with the worst band in the world. Moreover, there is some political message buried inside of its distorted guitars – oil is bad, the first President Bush is really mean, O.J. is innocent, or something like that.

2)      “On Bended Knee” by Boyz ii Men – Ah, Boyz ii Men, the staple band of cheesy weddings and awkward middle school dances. Through this track on the stereo, and your Gen X partner will be transformed back to the 1993 Prom, minus parachute pants and fades.

3)      “Only One Road” by Celine Dion – This 1994 song is a tearjerker. It’s all about memories, standing tall, and Celine Dion’s diva stage moves. Nodody goes big like Celine.

Playlist #3 Suggestions: Dating an Emo Kid

Sure, the genre and trend of emo is almost dead - but its decades-long catalogue of songs is alive and kicking!

If for some reason you are dating an emo kid, tell them to latch on to a new trend. If that doesn’t work however, then you should make this mixtape for Valentine’s Day to cheer them up: 

1)      “Vampires Will Never Hurt You” by My Chemical Romance – Now that is a first class Valentine’s Day promise. Who wants to be hurt by vampires? Nobody, except maybe Twilight fans. Show your undying allegiance through this classic emo tune.

2)      “Deep Than Inside” by Rites of Spring – This band basically invented emo in the 1980’s. Harkin back to the slashing guitars and face-melting screams of the emo golden age through Rites of Spring.

3)      “Great Romances of the 20^th Century” by Taking Back Sunday – This song starts off with a spoken word intro about how “a beautiful can make you dizzy.” So true.

Playlist #4: “I’m Dating Somebody that Dances all the time”

If your special person just cannot stop dancing, then run the risk of dehydration and exhaustion and should seek medical help immediately.

In the meantime, help them groove through the power of pop:

1)      “Just Dance” by Lady Gaga – This is probably the life motto of your lover. This song will speak to them with lyrics: “Wish I could I shut my playboy mouth.”

2)      “I’m Blue” by Eiffel 65 – The best Euro-pop one hit wonder of the 1990’s. That’s high praise.

3)      “All the Single Ladies” by Beyonce/Sasha Fierce – If you lover is really a dancer, then they should have memorized the dance to “Single Ladies.” Even little girls on YouTube know those moves. Sure, the song is about a breakup, but you’re partner will hear the stuttered bassline.

Founded by a pair of graduates of the College of William and Mary (a beautiful, leafy little campus out in the middle of nowheresville, Virginia), this band just recently relocated to San Francisco and has been picking up major buzz. 

In January, the band released a full-length album, “We Brave Bee Stings and All” on the Kill Rock Stars label. The album features acoustic, twee-like pop tunes that have a level of sophistication and wit that tempers the cuteness. Most tunes, like “Swimming Pools,” shuffle along with a low-key drum beat, lo-fi guitar, and lazy bass line. Among the disheveled bursts of noise, however, is a distinctive dash of
feistiness.

This feistier side seems to come from the lead singer, guitarist, and public face of the band, Thao Nguyen. A stylish Vietnamese 23-year old, Thao grew up in suburban Virginia with a single mom. She would practice her tunes at the laundromat where he mom worked. Her vocals have a rich, understated quality similar to Cat Power and, yes, Feist.

The band will be performing at the Noise Pop Festival in San Francisco on 2/26 at the Swedish American Musical Hall.

Here is the video to their single, “Swimming Pool”:

DISCLAIMER:  My first post has been inspired by tonight’s events, I’m just gettin’ silly. But after this, be prepared for some legitimate news on underground and independent hip hop. I will soon expand your indie horizons to the world of crunk, codeine and crip walking.

With “Thug Life” tatted on my knuckes (written in pen…), I entered a venue with some serious-ass Gs, getting patted down for weapons, sporting fitteds and custom made grillz. I’m a white girl, but I’m down, and this… this was legit. Waiting outside amidst the masses of blunt-smokin’, slow-rollin’ homies,  we witnessed the first expulsion of the night: bouncer to drunk girl– “Go be a ho outside!” I knew this would be a good night.

Fool, I felt like the wait was an eternity, but we were gettin’ slow and Z-ro finally made his appearance around 1:45 am, wearing a custom-made “I HATE YOU BITCH” t-shirt (based on his trademark song) and holding a bottle of gatorade full of codeine.  Throughout the show, he maintained the “f-ck all y’all” attitude while flowing on some tight old school tracks, including “Mo City Don,” “From the South,” “That’s Who  I Am,” and (of course) “I Hate You Bitch.” I meditate to that song every morning to start my day. No lies.

To anyone who hates on this entry, I don’t give a f—.

I’ll be more legit next time around. One love.

\”I Hate You Bitch\” by Z-RO

I got the chance to meet Bradford Cox, of Deerhunter fame, touring as Atlas Sound, right after he released his first solo album, Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel. He rolled up to our co-op in a big dusty van, got out, set himself and his laptop up on the front steps, and asked us all to watch as Hannibal prepared to chop off Jodie Foster’s finger. Sitting there, rattling off trivia, Cox struck me as that really bright kid who you knew in middle school, who had an encyclopedic knowledge of everything he had encountered that he considered interesting.

Bradford Cox imparting us with movie trivia and indie cred

I recently got the chance to listen to Microcastle, Deerhunter’s 3rd full-length album. Like many of their previous albums, Microcastle is a collection of interesting sounds that Cox and friends decided to show the world. But don’t be mistaken–it’s no disjointed experimental work, and many songs are immediately accessible. Dreamy guitars, reverberating vocals, and echoing chimes all fit in nicely with even the poppiest songs on the album. The band has an impressive sonic vocabulary, so you never get the impression that they’re compromising the flow of a song to insert something that sounds cool. At times it’s down-tempo, free-form, and expansive, encompassing broad sonic space, but at other times it becomes up-tempo, sprinkled with pop hooks. Click play below to hear a song of the latter variety.

Deerhunter - Agoraphobia

    I’m just going to put this out there: Doves are highly underrated. Thus far they have produced a good album (Lost Souls), a classic album (The Last Broadcast), and one very good album (Some Cities).

The band is essentially a holdover from the Britpop glory days of the 1990’s, emerging around the same times as Coldplay. Not coincidentally, their sound aims for similar pop terrain, albeit a more complex, studio-based version of Chris Martin and company. Songs like “There Goes the Fear” and “Black and White Town” have been nothing short of pop brilliance. 

Their latest track “Jetstream,” however, is a mixed success. The song begins with a rich, swirling atmosphere. So far, so good. Soon the click of drums kick in and the song builds tension. 

. . . To what? A minute build-up pays off, ultimately, with a slight tempo change, a bit more drums, a bad guitar solo and not much else. Where it should soar, it stumbles. Where its hook should be, there is an extended one-word croon. From there, it floats around in pop no man’s land, puntuated occasionally by a Devo-style crack of the whip. The tension stays at a medium plod. It lacks the crackle of an anthem, but its parts are too well-defined to serve as only as an atmospheric piece. 

Even so, a mediocre Doves track is better than most tunes. I am just hoping their album has a little more fire in its belly than this first single. 

Jetstream by Doves

Pressure Cooker fans, fear not!!!! We are back. For real.

 Sorry to be gone so long. Life just sort of got in the way.

2007 saw the release of Explosions in the Sky’s latest work, “All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone.”  Many may scoff at the post-rock genre as being a lazier, more pretentious incarnation of prog produced for people who didn’t realize that you can in fact write rock pieces in odd meters and that they’ve been doing it for decades.  I only partly agree with this statement, but assert that post-rock is more about painting a soundscape to which the ear and mind delight while flying through.  Moreover “All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone” is an album which can very easily toy with your emotions as it explores motifs of sadness, joy in dulcet tones.

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