Review: Jesu – Pale Sketches: Demixed (Ghostly International)

~ Jonah Flicker ~ Leave a comment

Justin Broadrick’s Jesu remix project reviewed for Blurt. Here or below.

In the past, Justin K. Broadrick tore our faces off, delightfully, with his electronic-industrial bands Godflesh and Jesu, among many others. Being pummeled by layers of distorted guitars and machine-gun snare hits never felt so good. Now, Broadrick is revisiting his 2007 Jesu release, Pale Sketches, with a remix album of songs that would sound right at home on an M83 release.

If recent Jesu releases can be considered indicators, the slow, ambient, shoe-gazer sounds of these remixes should come as no surprise to Broadrick’s fans. The melodic ambience of “Can I Go Now (Gone Version)” is just a step away from the mood and tone of his recent work, which happens to sound just as good at 80 bpm as it does at 120 bpm. “Wash It All Away (Cleansed Dub)” would fit in well in a Kruder and Dorfmeister set, as bass rolls in under lightly struck synth chords and a skittering drum beat.

At times the music becomes repetitive and perhaps overly languid, leaving one wishing for an injection of verve, a burst of distorted squalor. But make no mistake, this isn’t exactly VW commercial music. There’s still an edge here, an underlying sinister, creeping dread that Broadrick seems to revel in. And that’s what makes this remix album worth repeated listens.

Review: !!! – Strange Weather, Isn’t It? (Warp)

~ Jonah Flicker ~ Leave a comment

I’m liking the new !!! album. Read my review for Blurt here or below.

!!! has long survived the dance-punk explosion of the early aughts, outlasting many of the band’s flash-in-the-pan contemporaries from those years. Credit its sustainability not to simply mating drum machine programming with stabbing guitars, but cleverly roping the sounds of disco, Sandinista-era Clash, ’90s house, and dub into the mix.

Strange Weather, Isn’t It? is the band’s first album in three years, and was partially recorded in Berlin – although think Love Parade more than Low here. The opening track and first single, “AM/FM,” places loping basslines underneath an acid house synth wave that sounds like a futuristic version of The Smiths’ “How Soon is Now?” “The Most Certain Sure” pops and jerks until spacing out in a haze of dub reverb halfway through. And “Wannagain Wannagain” recalls vintage New Jack Swing, as bright horns pierce the disco beat and vocalist Nic Offer trades off with the melodious Shannon Funchess.

!!!’s latest is sometimes moody, sometimes bubbly, but a fleshed-out and engaging fusion of rock and electronic music the whole way through.

Review: Indian Jewelry – Totaled (We Are Free)

~ Jonah Flicker ~ Leave a comment

Indian Jewelry’s weird new psyche-punk album has some very accessible moments. Read why here or below.

If you listen to Indian Jewelry a few times, then don’t listen for a few months, then prepare to listen again, chances are that you will imagine you are about to embark upon something much weirder, much more esoteric than you actually are. This is a compliment to the band, though, not an insult. The thing about this Houston-based group is that its music alternates between formless and throbbing, as on the new album’s two opening tracks – the kick-drum-pounding, shoegazer “Moonlight” and the droning, tribal “Touching the Roof of the Sun.”

But throughout this supposed dichotomy of sound lie some binding ties; namely, effects ridden keys, guitars, vocals, and bass, and a propensity to meander without ever latching onto a melody. Again, compliment. “Tono Bungay” actually rides upon something close to an electro beat, around which slink simplistic guitar lines reminiscent of early Cure or Movement New Order. At times, the palpitations can be hard to listen to, as is the case on the evil “Parlous Siege and Chapel,” a track that practically spits out lyrics over a sub-bass quivering. Before you reach your breaking point, however, the band embarks upon “Oceans,” their version of pop, another song that recalls early Cure, this time maybe something from Pornography.

If this is the direction all music was heading in, the future would be very dour indeed. But bands like Indian Jewelry peppering the landscape with their experimental and dystopian visions of melody (or lack thereof) is a welcome break from all the rest.

Review: Amp Live – Murder At the Discotek (Om/Child’s Play)

~ Jonah Flicker ~ Leave a comment

Zion I’s Amp Live has a new album out. Read my review for Blurt.

You may have first come across producer Amp Live over a decade ago as one half of the Bay Area hip-hop duo Zion I. At the time, there were certainly indications that he wasn’t content to craft traditional hip-hop beats. Instead, at times he tricked out Zumbi’s rhymes with a smooth background of LTJ  Bukem-style drum and bass. It was clear this producer had club and dance music stylings on his mind as much as hip-hop boom-bap.

Now, on his new solo album Murder At The Dicotek, Amp Live has fully realized those leanings. Although guest MCs including Yak Ballz, Myka Nyne, and The Grouch put in appearances,  the through-line here is slinky club beats and techno and electro sequencing. Tracks like “Blast Off” and “About to Blow” are certified electro-pop anthems, while “Chick Pop” breathes life into dance music via programmed beats and chunky guitar lines. “Hot Right Now” is a classic posse cut, with rappers like Eligh,  Dude Royal, and Fashawn letting loose over a minimal electro beat that would  feel right at home on a Cool Kids record.

Even when Amp Live is staying close to his hip-hop roots, he is pushing the boundaries of the genre and forging his own path. It wouldn’t be surprising if this album causes many a forward-thinking MC to come calling for some new beats.

Good Rappers Who’ve Made Terrible Actors

~ Jonah Flicker ~ Leave a comment

I did this piece on Common’s awful acting efforts in the new film Just Wright for SF Weekly. Already getting some pissy comments, so let me clear two things up: I never said this shit is some original concept I created, it’s been done by a millions mags and blogs, but it fits with the release of this new film. And yes, there are many rappers in Who’s The Man?, but Everlast is especially whack.

Read it here.

Film: Trash Humpers (directed by Harmony Korine)

~ Jonah Flicker ~ Leave a comment

I’m still not quite sure what to make of Harmony Korine’s new feature, Trash Humpers. Read my review for Blurt and watch the trailer below, and you still won’t have any idea. Watch the film when it comes out on May 7, and you might not be any better off.

Harmony Korine‘s new film, Trash Humpers, is either a put-on or performance art, but it’s definitely not a narrative and it’s dubious as to whether there’s even any meaning to the film, such as it is. That is not to say it is without value, I suppose, but it’s sure to divide evenly between admirers and haters. So sure, that perhaps it’s almost too easy to dismiss this bizarre new feature from the one-time Werner Herzog protégé. There is no doubt that Korine knew what he was up to.

The director summed it up quite succinctly in the press release: “A film unearthed from the buried landscape of the American nightmare, Trash Humpers follows a small group of elderly ‘peeping Toms’ through the shadows and margins of an unfamiliar world.” In layman’s terms, that means a couple of guys and one girl, including Korine himself (who is behind the camera most of the time), dressed up as old people and humping trash, screeching, destroying shit, and talking and singing nonsense.

The film is shot in the style of an old VHS tape, often falling out of tracking and occasionally superimposing “rewind” or “pause” over the images. The visual quality, the summertime Nashville at night setting, and the burn-victim makeup of the main characters bring The Texas Chainsaw Massacre to mind, as these old, pervy Leatherfaces go about their business. John Waters, Herzog’s Heart of Glass,Jackass, and Lars Von Trier’s The Idiots also seem to be points of reference.

It’s hard to imagine that this film would even be under discussion if Korine did not make it, whose hipster cred and provocative reputation are both his blessing and his bane. Amidst all the simultaneously repellant and hypnotic images of humping trash cans, destroying baby dolls, and eating pancakes covered with dish soap lies a deeper meaning. Maybe. Maybe Trash Humpers is a statement on the destructive nature of American society, our tendency to waste pretty much everything, the white trash Southern Gothic, and the decaying wasteland of suburban heartland America. Then again, maybe it’s just a piece of trash.