Oui, Mouton – Hindsight

Portland, I have the album in my hands you will all be listening to very soon. The band is named Oui, Mouton and they’ve got just the right amount of ingredients to make a sweet, melodic, yet upbeat record. The band sent along a “cassingle” which is just as it sounds – a release on cassette. So,I guess now I should justify all the kind stuff I said about the band.

The first track “hindsight” reminds me of “Oh, Inverted world” by the shins mixed with the vocals of Jenny Lewis. What strikes me about it is the vocal harmonies and countering bassline. There is a transitional section with the vocals and a lone guitar descending pattern which leads back into the first section. The song eventually gets a little louder and and a good capitalization on the song. The second track “Sovereign Whispers” features an acoustic guitar melody that sounds like it was recorded on vinyl and played back on a record player that doesn’t quiet play things at the same speed. “Push back fall” varies from the others with its upbeat drum boom chuck, boom boom chuck rhythm and an organ of some sort. I really like the lyrics “…lets shed our clothes without shame, … a salty breeze might push back fall.” Being from the Puget Sound I can totally relate to that last summer day and swimming knowing its going to be the last. The last track on the cassette is probably the most rocking of them all with a faster rhythm and a distorted guitar, but it doesn’t get dissonant and remains true to their folk pop sound.

Oui, mouton has created a very fluid record that has a definite progression in mood from a slower harmonized beginning to a lounder finale which leaves me wanting more. Their sound takes pieces of things current in the spectrum of indie rock and blends them into some very new and refreshing.

Oui, Mouton Links

Oui, Mouton myspace

…worms – self titled

This is one of those bands around town that I have heard a lot about but never heard them. Marriage Records was nice enough to send along their new disc, which I am assuming is ripped from vinyl because the track-listing includes both sides A and B. …Worms has that schizophrenic rock thing going really well. Bands like Drive Like Jehu, Shellac and early Blood Brothers come to mind.
One thing is for sure – these guys kick a lot of ass. Like most bands I am sure their live show is incredible and this album captures a live sound well. When listening to the disc it is a bit hard to get into the songs because none of them are more than 2:30 long, but each has its own identity. The album opener “track 1″ is a distorted collage of sound which eventually makes sense towards the end and leads into a more coherent “track 2″. Other tracks I really like “track 4″ which features a great rhythm played on a tightly tuned snare drum and blends into a sonic barrage of guitars and and volume. “track 5″ sounds like a song straight from Shellac’s 1000 Hurts record.
…Worms doesn’t really have too unique of a sound to listen to without comparison (which I’ve done enough of already), but their music has tons of dynamics and contrast. One example of this is “track 7″ which is a total turn from the rock stuff to a mellow reverbed out guitar song which includes the lyrics “…such a pretty face, I want to kick it in like a deflated basketball”, which is fitting because if they said something else, I wouldn’t believe it.
I have to say that although the music is real good and up my alley, the vocals are a bit over the top in the squeaky, screechy, yelling category. The album could be the soundtrack to a very drunken night of shifting between their show and heckling all the people who go to Barracuda.

…Worms Links
…Worms at Marriage Records

Weather Exposed Skeleton Music – Jerusalem

So I’ve been doing reviews for a little while now on this site and get emails from bands all the time about reviewing their album. I’m always down to review anyone in town whether it’s a basement recording of some high schoolers making noise or a band with an actual budget putting out a record, but I always request a bio of some sort to find out more about them. I got an email from Weather Exposed Skeleton Music a while ago and I mentioned I needed a bio of some sort, written in crayon or whatever and just a burned copy of a CD. You know what I got? Exactly what I asked for, and that is extremely rad.
Weather Exposed Skeleton Music is composer/musician Jason Gray and the music is pretty far out there. It sounds like a wash of synth strings on top of synth cello with no direction. I’m not sure how to critique this album so here is my take:
You are in an airplane going to Mongolia when suddenly your plane goes down. It’s a small airplane so you got to know everyone on board over the last few hours and now you are all crashing together in a united panic. You crash and only yourself and one other person survive. You escape the flames but have a broken arm and leg. It’s now dark and you need food. You don’t find any. Your friend dies. You lie there in the snow for a few days and then you die. 20 years later a group of monks walk by and play a song on for you in a very non-chant respectful, peaceful way. They leave the bones there but they go on to record a memorial called “Weather Exposed Skeleton Music.”
Granted that was a bit darker than the actual music of the album but you get the idea. It’s a pretty well done high in mood album with the best press kit I’ve seen.

Weather Exposed Skeleton Music Links
WESM Myspace

Gejius – Black Eyes

The first thing that strikes me about the Gejius album is how well it is put together. The packaging is a gorgeous Digipak, which is the new trend for good reason. Not only is there full color artwork but the inside cover includes the different technologies used to make the album. For any music/production nerd like myself this is a nice addition. On to the music…
I can’t quite put my finger on who Gejius reminds me of but the electronic bleeps and darkness of Aphex Twin and the drum samples of DJ Shadow come to mind. I like the way he mixes the electronic effects and live guitars to create a deep and live sounding album. Compositionally Gejius is all over the place, in a good way. There are some real strong areas of counterpoint and use of timbres like the synth string introduction of “ In Search of Moby Dick.” I can tell he studied music at some point and the inside of the CD thanks “Berklee & their professors who gave me what I needed,” which make sense. “Osmosis” is very strong in the same area and is an absolutely great demonstration of how good of a progressive musician he is.
Another aspect of the music I really like is the use of percussion. At times it is deep and gives the music a definite pulse and other times like on the song “the North Star” he uses it more as a background texture. The rest of the instruments seem to wander freely most of the time so it is nice to have the drum samples to fall back on. I can’t really tell whether he recorded them live or if they were bundled with Live but they sound so good.
Overall I think the album is very creative and well thought out but there are a few times where the tracks don’t flow too well from one to the other. I’m not sure if Gejius plays the same material live but I would really like to see how performs it. The album is split between the classical instrumental influence music and the straight forward dance music which is a great mixture but if they were separated into two different albums I think each would stand out on their own better. But what Gejius has here is an album pretty ahead of the times and one most musicians wish they could create.

Gejius Links
Gejius Myspace

Yacht – I believe in you. Your magic is real.

 

Jona Bechtolt (aka Yacht, part of the Blow) is getting a ton of praise for the new Yacht album I Believe in you. Your magic is real. I don’t want to be that review guy who says that it sucks because it’s cool to say things suck if other people like it… but honestly, I don’t know what to think about it. There are some pretty cool compositions and use of instruments which lead to big, powerful songs, like the track “If music could cure all that ails you”. But on the other hand there are some really cheesy attempts at dance music like the Night Rider themed track “See a Penny (Pick it up)”, and the cheerleading shouts in “We’re always waiting.” It is kind of like he wrote half the album for high school dances and the other half for people like me who are looking for a new, creative use of electronic instruments.

Yacht is very consistent throughout the album with the midi voices he chooses and a chorus hook that is almost always spoken multiple times. For my weekday job, I do work study at a college campus and mess around with Garageband because there is nothing else to do and I noticed a lot of the same samples. It’s a great program with lots of cool sounds, but personally I don’t think I could write a tune with them and not do any alterations to the tones. But I guess that’s beside the point.

One of the strongest tracks on the album is “Drawing in the Dark” which offers a creative use of a film reel sample and is accompanied by multiple voices, then progresses to a Screw type vocal alteration with a dance beat background. The following track “It’s coming to get you” is a pretty upbeat standard pop tune that actually sounds like a song. It is songs like this that make the Yacht album accessible to people outside the dance party scene. Another highlight is the track “I believe in you,” which a nice song with a bunch of rhetorical questions and guitar.

I think there are some real strong points to the album as well as some very weak spots. It is easily one of those albums that you would hear once and never think to pick up again. Sincerely, I think that if he focused on the more melodic parts of the songs and developed the songs into something stronger with a definite center, it wouldn’t be one of those albums. It just seems to lack that special something that allows the listener to make a connection to it. (Unless you are one of the zillion people he thanks personally on track “Your magic is real.”)

Yacht – I believe in you. Your magic is real.
2007 – Marriage Records

Yacht Links
Yacht Homepage
Yacht Myspace

Catfight! – 3 song demo

 

There is this band from around here called Catfight! Ever heard of them? No me neither… but I’m sure everyone will soon. The band is just infectious. I mean, they have all the right hooks to sing along to, the gritty White Stripes-y guitar, and their tracks are produced so damn well. I am totally surprised these guys (and gals) aren’t playing way bigger shows. Wait… they opened for Bloodhound Gang and Goldfinger… what??

The band sent me a sampler of three songs from one of their albums and they seem to just breeze by meriting a few repeats. There is an obvious influence of Dandy Warhols and White Stripes, but they are different in a way. For one, their harmonies are tight and the production is much cleaner, really making the music approachable. They have that guy/girl vocal thing going and it works well.

The names of the songs were not included with the CD and my pop-up internet song finder thing says Elvis Presley, but the third song on the disc has the lyrics “My candy cane”. That song is probably the best of the three, featuring a synth line beneath subdued vocals, and then exploding with the candy sweet chorus. It really reminds me of those Warhol guys.

The second track has a killer guitar harmony and the singer shouts “Getting ready for the weekend, getting ready for the summer, getting ready for the show,” which I imagine people will probably do when the band finally breaks.

I mentioned it before, but the production of the disc is absolutely great. They enrolled Jason Robbins (Lenny Kravitz, Ben Harper) as engineer, so I guess that will explain it. Everything sounds so clear while maintaining the dirty sound they are going for. The vocals especially benefit from this.

I’m going to go out on a limb and give these guys less than a year before they make it big-time (in Portland standards). They’ve got something super great.

Catfight! Links
Catfight! Myspace