Sky Saxon (born Richard Marsh) was a legendary space cadet, fronting the Sixties garage rockers the Seeds, and recently finding an appreciative home here in Austin. He had already been playing with a number of local bands backing him, including Shapes Have Fangs at this year’s Psych Fest. The post from his wife, Sabrina, on her Facebook page offered the following this morning: “Sky has passed over and YaHoWha is waiting for him at the gate. He will soon be home with his Father. I’m so sorry I couldn’t keep him here with us.” We wish we had had the time to welcome him to Austin more fully.

The song is off of the band’s latest, Underneath the Owl, and premiered on Altpress.com. It was directed by JJ Castillo, and we love the live footage capturing the Gamblers in all their flailing glory. They’ll be rolling back home here to Austin on July 15 with a show Antone’s, and then heading over tour Europe. We should also mention that you can download the Gamblers’ cover of Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy” as part of the Purplish Rain tribute over at Spin, so there’s that, too.

Video: Riverboat Gamblers – “Victory Lap”

The Riverboat Gamblers “Victory Lap” (Altpress.com exclusive) from Alternative Press on Vimeo.

Websites:
www.riverboatgamblers.com
Myspace

SpoonX3 Fest:
7/09: Spoon w/ Quasi and Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears
7/10: Spoon w/ Low and Dale Watson
7/11: Spoon w/ Atlas Sound and The Strange Boys

Websites:
www.spoontheband.com
Myspace

Austin Sound: What has prompted your move to NYC, and what are you planning on doing up there?

Chris Rose: Well I’ve always wanted to live in New York, ever since I was a kid. I’ve been planning on going for several years, but just kept delaying it because I love Austin so much. And I needed to finish up my last few credits at school. I’ve done that now, so it just seemed like the right time.

I still plan on DJing some up there, maybe release another album. But the main reason for the move is because I want to pursue television/comedy writing. New York is the only place besides LA you can do that.

AS: You’ve had some pretty crazy and great shows the past few years – what have been some of your favorite Car Stereo (Wars) moments?

CR: Sure. My all time favorite show was Fun Fun Fun Fest 2007. The stage was so cool, it was the perfect time of evening, everyone there was awesome and having a great time, and I had a bunch of my friends on stage dressed as Pirates dancing.

Some of my other favorite shows – going out to Marfa with Ghostland Observatory to play at the ballroom and seeing 70 year old cowboys dancing with 20 something hipsters / playing a tiny club in Madrid, Spain but seeing everyone there loving it / getting added at the last minute to play in a cave with Bill Murray.

AS: What do you have planned for the big blowout Friday?

CR: hmmm. Well I’m really trying to work in the “Top That” rap from Teen Witch somehow. Astronautalis and Neiliyo will be joining me during my set at some point, maybe for a freestyle or something. who knows.

AS: Finally, we’re wondering what’s your plan for keeping it Austin cool up there among the hipsterati of NYC?

CR: Haah. Well, I’m planning on bringing about 10 jars of El Chile salsa with me. And I’m going to try to start up my country night somewhere in Brooklyn. Other than that, I think I’ll just have to figure it out as I go along.

Website:
Myspace

Opener “The Knife” begins with a tinny, even-strummed guitar as Michael Ross’s melodious, clean voice preaches “be who you are/and you can be born again/and again”. An honesty certainly emerges through this song; local listeners will instantly feel at home, with place-names thrown in often and an aimless roadtrip narrative that warms like the Texas sun. “The Interstate 1-0 is an arrow/ running straight through the heart of a Southern Man” Ross croons. Drummer Kyle Ponder taps out strong downbeats that match the meandering demeanor of the song; much of the album’s minimalism comes from the rhythm section, which keeps the album driving and even-paced, with only a flourish or splash of cymbal work or where necessary.

“Delmar Lanes” introduces keys into the mix, and picks up the pace vocally; the choice of inflection and attitude makes one recall Spoon’s Britt Daniel in the early tracks of Gimme Fiction. A clacky, jarring guitar line whines over the calmer piano to nice effect, and the song’s finale gives a chance for Ponder to explore his kit.

Almost every song on the album is endearing, but some are downright nauseating. “Evelynn” tastes too rich, too melodic for easy consumption. The vocals are spot on, well crafted and sweet, but it sounds nursery-esque, like too many of Ben Fold’s odes to his daughters, to be truly memorable. Luckily the edgelessness found in this song doesn’t linger or bleed too much into the other tracks.

“O Lord” is a bluesy spiritual, seeking forgiveness for nondescript loneliness in the City of Music. Geoff Dupree’s bluesy guitar lends the song an air of authentic rusticity, and Drew Emmons picks up the beat with a pleasantly arpeggiated accompaniment that keeps the listener swaying. 50 second “Dead Everyday”, despite being diminutive in length, shows the band at their best. Recalling Elliott Smith’s early Heatmiser work, the song is focused and fun. However, the band’s choice to have it end the album is peculiar, as the more dramatic and introspective “On the Hudson” seems the obvious choice.

“Hudson” combines the best and worst of the band in a single song. The band has been taking notes from Drew Smith’s Lonely Choir, but unfortunately reproduces the pitfalls as well as the successes. The lyrics wander through a loose stream-of-consciousness structure that rarely rhymes, at worst sounding like an off-putting Moldy Peaches B-side. Lines like “all of my roommates are asleep/except for laura who is not home yet/she’s out with her friends” shed their teeming awkwardness on the listener. However, the best, timid, reclusive parts of the song redeem the piece; one can imagine the embarrassed smile of Ross as he stares at a cute companion watching just outside the studio. As he sings how he was “playing handsome molly/on a spinet piano/for faces I will never see again,” it rings ecstatic, not lonely. And really, that’s what pop music is about; reminding us we always have a welcoming compatriot, easily accessible with the hit of a button on the stereo. Jude/Ross’s newest release is far from flawless, but when it embraces its cute everyman-pop sensibilities, the audience can’t help but listen.

Ever since the release of last year’s stunning Rivers Arms, we’ve heralded Balmorhea as one of the best bands in Austin, a reputation even further enhanced with this spring’s third album, All is Wild, All is Silent. The band, now expanded from the original collaboration between Michael Muller and Rob Lowe to a sextet with strings and percussion, infuses a classical elegance to their compositions that drift between ambient folk and controlled, understated post-rock textures. Balmorhea returned just this week from their first European tour, and we took the opportunity to catch up with Muller, who discussed the concept behind All is Wild, All is Silent, an upcoming remix project of the album coming out later this year through local label Western Vinyl, and the band’s next record, which is already recorded. If you have yet to see Balmohea weave their exceptional sound live, the band’s show this Friday, May 22, at Stubb’s is a must. Locals Pompeii and Alex Dupree and the Trapdoor Band open.

Interview: Balmorhea

Austin Sound: Welcome back. How did the European tour go?
Michael Muller: Oh my gosh, it made me never want to tour in America again! [Laughs] They just treat you so well! I mean, we’re not a big band, we’re not that well know, but they would have full meals spread out, put you in nice hotels, cool houses. Everyone was just very excited about music there in a way they are not here. Some people are, of course, but just consistently across the board, almost every night we couldn’t believe it was real. We’ve already made plans to go back in October.

AS: Talking to a lot of roots and country bands, they say how there’s such a much deeper appreciation for their music than they find in the US. Do you feel that the same thing applied to y’all as far as being an instrumental band?
MM: Yeah, it really does. A lot of these places, people are coming just because they see “U.S.” after your name. So a lot of the people didn’t know who we were, but some came to see us just because they thought it sounded interesting. It was really amazing, just because almost every night it was just dead silence throughout the whole set. Around here you get that sometimes, with certain shows if people know you or something, but if you play a show in any sort of bar at all, it’s usually pretty noisy. There, even in bars, we would be talking amongst ourselves on stage and the audience would be laughing because they could hear us. It was just dead silence.

AS: That’s incredible. I can see where that spoiled y’all!
MM: We know that’s not normal and we’re not used to that, so we knew it was a special thing.

AS: Were there any significant highlights that stood out for you?
MM: We had a lot of shows that were near capacity, but probably the only show that was sold out was in this tiny little hilltop village in Eastern Italy near the Adriatic coast, near Bologna. It was a tiny little town with just a few thousand people, but there was this huge nature preserve and this big theater, and they put on this show once a year. It’s such a secluded area that there’s no parking, so everyone parks miles away and walks there on foot, from five year old kids to eighty year old men. It was unbelievable. It was wonderful, and we were sitting there selling cds for like two hours after our set. We sold more that night than we sold in like ten shows in the US.

There were a few bad shows, too. Both of the shows in England were in totally bizarre, non-fitting venues for our music, just like really dirty and grungy dive bars that remind you of Trainspotting or something. [Laughs].

AS: How did you and Rob first get together?
MM: Rob and I both worked at a summer camp years ago. That was when he was in high school, and he came to UT, and shortly after, I moved to Austin and we kind of got reconnected. We realized we kind of had pretty identical taste in what we listened to. It was, I guess, probably around the summer of 2006 that we first started goofing around, and it wasn’t one of those things that we thought about starting a band with, but by December we had a collection of four or five songs and thought we should really do this. So our first self-released album was just a collection of lo-fi home released recordings we made. That’s how it started, just totally organic, totally naturally.

AS: Where are you guys from?
MM: Rob grew up in Midland and I grew up in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area.
AS: What kind of musical backgrounds did y’all have?
MM: Well, Rob kind of grew up with more classical and new age kind of stuff. He was a classical pianist since he was a kid, and I was a too cool, sixth grade kid with an electric guitar trying to figure out punk and hardcore songs. But around ’95 or so when I was still in high school, Mogwai and all these bands like that came out and started to tour, so I really got into that. So we both kind of have an appreciation for classical and experimental instrumental kind of stuff.

AS: That melding of the classical influence and that kind of post-rock instrumental sound really sets y’all apart for me. How would y’all kind of consider your music in relation to a lot of that post-rock stuff, whether you’re talking about Mogwai or Explosions or bands like that?
MM: I don’t know, I can understand that we’re instrumental and our music kind of swells and falls that same way, but I don’t really see any other characteristics than that. In Europe, especially, we got really sick of everytime there was a write up, it always talked about us being a post-rock band, and I guess it’s kind of easy to lump us into that, but I don’t think that’s true.
AS: Sure. There are those elements there, but in my mind y’all are so much more subtle that.
MM: Yeah. This last record had more rock and a harder edge to it, but when I think of our music, I think of more classical mixed with folk.

AS: With each album y’all have expanded the group and sound, like adding the percussion on the last album. Was that kind of specific to each of those albums or is it more of a progression for the band and a sound that y’all are evolving into?
MM: With Rivers Arms, we knew that we wanted to add the strings and we had been collecting field recordings and wanted to incorporate those. With this one we thought we needed something more driving. All the songs were written around this time last year, so it has that kind of spring and summer, bright feel to it, I guess. But we have already recorded our next one and it was all in this past winter, so it’s way more minimal and sparse and there’s only one song with drums.
AS: Yeah, I wanted ask y’all about the next album since I heard y’all had already recorded it.
MM: We don’t know when it’s going to be released. First we’ve had a whole remix album done with All is Wild, All is Silent.
AS: Really? Who’s remixing it?
MM: There’s like eleven different artists, just friends of ours from all over the world. They just picked a track and we sent them the files and they could do whatever they wanted. It’s going to be released on Western Vinyl in August, a double LP, and digital and CD.
AS: Who are some of the people y’all have involved.
MM: Eluvium is probably the biggest name. He’s on Temporary Residence and toured a bunch with Explosions in the Sky, but he’s just kind of an ambient, classical kind of sound. And we have locals Bexar Bexar and Tiny Vipers, who is a good friend of ours and actually sang on two of the tracks on All is Wild, All is Silent. And we have Peter Broderick, who is also a good friend and going to release his next album on Western Vinyl in July, and some other more obscure European ambient and instrumental musicians.

AS: With All is Wild, All is Silent, was that based around the historical journals [of William B. Dewees cited in the liner notes].
MM: Yeah.
AS: How did y’all come to that?
MM: Rob had read a book about Texas history – he’s a history major, and he’s like a true Texan, so he loves anything about Texas history – but he was reading this and just got taken aback by this guy’s journal entries about him leaving his family and coming to this new place. I’m not sure when it was, maybe the mid-1800’s, but he was sitting on the banks of the Colorado looking over it and uttered the words, “All is wild, all is silent,” just this wild landscape that is very frightening, but there’s this beauty and serenity in it, in the quietness. It really just resonated with both of us. We had visited Big Bend, just us to going camping, and we had visited Balmorhea a couple of times and been through there on tour, so it’s just kind of an homage to the early Texans. We kind of had a loose narrative of a fictional story we made up about this character, but it’s also allegorical, just a person going into something they’re not sure of, something that’s huge but also really beautiful, and being blown away by the experience.

AS: Is there a similar concept wrapping around the next album?
MM: Not really. It all kind of has the same feel and is cohesive in the way that it sounds, but there’s not a narrative really. It’s kind of a night time-feeling album. We also had a lot visions of water and being on a ship, kind of. So it’s dark and wintery, but also has a sort of nautical feel. I don’t know, it’s kind of weird.
AS: That’s interesting, your descriptions of the albums are very imagistic. Is it that way for y’all when you’re writing the songs?
MM: Yeah. I think with both of these albums we picked the cover art before the whole album was even finished being written. The next one coming out is a photograph that a friend of ours took, but it was kind of a night time theme.

AS: How does the songwriting actually work between you guys. Has the rest of the band been contributing more?
MM: Definitely. Especially on All is Wild, the string players – not the drums so much, but the string players for sure – had more of a part in writing their own string lines. But predominantly Rob or I will come up with an idea for a song, a couple parts or even just a simple melody line, and we’ll go to rehearsal and kind of flesh it out. Sometimes we have really specific, fully drawn ideas of this is what I want, and we’ll kind of direct that with the string part, but a lot of times we’ll just kind of make up things and get an idea and it’s collaborative. And with the drums, I guess we sort of had an idea. We’re having a hard time keeping a drummer. [Laughs] The drummer we had on All is Wild moved to China right after Christmas, so right now we have two different drummers that are doing different shows.

AS: I was really surprised with how well the drums worked, especially live.
MM: [Laughs] Good! There’s definitely a line between subtly and too much going on.

Websites:
http://balmorheamusic.com
Myspace ]]> http://austinsound.bigdiction.net/2009/06/balmorhea/feed/ 0 http://austinsound.bigdiction.net/2009/06/sad-accordions/ http://austinsound.bigdiction.net/2009/06/sad-accordions/#comments Thu, 25 Jun 2009 00:43:34 +0000 John Michael http://austinsound.bigdiction.net/?p=56 It’s been nearly 4 years since the Sad Accordions offered up their debut album, A Bad Year for the Sharons. That album displayed a slew of talent and promise behind the band’s ability to serve up ballads that carry the understated yearning of Wilco and the epic sweep of U2, as well as high-energy shots of rock ruggedness. Seth Woods, who also performs as the Whiskey Priest, drives impressive emotion and energy behind his vocals, the band’s swirl of guitar and keys ebbing and flowing into his versatile delivery. Now the quintet is planning to return this fall with a new EP, and the new songs that they have shown off recently pack both more power and intricacy, polishing their polar extremes into delicate and haunting folk and slowly crescendoing anthems. There is a fantastic opportunity to catch the Sad Accordions this Friday, June 19, as they play inside at the Mohawk with the Soldier Thread as the nightcap to St. Vincent and Pattern as Movement earlier on the outside stage.

Profile: Sad Accordions

Year Formed:

Ben and Seth moved to Austin together in 2003, with Lee in San Marcos but driving in for practice during the week. Nathaniel joined on drums in the spring of 2004, and we started playing shows.

Members/Instruments played:

Ben Lance – guitar
Lee Kitchens – bass
Joy Gallagher – keyboards and guitar
Nathaniel Gallagher – drums
Seth Woods- vocals and guitar

Former Bands/Side Projects:

Ovenbirds
The Whiskey Priest
Zookeeper
Alex Dupree and The Trapdoor Band
Booher and the Turkeyz
Nelray

Albums:

“A Bad Year for the Sharons” – 2006 (self released)
Upcoming EP – Fall 2009

Influences:

Ok. So Joy really loves Sleater-Kinney and Fugazi. A lot. Also the Cowboy Junkies. Ben’s influences range from Lou Reed and Paul Westerberg to Johny Marr, Thurston Moore, and B.B. King. along with these, Ben and Seth both have an enormous love for all things Radiohead and U2 (we can’t help it! we love those bands!), as well as R.E.M., Guided By Voices, and Yo la Tengo. Seth also really admires David Byrne, Daniel Lanois, and Mark Hollis of Talk, Talk. and he thinks that Kate Bush’s “Hounds of Love” might be the best record he’s ever heard, unless he’s wrong and it’s only second best to Van Morrison’s “Veedon Fleece.” or maybe Midnight Oil’s “Diesel and Dust” (oh, that’s such a good record). Nathaniel’s all time favorite record is “Mercury” by the Prayer Chain, but he also really thinks the Constantines are something quite special. Lee’s deep love of Townes Van Zandt is rivaled only by his admiration for Gillian Welch. Lee also really likes Tool, but he’s kind enough not to remind us of this very often. only when we need it. now that’s love!

Strangest comment or comparison ever made about your music:

Darcie Stevens of the Austin Chronicle once wrote that we sounded like “Slint meets Wilco.” i’m not really sure what that would sound like, unless it’s Lungfish. Lungfish are awesome, but we don’t sound anything like them. also, one of Lee’s friends once told us we sound like TV On The Radio. but they might have just been listening to TV On The Radio and not Sad Accordions. Seth sometimes thinks that our record sounds like the Psychedelic Furs for some reason, though he realizes that that’s probably not true.

Favorite local bands:

Frank Smith, Balmorhea, Loxsly, Broken Gold, Meryll, Zykos, Fivehead, The Midgetmen, Ovenbirds, White Denim, Gadjo Bango, Alex Dupree and the Trapdoor Band

Favorite local venue:

The Carousel Lounge!!!

Upcoming shows scheduled:

June 19 @ the Mohawk (inside after the St. Vincent show)
July 21 @ Stubb’s with Jessica Lea Mayfield

Shows over the next month that you’re excited to see:

Bob Dylan, Sunset Rubdown, John Vanderslice, Magnolia Electric Co.

Some of your favorite albums from the past year:

Ben:
“You and Me” by the Walkmen
“For Emma Forever Ago” by Bon Iver
“Saturdays = Youth” by M83
“með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust” by Sigur Rós

Joy:
“Hometowns” by Rural Alberta Advantage
“Oohs and Aahs” by Say Hi
“Get Better” by Mates of State
“Oracular Spectacular” by MGMT

Seth:
“The Midnight Organ Fight” by Frightened Rabbit
“Tell Tale Signs” by Bob Dylan
“All Is Well” by Sam Amidon
“Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle” by Bill Callahan
“Bitte Orca” by the Dirty Projectors

Nathaniel:
“Visitors” by the Dodos
“Sagarmatha” by the Appleseed Cast

Ideal band (past or present) to open for on a national tour:

playing with Yeasayer would be a lot of fun. or the Dirty Projectors. both of those bands are amazing live, and sound like nothing else to my ears. Shearwater or Okkervil River would also be great, because they’re nice folks, and hometowners, and make beautiful music.

Austin Sound questions:
Who are the Sharons, and why did they have such a bad year?

the sharons are a band that some friends of ours started a few years ago, right around the same time we were beginning to play shows. i know everybody loves playing music and being in bands in austin, but these girls REALLY WANTED it, you know? they breathed it, they bled it, they needed it. and they really made a go of it, too. but they were met with serious set backs on all sides, professionally, critically, at home in their personal lives and relationships and families. but they just kept throwing themselves into the music. we kind of wanted to have this concept album about their lives, their struggle and need to create this music, to find and make beauty out of the pain and shit and confusion. so it’s kind of a record about that desire, that attempt at a good life and good art, despite the set backs.

What’s so sad about your accordions?

my friend Jeremy Terry said once that a Sad Accordion is someone who shows up late to one of our shows, but that’s probably just a really nice thing for a friend to say to another friend. the saddest thing about our accordions is that there aren’t any in the band. how sad is that? though there is one on the record (it’s the first instrument you hear).

Song Introduction:

“The Boy Who Wanted To Build A Bridge (But Got A Wall Instead)” is one instance of some early synergy between different members of the band. Seth had written the song on his own (as was the norm back then, but no longer), and was happy with it, but not really sure if it would fit the band. then late one night in their old shared apartment, he played a four track demo of it for Ben, who sat down with his guitar and came up with the lead line from the second half of the song right on the spot. It was the first instance of real collaberation between two members of the band, and it helped pave the way for all of us to begin sharing ideas and creating new music together. It also features the elusive and beautiful occurance of a vocal part by Joy Gallagher. We love it when that happens!

Sound Off:

I will now attempt to tell the story of Sad Accordions without using any words that contain the letters E or S!

Many long ago, four of boy rock out in room. add bald man and girl. all go to church with all. do many night club. do many land of draught. go do album with wofford. harry vocal boy go on road with un otro harry vocal boy. boy and boy-two do many vocal and camp out for four month. cold. go back again. band do rock out in room again. bald man go and marry a girl, go with that girl to old country. now four boy and a girl try to rock a lot. and you rock at club with band, too, no?

ta-da!

Opener “The Knife” begins with a tinny, even-strummed guitar as Michael Ross’s melodious, clean voice preaches “be who you are/and you can be born again/and again”. An honesty certainly emerges through this song; local listeners will instantly feel at home, with place-names thrown in often and an aimless roadtrip narrative that warms like the Texas sun. “The Interstate 1-0 is an arrow/ running straight through the heart of a Southern Man” Ross croons. Drummer Kyle Ponder taps out strong downbeats that match the meandering demeanor of the song; much of the album’s minimalism comes from the rhythm section, which keeps the album driving and even-paced, with only a flourish or splash of cymbal work or where necessary.

“Delmar Lanes” introduces keys into the mix, and picks up the pace vocally; the choice of inflection and attitude makes one recall Spoon’s Britt Daniel in the early tracks of Gimme Fiction. A clacky, jarring guitar line whines over the calmer piano to nice effect, and the song’s finale gives a chance for Ponder to explore his kit.

Almost every song on the album is endearing, but some are downright nauseating. “Evelynn” tastes too rich, too melodic for easy consumption. The vocals are spot on, well crafted and sweet, but it sounds nursery-esque, like too many of Ben Fold’s odes to his daughters, to be truly memorable. Luckily the edgelessness found in this song doesn’t linger or bleed too much into the other tracks.

“O Lord” is a bluesy spiritual, seeking forgiveness for nondescript loneliness in the City of Music. Geoff Dupree’s bluesy guitar lends the song an air of authentic rusticity, and Drew Emmons picks up the beat with a pleasantly arpeggiated accompaniment that keeps the listener swaying. 50 second “Dead Everyday”, despite being diminutive in length, shows the band at their best. Recalling Elliott Smith’s early Heatmiser work, the song is focused and fun. However, the band’s choice to have it end the album is peculiar, as the more dramatic and introspective “On the Hudson” seems the obvious choice.

“Hudson” combines the best and worst of the band in a single song. The band has been taking notes from Drew Smith’s Lonely Choir, but unfortunately reproduces the pitfalls as well as the successes. The lyrics wander through a loose stream-of-consciousness structure that rarely rhymes, at worst sounding like an off-putting Moldy Peaches B-side. Lines like “all of my roommates are asleep/except for laura who is not home yet/she’s out with her friends” shed their teeming awkwardness on the listener. However, the best, timid, reclusive parts of the song redeem the piece; one can imagine the embarrassed smile of Ross as he stares at a cute companion watching just outside the studio. As he sings how he was “playing handsome molly/on a spinet piano/for faces I will never see again,” it rings ecstatic, not lonely. And really, that’s what pop music is about; reminding us we always have a welcoming compatriot, easily accessible with the hit of a button on the stereo. Jude/Ross’s newest release is far from flawless, but when it embraces its cute everyman-pop sensibilities, the audience can’t help but listen.

Feel good albums are a tricky thing. Every time I put one on, I dig all over it for a couple of listens, and then I feel kind of dirty for listening to something so obviously happy. No matter what’s getting your goat-gears a-grindin’, I can assure you that This is Ivy League will cheer you up, that’s a given. From the introductory cymbal roll of “The Richest Kids” to the fleeting organ vibrato that closes “Don’t Waste Your Love On Me,” the soul of this record is sunny and cheery, like watching a parade go by outside your mid-town hotel room window. But dare you sacrifice your dignity to listen to acoustic pop? Dare you?

We’ll get to that question, but let’s talk about the album first. The band draws from a good number of obvious influences (Belle and Sebastian, Peter Bjorn & John, even Simon & Garfunkle), but still manages to set themselves apart with elegant and tasteful deviations of their own. But Instead of lacing the record with extravagance hoping to find at least one killer synth-line to call “their sound,” This is Ivy League start with acoustic-based pop numbers in their purest form and carefully and effectively add a conservative synthesizer part, a doubled-up guitar solo or a trumpet section. Even when the band break out the guitar hooks, organs and time changes for “Celebration,” nothing stands in the way of the song’s lyrical core – the song ends with a soft acoustic guitar and a line that almost sums up the entire album: “Let’s have a celebration in the middle of the week / if these four walls could speak they’d tell us never to go.”

The album sags some in the back half, especially when the band resort almost entirely to the traditional acoustic pop formula on songs like “Til The Day” and “Modern World.” Sure, both songs have lyrics that can hold up to the rest of the album, but they’re also lacking the charm that makes the other songs so successful. The songs both clearly have their merits, many artists have made careers off singing songs worse than these, but neither are worthy of the same praise for originality as the others.
That being said, the closer saves the entire back half from being a waste of tape. The song, “Don’t Waste Your Love On Me,” hits it off strong with a lead guitar + delay pedal riff and then pushes through to the introductory lyrics: “Please, please, please, don’t waste your love on me.” Romantic? Kitschy? Sentimental? All of the above, but there’s something so nonchalant about the song, and the whole album for that matter, that has me convinced that it’s entirely okay.

All of this brings us back to my original conundrum: do I hide this album under my bed, keep its sunny melodies hidden from my day job as a music snob (”I’m dark and sophisticated! I was the first guy playing Daft Punk to the rock kids! I eat Mahler symphonies for breakfast! Whole!”)? Largely, the answer is “No.” What have we come to if we can’t appreciate good music in its simplest form? This is Ivy League is an album of well written lyrics incorporated into classic acoustic pop songs interspersed with conservative and well placed bits of originality (you know, synthesizers and things). It’s just that simple. It’s just that good.

P.S. The exception to this entire review is “An Introduction,” which is clip of rain, acoustic guitars, and some Ooh’s and Aah’s. In other words, it’s a little sad and totally awesome.

Tunes:

This Is Ivy League – “The Richest Kids”

This Is Ivy League – “London Bridges”

Info:

“The Richest Kids” was featured in our mp3 blog, The Daily Dic, earlier this week.

This is Ivy League is out now on Twenty Seven Records.

Websites
[myspace]

It’s been a big couple of days for music news, what with the Sigur Ros mp3 and album announcement, the great shows coming up in Austin this weekend (Shearwater and Centro-matic/South San Gabriel) which I’ll talk about a little later this week, and then this: new music from the Silver Jews’ upcoming LP Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea

The first thing you’ll note are the lyrical similarities to David Berman’s entire back catalog. The lines “Squirrels imported from Connecticut, just in time for fall / How much fun is a lot more fun? Not much fun at all” lead the song, but more highlights come immediately after: “What’s with all these handsome grandsomes in these rock band magazines? / What have they done with the fat ones, the bald and the goateed?”. I previously mentioned how Rivers Cuomo deals with qualms about rock n’ roll stardom in his own nerd-rock overdrive sort of way; David Berman generally deals with the same themes in a poetic sort of way.

So far as the music is concerned, “Strange Victory”, and the whole album for that matter, is more akin to the straight-forwardness of their last album, Tanglewood Numbers, especially songs like “Animal Shapes”. Berman’s voice continues in its long trajectory towards Johnny Cash, both in baritone lows, and the general “Fuck You” timbre that drives it. The song is short, and leaves you wanting more, like the shot of Bulleit you should have poured before you hit play.

The album leaked a while ago, but you’re still going to want to pick this one up. Nothing beats the feeling of walking home with the new Silver Jews clutched under your arm.

Get the track after the jump.

The Silver Jews – “Strange Victory, Strange Defeat”

Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea is out July 17 on Drag City.

Websites
[official]
[myspace]

Don’t forget, if you’re into these daily mp3’s, subscribe to the Daily Dic. You’ll never have to leave home again!