Electric! [CTAB60]
4 January, 2013
As you regular readers (ha) know, the ol' Soundscape is slow to latch onto hot new happenings. That's what this blog is really for, anyway - for the things too cold for the high-traffic joints. But these are the bands that rebel against expiration dates - that remain so unnaturally fresh that they could have only been...electrified! OK, that makes no physical sense, and I apologize. But electricity they do share.
Cowtown - Words are clunky things to describe rock with. Especially when said rock…y’know, rocks.
Cowtown are that kind of rock. The kind that sends bodies leaping across the floor. The kind that pumps electric joy into your skull. Yes, it’s so Devo - and that ain’t an insult – but beefier. And, err, not actually devolved.
Good Dudes VS. Bad Dudes! A fight for the ages! Cowtown, of course, are the dudes on the left – the dudes on the right are all the wusses, the dreamy wimps, the somber hipsters, and anyone else who dare contort a pop song past five minutes. It’s a straight, solid border. Light vs. dark. Hot vs. cold. No mystery or intrigue behind Cowtown. Straight lines. All energy. They come, they throw one helluva party, they leave.
“Ski School” is everything that rocked about the new wave – somewheres between Split Endz and The Fixx and Squeeze and…oh, you get the idea. “Night Beats” is that, too, and then some. “Monotone Face” is the wittiest and most Devo-esque, and also the most danceable (note: actually, I haven’t danced to this yet. Will do so in good time). A chick sings on “Animals”, a stop-start stomper, and a zigzag line from Cowtown to Deerhoof (which is still comprised of straight lines, so my first assertion about lines remains true).
If I write any more words, I would do the blokes an injustice. So just crane yr ears to the tune below and GET ENERGIZED. And a bumbling ostrich tells me (little birds are out on vacation) they’ll be teaming up with superstars HHBTM in this lovely new year…
Cowtown are that kind of rock. The kind that sends bodies leaping across the floor. The kind that pumps electric joy into your skull. Yes, it’s so Devo - and that ain’t an insult – but beefier. And, err, not actually devolved.
Good Dudes VS. Bad Dudes! A fight for the ages! Cowtown, of course, are the dudes on the left – the dudes on the right are all the wusses, the dreamy wimps, the somber hipsters, and anyone else who dare contort a pop song past five minutes. It’s a straight, solid border. Light vs. dark. Hot vs. cold. No mystery or intrigue behind Cowtown. Straight lines. All energy. They come, they throw one helluva party, they leave.
“Ski School” is everything that rocked about the new wave – somewheres between Split Endz and The Fixx and Squeeze and…oh, you get the idea. “Night Beats” is that, too, and then some. “Monotone Face” is the wittiest and most Devo-esque, and also the most danceable (note: actually, I haven’t danced to this yet. Will do so in good time). A chick sings on “Animals”, a stop-start stomper, and a zigzag line from Cowtown to Deerhoof (which is still comprised of straight lines, so my first assertion about lines remains true).
If I write any more words, I would do the blokes an injustice. So just crane yr ears to the tune below and GET ENERGIZED. And a bumbling ostrich tells me (little birds are out on vacation) they’ll be teaming up with superstars HHBTM in this lovely new year…
Albert's Basement - My brother got a Casio once for Christmas. It was inevitably his, because he was the one that tried to play proper tunes on pianos. So, for many years, he kept it in his room and worked out little melodies on it, from the Super Mario Bros. theme to that solo in “Jump!”. Being the ever-helpful brother, he’d sit me down in front of the keyboard sometimes and try to teach me a technique or two. But that was always HIS Casio in my mind, and so I never really practiced or even fiddled with the thing.
At any rate, we’d both gather behind the keys sometimes and just muck around with the 100 different tones on it. Car horn cacophonies, alien signal calls, the icy space echo thud of the “pearl drop”, human sounds with impossible vocal ranges…and , most fun of all, percussion noises! With this many aural toys to bang around with, who needed actual melodies?
What a shame that I had no inkling of a clue about synthpop back then. No form of pop should ever be complicated, particularly not on the keys – just think about that banger of a hit, OMD’s “Enola Gay”. If you really wanted to, you could nail the main melody in half an hour.
Albert's Basement know this, especially on their LP S e c r e t V a l l e y. Two seconds into “Streets of Fitzroy”, and I remember those Casio days – it’s a simple oscillation, in the most glaringly synthetic sound possible, but in the context of a song it lends neon color, flying color, the color of the car speeding through neon-lined streets, lights blinking in time. The synthetic trumpet on “You Will Never Be Satisfied” can be played with one finger, but without it the tune would lose its stately sweetness, the paper crimson curtain (velvet’s waaaaay too expensive). Most remarkable, perhaps, is how the little lines in “The Wilted & Unwilted” drift by, and how fine chords like the thinnest sugar icing coat the dusky haze of raging guitar simmering at the pit of the song. How a tune can be so sweet and fiery is beyond me.
But before you mistake Albert’s Basement for a run-of-the-mill basement synthpop band, ya gotten listen to the thudding assault of “Three Is A Tragic Number”, its jackhammer stuttering and snarling cleaving right through the sheeny glitz. Or my fave, the searing undulating moan of “Glitter Lung”.
And THEN, just when you think you’ve pegged Albert’s Basement down, then they break out “Morning Star…”, a sing-along acoustic pop number with a bit of minor melancholy and bluesy swagger – which, in itself, bursts open toward the end. You just can’t hold those kids down, can ya?
So…big thumbs up for you, Albert’s Basement. Way to go for fiddling around with instruments, stringing together sounds, and producing such charming, seething, living tunes. Here’s their album, S e c r e t V a l l e y, below. Download it.
At any rate, we’d both gather behind the keys sometimes and just muck around with the 100 different tones on it. Car horn cacophonies, alien signal calls, the icy space echo thud of the “pearl drop”, human sounds with impossible vocal ranges…and , most fun of all, percussion noises! With this many aural toys to bang around with, who needed actual melodies?
What a shame that I had no inkling of a clue about synthpop back then. No form of pop should ever be complicated, particularly not on the keys – just think about that banger of a hit, OMD’s “Enola Gay”. If you really wanted to, you could nail the main melody in half an hour.
Albert's Basement know this, especially on their LP S e c r e t V a l l e y. Two seconds into “Streets of Fitzroy”, and I remember those Casio days – it’s a simple oscillation, in the most glaringly synthetic sound possible, but in the context of a song it lends neon color, flying color, the color of the car speeding through neon-lined streets, lights blinking in time. The synthetic trumpet on “You Will Never Be Satisfied” can be played with one finger, but without it the tune would lose its stately sweetness, the paper crimson curtain (velvet’s waaaaay too expensive). Most remarkable, perhaps, is how the little lines in “The Wilted & Unwilted” drift by, and how fine chords like the thinnest sugar icing coat the dusky haze of raging guitar simmering at the pit of the song. How a tune can be so sweet and fiery is beyond me.
But before you mistake Albert’s Basement for a run-of-the-mill basement synthpop band, ya gotten listen to the thudding assault of “Three Is A Tragic Number”, its jackhammer stuttering and snarling cleaving right through the sheeny glitz. Or my fave, the searing undulating moan of “Glitter Lung”.
And THEN, just when you think you’ve pegged Albert’s Basement down, then they break out “Morning Star…”, a sing-along acoustic pop number with a bit of minor melancholy and bluesy swagger – which, in itself, bursts open toward the end. You just can’t hold those kids down, can ya?
So…big thumbs up for you, Albert’s Basement. Way to go for fiddling around with instruments, stringing together sounds, and producing such charming, seething, living tunes. Here’s their album, S e c r e t V a l l e y, below. Download it.