Washed Out: High Times EP [2009]

Washed Out, the stage name of Ernest Greene, seems to be a pretty well-chosen moniker for an artist who songs radiate an echoey, spacey aura, full of home-studio fuzz and (presumably) deliberately low-fidelity sonics. Washed Out has been labeled "chillwave", a nebulous and generally unhelpful term which seems to denote young artists working at home on their laptops who produce low budget, ambient pop with 80s electropop melodies and rhythms. Despite the silly label, there is certainly an aspect of Washed Out's sound that lends itself to chilling out: there is nothing violent or antagonistic in Greene's music, to be sure.

His most recent effort is a brief EP released, appropriately enough, only on cassette. The cassette, with its limited sonic range, is suited to Greene's hazy sound, not to mention his apparently modest ambitions. While the nine tracks on this EP are largely brief and instrumental, they have the lo-fi glow of the 80s all over them, and sound like demos and experiments, which they probably are. If you liked the highly enjoyable Life Of Leisure EP (which I wrote about here), you'll probably enjoy this one too. Get it here.

From Washed Out's High Times EP, here's "Belong":

Note: Also look for Washed Out's beautiful Adult Swim Singles Project track "You And I".

Idling & Moving: Jeff Lynne Pre-E.L.O.

The Electric Light Orchestra were responsible for some of the best radio hits of the 70s: "Evil Woman", "Strange Magic", "Livin' Thing", and a host of others which combined Beatles melodicism with smooth 70s strings and over-the-top production which vied with the Bee Gees, Queen, ABBA, and Supertramp for decadently-produced-yet-accessible pop. But ELO always came off as a unit, a pop orchestra rather than a star showcase, and so for many, ELO leader Jeff Lynne was the guy in the Traveling Wilburys who wasn't immediately recognizable. But while it's hard to call him an equal of Roy Orbison or Bob Dylan or George Harrison, he certainly has made his mark on popular music. Before ELO, he was in two celebrated though little-known (in the U.S.) groups, both of which anticipate his later ELO glory, and which are the subject of this post.

The Idle Race (who were from Birmingham) issued only a few albums in the late 60s, but never had any success in the U.S., possibly due to their unmistakable Englishness, which often limits otherwise excellent UK-based bands from catching on in the States, where British pop has often been the stuff of cultists. Their first record, The Birthday Party, was released in 1968 and, with its brief, witty, catchy songs, comes highly recommended to fans of mid-period Beatles and the Kinks' Village Green Preservation Society.

Here's "Lucky Man" by the Idle Race:

Lynne left the Idle Race in 1970 to join fellow Birmingham group The Move, which was led by eccentric guitar wizard Roy Wood and had had a string of zippy hits in the UK. Unfortunately, the Move failed to deliver on the promise of their early power-Mod hits, and followed their excellent self-titled 1968 debut with a couple of loud, prog-ish, and ultimately unfocused LPs. Lynne and Wood started to plot a new group, to be called the Electric Light Orchestra, which would expand the sound of rock to include classical motifs and instrumentation, not unlike some the Beatles' more elaborate creations. In the meantime, though, they still owed their record company some Move product. The final Move LP, Message From The Country, from 1971, is something of a stylistic mish-mash, but has many excellent moments, the best of which look forward to the best work of ELO. Lynne and Wood would only make one ELO album together, after which Wood departed to start his own group. But the ELO ball was rolling, and Lynne would go on to pop Xanadu.

From Message From The Country, here's the gorgeous, sweet-and-sour "No Time":

Preview: Destroyer, "Archer On The Beach EP" [due 11-2-10]

For the second year in a row, the inimitable Destroyer will release a vinyl-only ambient techno EP, this time in collaboration with Tim Hecker and Loscil. What it will sound like is uncertain, but if last year's astounding Bay Of Pigs is any index, then we are in for another wonky, interstellar ride with cryptic lyrics. Ever since featuring a 23-minute ambient remix (by the same Loscil) on side four of the vinyl edition of Rubies (my favorite favorite record, ever), Destroyer overlord Dan Bejar has proven his willingness to escape from any stylistic foxholes. He has recorded extremely low-fidelity bedroom pop, neo-glam rock overtures, fake symphonic torch ballads, folky reveries, and now seems to be heading further into the realm of synthetic soundscapes with half-sung poetic manifestos. His lyrics are so far away from what you would expect from ambient music, so unabashedly non-techno, that their presence in the electronic wash of sound is akin to slapping mustard and ketchup on a glossy sphere of translucent gelatin (example: the lyrics to the 14-minute track "Bay Of Pigs", the backing track of which could pass for a futuristic movie soundtrack, begin "Listen, I've been drinking..."). I hope Bejar will still make full-length LPs in the future; until then, I'll happily take these ambient postcards from the edge. Preorder here from the good folks at Merge, and do it fast—only 1,000 will be pressed up.

For those who missed it, here's "Bay Of Pigs" from 2009:

Battle of the Bobs: Seger Does Dylan

My brother and I have a small obsession with Bob Seger. More specifically, with the track "Night Moves", a phrase tatooed on at least one Portland, Oregon bartender, whom we were naturally forced to nickname Night Moves. When or why Night Moves got his ink is unknown, but I imagine there's a pretty kickass and utterly rock-n'roll explanation behind it. I am guessing that Michigan is somehow involved. For us, growing up in Ohio in the 80s, Seger (not to mention his heartland demographic peers John Cougar, Bruce Springsteen, Eddie Money, and the hapless Michael Stanley) was a huge presence on the radio, the Voice of the Rust Belt, always ready with a wistful mid-tempo stroll down memory lane. Unfortunately, the midtempo Seger eclipsed the younger, Detroit rock city Seger of rock'n'roll lore. Before he was crooning "Main Street", "Still The Same", "Like A Rock", or "Against The Wind", Bob Seger was a fiery rock'n'roller, a peer of Detroit legends like the MC5 and the Amboy Dukes. His mid-to-late 70s rock songs ("Katmandu", "Rock And Roll Never Forgets", "Hollywood Nights", the cranky "Old Time Rock And Roll") always seemed strained to me. A famous bootleg called Michigan Nuggets sets the record straight, featuring several of Seger's hard-to-find late 60s shredders. Here's "Persecution Smith", a 1966 single by Bob Seger & The Last Heard. It's a pretty blatant ripoff, both sonically and lyrically, of Bringing It All Back Home/Highway 61 Revisited-era Dylan, but it rocks hard (especially the guitar), and serves as a dose of real old time rock'n'roll.

Bob Seger & The Last Heard, "Persecution Smith":

The Drone Zone: Them, "Square Room"

Most people who have heard of the band Them at all know it as Van Morrison's early band, which he left in 1966 to pursue a solo career. As one of rock's all-time great vocalists, Van Morrison would go on to much greater success, leaving behind his early garage punk days (with Them hits like the timeless "Gloria", "Here Come The Night", and "Mystic Eyes"). The rest of the band, though, soldiered on, and while they did not find commercial success, Them cut five more records before throwing in the towel in 1972. Losing a singer as distinctive as Morrison may have set them back in terms of sales, but there was still plenty of talent in the band, and their post-Morrison records are full of garage rock energy. Moving to the US, they embraced the West Coast psychedelic sound, and in 1968 released the excellent Now And Them album, which sounds sort of like an Irish version of the Doors' first album. Coincidentally, Them had once shared a stage with the Doors, who opened for them during a residence at the famed Whisky-A-Go-Go in 1966. The Doors must have made an impression, as the track "Square Room" shows—it's very similar in tone and length to the infamous Doors epic "The End", with creepy, snaking guitars, but minus Jimbo's Oedipal outbursts. For those who like the music of "The End" but can do without the "poetry", this track will be most welcome. [For the record, I do love the Doors, but sometimes Jim Morrison can grate. Exhibit A: "Horse Latitudes"—'nuff said.]

Them, "Square Room":

Preview: Stereolab, Not Music [due 11/16/10]

Stereolab are officially on hiatus, but this November will bring an album of tracks recorded (but not used) for 2008's Chemical Chords. Apparently the band had some 30 tracks ready, but decided to save the leftovers for another day, and now they are appearing as Not Music (or, as the album artwork seems to suggest, Snot Music). Annoyingly, the tracklist does not seem to include the six tracks which trickled out either as 2008 tour singles or as hated Japan-only Chemical Chords bonus tracks (the tracks in question are "The Nth Degree", "Magne-Music", "Spool Of Collusion", "Forensic Itch", "Explosante Fixe" and "L' Exotisme Intérieur"). Stereolab fans are used to these shenanigans—few bands seem to spend so much effort creating music which does not seem to be designed for actual consumption by their fans. [Grievance digression: to be a Stereolab completist, one would need about $4,000 to track down and acquire the dozens and dozens of tour-only singles, split singles, vinyl-only limited edition records, compilation cuts, tribute album cuts, collaborations, remixes, and other impossible-to-find sonic detritus. I have about six hours of hard-to-find Stereolab, and that's not even all of it!] Anyway, this record will probably sound more or less like Chemical Chords, which was a pretty good, though not top-notch Stereolab record. As a preview (even though it will not appear on Not Music), here is "Forensic Itch", from a 2008 tour-only single.

Stereolab, "Forensic Itch":

The Drone Zone: Thurston Moore, "Elegy For All The Dead Rock Stars"

Like Sonic Youth? In the mood for frazzled, repetitive guitar noise? Got twenty minutes? Well, you're in for a treat. Thurston Moore's 1995 solo album Psychic Hearts came as a surprise—not because it's a solo effort; all the SYers are busy with various side projects. But most of Thurston's (and Lee's) extraband projects have been experimental free noise workouts. This, though, is a song album, with brief, punkish tracks about Yoko Ono and Patti Smith, and despite Thurston's singing and guitar, it doesn't really sound much like Sonic Youth. Until, that is, the last track, this 20-minute instrumental, which starts off with a simple, repeated strum that lasts for several minutes before gently reaching higher and higher and finally cascading down into a sonic abyss and back out to the stratosphere. It's tempting to see it as Thurston's tribute to Kurt Cobain, much like Neil Young's similarly elegiac and epic "Change Your Mind" from 1994, but nevermind. The track remains a gloriously spiritual use of the electric guitar, and is one of my very favorite pieces of music.

Thurston Moore, "Elegy For All The Dead Rock Stars":