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Music Reviews - The Conversations With Distinguised Gentlemen Issue

By Vice Staff, Rocky, Jam, Alex Miller, El Pee









REBEL YELL
Love and Hate
Rapster

When the first track started by ripping off the melody to “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus,” I thought to myself, “Wow, this album is probably going to be really awful.” And, of course, I was right. I guess you could say it’s “catchy,” but only in the way that recycling every lame song idea from the past 20 years of boring radio is going to be inherently catchy. To this guy’s credit, I feel like being this unoriginal must take a lot of work. I can imagine him at four in the morning, the blue glow of a computer screen illuminating his face as he pores over YouTube videos of the Black Eyed Peas, hoping to find that perfect synth beat to blatantly copy and paste into his next turd of a song.

CHRISTIAN STORM


VARIOUS ARTISTS
Kitsune Tabloid Mixtape curated by Phoenix
Kitsune

BPOS
The Upside
One League
As much as I want to dislike this band’s weird self-help-book optimism and positivity, these dudes bring the heat. The beats are inventive, the “flow” is consistently on point even when they are rapping about some Mr. Rogers-style business—the one thing I keep having a hard time with is the fact that one of the rappers sounds exactly like Aesop Rock. It’s uncanny. Even though extensive internet research claims that this isn’t some sort of secret side project, I’m still unconvinced.

TONY FARTS

KISS, the Red Krayola, Roxy Music, D’Angelo, Tangerine Dream, Lou Reed. I don’t care how “cool” that band Phoenix is supposed to be, this is hands-down the WORST hip-hop mixtape I’ve ever heard. There’s not even a skit on it!

DJ OY-VEY





MOBY
Wait for Me
Little Idiot
I like how the press release for this album is baffled by Moby’s “punk rock, DIY approach” to making music—recording analog in his bedroom with friends helping out and not worrying about commercial success. Congratulations, music industry, it’s called “how shit gets done.” Why don’t you go beer-bong another pile of money down the throats of the next Christian ringtone band for Midwestern tweens? Retardo PR aside, I’ve always thought Moby was A-OK and this album sounds like M83 and the Neverending Story soundtrack.

JOHN MCSWAIN


YATAGARASU
Protoplasm
Earth-Shaking Rhythms


MOEBIUS & PLANK
Rastakraut Pasta
Water
Moebius & Plank’s 1979 debut is like that “one more, then it’s bedtime” line of coke snorted against a backdrop of birds chirping and neighbors going to work. It’s an album that record geeks arrived at long after they’d given up on recapturing how it felt to first hear any of Krautrock’s “first blast of the evening” records like Can’s Tago Mago or Neu! or Neu! 2 or the second Faust LP. Plank’s credits as a producer (Neu!, Kraftwerk) can’t remedy some undeniable facts: This was released in 1979. It’s an attempt to combine Krautrock and reggae. It’s horrifyingly bad.

ANDREW EARLES
While 35-year-olds in eBay’d Judge hoodies are busy wondering when hardcore’s going to get back to sounding like an ABC No Rio matinee circa ’89, its current incarnation is barreling across the country in a busted-out pickup full of Frankensteined-together electronic equipment and Nintendo circuitry and playing heart-attack-inducing shows to the most disaffected teens this side of 4chan. Closeted jocks may scoff, but this stuff is so good I’m already looking forward to taking part in its revival’s backlash.

SEE YOU IN 2019





AGORAPHOBIC NOSEBLEED
Agorapocalypse
Relapse
Markedly different from previous releases, ANB seem to have made the closest thing to a conventional metal album that is probably possible for them. The songs are slowed down to thrash speed, most lasting past the two- or even three-minute mark, and the vocals demonstrate unusual attention to elocution and clarity such that when Jay Randall shrieks “Buddha laughing atop a pile of human skulls,” you can pretty much make out those actual words. This isn’t a drastic Heartwork-style switch-up that will bum out the fans—rather, I think this will win over the people put off by the sheer comic ridiculousness of the last few records. Like me.

DISSECTICA MELANGE


BLANK DOGS
Under and Under
In the Red
Oh-so-spooky and ethereal music by the dude from NYC garage-punk also-rans DC Snipers, presumably played with a bag over his head so that his secret identity can innocently foist this music on any girl who wanders into Brooklyn’s Academy Records, where he works. This is what happened to me not too long ago, and when I asked him to describe it, he strung together a whole bunch of useless words sprinkled with touchstones like blah blah Jesus and Mary Chain (I was wearing their t-shirt), blah blah the Cure, blah blah Joy Division. He looked bummed when I asked if I could just use the bathroom. Apparently it’s for employees only.

SASSY FUNCAKES


THEE OH SEES
Help
In the Red
Back in the early zeroes, something like John Dwyer playing the flute for a roomful of rapt art hippies in Williamsburg would’ve been a colossal joke that the audience may or may not have been in on. Now it’s a sincere endeavor to re-explore his “experimental” tendencies. Not sure exactly how much that plays into this record, but the music’s OK. I wouldn’t turn it off while bleaching my mustache. 

PORTIA DEGRASSI


IGGY POP
Préliminaires
Astralwerks
OK, Stoogeamaniacs, time to give your blogging fingers a good righteously-indignant pop, ’cause here comes an entire album of Iggy Pop pretending to be Serge Gainsbourg. As in, not at all joking or trying to make an analogy here: This is a record of Iggy Pop intentionally trying to duplicate Serge Gainsbourg’s music. Personally, I’d kind of prefer the reverse, but you take what you can get.

BBALL BALLOOWA


NOBUNNY
Motorhead with Me 7"
HoZac


KINGDOM
The Rage That Guides
Eulogy

Of the plenteous reasons to ignore the latest vegan straightedge band rolling down the assembly line, I’m going with these guys’ “recommended reading” list, which includes a hodgepodge of the usual lit-crit 101 and left-wing antiheroes like Naomi Wolf, Derrick Jensen, Ward Churchill, et al. I just forced myself to listen to your band and now you’re giving me homework, even though you didn’t stay in community college long enough to learn that “Bell Hooks” isn’t supposed to be capitalized? It’s worth mentioning that Kingdom has a female vocalist who can make her voice just as grrrrrowlly and stupid sounding as any male. So I guess a tiny blow for equality has been struck after all.

ELIZABETH COSTELLO


MANNEQUIN MEN
Lose Your Illusion, Too
Flameshovel
Chicago’s current finest here. I’m kind of hearing Wire if they were the Wipers in the music, and then I’m kind of hearing Rick Froberg at his best but even snottier in the vocals. And they walk like they talk. Miles from the band didn’t even get mad when I threw a full trash can in the middle of that big street there. What’s it called? North Milwaukee? Anyway, Mannequin Men make the kind of rock that we need in these troubled, harried times: troubled and harried.

JERRY MCPHERSON


NICE FACE
Exterminator 7"
HoZac
In case you can’t see it, the cover art is a huge dick with the word “EXTERMINATOR” underneath it. These guys get it. Good warbly sounds and ghostly background singing all stirred up with the usual fuzz shit.

NICK GAZIN


KYLESA
Static Tensions
Prosthetic/20 Buck Spin

Remember in the mid-to-late 90s when hardcore met metal for some more break-up sex, and instead of bad metalcore, there thrived metalheads and inspired crusties who didn’t have their assholes sewn shut around their necks? Well, here’s where PBS’s History of Rock ’n’ Roll series makes a jump ten-plus years to a now-prominent demarcation on the crust-metal timeline labeled “Kylesa’s Static Tensions.” Meaning, this album is special enough that “pre-Static Tensions” and “post-Static Tensions” will be used in future parlor conversations about the following: $1 Wavves LPs, the return of the Chevrolet Citation, and the countrywide ban on Pilates. Plus, after I played all three Tragedy LPs in consecutive order followed by Static Tensions, the Victory Records bulldog arrived at my house pulling a wagon packed with every record I’ve ever lost to an ex-girlfriend.

ANDREW EARLES
The music isn’t terrible, but you could just listen to A Day Late, A Dollar Short and avoid the part where you’re a grown-up standing in a bar watching another grown-up in his underwear and a bunny mask yell at you. Your call. 

KG





CASS MCCOMBS
Catacombs
Domino

It’s getting kind of tiresome championing Cass McCombs every time he puts out another brilliant record, telling everyone who will listen that he’s the best singer/songwriter/guitar player going today, babbling about how fans of pussified crap like Decemberists and, I don’t know, the Shins should be getting Cass’s name tattooed on their foreheads, but still never getting results. Why don’t they have episodes of American Idol where they have to sing Cass songs? Why don’t people follow him around like he’s the Dead? Why isn’t he on the cover of Rolling Stone with a headline that says “THIS GUY RIGHT HERE IS THE FUCKING GUY”? Is it because everyone but me is a moron? Must be. Wake up, America! This guy right here is the fucking guy, and on this record he has only gotten to be more of the guy.

V.O.R.


THE LEMONHEADS
Varshons
The End
I had a major crush on Kate Moss back in the early 90s. Kate Moss and Sherilyn Fenn. I don’t know how many steamy threesomes we three had in those days, in my head, but it was a lot. We actually did it a bunch of times at my high school. I’d feign dizziness to escape a science test and go for a lay-down in the nurse’s office only to discover Kate and Sherilyn making out on one of the beds. They’d smile and say, “Hi Jason.” And then it was on. I won’t get into the details, but I will say that even though I was a 15-year-old virgin with a cock the size of a Thai pepper, I was fucking brilliant. Kate Moss sings on this record. I expected her to sound like Eliza Doolittle yowling into a pillow, but she’s actually pretty good.

JASON CROMBIE


SEAN BONES
Rings
French Kiss
Sean is my friend and I enjoy his recorded output. So in the spirit of objectivity, I asked a Jamaican we just hired what he thought about Sean’s reggae record. He said, “Good varying instrumentation, harmonies, layering, and tempo play.” You’ve got to read it in the voice if you want it to be funny.

THE TRUTH



BRITISH SEA POWER
Man of Aran
Rough Trade
A band prone to wearing scarves indoors and decorating the stage with flowers scores the DVD release of an obscure 1934 documentary about an island off the coast of Ireland. People with real jobs collectively say “What?” and someone’s nana farts. 

BIG BABY DAVIS


DRUG RUG
Paint the Fence Invisible
Rough Trade
I look forward to the breakup of the boyfriend-girlfriend duo that make up this band not just because it means they’ll stop putting out records that make me want to take a cheese grater to the side of my head but also because this music is so offensively middling that I want them both to be sad as humans. 

STARBURY


GOD HELP THE GIRL
s/t
Matador
With the heavy heart of a Belle and Sebastian fan, I have to admit that this is theeeee gaaaaayest thing I’ve ever heard. Correction: Former Belle and Sebastian fan. Call me black-hearted, but I am not currently in the market for cutesy-poo show tunes, sugar-voiced but personality-less lady singers, or the lyrics “Pretty Eve in the tub/please allow me to scrub/please allow me to rub.” Oh yes, I am also not particularly jonesing for Dave Brubeckesque smooth jazz interludes or three-part Andrews Sisters harmonies backed by 50-piece orchestras. Just write me a fucking song and then sing it yourself with a guitar or a piano and that’s IT. I understand that genius songwriters get bored doing the same thing all the time, but instead of this weird, extravagant faux-60s girl-group thing, couldn’t Stuart Murdoch’s side project have been, like, just him, a guitar, and a tape recorder locked in a little closet, singing songs about how sad he is to be locked in a little closet? Or just, you know, the total opposite of whatever this cheerful bullshit is.

MEG SNEED



TIMOTHY LEARY
Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out
ESP-Disk
Ugh, Timothy Leary is the original “cool dad.” Hearing this human scrotum go on about how everyone over 40 is untrustworthy and owns a gun and is too scared to listen to his incoherent blatherings about “red chimneys” and “ancient trade unions” in his naive little baby voice is making 26-year-old me want to take the gun I own and join him on the astral plane or Shambala or wherever acid-fried boobs think they go when they die.

THELMER BOIS


SIR RICHARD BISHOP
The Freak of Araby
Drag City
This is one-half (formerly one-third—RIP Charles Gocher) of the Sun City Girls doing what sounds like 1940s movie soundtracks unearthed from the cultural archives of a defunct and forgotten Middle Eastern country. The music has the scope of cinema and the, let’s say, exotic flair of what my college professors called “the Other.” But perhaps the best part of The Freak of Araby, as with all SRB stuff, is that he’s one of the greatest guitarists living today. This is his first solo release to feature a full band behind him, and it only adds depth to his sound. It’s never distracting. Bishop will be bringing said full band along on his tour for this record this summer. If you enjoy having your brain blown out of your ass, I suggest you attend.

JAMES FLUCK


YAHOWHA 13
Magnificence in the Memory
Drag City

THOMAS MAPFUMO AND THE ACID BAND
Hokoyo!
Water
Thomas Mapfumo is a chimurenga singer from Zimbabwe who spent the late 70s writing songs encouraging his countrymen to join Robert Mugabe’s guerrilla army and overthrow the white government, back before Mugabe declared himself “Hitler times ten” (OOPS!). To keep the authorities from figuring out the lyrics to his protest anthems and pulling them off the radio, Mapfumo used a secret code called Shona, aka the country’s native fucking language. It worked for a good five years, but by the release of this 1979 album someone tipped off the honkies that hokoyo! means “look out!” (as in “look out, whitey, here we come to murder you in your sleep and take back over our land!”) and they threw Mapfumo in the clink. Anyway, this may sound a little closer to Paul Simon’s backup group than what you’d expect from an “Acid Band,” but if you’re tripping in the middle of ZIMBABWE I’m guessing you want to keep things as chill as possible.

CHELSON DEES


BLUES CONTROL
Local Flavor
Siltbreeze
Blues Control do Fun House? I love it. The opening track has power chords and saxophone! And it 100 percent works. The final track is like 1,000 minutes long and the part with beats doesn’t get kicking until the very end, and that works too! Tension and release and mood: Blues Control are masterful. If there’s a cooler band in NYC right now, I formally challenge you to prove it.
COLIN COOK


I think that I’m in the minority among my fellow enjoyers-of-weird-music on this one, but fuck it. I don’t like YaHoWha 13. I know that it’s easy to hear, “Hey, brother, check this out. These dudes were like a religious cult led by this crazy old cat named Father Yod, and you know what’s really far out? They made tunes, man! Crazy improvised tuuuuuuuunes,” and get caught up in the whole idea of music by a hippie cult and how cool that’s going to be. But theory is nicer than practice in this case. This shit is just boring and corny. Maybe I got the wrong kind of pot to go along with it, but I just kept thinking about how Sunburned Hand of the Man is way better and how with them you don’t have to deal with all this bullshit guru baggage. Anyway, I was hoping this hippie crap would have died down as the era of Devendra Banhart, et al. thankfully faded into the “anals” of history, but here we are with yet another wheezy gasp from a bunch of improv dorks who may as well be Christian. Let’s hope that this time it’s a death rattle we’re hearing.

JUNE SPRIG

By Vice Staff, Rocky, Jam, Alex Miller, El Pee 2 years ago More from this issue

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