Records

WIDOWSPEAK

GLOBAL NOIZE

CEREBRAL BALLZY

WILD FLAG

Lateef is mostly known for guest spots on DJ Shadow and Fatboy Slim songs, but his solo stuff comes off kinda clunky, with eclectic beats and socially conscious couplets mixed in to keep things semi-interesting. Truthspeaker’s parents were Black Panthers, so at this point I’m just gonna smile sheepishly and back slowly away from the rest of this review.

WILLY BALLOONS

DAS RACIST

Relax

Greedhead

SPANK ROCK

Everything Is Boring and Everyone Is a Fucking Liar

Bad Blood

It’s hard not to love this guy. About half the tracks are bangers in the rap-songs-that-are-fun-to-dance-to genre, and they each feel like they were carefully picked so that Spank Rock could appeal to as many people as possible. There’s some classic B-more style songs with dirty sex lyrics for when you’re grinding with some gross stranger at a dark club, and then there’s some others that are more like Scissor Sisters-style disco tracks for girls who don’t like it when the lyrics to a song are just “The pussy pussy… puzzy… pussypussypussy!”

CRANK SPOCK

I remember seeing these guys’ “Chicken and Meat” video and thinking, “Hahaha, joke raps!” But it turned out the rap joke was on me because the next thing, they’re hanging out inside the pages of the

New Yorker

with Roz Chast cartoons and that angry-looking dog they put on that t-shirt and then those uptight goons at Pitchfork declared them geniuses. I really only knew about their early stuff and would see them around and think, “I should go rapidshit their albums some day.” But I never did and now I’m hearing one of the best rap records I've ever heard and I feel like I wasted the last few years. From start to finish this album is as fun and funny as I had hoped Spank Rock’s new record would be. You’ll be dancing with serious face in the cloob and then shoot your drink out your nose when you hear the lyrics.

BUFORD JIZZMOPPER

A lot of people have wondered how the second real Neon Indian record would sound. The answer is that it’s pretty. I think this is the kind of record I’ll enjoy when I’m not hunting for hits and trying to find clever things to say. It’s certainly a smoother, more produced album than their first, but I like rough sounds, so while it’s not a plus for me it does make the album more likely to be used for soundtracks and commercials.

NICK GAZIN

LADYTRON

Gravity the Seducer

Nettwerk

Listening to Ladytron’s new album is like hearing your parents retell the same story every Thanksgiving. We get it, I thought my poop was shaped like a dolphin. And I pronounced it “doffin.” Hardy-har-fucking-har. Now will you leave my new girlfriend alone and chill the fuck out on the sawtooth already?

AURORA MONTGOMERY

SALLY PARADISE

Aouu!

Jeunesse Cosmique

BALAM ACAB

Wander/Wonder

Tri Angle

This new Balam Acab is a Grade A trip. Alec Koone goes heavy on loops and samples, distorting his voice to helium-huffing-chipmunk levels on almost every song. Listen to “Oh Why” and suddenly you’re in an echoing cave, floating in bubbling bong water with mermaids and sea monkeys. Then you hear the sex-ooze jam “Motion” and it’s like you’re horny, but too lazy to drag your ass over to the computer. You really just want some BBQ Pringles. Huh? Did I just say something out loud?

JENNIFER DOUGHNUTS

COM TRUISE

Galactic Melt

Ghostly International

When you put this on you feel like you’re traveling at a stoned snail’s pace through a bright and shining future world where everything is nonthreatening, but a little sad. The first song’s called “Terminal” and it’s like something you’d hear while waiting in line to ride Star Tours at Disneyland. Shame about that holocaust of a name.

KICHOLE NIDMAN

Have you heard the new Radiohead album? It’s great. Well, if you like Radiohead. I fucking

loooooved

Radiohead in high school. They were like my Zep. Kind of fell off after

Hail to the Thief.

I mean, I fell off, not the band. They stayed strong, I was just in a different headspace. Did get a little proggy though. Think I heard stuff off that free one,

In Rainbows

, that kind of sounded like the Alan Parsons Project. Anyways, the new one’s good. Still kind of doing that weird jazzy electronica thing, but it’s more toned-down. I can’t remember if we trashed it here or not—possible we didn’t even review it. And I guess

Aouu!

is what it might have sounded like if Radiohead were a 20-year-old French Canadian girl who has a lot of Asian friends.

TAD GERK

WILD FLAG

S/T

Merge

My boner for this album is so rock hard that not even firsthand knowledge that one of the ladies in Wild Flag is a major crotch could tame it. Every song here is sticky and rough, like a summer-camp finger-bang. Mary Timony (formerly of Helium) wins the prize for best song with “Something Came Over Me,” which is so good it makes me fantasize about the crowd at a WF show ripping their reusable period cups from their bodies and toasting a job well done.

SNEEDLY RUNKLE

CEREBRAL BALLZY

S/T

Williams Street

Whoa, what happened? When these guys started out they sounded like early-80s hardcore, but then they went on a few European tours and came back playing double-speed. Lots of good songs on here if you’re angry and like to party, especially “Cutting Class” and “Puke Song.”

MACIN’ JASON

BLITZEN TRAPPER

American Goldwing

Sub Pop

God bless America: Is there anything more hackneyed than a folk album about missing your hometown and the girl that got away? I enjoyed contemplating the lyrics to their 2008 single “Furr” when I was high on shitty weed brownies in college, but this makes me want to dress up like a scarecrow and crucify myself in a cornfield with my ears covered in molasses so birds pick them off and I never have to risk hearing anything like this ever, ever again.

ALABAMA WORLEY

SOCIAL CLIMBERS

S/T

Drag City

This album is a rerelease of the Climbers’ 1981 LP on Hoboken Records, and it encapsulates the era nicely: straight-up New York no wave, brimming with minimalist DIY sensibility. It’s too bad the guy sings like some kind of lo-fi Michael Bolton, but he’s only on like three songs, so no big.

BLONDE CAMERO

KING LOUIE’S MISSING MONUMENTS

Painted White

Douchemaster

King Louie Bankston is that guy who’s in every fucking garage band in your town, only in this case your town includes most of the continental US. He was one of the main dudes from Memphis’s Royal Pendletons, he was briefly in the Exploding Hearts (RIP), he was—eh, fuck it, those are the big ones. You can google the rest. His Missing Monuments stuff is polished Nick Lowe-y power pop played by four unpolished young men who have already used up all their drink tickets and made at least one pass at somebody’s sister.

JUDGE DORKUS

It’s really amazing that there are so many painfully horrible songs in the world, considering how easy bands like this make crafting an extremely enjoyable, bullshit-free song look. Bleached is the new project of Jessie and Jennifer Clavin, formerly of Mika Miko, and something about their music also REALLY makes me want a jean jacket.

AVERY NETTLE

THE PACK A.D.

Unpersons

Mint

I understand that being lesbians is a good career move, but every song from this album sounds like a segue between acts of freewheelin’ lesbo debauchery. Is this

The L Word

soundtrack?

BLONDE CAMERO

THE EX-BOOGEYMEN

Masters of Ceremony

Church of Boogey

One time the goth kid who sings for this band tied my limbs to bedposts with burlap straps and force-fed me fake-blood Jello shots made of Karo syrup. It got me all jonesed up for the main course, which of course was cocaine-stuffed roasted garlic. We hung strands of it from our necks and snorted out the cloves while hanging upside down from the rafters of the attic of the Future House in Gainesville. Then he ate my asshole.

THE VAMPIRE LESHAT

NURSES

Dracula

Dead Oceans

The press release for this said something about Prince. Now I can’t get that reference out of my head. This doesn’t sound like Prince, but I can see Prince listening to this—you know, trying to ease himself back into the real world of crystal penis goblets and tailored white suits with hoods. There’s great songwriting here—smart, knowing when to be minimal and when to be ethereal—and unlike other dude bands from Portland that utilize electronic ambience and heavy reverb, I don’t feel bad for their girlfriends.

LOWMOAN SPECTACULAR

TWIN SISTER

In Heaven

Domino

If music in heaven sounds anything like an eighth-grade jazz band, I’ll have no part in it. This reminds me of a girl named Emily who had a crush on me when we were teens. She was awkward and made poor style choices. She tried to kiss me once between classes in the hallway and I denied her. She’s a major babe now and I bet she’d love this album.

BILLY HUNTER

THIS FRONTIER NEEDS HEROES

The Future

Heroic Endeavours

Somehow you believe a band a little more when its members are related, and especially with folk. It allows you to think they were both raised out in the wilderness and can simultaneously bust out a campfire jam and fashion a double overhand knot if you need one for your river raft.

BOBBY HANSEN

WIDOWSPEAK

S/T

Captured Tracks

I love Widowspeak so much. They make wildly beautiful music. There’s a Stevie Nicks-looking girl playing acoustic guitar and singing while a George Harrison-looking guy plays electric guitar and a handsome man who doesn’t look like a celebrity plays a two-piece drum set. Some people think they sound like Mazzy Star, but Mazzy Star never made me feel like I was chasing Laura Palmer through the woods on the last night of her life.

DUDECHAT

XIU XIU

Fuck the Police

Polyvinyl

MILAGRES

Glowing Mouth

Kill Rock Stars

At this point I’d say that farting brittle, overproduced men’s music into the media cloud is 1,000 percent more offensive than littering. If you want to be a bunch of nice, friendly guys who make money and have cute dogs, get jobs at nonprofits and play weekend gigs in town. You’re fucking the earth by touring this bullshit.

LALA BUHH

TORO Y MOI

Freaking Out

Carpark

One time I was shaving my legs in the shower and I slipped, knocked my chin on the side of the tub, and passed out. While under, I dreamed that I was at a roller-skating rink showing off my flawless backward skate moves until being called over to the snack stand via intercom and informed that I had been awarded a plate of free nachos because I was so good looking. This album, in all its bubble pops and awky electro, is like those dream nachos—a pile of cheesy, hot whatever, but still pretty fucking good.

MATILDA FUCKLES

STILL CORNERS

Creatures of an Hour

Sub Pop

Imagine the starving girl from

Flowers in the Attic

looking all unhinged—hot tar in her hair, powdered sugar all over her face from mean grandma’s arsenic doughnuts. She sings in this breathy voice while staring out a tiny window, dreaming about screwing her brother again. Add spooky organs, 60s girl-group drums, and voilà! Still Corners. Take the album’s opening track, “Cuckoo”: “It’s like we’re going cuckoo/ Me and you/ Stuck in a time machine/ That was just a dream.” No, actually you’re stuck in an attic fucking your brother on a filthy mattress while your grandma’s watching through a peephole.

JENNIFER DOUGHNUTS

AMEN DUNES

Through Donkey Jaw

Sacred Bones

I recently moved to LA to be in love forever with a girl I’ve known since MySpace, but she keeps fucking someone else. The first time I listened to

Through Donkey Jaw

was the night I first saw the other girl’s Facebook profile. And she was pretty hot. The delicious production of this record ushered me toward a meditative state, and the psychedelic subtleties in each track consistently fascinated until I was enveloped in the fog of a dense, ominous world where I no longer cared about cheating-ass bitches. Listen to it high.

BLONDE CAMERO

Maybe I’m not as sad as I used to be, but nothing about this adds up. First there’s the tinny and disharmonious “Daphny,” full of frantic yelling, and then, God help us, a cover of Rihanna’s “Only Girl (In the World)” in which James Stewart reminds us he’s a tortured gay man. Well, I’m not having it. Why can’t you sing NICE once in a while, buddy?

BLONDE CAMERO

WE YES BLOOD

The Outside Room

Not Not Fun

Show posters have been selling Weyes Blood as “ex-Jackie-O Motherfucker” and “former Axolotl collaborator” for like five years now, which is sucky and myopic for the obvious/direct reasons, but especially as a description of what’s holding this girl back. When Weyes Blood sheds the “secret American basements” and “Baltimore mysticism” signifiers and just records the way she rips live, everyone’s gonna FLIP.

GRUMPY NAPKIN

STEVE REICH

WTC 9/11 / Mallet Quartet / Dance Patterns

Nonesuch

Steve always struck me as the least pretentious of the big minimalists. Unfortunately this means he dresses like Paul Simon instead of a forest wizard, but it also means that when he tackles high-concept ideas like the World Trade Center attacks it ends up being subtle and genuinely thought-provoking instead of some weird orchestral Laibach shit (

cough

PhilipGlass

cough

). This is a three-part sound collage made of radio recordings of first responders in the WTC and their dispatchers freaking out at one another over quiet string parts that match the tenor of their voices. Spoooooky shit. Though I was sleeping off a hangover through most of 9/11 (and I swear to God at one point one of the firefighters says, “I’m so horny I can’t breathe”), I can only imagine it’s as awful and soul-shaking as that morning would have been if I’d gotten out of bed. Kind of weird to put this on the same record as a freaking “mallet quartet,” though.

LEROY GUMPTION

RUSSIAN TSARLAG

Classic Dog

Control Booth

Not Not Fun

It sounds like he’s not even trying on this one, which is fine. Since his releases are all put out in unadvertised batches of 150 via American dungeon labels, it seems more than fair to king-Smiley them all in aggregate beside the heaps of other pro-level, well-funded bullshit I listen to for this reviews column. Tsarlag is the No. 1 downer freak songwriter working in the English language. Amen.

LITTLE LOCKY

VARIOUS ARTISTS

The Secret Museum of Mankind: Central Asia Ethnic Music Classics: 1925-48

Yazoo

Weird ethnographic records serve two basic purposes in the world of white kids: fodder for poorly attended DJ nights and looking great leaned against the shelf your turntable is on when you invite a girl back to your apartment. This guy knocks it out of the park from both bases. There are two discs full of Kazakh throat-singing that’ll clear a bar faster than the German version of “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” and the back cover is a postcard of a toothless Tatar with some sort of Azeri flute over Cyrillic writing. Get ready to get laid so fast your dick’ll be like “[Amos ’n’ Andy

voice

] Who da-do wut now?”

RACISM

GLOBAL NOIZE

Prayer for the Planet

Lightyear/EMI

Jesus, where to begin with this. The title? The semi-tribal seashell guy holding the torch on the cover (which continues into the gatefold like a post-Burning Man, watercolor

ZoSo

)? The Belle and Sebastian-length environmental diatribe on the back cover from the editor of soul-patrol.com? Wait, no no no no no no no no no no, let’s start with the fact that this is a completely earnest coffee-shop-jazz release by three adults in the year 2011 including songs titled “Cosmic Hug” and “Charismalove.” How the hell is this for real? Did these people never watch

Kids in the Hall

? Do they live in a town without mirrors? Either the label reps at Lightyear Entertainment are the most secretly hilarious people of all time or God finally decided it was time to give me definitive proof of his existence.

EDGAR H. MACY

MARC MARON

This Has to Be Funny

Comedy Central

I almost don’t think it’s fair to call Marc Maron a comedian at this point. He’s more of a miserian. Hearing him go into graphic detail about his dad issues and neighbor-upsetting screaming matches with his girlfriend

is

actually funny, but it’s less funny ha-ha than funny this-is-awful. Ditto most of the comedians he interviews on his

WTF

podcast—hilarious men semi-hilariously deconstructing the lowest moments in their horrible lives. I’m not sure I even laugh at half the episodes. I just listen to them quietly nodding and making

tsk-tsk

clucks. It’s like he’s comedy church.

TERRY HAND