Dan Deacon - Bromst

(Carpark, 2009)
Bromst was less hilarious and more contemplative than his previous works, as if Deacon had suddenly realized that his novelty was worth a lot more than just a juvenile joke. Build Voice arrives from very far: a buzz of looped voices slowly builds up and is surrounded by all sorts of new sounds, including Brian Eno-esque vocals singing a childish lullabye. The piece soon become an exercise in chaotic collective minimalist repetition at a feverish tempo. After a quick ragtime-like piano solo, the coda is a frenzied horn fanfare worthy of Michael Nyman.
A piercing, drilling drone launches Red F, another Eno-esque singalong that explores even more rhythmic post-techno soundscapes, grounded in Neu's "motorik" and a videogame's soundtracks.
The mostly instrumental Paddling Ghost returns to the jovial atmosphere of the first album, which in turn harked back to the disco novelties of the late 1970s (this one with a hyper-ska beat and cartoonish voices).
For about three minutes Snookered is a relatively calm song with sooting arrangements, but then the drum-beat doubles in speed and everything starts spinning out of control, particularly the crazy, fractured and distored voice (almost a rockabilly-style hiccup) and the gnome-like voices that spring up around it.
Marimba and glockenspiel tinge the seven-minute Of The Mountains of an exotic flavor, and the rhythm (not only the electronic beat but also the voices that contribute to it) keeps mutating around a mechanical pow-wow beat.
The eight-minute Surprise Stefani uses again the voice as the main rhythmic element, which is then passed on to the drums and finally to the marimba.
The brief Wet Wings is the most psychedelic experiment: just floating layered voices.
Woof Woof displays one of the most captivating rhythms, a Disney-like ballet for a multitude of micro-voices that turns into a psychedelic merry-go-round, like a truly demented version of the Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour.
Baltihorse is its demonic counterpart, beginning and ending in extreme frenzied mode with an instrumental intermezzo of eerie dance steps for (synth-produced) harpsichord and marimba. And the closing Get Older is the ultimate scream: all instruments turned to maximum volume and pulsating manically.
The vocal experiments resurrect a glorious tradition that had almost died with Frank Zappa, and that harks back to the Fugs' Virgin Forest. Cartoonish voices intone incoherently majestic melodies that are reprised in counterpoint by the regular male register (sometimes itself overdubbed).
The common denominator of all the pieces (and what is unique about Deacon) is the visceral impact and the dense textures. In a sense Deacon is the first composer who truly continues and fulfils the experiment begun 20 years earlier by Vampire Rodents. (Scaruffi)

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - The Pains of Being Pure at Heart

[Slumberland; 2009]
Like plenty of other bands in the internet era, the Pains of Being Pure at Heart seem poised to attract an audience that will far outstrip that of their easily identifiable precedents-- in their case, groups like Rocketship or Shop Assistants, each obscure these days even by Approved Indie Influence standards. A few other twee/noise-pop revivalists arguably pulled off that same trick last year, but Pains of Being Pure at Heart are likely to appeal to listeners beyond online name-droppers and Brooklyn scenesters.

That these second-wavers are getting first-rate attention shouldn't be a worry unless you're into dick-measuring contests about the late-1980s (but I was there) or still holding a grudge against Vivian Girls and Crystal Stilts. Despite being such a streamlined listen, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart acts as something of an indie Rorschach: Once our staff got a hold of the fuzzy, major-chord fizz of "Come Saturday" or "Stay Alive", it raised comparisons to everything from Sleepyhead to Black Tambourine to even Peter Bjorn and John (at their most shoegazy) and Ride (at their most heavy-lidded). In other words, you'll dig this record as long as you're a fan of trebly, melancholy pop music. Which is quite a lot of people reading this review.

What distinguishes POBPAH from the rest of their modern peers is a sense of craft located in the sweet spot between wilfull amateurism masking incompetence and not gumming things up with bells and whistles. It's immediate and substantial, but initially, it can seem distracting that the band is built more for speed than muscle. Yet these aren't songs that need anchors-- as much as Alex Naidus' bass plays an integral role in pushing everything forward, he's more likely to contribute melodic counterpoint than low end. Kip Berman's voice is appropriately unaffected, working in melodies that almost feel like 45-degree angles-- exact, acute, and just right. Keyboardist Peggy Wang-East doesn't harmonize in a traditional sense with Berman very often, but particularly on "Young Adult Friction", her vocals are a hook in themselves, taking an already strong chorus to a higher plateau.

So yeah, they've got the sound figured out, but what ensures that this will be something that'll make it past the point where the indie cycle of life goes on and bands are inevitably starting to cop the sounds of, say, Archers of Loaf? Regardless of the b&w cover art, there's more gray matter than initially appears. The title alone of "This Love Is Fucking Right!" is enough to set off the sugar shock factor (it's a nod to the Field Mice), and that's before the chorus which renders the f-bomb "feckin!," but the invocation of "you're my sister" before the title is as dark as you want it to be.

"Stay Alive" is the record's centerpiece, boasting the most anthemic chorus; initially, it could pass for cloyingly optimistic, with bell-like keyboard pinches accenting thumbs-up signifiers like "shoot at the sky" and "you'll stay alive." But once again, after closer listens it takes a darker tone, possibly talking down a suicidal friend. Most tellingly, "Come Saturday" sets the stage for the rest of the record with a promise of ignoring parties for a summer wasting and spent indoors. It's every bit as heartfelt as the later lyrical nod to Another Sunny Day.

But then again, sincerity never made me turn up the volume. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart simply made a slyly confident debut that mixes sparkling melodies with an undercurrent of sad bastard mopery, and you're just being a dick if you think the past has some kind of patent on that. That's just the way good pop music works.

— Ian Cohen, February 6, 2009 (Pitchfork Media)

Fever Ray - Fever Ray

[Mute / Rabid; 2009]

That the Knife's 2006 breakthrough Silent Shout didn't set the dominoes on a series of similarly grotesque and unnatural sounding imitators is less an indictment on its impact than a comment on its inimitability. The current apex of ten years' collaboration between siblings Karin Dreijer Andersson and Olof Dreijer, it's one of a handful of albums from the past decade that one might argue sounded like nothing before it. In the three years since, the Dreijers have treaded lightly, touring and remixing in carefully managed bursts before quietly receding back into silence altogether.

When news of a Dreijer Andersson solo project called Fever Ray broke in October, one would have been forgiven for wondering if the duo hadn't secretly made good on their threats to call it quits. God knows, they still might. The point is, you'll get no clues here: although every bit as alluring, this debut has as much in conflict as it has in common with Silent Shout. The sounds often square, but the ferociousness has been subsumed by a slow drip of anxiety and dread. The macabre nursery rhymes have given way to lyrics that imply a sort of domestic cabin fever. It's still of the same creator, just not from the same swamp.

Things move slowly here; they slither instead of stomp. The house-inflected, booming low end of Silent Shout has been scrubbed away, leaving Karin's voice naked and upfront, anchoring the songs in a way it hasn't previously been required to. Although no less inscrutable, her lyrics adjust. Where those on Silent Shout had a witchy scale and ambition appropriate to the hugeness of the songs, Fever Ray's words feel so interior as to seem slightly unhinged. Indeed, one of Fever Ray's most remarkable aspects comes from how Dreijer Andersson funnels little moments of humor, banality, remembrance, mania, and anxiety through her deadpan affect to create a central character worthy of any psychological horror. You might even reasonably suggest this record is about psychosis. "I've got a friend who I've known since I was seven/ We used to talk on the phone/ If we have time/ If it's the right time," she declares conspiratorially, amidst pattering drums and faintly tropical synths in "Seven". In the morose, slumbering "Concrete Walls", she slows her voice to a pained yawn, which repeats the final couplet to a resigned fade: "I live between concrete walls/ In my arms she was so warm/ Oh how I try/ I leave the TV on/ And the radio."

In addition to many of the same plasticky percussions and goofy synth sounds that the Knife made their stock in trade, Fever Ray also brims with fragile, more finely articulated sounds, such as the delicate mallet instruments that punctuate "Now's The Only Time I Know", the bamboo flute that wanders through "Keep the Streets Empty For Me", and the grinding guitar sound in "I'm Not Done". The album moves at roughly the same pace and with the same general tone, rendering some of the songs indistinguishable at first, but committed listens will reveal this to be as nuanced and as rich of a production as anything either Dreijer has done.

The highlights are many. Opener "If I Had a Heart" is a shivering, timely meditation on greed, immorality, and lust for power that dovetails nicely with AIG and Madoff ("This will never end cause I want more/ More, give me more, give me more"); "I'm Not Done" is a pressurized squall that culminates with Karin dueting with a helium-voiced version of herself; while seven-minute closer "Coconut" rumbles on a pattern of synths and staccato drums before a ceremonious wall of voices arrive at the midpoint to march it to a close. Except, "close" implies it was written: the more time you spend with Fever Ray, the more you become convinced that these songs aren't written so much as they're temporarily let out. They're too starved, too eerie, and too transfigured to have been anything but.

— Mark Pytlik, March 20, 2009 (Pitchfork Media)