PSYCHEDELIC HORSESHIT - LIVE AT WFMU

first, drop the words "psychedelic" and "horse" from their name, and you'd have the proper description for their music.

i checked this out because i heard that they were like TNV and such, and i don't know if it's the recording, but the songs are all crappy. there's no awesome fuzz/distortion, the singer's voice is just annoying, and throughout the past 30 minutes of listening to this (including the unnecessary blowing on kazoos for the last 8), i found nothing worth while.

now, this is an older recording, but i can't imagine any band being this bad live and making a good album. it's just dissapointing, which is a bummer. you'd think that a band with a great name like this would have potential, but no such luck. i might check out an actual album (these are radio sessions), but i'm more skeptical now.

OVERALL RATING - (insert sad face)
KEY TRACKS - "like a rolling stone", a dylan cover they try to play while testing levels.

SEBADOH - THE FREED MAN

**note - this is a review of the Domino records reissue from a year or so back, not the original Homestead version**

52 TRACKS!

of what?!
tapes! noise!

guitars!

songs about girls!

songs about ladybugs! and bread! and tigger commericals!
and some true hardcore man....

and A FRICKIN' BEATLES COVER!

honestly, if you are into the whole 4track lo-fi whatever the heck, than this is your kind of album. i mean, it was a winter soundtrack for me this past year. and with 52 songs in 78 or so minutes, its perfect!
and since its all 4 track recordings, you get all kinds of stuff: louie barlow sounded like he's 8 years old, eric gaffney writing more than 1 kind of song when he was 14 or so and lots of ukelele, which is always good. and there's songs, but also snippets all over the album, my favorite being something from a tigger doll commercial where it's tigger saying "stop, you're rocking the forest". and this was before jason was in the band and before they actually played on each other's songs, and it's almost all acoustic (a few aren't).

yeayyy! INDIE ROCK!!!!!!

OVERALL RATING - chinese food!
KEY TRACKS - ladybugs, k-sensa-my, the lorax, jealous evil, and about 36 others.

TORTOISE - BEACONS OF ANCESTORSHIP

oh a tortoise record!!!!!
and some of it's good!

and it's kind of a new one!

Ohh boy, it starts strong - an 8 minute song that is essentially 4 songs in one.that brings back the beginning motifs at the end. the second is FUNKY and DANCEABLE! and kinda sounds like a bassline to a song by the Strokes! but it's not boring!

Then, the album turns to crap. the third track is wayyyy to dancey and it sounds like it could be a backing track for the song "american life" by madonna. then the last two tracks are great, with typical tortoise-isms like polyrhythms and no vocals.

but the rest of the album is a clustersputnik of processed beats and songs that all sound the same and party ridiculous. which is a shame. i mean, even the keyboards add a nice touch, but the drum machines or whatever just sound like crap and it's not enjoyable.


so, let me present the most "ehh" album of the summer - TORTOISE - BEACONS OF ANCESTORSHIP.

OVERALL RATING - There's some great bread here, but the meat in the middle is spoiled.
KEY TRACKS - High class slim, charteroak foundation, prepare your coffin.

the blog

so, yes, it appears that I'm giving in to the ever seductive "blog" format, but I think this can be easier than trying to send emails because I'm currently attempting to keep 3 accounts going and with all the other email switches people are going through with the new college emails and such, I figured, why not? I'm still working out a few kinks, but I'm feeling like I got the hang of it after only 7 minutes or so.

so, stay posted for the reviews and such coming from here. if you still wish to recieve email updates or something like that, just let me know, but I'm feeling good about this here. It seems simple enough...

Brian Eno - Ambient 1: Music for Airports

This is Eno's first full blown ambient album. Like, that's all it is - so get ready to hear 4 notes for the next 764723047522110032 hours!

1/1. !!!!!!!!!ding ding ding ding du-dooohh
2/1. ahhhhhhhhh hhahaaaaaaaa aaaaooohhhhhhhhahaaaaaaaaa
1/2. ding, dong, ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhoooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhaaaaaaaa
2/2. erraaahhhh oooohhhhhh (but with a keyboard!)

then 48 minutes is up, and you're left feeling good inside.


OVERALL RATING - ....................yes.
KEY TRACKS - 1/1, 2/2

Brian Eno - Another Green World

SO,

There's much to be said about "Charlie Sheen's World" - it's filled with heartache, laughter, and pleasent suprises, like any episode of "Two and a Half Men" or a subway sandwich covered with cinnamon! CINNAMON! NCCACSDFMAMOOONN!!!!

y'know, and it starts all funky. like, with two songs with sweet bass lines and you're thinking "Crap! Eno went crazy with all this funk! I mean, it's weird!!!". But then, we get some nice pop featuring, once again, Eno's lover Robert Fripp taking a really fast solo, much more faster than anything he did in that piece of crap band Giles, Giles, and Fripp. And then, it's all gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooone.



Here, ENO unleashes into the unsuspecting world a whole 33 minutes worth of semi-ambient snippets and songs. Like "another green world" is less than 2 minutes. As is "little fishes". It's also interesting because before this, Eno liked to write silly abstract and absurd lyrics, but here, they are less flat-out weird and more just THERE. I know, it makes perfect sense right? Like "everybody loves raymond". AND only 5 of these songs actually have vocals! That means for 9 songs, you are spared the cocky little english voice he has for some echo-y blips of nothing spread across keyboard arrangements and some Phil Collins drumming (he does actually play on the record).

This album didn't sell a lot of copies. Why? Because people are stupid.

But, it's because people are stupid that people like Bono ate this (along with Africa) up like crazy and had him produce a ton of their albums when they stopped working with Steve Lillypad. Capiche? BUT here, he's finally trying to bridge is pop side with his ambient side. In all essence, it actually makes a lot of sense if this was thought to be a transitional record, but since everything is done so well, it doesn't seem like it.

OH! and there's no reason that all of these songs haven't been in film scores. I should do that, I'm gonna make a film with all of these songs in IT! WATCH OUT JIM JARMUSCH! THERE'S A NEW COWBOY IN TOWN AND HIS NAME IS JOHN "SUFJAN STEVENS" WAYNE!"

OVERALL RATING - cake (the food) is much better than the band (cake). This is like ((the food)) killing the band, which would be pretty darn cool.
KEY TRACKS - the big ship, golden hours, another green world, i'll come running.