Phantogram :: "When I'm Small"

For fifteen seconds at the beginning of Phantogram's "When I'm Small" I have this panicked feeling that someone made a dub-step version of Cold War Kids' "Hang Me Out To Dry." The lazily threatening bass-riff, the thumping drums - it all feels like indie rock for a nightclub. The hooting vocals chirp over the top and this thing sounds equal parts dangerous and delicate. Of course, the album is titled Eyelid Movies, implying that once the lights (or the lids) go down, the show is just beginning; that the line between wakefulness and subconscious fantasy is no more than a blink away. None of this leaves us feeling comfortable as we drop into nothing. The old epistemological questions persist and our waking dream continues.

Listen :: Phantogram - "When I'm Small"

Wolf Gang :: "The King and All of His Men"

We posted the video for Wolf Gang's newest single, "The King and All of His Men" last week but we've got the mp3 today. It is the end point, or maybe a beginning, of a months long process towards their debut record. "The King and All of His Men" delivers every ounce of the promise of previous demos ("Nightflying") and smash-single "Pieces of You." This is the sound of a break out. This is the moment right before a band gets very, very popular. I've been telling you to listen to this band for months. It's not entirely too late.

Listen :: Wolf Gang - "The King and All of His Men"

On The List :: Florence and the Machine @ Bowery Ballroom [10.27.09]

This review runs on Bowery's Houselist Blog

Watching Florence Welch of Florence and the Machine sing is like watching any number of acts, absurd in their direction, scope and control. She is a dunk from the foul line, a release of water held furtively behind a dam, the climactic scene of Scent of a Woman. She is mind-blowing. In fact, she may directly oppose every visual metaphor in this paragraph. She is like the Grand Canyon - you've either seen it up close, or you haven't.

Dressed in flowing white, Florence spilled to the stage with her black-clad band, The Machine. Opening with "Two Lungs," Welch exploded into to chorus. She didn't need all of the considerable orchestra, including the harp, to vibrate the floor of a completely packed Bowery Ballroom. With the Island Records crew stuffed into the balcony, Welch flitted around the stage, pushing her elbows back and popping her chest out like some mechanical and delicate bird. She repeatedly pointed at us, directly, to emphasize elements of her story, only to cover a smile with her hand. She is emphatic and wilting, if these two things are possible at once.

Florence, referring to herself as "Flo," sang almost every song on her album. "Drumming Song" was predictably tribal and elevating, making you think this is the twenty-years later incarnation of Kate Bush. "Cosmic Love" was the best song of the night and closed the set before the encore. Her voice pushed us back in our seats; grabbed the visual to zoom and pan. She defies visual simile. As much as you try, she is not like anything else.

Listen :: Florence and the Machine - "You've Got The Love" [The xx Remix]

[CMJ 2009] Little Girls :: "Growing"

It is more than impossible to see every band you want to at CMJ. It is also impossible to know which bands will settle into people's hearts as hype builds from Tuesday to Friday, crescendos Saturday afternoon/evening, only to wash out like the tide from a beach full of pasty kids in skinny jeans. Little Girls are a band I both didn't see and one that set some worlds on fire in the last 96 hours. They play a style of lo-fi post-punk that sounds like Pains of Being Pure At Heart covering some lost New Order song from '84. The guitars have all been angled-off with something jagged and not terribly sharp and the vocals call from the bottom of a well where, we can imagine, this is all being recorded into a Fisher-Price tape deck. That said, it wouldn't be a stretch for Sophia Coppola to use this in her second try at the Marie Antoinette movie, as something grave, graceful, and extremely far away.

Listen :: Little Girls - "Growing"

CMJ 2009 :: Golden Silvers, Mumford & Sons and The Temper Trap @ Music Hall of Williamsburg [10.22.09]

This review runs on Bowery's Houselist blog.

Temper Trap lead singer, Chris Mandagi beckoned the crowd to surge forward. The band was in the middle of an eight-song set at a nearly sold-out Music Hall of Williamsburg and things tilted with furious telemetry. It wouldn't be fair to say the set up to this point was pedestrian, but it certainly wasn't an elevating artistic moment. The band's much-licensed, smash-single, "Sweet Disposition" tipped the whole evening towards something different. So as Mandagi chanted the lyrics, he beckoned us forward.



An hour earlier, British folk-rock act Mumford and Sons dominated the same stage that Mandagi would later try to crush the crowd against. Rife with banjo, upright bass, and full-on four-part harmony, Mumford and Sons are the first band to ever move this many people without a drummer. The crowd knew the lyrics though the band would later joke that their album isn't out in the states yet. The implication is clear (you stole our album) but the accusation is invisible (still, thanks for singing along). They closed with a new song, "Whispers in the Dark," featuring the closing line, "let's live while we're still young." There isn't anything better to tell a room full of people who are mortgaging sleep and jobs for the sake of a music festival.



Slipped back in medias res and Temper Trap crushed their final four songs after "Sweet Disposition." Closing with "Science of Fear," Mandagi does his best vocal clown car, with a surprising amount of material coming out of a seemingly tiny vessel. As the song closed, he turned to his band and let the mike thud to the floor. The Temper Trap urged us forward and then retreated in kind. We were left to live while we were young. And that's what we did.

Ohmyrockness 5th Anniversary Party/Oya Festival @ Santos Party House

My CMJ begins when I stumble through the doors of Santos to be confronted by three Norwegians in short shorts and glittery tops. They are men. They are the men of Ungdomskulen. I quickly send a text to someone in the room about the glitter shirts. They are, empirically, awesome. But it is the music, not the aesthetics, that is moving the front of the room. Packed against the stage are all the usual CMJ kids: plaid shirts, tight pants, expensive cameras, notebooks stuffed in the spaces between textiles. But in this case, they are moving as Ungdomskulen closes their set with animated and amused aggression. At least one girl, having never seen the band before says, "That made my CMJ. That was the best thing I'm going to see." This is what bands from Norway come to do; impress you - you in the graphic t-shirts and winter hats inside, you - and in this case, they do.

From the Norwegian meat market, we run a quick jaunt downstairs to catch the last songs of Evan Voytas' set. He and I have never met but I once made an inside joke about him being confused and disoriented and he liked it enough to put it on his website. It is rare that anyone pulls press quotes that you actually like. Evan Voytas pulled an inside joke that I didn't expect him to get, let alone appreciate. He is wearing a cardigan sweater two sizes too big as he motors through "Higher" and "Astro" to close his set. "Astro" takes a particular level of commitment as Voytas resolves to sing it almost entirely in falsetto. Voytas packs his things in a neither confused nor disoriented fashion. The trip from California was long and maybe by the end of the week we'll know if it was worth it.

After Voytas, and a reasonable soundcheck, the night belongs to Small Black. The Long Island by way of Brooklyn set bring decks of synths and loops to burn. Backed by live drums and a wave of sound big enough to sink this basement in 10 feet of water, Small Black are the unquestionably the most exciting band of the evening. The electronic soundscapes feel more personal in person and the undulating synthesized melodies are more meaningful at higher volume. They play "Despicable Dogs" fourth out of six and when they're finished it's too soon. If there's a band to catch at CMJ 2009, in that way that small bands are still just small bands, it is Small Black.

Meanwhile, upstairs, I Was A King power through a set thoughtful, yet not unself-conscious, indie-rock songs. Even after I'd been prepped to hear them sound like Teenage Fanclub, they sound A LOT like Teenage Fanclub. This is far more of a compliment than it is an accusation of derivative influence. They are our second Norwegian act of the night and are expected back in Oslo in three days time. Their female guitarist is one of the more compelling parts of the evening, wailing on her whammy bar like it is joystick to an outdated videogame.

The night would end with dueling indie rock from Cymbals Eat Guitars upstairs and Real Estate downstairs. Cymbals Eat Guitars finds its stride in the middle of their set, channeling that time in the mid-1990s when music was about pain and independent labels marketed emotional catharsis to all those thousands of destroyed, hyper-literate, post-Smiths fans of this country. If Steven Malkmus was in the building, he wouldn't be upset, but he wouldn't be entirely impressed either. Real Estate provides a more mathematical, and at once lush, solution to the same problem: fuzzy guitars, delicate arrangements, and confusing song structure. It is far better than I just made it sound. And like that, the lights come up and we're asked to leave.

Listen :: Evan Voytas - "Astro"
Listen :: Small Black - "Despicable Dogs"
Listen :: Cymbals Eat Guitars - "Wild Phoenix"
Listen :: Real Estate - "Beach Comber"
Listen :: I Was A King - "Norman Bleik"

Wolf Gang :: "The King And All Of His Men"

Wolf Gang are making up and breaking out just like we said they would. We've written about the band a few times over the last few months but never more prophetically than in our writing about one of their first demos, "Nightflying" last March.

"Maybe 2009 is the year for Wolf Gang. Given how roughed around the demos are, it could be 2010 by the time anyone really hears this but for now, let's call it: This band is going to blow up ... It's hard to picture now, but close your eyes and try anyways; richer production, maybe some strings, a real clean vocal mix, and those piano peel-offs in perfect crystaline hi-fi. It's hard to envision but the framework is there. I Promise." - 3.02.09

And here we are today, with the release of the band's latest single, "The King And All Of His Men." It all happened. They signed to Atlantic, made a big, clean album. "Richer production, maybe some strings, a real clean vocal mix, and those piano peel-offs in perfect crystaline hi-fi." And that was exactly the way it went.



"Wolf Gang, for all its ambitious sound and arrangement, will need to clean up their records. Bear this in mind when one of your friends plays you an over-produced version of this song (or another by the band) in 9-months. This is the fun part. You were there at the beginning ... sort of." 6.12.09

Listen :: Wolf Gang - "Pieces of You"
Listen :: Wolf Gang - "Nightflying"