Page 32 - the NOISE December 2012

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through, as well as a surprising (and slightly disturbing) lust:
I’ve got a heavy stacked woman with a smile on her face
And she has crowned my soul with grace
I’m still hurting from an arrow that pierced my chest
I’m gonna have to take my head and bury it between your breasts
I got something in my pocket make your eye- balls swim
You pet your lover in the bed
Come here, I’ll break your lousy head
Set ‘em up Joe, play “Walkin’ The Floor” Play it for my flat-chested junkie whore
And when he’s not horny, he’s just plain nasty:
Another politician pumping out the piss Another angry beggar blowing you a kiss You got the same eyes that your mother does If only you could prove who your father was
Dylan’s world is crowded. Neil Young’s is desolate.
Psychedelic Pill is like a road trip across the Great Plains with a comfortable friend, some- one you don’t have to talk to every minute. Hours can pass without a word spoken, and when they do come, they’re just fragments of thoughts. Young’s lyrics on Psychedelic Pill may not have the evocative depth of his best work; they seem like notes to himself, vague mus- ings while behind the wheel, either bitter:
Here’s how I got my mantra Gave them 35 bucks now Gave it to the Maharishi
It went to the organization
Or poignant:
Me and some of my friends
We were gonna save the world We were tryin’ to make it better But then the weather changed And the white got stained
And it fell apart
And it breaks my heart
To think about how close we came
Nearly 26 minutes into “Driftin’ Back,” he drops THIS bomb:
Gonna get me a hip-hop haircut Hey now now, hey now now Blockin’ out my anger
Findin’ my religion
I might be a Pagan I’m driftin’ back
“Ramada Inn” is an unflinching sketch of a marriage in trouble and a man coming to terms with his addiction, while “Born In On- tario” is such a natural, I had to check to make sure Neil hadn’t already written it.
Bob has his words for company, Neil has his guitar. Young fills the lonely spaces with angry stabs from Old Black, his familiar Les Paul. At the end of “Walk Like A Giant,” Neil and Crazy Horse play the THUMP! THUMP! of enormous footsteps across the land. The sound is omi- nous, apocalyptic.
No matter how far Dylan wanders or Young drives, fate is always catching up. — TBZ
Angel Olsen
Half Way Home
Bathetic Records
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Angel Olsen’s full length debut dropped earlier this year like a tragically lost artifact from the Laurel Canyon sixties. Conspiracy theories whispered about Crosby, Stills and Nash squashing Olsen’s debut because they couldn’t stand anything so beautiful compet- ing with their gold record formula. Joan Baez and Carole King also suspected of helping
“lose” this fine document; jealousy being the only motive.
In reality, Angel Olsen seems too young to pen such broken hearted sentiments as found in “Lonely Universe.” This epic seven and a half minutes just gets better and deeper as it trudges along like a cliché funeral procession in a rainstorm somewhere in Tennessee, or Louisiana perhaps. A mother is lost... Or...
And more importantly, who are the simple fools that are breaking this beautiful woman’s heart with the voice of gold? I will fight them. I will of course lose and this will maybe win Ol- sen’s eye.
When you can hear her lips smack and breath catch in between words on “Can’t Wait Until Tomorrow,” it is I who is sad. This love let- ter as review business is nonsense. It will not work. This old soul with a voice so deep and resonant, Leonard Cohen and Antony Hagar-
ty’s name is constantly getting thrown around as references in reviews that aren’t this one is not interested. That’s okay.
It’s not all doom and gloom. “Free” sounds almost formulaic. A classic. And Olsen’s vocal goes off the rails, into the heavens as it cre- scendos into a lost Velvets track.
It’s the final song that smokes the most.“The Tiniest Seed,” with that simple straight struc- ture and chords- “I wish you were here with me, but you are too far away/Standing beside me now with nothing to say/I wish somehow you knew how much you mean/That I could be for you/Which you are for me. Where is my har- mony? Where is my friend?”
But you’ve never felt anything like that be- fore, right?
The Babies
Our House on the Hill
Woodsist
jjjj
Yeah, this is as good as everyone seems to be saying it is. It’s catchy incarnate from note one. And there is a glom of bands in this bub- ble gum pop genre right now, but they don’t all sing, “I want to get high with you/Up the stairs/To your room,” and just keep it simple, relatable and danceable.
The album just flies by, the longest song nearing a whopping three and three quarter minutes. They get all acoustic and songwritery on track 6, “Mean,” sort of like a Simon Joyner with teen angst, a much smaller vocabulary, and new wave inflection. The trumpet that comes in is classy. “That Boy” is similar and doesn’t come in full-band until the song is nearly over, and it just smokes from there, breaking back down for a fantastic final set of bars. “Just make those hips shake for me.” In- deed.
The Babies started as a side project for some indie-rock darlings and it’s funny how things work out sometimes; those things you don’t put as much effort in, but rather as a time-kill- ing lark end up with a life of their own.
The clincher is there isn’t a single stinker in the batch of twelve tracks. Picking a favorite isn’t fun either. Opener, “Alligator,” does its job but there’s a soft spot in my heart for the senti- ment in “See the Country,” but it really is fairly arbitrary with the quality songwriting here.
Check them out before your teenage daugh- ter tells you how good they are.
angel olsen; the babies; o’brother
O’Brother
Basement Window EP
Triple Crown Records
jjj
You can’t dance to it.
Heavy, melodramatic, slow and verbose. Like that Radiohead Godspeed You Black Em- peror collaboration you’ve been dreaming about. The drums don’t come in until track two,
“Machines Part I.” It gets vaguely industrial on “Poison!,” the ender, and the first few listens, I
found myself really zoning this out on every- thing in between. It’s just so slow and plod- ding. When it comes down to it, this is pretty goth. I imagine the band playing their set in the total dark, with red lights coming on briefly at key moments. Smoke machines for the oc- casional strobe, black outfits, black make up. Some folks just don’t do the rock n roll. That’s okay. If the dishonest Mormon would’ve taken the house that slaves built, I might just be in the mood for this. For now, I’ll take my distant drone strikes with some good old fashioned dance music.
Sic Alps/Freakapuss
New Trawgs III/Here Today Here Tomorrow 7”
Drag City
jjj
For all I know, Freakapuss is Sic Alps. They both sing in British accents.
Right here we got two glorious nuggets of the lazy psychedelic variety with wit flow- ing over like beer foam. Very much as if Anton Newcombe and the ghost of Skip Spence and sharing needles, riffs, and loony bin stories. Marc Bolan’s ghost of small stature is definitely looming large and chilling as well. The Troggs, as referenced in Sic Alps’ song title, show for a moment and say, “I can’t control myself, love is all around,” and then they split. Not sure what it all amounts to, but this is a great little single. Freakapuss almost sound like the Troggs aping Bob Dylan, which ends up working really well. The Sic Alps band do their thing, as if this is a throw away from their new LP, which is kind of like if the Troggs tried to do something like the Pretty Things’ SF Sorrow. Neither of these songs are going to blow your mind, but that’s all right. At least it’s something that stands up to repeated listens.
Next month: the worst of 2012. Please contribute. music@thenoise.us
32 • DECEMBER 2012 • the NOISE arts & news • thenoise.us