DNNTA Playlist for February 20, 2015

Artist - Song - Album (Label)
* indicates Canadian Content 

Listen to Do Not Touch This Amp every Friday 8-9 PM Pacific at www.thex.ca 

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Alvvays - Party Police* - Alvvays (Polyvinyl)
Sleater-Kinney - Surface Envy - No Cities to Love (Sub Pop)
Solids - Traces* - Blame Confusion (Dine Alone)
Switches - Stole All My Stuff* - I Just Wanna (Independent)
The Buzzcocks - People Are Strange Machines - The Way (1234 Go!)
Pizzarrhea! - Space to Mouth* - Uper (Independent)
Malk - Each Other* - Prehistoric EP (Independent)
The Huaraches - Mudsharks, Away!* - Steal Second (Independent)
The Huaraches - Armenian Bandstand* - Steal Second (Independent)
Ritual Movement Band - The Gardens* - Ritual Movement Band (Independent)
Johnny de Courcy - Southern Plain* - Alien Lake (Neptoon)
The Auras - Honey Flower* - The Auras (Optical Sounds)
Visage - Fade to Grey - Fade to Grey (Polydor)

DNTTA Playlist for February 13, 2015

Artist - Song - Album (Label)
* indicates Canadian Content 

Listen to Do Not Touch This Amp every Friday 8-9 PM Pacific at www.thex.ca 

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Kris Davis - Too Tinkerbell* - MusicWorks (Independent)
Zubot and Dawson - The Swaggering Dragon* - Tractor Parts (Black Hen)
Subtle Lip Can - Salk Hovered* - Reflective Drime (Drip Audio)
Zubotta - The Box* - Zubotta (Drip Audio)
Aeolipile - Flash Farmed and Factory Flooded - Mapping the Diaphragms of Dying Cats (Foolproof)
West Hill Blast Quartet - Domestic Goose Chase - Blast /2 (Foolproof)
Bill Frisell - Rumble - Guitars in the Space Age (Okeh)
Jarrett/Haden/Motian - Life, Dance - Hamburg 72 (ECM)
Beck - Pressure Zone - Midnite Vultures (DGC)
Beck - Readymade - Odelay (DGC)

Best of 2014 #4: Caribou - Our Love (Merge)

Another artist whose work I love, Caribou was finally back in 2014 with new music. Dan Snaith, the musician and mathematician behind Caribou gave is a nice slab of electronic in his brief hiatus from the Caribou name, under the name of Daphni in 2012. Caribou's last album, Swim, was one of my favourites back in 2010, and it was a psychedelic-splash pop-electronica album. Our Love is much in the poppy electronic style, but there's more of a deliberate attempt at pushing into spacy electronics on this album. The pop styles are still there, with most of the songs being quite short. No long meanderings on this album. The first single off this album was released in the summer, months before the album, and it quickly became an anthem of 2014. Here's that single, "Can't Do Without You":

On Beck's Grammy win

It's hard to figure out the Grammys sometimes. More times than not, they're very predictable. Each year, though, seems to have some oddball and non-conventional picks, like Arcade Fire's win a couple of years ago. This year had a few, with Beck's win for Album of the Year being the big one. There's also Tenacious D winning Best Metal Album (metal bloggers are covering this one with some derision). And there's Kanye West's usual attention mongering.

Beck's already handled Kanye with some aplomb. Personally, I don't think much of Kanye West. His work is oddly atonal. His singing is sub-par and he relies on auto-tune way too much. His singles are rambling and largely unlistenable. His comments come off as self-serving and ignorant. His comments about “respecting artistry” proves he knows little about Beck's work, and likely doesn't know anything about Beck at all. His comments about artists getting tired of the Grammys pulling stunts like this again suggests he has no knowledge of Beck's long career as a musician, and that artists need the respect of awards shows to be successful. Funny, I always thought artists made art for the sake of expressing themselves. This says tons about Kanye's opinion of music: that he does it for attention, not for artistry. Who's the real artist now?

After re-listening to Morning Phase, I'm struggling to hear what the Grammy judges heard here. This album was barely on the radar of most critics. I saw it show up on a few year end lists, even topping one I saw, but this album was a dark horse from the get go.

This award does seem to come out of left field. More and more, this seems like a “Sorry, we screwed up” kind of Grammy that come around every once in a while. I'm a big fan of Beck's work, having most of his catalogue in my collection. He's made some amazing albums (94's Mellow Gold, '96's Odelay, '02's Sea Change), some pretty good albums ('98's Mutations, '05's Guero) and no really horrible albums. Like Ray Charles (awarded album of the year after his death for a poor album, and the Grammys ignoring most of his work over the years), Santana (awarded album of the year for an average album, after years of great work with little accolades) or Herbie Hancock (awarded album of the year recently for a jazz album of Joni Mitchell songs in a field awash with pop stars), Beck's win is less of an award for a great album than an award that celebrates the career of a great musician.

Morning Phase isn't a great album. It's a pretty average album. It's a spiritual successor of sorts to Sea Change, which I consider his best album ever. Whereas Sea Change is a bleak album, full of loneliness and abandonment, Morning Phase takes that formula, adds strings and pianos, and comes up with something that's a touch more upbeat, and a lot more safe. It's about ten steps behind Sea Change. Even Mutations' odd mix of country, blues and Beck's usual noodling about is superior to Morning Phase. Sea Change was a desert of an album, a bold statement on the art of songwriting from someone who was usually dismissed as a novelty act. Morning Phase isn't nearly as dangerous an album as Sea Change. It's not anywhere near the experimentation seen in Beck's other work, the weird funk-rock of Odelay, the middle-finger raising slacker-rock of Mellow Gold or the loopy electro-rock of Guero.

Make no mistake, Beck deserved the award. It's a shame it couldn't have been given to him earlier though. Obviously, handing it out in 1994 for Mellow Gold or 1996 for Odelay would have been risky. His career was young and his genius was apparent, but he could easily slid into obscurity or musical novelty. Sea Change was well after his awkward growing phase as an artist, and the album deserved to be recognized for the masterpiece it is. It's a bittersweet win for Beck, but a deserving win nonetheless.

Best of 2014 #5 - The Pixies - Indie Cindy (PixiesMusic)

I was incredibly habit to finally hear new music coming out from the legendary noise-pop band The Pixies. After years of touring, the band finally gave its fans some new music to chew on. And it was good, but not without controversy (I've already written about this, so I won't go into it in detail.) Could there be a Pixies without Kim Deal. Yes, there could be, and they made a damned fine album. This is not Doolittle, and nor should it be. This is the 2014 Pixies and they're just about as good as they can be. Indie Cindy was a very solid effort of noisy, melodic post-punk with Frank Black's odd lyrics intact. No idea if the band will continue with new music, but no matter. This holds up well to the Pixies' legacy and is a nice kick off to a possible future.

DNTTA Playlist for February 6, 2015

Artist - Song - Album (Label)
* indicates Canadian Content 

Listen to Do Not Touch This Amp every Friday 8-9 PM Pacific at www.thex.ca 

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aLUNARED - Eyesore* - SLMZK! (Action Driver)
Tangerine Dream - Graffiti Street (live) - Live in America 1992 (Eagle)
Second Culture - Sorting Sanctuary - Thunder Conjuring Mind (Independent)
Dorsetshire - Why Me? - Tyrrany Off the Beat (Cleopatra)
Saxsyndrum - Maceonectar* - SXD (Art Not Love)
Cornelius - New Music Machine - Fantasma (Matador)
Zola Jesus - Devil Take You - The Spoils (Sacred Bones)
AM Static - Telegraph* - A Life Well Lived (Independent)
Negativland - I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For (radio edit) - These Guys Are from England (Seelard)

DNTTA Playlist for January 30, 2015

Artist - Song - Album (Label)
* indicates Canadian Content 

Listen to Do Not Touch This Amp every Friday 8-9 PM Pacific at www.thex.ca 

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White Lung - Face Down* - Deep Fantasy (Domino)
Daniel Lanois - Aquatic* - Flesh and Machine (Anti)
Argo - Les Mains Vides* - Une Petite Certitude (Boghei)
Moss Lime - Fish and Chips* - July First (Fixture)
Shaani Cage - Special* - Danyaal (Independent)
D.F. - Down Way Low* - Snowshell (Shaking Box)
Dark Orchard - Ruby* - Blossom (Independent)
Cygnets - Life is Suicide* - Sleepwalkers (Negative Gain)
Tomo Nakayama - Fog on the Lens - Fog on the Lens (Independent)
Spain - It Could Be Heaven - Sargent Place (Dine Alone)
Ariel Pink - Put Your Numbers in My Phone - Pom Pom (4AD)
Hansmole - Cowichan* - Fourteen by Fourteen (Baffled Octopi)

Best of 2014 #6: Eagulls - Eagulls (Partisan)

Eagulls are a rough-knuckled band from Northern UK who put out an impressive debut this year. Eagulls' pedigree is more on the lo-fi side of indie rock, but their post-punk and garage influences are readily apparent. Their self-titled debut is a bruising, raucous and punk-tinged romp through post-punk territories. More and more bands like this seem to be coming out of Europe (see last years Savages, this years Lower (up at #2 on my list, we'll get to it)), and it's a pleasant surprise to see a less nihilistic noise coming out. It's also interesting to see the Partisan label branching out to less rootsy fare in the past couple of years.