My Little Corner Of The World – Volume 44

by Vinh on February 16th, 2010

Suede – Dog Man Star (1994)
One of the first bands to ride the Britpop wave were Suede but this follow-up to their Bowie/T-Rex-obsessed androgynous-glam debut was not at all what the world expected. The final worthwhile collaboration between Brett Anderson and Bernard Butler (Butler quit before the record’s release and their coming together as The Tears a few years back being mostly disappointing) was completely over the top, ridiculously ambitious, yet altogether brilliant. Sordid tales of sex, sleazy drug deals, suicide, social rebellion, and escapism make up much of Anderson’s lyrics and for a time in the mid 90s, he was arguably Britain’s greatest rock ‘n’ roll wordsmith. As a 14-year-old listening to this when it first came out, I had a hard time getting my head around some of these songs, but the world described in Dog Man Star, something of a dark place full of life’s vices, was made to sound so alluring that I have always had to come back to it. Sure, ‘We Are The Pigs’, ‘The Wild Ones’, and ‘New Generation’ are as instantly remarkable now as then but, with time, tunes like ‘Daddy’s Speeding’, ‘The 2 Of Us’, and the genius ‘The Asphalt World’ have become just as familiar. Dog Man Star is an album that doesn’t belong to any time period or temporary fad but should be considered one of the finest British albums of the past 25 years. – Matthew James

The Unicorns – Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone? (2004)
For me, it seems to be a month for playfully flippant rock numbers. Last week I was spinning Menomena’s Friend And Foe, and now I’ve turned to an album that bears a similar attitude. Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone? is another record that appears carefree on the exterior, but is quite the introspective experience upon closer examination. It is likely the cruel, Canadian winter passing through that has me longing for these cheery synthpop tunes, and it’s probably my yearning for the summer’s return that has lines like “I spotted the glow over the mountain tonight/My turn to turn in just when the weather’s getting nice” giving me chills. It’s only natural to search for a getaway during harsh times, but almost always impossible to truly escape. It’s freezing, snow is on the ground, but Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone? is acting as my vacation. – Rick Southwick

Eleven – Eleven (1993)
Every month or so, I’ll sign onto Pandora and try to create an Eleven channel. So far, my efforts have always ended in confusion and disappointment. Despite their consistently inventive albums and their immutable prosiness among some of rock’s biggest names, the five stellar albums recorded under their own moniker have remained a buried treasure. What makes their self-titled second album so strong is how heavily pronounced each of the individual band members’ personalities are. Drummer Jack Irons was incredibly successful providing the pulse for Pearl Jam and Red Hot Chili Peppers, but he sounds most at home in Eleven providing the through line for Natasha Shneider’s enchanting electric organ and Alain Johannes’ explosively funky guitar riffs. Johannes and Shneider share vocal duties creating a sonic ying and yang between Shneider’s seductive croon and Johannes’ authoritative scream. Eleven was clearly influenced by a wide variety of styles and they didn’t shy away from incorporating all of those genres into the music that grew from their collaborations with each other. That an album starting with the grunge rocker ‘Crash Today’ can safely arrive at the electric-organ-driven ‘Hieronymus’ by the fourth track is a credit to how seamlessly Eleven melded their artistic interests into one unpredictable musical aesthetic that was distinctly theirs. This album sounds like three people who deeply care about each other as much as their craft, working together to grow their art, their band, and themselves. It’s hard to listen to these songs without remembering the close friends I’ve worked with and the memories we made with these songs in the background. – Jeremy Schaefer

Neil Young – On The Beach (1974)
The follow-up to 1972’s radio-friendly Harvest, On The Beach is often described as a darker, sparer affair than its predecessor. But this characterization fails to account for Young’s ability to lend a mellow country warmth to even the sparsest arrangements, not to mention that some of the tracks feature organ, horns, piano, harp, banjo, and fiddle in addition to Young’s standard guitar/slide guitar/harmonica trifecta. The album is at its best when Young reflects on depression and isolation, and his increasingly cynical view of his own fame. These meditations range from the slow and sad (‘On The Beach’, the 9-minute ‘Ambulance Blues’) to the cagey and defiant (the upbeat opener ‘Walk On’, the angsty ‘Revolution Blues’). Through the album’s eight tracks, Young comes across anxious but contemplative — able to analyze his problems but unable to fix them. Young seems to sum up his — and the album’s — neuroses in the title track, lamenting: “I need a crowd of people/But I can’t face them day to day/Though my problems are meaningless/That don’t make them go away”. – Laura Mojonnier

Stereolab – Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements (1993)
Disorienting yet inviting, mechanical yet endearing, aloof yet euphoric, Stereolab’s superb sophomore full-length tugs in opposing directions. The droning synths remain from the London troupe’s charmingly sloppy debut Peng!, only now they’ve been paired with loping krautrock as well as buoyant French song to form a swirling textural marriage conjuring open roads, radiant sunshine soaked in eyes closed, and frayed postcards from a simpler time. Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements is often dubbed Stereolab’s least accessible foray and indeed, the pop elements aren’t as pronounced as those on subsequent releases. However, this outfit has never been inscrutable and it isn’t here either. It merely wades in a sea of warbly nuances as the hypnotic motorik rhythms lay down a foundation over which Laetitia Sadier and Mary Hansen coo into the mellifluous breeze as if to reciprocate the meteorological boon they’ve been bestowed. The 18-minute monolith ‘Jenny Ondioline’ is perhaps the most ambitious entry in the Lab’s canon, displaying the tints and tones at work from ludic dream pop to serene vocal passages to shape-shifting stentorian noise, all bound together in curious harmony. In the end, Transient… presents a united front on account of Stereolab’s finest asset: dedication. The fabled group does not commit artistic concessions and its first foray into major label territory is no different, traveling with hazy gusto from the rollicking drums ushering in opener ‘Tone Burst’ to the eerie atmosphere of closer ‘Lock-Groove Lullaby’. This staunch commitment allows the art-poppers to pluck inspiration from any number of disparate sources while inexplicably inching toward one clearly defined destination. This is detached yet momentous, nomadic yet resolute. It makes no sense. It makes perfect sense. – Vinh Cao