Zazen Boys- Zazen Boys II

Zazen Boys - Zazen Boys II

2004; No American Distributer; Tokyo, Japan

www.myspace.com/zazenboys

(Disclaimer) Although I understand nearly none of the lyrics in Zazen Boys II (or any other Zazen Boys for that matter), I'd bet that they were ingenious.



Zazen Boys are a four piece from Tokyo, Japan that consisted (line-up is different now) of Mukai Shutoku (former member of Number Girl), Inazawa Ahito (former drummer of Number Girl), Hinata Hidekazu (formerly from Art-School), and Yoshikane Sou (formerly from Kicking the Lion). In Number Girl, Shutoku he led the band to become one of the biggest indie bands in Japan. In Zazen Boys, he continued his musical endeavors but with a more developed sound. In other words, sheer awesomeness.

Where do I begin. First of all, the album starts off as easily accessible, and I'd consider it an alternative album over an indie or math rock album any day. However this doesn't take away from any sense of dynamic that the album has. It's gets more and more difficult, but progressively so (no pun intended), easing into more and more intensity and experimentalism. It will leave you baffled by the fact that you actually were actually able to internalize it.

The band sound is unlike your typical alternative, math rock, indie rock, post-punk, spoken word, j-rock or rap. Although elements are presented throughout, Zazen Boys combine these elements into a cohesive sound without sounding corny or recycled. On track 2 Crazy Days, Crazy Feeling, you get a funk-inspired guitar riff played through a JC-120, r&b seemingly pitch-modulated female vocals, expressive drumming reminiscent of Number Girl, and the spoken-word and rapping of Shutoku 49 seconds in. How does any of this go together? It may sound confusing, but it makes perfect sense once listened to.

Overall, Zazen Boys sounds refreshing and the only thing they recycle are some of their Number Girl tendencies. By this I mean similar melodies, phrasing and chord progressions are reused. After listening to most of their other stuff, one downfall is the fact that entire songs seem to be redone with slightly different rhythms and vocal approaches on different releases. However, on Zazen Boys II, ideas and progressions aren't repeated as far as I can tell .

If this isn't enough to get you to listen to the album, realize that Mukai doesn't only sing. He does spoken word, raps, snarls, screams, and chants. His vocal range itself isn't very dynamic, but the way he uses his voice is ultimately expressive and in my opinion, his vocal delivery means more than some of the best singing in the world.

1.	ZAZEN BO
2.	CRAZY DAYS CRAZY FEELING
3.	NO TIME
4.	Anminbo
5.	COLD BEAT
6.	You make me feel so bad
7.	Kuroi Shitagi
8.	HARAHETTA
9.	ZAZEN BO II
10.	Saizensen
11.	SEKARASIKA
12.	DAIGAKUSEI
13.	CHIE chan's Landscape
14.	Rokuhon no Kurutta Hagane no Shindo
15.	MY CRAZY FEELING

Pere Ubu - Dub Housing

Pere Ubu - Dub Housing

1978, Chrysalis Records, Cleveland OH

www.ubuprojex.net

I like post-punk. That's actually bull shit, I absolutely love post-punk. Sometimes it means brooding distorted guitars, sometimes it means lots and lots of synths, sometimes it means so much feedback that your ears start bleeding and it almost always means un restrained experimentalism. And I love every bit of it. Even the ones that make your ears bleed (especially the ones that make your ears bleed).

I have a fairly respectable collection of post-punk, new and old. From Young Marble Giants all the way down through Liars. So when I sat down to give Dub Housing my premier listen I was pretty sure I knew what to expect. A 1978 Cleavland band, named after a character from an absurdest play. Going to be something pretty dark and, well, cabaret, right? So you can imagine my surprise when I hear the initial wail of "I'VE GOT THESE ARMS AND LEGS, THEY FLIP FLOP! FLIP FLOP!"

What the fuck is going on here?

Does David Thomas realize he sounds like a really paranoid crack up David Byrne on too much caffeine? Does he realize that David Byrne is already paranoid and on too much caffeine to begin with? Does he realize the implications of adding more paranoia and coffee on top of that? Do they realize that synthesizer sounds like velcro? Does he realize... I mean what the fuck is going on here?

And I generally don't like to analyze lyrics, but seriously, what the fuck does Navvy mean? I mean, those words had to come from somewhere, right?

Once I recovered from shock, well, its brilliant. If your in to that kind of intellectual bullshit, that is. And I certainly am. All the lyrics come off as wildly intelligent when you take the time to look closely at them, and as deeply stoned rants if you don't. Both might be true. Some come off as genuinely creepy, particularly Dub Housing and Caligari's Mirror. Others, wile still remaining the weird far off center feel, are just amazingly fun. Not to mention the most innovative synthesizer use I have ever herd.

In all its an amazingly experimental off kilter album that I guaranty sounds nothing like everything you've ever herd before. But then again I don't know your music taste. You might be truly annoyed by it and want to turn it off after two songs.

1. Navvy

2. On The Surface

3. Dub Housing

4. Caligari's Mirror

5. Thriller!

6. I Will Wait

7. Drinking Wine Spodyody

8. Ubu Dance Party

9. Blow Daddyo

10. Codex

I think about you all the time...

Mastodon-Crack the Skye

Mastodon-Crack the Skye
2009; Reprise; Atlanta, Georgia
If you listen to Mastodon's drummer, Brann Dailor, he will tell you that this is what their new album, Crack the Skye, is about:

"It's about a crippled young man who experiments with astral travel. He goes up into outer space, goes too close to the sun, gets his golden umbilical cord burned off, flies into a wormhole, is thrust into the spirit real, has conversations with spirits about the fact that he's not really dead, and they decide to help him. They put him into a divination that's being performed by an early-20th-century Russian Orthodox sect called the Klisti, which Rasputin is part of.

"Knowing Rasputin is about to be murdered, they put the young boy's spirit inside of Rasputin. Rasputin goes to usurp the throne of the czar and is murdered by the Yusupovs, and the boy and Rasputin fly out of Rasputin's body up through the crack in the sky and head back. Rasputin gets him safely back into his body."

You know what? I went into this album not even knowing there WAS a story, so you can feel free to safely ignore this crackpot's ideas about his music, as long as his music is still good. And it is.

Progressive metal has been known for some time as the worst possible outcome of the genres it combines. It's snooty while being base, technically advanced without the slightest hint of dynamism, and always contains high-concept ideas with lyrics that wouldn't know depth or profundity if it slapped them right in the dick. If anything was going to pull this sad, sorry genre out of the mud, it wasn't going to be Dream Theater, it wasn't going to be Symphony-X and it sure as hell was not going to be the fucking Goddamn Flower Kings.

And I guess Mastodon felt that, as long as they were the only listenable band in modern American metal already, they might as well scoop up the pieces of prog metal and build it into something that a normal person could conceivably get into. I think they might have succeeded.

To be fair, this trend of making progressive metal not completely embarrassing didn't start with Mastodon-Tool has been doing their damndest for over a decade, and Cynic recently released the sublime Traced in Air, which I would say was far and away the best album of 2008. Like the aforementioned album, what Crack the Skye does is strip away all the masturbatory guitar solos and all the strained lyrics and replace them with warped, psychadelic imagery and pure, thundering musicianship.

Is this really an album about a cripple possessing Rasputin or whatever? Maybe-I don't know and I don't care. I know that the lyrics come off as being completely open to interpretation. I know that the riffs are electric, the drums are heavy and the vocals are piercing. I know that the subtle moments make the dashes of fury all the more powerful and I know that "The Last Baron" is one of my favorite new songs in some time.

I also know that it doesn't feel pretentious or snobby, and I know it feels like it doesn't belong to an exclusive club that only music school graduates are allowed to enter. It feels like it has something to say, even if what it's saying isn't entirely straightforward, and it wants as many people as possible to hear it. That kind of sincerity comes along rarely in modern music and almost never in prog.

And yes, this album does have problems. A few of the songs get to sounding awfully similar after a while and on "Ghost of Karelia" they actually re-use a guitar riff from an earlier album, which is a level of laziness that I'm not positive I'm comfortable with. Yeah, the idea behind the whole thing, though easily ignorable, is irredeemably goofy and that cover art looks like something you'd see painted on the side of a van.

But I think if you like metal already-or if you're just looking for something new-you really don't have anything to lose with Crack the Skye. It manages to combine classic rock fundamentals, progressive musicianship, good old fashioned heavy metal and kaleidoscopic ideas and sounds in a way I've never quite seen before. It's definitely different, and it's definitely something metal bands are going to be trying to imitate for years to come. There's a thoughtful, intelligent musical revolution coming down the road, and it's being birthed out of the corpse of progressive heavy metal. Who knew?

Pulp - This Is Hardcore

Pulp - This Is Hardcore

1998; Island Records; Sheffield, England

This is.

Jarvis Cocker is not Jesus. But he does have the same initials. And, hell, if they started a religion around him it would probably turn out it might turn out a bit better. Doing so would really piss him off though.

Pulp has been around a long time. Started when Mr. C was just sixteen in 1978, they kind of waddled around in the muck for a decade with Jarvis dissolving the rest of the band ever other year before settling on a line up in '87. And even then it was another eight years before anyone really gave a shit. In summer of '95 they released a single that fell into a really rare situation. It was an era defining song that actually deserved to be an era defining song. Weird. Riding on the back of 'Common People', Pulp realized that that needed an album to package it with. So, in three months they wrote, recorded, and released Different Class and that, also, turned out to be good. In fact, even though it was just an effort to capitalize on a hit, it's actually one of the best records in all of Britpop. Weird. Though, it really is the third oddity that is the strangest of all. Its Pulp ridiculous ability to write disco-inspired songs that are, at the same time, wildly wildly catchy and absolutely brilliant. This never fucking happens.

So a day came to pass when Jarvis Cocker could stand atop his peak at Glastonberry and look out across the country and know that everything he saw was his. These people wanting only the now were his. Oasis with their bigger-then-the-Beatles popularity was his. Blur bitterly leaving the park life behind was his. Kula Shaker talking about how great swastikas are was his. And as he gazed on the kingdom he knew there was only one way to go. OUT.

Three years, one lost band member, one lost girlfriend, and a mountain of cocaine later Pulp released This Is Hardcore. If there is a way that an album that hit #1 in its own country can commercial suicide this is it. The man who talked about how much he hated rich people realized he was now rich. The man who canonized the dream of revolution of the young realized not only did they fail, but that there was no revolution to begin with. The man who once slept with a mans wife purely as a form of revenge realized, well, that he had once slept with a mans wife purely as a form of revenge. This Is Hardcore is a bit hard to explain because I don't think there is any precedent. Somehow Jarvis spends an album relentlessly criticizing himself and looking at the pointlessness of everything without ever coming across as either Rivers Coumo circa Pinkerton or Robert Waters circa The Wall. Hell, I think I could listen to this album five hundred times in a row without getting annoyed at his depression, something not even OK Computer can manage.

In 'A Little Soul' a man looks at his son and begs his son not to turn out like him. Tells him son that the physical resemblance is as far as the likeness should go. 'Party Hard' and 'This Is Hardcore' and 'Seductive Barry' find him bitterly using clubs and sex as an escape even though he knows its just getting more fucked up as he goes along. In 'I'm A Man' he asks if he should even have started along in life at all, but he knows it doesn't matter.

The most depressing song to me is 'Glory Days'. So this is it? As we've gone I've sold out everything I had. I am poor and I am ugly and all I have are my drugs and my back-stabbing friends. I fought hard to get to the promise land but all I found there was unwashed dishes. We tried to take the world and the future but all I got was a scummy studio apartment. But it doesn't matter. These are still our glory days. And it will never ever be better then this. If you turn up the stereo real loud you might believe that we really made it.

The last song on the album deals with britpop. It deals with 'Common People' and 'Mis-shapes'. It dealt with 'Live Forever' and 'For Tomorrow' and the thousands of other songs of the era that swore that finally the young and the poor were going to rise up and throw out those in charge. The songs that were only thwarted by the fact that it never happened. The last song looks at the world after the revolution in Britain happened and says 'Isn't it all so nice. Aren't You Just So Fucking Happy?'

On the back of the album cover rests these words: It's Ok To Grow Up - Just As Long As You Don't Grow Old. Face It... You Are Young.

This is a very dangerous album. Step lightly.

1. The Fear

2. Dishes

3. Party Hard

4. Help the Aged

5. This Is Hardcore

6. TV Movie

7. A Little Soul

8. I'm a Man

9. Seductive Barry

10. Sylvia

11. Glory Days

12. The Day After the Revolution

Times New Viking - Rip It Off

Times New Viking - Rip It Off

2008, Matador Records, Columbus OH

http://www.myspace.com/timesnewviking

I have some records designated as my come-down music. After a long night when I'm exhausted but not sleeping and I need to center my self a little bit its the music I lie down on my bed and crank up on headphones. A spot formally dominated by all things arctic monkeys and the killers first lp and whatever no age has put out recently. Now I'm afraid all of those albums have lost their spot the minute I herd Rip It Off. Perhaps I'm odd in this use.

Lo-Fi music is a bit of an anomaly. When it works it works. Brings you closer to the sound even as it crackles and distorts it. Bands like Elliott Smith, Neutral Milk Hotel, The White Stripes, Sebadoh, and Beck, just to name a few, push their limited equipment as far as it will go with amazing results. At its worst though it puts a wall between the performer and the audience and you end up wishing they would just cut the crap and let you hear the song straight. My first exposure to Times New Viking had me place them firmly in the second category. Back in November

Fuck it

I was going to go off on this whole direction that was going to be real reviewer-like but, fuck it. i'm not going there. This is loud shit. turn it up. kick your fucking shoes off. i'll make you jump, not brood. its punk over driven to such an extent that the poorly mixed live show is a step up in sound quality. but thats ok. its some how cleansing to me. like a breath of fresh air. and yet it can be angry and anthemic and even, gasp, catchy. its brilliant. once you get past the production it is a very very enjoyable record.

don't get their most recent, the 'Wake Up' ep. its very cheap, comes on a 7" which very few eps seem to come on anymore and hell it cost less then most 7" singles do but it sucks. theres a reason those songs got regulated to an ep instead of the lp.

lets conceive a new concept of thoughtless

Genesis - Foxtrot, Selling England by the Pound and The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, with an emphasis on Foxtrot

Genesis - Foxtrot

1972; Atlantic Records; Surrey, England

www.genesis-music.com

First of all, can I just say how raw it is that Peter Gabriel used to dress up like that fox lady on the cover when he performed songs from this album?

IT'S TOTALLY FUCKING RAW.

Anyway-Genesis is quite an odd beast to tackle. Public opinion generally seems to flow against them, which is something I've never been able to understand. Or, wait, is it because my generation takes their opinions from South Park?

No, okay, I understand completely.

This is the fourth album they cut-it's from their "golden age", which means Pete Gabriel singing, Steve Hackett on guitar, Phil Collins on drums, Mike Rutherford on bass, and Tony Banks on every instrument in the world. This lineup had four albums-this one, Nursery Cryme, Selling England by the Pound, and The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway. I haven't heard Cryme but I can definitely say that this is solidly between Selling England and Lamb. That doesn't mean anything to anyone who isn't me, so I'll go into some more detail.

To understand this, you need to know something about early Genesis, and that is this: They write fairy tales. They don't write songs about fairy tales, they make new ones and make them as musically complex as possible. Yes, it's pretentious and dandy and abstract and weird, but it's also just gorgeous fucking music. I don't think there's one person who couldn't find a song that moved them if they looked into it.

On the proggiest, most inaccessible end of the spectrum, you've got Selling England by the Pound. It has eight songs, two of which are over eleven minutes long, and for all save one, there is a keyboard solo that takes over five minutes. It's essentially studio-sanctioned masturbation and it's not an album I recommend to anyone who can't sit through a lot of pretentious horse shit, lyrically and instrumentally.They try to jam too many stories and too many disparate ideas onto one record and it really doesn't work as well as they think it does.

And then on the other side you have The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.Much like Pink Floyd's The Wall, it's a double concept album, and what that means that when you have an album that's 90 minutes, you're going to have an audience that's not going to abide 50 of those minutes being instrumentals or keyboard solos, so what they had to do was rein themselves in, and shit, did it ever work. It's instantly accessible without losing a modicum of depth or intelligence and it tells a compelling, if hard to follow, story at that. It's easily in my top 20 favorite albums of all time.

And then right in the middle of all this you have Foxtrot, released before both of them. It's six songs long-the final song is the 23 minute "Supper's Ready". It's the centerpiece of this album-a lot of people would call it the centerpiece of their early career-and Gabriel, Collins, Rutherford and the rest had the good Goddamn sense to make sure that it moves. Every minute trucks along briskly as we start in the living room of a pair of lovers and ends with Revelations and the building of the new Jerusalem. "Epic" doesn't begin to describe this song, and not "epic" in the way a bro would use it- really, truly sweeping and moving, like the Illiad or Beowulf. It's worth getting this album just to hear this song, if you're willing to invest the nearly half hour you'd need to enjoy it.

The rest of the album fares pretty well-not a whole ton happens during the first song, "Watcher of the Skies", but "Time Table" is a pretty lovely letter to "A time of valor, and legends born/When honor meant much more to a man than life", and while "Get'em Out By Friday" can wear on the nerves, "Can-Utility and the Coastliners" entertains throughout. It's interesting to note that the two longer songs("Watcher" and "Friday) easily cause interest to wane, while the two shorter ones are superior and the very, very longest is by far the achievement of this album.

So it's hard to really get a bead on this one. I would say that it's without question better than Selling England and definitely not as good as Lamb. But how would it sound to a newcomer(the important part)? I couldn't in good conscience tell anyone to stay away from this album; I think it would be more beneficial to borrow it from a friend and see what you think. This is not "walking around" music-this is Mr. James's government class: You'll have fun and you'll definitely learn something, but you're going to need to plant your ass down, shut up and pay attention. This is big kid music, and Genesis is not going to hold your hand through it. If you don't mind a little keyboard action, if biblical overtones interest you, if you like your music as more than "background noise"-well, I don't actually know if you'll like it, but I'll definitely be curious to hear what you think.

-CJ

1.  Watcher of the Skies — 7:19
2.  Time Table — 4:40
3.  Get 'Em Out By Friday — 8:35
4.  Can-Utility and the Coastliners — 5:43
5.  Horizon's — 1:38
6.  Supper's Ready — 22:58
     a. Lover's Leap
     b. The Guaranteed Eternal Sanctuary Man
     c. Ikhnaton And Itsacon And Their Band Of Merry Men
     d. How Dare I Be So Beautiful?
     e. Willow Farm
     f. Apocalypse in 9/8
     g. As Sure As Eggs Is Eggs

Kick Out The Jams

I am not buying any records for the next two weeks. Instead I am going to take all my record-buying money and put it in a little stack until April 16 when the second In dependant Record Store Day hits. Last year's was kind of a bust (though Jello Biafra did man the counter at Amoeba SF for an hour or two) but this year looks like its gonna be pretty sweet. I don't want to list all the incredible releases, just check out the site. Also live performances and sales pretty much everywhere. Go crazy.

"Buy real records in real shops, or I'll come round your house and scream at your mother.” -Ian Gillian