Author: alexvolonte

ALEX REVIEWS MUSIC (ARM): ANDERSON .PAAK – MALIBU | 2016-03-05

I’ve been heavily into hip hop lately, blasting almost literally no other type of music into my ears for over a good couple of months. This is certainly partly due to recent explosive releases, such as Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo or Kendrick Lamar’s untitled unmastered., which surprisingly dropped overnight just 48 hours ago. Though I would say that a greater element justifying my latest musical inclination would definitely be the genre’s ability to get under the listener’s skin while at the same time activating juxtapositional feelings like probably no other genre can do. Certain rap songs simply beautifully succeed in sparking emotions of anger, excitement, sadness, angst, and freedom all within a single fully amalgamated track, which to me is an incredible sensation. While this phenomenon might be partly explained by the actual observable mixture and contamination of different genres found in the musical creations of, for instance, Kanye West, Oddisee, Kendrick Lamar, Rozz Dyliams or even Chance the Rapper, I genuinely feel that there’s something really specific to the genre itself that opens the door for multi-layered, holistic conceptions of sonic outputs originating the close-up series of feelings outlined above. The latest exponent of the like wonderfully succeeding in developing said process to me is Anderson .Paak, 30-year old Los Angeles-brewed rapper who’s just ended up becoming the new Dr. Dre’s protégé after releasing his second major release Malibu early this year. Let me tell you a little more about his recent album. (Interesting fact: the full-stop “.” preceding his last name is totally on purpose, reminding people of the importance of details in arts. I already like him)

Being praised – or rather grilled by too many, I should say… – as the new Kendrick Lamar for his poetic-narrative ability as well as the fruitful combination of soul, R&B and possibly jazzy elements all into one is probably not one of the lightest pressures to cope with, especially in this moment in time after the Compton MC literally took over the world and still has all eyes on him. Add to this the fact that after Dre’s endorsement the hype surrounding him is risking an unprecedented blow up and you’ll immediately get a big fat mountain to climb in the first place. Yet, his hypnotising latest 16-track release Malibu – excerpt: another reason why I love hip hop is heavily extensive tracklists –  thankfully speaks for itself and leaves all cheap talks and gangsta gossip aside.

As already hinted at, Anderson .Paak’s effort nods at a variety of musical influences, ranging from sexy soul atmospheres to edgy unspoken tributes to Motown, all mixed up in modern fresh production and an undisputed talent for hip hop storytelling (dawg’s got some flow there…). Though one should not be deceived by the initial trio of songs “The Bird”, “Heart Don’t Stand a Chance”, and “The Waters”, as albeit totally pleasant and low-profile, one of the LP’s best cuts already sits at number four. “The Season/Carry Me” is a rare beauty encapsulated into a little more than five minutes that perfectly showcases Anderson .Paak’s musical flexibility and lyrical refinement. And its live performance is possibly even more flawless, amplified by Anderson’s past as a drummer and expressive emotionality. Skipping the rather dull “Put Me Thru”, the best cohesive 5-piece segment of the album follow. Lead single “Am I Wrong”, featuring Lamar’s buddy ScHoolboy Q, is to me exactly what modern hip hop should be with great exposure to newer electro/ambient elements, while the edgy and raw “Without You” is for the redeemed angry ones, plus Rapsody’s guest appearance on there is incredibly intense and rad. The album takes a well deserved leaning-back break during “Parking Lot”, in which listeners can get smoothly transported by the sound while imagining of wandering though some sunny corner of L.A. The hypnotic and daring “Lite Weight” might definitely not please everyone, though over time it turns out to be one of my personal favourites, not least thanks to its whirly beat and vocal huge-quiet performance accompanied by Anderson’s smokey voice. The central and arguably best part of the LP comes to a close with latest single “Room in Here” at number ten, a witty and at times sensual track where a catchy piano riff and a master-verse by guest The Game dominate the scene.

After said fortunate and brilliant section the album unfortunately loses itself a little in a bit of self-indulgence and tracklist-filling numbers, where above all interlude “Water Fall” and “Come Down” could have easily stayed off the LP’s final incarnation without doing any harm whatsoever (on the contrary…). However, even with the risk of sounding repetitive, Anderson .Paak unveils his real magic on album’s curtains call “The Dreamer”, in my opinion one of those striking and anthemic songs that only get release once every couple of years. One can’t help but picture themselves on the beachy coast along Santa Monica – or in this very case I should say Malibu – escaping from every day carnal sins embracing the sonic journey that this gem is offering. The straight outta 70s chorusy guitar melody entangled with a contextual feeling of liberating chants and a reverberating choir make up for a song to be remembered for long. It’s somewhat at the same time a sound familiar to warm souls and a sonic architecture that has not been around for a long time, unlike anything else that’s come out in decades. Safe to say in this case that Anderson kept his best as last.

All in all, an L.A. born and bred album that definitely follows major recent hip hop patterns while – and I stress this as very important – simultaneously offering its own original angle shutting down all detractors accusing Anderson of stealing someone else’s authenticity. Moreover, the icing on the delicious cake in this case is the artist’s live ability (I haven’t seen him live yet but his YouTube clips are there to prove this), something that in this day and age of relentless touring and albums’ cross-monetisation through live shows should definitely not be taken for granted and could be the key element in the surviving-of-the-fittest race that’s the music industry. In this sense, Kendrick Lamar is the one to copy.

I’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and I hope to feel your interest again next time.

AV

ANDERSON .PAAK

“MALIBU”

2016, Steel Wool/OBE/Art Club

http://www.andersonpaak.com

anderson-paak-malibu-album-cover

THE LIVES OF PABLO & KANYE | 2016-02-20

It’s been over a week since Kanye West‘s extremely highly anticipated seventh solo LP The Life of Pablo (TLOP) hit the stratosphere and got previewed on earth on 11th February at New York’s MSG via a bombastic and cataclysmic listening party that converged fashion and music into a single global event. Yet, in the history of recent major pop releases there has probably never been less clarity and straightforwardness about an artist’s longly awaited effort. For once, almost 10 days after its “release” – or revelation to the mere mortals I should say – the album is still unretrievable for purchases in digital stores and has therefore been illegally downloaded over 500’000 times bringing back old early 2000’s memories (Kanye opted for the solution of assigning to buddy JAY Z’s Tidal music streaming service TLOP’s exclusivity for a period of time that only God or Yeezy truly know how long it really is). Second of all, the album went through at least three different sonic versions after its disclosure at the MSG event, and no one really knows how many others may see the light of day knowing Kanye’s distinct unpredictability and perfectionism. Third, just recently it was revealed that an another album-worth of demos and outtakes from TLOP (9, though the number may be rising quickly in the future) got leaked online and I would add could also be reinvigorated by Yeezy himself for further version of the album that may as well arise shortly. I guess the fourth point of this introductory “set-the-scene” list would be the multitude of claims and revelations that Kanye has been shooting out on the Interweb through his hysterical and unfiltered Twitter account, though at this point you’d all have probably read way too many news stories and reports analysing and assessing every single chirping the Chicago man has published. Therefore I’m explicitly avoiding contextualising this last point and I’d rather leave it to the differently layered channels of mainstream media.

The irony of all this, however, is that this whole single draining confusion had begun way before TLOP was actually debuted, as Kanye managed to push forward in time the release date multiple times, changed the album’s title four times and periodically took to Twitter to reveal significant restructurings of the track listing (at least three major changes). Such artistic incoherence and mind-changing, irrespectively of how planned they were, actually made for a pretty genius marketing and PR move, as with every single alteration and amendment of an album’s element there was always a new huge opportunity to talk about Kanye and TLOP (yet) again. To be fair, I do believe that a major part of the said confusion was actually due to authentic and artistic sudden steering changes, mostly of recording and production nature, that seemed to have shaped Kanye’s approach to the album and possibly also denoted some traces of insecurity. Nonetheless, I can’t believe that Kanye is the only one managing Kanye and that what he’s been tweeting over the past months were just instincts and honest opinions, thus there must have been some kind of thought building up to TLOP promotion and release. Having said that, I guess we’ll never really know the true motives causing such trouble and mess surrounding Kanye’s latest album, and in the end I believe the only thing that counts is the musical output as such, which is what I’ve been trying to focus on for a while despite all of the above external stimuli and distractions.

I don’t want to make this an ARM blogpost, i.e. I’m not going to review TLOP in the way that I’ve done for other albums in the past. Also, I’m sure by now there are some many album reviews out there on the Interweb that one could potentially read a new one every day for the rest of 2016 and not running out of it. What I’d like to stress in this case is that, again voluntarily or not, I actually came to really like this idea of an album that’s never finished, that’s work in progress even after it’s released, that’s changing shape according to the creator’s feelings of completeness and culmination. Obviously, there are rather natural and for a good part also artistic limits to this approach, though hypothetically speaking, given the amount of TLOP-related tracks and versions that are now available out there and the easiness of procurement of such songs online, one could bucket together their very own personalised version of the 18-track LP. This way, someone would have the demo versions of “Waves” and “FML” in their tracklist and skipped all the spoken (and probably rather unnecessary) interludes while someone else would add up to 24 songs in their own TLOP including some of the alleged “outtakes” too, exactly because Kanye himself is still not sure what version of the new album is the real one. Make your version of TLOP, patch it together the way it appeals most to you, make it somehow your own. I think this mechanism also steers a bit towards the tendency of personalising the fruition of art more in general, thanks to the resources and capabilities of the cybersphere and the enhanced connectedness between all of us that, as with other domains such as journalism and media, go to blurry more and more the boundaries between creators and users, musicians and listeners, directors and watchers. I believe there is something really powerful in such a thing and instead of seeing it as a flaw or a representation of lack of quality I’d like to think of it as a true artistic accomplishment.

My opinion on Kanye has changed over time (also thanks to that time I got to meet him in London, see pic below), I love his music and I feel like he’s given genius inputs to the public opinion, though for many reasons he himself makes it virtually and ontologically impossible to be fully likeable. Regardless of the shape, to me TLOP is phenomenal and offers so many interesting musical cues and insights that it’d be impossible to narrow them down in written form whatsoever. As Kanye himself revealed on Twitter before the LP’s release, his latest album is “actually a Gospel album”, and in many ways he really stayed true to such claim all the way through the creative process. For gospel music is notoriously sung in large groups and is a celebration of single contributions among a tight togetherness: Kanye somehow wants us to take TLOP and make it our own, by putting our perspectives to its completeness forward designing the perfect end-version for every single one of us.

I’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and I hope to feel your interest again next time.

AV

IMG_6196

ALEX REVIEWS MUSIC (ARM): BLOC PARTY – HYMNS | 2016-02-04

I was actually going to publish a very different blogpost before I suddenly got enlightened by a powerful inspiration to draft down yet another ARM critical appraisal. Nonetheless, the other initial topic I had (and still have) in mind might find its way to the light too, sooner or later, don’t worry too much about that. Also, to be fair, Bloc Party is kind of a big deal. First and foremost for me individually as music fan, but also I’d say for the alternative music scene of the last two decades, really. Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, here I am delivering to the Interweb my personal take on the British indie outfit’s latest release HYMNS, dropped to the globe a bunch of days ago on 29th January 2016.

HYMNS follows quite a turbulent recent past for Bloc Party, who after the not so critically and fanbase acclaimed electro-garage-psychedelic Four in 2012 as well as an almost indefinite hiatus saw two of their four legacy members, bassist Gordon Moakes and drum beast Matt Tong, leave the band after what most people wouldn’t necessarily describe as an amicable departure. This presumably meaning that the contextual environment within which HYMNS was conceived and developed must have by all means been one of the harshest and volatile the band has ever been through. That is, no one is really ready to deny the fact that the Londoner band took a very clear descending path after 2008’s Intimacy, clearly positioning itself along a newly found sonic spectrum that visceral lovers of the first two full length LPs A Weekend in the City and especially indie space game-changing Silent Alarm found slightly difficult to bear to say the least. To be honest, I quite liked Four (softy ballad “Real Talk”, The Police-ian “Day Four” and spiritual “The Healing” are true gems, hands down), while on Intimacy and all other episodic and sporadic releases (see “One More Chance”, “The Nextwave Sessions” among others) I tend to agree with a vast majority of the public opinion I’ve come across over the years in finding them just too far away from where they truly shine.

With that being said, HYMNS finds the English indie masters taking yet another path across their musical and compositional journey. Gordon and Matt have in the meantime been replaced by almost-famous but pretty unknown Justin Harris (bass and keys) and Louise Bartle (drums), which is no little internal earthquake to begin with. On top of that, founding members Kele Okereke (lead singer and rhythm guitars) and Russell Lissack (guitars) kept themselves quite busy in between releasing and producing music on multiple fronts. This possibly all made for a very different set-up and mood approaching writing for the latest LP, and in many ways there indeed are different vibes and feels coming out of HYMNS. Overall, the album slows down quite drastically Bloc Party’s fast and sped up paces which were to be found, with different intensities and pronunciations, on all other punkier albums. This might partly have to do with Matt Tong’s departure and consequent substitution by Louise behind behind the drum set, something that lies along the lines of having to replace one of modern time’s most gifted and talented alternative-rock drummers, definitely not the easiest task ever. Such particular featuring, defining the 11-track LP in almost all its entirety, is however best observable – or in this case I’d rather say listenable – on songs like “Fortress”, “Exes” and curtain call “Living Lux”, which in fact get quite close to representing the worst the album has to offer. At the other end of this particular rhythm spectrum lie lead single and album opener “The Love Within” as well as “My True Name”, the latter being a song to me falls among the top three best tunes off the record, incidentally showing how the four-piece outfit still feels very much at ease when the BPMs tend to be rather high.

Furthermore, aside from the rather anonymous “So Real” (though that little edgy guitar lick is pretty rad and so catchy…) and “Into the Earth” – it must’ve been a B-side from one of their previous efforts, right? – the absolute and clear standouts off HYMNS are the magnetic and skin-wrapping “Different Drugs”, a true masterpiece, as well as third single and radio-friendly “Virtue“, reflecting a healthy and organic mixture of all those elements that made Bloc Party conquer the alternative scene in the last 15 years. And that’s more or less about it. I explicitly forgot to mention second on tracklist “Only He Can Heal Me” and second (no pun intended) single “The Good News”, simply because the still leave me quite indifferent to their effects even after repetitive listens, although the former one seems to possess a weird and perverse catchiness that might grown on me with time, to which though I’m not able to express anything more at the moment anyway.

Remember, I said it at the beginning, Bloc Party are a super big thing for me and one of my favourite bands ever. I really want to like this album, I truly do. In general, I believe I’m on the right path to getting there, as the initial impact has been good though possibly not quite Silent Alarm good. And while I tend to say this for very very few bands, Bloc Party’s case is definitely one of those where the pureness and genius of the debut effort have never been replicated after. I’d really like to go back to that kind of band, for once. Maybe, considering the rocky and fairly dark past the band has had, HYMNS was a necessary album to recalibrate themselves and reinvent a new beginning. Let’s give them this (one more) chance. Considering the above, if that’s the deal they’re making us, I’m buying it this time. I’m in. I have to.

I’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and I hope to feel your interest again next time.

AV

BLOC PARTY

“HYMNS”

2016, BMG RIGHTS

http://blocparty.com

Bloc Party_Hymns

ALEX REVIEWS MUSIC (ARM): TAPE – BODIES | 2015-12-23

Every Time I Die (ETID) and The Damned Things‘ frontman Keith Buckley seems to have been pretty busy lately in terms of artistic outputs. After last year’s From Parts Unknown successful and critically-acclaimed release with ETID and a relentless run of worldwide tour dates in support of it, earlier on this year the Buffalo NY-native also announced his literary debut with semi-autobiographical novel “Scale” and recently dropped a rather surprising synth-wave influenced 5-track EP under the alias TAPE. While some well-deserved time and words will probably be spent in the future on this website with regard to “Scale” – which, for instance, is in the process of being read by yours sincerely and very recently saw the addition of a limited edition audiobook on vinyl read by Keith himself and scored by Fall Out Boy’s Joe Trohman and Josh Newton of Shiner and The Damned Things – it’s TAPE’s “Bodies” EP that represents the one and only focus of this new ARM blogpost, back after a long-awaited inspirational break.

“Bodies” is essentially the result of Keith teaming up with friend-producer Joshua Hurley while exploring foreign electronic territories and musical landscapes substantially cast away from his usual comfort zone, which places itself within a hardcore-punk-metal spectrum, broadly speaking. The EP, as hinted before composed of 5 tracks that taken together nearly reach 20 minutes of length, was produced by longtime acquaintance and Glassjaw frontman Daryl Palumbo as well as TJ Penzone (ex-Men, Women & Children). “Bodies” was released digitally on 6th November and as far as I’m aware is retrievable pretty much everywhere among the usual suspect music stores and services, though an entangling mystery surrounds TAPE’s desert SoundCloud profile. In fact, the synth-driven side project doesn’t necessarily seem to be willing to disclose much about themselves and its background, as information on the Interweb really runs low on that frequencies…

Anyways, enough for the introduction, the editorial shift now spins towards the musical output as such, which to me could be summarised with a bucketful of adjectives sounding roughly among the lines of mesmerising, pounding, fleeting and gelatinous. I’ll try to elaborate a little these judgements, though given the fact that I don’t really consider myself someone worth spreading elegant commentary on electronic music in general I urge you to not take these words literally and especially to let them attract meaning from alternative standpoints. Alternative used here in the sense of not being generated from within the context, lexicon and specific terminology of such music genre. Yet what I can surely say instead is that I often find myself relating to Keith’s music and lyrics so intensely and in so many different ways that I’d definitely rate myself eligible to express some thoughts about this very release, too. So there you go.

The EP kicks off with what might also be one of the highlights of the release, the wavy and cyclic “Synthetic” (the clue is in the name, I guess…). The track features vocal samples from Keith (and someone else?) that looking back and after repetitive listens begin to take shape as integral part of the song’s structure and almost even end up being catchy (Anything for you and Shine a light / In your eyes above all). The opening tune is followed by “Entry Request / Exit Strategy”, which despite its cool title fails to truly emerge and take a life on its own sticking too much to gloomy and darky undertones driven by hammering kicks. Next on the tracklist is “Nein” (German for “no”), easily the most melodic and lyrics-heavy track of all. However, its static dynamic and the fact of having the vocals too much in the background tend to soften up something that could’ve probably been leveraged a little more. “Nein” also introduces the listener to the latter half of the 5-track EP, probably the better one exposing “Monitor” and its unexpected melodic twists accompanied by Oriental (?) influences as the best tune of the release, despite being the shortest of all. The collection of songs is then wrapped up by the grand finale of “Guest Appearance”, without doubt the synth-heaviest and most layered as well as elaborated effort off the EP. Particularly convincing are the the e-drums beat as well as, once again, the layering vocals that in this case, as opposed to “Nein”, really seem to make sense leaving more room and prominency to the driving instrumental wall of sound.

When Keith announced this side-project and the release of “Bodies” it all truly came as a surprise to me, quickly followed by feelings of confusion and suspicion. Yet, after having given this EP a chance and actually even liking it pretty much, I gotta say it would’ve been a shame had it not been released. The overall judgement is thus primarily a positive one and it also seems to resonate elsewhere. Again, this is not the music I normally listen to and I really don’t feel comfortable describing its components and technical features while at the same time pretending to be taken as an expert (actually, I never do, but in this case less than ever before). Nonetheless, I must say I felt the need to let out some thoughts surrounding this release, possibly considering this some kind of experiment for me, departing from the usual rock and roll conceptional contexts I normally feel more comfortable in. Exactly the same thing Keith Buckley did with “Bodies”, really.

I’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and I hope to feel your interest again next time. And happy holidays this time around.

AV

TAPE

“BODIES”

2015, ELECTRIC DENIM

https://www.facebook.com/TapeAudio1

Tape_Bodies

WHERE THE EAGLES FLY | 2015-11-28

On Friday 13th November 2015 at around 1pm UK time I was about to board on a transatlantic flight from London’s Heathrow airport with destination San Francisco. I was going to embark on a week-long programme of trainings and formative sessions at my video technology company’s HQs in Silicon Valley’s Santa Clara, spending the preceding weekend in San Fran in a fully touristic modus with a bunch of other colleagues. Little I knew about what kind of news were expecting us that same day when landing and turning our devices on again at about 3pm West coast local time in California. The rest is an unfortunate, horrendous and senseless history.

This is without a doubt the earliest I would’ve been able to take some time and formulate some solid and connected thoughts about what happened across Paris that night. I’m saying this not only because of the overwhelming intensity of the brutality that manifested itself against humanity that evening, but also considering a very personal legacy to that city – not mentioning the many acquaintances I have who (still safely) reside there – and the fact that I was just there only three weeks ago. Precisely around the affected areas.

The only thing I feel I’m able and allowed to express in regard to this are some words about Eagles of Death Metal (EODM)’s involvement in what was the most intense and ruthless of all the attacks that night. Unfortunately, everyone must be sadly familiar with them at this point in time, as they were playing on stage at the Bataclan when gunmen entered the venue and opened fire on the crowd, leaving at least 90 dead. This past week the US rock band spoke publicly for the first time ever after the horrific event in a heart-wrecking interview with VICE.

I firmly believe that there is literally nothing to add to such an emotional, deep and almost unreal account of a life-changing evening. Yet, I feel that there’s an implicit angle to this whole constellation that it’s worth elaborating a little more. By this I mean the almost surreal, paradoxical combination of elements that, for that specific evening, foresaw that one of the most fun, humorous and freaky bands out there would be involved in such a tangible and dark tragedy. Yes, because ever since their beginning, Queens of The Stone Age’s Josh Homme’s side project founded in 1998 with frontman Jesse Hughes has always been leveraging hilarious music videos with cameos by among others Jack Black and Dave Grohl, releasing over-the-top album artworks (cf. below) and proactively joking about everything that takes itself too seriously in the rock and roll space, not least considering their band name. That is, because EODM, contrary to what 99% of scatterbrained and partly unprofessional mass media outlets still like to report, are by no means a metal band, let alone a death metal one. And never was. Wikipedia simply defines them as a rock band (dear journos around the globe: a quick double-check on damn Wikipedia would’ve been enough…). I would define them as a solid, catchy and straightforward rock and roll outfit, nothing more sophisticated than that. Now, bearing this sort of background and associations in mind, the bittersweet juxtaposition of watching Jesse and Josh, as well as the other members of the band, speak movingly with a broken voice about what they experienced that night just leaves me speechless. It’s like the quintessential representation of the absurdity and nonsense of what happened.

There’s one last thing that came out of the interview that EODM did with VICE which I’d like to mention and in some way endorse (they start mentioning this at 21:10 min into the video). As a wonderful action of solidarity and unity, Jesse and Josh pledged artists and musicians around the world to cover and record their song “I Love You All the Time” off their latest album “Zipper Down“. All publishing and royalties earnings from all those covers will then be fully donated by EODM (and hopefully also all major music distributors such as Apple, Amazon, Spotify, Tidal…) to everyone directly affected by the attacks on 13th November. Thus, I humbly pledge artists around the world to take part in this and spread the word as much as possible contributing to the reconstruction of a shared feeling of love and connection once more driven by that supernatural force that is music.

I’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and I hope to feel your interest again next time.

AV

P.s.: Click here for more information on how to help the French Red Cross and the Sweet Stuff Foundation do the best they can following the attacks.

—- IMPORTANT UPDATE

EODM and the Sweet Stuff Foundation have set up an official website for their “Play it Forward” Campaign. The website enables musicians to upload their own cover of “I Love You All the Time”, hosts all covers recorder by other artists, and displays a heartfelt letter by the EODM members regarding the initiative and the reasons behind it. Visit the website here: http://playitforwardeodm.com

EODM_Zipper Down

TA(Y)LORING RYAN ADAMS IN HIS 1989 RENDITION | 2015-10-10

At first glance this one may very well seem like yet another ARM blogpost for you to digest before returning to the usual Interweb-based practices of watching cats doing silly faces and ripping off vegan recipes strictly gluten-free. But no, even though it most definitely deals with music, I’m not framing this text as another instalment of my award-winning music review feature, simply because for the point I’d like to make I feel it’d be better not to constraint the boundaries of my argument to pre-defined redactional criteria.

Alright, first things first. On 21st September alt-country singer-songwriter Ryan Adams released his own track-by-track rendition of multi-platinum best-selling Taylor Swift album “1989”, which came out a little less than a year before. While I’ve already got to point out that at the time of the release I wasn’t really familiar with Swift’s effort – except for those inevitable, chart-topping tunes such as “Shake it Off” and “Blank Space” that were just all over – the fact in itself got me pretty excited and utterly curious. Partly because Ryan Adams, who I’ve had the chance to see twice recently, as reported here and also here, is one of my favourite artists of all time, but partly also because the artistic move of covering 1:1 a record that has established itself as one of the most successful of all time and has such a precise and unequivocal connotation associated with it is a pretty bold thing to do in the first place. Yet, Ryan Adams is also the dude who put Oasis’ most famous song into his darkest and most intimate album and released it as a single. Or even the guy with the most similar name to Bryan Adams who then covered the Canadian’s hit singles “Summer of 69” and “Run to You” at some of his live shows. You get the idea.

What I wanna say is that with his cover of “1989” Ryan Adams has been able to access his most-inner artistic capacity and to convert such source into a perfectly sounding Ryan Adams record, as if the songs came out straight from his own urge to express himself the way he best does. In a way, it almost felt necessary for Ryan to draw upon someone else’s initial creative output in order to mirror himself from a new, fresh, and possibly less biased perspective. There’s no track on Ryan’s “1989” that doesn’t sound like something that Ryan himself could’ve written from every tune’s conception. In fact, following on this, there are in my opinion songs on “1989” that have been masterly reinvented and transformed for the best by Ryan, such as “All You Had to Do Was Stay”, “Shake it Off”, and “Wildest Dreams”, which all reached new levels of perfect after the alt-country songwriter’s intervention and can’t really compare to the superficiality of Taylor Swift’s initial versions. To be fair, there also are tunes that still seem to sound and perform better with Taylor’s backing instead of Ryan’s, as with the most obvious case of the empty “Blank Space” (no pun intended… really), despite Taylor herself declaring it her favourite reinterpretation of the whole album during Ryan’s first exclusive interview post-1989 with Beat 1’s superstar host Zane Lowe.

There is however a bucket of songs for which it’s truly hard to tell which version makes them really stand out, either Taylor’s or Ryan’s. Possibly precisely because both versions, the original mainstream-poppy one and its more inward-looking re-imagination, truly make sense and deliver that little (or rather big) something that everyone looks for in music, that is connection, feelings, and reliance. I’m referring here to songs like “Style” (arguably Adams’ best tune on the record) and “Bad Blood”, that not only showcase Ryan’s ability to spin extremely radio-friendly songs and make them his own property, but which to be honest also sounds pretty good with Taylor’s voice on top of them. In this regard, the repetitive listens I have given to Ryan’s rendition of “1989” have actually allowed me to move closer to Taylor’s original release as well, enabling me to appreciate and leverage her work in a surprisingly manner. At this point I’d also like to give a well-deserved shout out to America’s sweetheart herself, because I truly believe she’s one of the greatest out there. Not only because of her activism and engagement in trying to make the music industry a better and fairer place, but also because truth be told she always demonstrates a relatively low-profile in everything she does, especially if compared to other pop superstars of her fame. Also, on top of all this, she writes good tunes.

Going back to my main point of this blogpost, I feel like for his fifteenth (!) studio album Ryan Adams really had to initially look somewhere else in order to get a sighting reflection of what he really needed to say at this point in his life. His 1989 is truly his own, despite what everyone may think. His trademark and distinguished touch on every single song is just too intense and amalgamated for them to be just surrogated compositions with some more reverb and soaring registers added to them. Such a transposition and conversion work deserved thus particular distinction, intended to both Taylor’s original songwriting and Ryan’s adoptive ability. It may then take another 15 album before Ryan decides it’s time to embrace another gravitational perspective at his own musical craftsmanship again and tailor it accordingly (in fact, he’s already got two new albums recorded and ready to be released…), so in the meantime let’s just enjoy the sonic beauty of his (genuinely owned) “1989”.

I’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and I hope to feel your interest again next time.

AV

RYAN ADAMS

“1989”

2015, PAXAMERICANA RECORDING COMPANY LLC

www.paxamrecords.com

RA_1989

THE DARKER SIDE OF MAGIC: PRAISE FOR LEV GROSSMAN’S THE MAGICIANS | 2015-08-26

—- THIS BLOGPOST HAS BEEN DECLARED SPOILER-FREE BY THE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN PUBLISHERS

So go on, read it.

The past two-three weeks have been quite a tumultuous time for yours sincerely, having had to deal with a frenetic and exhausting flat-search in the living hell that the city of London is, the finalization of the Master’s dissertation (to which a separate blogpost may possibly be dedicated, since it’s partially about music), and the adventurous beginning of a new employment in the realm of video technologies. Thankfully, such overwhelming slices of pressing, yet compulsory time have been balanced and championed with some quality escapism accompanied by HBO’s brilliant second season of True Detective (with an outstanding performance by Colin Farrell) and, more relevantly, by US novelist Lev Grossman’s first book of his fantasy trilogy sensation “The Magicians“. Despite having published the first self-titled book of the saga already in 2009, the trilogy only seemed to have reached widespread mainstream attention over the past few years (unless I’m really, really late to the party…). In fact, its extraordinary popularity may momentarily be confined more to the USA (not least judging by the fact that the book seems to be physically untraceable in UK’s bookshops, get it through Amazon folks), although given its potential I wouldn’t be surprised to see it taking over this part of the Atlantic quite soon as well.

It is precisely for this last reason that I’d like to frame the present blogpost as both a genuine suggestion to insert “The Magicians” in your bucket-list of upcoming “must” readings and as personal praise to its plot and narrative. As I’ve already pointed out, the novel is the first book of a fantasy saga completed by “The Magician King” (2011) and “The Magician’s Land” (2014), and it tells the story of 17-year-old student and brainy talent Quentin Coldwater, who suddenly finds himself thrown into New York’s highly secret and exclusive Brakebills College to pursuit a cutting-edge education in magic and begins his personal journey into the good-bad juxtapositional worlds of real magic rawness. I have to say though, as I’m writing this I find myself being only at about two-thirds of the book, and while this of course positively restrains me from giving away too much in terms of the content, I must convey to you that I’m still unable to deliver a total judgement of the first instalment. I know, I know, this shouldn’t ever be done when dealing with literary reviews (blasphemy claims in 3, 2, 1…), but to be honest I really felt this was the right momentum to let you all know about this linguistic beauty. Also, in all frankness, even if from here on out the book really only delivers first-class shit until its conclusion, it would nonetheless still be saved by the greatness of the insights I’ve come to read so far. And by insights I mean the directness, honesty and tangibility of Quentin’s experiences at Brakebills, obviously transposed into a realm of fantasy landscapes, supernatural forces and powerful wizardry.

What I mean by all this is I guess Grossman’s literal and stylistic sensibility that allows him and the reader to perceive Quentin’s adventures as personally relatable as ever, and yet so dislocated from the very realities that shape us on an everyday basis. By placing Quentin’s social encounters, extravagant successes, and painful struggles through the brightest of days and the darkest of nights within such a surreal scenario, the author in fact constructs a deeper connection to such dynamics that trascends their own contextualisation. That is, it’s literally impossible not to emphatize with the protagonist as he goes through all of his challenges at Brakebills, precisely because the things that come to happen in Quentin’s life, from recalibrating one’s young adult self-confidence or coping with life’s ephemeral temptations and disillusionments, are exactly the same ones that sooner or later, and with varying intensities, will cross our life paths too. Some, probably too many, like to draw comparisons between “The Magicians” and Harry Potter or even more hazardously with Narnia, though I really think Grossman’s story is capable of better digging into our most inner selves than it’s the case with the other two masterpieces, probably also because it may relate even more to young adults like me. In this regard, and also ’cause now that I’ve entered the door of the fantasy world I’m probably authoritatively obliged to mention his opinion, “Game of Thrones” bestselling author George R. R. Martin likes to think the following of Grossman’s effort:

“The Magicians is to Harry Potter as a shot of Irish whiskey is to a glass of weak tea. Solidly rooted in the traditions of both fantasy and mainstream literary fiction, the novel tips its hat to Oz and Narnia as well as to Harry, but don’t mistake this for a children’s book. Grossman’s sensibilities are thoroughly adult, his narrative dark and dangerous and full of twists. Hogwarts was never like this.”

What I think it would be cool to do, for me, is to update you all on the matter a little later in time, possibly after having completed the first novel and having read the rest of the trilogy, which I predict it may happen in a not so distant future given the degree of appreciation I’m having for this. I honestly don’t know what to expect from the rest of the plot, not even what may happen before the end if this first instalment, but all in all I truly believe this is exactly what good reads should be all about. Thus, this one is definitely “to be continued”, unless I get myself invited and initiated into a mysterious and gloomy academy for magic in one of London’s suburbs, in which case, judging by Quentin’s fate, I may or may not ever come back the same…

I’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and I hope to feel your interest again next time.

AV

L.Grossman_Magicians

ALEX REVIEWS MUSIC (ARM): JOHN NOLAN – SAD, STRANGE, BEAUTIFUL DREAM | 2015-07-25

A bunch of months ago I wrote a little something about Taking Back Sunday lead guitarist John Nolan‘s new solo album project in collaboration with PledgeMusic and about how the whole thing really got me excited and all. Well, as you all know time goes by really fast and we’ve eventually come to the point when John officially released his second full-length album entitled Sad, Strange, Beautiful Dream through a jointed partnership between the aforementioned crowdsourcing music platform and Collective Confusion Records, who’s primarily taking care of the physical copies of the release. Besides the amount of cool stuff worth a mention related to the chosen promotional strategy, such as the variety of pre-ordering packages or the fact that 10% of all the money collected through the album’s sale will be donated to a pediatric facility in Memphis, TN (St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital), I’ve now taken some time to give the full record, released digitally yesterday 24th July, a proper listen and I feel like I’ve got something to say about it. Also, it kinda makes sense to follow up on the matter on a more technical-musical note, doesn’t it?

John already unveiled a number of tracks over the course of the pre-release period, such as album opener and teenage era-teller “American Nightclub 1999”, the brilliantly titled – but possibly less convincing arrangement – “Drinking Your Way to Confidence” as well as existential-ballad “How Much”, although this latter one went through a substantive sound-polishing if compared to the early released version and arguably became the absolute best track on the record, mixing terrific melodic songwriting with a perfectly raw-edgy instrumentation delivering an immersive sappy feeling (How much can we control? / I don’t know / As much as we can). A little less than a month ago John then released the mastered version of the sparkling and lyrically-terrifying “Street Robbery Blues”, undoubtedly the most energetic and fast tune on the whole album entailing a very interesting uplifting-dark juxtaposition between the lyrics and the music itself. Yet, with the exception made of “How Much”, the best material on the album was not revealed until its full release.

“War is Peace” leads the list of never-heard-before songs on the album and immediately feels like it could have been born out of a raw idea for a Taking Back Sunday song, presenting a properly distorted rock band-modus instrumental base alongside a galloping tempo. The track is followed by the folky-acoustic “Next to You (In New Orleans)”, which probably depicts the lowest point of the record as it results incapable of really taking off in its own terms. The provisional down-status is suddenly mightily overcome with a consecutive couple of triumphant songs that really stand out on the whole. “I’ll Be Home Soon” is a piano-led ballad that truly gets under the listener’s skin and also delivers a quite catchy chorus, something that’s absolutely not to be taken for granted when it comes to slowed down ballads: well done John. It follows the album’s title track, which in some ways does sound a little out of context with its abundance of synth-fillings and indie-pop dyeing but which, after a few listens, already begins to make sense again, not least because it does really encompass traces of sadness, strangeness and beauty in a dreamy atmosphere. After a re-interpretation of 2012 track “C’est Le Fin Du Monde”, originally released on a split 7″ with indie rock band Mansions and the sonic perfection of the previously mentioned “How Much”, John Nolan’s second solo album comes to a close with the brilliant “I Will Be Released”, a sing-along choir anthem curiously and romantically written with his wife Camille.

In a way it’s truly funny and misleading to read on his artist’s description on PledgeMusic that he’s being labelled as folk-acoustic musician, because Sad, Strange, Beautiful Dream seems to confirm he’s actually not, and even at the times when he probably is, the record feels the most vulnerable (cf. “Next to You”). Given the quality of this last effort, he should feel no shame at all to confidently present himself as a modern alternative-rock act, not least given the mighty studio collaborations he took advantage of during the recording process. Yet, tags and label don’t really matter at all as soon as one realises where musical quality lies and that it shouldn’t be constrained by arbitrary boundaries at all. This is precisely what John Nolan has apparently come to realise with this record: with precious songwriting, instrumental rawness, lyrical honesty, and a little experimentation he’s delivered his best musical outcome to date.

I’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and I hope to feel your interest again next time.

AV

JOHN NOLAN

“SAD, STRANGE, BEAUTIFUL DREAM”

2015, COLLECTIVE CONFUSION RECORDS

www.pledgemusic.com/projects/johnnolan

JOHN-NOLAN

DANISH ORANGE FEELINGS: ROSKILDE FESTIVAL | 2015-07-07

I spent my last 10 days mightily wandering around Scandinavia and touching upon varied beautiful cities such as Aarhus, Copenhagen, Malmö and Roskilde, not necessarily in the presented order. It was my first time up there North of Europe and I must admit the whole thing really impressed me in a positive way. Wonderful people, stunning weather, delicious food and splendid vegetation all mixed up to deliver a sappy cocktail of amazing scenarios ornamenting my time in Denmark and Sweden. Besides fooling around with my nose up in the air and my eyes wide open on the magnificent attractions to be seen there, I actually planned the trip around a truly unavoidable appointment of my 2015 summer: Roskilde Festival. It’s arguably Scandinavia’s biggest and grandest open air music festival and this year the line-up offered none other than the British Sir himself (Paul McCartney), house-sensation Disclosure, freshly upgraded damsel Florence + the Machine, critics-favourite Kendrick Lamar, prog-rock Gods and conspiracy theory-aficionados Muse as well as girls catalyser Pharrell Williams. Not exactly the worst acts to get the headlining slots filled, yeah?

Moreover, rumbling on a slightly less popular level of stellar acknowledgement, the festival also presented all genres-spanning artists like Nicki Minaj, Die Antwoord, First Aid Kit, Lamb of God, Ryan Adams (yes yes, that’s me with the sunglasses and the black cap in the second row at his breath-taking gig, see pic below), Every Time I Die, St Vincent, Noel Gallagher, plus many, (too?) many more. While on the one hand I got convinced to attend the remote festival by a good Danish friend of mine, on the other I immediately felt attracted by the kaleidoscopic diversity of the acts performing at Roskilde, making it to my eyes one of the most complete festivals around in terms of genres and vibes represented, if not the most complete. The attending decision was thus not hard to make, even more so after realising I could fit some time before the festival itself getting to know some beautiful cities in the surroundings.

To be fair the festival does not only need a shout-out for its star-studded line up, but also much praise for its incredibly efficient organization (130’000 festival-goers, after all…), its deep green-orientation, the non-musical related offerings (skate park, sports fields, creative hubs) as well as the exhaustive offer of basic-needs facilities such as (more or less clean) showers and toilets, public Wi-Fi spots and on-site supermarkets. Being able to tolerate the slightly less positive note concerning the rather expensive prices in general – yet come on, isn’t Scandinavia world-wide famous precisely for that reason? – one can do nothing but ending up being truly satisfied by the “Orange feeling” (Roskilde’s longstanding motto in search of an established meaning) delivered by the festival, which by the way may also hold the record for one of the longest offering popular mainstream music (it officially lasted from Saturday 27th June until Saturday 4th July, I assume only hard-core die-hard party animals made it through the whole 8 days and 7 nights…!).

On a more personal note, my Roskilde take-aways are without any trace of doubt attending Every Time I Die’s crazy-wild concert and meeting the guys from the band at their merch stand afterwards, watching my personal favourite Ryan Adams from really, really close to 90’000-capacity iconic Orange stage (the festival’s main one) as well as discovering surprising musical gems from spacey Danish rockers Mew, indie-genius The War on Drugs and Swedish angelic folk duo First Aid Kit, above all. Also, me and my Danish friends experienced an unprecedented heatwave throughout almost the whole festival duration, which on the one hand can (and should) be seen as something fantastic merely enhancing the musical-artistic experience, but which on the other hand also started to sting a little bit as one got woken up every morning at 7am because of the unbearable heated temperature in the tent. Yet, as with everything else in life, there’s always two sides to a coin (which in Denmark is usually a Danish krone: currency exchange with British pound about 1:10, you’re welcome), and to be honest I wouldn’t have traded that kind of weather for anything else, even if that in the end meant losing some much needed hours of sleep.

A last closing note has to be addressed to the biggest name of the festival and his performance, Paul McCartney. Partly because noblesse oblige, partly because Macca obviously really still delivers when he’s on stage, it’s truly safe to say that his closing concert on Saturday evening was literally the best way to end a fantastic and overwhelmingly successful Roskilde 2015. Spanning over 39 (!) songs and a 3-hour long set, Sir Paul appeared in super shape offering a catalogue drawn, unsurprisingly, from The Beatles (“Good Day Sunshine”, “We Can Work It Out”, “Blackbird”), the Wings era (“Let Me Roll It”, “Band on the Run”, “Live and Let Die”) as well as his solo work (“Temporary Secretary”, “New”, “Another Day”), ultimately not forgetting crowd-pleasers and sing-a-long anthems such as “Let It Be”, “Hey Jude” and “Back In The USSR”. All in all, a truly life-defining musical moment that reminded me and hopefully all other attendees where all the music we’ve learned to love nowadays really comes from.

I’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and I hope to feel your interest again next time.

AV

Me&Ryan_Roskilde

STROKES SUMMER TIME | 2015-06-19

Gotta be honest. I’ve yet to fully and completely recover both physically and mentally from the intensity and emotions experienced last nite (sorry, couldn’t resist…) at what was my first The Strokes live concert ever. Yes, indeed I took part in the first instalment, or chapter, of corporately-funded Barclaycard Presents British Summer Time in Hyde Park (oh yeah, in case you’re wondering, that is the full official name of the festival, and I’ve already written something about it), a highly anticipated concert series of one-day-off schedules taking place in the marvellous London park which, besides New York indie masters, sees Blur and Kylie Minogue headlining this upcoming Saturday and Sunday as well as rock legends The Who and everyone’s favourite Taylor Swift taking care of next weekend’s outdoor entertainment. The scenario and atmosphere, as partly proven by the stage pic attached at the end of this blogpost, were stunning and fabled, entangling a frame of over 60’000 people wrapped by green vegetation and mega trees (also, on a side note, I can now say for the rest of my life I once went to a gig with Gwyneth Paltrow). Yet it was certainly not the gig’s visual scenography that stood out to me, although it may well certainly be said that it did play a role in leaving me a sense of musical accomplishment after having attended the show.

I had been waiting to catch The Strokes live for over ten years, miserably failing because of a combination of personal bad luck in festivals’ line up-scheduling and the rather unattractive and not necessarily rock & roll-filled profile of my home country of Switzerland. It would be unfair to say that they’ve never played over there though, it’s probably just that for some obscure reasons our paths were not really meant to be crossed. Yet. Yes, because that kind of (enviable) frustration of mine was completely wiped out as soon as too-cool-for-school drummer Fab Moretti hit the charleston for the first time announcing the kick off of Is This It’s self-titled opening track shortly after the indie-veterans took the mega-stage.

I realise now that the impact their live playing has had on me so far it’s of such a magnitude that for me it’s like there’s a pre- and after-Strokes time in my concert-going reality spectrum, and maybe even in my music perception at large. I’m not exaggerating here for blogging effects (if there ever was such a thing, anyway), I truly mean it and I stand by it. Their live rendition of “Is This It” made me comprehend immediately why The Strokes are arguably the most influential guitar-band of the last 15 years, hands down.

The first six songs of the setlist, which I reported below as I’m used to do, had me going insanely excited and got me landed on another planet. Perfect instrumental execution, exemplary stage presence, avoidance of useless crowd-flirting and a perfect voice by frontman Julian Casablancas inaugurated one of the best concerts I’ve ever been to with a perfect combination of musical elements. The inclusion of possibly less mainstream but nonetheless personal favourite tunes “You Talk Way Too Much” as well as “Heart in a Cage” in the first set of songs made of the first 25 minutes of the show the absolute cream of my personal experiencing of it, maybe only in conjunction with the encore trio of tracks that go by the titles of edgy-greasy “Juicebox”, anthemy “You Only Live Once” and delirium-catalyzer “Take It or Leave It”. Despite being a good 50 metres (or about 160 feet, for non-metric readers) away from the New York quintet’s source of magic – I really fought my way through to it, I guarantee you that that was the closest I could get to the stage in order to get back home without a black eye – I felt like I had the right to lose my mind and drown completely into the spectacular climate created by the collective melodic interplay of the band.

Going back to why The Strokes are the biggest guitar-band of the new millennium. It’s not so much their exceptional live performance ability that contributes to that opinion, even though they literally kicked ass on every performative level yesterday, but rather the conviction that the kinds of melodies and sonic ornaments crafted by them, weirdly even more highlighted during a live show, do find their way into so many present musical compositions. May it be Julian’s catchy vocal lines, the overlapping and linear guitar riffs, or even Fab’s straightforward yet unexpected drum fills, they’ve all been somehow converted into so many contemporary bands’ sounds that sometimes we tend to forget that someone also had to come up with those musical patterns in the first place. That someone, as far as I’m concerned and to the extent of the kinds of genres I’m familiar with, is so damn often The Strokes.

Although they didn’t have any new material to disclose live (partly because of Julian’s, rhythm guitarist Albert Hammond Jr.‘s and bassist Nikolai Fraiture‘s time-consuming side-projects) and the fact that they kept the selection of newer releases to a pretty scarce number (only “Welcome to Japan”, “Machu Piccu”, “Under Cover of Darkness”, and “One Way Trigger”, i.e. four songs out of eighteen, stood the test of time after 2006’s masterpiece album “First Impressions of Earth”), the legacy The Strokes have brought to the indie-pop-rock music universe is too strong to be neglected. Watching them live for the first time convinced me even more that those saying that without them there would be no Libertines, no Arctic Monkeys, no Franz Ferdinand, and certainly no Bloc Party, indeed know what they’re talking about and they absolutely have a right to say so.

The Strokes’ setlist at Hyde Park, London (18.06.2015):

  1. Is This It 
  2. Barely Legal 
  3. Welcome to Japan 
  4. You Talk Way Too Much 
  5. Someday 
  6. Heart in a Cage 
  7. Hard to Explain 
  8. Vision of Division 
  9. Last Nite
  10. Reptilia
  11. Machu Picchu
  12. Automatic Stop
  13. Under Cover of Darkness
  14. One Way Trigger 
  15. New York City Cops
  1. Juicebox
  2. You Only Live Once
  3. Take It or Leave It

I’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and I hope to feel your interest again next time.

AV

Strokes_BSTHydePark