Two for the price of one (which is free)

Jun 20, 2009 by Joshua    1 Comment     Posted under: music, music feature

Well, kids, it’s been a while. After moving all my belongings across the state and picking up one or two questionable articles of furniture from beside dumpsters, I’m home from college for a few months. Sure, my Summer break has begun, but that just means I’m working two jobs instead of going to school. Half the time I’m interning at a local newsmagazine, and the other half I’m dealing with surly customers at a fast food joint. It’s an interesting juxtaposition, and I’m interested to see how much of my sanity remains at the end of the season.

Excuses aside, I thought I’d try something slightly different today. Rather than going on and on about an album for 800 or so words, I’m going to break it up into two smaller features of two different yet somewhat similar artists. After the jump, check out my thoughts on Yeasayer‘s 2007 album All Hour Cymbals and Le Loup‘s 2007 album The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nation’s Millenium General Assembly.

Album: All Hour Cymbals

Artist: Yeasayer

Genre: Experimental, indie rock

Sounds Like Maybe: a bit of Rusted Root, maybe some Flaming Lips or something

Yeasayer‘s All Hour Cymbals is an experience the description of which reluctantly calls for the use of rhyme: thrilling and chilling.

The group has a big, full sound, brought about by the use of chorus and reverberating drums and bass. It is at times Middle Eastern, even tribal in sound as in “Germs”, and at other times it sounds contemporary and avant-garde.

The variety of sounds employed on All Hour Cymbals is wide and well-executed, as to be expected from an experimental rock band that draws its style from various origins. The use of both conventional and regional instruments provides a thick canvas for the singers’ voices to play about and shape the melody.

And the voices play with unabashed skill and energy. The vocals are at times reckless, melodically shouting and holding nothing back, expressing a full range of emotion. Two of the vocalists, Chris Keating and Anand Wilder, sang in a barbershop quartet prior to forming the band, and it shows in their sense of unity and balance.

The tone of the tracks changes over time. Initially, the songs are tinged with despair at the state of the world. The content of many of the songs hits on social ills of the world today. In “2080″, they take on the mindset of ignoring the impact of our actions now on the future. Songs like “No Need To Worry” and “Forgiveness”, both in their sound and lyrics, seem to harmonize with suffering in Africa and other parts of the world. The album is a cry for attention to this suffering, packaged and delivered in melodic, beautiful sound.

All is not darkness and despair for Yeasayer, though. The album closes on a positive note with “Red Cave”, a semi-psychedelic tune that drifts into a round of choruses that has a very folksy, pastoral sound. In a somewhat religious tone, the singer(s) revels in having known such great people as his friends and family in his short life. After lamenting over all the suffering in the world, “Red Cave” returns to home and cherishes the positive points in life.

Below you will find an embedded YouTube video of Yeasayer performing “Tightrope”, a song they performed for Dark Was the Night (and a song that doesn’t appear on All Hour Cymbals). If you haven’t heard Yeasayer before, it should give you an idea of their sound and the unity between the band members.

Album: The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nation’s Millenium General Assembly

Artist: Le Loup

Genre: indie rock of sorts

Sounds Like Maybe: Conor Oberst, Death Cab For Cutie, Sufjan Stevens

In the same way that Yeasayer combines Middle Eastern, African, psychedelic and folk sounds, Le Loup takes a rather folk setup and tweaks it a bit with the use of keyboards and computers. A banjo can be heard in many of their tracks, but interlaced with it are loops, remixes and MIDI beeps.

Much like the music of Conor Oberst, Le Loup tries a number of interesting tricks for their debut album that might appeal to the casual listener or turn him or her off completely. The opening track “Canto I”, for example, has the vocalist speaking in a tepid voice about some dream reminiscent of the apocalyptic vision from “Donnie Darko” spoken over top a loop of banjo strumming. Once the listener steps over that hurdle, however, the rest of the journey is rife with joys both big and small.

The singer’s voice takes some getting used to, but the beats are catchy. “Outside of This Car, The End of the World” sounds a bit silly at first, but the phrasing sticks in your head and makes more and more sense with each listen. The jabs of sound that cut into the timid banjo playing in “To the Stars! To the Night!” are somewhat invigorating in an otherwise mellow track, sure to either get your head bobbing or lull you to sleep (or both).

Any attempt at sleep might be quickly interrupted, however, by the sudden jarring sound of thunder in the aptly named “(Storm)”. In a somewhat experimental manner, Le Loup presents an odd take on music by cutting and looping the sounds of a thunderstorm and mixing them with delicate keyboard meanderings.

If such a track might put off the listener, he or she is surely won back with “We Are Gods! We Are Wolves!”, undoubtedly the gem of the album. I cannot explain in words how utterly in love with this song I am. If I ever took the time and effort to make an old-school, pixelated, 2D indie platformer for kicks, I would emulate the keyboard part in this song and have it loop in the background. It is oddly simple yet surreal, especially when combined with lyrics that bring to mind sneaky junkie werewolves baying at the window and taunting you for your past discretions. The album is quite full for a band’s first release, culminating in twelve tracks, but regardless of the quality of the rest, it is this song that made me so interested in the band.

While Yeasayer brings a full sound through the use of heavy sounds and numerous vocalists, Le Loup’s music seems to create a bubble of sound around the listener. This effect is achieved through the use of echoing vocals and banjo strumming, as if the music is bouncing about in a car sitting in a field as storms rumble overhead (which may or may not be an excellent way to enjoy this album).

There is energy in their sound, as evidenced by “Le Loup (Fear Not)”, which bounds forward while continuing the imagery of metaphors involving animals like wolves and hawks. In fact, there is something natural about their lyrics, dealing heavily in woodland creatures and storms tearing the heavens asunder. Such topics, mixed with the banjo and harmonic humming, give a sort of Appalachian feel to this D.C. band that is in conflict with their occasional use of electronic sound.

There is an encompassing theme of sound to the album, supported by such imagery. The melody of “Canto I” is reused in “Canto xxxvi” toward the end of the album, altered by the occasional electronic cut and altogether different vocals that play on the monologue of the opening track. The whole experience is wrapped up in “I Had a Dream I Died”, which includes – rather poignantly – a round of singers proclaiming, “This is the end,” growing in intensity until it peters out into computer distortion, which itself gives way to the peaceful sound of birds chirping.

If I’m to get you at all interested in this group, the best thing to do would be to share a video of the song “We Are Gods! We Are Wolves!” Unfortunately, the shortcomings of the lead singer’s voice are more appparent in the live performance of the song. So, I ask that you hear the sound, the music behind the song, and try to overlook the slight obnoxiousness of the singing. I promise that the album version, which can be heard on their MySpace page or by clicking here,  is extremely enjoyable.

Well, that’s all for today. I’ll try to be more prompt with future updates. It’s not that I don’t have any topics to write about – far from it. I just haven’t set aside the time necessary to update often enough.

Also, for anyone who hasn’t read the news article yet, this sad story further cements my belief that Pixar has created something wonderful with the movie “Up”.

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