Mysterious Animals

The Fugue

For fans of the avant noisy punk stuff that seems so popular these days... Wives comes to mind, or other hard angular bands.... like Fugazi without the politics, or Six Finger Satellite, Jesus Lizard, etc. This even reminds me a bit of a long-forgotten favorite band of mine from Montreal, Bliss. Spazzed out vocals, stop-start parts with rooms for epic caffeinated drum fills, hyper-fast tempos, lots of dissonant guitars and no shortage of snotty skronky attitude and energy. I bet they do a killer live show. To borrow a line I saw a while back at Zulu Records, "wearers of white belts take note."

- Gordon B. Isnor

lie until it becomes the truth

cordova

Cordova is the new project from James Alex Snyder previously of Weston. They play super-angsty, epic, grungy alt-rock with chunky guitar and killer hooks. Cordova are very tight. They have a great drummer in Matt Balikian, and I bet they'd be a really good band to see live at an outdoor summer show. It would also be a great soundtrack to getting laid on a hot summer night; it's super passionate, the energy is constantly rising and falling in waves and after the upbeat first song, Atomic Lipstick, Cordova settles into a slow-burn tempo that they ride through the end of the album.

The album cover features numerous photos of nude babes, even a partially nude cocktail waitress serving the boys drinks as they look macho over a game of pool. Ridiculous! But Cordova is a guilty pleasure for me; I keep reaching for the album. The first song is what really keeps bringing me back it has a super-catchy intro that's stuck in my head and will get stuck in yours too, so be forewarned!

The second best track on the album is Riot In Suburbia which has a totally rad, tense chorus that breaks into a totally epic jam that could have been extended on the album and probably is in the live shows, giving Balikian the chance to unleash some insane drum fills.

My only complaint is that the band stays pretty much in the same zone throughout the EP. It would be nice to hear them stretch the palette a bit by adding some acoustic guitars, electronics or other colors to the mix, but this is a 5-song, 20-minute EP and Cordova's first release. They've only been together for a matter of months and they already sound pretty deadly. Recommended for those who like crunch in theirs guitars and angst in their vocals.

- Gordon B. Isnor

Boduf Songs

Boduf Songs

Kranky’s newest release, Boduf Songs, is Mat Sweet an English psyche-folk artist who was signed on the basis on a home demo, the same demos that comprise the recordings on Boduf Songs, in fact; Kranky didn’t want Mat to lose the energy or intimacy of the original recordings.

Primarily acoustic guitar and vocals, Boduf Songs also benefits from tasteful sprinklings of cymbals struck and bowed, toy piano and field recordings.

The sound is rather like a cross between In Gowan Ring and Elliot Smith with a touch of Jim O’Rourke thrown in for good measure. Boduf Songs lacks the witchy medieval quality of In Gowan Ring but does share with B’eirth a similar gentle acoustic quality and almost-whispered voice. Some songs, Grains comes to mind, skew more towards singer-songwriter acoustic pop not entirely unlike Elliott Smith.

The album is prettied-up with birdcalls and drugged-out with backwards snippets. But the meat and potatoes of Boduf Songs is Sweet’s voice and quite accomplished guitar playing. The guitar gets it’s most impressive workout on Ape Thanks Lamb which has echoes of Windham Hill founder William Ackerman, British-Isles folk guitar stalwarts like John Renbourne, and a touch of medieval that I for one would love to see further explored on future Boduf Songs releases.

Packaged in a cardboard sleeve with blood red arcane drawings, it looks as appealing as it sounds. This one hasn’t even hit the record shops as of this writing but Kranky’s already got Mat working on a sophomore album in a studio this time around; I’ll certainly be looking out for it, may have worn out this one by the time the next rolls around.

- Gordon B. Isnor

Celestial Son

Mountains In The Sky

Celestial Son could be described as a day-dream soundtrack, comparable to Thievery Corporation and Cinematic Orchestra. It has a large palette of sounds and moods, and allows the brain to explore whatever feelings it may trigger. This 33- minute experience consists of nine tracks that seem to melt from one theme to another like butter.

It is clear that Melbourne, Australia's John Lee spent time experimenting with sound organization and the progression of these sounds as a DJ and former member of the band Geelong and Honeysuckle His orchestration includes "some computer jiggery-pokery, a couple of old organs and synths, and some instruments hailing from the days of yore" – guitar, bass guitar, jaw harp, recorder, and sitar which are arranged as follows.

The experience begins with Cottonbound by Bloodhounds, calm Asian sounds and guitar harmonics with a simple bass line. Piano and bells quickly introduce Noah?s Arkestra, a hip-hop beat with a classical string sample. This track is my personal favorite; you can't help but feel pumped up with a sudden urge to move.

Time to Recline features barn animal sounds and a similar beat to the previous song. Female vocals initiate a new motif and are then manipulated. The continuation of these ideas progress into Communications with Venus, persisting in the manipulation, and introducing new sounds; the feel is much more relaxed. Venus Lets Go is a very lucid piano motif.

At this point of the dream, you're floating off into a relaxed state of mind, breathing deeply and feeling influenced by each sound and repetition; sounds of India highlight the adventure. This could be a track heard in a yoga class or in your headphones, lying in the grass and gazing aimlessly at the sky.

The Snowcapped Incident and Sunset in an Insect World carry elements of the jaw harp leading to female vocals and guitar; the beat is up-tempo but maintains a lucid effect that leads back to Asian sounds and leaves space for saxophone phrases. Sitar unlocks The Insect World, with birds tweeting like in a rainforest and Gamelan-style percussion reinforcing a constant bass line. Percussion escorts you to Cells Divide and then departs, leaving you with synthesizer sounds that eventually fade away. At this point you're either refreshed, having enjoyed a half-hour of day- dreams, or you're fast asleep.

- Kristen Cudmore

The Mysterious Production of Eggs

Andrew Bird

In The Mysterious Production of Eggs, Andrew Bird takes you on a tour of genres and curiosities through a modern approach to musical folklore. The album title is based on a magic trick Bird read in a novelty book. The name got trapped in Bird?s head and since he has chickens, it seemed more than appropriate. With the collaboration of Kevin O?Donnell on drums and Nora O?Connor singing harmonies, he obsessively recorded the album three times until he found satisfaction in that it didn?t lean towards one genre over another and didn?t resemble his last LP release (spring 2003) Weather Systems. The album was recorded in various locations in LA, Chicago and Bird?s barn turned studio in Northern Illinois. David Boucher, known for his work with Lisa Loeb, Randy Newman and Paul Westerberg produced it.

Complete with comedic artwork, the CD grips your attention with its alt-country, folk, jazz, gypsy style, which accompanies topics such as: the mysteries of childhood, genetics, and the laws of attraction, creativity, the unconscious mind, and modern science. Classically trained, Bird composed with violin (bowed and pizzicato), guitar, glockenspiel, and his world-class whistling abilities.

Since February 2005 he has been touring with Ani DiFranco ? Bird is signed to her label, Righteous, but has also been seen warming up the crowds for bands such as; My Morning Jacket, Magnetic Fields, and Lambchop. As a one-man band, Bird impresses audiences with a live show that includes loop samples of instruments that he layers to create a full sound. He also re-orchestrates certain parts to keep an improvisational feel the audience can follow and enjoy.

Now for some math homework: Story-lined poetic genius + Back country folk twang + Swaggered charm + A scholastic approach = Andrew Bird & The Mysterious Production of Eggs

- Kristen Cudmore

Get This!

Ronnie Artur and his Orkestrio

Get this – a smooth twenty-first century take on the beat sound. I don't know if Jack Kerouac would love it and want to get wasted with Ronnie Artur or if the poor Beat bodhisattva would be rolling in his grave over this one.

The Kerouac box was the obvious reference point for me with this album featuring spoken word poetry and stand up bass by Ronnie Hayward alter ego Ronnie Artur. Ronnie's "Orkestrio" is made up of trombone, steel-guitar, drums, saxophone, banjo, trumpet... heck there's even bongos, so Ronnie's clearly not shying away from the cartoonish characterization of Beatnik culture that the album evokes. The late-night, smoky, swampy, blues of Tom Waits is also a relevant comparison; like much of Waits' material, Get This! would make great soundtrack music. There's also a bit of rockabilly and country and western energy at work to complicate the mix.

I've Had Enough, This, Tomorrow, and New Job, Money and a House are some of the high points of the album, and they see Artur getting real loose over backdrops that evoke a slew of adjectives: bawdy, slinky, sleazy and shifty. Sometimes veering on chaotic free improv that reminded me of the Godz.

My only complaint about the album is that Artur never sounds particularly drunk and disorderly – I imagine that doing both the double-bass AND the spoken word is fairly challenging work, but I'd get a kick out of seeing a sauced and slurring Artur and his band careening recklessly through a set sometime.

- Gordon B. Isnor

Mean Letters

Collapsing Opposites

Collapsing Opposites is a solo project from Ryan McCormick who also plays saxophone I believe for up-and-coming Vancouver band They Shoot Horses, Don't They?

One thing I liked about Mean Letters before I even pressed play: at 30 minutes, it's a perfect length. So many of the albums win and woo from the beginning but then drag on and on and don't know when to quit. Collapsing Opposites knows better and when the album's done you're left wanting more.

Collapsing Opposites' solo live shows are based almost entirely around one brilliantly simple gadget - the Boss R-21 Loopsation pedal. Over the course of a song Ryan uses the pedal to build complex textures gradually; he'll start with a simple guitar part, he might add some keyboards, a few saxophone lines and some vocal parts. It might get quite dense and then he'll pull it back to a solo guitar again. McCormick does a hell of a lot with the pedal live, so I was curious to see how his music translated on album.

Mean Letters is much like Ryan's live show ? the twee vocals are strongly redolent of sorely missed Athens band The Music Tapes (what became of them?) and pop experimentalism is the order of the day. But the album goes a step further than Ryan's solo performances, adding great horn sections that remind me of the slightly off-kilter Elephant Six Orchestra sound, really nicely recorded acoustic guitars, as well as a substantial number of guest musicians on drums, trumpets, recorder, sousaphone, melodica, clarinet, flute and vocals.

The songs tend towards social criticism which can be quite funny at times, but also makes you want to get Ryan drunk and hook him up with some loose women.

For a first album this is impressive. Last time I saw Ryan play he had just returned from a cross-Canada tour and from his website it looks like he's about to embark on another. He also makes trips down the west coast so you have every opportunity to check this guy out live and if you don?t get the chance to do that, Mean Letters is distributed by Scratch so it may be in your local shop or you can get it from them or from Ryan at www.collapsingopposites.com

- Gordon B. Isnor

Work From Home

The Consultants

Shelflife has one of the nicest website designs out there. Their CDs are equally nice looking. Their newest release, Work From Home by The Consultants is no exception; with its intelligent use of color and found photos collage this is the kind of album you'd pick up in the store thinking, "this looks great! What is it?"

And the music doesn't disappoint either. I've only listened to The Consultants a few times and I'm already becoming addicted to their happy-making melodies and good-feeling energy, totally won over to their sweet indie pop sound that hearkens back to early 90's sounds like Velocity Girl, Lois and those super-fast Unrest guitar parts. Their hoppy-boppy happy songs benefit from nice production techniques like quiet xylophone in the background and super-sweet vocals layered to a dreamy pop perfection.

They're at their best when they are at their most twee, on songs like Hollow Bodied Evening. Pop Pop, and Contents of My Head. The only complaint about this album is that the production and engineering are somewhat irregular; a few of the songs sound a bit muddy, and a few sound a bit too hard-rocking in a shoe-gazing kind of way in relation to the sweet sound of the rest of the album (Internet Love Letter comes to mind). But these are minor complaints ? this is a really good record.

The Consultants make me want to be 18 and nerdy and in love and I guarantee that if you ever loved indie pop, you will love this band.

- Gordon B. Isnor

Where The Freeways Arc Over The Burnt Edges

Carquinez Straits

Carquinez Straits are a rollicking and rock-solid country-tinged indie rock band from sunny Sacramento, California. Their latest release, Where The Freeways Arc Over The Burnt Edges provokes memories for me of the Meat Puppets, They Might Be Giants, and Uncle Tupelo. The album benefits from excellent acoustic and electric guitar work, with solos that touch on country and psyche. A tight rhythm section holds it all together.

The downfall is in the lyrics and vocals, which at times suffer from a humor and cloying cleverness that seem out of place in this type of music; neither ridiculous enough to bring the band into the joke-band territory of The Dead Milkmen and others of their ilk, nor earnest and impassioned in the charming blue collar-style of an Uncle Tupelo. The band, too, has a similar in-between quality - never completely embracing any of the genres that they reference – indie rock, country and country-psyche.

This is a group that could really go places if they took a few small steps in any direction, hopefully toning down the silliness of the vocals and delving further into the psychedelic sound. They would also make a killer backing band for a gifted singer-songwriter.

- Gordon B. Isnor

Palaa aurinkoon

Islaja

Islaja transfixed me even before I put the album on - a mysterious and enchanting photo of the Nordic beauty wearing a hooded cloak in a snowy Finnish wilderness screams, "This is a pagan forest-folk psyche masterpiece!”

Sounding like a deranged pagan ritual or Jandek meeting Nico at a Hermann Nitsch blood orgy, Islaja is as tripped out and mysterious as it gets. Primitive claw hammer guitars, bells, tape hiss, crazy random-sounding noise, and harmonium-like organ sounds back up Islaja's multi-tracked and beautiful beautiful beautiful witchy disturbed vocals.

There's a dark, haunting quality to this album that reminds me of a night spent watching Last Year At Marienbad and being tracked by a playful coyote one moonlit night on Norwich Mountain. I can't stop thinking that I'm listening to a field recording of the sort of Scandinavian pagan ritual that Burzum and his Odinist buddies were probably dreaming about as they burned Norway's churches. Hell, if Islaja were singing at my witching circle, I'd probably feel enough Aryan passion to go burn down a church myself.

And to think my friend Shary is over in Finland seeing Islaja and her Fonal friends live as we speak... oh! jealousy could get the better of me.

- Gordon B. Isnor