Rookie of the Year Award
Twin Shadow – Forget
I really like everything about this album. George Lewis Jr has a beautiful voice and write terrific songs. Forget features a thrilling production that recalls ENO’s early albums and 80′s Indie Rock. Let’s hope the next one is even better!
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyO7P6LE7nA
Old-Timer Award
Paul Weller – Wake Up the Nation
Paul Weller is a dinosaur. He recorded his first album on a fucking pterodactyl. Nonetheless, Wake Up the Nation isn’t merely 2010′s best album from an elder-statesman of music, it’s one of the year’s best hands-down. Just listen to this gem, featuring production from My Bloody Valentine’s Kevin Shields.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0i6L1Q9kzU
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Welcome to Witch House....
Yes, I know that Tanner already brought attention to this new genre on the Pure Pop blog back in April. However, seeing as Witch House has kind of been exploding lately (or at least making the transition from the web underground to the fringe, just-at-ground-level mainstream), I thought it might be an appropriate time to do an overview for those not in the know. This part of the article will deal with the origins of Witch House, exploring the genres and artists that influenced it, and discussing the genre’s conflict relationship with the internet. In part two, we will explore some of the genre’s key artists and labels, as well as discuss some of the exciting new Witch House releases coming in the late summer & early fall.
As is true of many genres in their infancy, Witch House is still trying to define itself, on many different levels. There’s even a lot of disagreement as to what to call this style of music (which in itself is pretty schizophrenic, as we’ll discuss later). While it has been tagged as “drag”, “ghost drone” and several other names (some unpronounceable), the brand of “Witch House” has really stuck for some reason. Most likely, because it captures the dichotomy of the genre quite accurately and succinctly–dark, yet danceable.
So now that we’ve decided on a name (at least for the sake of this article), what is “Witch House”? That, my friends, is a very difficult question to answer. There’s a lot of disagreement as to what constitutes the “Witch House” sound, and you often find artists who label themselves as witch house being accused of not being appropriate for the genre, while several key figures and founders of the witch house “movement” have tried their best to distance themselves from the tag altogether.
A good reason for this is that a big part of the Witch House philosophy thrives on the being anti-genre specific, sometimes even anti-auteur. It’s one of the most post-modern popular music formats, in that its combines a wide variety of genres (ranging from coldwave to post-punk goth rock to dubstep to experimental hip hop to lo-fi noise to mainstream pop and beyond) into a grand pastiche of sounds. While the end result is usually always dark and beat heavy, releases by different Witch House artists seldom sound even remotely similar. Even tracks by the same artist on the same album can sound incredibly disparate and eclectic.
Further expanding this concept of anonymity and collaboration is Witch House’s penchant for remixes and unpronounceable band names. The remixes certainly show an allegiance to the long history of sampling and collaborative reinvention in hip-hop production. In particular, there seems to be an allegiance (seen most blatantly with acts like SALEM and Balam Acab) to the “chopped and screwed” style of DJ Screw, with samples and rhythms slowed to completely warp the source material into a narcotic acoustic fog.
You may know Eric Olsen from his various musical endeavors. He is a member of a number of beloved Burlington-based outfits, including Swale, Led Loco and James Kochalka Superstar. He’s also a web and graphic design guru, a husband and, most recently, a father.
Tanner: Hey Eric – what are you shopping for today?
Eric: I’m looking for the Spoon album -
Tanner: Find what you’re looking for?
Herb: boxes havn’t arrived yet cause of the holiday delay…
Eric: Because of MLK day, the shipments were delayed – activists man, they always fuck shit up.
Tanner: What have you been listening to today?
Eric: Been going through albums in alphabetical order – I’m up to B, so I’m up to that Art Brut album – then there was that Basement demo’s from Elliot Smiths post suicide album… something else, can’t remember…
Tanner: What are your preferred mediums – vinyl, mp3, cd, cassette, 8-track, a-dat etc?
Eric: That would depend on the setting -
Herb: What if you were being held prisoner?
Eric: That would depend on the size of the prison…
I’ve slacked on vinyl – i like to get my albums, and rip them to MP3 for my Ipod. I have alot of vinyl, but i wouldn’t call it a collection, i’m mainly CD though. Usually my record player is in disarray.
Tanner: Conan or Leno?
Eric: I’m with CoCo. Actually in my opinion, Leno is like a red state thing, they’re gonna win – it’s like the decline of western civilization.
Tanner: Read anything good lately?
Eric: Murakami - What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, or is it “what i think when i talk about thinking”? … no wait. I’ve also been reading Bill Bryson‘s, A Short History of Nearly Everything – basically cliff notes of the history of science and all things. Also since I’ve been coming here last week, i’ve been constantly checking out Gawker.com pretty religiously, we’ve been having alot of laughs at the house about Conan’s list of possible porno names if he starred….
Tanner: If you could be one person in music history who would it be?
Eric: Fela (kuti) I’d have a sovereign nation. Not every musician has that.
Herb: You’d be dead.
Eric: he had alot of sex.
Herb: Not like, Warren Beatty levels of sex.
Tanner: ZZ-Top or DeeDee Ramone?
Eric: Ooooh tough one…. It’s a toss up, ZZ Top would be in the running before they remastered their drums, did not like that. Depends, every other day, I’d go back and forth – shared custody.
Tanner: Your #1 album of 2009.
Eric: Umm… hmm… not sure.
Tanner: Your #1 album of 1989.
Eric: It was either Nation of Millions or Daydream nation…I’m dating myself now aren’t I?
Tanner: Shower singer or car singer? If so, what song?
Eric: Bath Singer – You got another thing coming by Judas Priest.
One can’t help but wonder what the late Ian Curtis would have thought of the music the other members of Joy Division would go on to make after his death. With each passing decade, the musical sensibilities of his former band mates seem to drift further away from Joy Division’s.
Take Bad Lieutenant. With New Order officially broken up, Bernard Sumner has moved on to this project, an unremarkable but pleasant enough New Order-esque outfit. Also featuring Phil Cunningham, who briefly replaced Gillian Gilbert as NO’s keyboardist, and Jake Evans, their debut includes contributions from such notable musicians as fellow New Order ex-pat Stephen Morris and Blur’s Alex James.
My fellow Pure Popper Tanner recently summed up Sumner’s song-writing motus operandi as succinctly as I’ve ever heard, suggesting the majority of his songs are “populist love songs.” I couldn’t put it better myself. Whereas the Joy Divisions of this world deal in the morbid and bleak, Sumner’s more inclined to fill an album with a dozen or so declarations of affection.
Should you bother with this album? Well, if you liked Get Ready and Waiting for the Siren’s call, absolutely. If you didn’t, or you never bothered to check them out, steer clear. It’s only the absence of Peter Hook’s bass sound that makes this record distinguishable from latter-day New Order.
Would Ian Curtis have liked it? One shudders to think what an Ian Curtis pushing 60 would have thought about anything. I, for one, adore it.
