Warpaint
The Fool
Rough Trade)

I stumbled upon Warpaint’s Exquisite Corpse EP last year—and the rather spirited videos for its two biggest hits, “Elephants” and “Stars”—and have been waiting intently for the first full-length since then. The all-girl quartet, a self-declared “experimental art rock group from Los Angeles” whom “several people in the Hollywood crowd claim…as one of their favorites, including late actor Heath Ledger, Billy Zane, and former Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist John Frusciante”, have added a lot of new fans thanks to their intense touring schedule, including fantastic shows at last year’s CMJ and this summer at New York’s Mercury Lounge.

The difficulty with the newly arrived The Fool is how to treat it—is it a proper debut, or more of a sophomore follow-up to Exquisite Corpse? Unfortunately, it’s not a matter of simple chronology. The Fool is the type of exploratory project a band with more releases under its belt might try to undertake, and I would steer prospective fans of Warpaint away from listening to it first. Putting it another way: Exquisite Corpse plus The Fool equals an incredible and varied debut album; The Fool itself does not.

That’s not to say that there aren’t great songs on the new full-length. Album opener “Set Your Arms Down” is a beautiful, muscular, bass-driven lament, reminiscent of PJ Harvey. The track “Warpaint” neatly adds moderate funk to a recipe of post-punk Gothic guitars and uses the harmonious vocals found throughout The Fool to great effect. “Composure” is a smart experiment which sandwiches a psychedelic (yet minimalist) pop breakdown between eerie waltzes and entertaining shouts, and “Undertow” is the type of energetic jam session the band is best at.

However, “Bees” is a song with a lot of good ideas, but one that could’ve used a judicious editor; the acoustic, almost adult-contemporary ballad “Baby” is fine, but just barely; and “Majesty” is the flip-side of “Undertow”—it’s only a minute longer, but seems to go on forever; this time, it’s jam session as watch-glancing filler.

It feels like Warpaint got all of the “hits” out of the way on last year’s EP, and decided to use this album to “explore the studio space” and see where they could go with their considerable talents. But after a year’s worth of wondering how they would top Exquisite Corpse, I’m left disappointed that they were unable to do so—or that they didn’t put those songs on The Fool to make it a more worthwhile purchase.

Release Date October, 25, 2010

Track Listing

1. Set Your Arms Down
2. Warpaint
3. Undertow
4. Bees
5. Shadows
6. Composure
7. Baby
8. Majesty
9. Lissie’s Heart Murmur

Blonde Redhead
Penny Sparkle
4AD

It’s been really fun to watch the evolution of New York-based trio Blonde Redhead through three discernable stages: the frisky indie rock of 1995’s Blonde Redhead and the excellent La Mia Vita Violenta, which lead to their increasingly abstract but just as enjoyable art-school middle period (Fake Can Be Just as Good, In an Expression of the Inexpressible, Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons), culminating in a jump to the hallowed record label 4AD and into dark, atmospheric dream pop (the incredible Misery Is a Butterfly, 23). Does their new effort, Penny Sparkle, mean another switching of gears? Do they cover any new ground, 15 years later?

The most disappointing thing about Penny Sparkle is that it’s…well, boring. The trance-like “Will There Be Stars” and the faux tropical “Here Sometimes” keep things moderately interesting; the late-late-era Depeche Mode style of “Not Getting There” is acceptable. But the last half of the album is little more than bland background music. “Love or Prison” is sweet, but indistinct; the title track is a bad Björk imitation; and things don’t get any more interesting from there.

Maybe it’s easy to be too harsh on Penny Sparkle; there is discernable talent here, and the off-kilter melancholy of “My Plants Are Dead” offers a frustrating glimpse into what might have been. It would be a passable first album, innocuous yet ineffective. But we’re used to much, much more from this talented band—and if they’ve decided to take an ambient, noodling break for an album, then only completists need to bother with it.

Released on September 14, 2010

Track Listing

1. Here Sometimes
2. Not Getting There
3. Will There Be Stars
4. My Plants Are Dead
5. Love Or Prison
6. Oslo
7. Penny Sparkle
8. Everything Is Wrong
9. Black Guitar
10. Spain

School of Seven Bells
Disconnect from Desire
Vagrant Records/Ghostly International)

School of Seven Bells’ warm and welcome sound is a throwback to the earlier days of the seminal record label 4AD and bands like Slowdive, Pale Saints, and (the gentler moments of) My Bloody Valentine. Their debut, 2009’s Alpinisms, was an ambient, evocative album, with hints of electronic pop, anchored by the ridiculously great “Half Asleep” and record closer “My Cabal.” The biggest strike against it was that it had a tendency, at times, to recede into the background, with too little difference between some of the tracks, making the perfectly manipulated vocals of twin sisters Alejandra and Claudia Deheza seem like too much of a good thing. Which is why their sophomore effort, Disconnect from Desire, is such a nice surprise—the Dehezas and bandmate Benjamin Curtis add a huge dose of dance, and they make it work.

While Alpinisms wasn’t exactly what you would call a dour effort, Disconnect from Desire is decidedly more upbeat, right from the start. “Windstorm” is a pretty, peppy little pop gem, followed by mannered yet propulsive dance numbers like “Heart is Strange” and “Babelonia.” Nothing gets too jarring or feedback-driven; we’re talking some seriously retro synth-pop numbers here (the slightly melancholy “I L U” and the more up-tempo, bass-heavy “Bye Bye Bye”). “Joviann” could pass for a missing Cocteau Twins song, and “Dial” is an atmospheric little rocker. And the soothing/soaring “The Wait” sounds like it could be swapped back in to the first album.

Sometimes you wish that School of Seven Bells would try harder to sound discordant—nothing feels dangerous, and they very rarely mine beauty out of noise like the best of their dreampop predecessors (or some of their “newgazer” contemporaries). But Disconnect from Desire certainly delivers on enough levels, and there’s nothing wrong with an album that feels a little more fun than it does “smart”—especially when it’s done this well.

Released on July 13, 2010

Track Listing

1. Windstorm
2. Heart Is Strange
3. Dust Devil
4. I L U
5. Babelonia
6. Joviann
7. Camarilla
8. Dial
9. Bye Bye Bye
10. The Wait

Arcade Fire
The Suburbs
Merge Records

Everyone’s favorite Canadian orchestral indie rock collective, the Arcade Fire, have just delivered their third album, The Suburbs. To their credit, the band has chosen to push against the simple, yet wildly effective blueprint of 2004’s Funeral and its gratifying, more adventurous 2007 follow-up, Neon Bible. The new album was reportedly inspired by band members Will and Win Butler’s upbringing in the suburbs of Houston, TX, and they do deliver what is almost a rock opera on the subject, a concept album whose lyrics (like in the jaunty title track) relive the deep, immediate passions and reflexive boredom found in such an upbringing.

They come out of the gate pretty admirably. “Ready to Start” follows the formula of previous Arcade Fire anthems, but with more of a late-‘80s feel. “Modern Man” is an understated surprise—gentle and almost Big Star-like. The dark epic “Rococo,” with its tale of “the modern kids” who “use great big words that they don’t understand” works quite well, and “Empty Room” out-propels Neon Bible’s “The Well And The Lighthouse” and even Funeral’s “Neighborhood #3” (well, almost). While “City with No Children” and “Half Light I” tread water in an all-too familiar way, the synth-heavy “Half Light II” and the jangly “Suburban War” act as a sturdy bridge to the album’s second half.

In that second half, only “Month of May” is a real misstep, perhaps meant to emulate the type of rock-n-roller one might tool around to during a misspent youth, but ultimately a waste of an album slot. “Wasted Hours” evokes Neil Young; “We Used To Wait” uses intriguing, yet subtle electronic accents; and “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)” is huge and triumphant electro-pop.

The Suburbs is pretty commendable, experiments with new textures, rewards multiple listens, and (very) gently challenges what’s come before. It’s nowhere near the lean juggernaut that Funeral was, and it falls short of being a true step forward for the band, but it makes me more than confident in what’s coming next.

Release Date August 2, 2010

1. The Suburbs
2. Ready to Start
3. Modern Man
4. Rococo
5. Empty Room
6. City With No Children
7. Half Light I
8. Half Light II (No Celebration)
9. Suburban War
10. Month of May
11. Wasted Hours
12. Deep Blue
13. We Used to Wait
14. Sprawl I (Flatland)
15. Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)
16. The Suburbs (continued)

YH Etheart

So when I went to Mr. Editor, and told him my Selection of the Week hadn’t been released yet, he kind of accused me of being difficult. But I swear that I’m not—it’s just that I’m so excited about the Selection that I’m treating it like it’s already here.

For the past six years, Rhino Records (Universal in the UK) has been re-releasing all of the Cure’s studio albums, and we’ve finally arrived at the band’s magnum opus, 1989’s Disintegration, aka The Album that Saved My Life. Well, saved it in the melodramatic high school way, of course; most people have that piece of art or literature or music that opens (or reopens) the door to a bigger, more complicated, more complex world—a thinking person’s world—and Disintegration did that for me. (“Put down that Def Leppard CD, old chum,” the nice Englishman seemed to say. “Step away from the Colour Me Badd. Here, slip into this black trenchcoat. Do you like girls with bowl cuts?”)

But that’s not just my opinion—Disintegration remains the band’s commercial and critical peak, and the upcoming Deluxe Edition would seem to reflect that. The other reissues have followed the standard format—remastered main album plus a bonus disc of home demos, unreleased tracks, and live performances—but this time around, we get three CDs: the original album, the disc of rarities (which includes four never-released songs), and a real gift: Entreat, a live promotional album recorded at Wembley Arena during the 1989 Prayer Tour (which almost destroyed the band and certainly changed its internal dynamic for good). It was heavily bootlegged before it received a limited (European-only) release. This version is remastered and expanded to include all 12 songs from Disintegration; in a lot of ways, I’m more excited for Entreat than the other two discs.

I’ve really enjoyed the Cure reissues, and, much like the original album itself, the release of the Deluxe Edition of Disintegration is the beginning of the end. While there will probably be enough quality tracks for the re-releases of Mixed Up and Wish, it’s all diminishing returns after that. (And anyone who tells you that they’re waiting to buy $20 versions of Bloodflowers or *shudder* Wild Mood Swings is a dirty goddamn liar.)

The Deluxe Edition of Disintegration will be released on May 25th, 2010.

The boy rose from sleep-with some difficulty, but not as much as he would have thought.

It varied, from day to day and week to week. Today, it was less.

He glanced at the clock. 4:30 AM. They should be here by now, outside, on the porch. Sometimes he would wake early and hear them arrive. Sometimes it was their arrival that woke him up, not the alarm.

He dressed, grabbed the small blue bag with the silver trim. He walked softly to the front door, careful not to make too much noise, although he couldn’t remember the last time he had.

He locked the door behind him. The stack of newspapers sat there, the ones on the top torn and frayed against the yellow plastic binding, as usual. He peeled the tab, and the binding came free.

He loaded the papers into his bag. His bicycle was broken, as usual; he couldn’t remember the last time it had worked for longer than a month. He didn’t mind-he enjoyed walking. But riding would’ve ended things sooner, make it less likely that he would have to rush when he returned.

He began walking up the block, passing houses, sliding papers in mailboxes or under welcome mats. The sky was still dark, the suburban neighborhood quiet. He listened to sprinklers on automatic timers, the occasional dog in the distance. He still heard crickets. But no cars. No people.

He fought the urge to talk aloud, talk to himself. It made things more intimate, less solitary, to hear his own voice. But you shouldn’t talk to yourself, he thought. Not even when you’re all alone. Especially not when you’re alone.

He entered the woods near the top of the road, walking one of the well-worn paths that hadn’t been fenced off, that cut between streets, between neighborhoods.

He kicked stones absent-mindedly as he walked. He was getting too old for a paper route, he thought. It didn’t pay enough-not enough for prom, or CDs, or any of the other things he needed. Maybe he would go to the supermarket after school, get a cashier job like the rest of his friends. It seemed like the next logical step. He just wasn’t sure why he was reluctant to take it.

The path rose slightly as it wound up to the next street. He had been walking with his head down. As he lifted it, he stopped.

He could see the street, about ten feet away, through a frame of branches. A still-lit street light was visible, above the tops of the trees.

A man jogged in place, on the street, directly in the center of the frame. He looked as if he was his parents’ age, maybe a bit older.

He was completely nude.

Well, not completely. He was wearing a pair of sneakers and socks.

But otherwise, completely nude.

As the boy stood and stared through the trees, the man continued to jog in place.

The man wasn’t in shape-his skin was weird and wrinkled, his body lumpy. He was covered in what could’ve been freckles, but were probably liver spots. He was hairless.

The man stared directly ahead, and the boy wondered, more out of curiosity than fear, what would happen if he turned his head to the left. Would he see the boy through the trees? Run away in embarrassment? Charge at him?

He saw the man’s penis. It was slightly erect, sort-of at half-mast, but not totally rigid. Was this some weird sex thing? Was he hoping to run into someone out here? Rape someone?

Did he just get really exercise this way?

Did it feel good?

Why would you be naked, here, outside, in public? Who would expose themselves that way, ruining their lives completely if they were caught? Why -

The man went forward, a slow, even gait.

The boy was startled. Did he see me? Did he hear me?

Had he stopped for too long?

The boy glanced at his watch. Shit.

Just give it five minutes, he thought.

Five minutes later, the boy walked forward, through the trees, and onto the street. He turned left, and looked down the road.

The man was nowhere to be seen.

The boy lingered for a few minutes.

Then he turned right, and returned to his route.

Bitte Orca

By now, quite a few paragraphs have been written about Dave Longstreth and his experimental outfit Dirty Projectors. A primer for the uninitiated: Longstreth, the Yale dropout whose distinctive croon is seen as either one of the best or one of the worst things about his music (count me in the former column), is a songwriting genius who’s unafraid to include a world of musical influences-hell, the world of musical influences-in his work. This is a guy who wrote a postmodern opera (2005′s The Getty Address) “inspired by Aztec mythology, the Eagles, and the 9/11 aftermath;” who crafted the last Projectors effort, 2007′s Rise Above, as a radical reimagining of the Black Flag album Damaged; and whose true secret weapon is fellow bandmates Amber Coffman and Angel Deradoorian, whose cascading, ecstatic voices are the best in indie rock today.

It’s safe to say that, after Rise Above, their much-blogged-about live shows, several stints on NPR, and their recent collaborations with the likes of Björk (as part of a charity concert for Housing Works) and David Byrne (on “Knotty Pine,” the opener for the Red Hot compilation Dark Was the Night), the Projectors’ new album Bitte Orca is probably the most anticipated release (among those in the know) this year. Does it hold up to the hype? Well, hells yes.

But first things first, cats and kittens-a quick word about “Stillness is the Move,” Bitte Orca‘s first single. I must have read half-a-dozen reviews proclaiming that it wouldn’t be a stretch to hear “Stillness” bumping on Hot 97′s summer playlist and anointing Longstreth as some sort of hipster Timbaland. That seems a bit patronizing-and it feels like telling your Little Leaguer that he’s the next A-Rod because he smacked a double past the tubby kid playing second base. Let’s all calm down.

Don’t get me wrong-”Stillness is the Move” is wonderful, a slinky, revelatory effort. But it’s not even the funkiest song on the album-that honor goes to “No Intention,” whose beautiful harmonizing, guitar flourishes, and dignified claps create something akin to art-rock soul.

As usual, Longstreth isn’t afraid to build multi-layered, tempestuous anthems, whose time signatures and complicated vocals dip and rise through so many tones and textures, it often feels like he’s cramming two or three compositions into one (“Cannibal Resource,” the ridiculously good “Useful Chamber”). But he also stretches the formula with the sun-drenched prog-rock of “Temecula Sunrise,” the wistful (if a bit ordinary) “Fluorescent Half Dome,” and “Two Doves,” an quiet, aching ballad where (like with Coffman on “Stillness is the Move”) Longstreth steps back and gives center stage away, this time to Deradoorian. (Unfortunately, “Two Doves” is too distractingly similar to Nico’s “These Days” to stand entirely on its own-which isn’t the worst thing in the world.)

Bitte Orca is easily Longstreth’s most joyous work, and takes more risks than most other long players (even those who wear their avant-garde aspirations openly). It feels like a throwback, a pop album that’s tightrope walking without a net (and this is, when all is said and done, a pop album-the Projectors’ most accessible record and a perfect entry point to their work). It doesn’t quite reach the transcendence of Rise Above, but, in the end, sometimes art can wait.

i looked down as you sat up
and saw you
(what had always been you)
wide-open and gaping

and wondered to myself
how someone so small
could up and change
from crevice to chasm

all in one hour.

no, wait a minute,
it makes complete and total sense.
outlines of trees
the sounds of animals projecting their forms into your mind
running water establishing landmarks
and even when it’s all completely dark, and still, and quiet, and hidden
the night is a rounded curtain, with the slightest sense of furrows, and ripples;
it is a covering, and not an absence.

well, i was going to speak about a darkness.
that is to say, i’ve seen a darkness
it was one border of pluto’s kingdom
the other one being silent screams and broken tables
and vegan casserole and “why won’t you sit next to me?”

but whenever i think about that darkness
and plant roots curled around ankles
and the start and the end of the pomegranate journey

all i can think about
is stretching my microphone
across a plastic curtain
so that everyone can hear
what painting sounds like

and latex staining tweed

and how much sense that made
and how much sense that makes

and i made myself worry
throughout the next day

i stayed unwashed; flowered
for twenty-four hours

electric spice burnt civet;
mixing on our fingertip.