Paul F. Tompkins - Freak Wharf

Paul F. Tompkins - Freak Wharf

Published in 2009

Wikipedia

So,  who is Paul F. Tompkins?  Why is he on The Album Project?  Is Matt crazy?

Let's be clear.  Album means Album.  Comedy Albums are just as much of an album as a music album, and having things to say about them is something that I will be able to do, because I love comedy.

You see, I love comedy.  I listen to the Comedy Death Ray podcast, the Pod F. Tompcast, and Sklar Bro Country.  I watch tons of comedy on TV, the [adult swim] being a group of personal favorites.  I constantly quote comedy things, and I love laughing.  So, reviewing or whatever the fuck I do a comedy album is perfectly okay.

Paul F. Tompkins is one of the comedians that I have only been introduced to through podcasts, and have become a huge fan of since.  He is an incredible performer, making insane characters, and his stand up is pretty awesome too.  I cannot wait to go back to the states so I can see him live.  He's very quick, comes up with interesting premises, and his written stuff is very funny.

This album is a great showcase of the two sides of Paul F. Tompkins.  The first side, the improviser and performer is on display during three tracks, called the Riff Suite.  They are really good examples of a performer developing jokes in front of an audience.  Most of the time, he is obviously coming up with new things, and he totally gets involved with them.  He cracks himself up at times, but usually because what he is thinking about is very funny.

The second part is his written material.  Some of this stuff is just golden stuff.  Particularly amazing are The Sink and the Mirror and Cake V. Pie.  Go Ask Alice is off the chains as well, but on a totally different level.

I quite enjoy the way he comes up with new ideas, and uses the basic idea to continue the joke through it.  I find some of the stuff he says just amazingly funny.  It's hard not to just throw quotes at you here, but I would rather you listen to it and enjoy it than for me to tell you all the funny lines.  He cannot get popular enough in my opinion.

Anyway, weird short album project right?  Thanks!

"YOU ARE THE WORST MONSTER EVER!"
Matt

PS. Give Phil Five, pleeeeeeeease!

Muse - Resistance

Muse - Resistance

Published in 2009

Wikipedia

iPod, so there.

First off, thanks to Lena for suggesting this album.

I don't know how to feel about Muse, but this might be my fault. You see, I am of two minds when it comes to them. One side, the sober side thinks that they play some really technical and clean rock, that is obviously appealing, but never really lights my fire. It's fun to sing to, fun to listen to, but I will get overwhelmed after a couple of tracks and have to esacpe from it. The songs I really like I enjoy throughly, but I have trouble paying attention.

The drunken me has two reactions to Muse. One is that this shitis tons of fun to sing, the lyrics are enjoyable and they encourage you to get involved and sing along. The second is to ascribe a certain deepness to their lyrics that the sober me would laugh at.   It's a disappointing dichotomy, but I must live with it.

That might be the real problem. This record sounds like the band really, really, really wants to be liked, and whatever you like, they'll try to do it for you. Like electronic music? Here you go! Like ballads? Here, sample this. Like classic rock? Here you are! It's such a buffet that I don't really know what I like about Muse.

Which sucks, actually. I like them, but I can't tell why, and if this blog indicates anything, I'll devote hundreds of words to why I like something, and figuring out why, but when a band tries to make me like them, I get gun-shy?

Muse seems like a good example of this eternal problem of taste. Why do we like some things and hate others? What is it that make our brains love one thing and hate another? Why are we subject to these whims?

The drunk me, in objection to what I wrote above would slur something like the following:

If you like something, but you can't understand why you like it, you must like it for surface reasons, the sound, the feel of the music is more important to your primitive brain than the deeper signifiers. Knowing that you like it has given you insight, but to understand that insight is what your brain has been programmed to do, and it is in that confusion that comes with justifying your taste that you lose the enigmatic part that you liked in the first place.

Sober me, then retorts:

But as this blog proves, breaking things down into peices and trying to understand them is something that my brain does with everything. While it does not always lead to full satisfactory understanding, the joy that I take in writing these is partly related to the act of breaking things down to figure them out. As we've seen, the ones that confuse me most run the gamut from most loved to most hated, so I disagree.

Drunk me:

And yet, you agreed that you like this album at some level. The difficulty only comes with the breaking down of the album, so just talk about what you like in general and hope that clarifies it for you.

Sober me:

Okay, I'll try that.

I think the song writin on display is some of the more clever that I've heard on an anthemy rock album like this. I find the lyrics to ironically wink at the source material, while still treating it gravely enough that it isn't annoying.

I think the performances are spectacular, however I don't enjoy some of the more electronic style choices, because I feel it detracts from the image presented. But, of course, the musicians are all spectacularly competent and the music is produced with flair, vim and even vigor.

I think United States of Eurasia is one of the most fun to sing along songs with in history, behind 1. Seal - Kiss from a Rose 2. The Eagles - Hotel California and 3. Weezer  - Say It Ain't So.  Obviously, it is in good company.  I also think that Resistance and Uprising are good, if not great, and Breaking Through is pretty damn okay too.  The rest of the album, I am not as entranced with.

I want to like them so bad.  Maybe this problem would be solved if I listened to a non-concept album by Muse, but I have no idea.  I just have this one to write about, Jeez, get off my back.

But of course, if you love Muse, and want to tell me why I am a jackass, and why drunk me is right, please do so in the comments, and get us ever closer to the goal of Bequeathing Phillip Half of a Hamilton.

"Five Four Three Nose One"
Matt

PS.  More albums please, I'm devouring these!

jj - jj n° 2

jj - jj n° 2

Published in 2009

Wikipedia

First off, thanks to doomsday for suggesting this album.

This album landed with a resounding thud on my iPod. I was listening to it going what the fuck is this. Weird etherial electronic rap lady singing insanity? What on earth am I listening to?

I'm writing this without the internets but i'd bet, were I to look up jj on the Internet, they would be some sort of Scandinavian collective of electropop artists based on what I am hearing. It's so ecclectic that it could only be made by white people who were cold and bored.

Look, I don't know if I like this album or not. I literally cannot tell. Some of it is very cool and interesting and makes me want to be a huge fan. But some makes me want to punch someone in the face for sheer pretentiousness. I just want to know why they are trying so hard all the time.

To get a little psychological, I have a feeling that the prophet doomsday suggested this album because it reminded him of theivery corperation. He knows how much I like them, so he gave me this. I think I really like TC because of the wide influences and because it is perfect chill music. Every song takes it's time, allowing the listener to really get involved in the permutations of the sound. This doesn't allow me to do that, perhaps because they are trying to be too upbeat for it.

I come not to bury albums but I cannot say that this is anything but optional for me. The vocals are quite nice, and some of the tracks are good. Nothing seems to just jump put at me, and that means something. It ether means that I just don't have the chops to get on board and I am missing an essential piece of the puzzle, or it means that it just doesn't work for my pallet. I can recognize moments of real beauty and grace, but it seems to be weighed down too much with strange shit.

Patrick, I understand this album, and I can see why you like it, but it just never hooked me, which is trouble. I was looking for something else in there that just wasn't. Maybe this one will grow on me eventually, but it's not working for me right now.  But thanks again for the suggestion man, and keep more coming.

"What do you do man?" "I kill people, professionally."
Matt

PS - Next Week The Ink Spots - The Very Best of the Ink Spots

Mumford & Sons - Sigh No More

Mumford & Sons - Sigh No More

Published - October 2009

Wikipedia

So, I'm back.

I'll let that sink in here for a minute before we get to the music.

I'm back, and I realized how much this got me through the first couple of months here in Korea, and how much I enjoyed the fits and starts in which I wrote a bunch of these.  Actually, a respected blogger friend of mine (I mean a friend who I respect and writes a blog, not that his blog is widely respected, although it should be, like go read some of it now) asked me when it was going to return, after my enigmatic last post.  So here I am, back at the computer, slamming out words about music again.  I hope you're back too.

Here is the plan.  52 weeks in the year.  52 album projects.  That is the bare minimum I will allow to happen.  One a week is a pretty low number, to be sure.  So if I can get more, I will.  What does this mean for you?  Every seven days, I'll come up with a new one.  These will all be suggestions from other people.  This makes my job easier, because that leaves time open for everything else I want to write just for myself, and allows me to go back and do classics and stuff on my own terms.  So,  I've got my list started, and of course, if you have more suggestions, send them to me.  I'll try to keep everyone updated with what is coming up soon, and what I think I'll be writing about next.  Hopefully, we'll end up with something more like 100 album projects, but of course, that depends on one thing.  Me.  The unreliable as far person.  I'm working on this though.  So, hopefully for the next year, until next Christmas at least, some album will be talked about, at great length, by me.

Speaking of which, let's get to this weeks album.  Sigh No More was suggested to me by two different people.  So, I'd like to thank Mr. Grant Hamming and Ms. Rachel Nusbaum, for the suggestion.

I don't know if I have a lot to say about this album.  This is not for any other reason than it appeals to me on a visceral level, where I really enjoyed every part of it separately, and I loved the whole, but it didn't really make me have a strong opinion about it.  It was consistently good, enjoyable, and made me really fall for the depth of it.

The wikipedia would lead you to believe that this is a "freak folk" album.  I don't understand what that means. This actually just sounds like a modern folk album to me.  If Bob Dylan had been born in the early 80's and had nearly the same life, I think this is what his music would sound like, with a bit different vocals, and more incomprehensible lyrics.

Talking about the lyrics, they are beautiful.  It's an incredibly moving album, you feel the things that they are singing, and the depth of the vocals is very impressive.  The lead singer is frequently backed up by what sounds like a half a dozen singers.  The lyrics are clear, defined, and sound like hooks to me.  This is folk at it's best, where it conjures up a small, dusty, packed room, with the group singing to a group of people, ready to seize the song and sing back to them.  Their music is incredibly close to you.  You feel as if it is surrounding you and permeating you.  It's darkly toned, and soars when it should.

I think that is why I reject the "freak folk" label, it's just too good as genuine folk.  They aren't commenting on it, they aren't satirizing it, and they aren't using it in any way other than as a the formula from which the music comes.  The modernity could be lost if it were recorded on ancient equipment, and if they cut out some of the layering, but to do that would be to lose the thought and what seems to be important to the band.  They seem to be inspired by the ideas of folk, and they took them to the logical next step, a place with soaring vocals and more instruments than just a banjo, guitar and bass.  To make them out to be avant guard is to reject Bob Dylan once he went electric.  It's not against the grain of the music that was being performed, it is to constantly be trying to update, to become a better musician, and express the thoughts that 'are' to that group, at that time is the next step for this particular group.

Now, this is another album that will completely turn people off, because it is niche in the extreme.  If you don't like mountain folky sounding music, you probably won't get enamored of this album.  If you are looking for something uplifting, I'd listen to particular tracks, but overall, you won't be uplifted by this.

However, if you are down, and want to hear moments of brightness against a background of melecholy, or if you want to hear something beautiful, and yes, a little hipsteresque, you should pick this up.  If you wanted to just look at a couple of the songs, to see if you would like it, I'd suggest you listen to Dustbowl Dance, which is just an incredible song.  The album sounds very similar from song to song, which is not a criticism, but more that it paints a portrait of the band in its time.  It sounds like a complete album.

Anyway, let me say thanks again to Rachel and Grant, two incredibly cool people on opposite sides of the world.  I hope that each of you are doing well in your respective positions.  I'd like to hear more from you two about what this album did for you, because I'm still working on it, but I really enjoyed it.

I am the very model of a modern major general,
Matt

Oh hey, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and all that stuff too.

PPS. Next week, Andrew Bird & the Mysterious Production of Eggs - Andrew Bird

Dethklok - Dethalbum II

Dethklok -  Dethalbum II

Published in 2009

Wikipedia

What do you do when your joke band actually starts making some pretty awesome music?  If you're Brendon Small, apparently you just keep on rolling.  I think that metalocolypse is one of the most original and funny shows on tv but if you hate cartoons or something stupid like that, you need to listen to their album. Actually I'd suggest this album for one specific reason.

Comedy albums, as a rule have this tendency to include these things called skits. These are usually cute little asides that acknowledge tha their music is actually a joke and that they are meant to be funny. ( presumably they don't want to get confused with real bands like the guys who wrote 'bush was right'. Look it up. If it were a comedy, it would be the best parody ever. ). However, my favorite comedy albums never have this shit. It's something to add a little flavor, but a great comedy or anything album should be filled to the brim.

The Dethalbum I had these asides and they just didn't add anything to the procedings. They were just too jokey, which is weird for a comedy band. But, the fat has been trimmed, and the reward is awesome.

Metal music is inherently a bit of a joke. Anyone who takes themselves that seriously needs to have he amount of introspection to recognize that they are flawed and vulnerable human beings before they implode themselves. Metallica at the beginning had this then lost it. Dethklok was concieved as the band that exists both inside and outside of that bubble. This is what makes them so interesting to me.

Let it be officIal. Dethklok rules. They play some amazing fucking music. They exist to rock and the music that they make stands up to some of the best albums on here. There are incredible guitar parts. Great drumming. Awesome vocals and just all around proficency. They aim amazingly high and reach those heights well. They play some really melodic death metal and they really do shred.

It's a very simple album in many respects. Sometimes the songs sound similar but you don't even give a shit. You want them to keep going and going, because they are trying to not be just a joke band.  The desire to really invest themselves into the band is what is the most impressive part to me. It could have just been a little joke, but they committed to it and in seeing it through they made something amazing. The lyrics are joking sometimes and the music is as overmetaled metal as you will ever hear, but you wouldn't want it any other way.

Anyway, I'm currently trapped on a metal tube that is burning dead plant matter to throw itself through the air at something like five hundred miles an hour, and the acompaniment could not be more awesome. I have to thank everyone involved in making this album, and want to thank Peter for alerting me to it's presence when it came out.

Croooooooooooow!
Matt

Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca

Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca

Published in 2009

Wikipedia

First off, thanks to Kari for the suggestion of the album.  I'm doing my housekeeping on the blog while I am listening to it, but I can already tell that this is going to be a weird album to write up, which explains your insistence that I do it.  I hope that I live up to your very high expectations.

So, I'm listening to the album right now, as I am writing this, which is the usual way for me to write these things.  I described this to someone I was recently talking to as just playing the music and letting the words that come to me just come out.  I kind of just freestyle these posts, and whatever comes out, I just let go.  If it is over a sentence back, I'm usually just letting it go, and trying to move onto the next thought.  Usually I try to make the sentence my level of editing, because if I keep going over and over the words that I write down, I'll never publish them.  There is another reason though, which is that I am trying to process something that is inside time.

When I think about time inside the concept of music, there are several layers that I think about.  First, the time that it takes just to blankly listen to an album.  For example, today's album is, according to wikipedia, forty-one minutes, eight seconds long.  This is 'real time'.  The meatspace time that is embedded in the drive inside of my iPod to play the music.  Second is song time.  Each song is a boundary inside of that larger album time. There was a conscious decision to break the album down into those segments, and therefore it is an important boundary condition to think about in those cases too.  If there is a song that is too short in my opinion, it's because I thought there was more that they could develop, so I wonder why they cut it off in that time.  If there is a song that was too long, I felt that it was done developing, and just was making me bored.  The third layer is the actual notes, and the actual rests, and the spaces and sounds that make up the album.  The fourth and most important layer of time to me though, is the perception of time while inside the album.

Let me talk about that fourth layer a bit.  Sometimes, you hear an album and you know how long it is.  You know that it will take you that album long to get to work, or to school, or to read a certain amount in a book. It's the concept of being 5 minutes away from something.  It's never precisely 5 minutes away, but everyone knows the distance that '5 minutes away' encompasses.  Sometimes, you hear an album, and you know that it is going to take way more time than the actual time.  You know that your life is going to be encompassed by it, and you will not be able to get anything done in that stretch of time.  Sometimes, an album is far too short, and you wish that you could be inside of it for longer.  But this is only because you perceive the album to be too short.

I'm thinking about this right now, because from song one in this album, I haven't gotten a hold on how I feel about the time on this album.  I can already tell that I am going to listen to this album over and over, and try to understand it more and more.  It's indie rock, but it's not indie rock.  It's classical, but it's not classical.  The voices are spectacular.  I'm not being hyperbolic, they are actually spectacles.  The music takes place in the first three layers of time, but the last one is still unfixed for me.  I'm not sure 'how long' it's going to take me to listen to this album.  With each break in the second layer, I find myself getting a new impression of how this time is going to be broken up.  I find it completely engrossing.

I'm trying to think of how I would describe this album to someone who had never heard it before.  If you are actually listening to the album at the moment, you'll understand how hard it is for you to do this.  At the moment, I'm listening to Useful Chamber, and it just had a beat break in the middle of a orchestral section of a song.  This isn't just experimenting with sounds, but somehow composing the sounds into some wild thing that is inexplicable.  Chimera rock maybe?

Yeah, I like that.  I know that it is actually pretty stupid to box this kind of album into any sort of category, but I think this might be the most apt description for it.  It's not just rock music, but it is some sort of strange hybrid of rock, pop, orchestral jazz, and electronic... and more.  The idea of a chimera is the fusion of several creatures into one cohesive whole, that has all the advantages of the old creatures, with none of the weaknesses.  Bitte Orca is a Chimera Rock album.

It's unfortunate that I can't talk and listen to this album with you right now, oh dear reader, because I feel like I'd be able to talk about it much more than I can write about it.  But we are all trapped to the medium we choose, so I'm going to try to describe it to you.

I can't tell you what my favorite song is, yet, but I can tell you that Useful Chamber is the one that I would use to introduce the album to people.  I really liked the way that the break beat was used, and the reentry into a large choral section with voices clashing was interesting.  The use of vocal harmony in each song is incredible, and the sound of two people singing the same line at the same time is an incredible effect.  The motion in the songs is readily apparent, and the voices are compelling and dynamic.  If you've never heard a Dirty Projectors album, I'd compare it to the Arcade Fire, but even that is a lacking comparison.

This is an album that is going to take up a lot of my Meatspace time, I can already tell.  The fact that I am listening to it for the third time in a row right now, is a pretty good indication of that.  Usually I start writing after the first listen through, and then finish towards the middle or end of the second, maybe beginning of the third, but it's rare.  I've been listening to this three times straight, started writing during the first one, and am trying to finish during the third one, and I couldn't write during the second listen through.

There's that time thing again.  This album is making my time screw up.

Okay, I have a bit of a critical thing to say here, but you should take it with the grain of salt that I am about to give you.  This album is not for everyone.  You need to be able to look outside the edge of your usual tastes, and work hard to try to just let the album wash over you.  If you are trying to understand it, or trying to get everything in one listen, you're going to be disappointed.  It's not an album that you're going to want to be active for, but an album that should be your sole focus and attention for the whole of it's time. Some people will find it really pretentious and trying way too hard to be weird, but I think that if given the chance, most people will see it as a beautiful album of strange songs, as opposed to a weird album of strange songs.  This was an experience, listening to it for the first couple of times.

Anyway, thanks again to Kari, and I hope you're happy that I did it now.  I'm glad I was given a reason to listen to this, and I think that without your influence I would have never gotten around to it.  So, if any of you out there reading have a suggestion that will open my mind, please, please, please give it to me.  Also, please give me some non indie-rock suggestions, because I like those too.


Phil, grappling with the cold reality of death, has no pithy rejoinder,
Matt

Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

Published 2009

Wikipedia

Take a walk.

Take a walk and a new album.

Don't worry about where you are going, or where you're coming from. Make the fun be going a new way. If the way is the same as the ones you have done before, you won't find the new thing there. If you are looking for something new, going the way that you always go won't work.

The new album is going to need to inspire you to walk a certain way. It's something that is going to carry you, either up or down, fast or slow, or to the next place to stop, and look. It will either make you upbeat, bulletproof in the worst areas, ready to move on to the next thing, moving with constant, steady strides, or it could make you fear the shadow around the next corner, adding paranoia to your day.

Take a walk, a new album, and make it dark.

The dark is essential. You need to be able to make it feel like you are actually getting lost, and nothing helps getting lost like the night time. If you are sure of where you are, it's just like following the path that you've already followed. Just another groove in the record. The dark will also make you concentrate on the sound of the album more.

Take a walk, a new album, make it dark, and get lost.

If you don't know where you're going, it's easy to get lost. If you've never gone the way that you've gone, it's easy to get lost. Use celestial navigation. Try to find your way without looking at maps. Make your mind be your map. Look around and connect it with the sound of the album. Mark the time with the songs, mark the distance with the tracks.

Take a walk, a new album, the dark, get lost, and discover something.

Find a park, at the top of a hill, that looks down over a river. Find a stream of melt water, running down the side of mountain, in the gutter. Find a new neighborhood, a new street, a new place.

Take a walk, a new album, the dark, get lost, discover something, and marvel at the things around you.

When the darkest song on the album comes on, look around. Make connections. Make the album have meaning against the backdrop of the world around. Move with the beat. See a sky without stars, and the stars under your feet, where ice has frozen. See something that you've only seen one way, from a new one, like a river from a bridge. Take the long way home, and try to fit more in. Try to make it all make sense.

Postscript:

I know that this is very different from my other posts, and I'm considering rewriting this Album again, already, but this was my experience tonight. I walked home, from one side of the Han River to the other, and tried to have an experience with the album. I came upon the Korean War Memorial just as Love like a Sunset came on. I walked over the Han River to Lasso. I experienced this album exactly as I described it above. This album is really really really good, but I think that the experience is what is making me listen to it again right now. More TAP to come.