Casey Chisholm “October Rest”

Casey Chisholm
October Rest
(Ascension Records / Pretty Blue Presents;2008)

I’ll be honest. When I recieved October Rest in the mail I was in absolutely no state to objectively listen to and review the kind of slow and loving music that Casey Chisholm recorded for the EP. I was dealing with my own heartbreak and couldn’t separate what Casey was playing and singing about from what I was going through in my personal life. I almost decided to not review the CD myself until I realized that October Rest was precisely what I needed to help mend my wounded soul. This isn’t music meant to drive you deeper down, this is meant to lift you up! This music isn’t made to perpetuate the feeling of love lost, this is here to remind you of the love you’ve found! October Rest is an upper dressed in downer’s clothing.

The kind of positivity found in Casey’s music is a rare breed these days unless it’s shrowded in religion or a creedo of some sort. Instead of finding his happiness in a lifestyle or a higher power he celebrates life because of the people he has a chance to share it with. My favorite example of this is a lyric from the song “Alive” that goes ‘Isn’t it nice that you and I will go through life/At the very same time/Isn’t it nice we both laugh/We both cry’. That kind of genuine sentiment is what I find so alluring about October Rest, but the music is just as equally wonderful.

The sounds here are primarily electronic, reminding me of early M83 in it’s grander moments and Casiotone for the Painfully Alone in it’s more personal moments. Though synths and drum machines are the meat of the songs, Casey also utilizes live guitars, percussion, and ambient room recordings that all compliment the core of the music quite well. One of the best moments comes about midway through the EP’s longest song “If Only” when the chorus of synths and vocals slowly gives way to a parade of distorted synths, reverbed percussion, and harmonic guitars. This ending goes on for three minutes, and not once do I ever want it to stop. October Rest is a short listen, but you feel that Casey showed you everything he needed to in those 20 minutes. I look forward to hearing what he has to share in the future.

- Patric Fallon

www.myspace.com/caseychisholm

Ben Woodward “Spinning Webs”

Ben Woodward
Spinning Webs
(Around Town Collective / iknowalotaboutmagic;2008)

Whether or not he realizes or admits it, Ben Woodward aspires to be a one man Radiohead circa The Bends / OK Computer. The qualities shared with the songs on mini-album Spinning Webs and the music that Radiohead released in the 90s is so unbelievably similiar that it’s almost painful to write about. Between the soundscapes made of clean guitar tones, pianos, and sparse electronics Woodward interjects his not-always-in-key singing voice in a very particular Conor Oberst impersonating Thom Yorke style. Of course, he sounds like he’s in pain, but just incase you didn’t catch it he’s written some quasi-obscure lyrics to let you know exactly why he’s losing it. No surprises there.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love Radiohead. I even love some bands that take large cues from Radiohead’s catalog. Those bands, however, also intermingle their own ideas with those of the almighty ‘Head, and they do so without sounding overly contrived. The difference here is that Spinning Webs doesn’t sound inspired by Radiohead, it sounds like it’s weak doppelganger. It’s not just these similarites that drive me away from this CD. When Ben Woodward sings ‘All alone in a crowded room/But he don’t mind’ on the all piano album break “He Don’t Mind” or when he pronounces the title of follow up track “Scaremongering” as ’scare-mon-JUH-ring’ I can’t help but physically cringe. As the ill-placed final song “Go to Sleep” trudges through it’s meandering, reveresed vocal track underneath the repetative acoustic guitar riff I count myself lucky for making it all the way through Spinning Webs.

In closing, I should say that Spinning Webs isn’t a complete let down. He actually sounds like himself on the two acoustic guitar numbers “Stationary” and “Elizabeth”, the latter of which is a genuinely likeable song. If I could offer up a small amount of advice to Woodward it would be this: Be yourself. Radiohead is a wonderful band that has released many amazing records, but we don’t need to hear any of them rehashed again. Take the music that influences you to heart and build from it, but don’t wear it so blatantly on your sleeve. Besides, if you keep taking Radiohead’s ideas the karma police might arrest you.

- Patric Fallon

www.myspace.com/benwoodwardmusic

The Blank Tapes “Daydreams”

The Blank Tapes
Daydreams
(self-released; 2007)

The last single CD album I listened to that boasted a 25 song track list and wasn’t a compilation was probably a punk album. With their 2007 release Daydreams, The Blank Tapes have taken that slot, but similarities between this record and some of my old, punk favorites remain; the songs are relatively short, the structure of the music meets basic standards, and each track could be easily switched out for most of the others. This seems to be the case with the majority of genre-dependent bands. When the “style” you aim to achieve supersedes your drive to create new and interesting sounds you’re left with music that appeals primarily to people who are hoping to hear something they remember listening to before. Breaking that mold is the least of their concerns.

Thankfully, for us and The Blank Tapes, Matt Adams and his friends make up a pretty talented group. In Daydreams they offer us well played and passionate revisions of old-timey standards in a sound that comes off somewhat like Wilco meets The Black Heart Procession meets The Decemberists. These songs are fun, on point with their fathering genre(s), and sometimes even a little charming. It’s just that there’s so goddamn many of them! Had the track listing been a bit more concise I could see the potential for a truly brilliant album. In the first half, we’re presented with relatively the same idea about fourteen times over. It’s not until the refreshing and almost form-breaking song “Smoke and Mirrors” that The Blank Tapes give us something truly different and rock out a bit more than usual. They slide right back into mid-tempo, acoustic character, however, with the following tracks, and don’t bring the rock back again until instrumental number “Part the Clouds”. The glimpses of change are few and far between, making Daydreams a laborious listen.

I should reiterate that these aren’t bad songs. The Blank Tapes’ music is wonderfully played and highly enjoyable, but good songs don’t always make great albums. I think that a bit of self-editing and experimentation would do this band and their next record a whole lot of good. As Daydreams stands, the album is more susceptible to mixtape fodder than full, uninterrupted rotation.

- Patric Fallon

www.myspace.com/theblanktapes

railcars “cities vs. submarines”

railcars
cities vs. submarines
(Gold Robot Records, 2008)

The debut EP by railcars sounds like it could have been recorded in Jamie Stewart’s kitchen. Imagine Jamie Stewart’s kitchen! He’s both a brilliantly bonkers aesthete and a multi-media extravaganzist whose principal outfit, Xiu Xiu, is practically a genre unto itself. Anyway, I envision Jamie Stewart’s kitchen containing things like a neon green, clay stove and talking cookie jars he designed himself. (- Ed. note: It’s probably normal as hell.) Full disclosure: cities vs. submarines was actually recorded in said kitchen and includes all the smash and grab you’d think that might entail.

Employing drum boxes, effects pedals, sketchy noise and distorted vocalisms, cities vs. submarines is primarily a cover for Aria C. Jalali, who likes his letters lowercase and his song structures non-linear. His EP isn’t noise per se, but it was still recorded in Jamie Stewart’s frickin’ kitchen. Even the linoleum has stories! Jalali used to perform under his own name; the live edition of railcars incorporates various helps from assorted besties, but the general thrust belongs to Jalali. Besides the debt owed to Stewart/Xiu Xiu, railcars cops from other sonic semi-radicalists like the Spencer Krug Affair, my own sobriquet to cover Wolf Parade/Swan Lake/Sunset Rubdown/whatever other band he might be in. When he brings his A-game Krug produces music that can shut down your central nervous system. There isn’t anything as totally arresting as that on cities vs. submarines, but Jalali is at least reasonably good at burying his hooks. That may sound as no-good a tactic as burying the lead or as redundant as the term “freak-folk”, but there’s something to be said for subtlety and for the joy of repeated listening.

Track 1, “there is ice; it is blue”, despite reminding me of that idiotic “Violet Hill” lyric about the white snow, is railcars’ strongest Sunset Rubdown credential. It’s got the choppy back beat, hand claps, and air-raid guitar that Krug put to such mad use on “Shut Up I Am Dreaming”. Next is “saints are waiting for me (outside my door)” which is essentially Jalali ‘luving the valley-oh!’. “concrete buildings” gallops off thinking it wants to be a Frog Eyes cut. “through the trees lay smokestacks” is an under a minute instrumenta-lude that inexplicably contains a lot of wolf-like yelping. cities vs. submarines ends with its best song “bohemia is without a sea”. If a song can safely be said to chortle, this one does. It’s so cheerful you can practically see the cookie jars dancing.

On cities vs. submarines Jalali hits and misses, but the hits are when you tear up the cheap, snaggy, loud carpeting and discover a pretty rad hardwood floor. To put it another way, it’s like with the best electronic music; how bells, whistles, bottles, and bedsteads on top of songs create diversions that only the impatient get lost on. You have to dig a little. You might be thinking I like cities vs. submarines more than I do; railcars has a ways to go. Then again, it’s only a ten-minute EP.

- Anthony Strain

www.myspace.com/railcarsmusic