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Audio Outsend – …Or Does it Explode?

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Audio Outsend – …Or Does it Explode? (Flashcard)

“His bare feet were blue and ivory. It was all right somehow, his

being dead. So it goes.” – Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

When the apocalypse comes, Audio Outsend will stare at us all. They will gaze blankly upon us as we scream and pray, wondering why we’re upset about the inevitable—they’re not. As they expound insistently in their music, all change leads to the same end, so why not accept the rapture? In the end, we’re all just rolling heads – and no one will care if God saves the queen.

The placid quartet’s first full album, …Or Does It Explode?, delivers leisurly electronica folk pop with stoic passiveness. The Oakland, California, group (formerly named Lazy Bones) dances around medium-to-slow tempos with concentrated transition, offering a soothing meld of acoustic and electronic sounds. Gentle melodies allow their sound to stay mild and familiar as the vocals lightly offer cryptic commentary that ultimately falls flat and glacial.

Audio Outsend seems determined to try for clean synthesis but still get in some art-school oddity without reason. The band’s musical structure is a familiar step from Radiohead, Lake Trout, and even the acoustic leanings of Bon Jovi. “Rolling Heads” features pretty finger-picking, hissing bottle rocket sound effects, and what seems to be a bewitching pan pipe solo – it’s a fluid song until the middle break, when a garbled male speaker rambles on without any clear purpose (a similar problem to the interlude in “Calling On the Girl”).

“Imagining Things?” opens the album and ends with the unsettling jangling of either jingle bells or metallic rain, an effect so loud it ends in a roar.

“Steereo” sounds unevenly mixed; the distorted vocals can barely be heard over the loud backing guitars and drums – but in contast, “A Racket of My Spine” is balanced delicately with a clever scale pattern that ends in quickly-resolved dissonance.

Most of the album lacks variance. It froths in the same general tempo, with the vocals repeating their own patterns. The vocals are dispassionate musings and generalities, ambivalent in meaning and impersonal in direction.

Ben Jenning’s lyrics, sleepily content to “let the glory of the quiet fill my day” (“Stand Tall Little Wall”), seem randomly compiled and lack genuine insight. In the most arresting song of …Or Does it Explode?, “The Great Lawn Competition,” he muses “so it goes” with the clear resignation and heavy-lidded view of the Vonnegut novel the phrase originated in; the sad understanding of the sigh speaks for how much Audio Outsend takes in and how little they wish to interpret. The words, so general and emotionless, paraphrase the entire album.

…Or Does it Explode? contains moments of loose, flowing beauty that suggest interesting directions for Audio Outsend but no defining element. If they really start caring, it might all go their way.

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Starsailor: Enjoy the Silence (or Capitol will kill you)

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StarsailorSilence is Easy, Starsailor’s sophomore release, is already the bee’s knees in their native UK. It’s slated for stateside release in late January, and that’s where things get a bit blimey. Starsailor’s 2002 debut Love is Here was a critical and Brit rock fan fave, but its graceful austerity and heartbreak was lost on most. Not so in 2004. Coldplay’s curious all-things-to-all-people mindwarp has everyone from little sisters to large animal veterinarians loving well-appointed mope rock from across the pond, and has made Capitol – the American pimp for both Coldplay and Starsailor – very happy. Hmm, the label muses in its corner office late one evening. Why not double our pleasure? And suddenly Silence is getting a publicity push to rival the 4forAll from Pizza Hut. (FHM, that paragon of music journalism, gave it 4½ stars.) Hey, it turns out pimpin’ is easy!

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Jason Molina – Pyramid Electric Company

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Jason Molina – Pyramid Electric Co (Secretly Canadian)

Sometimes we expect too much from our favorite musicians. Songs: Ohia holds a special place in my CD changer. However, Jason Molina has opted to drop the name Songs: Ohia and release a solo album. No big deal. Well, he also decided to drop the backing band that unleashed a 45-minute assault of blues guitar driven and lyrically brilliant rock on Magnolia Electric Co in 2003. No big deal. The formula of just Molina and a guitar or piano worked wonders in 2002 on Didn’t It Rain. Unfortunately, Pyramid Electric Co does not produce the same hair-rising, soul-searching moments of Didn’t It Rain. And you won’t find a “Farewell Transmission” or “Just Be Simple Again,” two of the more transcendent moments from Magnolia Electric Co.

Instead, Molina has released an underwhelming sleeper, that is bookended by two dark and undeniably haunting songs. “Pyramid Electric Co.” leads this off with a deep ringing guitar chord and Molina sternly pronouncing “A sickness sank into the little one’s heart / mama said son / that’s just the cold / that’s the emptiness / it’s being alone in the dark.” The song fades out with the same guitar chord being fiercely struck over and over again resonating through your chest. It’s reminding you someone is not coming back. Their bones are turning to ash. This song is one of the most powerful album openers your ears will have to reckon with. His voice can barely be heard in the background chanting “Dark repetition.”

Right when you’re convinced it’s the same old Molina you are dealt two songs that are promising, but ultimately failures. “Red Comet Dust” comes and goes without ever developing into the contemplative star gazer that lyrics such as “I want to be true / like the solid earth” would have you believe. Rather, a piano key is struck slowly sounding more like the tightening of a vice grip around your head than an actual song. Molina puts more heart into “Division St. Girl,” but is only going through the motions. He presents some of his best lyrics, and reading over them it’s clear Molina is a poet with few, if any peers. Not until he lets loose with “It’s like we’ve landed on the enemy site / the other guys all quit / they left us with nothing when they split” are you reminded of how phenomenal this guy can be. Had this much urgency been placed in the entire song the listener would be reaching for the tissue box.

Secretly Canadian released Pyramid on vinyl, and the second highlight came when I got to flip to side 2. Only because side 1 became a thing of the past and it wouldn’t be a lot of hard work to find track 1 again. Yet, Molina presents us with “Honey, Watch Your Ass.” A promising title with a decent enough chord that tires after the first couple of minutes and brings about the unfortunate trend of side 2: Molina whispering. He’s given up singing his lyrics at this point but forces you to press your ear to the speaker. None more so than on “Song of the Road” which dares ask “You think this is hard work? You’ve never seen hard work.” Well, shit, Jay-Dog, you’ve never seen me listening to this album.

I’m not even going to comment on “Spectral Alphabet.” Whispering, a silly little guitar chord, blah blah blah. But then there is “Long Desert Train.” Hold this song close to your heart. Because it’s one of two things here that will allow you to believe this album is just a miscalculation. The whispering stops and the singing that brings goose bumps returns. Sure, it’s just Molina and a guitar for the seventh time in a row, but it’s really him this time. “I guess your pain never weakened / your cool blood started burning / scorching most of us in the flame.” He’s dead serious on “Long Desert Train” and each time it comes on I know he’s singing to me. Which is what has always made Molina so fascinating to listen to. You play his songs and think he’s been peering in on your life and knows how to turn your tragedies into complete heartbreakers.

So I’ll continue to wait for the next release. Hell, the last line Molina delivers is “You almost made it again.” And of course he’s talking to himself. Because the sad truth is there is no one else there to listen.

Articles

Atmosphere – Seven’s Travels

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Atmosphere – Seven’s Travels (Epitaph)

I fear for Slug. I really do. As frontman of the Minnesota rap collective known as Atmosphere, his emotionally fraught lyrics and sensitive-boy song topics first inspired people to tag him the “emo rapper.” Atmosphere’s 2001 release, God Loves Ugly, happened to include a song called “Saves The Day,” which prompted Slug (real name: Sean Daley) to joke in the press that he was going to call his next record “Built To Spill.” Instead, Atmosphere was signed to Epitaph and called their new record Seven’s Travels. Atmosphere has become the Next Big Thing. The spotlight prompted the press to begin comparisons to—you guessed it—Eminem, the other, ahem, white meat.

These comparisons are lazy but understandable, for several reasons. Seven’s Travels continues to explore Slug’s obsessions: his problems with women, his self-loathing, his need to prove himself as an emcee, etc. But the comparisons end (or should end) there; where Eminem’s philosophies hit the listener with the delicacy of a jackhammer, Slug’s lyrics and beats accomplish what the best rap albums do: shake ya ass and make ya think.

This is not to imply that the album is flawless. It relies a little too heavily on old tricks at times: the first half of “Suicidegirls” consists of angry (staged?) answering machine messages left by various women over a complicated beat, a gimmick which should have died with God Loves Ugly. At its best, though, it contains sly lyrics like “The Barbie doll’s caught, body parts come off / And I think she’s a he…STOP, look at how it walks / They got the weirdoes, the talent, the beautiful / An arm and a leg for a one-story cubicle” (“Los Angeles”). At its most naked, dirt-under-nails-and-all beauty, look to “Lifter Puller,” which starts with a mournful female hook and explands to tell the story of a doomed, possibly autobiographical, relationship: “Tonight the part of man and woman will be played by boy and girl.”

Slug and company have, unfortunately, a long road ahead of them if they wish to break out of the Shadow of Em. I doubt that pop culture has progressed to the point where it can accept more than one white rapper thriving at a time. This record proves, though, that Atmosphere deserves (and demands) your respect and attention.

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Radio Saviors

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Vintage KCPR t-shirt wave designTwo college radio Music Directors trudge through endless CDRs, sleazy promoters, and an indifferent student body to deliver one of the last, best radio stations in America.

Reduced to cold statistics, Mark MacEwan and Carina Zercher initially seem indistinguishable from the rest of the Prozac Nation youth. Mark, 22, studies computer engineering and philosophy at Cal Poly State University in San Luis Obispo, CA, and embodies total punk rock rebellion in his attire, musical preferences, and everything but his irrepressible smile. Carina, 24, is a philosophy and film double major at nearby Cuesta College, a self-described Anglophile who traveled through Europe in the great quest to find herself come hell or hackneyed cliché. They are outgoing, intelligent, and enthusiastic for the future.

They also answer to their on-air handles, Mark Uranus from Planet Slitoris and DJ Red, at Cal Poly’s celebrated independent radio station, KCPR (91.3 fm). There, they raze the airwaves as volunteer DJs, two among the loyal legion of university students able to drop Fugazi bon mots and bicker on-air about frozen chicken prices. They also serve as the exclusive music directors; the presiding eyes and ears to the world of underground music for San Luis Obispo’s 45,000 residents. Their weekly director duties consume upwards of 15 hours and involve sifting through 150-200 received CDs to select less than 20 for addition to the station airwaves, running new-music meetings for fellow DJs, running the popular New Releases show, charting played albums, and dealing with record promoters with varying degrees of patience and outrage. They juggle their studies with the godlike power/eternal headaches of their roles – and while adults, students, and prison inmates appreciate their work, they still don’t get paid.

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