Gut Feeling: King Creosote - From Scotland With Love

King Creosote – From Scotland With Love

Domino, 2014

It’s always been that I’ve found my favorite albums by accident. I stumble over them like a crack in the sidewalk. Last year’s album of the year—Frontier Ruckus’ Eternity of Dimming—was discovered via watching their AV Club Undercover video for Third Eye Blind’s “Semi-Charmed Life.” 2012’s album of the year—Father John Misty’s Fear Fun—was in one of the myriad flats of CDs I was pricing in the basement of the Half Price Books in St. Louis Park. I put it on because I liked the cover, and then listened the CD at least once a day every workday for the next two weeks. I’m not saying King Creosote’s soundtrack for a film about Scotland in advance of the 2014 Commonwealth Games is my favorite album of the year, but it’s definitely on the list. And I only listened to it because I mistook it for a new album by English singer-songwriter King Krule. Happy accidents.

I have just spent a lovely sunny summer Sunday afternoon with this album as my soundtrack, and I am pleased. More than pleased. At ease. Do you know how hard it is for me to be at ease? I live with my in-laws because I barely make any money. I mean, it’s not that I don’t make any money, it’s just that the money I do make is siphoned off by massive student loan payments, health insurance, car insurance, car payments, and the various things needed to ensure the survival and happiness of a four month old girl child. Almost all of my free time is spent worrying about money. Sure, there’s happiness in the form of severe love from and for my wife and daughter, but perpetual stress is as close to a modus operandi as I get. So being able to spin an album of lush, gorgeously crooned melody drenched folk songs sung heartily with a Scottish lilt and feel relaxed is as close to pure mental wellbeing as it gets around these parts.

From Scotland With Love is absolutely fucking lovely. And it’s the most recent release in Kenny Anderson’s sprawling discography. He has been releasing records (initially in the form of CD-Rs) since 1998 and I feel flabbergasted that, as someone who considers himself to be pretty in the know in re modern music, I would have failed to have heard of someone who has been making music for 16 years. Even in passing. Ok, he’s only been releasing albums-proper since 2003, but still!

From Scotland With Love is a delight. The tracks run the gamut from quietly beautiful (“Something to Believe In,” “Pauper’s Dough”) to sunny and upbeat (“Largs,” “For One Night Only”) to string-laden showstoppers (“Miserable Strangers”) and the shifting texture, sonic diversity, and overall quality makes it surprising that this is a soundtrack for a film and not a standalone master class in nostalgia and pleasantness. 

"Something to Believe In"

"Miserable Strangers"

Gut Feeling: Owen Pallett - In Conflict

Owen Pallett – In Conflict

Domino, 2014

 

Experimental film was a required class for film majors at the University of Kansas. Despite having the worst professor known to man who did everything he could to ruin the medium for me, I still managed to develop a deep affinity for the likes of Stan Brakhage, Maya Deren, and Bruce Conner. They became demigods in my pantheon of beloved filmmakers. One of the films we watched in that class was the Bruce Conner directed video for David Byrne and Brian Eno’s “Mea Culpa” from their groundbreaking 1981 record My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. The primitive synths, atonal vocals, and African rhythms paired with Conner’s repetitive, monochrome, occasionally flicker-based imagery was trancelike, and obviously stuck with me all these years to the point where I immediately recalled that video whilst listening to Owen Pallett’s latest masterwork In Conflict. The album features Brian Eno on guitar and synthesizers, and honestly, you could have way worse people collaborating with you than Brian Eno. In fact, Brian Eno is maybe the best person anyone could ever collaborate with. I didn’t know he was on this record, but the fact that his presence was so deeply felt speaks volumes of the man’s influence.

Despite Eno’s hand caressing these songs, this is Owen Pallett’s show and Eno’s synths serve as a complement to Pallett’s incredible orchestrations and master class in songwriting. The same way Pallett’s string arrangements made Arcade Fire famous. As elegant as these songs are, the one time I saw Pallett live (8-10 years ago performing under his former moniker Final Fantasy) it was just him, his violin, a synthesizer, and an array of pedals at the dingy Bottleneck in Lawrence playing to no one. It was mindblowing watching him work. How did he keep track of all that shit? How did he fill the room with these gorgeous, fully orchestrated songs when it was just his slight frame populating the stage? I deduced that the man was clearly a wizard. He’s not alone anymore (although he might still be alone on stage, the last time I checked, he was playing “Lewis Takes His Shirt Off” in the pouring rain and it was majestic as fuck) as he is backed here by the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra and a legitimate band. It’s still a sparse record that feels like the album cover: a clean, black and white lyrics sheet marred by a big black splotch in the top right quadrant like something heavy hanging over the complex beauty of Pallett’s lyrics that teem with life, sex, and violence.

Like Pallett’s previous record—2010’s breathtaking Heartland—Pallett proves himself to be a wizard. His records feel like a gift. They’re records you chew on for days, weeks, months, years. Full of beauty and pain and, best of all, humor. Even though Pallett’s score (with Win Butler) for the Spike Jonze film Her was nominated for an Academy Award, he still seems to operate in obscurity. Either way, his albums will always be nominated for (or win) Canada’s prestigious Polaris Music Prize and continue to delight music nerds hungry for something beautifully challenging.

"Song For Five & Six"

"The Riverbed"

Gut Feeling: Arctic Monkeys - AM

Arctic Monkeys – AM

Domino, 2013

A couple years back I decided that I would listen to Arctic Monkeys. When they drunkenly stumbled onto the alt rock radio landscape in the 2006, I paid absolutely no mind. I heard no singles, I only knew that out of nowhere they had be come THEE hot shit in the way nebulous British rock bands become for three seconds before being passed up for the next big thing. And then front man Alex Turner recorded five songs for the soundtrack of the film Submarine and my heart melted right onto the floor. Clearly, I had misjudged a band I had never heard. A day after hearing Turner’s Submarine songs, Arctic Monkeys released the video for “Suck it and See” and I watched it because I was assured that their singer was a particularly excellent songwriter. And then I was hooked. The video is a flashy, NSFW shot to look like it’s old film stock whatever, but the song is pure satisfaction. After that, I invested in the band’s discography and did a whole write-up for the Thrill of Discovery feature of this blog. Arctic Monkeys became my go to workout music and while I couldn’t make it all the way through their albums (Favourite Worst Nightmare in particular, which I still believe has only one good song (albeit the most tremendouslycatchy song in AM’s catalog)) I cobbled together fifteen songs into a playlist and those songs are still what I wish all mainstream striving alternative rock music would sound like. Arctic Monkeys taught me that it is OK to be slick and fame seeking if the songwriting is excellent. Even if they never made a complete album, the singles were good enough for me to give the band a free pass forever.

I’m not surprised that Arctic Monkeys’ monogrammed new album AM is the most cohesive work the group has managed to date. It’s a fascinating affair that had me turned off almost instantly the second I saw the cheesy/sleazy cover for the “R U Mine?” single. A total misjudgment on my part, considering that this record is built to be sleazy. Classically sleazy. Rolling Stones sleazy. AM is admirably sleazy and showcases just how finely Alex Turner’s songwriting has become over the last seven years. The whole affair feels built to be played with the lights dimmed low (guest contributor Josh Homme called it a “really cool, after-midnight record” which yep, yep it is). Gone is the brattiness of the first couple records. Welcome to everything Arctic Monkeys have been trying to hammer out since Humbug: A hypersuccessful band making great, mature pop music. The questioning singles—“R U Mine?,” “Do I Wanna Know?,” “Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High?—are obvious, but blend in so well with AM’s moody atmosphere. It’s amazing how firmly this album gets its hooks into you despite being so low key. Just that little riff that runs through opener “Do I Wanna Know?” is enough to suck you in, but the way Turner spins a serpentine vocal line around his mouthful lyrics really highlights Arctic Monkey’s best assets. Sure, it’s very much rooted in a very basic rock n’ roll, but the way the band deftly navigates the nostalgia complexes of a music fan’s brain while still making intelligently designed tunes is a feat. Especially when rock is basically agreed to be dead in the ground. The songs feel built to hold up in huge arenas just as well as they hold up in dimly lit, 300 capacity smoke filled rock clubs.

Lead-off single “R U Mine?” is about as rockin’ and classic Arctic Monkeys as AM gets. The rest is a lush, sultry mix of mid to down tempo numbers that ambles along. Leave it to Alex Turner to call one of the slowest, crooniest tracks on the record “No. 1 Party Anthem.” While the album is about two songs too long (the faux rocker “I Want it All” is a throwaway and “Mad Sounds” is a really, really great track that would be a perfectly serviceable b-side only because it causes the middle of the album to sag a little bit), but there’s nothing like Suck it and See’s insufferable cock rock number “Brick by Brick” that torpedoes the album’s overall quality. I don’t know why I’m surprised. I don’t even feel dirty about liking Arctic Monkeys and yet I approached AM with a guilty pleasure attitude (which is a stupid fucking attitude to approach anything with). Is it overkill to say that Arctic Monkeys are the modern day’s answer to the Rolling Stones? I feel like that’s the sort of grandiose statement that would cause people to throw a fit, but it feels like Arctic Monkeys fit that mold. Good, old fashioned, sexually charged rock n’ roll music that’s fuckin’ smart and fuckin’ good. It’s never not nice to see a band grow and evolve and get better album after album, but it feels extra nice to see a band with millions of listeners in a perpetual spotlight keep making albums for themselves.

"Do I Wanna Know?"


"No. 1 Party Anthem"


"Arabella"