Live This Sound: Salad Days.

Every once in a while, a record comes around that consumes you. It fills your waking hours. You think about it during the day, and you play it on constant repeat at night. You don't want to just listen to it - you want to have it within you, any way you can. You want to watch it; to read it; to swallow it whole. It's a 'classic album', sure, but more than that, it won't leave your head, and, all things considered, you don't want it to. Live this Sound is a regular section of this site that allows you to experience a single album as many ways as you possibly can. This week, we take a look at Salad Days, the latest release from indie rock's straightest talking darling, Mac De Marco.

The Album.

Just as 2 was hands down my favourite record of the year, it's only April and already I find it hard to imagine that any major label release in the next eight months will give me as much joy as Mac Demarco's Salad Days. It's a near perfect album - lyrically complex without ever being pretentious; consistently warm without ever being repetitive; and generous without ever being whorish. Every music critic from here to Boston might feel like calling DeMarco a 'slacker', but the truth is the total opposite: he is one of the hardest working musicians in recent memory, labouring over tracks that come pre-polished with the 23 year old's blood, sweat and tears.

How to Eat this Album.

Nothing green and leafy, as should be evident from DeMarco's croon on the title track: "Missing hippy Jon/Salad days are gone." Ultimately, this is an album of comfort; the kind that never tries to be your best friend, but somehow ends up in your innermost circle before you know it. As a result, you need a recipe that'll keep you cosy on a rainy day - the kind of meal you might eat while recovering from a stomach bug, or the devastating end of a relationship . You need cheer up food, essentially, and in that category there is nothing better than a good ole Croque-Monsieur.

There are those who might call the Croque-Monsieur nothing but a glorified toasted sandwich, but this is the nectar of the Suburban Gods: easy to make, filling, and exactly what you need at least 90% of the time.

There's a deliriously detailed recipe here:

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2012/jul/05/how-cook-perfect-croque-monsieur

But don't be intimidated: a Croque-Monsieur is just as wonderful when it's cooked as quickly, cheaply and effectively as possible. Good old taste.com has a bare bones recipe that will fix what ails ya, guaranteed:

http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/14205/croque+monsieur

 

 

How to Drink This Album.

 

For Salad Days, you need something that you can drink quite a lot of before you start feeling the effects of the booze - although this album is a lean 34 minutes, it's the kind of record you'll want to start from the beginning as soon as its over. Also, this isn't the kind of music that benefits from drunken ears. Don't do the music the disservice of shaking to it with a bellyful of liquor - just get yourself a nice, quiet buzz on and enjoy.

 

Crabbie's Alcoholic Ginger Beer isn't boozy enough to get you even closed to pissed on anything less than four bottles, but as soon as you finish a single glass, you'll get that ever-sought after liquid relaxation you've been waiting for your whole day at work.

 



How to Watch this Album.

Mac DeMarco isn't as obsessed with the 90's as some of his contemporaries: unlike Beach House or Best Coast, for example, he has a complexity that rises above nostalgia. But, fact of the matter is, you can't go past the balls-to-the walls awesomeness that American animated television had to offer in that decade, and there are a whole range of 90's TV shows that go beautifully with Salad Days.

Let's be honest: when all the Adventure Time hype dies down, Ren and Stimpy will be left standing as the king of animated television madness. It also happens to be Salad Days' perfect visual partner in crime: a little mad; a little bizarre; but totally down to Earth, and totally inviting.

Okay, so maybe Ren and Stimpy isn't always totally inviting, as the clip above can probably attest, but once again, all you have to do is mute Ren and Stimpy's sound, put on Salad Days, kick back, and enjoy all that mischievous perfection.

How To Read this Album.

The work of Daniel Clowes fits perfectly with DeMarco's oeuvre - after all, both share an interest in the outsider, and both manage to be cutting without ever being cruel. Ghost World may be Clowes' best known work, and its tragi-comic tone suits Salad Days's joyful introspection perfectly. But, Pussey, Clowes' heartfelt damnation of the comic books industry itself, is also definitely worth a look.

Live This Sound: It's Up To Emma

Every once in a while, a record comes around that consumes you. It fills your waking hours. You think about it during the day, and you play it on constant repeat at night. You don't want to just listen to it - you want to have it within you, any way you can. You want to watch it; to read it; to swallow it whole. It's a 'classic album', sure, but more than that, it won't leave your head, and, all things considered, you don't want it to. Live this Sound is a regular section of this site that allows you to experience a single album as many ways as you possibly can. This week, we take a look at It's Up To Emma, English singer/song writer Scout Niblett's latest offering, and the myriad of ways you can enjoy its sparse beauty.

The Album.

 

 

If you haven't dived into the starkly powerful world of Scout Niblett yet, then It's Up to Emma is a great place to start. Not to say that this, her most recent album, is any more 'commercial' than her others - her beautiful voice still teeters on the brink of absolute hysteria, and at times the music seems like it will collapse under the weight of its own great pain - but the sound here is definitely fuller. Whereas her style in the past has been relentlessly minimalist (the best example being her song "Your Beat Kicks Back Like Death" - a track that is little more than a relentless drum beat, and Niblett singing "we're all gonna die" over, and over) It's Up To Emma offers more sonic depth than any of her other records. It's an initially surprising change for any of Niblett's long term fans, but it's never a distancing one. Instead, it is the sign of a singer pushing herself into new territory - never abandoning her true self, but still testing everything that has come before.

 

It's stark, it's beautiful, it's terrifying and it's powerful - in short, it's an overlooked classic that demands your attention.

 

 

 

How To Eat This Album.

 

It's Up To Emma is an album that manages to be direct without ever being simple - even if the songs don't fuck around, it would be foolish to underestimate their broad textures and tastes. As a result, you need a recipe that's not too flowery, but not too 'meat and two veg' either. For the fish eaters out there, trout is the way to go, particularly when cooked in accordance with these directions:

 

http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/2769/spice+crusted+ocean+trout+with+zucchini+salad

 

For the full blooded meat eaters, veal has all the necessary cruelty and beauty for an album like this, particularly when the fillet is balanced with the subtle bite of lemon.

 

http://recipes.coles.com.au/recipes/1351/lemon-veal-scaloppini/

 

 

 

How To Drink This Album.

 

You'd have to be fairly imaginative to call Niblett's music 'sweet' - although she is capable of great tenderness, her tracks never descend into bubbly warmth. Instead, hers is a complicated kind of kindness: blunt, but encompassing.

 

As a result, most cocktails are out - on the whole, they're far too sugary for the hard edge of It's Up To Emma. However, it's hard to beat the complicated textures of a good Bloody Mary, a fantastic recipe for which can be found here:

 

http://www.cocktailrevolution.com.au/articles/the-perfect-bloody-mary/?gclid=CIOWnLakvL0CFU4AvAodjFIAlA

 

If you want the true It's Up To Emma experience, go heavy on the pepper - it's the best way to replicate the album's crackly power.

 

All that said, I've always found it hard to comfortably drink Bloody Mary's at night: they've always struck me as a late afternoon "dear god I'm still hungover" drink. So, if you're partaking in It's Up to Emma in the evening (which, you probably should - the whole album takes on a creepy resonance if it's played at about two in the morning) then a good Old Fashioned will help you soak the sound up. It's definitely sweeter than a Bloody Mary, but it's never downright sugary, and it still has that brutal edge that you need.

 

http://www.drinksmixer.com/drink407.html

 

How To Watch This Album.

 

Lodge Kerrigan's masterpiece Clean, Shaven is almost impossible to find unless you're ready to fork out the hefty fee for the Criterion Collection edition. But, the effort (and price) is worth the wait.

 

The film is the story of Peter, a schizophrenic on a doomed journey to 'rescue' his daughter from the woman who has adopted her. It is one of the most terrifyingly brilliant depictions of mental illness ever put to the screen: Kerrigan works hard to portray the pain and terror of the affliction, while never making Peter a pathetic or 'damaged' character. Like It's Up to Emma this is a bleak, difficult work, but like It's Up To Emma it has its own beauty and forgiveness too.

 

Another of It's Up To Emma's cinematic siblings is The Consequences of Love, an Italian film directed by Paolo Sorrentino, the man currently riding the surprise success of his Oscar winning The Great Beauty. The Consequences of Love's trailer can be found below, but it's pretty awful. It basically tries to make the film look like an action packed sex romp, which it most definitely isn't. On the contrary, it is a bleak, stylish take on the thriller genre, with a pace that could fairly be described as 'considered.'

 

 

Niblett and Sorrentino share a strong sense of pace: they're not the kind of artists who want to rush anything, and as a result, their offerings  are full of hidden rewards.

 

How To Read this Album.

 

Short stories are the way to go here. Niblett is a painfully direct artist, a trait she has in common with American writers like Raymond Carver, John Cheever, and Richard Yates. All three are the kind of authors who brutally, beautifully hook you into their world. You only need to read a single one of their stories to get yourself addicted, and before you know what's happening, you're consuming their entire back catalogue; hunting down their life stories down on the internet; and even watching the consistently crap film adaptations of their work.

 

Of them all, Carver is probably the author who shares Niblett's stark minimalism the closest, and his collection Elephant is arguably the greatest volume of short stories published in recent memory. That said, you can't go wrong with John Cheever's career spanning Collected Stories or Richard Yates' Liars in Love.

 

 

 

Live This Sound: 1,000 Hurts.

Every once in a while, a record comes around that consumes you. It fills your waking hours. You think about it during the day, and you play it on constant repeat at night. You don't want to just listen to it - you want to have it within you, any way you can. You want to watch it; to read it; to swallow it whole. It's a 'classic album', sure, but more than that, it won't leave your head, and, all things considered, you don't want it to. Live this Sound is a regular section of this site that allows you to experience a single album as many ways as you possibly can. This week, we take a look at 1,000 Hurts, easily Shellac's most horrifying album, and the many ways you can partake in its unmistakably entrancing cruelty.

The Album.

There are very few albums I like as much as this one, but fuck it terrifies me. There's not even much I can say about it. It is a pure, untouched diamond of hate and anger: sure it's beautiful, but only in a way that you want to observe from a distance, never getting too close.

The bottom line is: don't fuck with this album, or it will fuck with you.

How To Eat This Album.

Meat. The meatier the better, in fact. If you have a few hours on your hands, you could try turducken, for which there is a good recipe here:

http://homecooking.about.com/od/turkeyrecipes/r/blturkey13.htm

Or, in honour of the album's standout second track, you could always go with a squirrel meat based meal. I've managed to find a whole list of such recipes at the following address (God bless the internet):

http://www.yummly.com/recipes/squirrel-meat

Be warned, however: I can't attest for any of the above listed delicacies as I don't live in a country where squirrel meat is readily available (I guess that's a good thing. Right?)

But, to be honest, all this seems a bit too complicated. This is a primal album, which is designed to be felt and tasted rather than thought about, so when all's said and done, you're probably just as good with a black as ash chargrilled hunk of lamb, or a bloody steak.

How to Drink This Album.

Shots. And I don't mean those complicated shots with stupid names designed to make you look cool when you breathily whisper them to the girl you're trying to pick up ("I'll try your Wet Pussy if you try my Sucking Cowboy.") I mean a straight out spirit. Preferably whiskey.

My personal drink of choice is Laphroaig, a distinctly smokey whiskey that has that strangely medicinal taste that you either love or hate. It's not for everyone, but then again, neither is this album.

How To Watch This Album.

Lars Von Trier's AntiChrist is basically a 108 minute long music video for 1,000 Hurts - which, for the record, I definitely don't mean as a criticism of either work. Antichrist is a shocking, uncompromising blister of a film; but just like 1,000 Hurts, its not without its sick, twisted sense of humour, an aspect that actually ends up being just as uncomfortable as the movie's almost unwatchable violence.

Of course, AntiChrist had its fair share of brainless critics that were blind enough to call it 'sexist', but they were the only ones stupid enough not to realise that this is a powerful, bloody meditation on the gender divide.

If you're not into AntiChrist...Well, then you definitely won't be into my alternative, Enter The Void. Just when you thought that Von Trier had summoned up the most terrifying, cruel vision of human existence possible, Gaspar Noe comes along and throws something even more nihilistic in your lap. Enter the Void is essentially a film about life and death, but the emphasis is definitely on the latter. Heart-stoppingly experimental, the film is shot almost entirely from an over-the-shoulder view, charting the perilous journey of a soul from his death in a toilet cubicle, to his strange rebirth. It's even meaner than AntiChrist, with perhaps the most disturbing fellatio scene ever put on screen. Just like 1,000 Hurts, it is undeniably cruel, but both works also share the unrelenting imagination of their respective makers, even if said artists are not the kind of people you'd want to be trapped in a lift with.

How to Read This Album.

It might seem like a strange connection, but the closest thing to 1,000 Hurts' oddly moral outlook on life is the work of Aesop. Like Shellac's lead singer and driving force, Steve Albini, Aesop had a rigorous, uncompromising view of the world, and like Albini, Aesop's fallen heroes suffer the worst kind of fate. You might remember Aesop's fables as being trite and inoffensive when you read them as a child, but I dare you to go back to them now, and realise just how vicious they actually were.

Like 1,000 Hurts, Aesop's fables are utterly unafraid to bury you bloody.

 

-J.E.

Darlings Review

 

 

The strangest thing about Kevin Drew's new solo album, Darlings, is that it isn't very strange. After all, this is the man partly responsible for Broken Social Scene, a band that managed  to be nothing if not consistently interesting. Although on face value BSS had a lot of typical indie pop going on, there was always an element of creepy sexuality to them, most evident when the vocals were oddly distorted, and their voices became both unnervingly innocent and yet overwhelmingly knowing.

So one would not be amiss to expect a certain bizarre beauty from Drew's second solo outing, particularly when it was revealed that the tracks had names like "Body Butter" and "Good Sex."

Sadly though, the fact of the matter is Drew by himself has become a very different beast. There are still snatches of who he once was when surrounded by his bandmates - "Mexican After Show Party" definitely has the slightly goofy, slightly sexual beauty of BSS' "Shampoo Suicide." But on the whole, this is an album of surprisingly underwhelming songs. Drew's voice has been put front and centre - there is little of the throbbing reverb that characterises the work he has done in the past. There's really nothing else to listen to but the man singing: the instrumentation behind him is not designed to hold your entire attention.

But this is, in essence, the problem: Drew's voice on this album sounds nothing like what one would expect. In fact, to enjoy this record the best, I would encourage you to imagine that this is a release by a totally new artist: one who has had nothing to do with Broken Social Scene, or the Drew we knew in the past.

On Darlings, for the most part, Drew spends his time singing in the upper register. Although I'm not one to resist change, this variation is so surprising, you only really get used to it by Darlings' sixth or seventh track. Variety is the spice of life, but it's still disturbing to hear a drawl you know so well flung all the way up to the attic, breaking its way into a show-stealing croon more suited to the contestants on The Voice.

Make no mistake: Drew is a 'good' singer, definitely, but by pushing himself higher than he has ever gone before, he ends up sounding like everybody else. The muttering, deep incantations of BSS has transformed into a self-important warble.

Drew has - either on purpose, or by unfortunate accident - stripped away the things that separated him from the crowd. The whole album could easily be a collection of underproduced BSS B-sides. Each song has a hint of greatness, but it's never enough to make you fall in love. It's like a chance encounter with a beautiful stranger on the bus - perhaps they turn and comment on the book you're reading, but the conversation never amounts to anything after that.

All that said, I don't by any means want to make it sound like this is a bad album. It isn't. "Good Sex" is Darling's highlight, with its insistent keyboard refrain, and Drew's disarming lyrics. It manages to be the kind of song you could either dance to, or bury your head in your pillow and cry to, which is no mean feat. But even then it never totally overwhelms you. It's great when it's going, but when it's over, it doesn't leave a whole lot behind.

No, don't get me wrong: I still recommend giving this one a listen. It's the kind of album you might want to put on when you come home from a party on a Friday night. You're still feeling pretty buzzed; you've had a good time; but you can't shake that sudden, strange, lonely feeling. It's that kind of album: it has a tenderness to it, a kind of indie pop warmth, only just masking a deeper sadness.

It's just not amazing. Even less than that, it's just not great. It's a solid album, but the world is full of solid albums, and from a man with such a strong track record, one is still left wanting more.
-J.E.

My Friend's Favourite: The Same Place The Fly Got Smashed.

Note: In this regular section, we invite people to review their best friend’s favourite album. In this instalment, Bill Brooks reviews his mate Joseph Earp’s most loved collection of tunes: Guided By Voice’s 1990 EP The Same Place The Fly Got Smashed.

Joe’s one of those people who loves an argument. Don’t get me wrong: I do too. But the difference is, whereas I like to argue because, well, it feels good, Joe likes to argue so he can be proven wrong. He’s one of those weird people who loves having his mind changed. He won’t ever try to shout you down, or ignore you: he wants you to convince him. I guess he just likes seeing things from a different point of view, which can actually be pretty intimidating when (like me) you’re more used to just saying ‘yeah, but like, you’re wrong’ than actually providing the interesting argument that he expects of you.

All that said though, there are four things that I have never, ever heard Joe back down on, in all the years I’ve known him. I guess they’re like, his guiding principles, and I doubt he’s ever going to withdraw from them. These Disciplines of Joe read as follows:

1. Instant coffee is better than the real thing (yeah. I know. He’s odd.)

2. Friends is as close to rock bottom as humanity has ever come.

3. King Joffrey isn’t actually as bad as everyone makes him out to be

4. The Same Place the Fly Got Smashed is the best album ever. Bar none.

Although I can kinda agree with him on point two, the other three have always baffled me. I mean, instant coffee tastes like shit; Joffrey’s an asshole; and The Same Place the Fly Got Smashed is pretty good, but not exactly great.

At least that’s what I thought until I sat down and listened to the album in preparation for writing this. Of course, I’d heard it before; all the bloody time, in fact. If you walk into Joe’s room, there’s an eighty per cent chance that the album will be playing. I can testify to the fact that he sleeps with it in the background at night. In fact, he started rambling about it the first time I ever met him, four years ago now, at a party. I thought he was pretty shy initially; he does a lot of listening, and not much talking when you first get to know him, but as soon as he got onto the subject of Guided By Voices, he just did not stop. I knew the band, but I hadn’t heard the album that he was so fixated on, so that night, I went home and youtubed it. And yeah, I could see it was pretty good, but it wasn’t amazing, and it definitely didn’t seem to deserve all the praise he was heaping on it.

 

 

 

When Joe first started this zine, and started posting on it, I was always surprised that he didn’t have a special corner dedicated to his Guided By Voices fandom. In fact, I’m still kinda amazed that he hasn’t really written about it here at all. But I guess I can understand why. For him, it’s a weirdly personal thing, this album. It’s not the kind of thing he wants to telegraph to the world. So of course, being the asshole/dearest friend that I am, I’m going to do it for him.

Like I said, this was never one of my favourites, but thinking about it in the context of my friend, I like it quite a bit more. Don’t get me wrong: I still don’t love it, and I still don’t think it’s half as great as Joe does. To me, it has the hint of something really good, but it never capitalizes on it. It’s got that fuzzy rock feel that has inspired a lot of bands that I love, but it doesn’t seem to have that edge. I guess it’s always seemed a bit simple to me – there’s no unusual instrumentation; the lyrics are fairly basic; and none of the guitar hooks really suck me in.

 

 

 

But you know, I guess I respect it more now, cause I realize I see a lot of Joe in this album, and a lot of this album in him. Not that Joe’s simple – but he’s honest, I guess. He doesn’t like anything with a trick in it. He doesn’t like things that cheat people, or deceive them. And The Same Place the Fly Got Smashed is about as un-deceitful as they come. It’s a strange little indie-rock album that’s sorta about alcoholism, but not really. And that’s it. It’s not over the top. It’s not melodramatic. It doesn’t try to sucker you into anything. It just does what it sets out to do, and it does it simply, and it does it well. It’s transparent, which I guess I think Joe is too. He is what you get, and that’s probably why I’m his friend.

 

 

Joe’s favourite song off this album has always been “Drinker’s Peace” – it’s also the only song he can actually fluently play on the guitar. Once again, the song always used to underwhelm me, and once again, I’m not now saying it’s my all time favourite. But I guess it says a little something about my best friend that the song he likes most out of any other is kinda sweet, and kinda understated, and  kinda gentle, and kinda serious.

 

 

So, would I recommend this album to people? Probably not. Am I going to rush out and buy it? No. But is it important to me? I guess, in a weird way, it is – because it’s important to my buddy, and he’s important to me. And he and this album belong together – they’re both uncomplicated in the best possible way. They’re both happy to sit on the sidelines and watch what’s going on. And yeah, they can both kick like mules and they can both be a little misty, but they’re made for each other. And cause I love one, I’m more than happy to accept the other.

For the record though, Joffrey’s still a fucking bastard.

-B.B.