Some great, charming new Sub Pop records today, and a few other things, including a sweeping, gorgeous new M83 single. A light week, to be frank, but I’m open to anything else you all found that caught your eye.

Mister Heavenly, Out of Love – A nice hip-shifting, groovy fluidity to this one, a classic indie-rock album with a nasal frontman, a Merseybeat era of songcraft, and a Spoon-y sense of rhythm. On Sub Pop.

Gold Leaves, The Ornament – Gorgeous, amber-hued doo-wop revivalism (?) from this Sub Pop outfit. eMusic’s Becky Stoner writes:

Gold Leaves is the new project of Seattle-ite Grant Olsen, who previously served as half of the indie-folk duo Arthur & Yu. While Olsen wrote all the songs on the album, he collaborated with such talents as Jason Q. of Papercuts, Thao Nguyen and members of the Moondoggies. The album endured four years of rewrites, and what has emerged from this long period of incubation is full of doo-wop harmonies, melodic melancholy and warm-yet-ragged vocals. It treads ’60s throwback territory on tracks such as “Honeymoon” while throwing in beautiful and subtle orchestration as well as touches of psychedelia.

Grave Babies, Pleasures – Ever wondered what The Fresh & Onlys sounded like if they were significantly lower-fi? No? You might like this anyway. Weirdly haunting vocals.

Holly Golightly, The Brokeoffs – It’s an old Holly Golightly album! It’s a good one!

M83, Midnight City – Advance single from what M83′s upcoming album, which I have not yet myself heard. Everyone who has, though, tends to react by typing in all-caps. Words like Melon Collie & The Infinite Sadness get thrown about. The two songs I’ve heard – this and “Steve McQueen” — are towering, ethereal, synth-rock vaguely reminiscent of vintage Peter Gabriel. Heady stuff. Get psyched.

Battles, My Machines – The current reigning power trio of indie-rock break off another candy-colored piece of their latest record Gloss Drop.

Braid, Closer to Closed – Emo heroes return with a four-song EP, and if the buzz is to be believed, it’s a massively deflating one for sure. Ian Cohen wrote a devastatingly heartfelt full-body takedown of this for Pitchfork, and reading it was like watching the little kid tearfully snuff Old Yeller. What do you think? (I don’t give a shit about emo.)

Drink in the foxy, amirite?. Yesterday, we send your questions to Norwegian heartbreaker Sondre Lerche via Twitter, and he answered in his thoroughly charming way, whilst sipping brandy in a smoking jacket, in front of a fireplace. Or so I’d very much like to imagine. If you’re unfamiliar with Sondre’s music, that is an error you need to correct. In the meantime, enjoy our virtual friendly tête-à-tête after the jump.

Fan @StephFaye asks: if you weren’t doing music what would you want to be doing?
I’d love to build sculptures out of giant pieces of wood. Not sure I could make a living from that

Fan @fluentinfoolish asks: my email is turkey_free but I have absolutely no idea what that line means “I’m optionless and turkey free and blind.”?
Great email address. Check out the song Moving The River by Prefab Sprout for clues…

Gunnar Bruun asks: When you make a new song, do you start with the words, chords, or melody?
I tend to start thinking of something as a song when I have some chords and melody but sometimes words come first also. Generally the song isn’t a song till I’ve found the words to motivate the melody.

@drewalanbeaty asks: What was it like to record music for a full length feature film like Dan in Real Life? Would you do it again?
Dan in Real Life was a cool experience. A real trip to collaborate with so many top folks. Learned a lot! if the right project came along I’d love to do more film scoring. Maybe something darker or a totally different mood.

@Victoria_Ryder asks: what is Sondre’s favorite song on his new album?
Right now it’s “Go Right Ahead.” It was the hardest song on the album to record right but it came out cool.

On Facebook Barbara Bowers asked: When and how did you start playing? Writing?
Well Barbara, I remember hoping for the longest time when I was a kid I’d someday be able to write something someday… started playing guitar when I was 8. Tried quitting many times. If I didn’t write songs I don’t think I’d be a musician. What was the question again? Right! Well, the only thing that interested me was music so I just had to do it!

Fan @kazahel wants to know: How was Sondre Lerche selected to open for a-ha last year? Fave a-ha song to cover?
Had opened for them before and the guitarist is a friend in NY so it just made sense to join them one last time. “I’ve Been Losing You” would be fun. “Blood That Moves The Body” also. Generally prefer murder-themed a-ha songs.

Facebook question from Shelley Jackson: What’s your favorite genre to experiment in?
Have to admit I don’t think too much about genres. I always thought it was all pop but starting to think I might be wrong.

David Van der Maat asks: If you could work with one of your musical icons, who would it be?
Most of the people I admire, I’d much rather just talk with than collaborate with. But Jon Brion or Steve Reich maybe?

Nadia Istighfarini Putri asks: Can you tell me, 3 words about “Sondre Lerche”?
Nadia – I presume you mean the album and not the guy? If so, I’ll tell you this: turn it up!

Tim Owens asks: If you could play in any other band, what would it be and what instrument would you play?
Tim – I’d like to drum for Steely Dan as my day job and play the saxophone for Tuneyards as a sideproject.

Facebook question from fan Erja Hiltunen: What do you do after your gigs?
After a gig I usually count to ten, wipe the sweat and go out and to greet my beautiful audience.

OK! So as you’ve probably noticed, we’ve been making some tweaks to the way editorial displays on our site, where it appears and how it’s aggregated, in the hopes of allowing for a greater breadth and diversity in the types of features we can run. Be patient with us over the next few days — we’re still tracking down the last few bugs, tightening, tweaking and kicking stuff around. But in the course of making this change, I’ve had the opportunity to do something I’ve been dying to do since I started here six (!) years ago: enter specific bios and photos for the team of regular eMusic contributors. And, I have to say, not to toot our own horn, but as I was entering all of this information, I was impressed all over again with the caliber of writers we have on our freelance team. Names like Rolling Stone, SPIN, NPR, the Village Voice and Pitchfork showed up in bio after bio. Most of our writers have had a piece in some edition of DaCapo’s Best Music Writing. Our longtime classical critic Justin Davidson is a Pulitzer Prize winner. And I occasionally forget this, but did you know that National Book Award Winner Jonathan Franzen wrote a piece for us?

We don’t talk about our writers often enough on here, and the unveiling of these specific author pages really casts their work for us in a new light — no longer are they just names on a page, but rightly-esteemed music writers, respected in the field. If you have a few moments today, I’d invite you to click around on some editorial features, and investigate the writers behind them. I think you’ll be as impressed as I have been. We have a great team, and I’m honored to be working with them.

Dad. Daddy. Papa. The Old Man. Padre. Dozens of different names, all of them referring to the same guy — the one on the receiving end of countless well-meaning ties and mugs every year from grade school on up. There are almost as many different kinds of dads as there are names for him and, over the course of the last century or so of music, we’ve seen just about all of them. Did your dad saddle you with a strange name in a well-meaning attempt to make you stronger? Did he glance disapprovingly at his watch every time you snuck in after curfew? No matter your dad’s personality, there’s almost certain to be a musical analog.

And so, in honor of Father’s Day, we present this Encyclopedia of Musical Dads. From the responsible papas to, well, the less so, you’ll find them all on display in this feature. Which type of dad did you have? And which dads in song did we miss?

Continue Reading ‘An Encyclopedia of Dads in Song’

So Bonnaroo starts tomorrow, four days of baking in the sun, traipsing barefoot through fetid pools of mud and garbage, and trying to figure out if it’s way too hot out for you to eat a (surprisingly affordable) fried alligator sandwich.

I’ve been to Bonnaroo before, but I stayed in a hotel and rented a car to drive to and from the festival — you know, like a human being. It has its pros! It has its cons! I, for one, will never forget the goggle-eyed and clearly dehydrated teenager who stumbled up to me at about 2 in the morning after the Flaming Lips set to ask me if I had any acid (My response: “Are you sure that’s the best choice for you right now?”) Still, though, I can’t deny that there were some genuinely memorable moments — freaking out to LCD Soundsystem at 3am; watching the National slowly win over a huge crowd; getting unbelievably excited by a (who’d a thunk it?) great, classics-heavy Weezer set.

This year, the lineup is as diverse as ever, so we’ve put together a guide designed to tell you who to see and who to run back to your hotel and shower during. If you are one of the lunatics who are camping, I hope you are camping in a kiddie pool that you replenish with fresh water every day.

Read our picks for this year’s Bonnaroo here.

Kitchen Sessions: Killer Mike performs “Burn” from 3 Little Digs on Vimeo.

I know there are a lot of people who feel that hip-hop would be a lot more accessible to them it if retained the sociopolitical edge it had in the late 1980s and early ’90s. It’s not something I feel, personally, but I sympathize with that viewpoint, and when I end up in conversations with those people, I usually end up recommending Killer Mike. (He actually calls himself “Mike Bigga” now, but I haven’t adjusted.) He’s an Atlanta rapper who hung with Outkast for awhile (he was Big Boi’s sidekick of sorts roundabout Stankonia.) As you will see in the above video, he has a talent for speaking his mind. This song, “Burn,” is off of his latest album Pl3dge, and it is built off a monstrous sample of Funkadelic’s “You and Your Folks and Me And My Folks.” It is straight revolution music, and it should make Talib Kweli sputter up his lukewarm Americano.

We can sense your skepticism from here. But go with us on this one. Because rather than being a lab-devised, formulaic chart-killer, we see Gaga as the latest in a long line of defiantly strange, proudly odd and fiercely idiosyncratic pop stars. Her latest, Born This Way, purloins the best bits of European techno and — believe it or not — early-’90s darkwave and refashions them to suit Gaga’s willfully bizarre image. In this Six Degrees, Michaelangelo Matos positions Gaga in the great tradition of pop iconoclasts.

Read ‘Six Degrees of Born This Way‘

Guess what, guys? There’s a new Yuck song on the Internet. It’s called “Milkshake.” It is not the Kelis song “Milkshake.” I would make some stupid joke about “IT WOULD BE AWESOME IF IT WAS THO, RIGHT” but actually even trying to imagine what it might sound like makes my blood curdle in my veins. (I love Kelis’s “Milkshake.”) Love the fact that they worked in the audio of the Daniel Day-Lewis’s There Will Be Blood “I drink your milkshake!” speech in the outro, tho. Unexpected!

Via Stereogum.

Shook Down / Milkshake by Yuck

[Tomorrow will see the release of one of the year's best records to date, the solo debut of former Gowns frontwoman Erika M. Anderson — who records under the name EMA. Stark, haunting and evocative, Past Life Martyred Saints is a portrait of a young woman in transition, grappling with adult uncertainty and emotional turbulence. It is an arresting work, its scuffed-up sonics and spare arrangements grounded in Anderson's rich voice. In advance of the record, we present this Who Is... profile to get you better acquainted with Anderson's distinct vision]

File Under: Fractured art-folk with warped melodies and haunting poetics
For Fans Of: Kim Gordon, Lydia Lunch, early Cat Power, Zola Jesus
Personae: Erika M. Anderson (songwriter, vocals, guitar), Nikki Angerson (drums), Leif Shackeford (violin, keys), Aaron Davis (bass)
From: Portland via California…via Sioux Falls, South Dakota

EMA’s Erika M. Anderson doesn’t fuck around. The Sioux Falls-born songwriter, and former frontwoman for the short-lived but cultishly-adored outfit Gowns, may have flirted with expulsion from her middle school for a prank involving a dissected frog, but when it comes to her artistic life, Anderson has always maintained a zen-level focus. “If I’m going to do something, I’m going to do it really well so that no one can fuck with me on it,” she says.

As one of the first female frontpersons in a band in Sioux Falls, she fought both vicious remarks from her peers and encroaching boredom with a dark sense of humor. She says her reputation was notorious, even before fronting high school performance art bands Man Hater and Swamp Pussy. She never let their mixed reception break her stride; in fact, she considers Gowns and EMA an extension of those high school pursuits, and her strong sense of self radiates throughout her solo debut, Past Life Martyred Saints.

eMusic’s Marissa G. Muller tapped into EMA’s past life in Sioux Falls, her travails living in L.A., and how she copes with her grandma Googling her.

On how getting into trouble in school shaped her sense of performance:

I was always running around creating havoc. We were supposed to dissect a frog in biology and I was into these Christ albums and Christ movies, so I put this frog on these two pencils stuck together and carried it around going, “Christ the dissection!”

I look back and see it as being this kind of performance thing, but at the time I was just like, “Eh, whatever. I’m having fun.” I think I was just really bored because all of the work was very easy for me. I could put a small amount of effort into things and do totally fine.

I’ve finally found with doing music or art that I can put so much energy into it because it’s difficult and I want to do the best that I can. It’s not like a test or a job, where you perform on a certain level and things are fine — ‘cause I just won’t do that. I’ll do easy things and I get bored or I cause trouble. With something like music or art, it’s a lot easier for me to be internally motivated.

On the overlap between her music and her work as a video artist:

I was doing that for a while, and that’s how I learned how to run ProTools and how to do music stuff. The reason I ended up choosing music [over video] is because when I was in L.A. there was such a vital scene going on with [storied punk club] the Smell, and it just felt like I could reach more people. Whereas, if you do this really awesome video piece it’s kind of like, “Well, how do people get it? Who talks about it? Who sees it?” versus if you make a record, it just seems a lot easier to get your message across. I feel like I could be doing performance and writing — I like doing all of those things, but, to me, music has the widest distribution model.

On the music scene in Sioux Falls:

It was kind of weird; there was actually a decent music scene ‘cause we were along the I-90 — which is like, if you’re going across the country, you have very few places you can stop and Sioux Falls was one of them. So I saw a lot of stuff: Gauze, Marilyn Manson, Cannibal Corpse.

When I started playing, the scene was almost entirely [made up of] these hardcore emo boys. One of the boys actually tried to start a riot girrrl band called Man Hater, but we didn’t really know what riot girrrl was. We liked Bikini Kill and Julie Ruin, but no one could play. So, I was drafted into playing guitar and I kind of took over that band, because all these boys in high school already called me a dyke and shoved me up against lockers because I had a shaved head.

On Man Hater and Swamp Pussy’s reception:

There had actually never been a female-fronted band in Sioux Falls, pretty much ever, and I don’t know if there’s even really been one since. So, we were doing this thing that was kind of like almost performance arty, but we had no concept of that at the time. It was just kind of instinctual.

I didn’t really want to be in a band called Man Hater, but when I look back it’s like, “We’re just gonna take what anyone would call me anyway and kind of own it.” Some people liked it; some people were like, “What the fuck is this?” I look back and think, “If we were playing at the Smell, this would have been perfect. People would have dug it.” But some people were into it and some were confused. I was a little notorious in the town, so I think people were more open to me doing it then maybe, like, other girls or something.

On making music out West:

In L.A. it was easier, but I still was defensive by nature a little bit, because I was used to people saying either, “Girls can’t play” or, “You’re a freak,” and constantly having to prove myself. L.A. people are really laid back, but it took me a while to realize that I wasn’t going to get fucked with.

On her parents and grandma’s reception to her music:

My parents say they’re proud but, with something like Man Hater, I tried to keep that from them completely. My mom snuck in to Man Hater and Swamp Pussy shows with a hoodie and a video camera to videotape us; she thought some of it was weird, but at the same time she’d crash our shows if we were playing anywhere.

I know they’re going to hear EMA, but I’m terrified of it. My grandma’s the one who Googles me. My parents aren’t that Internet savvy, so I feel like they find me in some places, but my grandma is always trying to friend me on Facebook, and I tried to block her. They’re the people that I’m terrified of hearing any of it. It’s almost like, I don’t want to tell them about any of the interviews or anything because I’m just like, “How are you going to take this?” There’s just sort of things I don’t really want to explain to them.

I think my grandma just kind of filters some stuff out. They’re Republican and she had [Gowns’] Red State — which is a lot of drugs and politics — and I think she’s just like, “Oh well, you can’t understand what she’s saying half the time, anyway.” That’s her way of being like, “I’m going to purposefully pretend that I’m not hearing things that I might not be okay with.”

On what EMA will be like live:

EMA has actually been a little less performative, and maybe that’s just been because we haven’t had a lot of time to work stuff out, but when I look at, like, Gowns or something, I was basically doing an extension of what I had been doing as a teenager. And, also to an extent with EMA, doing something like “California” which is almost like a rap ballad and spoken word kind of thing that’s kind of performative. I feel like I’ve always had this aesthetic which is kind of convocational, kind of weird, half-funny, but also really emotional.

We’re just starting. I have my little sister on drums and singing harmonies, and I bet it’s cool for people to see us playing together. And then we have keyboard and strings and the bass player toured with us. But it’s more somber, and hopefully things won’t break as often or go haywire — which is what made people like Gowns. To me, it was incredibly painful to be on edge all the time like, “What’s going to break?” I think people liked seeing that. The adversity of that, not knowing how to get through a set, made me a front person who had to rely on energy to kind of get through things. Growing up in a small town and having this adversity makes you have to deal with things and makes you stronger.

On the origin of “California,” and her beat-down lyrics:

In “California” there’s a Stephen Foster lyric which is “I bet my money on the bob-tail nag/ Somebody bet on the bay.” He’s considered the first great American songwriter, and he totally died penniless at 37 at a shitty hotel or something. And I’m like, “Okay, seems accurate. Not much has changed.”

[There’s also] a Bo Diddley lyric, from “Who Do You Love?” — and I think it’s just a really great lyric because I think when you are 22 you’re kind of like, “Yeah, I’m 22, I don’t mind dying.” You don’t know what’s going on. It’s an old lyric but I think it’s still apt for today.

Most of the lyrics come from a place that I’m trying to almost exorcise or trying to get out of me. Sometimes it’s the confident part of me, and sometimes it’s the place where I let myself say certain things. ‘Cause growing up Midwest and Scandinavian, it’s like, you keep a lot of things in. People have to be, in some ways, reserved and solemn and then there’s that classic Viking thing where it’s like you can go berserk or whatever. And I think that’s what comes out in performance, the more berserk side.

Some of the songs on the EMA record are old. I wrote “Butterfly Knife” and “Marked” when I was 22 and at the time I was like, “I can’t release this. I can’t say this because it’s too extreme.” None of those songs got rewritten but I was just too scared of them to come out.

On now making music independently, versus with a band:

I think in some ways, it’s something that I could have done a lot earlier. And even though I do have a fairly healthy amount of confidence — you could say ‘swagger’ — when I started in L.A. and wanted to do something bizarre, I almost needed someone else to vouch for me or tell me it was okay. I’d like to say, “I knew it was cool from the beginning,” but it took a second to actually say the things that I wanted to say.

I am in my late-20s now. What I did when I was a teenager was kind of instinctual, but I feel like the same person that I’ve always been, still liking what I’ve always liked and just doing what I’ve always done. I don’t know how, but I feel like I’ve always had a strong sense of self.

BUY STEVE REICH’S MUSIC.
Different Trains/Electric Counterpoint
Music for 18 Musicians
Drumming

The Steve Reich concert I went to on Saturday at Carnegie Hall was one of the weirdest and most unshakeable concert experiences I’ve had in years. A celebration of the NYC icon’s 75th birthday, the night boasted a roster of the most renowned names in contemporary classical music: the Kronos Quartet, So Percussion, eight blackbird, Bang On A Can All-Stars. The program was filled with recent works by Reich — his 2008 “rock band” piece 2 x 5, his 2009 Mallet Quartet, written for two marimbas and two vibraphones; and his Pulitzer-winning 2007 work Double Sextet — but the unavoidable heart of the evening was his 9/11-themed work, WTC 9/11, more on which below.

Few concerts are privileged enough to boast a genuine Sense of Event anymore — there are just too many, everywhere, all the time — but I can say that the night felt truly auspicious before a note had been played, for which I was grateful. Part of that was just aura: Steve Reich has eased into position as one of (if not the) most important composers in America. With his serenely bustling, quietly labyrinthine take on minimalism, he forged a sound world that has become as integral to the American musical conversation as Copland’s open-prairie strings, Keith Richards’ power chords, Eric B’s record scratches, Willie “The Lion” Smith’s stride piano — you name it. At 75, he has absolutely zero left to prove.

Saturday’s concert, however, felt neither like a comfy round of laurel-resting nor a blazing statement. Instead, it fell into a squirmy, fascinating psychological crack in the middle. It opened with the Mallet Quartet, a delicate and ringing interlocking of five marimbas that felt as cleansing as fresh rain. It ended with a performance of 2 x 5, his piece for several electric guitars and two drum sets that sounds like Explosions In the Sky stranded in purgatory, and the Double Sextet. And, in the middle, hard to look directly at but impossible to ignore, was his elegiac, unsettled, and undeniably upsetting work about Sept. 11, 2001.

So, look; we’re just not going to talk about what happened in the news today here. This is a concert review. But the performance of WTC 9/11, in its New York premiere, with Steve Reich manning the sound board, was the sort of musical experience that is impossible to talk about critically, because it transcended music’s abilities entirely. The recorded voices of witnesses and survivors filled the hall — an overwhelming experience all by itself in a room full of New Yorkers. Reich manipulated these voices in ways that was often extraordinarily artful and powerful, but none of them could outweigh the simple sound of a 9/11 survivor intoning the words “Three thousand people were murdered. What’s gonna happen here next?” It tore an irreparable hole through the work’s fabric.

In form, WTC 9/11 bore a startling resemblance to Reich’s Different Trains, a work that also treated an impossibly weighty theme — in that case, concentration camps — with a clear-eyed, Zen gaze. Like Trains, WTC paired a string quartet with manipulated recorded voices, with the strings accompanying the recordings to draw out the anxious unheard music in their intonation and rhythm. It’s a spectacular technique, touching on the mysterious nexus where words become music. There are several moments in WTC where this creates chills: the conversational, lilting swing of “I was sitting in class/Four blocks north of Ground Zero”, for instance. At the intonation of “We all thought it was an accident,” the strings shift briefly into major for a few bars, a moment of fugitive hope.

In the end, I’m not even sure what I thought of the piece; in case it isn’t overwhelmingly obvious by now, I wrote this in attempts to sort through some seriously scrambled feelings about a powerful, unresolved experience. I suspect it’s impossible, ultimately, for any composer, even Steve Reich, to write a fitting encapsulation or memorial to 9/11, at least not in this generation. I can say for certain that I was glad to be present; Steve Reich has become a hero of mine, and I suppose its poetically appropriate that the 75th celebration of this consummate New Yorker would feel so troubled, troubling, agitated, and alive.