When you're a kid, you need distractions from all of the: boredom, bad romance
and bad parenting that afflict you. Everything seems to loom much larger then,
so if you don't have anything to cling to you can feel overwhelmed. That's the
general conceit of "The Legend of Chavo Guerrero," a propulsive
effort that's our first taste of the Mountain Goats' upcoming "wrestling
album" Beat the Champ. In this case, the
specter of John Darnielle's abusive stepfather returns to wreak all sorts
of havoc. He lets a young Darnielle down every chance he gets and openly mocks
his hero Chavo Guerrero, a member
of the distinguished Guerrero wrestling family. The louder he screams the
further Darnielle retreats into the blue light of a luchador broadcast.
"Look high, it's my last hope, Chavo Guerrero coming off the top
rope," Darnielle sweetly wavers during the chorus as his acoustic guitar
and Jon Wurster's drums lock into place. As fake as wrestling is, there's a
real joy to it that we all could use; regardless of age.
(Beat the Champ is the Mountain Goats' first album since 2012's stellar Transcendental Youth and it's out April 7 in North America, April 13 in Europe, and April 3 in Australia/New Zealand, through Merge. For an explanation of the album you can check out Darnielle's Tumblr. Finally, the band's announced a tour to promote Beat the Champ and you can find the dates after the jump.)
Mountain Goats Dates:
1/24-25: San Francisco, CA - Sketchfest 4/2 Nashville, TN: Mercy Lounge 4/3 Asheville, NC: The Grey Eagle 4/4 Savannah, GA: The Jinx 4/7 Chapel Hill, NC: The Cat’s Cradle 4/8 Washington, DC: 9:30 Club 4/9 New York, NY: Webster Hall 4/11-12 New York, NY: City Winery 4/13 Philadelphia, PA: Union Transfer 4/14 Boston, MA: House of Blues 4/16 Cincinnati, OH: Bogart’s 4/17 Detroit, MI: Majestic Theatre 4/18 Chicago, IL: Vic Theatre 4/19 Minneapolis, MN: Cedar Cultural Theatre 4/21 Louisville, KY: Headliners 4/22 Columbus, OH: Wexner Center 4/23 Chicago, IL: Mr. Small’s Theatre 5/8-10 Atlanta, GA: Shaky Knees Festival 5/26 Denver, CO: Gothic Theatre 5/27 Salt Lake City, UT: Urban Lounge 5/29 Seattle, WA: The Showbox 5/30 Portland, OR: Wonder Ballroom 6/1 San Francisco, CA: The Fillmore 6/3 Los Angeles, CA: Mayan Theater
On "Every
Morning," the first single from J Mascis' new solo album Tied to a
Star, the Dinosaur Jr. singer/guitarist was struggling to get through the
day; "Every morning makes it hard on me," he depressingly whined. To
summon the strength to head out into world he had to softly beg "Oh baby won't
you see me?" before leaning into a characteristic guitar solo. You could
tell if he had any company at all, he'd make it through. If not, he might sit
in bed all day.
Though a guitar solo is absent
from the considerately strummed folk number "Wide Awake," and it's a
few hours earlier, everything else is intact. Mascis is still sitting up in bed
worrying about what the day will bring. "I'm wide awake," he
repeatedly intones over a delicate acoustic guitar melody. Listening to Mascis'
"slacker" moan in such a sparse setting, you can almost hear his
eyelids closing and him sliding further down the bedroom wall back onto the mattress.
His sleep, or lack thereof, all depends on someone ending his lonely spell.
He's been bad at interactions since the early days of Dinosaur Jr.
and now is no different. "Walking by your will," Mascis recounts in a
tender duet section with Chan Marshall of Cat Power. It doesn't sound like
much, but even standing up and walking is a victory.
Though last year's soaring LP Repave by Volcano Choir essentially acted as a new Bon Iver effort, it's really been three years since the act Justin Vernon came to fame with has issued anything new. In the run-up to Repave's release in September, Vernon expounded on the silence surrounding Bon Iver, saying "I really have to be in a specific
headspace to even begin to illuminate an idea that would create another
Bon Iver record, and I'm just not there." At the time his words were effectively a death knell, terrifying fans (myself included) that a follow-up to Bon Iver Bon Iver would never come.
Today then is a cause for minor celebration amongst Bon Iver torch-carriers. As previously reported on the blog, Bon Iver is contributing a new effort to the upcoming Zach Braff film Wish I Was Here and today Line of Best Fit points out the song "Heavenly Father" has officially debuted. In terms of sound, it owes at least a bit of rent to Repave closer "Almanac" which was similarly constructed around an electronic figure. That said, the synthesizer in "Almanac" was far more confident and forward-moving than the electro manipulation we hear in "Heavenly Father". The piece hiccups and stutters in shifted pitches as Vernon's familiar ache floats atop. At times invading hi-hats tics make you think "Heavenly Father" could launch into trap territory if given enough time. But the song doesn't have that kind of certainty. Vernon's perpetually wondering if he can ever come to accept a higher power, or so it seems. "I was never sure how much of you I could let in," could be a religious skeptic's call to the Lord or an explanation offered to a former lover why things didn't work out. With "Heavenly Father" Bon Iver show why love and religion aren't the right answer for everyone, they're riddled with far too many questions that can never fully be answered. (You can listen to "Heavenly Father" now through the All Songs Considered Media Player on NPR and look for the Wish I Was Here soundtrack to drop digitally July 15.)
Under the nom de plume Bonnie "Prince" Billy, indie-folk legend Will Oldham has proven he loves nature. Not in any "flowers in your hair," Mother Earth sense, but in the most simple way possible. Oldham's content to lean up against a mighty oak and let the Sun crackle on his face. He'd rather stare up in naked wonder at the hawks in the sky than face his troubles on the ground. He's compared himself to "a duck" and has declared "My Home is the Sea". Even on the despondent "Nomadic Revery (All Around)" from 1999's defining I See A Darkness, Oldham found time to lie down on the ground and gaze upwards.
Considering his unadorned appreciation of nature and his own filmic career, it's a small surprise he hasn't recorded a track for a surf movie before. Granted surf films aren't quite a dime a dozen, but still you would've thought by now some music supervisor would've heard a slow cresting Bonnie "Prince" Billy song and fast tracked it to a director. Spirit of Akasha, a new documentary about the 1971 Australian surf-classic Morning of the Earth, has provided Oldham with that opportunity. And joined by former collaborator Emmett Kelly (of the Cairo Gang), he's seized the chance. "We Love Our Hole" has every hallmark of a Bonnie "Prince" Billy work. From the tender double-tracked vocals to the taciturn guitar riff, everything is something you've heard before. But that's precisely why the effort succeeds. Billy and Kelly aren't chasing a new idea to the ends of the Earth. They'll wait until the wave comes to them and ride it into the sunset.
Backed with "I'll Be Alright", the "We Love Our Hole" single is out through Empty Cellar on June 17.
Right now as I'm typing this, I
hate how I feel. Don't worry; I don't have some sort of deathly pallor. It's
more of a general unease caught under my skin; an odd quiver if one could be
more permanent. The sort of thing where you question if this all mental or
mostly physical.
The reason I'm writing about
this is because low-key Texas-artist YYU's "When We Are Old" calls to
mind similar maladies. Almost immediately, his carefully plucked acoustic
guitar is shuddering. Notes shake as though they're carrying an immense weight
upon its shoulders. And as painfully intimate and uncertain as they seem, those
notes wonderfully match YYU's voice. Rendered in folksy falsetto, it too feels
as fragile as glass. His voice here is so wispy; words can disappear as they're
delivered. YYU then reminds me of Bon
Iver/Volcano
Choir lead-singer Justin Vernon. Even when Vernon seemed indecipherable,
you could hazard a guess at what he was trying to convey. Each tremble in his
voice was mainline into a reservoir of pain. In YYU's case that pain comes from
having a front row seat to decay. "I know I am dying I watched myself, I
know I am tired I watched myself," he avers. When he pipes in bird chirps
or switches to an upbeat tempo replete with handclaps in the track's second
half, that pain doesn't vanish. Every strum is still suffuse with that same
pain. Unidentifiable, but wholly relatable.
You can listen to "When We
Are Old" here
and you can purchase the track through RAMP
Recordings as a 12"/MP3 single that also features the
electronic-leaning "Kiss As We Walk".
"The warning signs have all
been bright and garish," Mountain Goats singer John Darnielle recounts
over woebegone organ and frayed acoustic guitar in Tallahassee cut
"Old College Try". Considering the career Darnielle has carved out as
the only steady member of the Mountain Goats, the line may as well describe his
songs. "Dance
Music"'s chipper guitar ditty barely concealed a tale of domestic
violence. In "How to
Embrace a Swamp Creature", assured drum pats couple with an identity
crisis where the narrator "can't breathe." For all of its stir,
2012's "Harlem
Roulette" still dealt with a once-great musician's withering death.
When you use the word "garish" to describe the Mountain Goats'
discography, it has little to do with color. Within their world of fallen stars, forgotten homes,
and short-lived
meetings the word is taken in the ugliest context. Songs that don't spit
bile outright have it coursing through every inch of their veins.
And while it's worth debating,
few songs in the group's fraught catalog deserve the term more than "Old
College Try". Appearing on Tallahassee, a Cinéma vérité documentary
of the fan-favorite Alpha Couple falling apart at the seams, "Old College
Try" signals the final stitches being ripped out. To an optimistic ear
though, that's not what's happening at all. Despite the minor organ figure, the
pledge "I will walk down to the end with you, if you will come all the way
down with me," reads like a vow from the holiest of marriages. A marriage
that neither life nor death could ever possibly vanquish. But Darnielle himself
is on record as saying in concert, “This is a song about two people who love each
other very much, but accept their lot in life to torture each other to death.”
Besides such towering figures like
life and death are rarely what sink a marriage. Instead it’s the "small
things" we've been told a million times not to sweat. It's having one too
many drinks and staying out late one too many nights. It's being caught casting
a look in the wrong direction. Something as innocent as an impulse buy can
snowball into a discussion on responsibility and budgeting. In some cases, a
marriage's death knell is heard by "simply" falling out of love.
Liking a person is hard enough, let alone loving them. More than any drink,
that's the great obstruction to the Alpha Couple's marital bliss. Cooped up in
a decaying house in an alien town, they only have each other to depend on. But
they don't like each other anymore and when you feel nothing for another
person, what motivates you to help them?
Their great answer to the
$64,000 question is to see things out to the bitter end, not out of compassion but
ugly competition. Leaving is admitting defeat and both are far too stubborn to
say "you win." So they apologize "for stuff I haven't done
yet," rather than work towards to avoiding tragedy. "Our love has
never had a leg to stand on," the Alpha male recounts at another turn. Imbued
with all this foresight, they refuse any sort of crutch. They'd rather
languish. Neil Young's notion "it's better to burn out than fade
away" is the farthest thing from either of their minds. If you slowly fade
away, eventually you'll be forgotten. Time won't remember you or what you've
done. And that's all either of them wants, to be forgotten.
There’s little in the music of
“Get By Get High” to support such a “psychedelic” title. On the opening track
from Minneapolis folk-artist Feathered Rhino’s self-titled EP, an unnervingly
ragged guitar figure emerges and lingers throughout. It doesn’t sound: detuned,
out of tune, or off key. No it sounds like it’s on its last leg, like it will
collapse at any second. If there’s any sort of psychedelic, it’s hidden in that
haunting declaration.
And considering the weight
Joseph Wilcox is putting on an already rickety frame, you’d forgive it for collapsing.
Immediately Wilcox is croaking “by myself,” as though he’s been lonely for so
long now all he can do is genuflect on his own isolation. What started as an
attempt to “find my way” has turned into a slog to find any sort of connection.
You can hear the desperation in that aforementioned croak, which winds through
the rafters of an abandoned barn. At some point it gives up altogether and
drifts off to sleep, where an unnamed affection’s “eyes are in my dreams at
night,” as Wilcox puts it. Hidden in that haunting declaration is a tinge of
psychedelia. Nothing lysergic or mind-expanding, instead the sort where you’re
transfixed on a singular object. Time slows to a halt. Heavy-breathing
kicks-in. The “high” shifts from physical to spiritual.
Feathered Rhino is available now on Bandcamp,
courtesy of Kansas City label Petrified Records.
