Track Attack- "Awful Bliss" (Guided by Voices)

Even for fans of the Dayton-based Guided by Voices, listening through entire albums can be a slog. LPs from the Robert Pollard fronted group routinely feature 20 songs, moving from 3 minute British-Invasion hook-fests to 18-second scrawls at a whirlwind pace. It's a near impossible pace to keep up with as a band, let alone as a listener. Just as you're settling into the environs of a song, learning your surroundings, the rug is viciously yanked out from under you. You're shooed off to another corner of the GBV funhouse that will be broken down by morning and taken to another town. Any appreciating on your part needs to be done in the moment.

Few songs in the Guided By Voices canon do as much rug-yanking or deserve as much appreciation as Bee Thousand-centerpiece "Awful Bliss". The record at large was the one that finally broke the band into the "Big Leagues," the album that took them out of beer-soaked Ohio basements and firmly placed them at the forefront of the nascent "lo-fi movement" with the likes of Pavement and Sebadoh. For the first time audiences were able to hear the immense songcraft hidden under the hissing four-tracks and "sloppy" musicianship. Robert Pollard wasn't some school-teacher turned rock-kook, he was Paul McCartney or Pete Townsend on a micro-budget. A cost-conscious Ray Davies. And in guitarist Tobin Sprout, Pollard found his: John Lennon, Roger Daltrey, or Dave Davies. Sprout had been in the consistently shifting line-up since 1992's Propeller and had multiple writing credits to his name, but the relatively underwhelming "Gleemer (The Deeds of Fertile Jim)" was his sole "solo-effort." That changed on Bee Thousand which saw Sprout author 4 of the record's 20 tunes.

And while "Ester's Day", "Mincer Ray", and closing piano-balled "You're Not An Airplane" are all laudatory works, Sprout's "Awful Bliss" is the one that deserves to become an epitaph. Sandwiched between goofy rallying-cry "Gold Star for Robot Boy" and the aforementioned "Mincer Ray" and coming in at a 1:12, it's a "blink and you might miss it" type of work. Granted the acoustic playing Sprout does is so hypnotic that blinking becomes a Herculean-labor. Sweet and self-assured, it's the sort of figure that'd be considered "pastoral" or "folksy" if it arose in another time and place.

Such sweetness can only be guaranteed in the strum however. Sprout's voice is diffident at best. He takes brutally long pauses between key phrases and double-tracks himself just to warble the chorus. When parsing the scant lyrics "Awful Bliss" has to offer, the apprehension becomes understandable. He's fully stuck on someone he can't have. A friend or perhaps former lover that's now heading down a vibrantly white-aisle, while he waits alone in a dark hallway. His mention of "the other ones that you could've wed" certainly includes himself as a candidate, the fabled "one that got away." And though he'd love to play pretend forever, he knows he can't. Sitting around and daydreaming about what might've been can only bring out the titular "awful bliss." "No I wouldn't dare to bring out this awful bliss," he croaks over and over again until the mesmerizing chords lift their spell in a flash. As painful as it can be, a part of loving someone can mean letting them go.

"Littlest League Possible"- Guided by Voices

Somewhere in the list of the musically inevitable, Robert Pollard putting out another album ranks close to the top. Since he first tasted success with Guided by Voices breakout album Bee Thousand in 1994, the longest he's gone without releasing an album has been a scant two years. In some years, he puts out two to three LPs while juggling multiple side-projects and dropping the occasional boxset of unreleased material just to keep things interesting. If train-travel permanently ceased, you could set your watch to Robert Pollard releasing a new record.

That said he's been particularly reinvigorated since reuniting the "classic" mid-90s incarnation of GBV, dropping three full-lengths of solid earworms last year, and two sturdy offerings of hook-laden rock in 2013. If anything, the classic GBV lineup reconvening dispels the notion that it doesn't really matter who's backing Bob up. In the mid-90s GBV, Pollard had his foil in the inscrutable Tobin Sprout. If you subscribe to the notion that Guided by Voices are the Beatles with substandard recording equipment, then Spout is roughly the Lennon to Pollard's McCartney. Tempering Pollard's blasts of arena-ready rock on Bee Thousand, Alien Lanes, or Under the Bushes Under the Stars were Sprout's ragged acoustic melodies in the way of "Awful Bliss" and the acid-tinged hypnosis of "To Remake the Young Flyer". The miniscule "Littlest League Possible" from the forthcoming Motivational  Jumpsuit continues the tradition. The cavernous drum strikes burst forth from a garage circa 1966, while the massive power chords recall any number of early-70s Cheap Trick records. Soon the guitar snarls, interrupting the indelible hook without fully disturbing it. The bass chugs in place as Pollard defiantly intonates "you've run out of gas, but that's not possible." With Sprout back in the saddle, there's seemingly nothing that can slow Guided by Voices down.

Motivational Jumpsuit is out February 18 through Fire Records.


 

What's New(s)?

Guided by Voices feud grows

 

Any "honeymoon" the classic lineup of Guided by Voices had after their 2010 reunion is officially over, as now ex-drummer Kevin Fennell is feuding with frontman Robert Pollard. Last week after Fennell put up his drum-kit on Ebay for auction, Pollard's management responded with the following statement, "For the record, the band Guided By Voices has nothing to do with the sale of Kevin Fennell's drums. He is acting on his own and is no longer in the band."

In a correspondence between the two shared on a now removed Facebook page for the auction, Fennell maintains he quit his drumming gig for GBV; Pollard asserts he was "already fired". Pollard asserts "you have made a fool of yourself by your asking price... and most people would like to know who the f*** you think you are and who you think Guided By Voices is that you can warrant that kind of asking price for your f***ing drums." Pollard then twists the knife in further, going on to say "the so-called f***ing Classic line-up was a laugh to begin with. You're an amateur, you play too fast."

English Little League, the fourth release by the band since reuniting dropped in April of this year, and even without the feud figured to possibly be the last GBV release as Pollard hinted in July, "people at festivals don't want to hear a new album they want to hear the greatest hits." With all this current acrimony, enjoy a cut from their calmer "classic period", 1996's "Official Ironmen Rally Song".  

Cut Copy debut new track 

Tuesday on the blog, Cut Copy's new track "We Are Explorers" made an appearance and now they're back with another offering, the jaunty "Take Me Higher" whose opening wouldn't be out of place on an R.E.M. record where Stipe and company took a turn towards the dancefloor. Like "We Are Explorers", lead-singer Dan Whitford retains a quizzical tone in his voice as a pulsating beat glossing over a whistle takes hold. 

Cut Copy's fourth LP Free Your Mind drops on November 1 through Modular.

   

Run the Jewels release video for "Get It"

Run the Jewels, the collaborative effort between kindred spirits El-P and Killer Mike remains one of my favorite records of any genre in 2013 and now the duo has released a video for the apocalyptic lurch of "Get It". The visuals keep up the chest-puffing approach of the song, showing El dangling gold chains and Mike smoking a blunt intermingled with cuts of the two out on tour; bringing their own brand of hellfire to locales all over the map. As their tour draws to a close, it's the perfect summation of an incredible year. A victory lap captured on screen.
 
If you somehow have avoided the album, Run the Jewels can be purchased through Fool's Gold.  

 

The Classic Lineup

This morning, Mojo.com announced that lo-fi rock gods Guided by Voices will be releasing their first album since disbanding in 2004. Not only that, but the album is set to feature the bands "classic lineup" of: Robert Pollard, Tobin Sprout, Greg Demos, Mitch Mitchell, and Kevin Fennell. This particular iteration of Guided by Voices last worked together on 1996's vastly underrated Under the Bushes, Under the Stars. The new album, entitled Let's Go Eat the Factory is due for a January 1, 2012 and will be greatly anticipated by anyone in the GBV camp.