The Lavender Flu - 'Mow the Glass' (In the Red)

The sophomore effort from the Lavender Flu finds them congealing into a quartet (unlike the first double LP which is Chris Gunn + whomever) and tightening things up, while still leaving room for a ragged, open feel. This is heard right off the bat with 'Follow the Flowers', a total banger that provides the killer hook (something I felt was missing from Heavy Air) in its chorus. By also recording the whole thing in a proper studio, it's definitely a 'real' rock album, the product of a band that may be driven by Gunn's idiosyncratic vision, but remains sonically diverse. There's a haze that covers every track, or maybe it's more like a thin, wet film. Something, anyway, is coating the sound, and it's not lo-fi or murky, but rather a welcoming, comforting place that allows the shimmery guitar effects, background vocals, and guest pedal steel to combine for a maximally psychedelic effect. Yeah, there's that word again, so hard to avoid. Listen to the outro of 'Reverse Lives', where the song fades away into a pond of organic tones - it's electric, without being aggressive, and held in place by the really punchy bass playing. We get another Townes van Zandt cover ('Like a Summer Thursday', a song I always really loved), given a sprightly and optimistic injection, and an Eastern workout ('A Raga Called Erik') that perfectly segues into 'You Are the Prey', with the most shoegazery sound on the record in its intro. Gunn is still happy to hold his vocals back - the cohesive band feel doesn't like a blantant stab at commerciality, and by the end of it (a normal length, unlike Heavy Flu), Mow the Glass has picked up a melancholy, or perhaps an air of resignation. The other cover, Jackson C. Frank's 'Just Like Anything', contributes to this downer feel, despite the bouncy feel of the drumming. I am reminded again of Sic Alps and their West coast psych sound, which maybe was more influential than anyone would have guessed. Gunn's vocal delivery is similar to Mike Donovan and the guitar worship is of a similar ilk - fluttery, jangly, and affected. This builds to a crashing climax with 'Ignorance Restored', a track that could feel like a battle cry or summation except I'm already so satisfied by the rest of the record before it even gets there that I haven't even really digested that one yet. Mow the Glass was one of the high points of last year, a year in which I didn't buy too many records (couldn't afford to, really), and felt further away from 'new' music than ever. But now, if a proper band, that means Lavender Flu probably play concerts and I'd love to see them.

Kinks - 'Kinda Kinks' (Marble Arch)

This is the second outing from the brothers Davies, a sound which feels so 'classic' from the shimmer on the guitars all the way to the graphic design of this Canadian pressing's sleeve. Conventional wisdom usually rates the Kinks as getting really interesting around the time of Kontroversy, but there's a few gems here for sure. 'Don't Ever Change' has a syncopated vocal delivery which adds an edge to its genteel folk-rock strum; 'Nothin' in the World Can Stop Me Worrying About That Girl' is a totally classic, though I'm not sure if it was before it appeared in Rushmore. 'Tired of Waiting' is the biggest hit from here, I think, and the deceptively simple hook conveys the frustration and impatience with musical motifs to match the lyrics. One can't deny the musicianship here - these guys could really play.  'Come On Now' has a hard-boogie beat which is driving and catchy, amplified by that Shel Talmy production. Davies hasn't yet emerged as the Empire-loving nostaligia king that he would soon become, but even this early on he's able to deliver earnest material ('So Long', 'Something Better Beginning') with a believable authenticity, the echo on his voice drifting things towards the melancholy as required. Stompers like 'Got My Feet on the Ground' are less memorable, but that's okay cause they're still basking in the glow of 'You Really Got Me' here (remember how fast these records were turned out - they made like 5 albums in 1965 alone). 'Dancing in the Street' I could do without, but that's true for every version of it (except for Fred Frith's on Gravity). It's an easy record to overlook and the sound is so rooted to a time and a place that it's almost hard to take it on its own merit, but Kinda Kinks is kinda great, and certainly fun to listen to now and then.

The Feelies - 'The Good Earth' (Domino/Coyote)

There was quite a hiatus before this appeared and when it did, it was almost shocking - gone are the jittery rhythms and angular guitar leads, replaced by languid, open-chord strums. And I think they're a better band for it. Was it a brave choice, turning down the energy and looking for something else; or was it a crass appeal to commercial pressures, fitting into the jangly 'college rock' vibe of the late 1980s? I don't buy it that turning down and simplifying - and consciously removing your 'edge' - is a sign of selling out or lesser quality music. The Good Earth is a masterpiece, clearly one of the high water marks of American rock in the 80s and the Feelies' finest achievement. And they have the distinction of being a band that simultaneously influenced R.E.M. (with their first album) and was influenced by R.E.M. (here). Though R.E.M. is a bit of an easy comparison, just because there's arpeggios galore and a solid backbeat; I also hear traces of country standards, blues/spirituals, and of course folk. There's a cowboy vibe to 'Tomorrow Today', which utilises the new rhythm section of Brenda Sauter, Dave Weckerman and Stan Demeski to great success. 'Slipping (Into Something)' and 'Let's Go' are not too far from the songwriting of Crazy Rhythms, just using a different arrangement to the same tension and cadences. 'The Last Roundup' is the most indicative of the earlier material, probably a holdover, with lots of frantic strumming and the two percussionists used to full effect. The highlight of this record for me, and therefore of The Feelies, is 'When Company Comes', the most simple sketch of a song, built around three chords strummed and with a chorus of nearly wordless vocals, topped with some searing guitar notes. It's pure psychedelia, but like you've never heard before. I don't know why it moves me so much - maybe, when combined with the speaking voices mixed into the end and the way it comes as the last song on side one (which is always the best position for a song, in my opinion), it all amalgamates into some lost, wispy alternative Americana that I can't remember (I was six when this came out) but yearn for anyway. (hint: it never existed)

Dif Juz - 'Extractions' (4AD)

This was it, really - the only proper Dif Juz record -- but a confident step forward it is, especially when compared to the EPs, which are more like sketches. The opening cut, 'Crosswinds', is built from saxophone drenched in wet reverb. It looks towards New Age music as well, but also is an early beacon towards the pop side of British electroacoustic music from later in the decade (I'm thinking O.Rang for example). 'Crosswinds' is lovely - the timbre of the saxes makes waves, a beautiful blanket of wet ear candy. This atmosphere is but a tease - the rest of Extractions is significantly more upbeat, driven by live drumming which is mostly free from the studio effects and processing which seem to affect every instrument. Yet Extractions is not an artificial chunk of computer love - it's welcoming and tries out musical ideas within the framework of this genre. 'A Starting Point' has quick-moving counterpoint; 'Silver Passage' is a quest.'Echo Wreck' feels like the major statement, with it's quick tapping drumming, soaring keyboards, and crafty melodic structure. The Cocteau Twins' vocalist makes an appearance on 'Love Insane', and her voice is a beauty; the vocal treatment sits much better with Dif Juz's music than the vocals on Vibrating Air, but it's good that most of the record stays instrumental. The tempo is somewhat uniform, and the sound is a pretty major step away from not just punk but from new wave at all. But while a lot of music like this - which later gets labeled as post-rock - becomes a bit too mellow, Dif Juz somehow stay energetic throughout. A whole lot of what I think of as the '4AD Sound' comes from music like this - this strain of (mostly British) 1980s musicians looking at texture, tension, ad soundscape instead of vitriol. The path leads though the Durutti Column and all the way to Talk Talk before the Americans started paying attention.

Destroyer - 'City of Daughters' (Tinker/Cave Canem)

I don't have the privilege of seeing the Soundscan figures, but I'd guess that latest Destroyer album at the time of this writing, Kaputt, had to be his biggest selling. Maybe I should actually say biggest 'hit' because popularity probably has little connection these days to actually 'moving units' or whatever they used to say. I feel like everywhere I go nowadays, I encounter some kid playing it through laptop speakers. Good for Bejar, cause he's been churning out great music for a long time and I'm happy for him to find an audience, even if I'm personally yet to click with Kaputt. City of Daughters is from the other end of his career - it's not his first album but his first really good one. This is almost as stripped-down as his debut, based mostly around acoustic guitar and voice, though with some Emax synthesiser interludes and a nice backing band here and there. The Emax interludes aren't just filler - 'Emax II' is a lovely bit of electroacoustic residue.  It's tough for me to write about Destroyer as I find him to be the Canadian indie-rock reincarnation of Wallace Stevens - difficult as all-fuck to 'explain' but more than easy to be moved by. The musical cadences are the bonus that Mr. Bejar has over Mr. Stevens, so there's added non-meaning through emphasis and catchiness. For example, 'I Want This Cyclops' is a wonderful jaunty ride, but it's something about two sisters on a plane and an actual saskwatch with one eye, and the fuck if I can figure it out. But that's modernism at it's best - I can put my own meaning into things, and I've done that a lot. Maybe I just like singing along about the 'new heretical dawn'. Did I mention I love Destroyer? I've been immersed in his work since Streethawk: A Seduction, which we'll get to soon enough on the CD blog, and I've always seen City of Daughters, Thief, and Streehawk as a trilogy even though there's not much to link them besides a similar sound in the backing bands (though the lineups aren't consistent). This is a less ambitious Destroyer - before the big production of This Night, the midi experiments of Your Blues, the temporary 'return to form' of Rubies and of course Kaputt's 80's disco coke gloss. But again, what makes these records so different? The lyrics are always great, so it really comes down to my own personal tastes - I like the simplicity of songs like 'School, And the Girls Who Go There' more - they're somewhere in-between coffeeshop troubadour and indie pick-up band. Jennifer's halter top is a consecrated altar, after all. Like Queen, he actually saved the title track for his next album. This also has 'No Cease Fires! (Crimes Against the State of Our Love, Baby)' which should have been a smash hit anthem in an alternate universe (how many times do I type those words in these pages?). It's a confident record, a real portrait of a Canadian 1996 at least as I imagine it, and the start of something great.

Elvis Costello - 'This Year's Model' (Radar)

I always thought that my copy of this was rare, because the cover was misprinted, wrapping the spine around to the back, cropping the title to His Year's Model and leaving ugly printing registration marks on the right. But when I googled for an image to put here, I found a few versions of this look, suggesting this edition, if not intentional, was at least pretty common. At my peak of enjoying Elvis Costello records (approximately 12 years ago), I was happy to find this UK issue because it contained '(I Don't Want to Go to) Chelsea' instead of 'Radio Radio' and the former is a far better tune. Yeah, this is the best of the first three Elvis Costello records, of course containing the most hits and far better production and confidence than My Aim Is True. Here, as throughout these pages, I'm gonna express the same awkward uncomfortable approach towards writing about such "classic" records. I don't have a lot to say specifically about these songs - yes, 'Little Triggers' is a great and surprisingly nuanced look at dating, 'No Action' is a stomping side-1-track-1, and 'Chelsea''s guitar lick is like a biting razor. But I don't want to go into a deep analysis of late 70's British masculinity, cultural tropes, or any of the other things that could probably be written about here. I'm sure someone's done a PhD on Elvis Costello already, anyway. What does strike me on this revisit is how rooted in 50's and 60's rock and roll these songs are - 'You Belong to Me' could be Cliff Richard, and some of the keyboard riffs seem so obvious, but maybe that's cause I've heard these songs a million times. 'Living in Paradise' and 'Lip Service' are really great songs too. 'Lipstick Vogue' is a good fast stomper. I don't know what else to say; just enjoy this!

Leonard Cohen - 'Songs from a Room' (Columbia)

OK, so I have a few Leonard Cohen LPs ahead and I don't really know how to write about them. (What a copout vibe these pages have been taking lately!). Of course this stuff is timeless and there's nothing I can add to it. This one isn't my absolute favorite but it's still beyond criticism. I don't have the first LP for some reason but this is the same exact formula, except with a jew's harp added. All I can really talk about is moments I had in my own life with it; this particular LP, this copy even, I grabbed secondhand when I was 16 or 17 and I remember listening to it with a girlfriend (or whatever passes for a girlfriend at that age) and somehow 'Story of Isaac' set the mood for, well, y'know. And for all the acclaim of that song, it's greatest element to me is how sparse it is - a stumbling bassline, the barest accents of guitar parts (usually just two or three repeated notes) and the barely audible but ever present jew's harp. As stern as Len's final warning is, it holds back from grandiose drama; that's saved for 'A Bunch of Quarrelsome Heroes', with frantically strummed chords and a soaring voice. He sings it for the crickets and the army, though. It's silly to even say these songs are retreads of the first record because this is a poet who embraced songwriting afterall, and I already said this was beyond criticism. 'The Partisan' inaugurates the great tradition of military imagery in Cohen songs, and I love this one. It's not for the chilling, female-backed French chorus, but for the rapid yet light fingerpicking, the song again driven by a few bass notes. There's an intensity that somehow is convincing enough that I've always accepted this Montreal poet singing as if he's actually in a war - and it's a cover version. Now Songs from a Room is my least favourite of the big four, by which I refer to Cohen's infallible first four albums. But despite being in fourth place this is still pretty damn solid. I love it less because of few droopy tunes that never resonated with me - 'Seems So Long Ago, Nancy', 'Lady Midnight' and I guess 'The Butcher'. What I've learned with Leonard Cohen over the years is that his music develops with me. As I age, I find new things in it and the songwriting becomes more personal and meaningful - which is the exact opposite of just about everything else I've ever listened to. This explains why I still listen to Cohen now as I did at 17, and why I don't listen the Smoking Popes anymore. So I'm sure in ten more years 'Lady Midnight' will make a boatload of sense to me, the same way that 17-year-old me dismissed Death of a Lady's Man and the 30 year old me fell in love with it.