One dimension of this “unconscious association” is where or how you first find out about a particular song. For example, when my mom, who does not share my exact musical tastes, suggests something for me to listen to, I’m not expecting very much. If the song turns out to be decent, I may find myself enjoying it more than I probably should. Likewise if a band mate suggests a song, I’m probably going to have much higher expectations, and am more likely to be underwhelmed by what I hear. This is true, even though the song that my band mate recommends is more likely to be a song that I actually enjoy. I don’t know if this is at all interesting to anyone else, but it does help me to remember the subjective nature of all things.

Be on the lookout for more reviews in the next few weeks, and also some news about Common Swift related videos.

ELEP opens with a slick vocal sample accompanied by stripped down stuttering drums that pulse organically and have just the right amount of space left for the vocalist, who has a very versatile, albeit unconventional voice which is capable of punk-inspired shouts, falsetto crooning, Isaac Brock style sing-talking, and a fairly wide emotional range. It’s one of the best elements of Egg Leggs and in the first track the vocals get to shine and the lead singer shows some excellent nuance. After settling into the smooth electronic post-punk sound Egg Leggs transitions to an alternative indie rock sound more similar to The Shins than Modest Mouse, and from there continues to jump between styles; punk, electronic, indie alternative, folky blues, and straight progressive rock. The whole experience is very modern and well composed, with the transitions feeling intentional and gave me high hopes for this album.

Unfortunately my hopes were dashed quickly by the next track which felt slapped together. Between the reggae inspired bass line and the early 70’s psychedelic guitar riff very little musical elements felt as originally inspired as the first track. The vocals still sparkle in their own unique way, breaking the mundane smoothness with emotional rawness, but the structure of the track is fairly uninspired, which was quite a let-down from the first song which really felt unique and complex.

From there the album continues down this more traditionally structured path, with songs that rarely vary from conventional structures and don’t have quite the cohesiveness or originality of the first track. There are however some real moments of inspiration to be discovered in most of the remaining tracks. Bridges features nice falsetto singing with the strained exasperated yelling coming in and out. New American Dogma was actually a very enjoyable track in the style of Modest Mouse or Bright Eyes circa 2002, even though there is nothing really new in this track musically or instrumentally.

The final track Anagnorisis finally breaks the pattern of non-progressing music, although it travels in very safe directions, with an anthem like quality to it. The track has a nice guitar riff, although it never reaches the heights it could have, given the space it was granted in the song. It’s somewhat reminiscent of something Annie Clark might choose for her guitar solos which is most assuredly a good thing. It’s an ending to an album that leaves me with more questions than answers. The first song feels like a true fusion of ideas and the ending guitar track shows that there is substantial creative potential; however in the middle are some very stale choices and ideas that feel half-baked.

The production is good and these are clearly solid musicians. Lyrically it seemed to me that Legg Eggs is wanting to weave a web of sneering cynicism, and they succeed in capturing the spirit of this if not the content with lines like “And I am blackened by false truth.”, and “Disappearing friends mean nothing if they’re running from the ones that they love.”. The issue here is that the content is missing. With lines like these I’m expecting a revelation about man, or at least about the songwriter to follow, but I don’t feel that depth or investment here. In some tracks it seems like the vocalist is rambling, or at least not choosing his words precisely.

This feels to me like a young band that has room to grow, but as they advance in their musicianship and songwriting abilities they have the potential to make a really important album. With its genre-fusing style, and sometimes raw emotion, there are moments of ELEP that are truly captivating, and there is a sense that the fractured nature of its composition makes a statement on the nature of musical genres being constantly in flux.

Overall though this is a great first entry, and I’m exciting to see what they do next.

You can find Egg Leggs full album here: http://eggleggs.bandcamp.com/album/elep

70/100

The artists that I feel do this well are usually of two types. One would be someone like Boards of Canada who combined sounds people did not expect to be together to create unusual soundscapes, usually also incorporating interesting musical theory elements with their time signatures, tempo changes, and melodies. The other type of artists are those like the Beta Band and The Knife that are looking to take electronic sounds and infuse them into other musical genres to establish an interesting musical experience or to accent a point. In the case of The Knife it seems their electronic elements are used to highlight the sense of polished violence that runs throughout our current culture and reflects upon us as a species, one where hate and ignorance can be masked in graceful, perfectly composed bodies, but is still underneath nothing but repulsive.

In Vuja De it doesn’t seem as though there is an attempt to make a statement about humanity or a larger social issue, and their isn’t really an attempt to redefine musical forms, or to even stretch the established norms. What is presented here is a very well done electronic album, that uses many well established ideas and elements very effectively to paint a well-known audio landscape. I enjoyed moments, but they were moments I felt I had already known. This is actually a good thing, in that people like to hear something familiar in music. It’s been researched that when we listen to pop music we receive large amounts of dopamine to our brains when we can predict what is coming next. This is why listening to music that is playing out the way we expect it to is pleasing to us.

Johnnynottoscale has crafted an electronic album that utilizes a very expansive sound that I would almost classify as post trip hop, with ambient tones that swell and contract precisely as they should. All of it is well executed, although it lacks a spark to set it apart from other artists leaving me with a sense akin to a gemstone, brilliant and sparkling, but ultimately soulless.

You can find Johnnynottoscale’s full album here.

65/100

The first track reminds me strongly of Vampire Weekend, with an instrumental opening like “Horchata,” and the vocal cadence to match. From there it adds the expected playful guitar licks, and a consistent presence of auxiliary percussion. It’s a pleasant enough track, although lyrically it’s rather vanilla. There is also a somewhat unexpected tail that takes the sound in a direction more reminiscent of Pet Sounds.

The second track continues to show an influence of late Paul Simon, although it takes a slightly harder approach with more focus being placed on the drums and guitar with mixed results. I wish they would stick with a more pop oriented style as they are capable of crafting very catchy pop melodies and when they combine this with soundscapes that feel light and playful they are seemingly at their best.

If someone told me that the third track was actually an unreleased Ben Folds song from the late nineties I would have believed them. This feels incredibly derivative, although it is fairly well executed with nicely done swells, rapid piano arpeggios, and good dynamic sticking, however the vocals are way back in the mix, effectively burying the lead instrument.

From here The Monikers give us a slow folk waltz, which was what I had expected the entire album was going to be considering the album art and track names. It’s certainly fine for a confessional folk song, think early Shins but with far less lyrical finesse. My main problem with this track is actually that it builds and falls in a very routine pattern and probably doesn’t need to be as long as it is.

The fifth track is where The Monikers are really at their finest for me. Here is a song with interesting musical parts, a fusion of traditional folk elements with alternative rock. The song breaths a certain toxic nature with its constant jabbing of anxious violins and a low humming bass. From this beginning it moves to a chorus of rather angry rock that fits nicely, jarring the listener out of any sense of safety. The bridge and tail then resolve this violence into a very classically composed piano and violin serenity.

The fifth track is also the only one that I would say has anything approaching interesting or dynamic lyrics. It weaves a familiar character, Shakespeare’s Juliet, into a tapestry of appropriately heartbreaking emotion. In general The Monikers are good at painting a scene in vivid detail with their lyrics but usually they have very little to say. It’s as though the singer is recounting a series of events that happened to him, but that he hasn’t thought deeply about. These songs clearly have an emotional connection for him, but that connection isn’t adequately conveyed so that others can feel it with the one exception of the final track. It doesn’t help that the lead singer often sounds as though he’s doing an imitation of someone else (Ben Folds, Ezra Koenig, etc.).

Overall this is a fairly lackluster album without a strong sense of cohesion or flow. With that said The Monikers showed some promise and when inspired to create something uniquely their own, can do just that.

You can find The Monikers’ full album here.

61/100

It’s been almost five years since I wrote and directed the play “Junior Code” at Cornell College. At the time this was my most gratifying artistic achievement, and I still think of it as a very ambitious and successful project, although time has dulled somewhat my excitement about it. This is of course the case with all things I’ve created, however some creations resonate longer than others with me. (I think this is usually true because either they still relate to my new personal circumstances, or because their complexity, thoughtfulness, or beauty are still powerful in my mind.)

Below is the monologue from “Junior Code” that I was probably the most proud of at the time I wrote it. The concept was that the main character would deliver a speech about how technology had affected human life, and his life in particular. This is obviously a very broad topic, and I was well aware of the fact that I could not adequately address every aspect of this subject in one speech, but in the context of the play I felt this probably did a good enough job.

During the performances the actor sat reflectively on the edge of the stage, puffing on a lit “joint”, as multiple screens (two TVs and a projector screen) streamed rapidly changing images that gave form to the words being uttered; first images of technology devoid of humanity (beside the initial creation), then technology with humans in joyful triumph, and finally technology with humans in despair or anguish. These images started as a slow progression, graceful in their pace, and then as the speech continued the images began to change faster and faster; a kaleidoscope of stimuli. All the while a low droning of sustained synth broods underneath the monologue, with percussive pops and squeals that pierce through the muddled audio cloud. Into this environment the actor pensively speaks.


 

“Technology, the body of knowledge available to a society that is of use in fashioning implements, practicing manual arts and skills, and extracting or collecting materials. Obviously that’s a large body of knowledge. After all we’ve been collecting it since before recorded time. Most of us seem to be obsessed with our technology, and we find any excuse to use the latest knowledge we have all the time. For example, I write exclusively using a computer, drive three blocks instead of walking, and use my cell phone more often than I care to admit. Technology is also a scientific method of achieving a practical purpose. What is a practical purpose? Understanding illness…Identifying diseases, that seems practical. Curing those diseases, that also seems fairly practical. Vaccinating children so they don’t catch those diseases? How about bioengineering those children so they can never get those diseases? Is there a line? I don’t know.

Technology is always moving up, always building upon itself. History doesn’t wait for morality to catch up, and sometimes it blasts morality away with the force of a thousand suns. Sometimes technology advances beyond those that wish to use it. Yet today humans gain so much knowledge about the world through entirely virtual outputs. We watch “reality” on the television, and connect to a virtually limitless supply of knowledge on our computers. And technology has gotten very good at capturing reality. In fact, many people approach this captured reality as the only reality. When technology has built its own world, one that can be as vibrant as the real world it was spawned from, what does that say?

I know that our level of knowledge has forever changed the way we think, even about the past. We focus our intellect on bridging gaps in our own knowledge; filling in the unknown blanks, searching for deeper and deeper nuances, always finding something else to learn. As I explore these ever-expanding tunnels I realize how my mind is different than minds of the past. Stacking newer ideas on top of each other, so many basics are lost; so much of who I was is destroyed. Some of the baser things I can never reclaim, so many animal desires are gone, replaced by newer complexities. No better, just different. My new mind is built every day; part of our new technology.”

Although I still feel these ideas are valid, there are some thoughts that I simply missed at the time, beside the obviously naive and partially untrue oversimplification of our relationship with reality television. For one, information overload was not really addressed explicitly. This is not merely a theoretical danger that exists in today’s over-stimulated culture as we’ve seen this played out in regards to highly public issues such as global warming. Parties with agendas can find a wealth of data to throw at people, essentially diluting the pool of truth with lies that appear the same.

Along with the phenomenon of information saturation there seems to be a propensity for modern humans to selectively interact. For example, I prefer one style of music more than all others. Now several years ago if I wanted to listen to music my options would have been fairly limited in many ways, but with my iPod (or smartphone) in my pocket, and the internet at my fingertips, I can envelop myself in the music that I like and never hear anything else. I used to think that this was a good thing, the availability of options. What this actually does is weaken a person’s overall understanding of the larger body of music as a whole. I hear what I think I want to hear, and never expand my horizons. I’m never forced to experience or consider something new. In this way it’s very easy to become experts of your own niche and have no comprehension of things outside of your own constructed bubble. I think this can, in some cases, create less well-rounded individuals who are less capable of relating to others, but it also most certainly skews our understanding of the world around us, and can paint an image of how things are that is simply not true.

These are merely ideas and I don’t have any research that would support this beside my own observations, however I can’t help but think about these issues, how they affect me, and what I can do (if I so choose) to alter the situation. Anyway, let me know if you have any thoughts or insights on these topics, as I would gladly read them.

Also please enjoy the included media.

Clouded Glass

Holly

Accidents Become Meaning