Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks
Electric Ballroom, London
9th December 2009

Stephen Malkmus has been (to coin a verb) ‘jicking’ for as long now as he was leading the charge of the Pavement brigade, releasing as many albums, yet never reaching the same heights. His solo career seemed to be in constant war of expectation over delivery. A deliberate, even contrary exercise in fulfilling a desire to unwind and explore new territory, fashioning together a band that would follow his lead, from noodly guitar solos to English folk and East Coast acid rock. It’s not Pavement. It’s not a bunch of twenty-year-olds fighting their generation. But the louche stage presence, that hazy cynical drawl, the greying hair framing the eyes in a semi-slacker curl, little has changed over the years.

Ever frequent on the touring schedule, the Jicks and Malkmus show hit London’s Electric Ballroom as a precursor to their appearance at All Tomorrows Parties. The show is undersold it seems, but with enough dedicated malcontents to keep the audience participation up and for Malkmus to trade retorts and perform for. “Dynamic Calories” one of the discarded gems from Pig Lib snaps the quartet into action. Before too long cries of “Summer Babe” or whatever Pavement song tickled your fancy began to ring through ballroom. In days gone by, Malkmus would’ve yawned, or ignored it, but this time round he gave the cat callers a response — “you need to pay more to hear that”, “you gotta wait until next year for that one”.

As the contrarian that Malkmus is, the set was littered with new material. And when I mean littered, I’m presuming around one third of tracks played (with titles such as “Cribz”, “Senator”, “Pub Rock” and “Billy Fay”) were completely new to our ears, most likely to appear front and centre on the next Jicks release, which with Pavement reunion likely to take up the rest of 2010 and maybe even beyond, is something we’re likely to have lost all memory of by the time the album arrives. Out of context, it doesn’t make sense. I call an embargo on bands debuting more than 25% new material before an album has had a chance to be leaked. Honestly, we’re just going to stand there rocking on our heels, hoping for a snappy chorus.

Real Emotional Trash is the order for the day. “Gardenia” and “Cold Son” show what Malkmus can do with a little self-editing, while “Dragonfly Pie” and the moronic “Elmo Delmo” tend to out-stay their welcome, but both give room to the lady rhythm section of Janet Weiss and Joanna Bolme to shine. Still, you can’t but help think that 85% of the people standing in this room are here in memory of Pavement. That Malkmus’ work alone, if disregarded from that of anything post-Pavement is irrelevant, yet surprisingly it’s more consistent than anything he ever managed with them. Despite only playing one song from each of his first two albums (the ubiquitous “Jenny and the S-Dog” and the oddly chosen “Ramp of Death”), it was as good a show as you’re ever going to get. At least until reunion time.

2009 will be looked upon by many as a strange and wonderful, confusing and bewildering, but ultimately a sad and tearful year. Yon writer feeling the weight of many a loss, but none as saddening and as that of the passing of Rowland S. Howard to liver cancer on December 30. Forever known as Nick Cave’s red right hand in the Birthday Party, Rowland was the purveyor of that skeletal, metallic guitar sound that along with the bass growl of Tracey Pew, defined the band. Not to forget as also the songwriter of one of Australia’s greatest recordings, “Shiver” that thirty years after being recorded still transfixes.

Throughout the 80′s and 90′s Rowland kept recording, be it with Crime & The City Solution, as These Immortal Souls, or partnering with the eccentric Nikki Sudden and the provocative Lydia Lunch to name but a few. Speaking to Static’s Chris Berkley, only a few weeks before his passing, Rowland S. Howard recounts his extensive career and his brief return the music, with his second solo album Pop Crimes. As the interview begins, I shall pre-echo the words here. It was a great pleasure and a privilege. Farewell Rowland.

A great pleasure and a privilege to welcome in Mister Rowland S. Howard. You doing alright?

Absolutely.

It’s been a period of busy activity. Does it feel like you’re awaking after a dormant sleep, running around and selling yourself again?

(laughs) A period of hibernation. Well, it’s nice to be doing something again. Nice to have a new record to promote.

You started this year playing the ATP festival, you’re seeing the year out by doing Homebake, so it’s been a year book-ended by big festivals. Did you have to be coaxed into doing those kinds of shows?

Absolutely.

How did you find ATP? You would’ve been among good folk, it couldn’t have been too hard an experience.

No, it was remarkably enjoyable. The audience’s were very kind and as you said, there were a lot of really good bands. I just hate playing outside, I hate playing in the daytime. I hate festivals.

None of that is conducive to your shtick is it?

No. It’s sort of the antithesis of what I do.

You didn’t suddenly have to write songs to play at ATP because the stuff from Pop Crimes had been kicking around for a while, right?

Only a couple of songs, but most of it was written specifically for the album. I think we did a couple of songs from the record at ATP.

Are you usually more keen to go into the studio then, or does it take someone like your producer, Lindsey (Gravina) to take your songs in and put them down?

It was just a case of nobody was offering me enough money to make a proper record. People would contact me and want me to go in and make a record in a day and a half. At this stage in my career I’m really not interested in the limitations that imposes upon you. I’m always interested in going into the studio but it has to be under the right circumstance. I’m not going to go in and just do anything.

I guess you’ve been there, done that as well. Is it good to have that support group like Lindsey, people that are helping you then once you’re in the studio to get the best out of yourself.

Oh yeah, Lindsey’s great and he’s one of the few people in the music industry who will go that extra mile for you and work for nothing to make sure the record’s finished, and I’m not saying he does that for everyone, but he does it for me and he makes great sounding records.

It seems throughout your career you’ve had a lot of collaborations and they’ve been your lifeblood, be it Lydia Lunch, Nikki Sudden or anyone. Is it good to have people to bounce off when you’re making a record?

Yeah, but a lot of that was also born of the fact that I just didn’t have the confidence to do my own songs myself, so it was easier for me to hide behind somebody else. Working with other people they often bring the most extraordinary things to songs you have written and make them so much greater than what you had thought they were.

It’s sort of a tradition that’s continued for Pop Crimes, you’ve done this song with Jonnine from HTRK and you had produced their album a few years ago. It’s this relationship that’s given you a Nancy and Lee type duet on the album. Was it great to have someone of her age and eagerness to do a song with?

Yeah, and I think HTRK are a fantastic band and I think Jonnine is a really great lyricist and singer and I knew we had that same sensibilities in what we found appealing and that we could conjure up a certain playfulness that would be fun.

Are those kindred spirits few and far between for you? You must get a lot of people coming slavishly to you but may not have the best interests at heart.

I don’t hang out with a lot of musicians. Just because somebody else plays music it doesn’t mean I’ve got anything in common with them. Most of the inspiration for what I do comes from other sources, other than music. Whereas most people just reference rock music, so it can only progress so far.

That said, you do hang out with a lot of musicians’ songs. Cover versions have always been your penchance and I’ve very pleased to see that you’ve done Talk Talk’s “Life’s What You Make It” on Pop Crimes and I’ve never realised what a bleak song that was until you did it, Rowland (laughs). Is that something you find exciting, inhabiting someone else’s song?

I like taking somebody else’s song and showing that there’s another side to it, despite that it’s written, in the case of “White Wedding”, Billy Idol has no credibility whatsoever. It doesn’t mean the song isn’t a good song.

Well you’ve twisted the knife completely with it, Rowland, channelled through you. But it’s a beautiful song nonetheless, right?

I just always thought that you could approach it like something from Fun House.

It’s great to have Pop Crimes under your belt and you have been making this new music, when you’re still doing that, going into the studio, and releasing new stuff, do you find it frustrating when people only want to pick over your past? Does that happen to you a lot?

Yeah. It happens. In these interviews that I’ve been doing, there’s a general lack of awareness that things that I’ve done.

It’s a very selective kind of awareness, people might only want to ask you about Boys Next Door yet they might not have heard any Crime and the City Solution albums.

Well, exactly. After the Birthday Party, there’s a big gap in most people’s minds to what I was doing and I understand why people want to talk to me about the Birthday Party, and if I met Ron Asheton while he was still alive, I’d want to talk to him about The Stooges, than Destroy All Monsters or whatever.

It is that albatross, but it’s something that seems to weigh heavier on other people or some people, doesn‘t it?

Yeah, I think because I’m not really a careerist. I’m not somebody who does this for fame. I occupy a grey area in a lot of people’s minds, and also you have to be fairly definitive in what you do for most people to, and I don’t mean this in a condescending way, for people to get what you’re doing. If there’s too much ambiguity or subtlety, a lot of people don’t really understand. Most people don’t really want to spend any time thinking about music, they just want to listen to it and that’s fine.

It’s not like you turned your back on it completely, you performed “Shivers” at ATP. So is that a given as well? Do you feel like you have to perform that song when you play live?

No, I very rarely do it, and in fact it’s interesting because people don’t yell out for it anymore because my audience is completely different than it used to be and people, because they’re young, they don’t have the same historical associations with that song that a lot of older people do. Which is fine by me, because it’s a very, very old song for me.

First broadcast on Static on 10/12/09. Static can be heard on Sydney’s 2SER (107.3 FM) and via the Internet (www.2ser.com) every Thursday evening (AEST).

Jay Reatard
The Underworld, London
13th November 2009

Musicians die. Sometimes quite unexpectedly, most before their time, but not often enough for your brain to idle between song, between string changes or tunings to wonder “will this be the last time?”. You don’t, because you’re too busy enjoying the moment. The news of Jay Reatard’s passing on January 13 of ‘cocaine toxicity and alcohol’ left most in disbelief and shock. Having witnessed him play what would be his last ever show in London, Reatard was anything but the vision of a man kicking out the last of his jams.

It’s not unknown for band members to quit halfway through a tour, but it’s pretty rare for band members to quit because the singer urinated on them mid-set. In a hilarious twitter tirade, Jay Reatard sent them packing and quickly enlisted a fresh pair of drum and bass hands courtesy of the Cola Freaks to get Reatard through this European tour. These guys seem to have their wits about them. Not once during Reatard’s non-stop rock set did they turn their back on him. Actually, they seemed to stand well away…

A oddly empty venue filled rapidly swelled once Reatard and band walked onstage. No ‘GOOD EVENING LONDON’, ‘FUCK ART, LET’S ROCK’, Reatard just called out “Blood Visions” and the band followed suit. The first barrage of tracks are almost indistinguishable from each other (“It‘s So Easy“ into “Nightmares“ into “Fading All Away“, Reatard introducing them Dee Dee Ramone style, an incoherent slurring of words, a bashing of instruments, two minutes later the song is finished, then a split-second pause, a shouted title and then two more minutes of frantic fretwork and head shaking. “It Ain’t Gonna Save Me” has the floor shaking, but where was the whiskey and bourbon, Jay? The man was slamming straight Red Bull as if he were fighting off some kinda travel lag.

A mid-set momentum shift occurred with a guitar change, with Jay switching from the ubiquitous Flying V to an semi-acoustic to play a handful of melody-centric tracks — “I’m Watching You” off-beat strum to it that reminds me of Nick Lowe’s “Cruel to be Kind”, “I Know A Place” and “All Over Again”. The pace doesn’t slow down but it’s enough of a break for everybody to take a deep breath before the moshing (yeah, it’s 2009 and pinballing into each other is still big with the kids) and V-switching starts the second electric set, rounding out with some of old and new faves, “See Saw” and “Before I Was Caught” and finishing off with a long jammed out version of “Trapped Here”. Y’all got your money’s worth. That’s all I can say.

Later Jay. Loved your music, loved your shows. You’ll be missed.

Poetry was once defined as words organized into metered lines. Somewhere along the line, rhyme became another important factor, and if you ask a seven-year-old what a poem is today, he’ll probably tell you, “Something that rhymes.” But these once firm distinctions have now become optional. Meter, rhyme? Sure, but only if you want. The advent of prose poems has made even line division unnecessary, and the term “poetic” is ever more frequently used to describe the writing of non-poets such as John Steinbeck and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Since history has discarded all past definitions of poetry, I offer this one: writing which pinpoints the exact truth of feelings and events.

Why? frontman Yoni Wolf is a poet. “I wanna speak at an intimate decibel,” he sings on “This Blackest Purse, “With the precision of an infinite decimal/To listen up and send back a true echo/Of something forever felt, but never heard.” This is what he does: write songs about the thoughts and feelings others could never quite put into words.

Wolf is often lauded for his wit, but Eskimo Snow is less funny than it is sad. The outright humor of previous albums is largely gone; what remains is a joy in the sound of the words twisting together. Yoni Wolf began his career in the world of hip-hop, and though Eskimo Snow is his first completely rapless project, he still sings like a rapper, rejoicing in the feeling of the letters on his lips. What’s most different is the sound, now a full embracement of the indie pop hinted at by 2008’s Alopecia. At times, the weighty sadness of the content without the old sound’s relieving weirdness makes the album feel a little hollow: I miss the coin percussion of “The Vowels, Pt. 2,” the electronic swirls of “Yo Yo Bye Bye,” the robotic romp of “These Few Presidents.” Most of all, I miss the rap, which is what once solidified Why? as something wholly unique. The band needs no gimmick, now, but it was still a great element, and one I hope they will not abandon entirely.

On the other hand, Eskimo Snow reveals a new depth to the band. Ever genre-defying, Why? has traded in its hip-hop roots for bits of soulful country (“Even the Good Wood Gone,” “Into the Shadows of My Embrace”) and finger-picked folk (“One Rose,” “Eskimo Snow”). Band cohesion has never been better, and though the songs are musically less interesting than they have been, the seriousness of the sound may win over fans for whom previous albums were just too weird.

Taken on its own terms, this is a phenomenal album — heartfelt and lyrically brilliant. Yoni Wolf confesses all his thoughts and feelings with wit and astonishing indiscretion, from self-doubt (“Am I too concerned with the burn of scrutiny?”) to loneliness (“I wish I could feel close to somebody/But I don’t feel nothin’”) to fantastic fears (“Will all my unused seed/Collect like mercury/In some kind of afterlife for halves?”). His writing is simultaneously academic and banal: yes, he sings about existential despair, but he also sings about masturbation. Some call him over confessional, even perverse; I think he’s just honest. Everyone thinks things they’d rather not admit. Wolf is just brave enough to air his. And it’s comforting to hear another’s fears, because it shows you you’re not alone. “I know saying all this in public should make me feel funny,” he cries on “Into the Shadows of My Embrace, “but you gotta yell something out you never tell nobody!” We’re lucky to have this, a poet to make art of his despair. There’I don’t know how else we’d survive.

You’ve probably seen the x-rated video clip for “Lust for Life”. The ‘penis as microphone’ image is something you really don’t recall seeing in pop videos these days, either then or now (and feel free to correct me if I’m wrong). As vague and internet-search challenging as calling your band Girls is, Christopher Owens and Chet “JR” White are both neither, and are, so to speak. Universally lauded upon release, Album, became one of the most talked about records of last year, full of Californian pop harmonies and hazy guitars, drugged up vocals. Chris Berkley of 2SER’s Static spoke to Christopher Owens of San Francisco’s Girls.

How’s the day to day taking it’s toll on you guys on the road in Girls?

It’s pretty good on this trip but we’ve had more hectic trips before and longer than this one. Just about three weeks. We’re in the van a lot and that’s ok. The shows are going well, so it helps.

Does it feel like you’ve suddenly invited the whole world into your own private universe, going out on these tours, there’s so many more people interested in Girls now?

Yeah, it definitely feels that way. There’s been a huge reaction to the album and to the story of the band and it makes sense to me. It’s been a pretty good reaction, so we’re happy to meet people. But it does feel like a lot of attention all at once. It’s something we’re not really used to but we’re having fun with it so far.

It’s not too hard to take compliments on a daily basis, then?

It’s nice. It keeps the morale up.

Did you and JR record the Girls album in a bubble or was that a collaborative exercise as well?

We recorded it at home just the two of us, we had a couple drummers come in and play on some of the tracks because we needed someone who could play the whole drum kit, but most of them we just did alone, it was very private, at our own pace. We took time with each song and made it exactly how we liked it. Which is cool because it was before anybody was paying any attention. We weren’t making anything where we were worried about what people would think of it. It was all for us and we had the pleasure to make an album we all really loved.

Was making the Girls album like a getting to know you exercise for the pair of you, or had you actually known each other for a while before you started to make the record?

Well, we knew each other for a long time, for about four years before we started making the album, but we hadn’t played music together before and we hadn’t been playing much music with anybody else either. I was playing guitar in a band that was basically my favourite band but it wasn’t my music, so it was a learning process. We pretty much learned how to record the album as we were recording it. I learned how to play a lot of things I hadn’t learned how to play before. It was pretty much guitars before this. We tried out a lot of new stuff and it was really exciting.

So the two of you met on non-musical terms then. You were friends first and then the band came second?

Yeah, exactly.

How did the two of you cross paths, because you yourself, from what I understand, had a pretty nomadic existence. You’ve lived in Puerto Rico, Europe and Asia, so was it a miracle that you actually found each other?

Yeah, in a way. No matter where I’ve been, I’ve always met cool people. It’s something I like to do. I’m very interested in people and what they do and making friends, but we just met through other friends. I moved to San Francisco, and didn’t know anybody and just started to make friends. JR was just somebody was at the same parties and at the same shows I was at. We pretty much instantly became friends, but it was a while before it became a working relationship.

How important was that location to Girls? The looseness of San Francisco seems to have informed some of the songs. Do you think location is important in the sound or a band’s identity?

Yeah, I think it definitely is. No matter where it is, it’s important to each band separately and it wasn’t the thing we thought about when making the album at all, but now that it’s done and now that we go on tour and stuff like that, we definitely realise that we have a lot of the elements from where we live in our music and the way we approach the band and all that, so I know it’s important, I just didn’t know that when we started. It was probably a self-conscious thing.

Is there an element of role-playing in your writing. In “Lust for Life” there’s a character narrative. Do you think there’s an element of outside yourselves in Girls?

Well it’s all very personal stuff I’m writing about that’s real experiences I’ve had that’s real stream of consciousness from my experiences, but I do like, just in the delivery and the style and the sound, I like to show influences and take on characters for the delivery of the song. As far as the writing goes, it’s all very personal. It’s not very thought out, it’s just the way I’m feeling in the moment.

Did you do much editing in terms of the writing, then? People want to believe you’re living out the rock and roll excesses described in your songs and put forward. Were you conscious of revealing too much?

You know, I didn’t look at it that way. I knew I was revealing a lot, that was sort of rewarding about it all. Talking about personal feelings was something that made me feel a lot more interested and attached to the whole thing. I really wouldn’t know how to do it any other way. It’s a medium that you can use that helps you say or do things you wouldn’t normally do in every day life.

Are you kinda starting to regret admitting about drugs and partying or anything like that? Does every second person want to ask you only about that?

I don’t know. I don’t regret talking about it, but there are times when people put too much focus on it. I just think it’s one element out of many that are part of our lives. I don’t know, I don’t like to regret talking about anything, but I guess when it becomes something like a label people begin to stick on you, then it feels weird, you know?

That said, it feels like you worked out how to push a few of those buttons as well. You’ve done that XXX-rated video for “Lust for Life” so it must be fun, here and there, to do that and get reactions.

Yeah, it is fun. I think it’s great. I think it’s one of the most fun things about having the band. Getting to push the envelope and be honest about the aesthetic and the things that are part of our lives, and maybe, I feel like in general, we’re not that different from most people. Maybe if we talk about things, and are honest about things, it will take the stigma away. I feel like most people have similar experiences in their own lives.

Yeah, I’m definitely for more gay porn in film clips…

Hahahaha.

It almost seems that Girls is a whole package like that. It seems you put as much of yourselves in the film clip or the artwork as you do the music. Between you and JR is it really a hands-on package thing for Girls?

Yeah. Definitely. We keep a pretty strong control over the aesthetic and what we put out, and we work really closely with friends that we know who are on the same page as us. There’s a kind of community we’re involved in, but they’re all sort of our best friends, we know we’re all coming from the same place and wanting to put the same things out. It’s sort of curated by us.

First broadcast on Static on 03/12/09. Static can be heard on Sydney’s 2SER (107.3 FM) and via the Internet (www.2ser.com) every Thursday evening (AEST).

Behind every great album is more often than not, an even greater story waiting to be told. The pursuit for higher understanding of artists and their most influential pieces of work and how the two came to pass has long been the ultimate goal of the ardent music fan who thrives on having every recorded nuance and historical detail mapped out like a combined atlas and encyclopedia of the human body.

One of the more indispensible and compelling series of music books published in the last few years that actually does, more or less, what is expected above, has been Continuum’s 33 1/3 series. Having started in 2005 with Dusty Springfield’s Dusty in Memphis, and then gone on to feature such canonical albums as Neil Young’s Harvest, Radiohead’s Ok Computer and The Rolling Stones Exile on Main Street.

33 1/3 has worked as a conduit and a release for music journalists and authors, both music fans and famous musicians in their own right, including Bill Janovitz of Buffalo Tom, John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats and Colin Meloy of The Decemberists, who want to sing the praises of their favourite LP. After 65 albums covered, it’s a series that seems to be in no chance of slowing down. Having recently sent out a casting call for new album proposals earlier this year for a 2010/11 publishing schedule, they were inundated with 597 requests of which only 11 (including Television’s Marquee Moon and Liz Phair’s Exile In Guyville) were eventually selected.

The list of still to be published books, including Nine Inch Nail’s Pretty Hate Machine and Kate Bush’s The Dreaming make for interesting and diverse reading, which even when carrying a basic appreciation for these artists is enough to warrant the 33 1/3 releases further investigation, especially for the fact hungry fans who long for fly on the wall information that comes from not only interviewing the artists, but the engineers, the producers, the girlfriends, the family members, the fans and so on, while drawing from the authors own personal insight and experience.

As the series has wound on, many of the certified classics have now been covered, leaving room for the under-rated and cult status records to find their way to the top. Two of the most recent publications in the series were Big Star’s top power pop trip Radio City and Elliott Smith’s watershed mainstream release XO (unfortunately Brian Eno’s Another Green World was to be included in this discussion but was pushed back). Both albums are unarguable high points in the respective artists’ careers, but ones that still bring out clashes of opinion as to which is their best. Given the open door policy with 33 1/3′s editors, if you want to write it yourself and can put forth a convincing argument, the chance is there.

Bruce Eaton’s thorough investigation into the history of rock music’s most influentially unrecognised acts of the ’70s, Memphis, Tennessee’s Big Star, and the recording of their second album Radio City, does much to clear up decades of misinformation and mythology, shedding light on session recordings, the artists present and how the album was pieced together. It’s that kind of detailed musical reporting that the 33 1/3 series is known for. Eaton’s own personal history of playing in a backing band with Alex Chilton (Big Star’s vocalist/songwriter) adds a neat spin and the interviews contained with the band members and album producer, all casting their thoughts back a good 30 years to reflect on a busy time for the band, are flawless. Exact dates are often muddied, but recreating the scene after the fractuous fall-out of the departure of original member Chris Bell and how they picked up the pieces to create Radio City is retold and relived, in studio and on-stage by the people who were there. It’s about as an authorative and informative an exposition as you could hope for.

Matthew Lemay’s attempt at getting to the heart of Elliott Smith’s XO reads like a college thesis, full of statements like “In the coming pages I attempt to” that straight away reveal his lack of confidence in the task ahead. XO is full of opinion and interpretation, and when trying to understand the complexities of an artist like Elliott Smith, authorative opinions are required and the vagaries of Smith’s lyrics were often best left (as Smith himself often maintained) to your own interpretation. To begin this book by the author stating he was 14 when he first heard “Miss Misery” is an awkward eye-rolling moment. It felt like there must be people better versed in Smith’s work and more suited to an undertaking like this, especially when the artist is no longer around to legitimise the author’s assumptions on a barely decade-old record, and not suddenly pricking up their ears in their pj’s on the couch when Smith’s most critical and definitive period was passing rapidly before them. While a determined attempt is made in both detailing the origins of the songs and deconstructing the meaning behind the lyrics, you still feel like an opportunity was missed.

Such is the trial and error with the 33 1/3 publications. They don’t always aspire to what you want them to be. Radio City expertly covered all bases. The author had the knowledge, the experience and the ability to talk to the artists intensively. With the sad passing of Smith, the author of XO had to rely on print and television interviews and to plumb the depths of Jackpot! Studio owner Larry Crane’s brain, which has been well tapped out since Elliott’s death. As a refreshing point of fact, not all 33 1/3 books fall into such strict deconstruction of the album and artist as those above, some of the more interesting releases don’t rely on studio knowledge or even the need to talk to the artists directly to sell the book.

Using the album as the starting point, both Joe Pernice’s fictional coming of age story used The Smiths Meat is Murder to structure its tale, and Colin Meloy of the Decemberists autobiographical retelling of falling in love with The Replacement’s Let It Be succeed by passion and talent as a storyteller, rather than the use of any technical wherewithall. Regardless of any criticism directed above (and music fans are rarely, if ever, happy), the 33 1/3 series are a fascinating and revealing collection of books. Written by music fans for music fans, this series will never grow old, never grow boring, and goes far into explaining the mysticism and appeal behind these priceless bodies of work, for your own personal pleasure or just in case you happen to know someone who just doesn’t understand.

Sydney art-pop quintet Dappled Cities have steadily grown in status in the last ten years with home-grown audiences as well as pushing 2006’s Granddance and their most recent psyche-pop opus Zounds down the throats of the Americans. Shortly after the Australian release of Zounds, Chris Berkley of Static spoke to Dave Rennick, guitarist and vocalist of Dappled Cities about birthing and touring the album.

Justin Vernon (more commonly known as Bon Iver) erupted onto the independent music scene with For Emma, Forever Ago, an album whose woodland melancholy was melodic enough for traditional folk fans, aching enough for singer-songwriter devotees, and ethereal enough for experimentalists. Traditional but strange, concrete but elusive, and undeniably beautiful. Unmap is an appropriate title, then, for an album that ditches Vernon’s previous blueprint in favor of something a little harder to grasp, joined by post-rock aficionados Collections of Colonies of Bees.

Volcano Choir does not sound like a forced conglomeration of artists; disparate though their sounds may be, they mesh with surprising comfort. Opener “Husks and Shells” is less a song than an invitation into the album’s alien aesthetic. It’s all acoustic twists, electronic blips, and waves of Vernon’s trademark falsetto. Though not mind-blowing, it’s powerfully numbing, as warm as hot chocolate running down your throat. “Seeplymouth” builds, loop upon loop, in classic post-rock fashion, until the two-minute mark, when the instruments decrescendo to make room for Vernon. A minute later, the song has become something as lonesome and aching as anything on For Emma, building on the bombast only hinted at by the second part of “The Wolves (Act I and II).” The third track, “Island, IS,” is the most instantly likeable. Vernon’s oo oo oo’s are impossibly enticing, while the verse finds him for once in his normal register, and with a swagger that leans towards hip-hop, all set against a twinkling electronic web of melody. The result is a fantastic pop song, and one neither band could have produced alone. The sound of these first songs, appropriately echoed by the album’s cover, is of nomads trekking through the snow, eyes cast down, mumbling chants into the air atop a strangely natural fusion of acoustic and electronic sounds. The effect is paradoxically organic, modern sounds blended to create something somehow more primitive than just a man and a guitar.

But as cohesive as these first three tracks are, the next six are jarringly schizophrenic. “Dote” is little more than a wash of ambience and static, while “And Gather” is something like a grade school choir exercise, complete with handclaps.  On “Mbira in the Moras,” Vernon has aged suddenly from an elementary schoolboy to a world-worn soul singer, backed by unsupportive, discordant string plucks. “Cool Knowledge” is more intriguing, but incomplete. Just as it’s about to build into something great, it’s over. The album makes a comeback on its penultimate track, “Still,” which takes Bon Iver’s autotuned “Woods” and builds it into a towering statement that outdoes the original ten times over. Closer “Youlogy” is disappointing in comparison, but strange enough to leave the listener interested – are those echoes of “The Star-Spangled Banner” I hear?

Despite echoes of its parent bands (and whispers of Animal Collective), Volcano Choir sounds truly unlike any band I’ve ever heard. That said, Unmap is unfocused, less a great album than a handful of ideas, some fantastic, others not. The band is clearly passionate, but its intent is muddled: the vocals are too subdued to be easily understood, and the songs hover in that vague place that could be either joy or despair. The album could, perhaps, have been tightened into something less wandering, but that probably would have been beside the point. This is the sound of two bands coming together and stretching their collective wings. This in mind, its faults are easy to ignore in light of the moments of brilliance. Focus on these – the points where the chemistry is undeniable, the sound fresh, and the tones transcendently beautiful.

Perhaps in another hundred years Luke Haines will receive the recognition he’s craved/deserved/spurned outside of the dozen or so hacks and fans who‘ll praise a man who‘s rarely put a foot wrong; even when he broke both legs to avoid climbing the stage to perform for us. His one-time chance at the top with The Auteurs was short-lived, but the Haines name stuck throughout the 90’s and 00’s like a burr on pop music‘s back, with it being attached to his own solo work, side-projects and a film soundtrack. His ire and love of England undiminished.

Having released a comprehensive collection of rare/unavailable tracks from his varied career in Luke Haines is Dead, Haines’ resurrection in 2006 with Off My Rocker at the Art School Bop came a little too soon for this modern day Lazarus. Incredibly, 21st Century Man is his fifteenth album (counting Auteurs, Black Box Recorder, etc) and finds Haines at his most potent and memorable, like a commentator glancing back at the 20th century, stringing together disparate cultural ‘icons’ like Peter Hammill and Klaus Kinski, tongue firmly placed in cheek. In some ways it feels like it’s his most quintessential album. A man looking back over his own career, realising what worked, what didn’t and harnessing it.

“It’s the same old story we’ve heard before”, Haines begins, topically self-aware and never one to stray outside his comfort zone with the Satanists that lurk in “Suburban Mourning” and his recurrent themes of death and dying grimly given, yet cheerfully delivered. From “Peter Hammill” of Prog rockers Van Der Graaf Generator to “Klaus Kinski” (which manages to rhyme “lucky” with “fuck me”), Haines is still hot for the Glam Rock revival, culminating with the glitter band “Rock and Roll Part 2“ moon stomp of “Wot A Rotter“. The soft strummed “Love Letter To London” is Haine’s own “Waterloo Sunset” castigating those “who used you like a playground when they were young” and then fled to the suburbs to have children.

Stylistically 21st Century Man does feel like a quick whip-round the Haines back catalogue, with the Baader Meinhoff beats of “Our Man In Buenos Aires” making light of a miss-reported rumour that he’d departed England for another kind of paradise. As always, Haines saves the best, and most poignant moment till last with the epic autobiographical title track that farewells the 20th Century while namechecking the Rolling Stones and T-Rex. It’s a testament to Haine’s cultural recollection, the forgotten heroes of the past, and his self-effacing nature,  “I was all over the 90’s/I was all over in the 90’s”. It’s not all over yet.

Logos quickly became a headache for Deerhunter’s Bradford Cox as soon as word went round he was working on a follow-up to last years lengthily titled and ultimately disappointing Let The Blind Lead Those Who Cannot See But Can Feel. Cox who had fallen in and out of strife with his blog postings since Deerhunter became indie scene darlings, had made the mistake of hosting an unfinished version of Logos on his mediashare account, which unknown to him was accessible to all those who went a-poking. Having used his blog to give away his virtual 7” series under his Atlas Sound moniker, Cox was suitably aggrieved when he found his treasure chest looted, threatening to bury Logos altogether.

Thankfully, he didn’t. Released in early 2008, Let The Blind… was a cold, impenetrable and challenging album. Largely recorded by Cox alone on a laptop it was a distant shadow of his work with Deerhunter, but in the space of 18 months, his talent as an artist has grown to match his stature. Making the record slightly less personal, Cox enlisted the help of Noah Lennox of Animal Collective and Laetitia Sadier from Stereolab to turn Logos into what is very much a laid-back pop-oriented album. Logos extends beyond being just a collection of Cox’s home demos and laptop sketches into an enticing cross-section of musical stylings, from acoustic psychedelia and ambient soundscapes, to lush Germanic grooves and effervescent 60’s pop.

Throughout Logos, Cox has threaded a loose stream of consciousness effect that drifts through his lyrics and into the presentation, the overall effect being one of sleepwalking through song, each track seeming to contain a number of loose vocal takes that drift in and out, while the instrumentation is an uncluttered mix of acoustic guitar, live drums and looped ambient pieces seemingly recorded and assembled on the fly. Opening track “The Light That Failed” falls into this blissful dream-like folk-tronica category while songs like “An Orchid” and “Criminals” bring to mind the phrase (and this is not to be taken negatively) “acoustic shoegazing“.

Logos more enticing moments come via the Sesame Street bounce of “Walkabout” built around a sample from “What Am I Going to Do” by 60’s band, The Dovers. It’s a meeting of two minds, combining Animal Collective’s joie de vivre with Deerhunter’s closeted introspection that together outshines the best efforts of either band. The collaboration with Laetitia Sadier “Quick Canal” neatly breaks up the loose folk-loop feel of the album and almost steals the show with its metronomic groove and Sadier’s gallic angelic voice, and at almost 9 minutes long is Logos centrepiece track. But it’s the unabashed romantic pull of “Shelia” that resonates the strongest with its pared down arrangement and oddly poignant “well die alone together” coda that proves just how effective Cox can be on his own.