Albums of the Week Sept 2nd to 9th

Well I basically didn’t do these in the entire month of August apparently, but I’m getting right back to it. How has everyone been, what has everyone been listening to? These are albums I listened to a lot the last two weeks, I cheated a bit:

Lloyd Cole and the Commotions – Rattlesnakes [1984]

I bought this on vinyl two weekends ago and let me tell you, if you are ever sad Lloyd Cole is your man. Listen to “Are You Ready to Be Heartbroken” on repeat and you’ll be ready. Play Rattlesnakes and sing along. Seriously, have you heard this album? Lloyd Cole is the man.

Who is this: English pop act from the 80s, the ‘Lloyd’ referenced in the Camera Obscura song “Lloyd, I’m ready to be Heartbroken”

Where are they from: Lloyd Cole is from Derbyshire England, and the band formed in Glasgow, Scotland

Sounds like: I’m a little blown away over how much I love this album. It’s one of those you put on repeat until you can pretty much sing along to every song even though you’ve only known about it for a few weeks. Anytime I haven’t known what to listen to, I’ve put this on. It’s confident, wordy English pop music.

Best Songs: Rattlesnakes, Are You Ready to Be Heartbroken?, Perfect Skin

No Age – An Object [2013]

Who is this: Sub Pop’s DIY experimental punk duo

Where are they from: Los Angeles

Sound like?: I wrote ya a review

Best Songs: C’mon Stimmung, No Ground, I Won’t Be Your Generator

of Montreal – Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer [2007]

I’m an Athens kid, of course I get down to of Montreal. I actually finally ended up reading Story of the Eye this past weekend because of the Georges Bataille namedrop in The Past is A Grotesque Animal. I highly recommend the book. It’s nothing like you are expecting [unless you are familiar with it] but it’s oddly compelling and oddly beautiful and just odd.

Who is this: bedroom dance pop college town kings

Where are they from: Athens, GA

Sound like?: Catchy and dancey and tons of fun, it might be my favourite of Montreal album. I really dig The Past is A Grotesque Animal but I have a friend who always skips it because it’s a downer of a track and he listens to of Montreal to have fun.

Best Songs: The Past is A Grotesque Animal [a 12 minute emotional breakdown/ greatest desperate love song ever], Gronlandic Edit [I could play this bassline all day], Suffer for Fashion [the first oM song I’ve ever heard]

 

Album Review: No Age – An Object

Sub-Pop’s noisy LA duo is back with a garishly packaged neon green and orange album that screams An Object with every bit of punctuation they felt like rounding up. It’s a harsh haphazard combination of elements that shouldn’t look so fantastic together, yet do! It’s bold and blinding and somehow completely compelling. The music is precisely the same, in it’s “Why do I like this, I love this, I could see people not liking this-” The album art is an integral part of An Object’s messy, abstract DIY aesthetic. If the cover looks like it was made from askew type and scraps found on the floor of a graphic design studio its because the album itself sounds like odd bits and pieces scraped together into songs. If the colours seem harsh yet coherent, its because the album itself is a held together cacophony. An Object An Object? “An Object” is homemade eccentric punk with a heavy avant-garde twist. They are weird, but not willfully. They are noisy and fuzzy but not because they are trying to emulate anyone. Genre defying only because they come so close, just not close enough, to fitting in anywhere. They are fuzzy oddball little misfits, but they are confident in their sound, whatever it is. The album is as uncertain and pieced together as the album art, but like the art it totally totally works.