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In my world, the Mars Volta is the most talented rock band out there right now.

I didn’t say they’re the best, but still, every time I listen to them I can’t help but shake my head at the sheer talent that is at work in their music.  It’s quite humbling and inspiring at the same time — rock music can be that ambitious.

Because they make head-spinningly complex and lengthy music, they have to be put into the progressive rock camp — but really, their music truly defies categorization.  The part that awes me is how their compositions are so beyond the fundamental stuff like keys and riffs and melody.   Oh yes, those things are all there in spades, but they just weave them in and out, stretch them and morph them, as easily as playing with a playdough.  But their music isn’t some heady and sterile exercise, either — there’s ample emotion in there, too.

So far I’m slowly digesting their first two full-length releases, De-Loused in Comatorium and Frances the Mule.  The former was accessible enough, but the latter overwhelmed me on the first couple of listens.  I just couldn’t make heads or tails, but I patiently spinned it a few times, not too often, and finally I’m beginning to suss it out, like 3 months later.

Take a big, deep bowl, stuff it full of brilliant, quarky and interesting pieces that are each able to keep you attention.  Then you stick your hand into it and see what you grab each time — and admire it.

The Mars Volta.  The most advanced rock there is.  Feeling adventurous?  I recommend them.

If you’re in need of some chill-out music, I highly recommend this disc.  Putting it on always elicits a big sigh of relief from me. I really don’t have much info on this guy except that he’s Icelandic. A while ago Derek Sivers traveled to Iceland and apparently thought highly of the place — I am in general interested in northern European countries that apparently have eradicated poverty and illiteracy as problems from their societies.  I am sure they have other problems they wrestle with, but I just wonder if they have more evolved societies compared to the rest of the world.

Anyway, pretty much every song in this collection is an introspective and intimate affair, but without being a downer or bummer.  That’s a hard line to keep for some of us, including yours truly.  No jolt of energy or drama needed — just put it on, turn down the lights, and chill out.  It’s subtle enough where you can listen to it many times and don’t get tired of it.  It’s really awesome.

Over the past years I’ve really gotten into chamber music.  String qurtets, of course, but also Piano Quintets and Quartets.  I’m mainly a string guy (guitars are stringed instruments!) so I’m really not into brass or woodwind quintets, for some reason.

Anyway, the fun thing about chamber music is its intimacy and players’ personalities and feelings really coming through.  Different groups have different personalities and sounds.  It’s not quite as obvious as rock bands — it’s not like they’re using different distortion pedals — but still, character is important and fun in music.

I highly recommend you check out your local library if you want to explore some new musical territories.  This morning I’m listening to Fauré’s two Piano Quartets by the Ames Piano Quartet.  I’m really not familiar with this French composer but so far these two quartets, both in minor keys, are excellent.  (Being a tragic romantic, I tend to like pieces in minor keys) I really enjoy what I heard so far of Takács Quartet’s reading of Beethoven string quartets — I imagine those are what Hendrix are to guitarists for string quartets.  Also, Kronos Quartet’s disc of Górecki’s String Quartet #3 — not something I listen to everyday, as it’s quite understated, dissonant and challenging — yet it’s very rewarding.

Chamber music seems like a really underappreciated area of music.  String quartets show up here and there in pop music but like I said before, they really aren’t arranged in a way to really take advantage of their range.  I think string quartets or piano quintets would make a terrific format to score some classy, understated film.  And I sometimes daydream of having a rock band consisting of string quartets + guitar, bass and drums — and just writing some crazy heavy stuff (if you doubt strings’, particularly cellos, ability to play heavy music, check out Apocalyptica).

Anyway, if you like complex rock bands and want to expand your horizon, chamber ensembles are a great place to go.  It’s a very rich field — I don’t claim to have really tapped into myself.  But that’s what makes it fun, too — it’s a deep well.

This beautifully recorded gem was a find from a local radio station excess bin.  I don’t really know anything about them, except that they’re Aussies.  These 13 songs are mellow and understated acoustic chestnuts, but with just enough momentum in it so that it doesn’t really sap your energy.

It’s of utmost importance to me that an album has a great opener — it can make or break an album for me — and “Mango Tree” is a great one.  A song of quiet yearning, not heavy-handed at all.  “Silver Coin” has exceptionally lush string quartet going.  I often think critically of strings in pop music — the arrangements seem so lazy most of the time — but not here.  The title track is a stand-out as well, a piece of piercing vulnerability.  “Bella” is innocent, “Paper Aeroplane” is playful.  But the nice thing about this collection is that the overall pacing and mood are very consistent.  Everything feels so relaxed, sparse and organic.  #3 “Private Lawns” is slightly annoying with its repetitive “Windy City” refrain, but that’s my only gripe.

These guys are really accomplished at sounding very natural, which I admire.  There’s not a moment of strain or awkwardness.  They don’t try to be be something they’re not.  Their range has enough variety to avoid boredom but also focused enough not to be jarring. They’re very original, too — I can’t recall who they sound like off the top of my head.  The production’s mostly all acoustic affair, but they don’t sound all that folky or rootsy.  If you liked Nickel Creek precisely because they aren’t really bluegrass act — and had them grow up to be fine parents who still haven’t lost the heart of a child — and then added drums (a small kit, though, with brushes) maybe you’ll get somewhere close to these Stones.

Anyway, I’ve been enjoying this record a lot.  I highly recommend it.

This album is in very heavy rotation in my player right now.  Copeland is an indie pop rock band from Florida — and that’s about all I know about them.  You Are My Sunshine is their fourth album, released on the Christian label Tooth and Nail, though the album has nothing remotely religious on them, which suits me just fine.  I found the CD in the dust bin at a local radio station — a secular station, in fact.

On the first listen, You Are My Sunshine struck me as just another Eagles/Beach Boys-inspired act, because of its stacking harmonies and high, falsetto singing.  But beneath the veneer laid something much deeper and personal.  The first three tracks — “Should You Return”, “The Grey Man” and “Chin Up” are all stand-outs, as is the cathartic “On the Safest Ledge,” but there are no weak songs in this 12-song collection.  The production is mature, understated and very consistent — doesn’t strike me as a hodge-podge gathering of songs but more like a uniform song-cycle.  I checked up on their earlier albums and it sounds like this soft pop/rock sound is a recent evolution for them, as the earlier songs sound edgier and come across more like a garage act, with more abrasive guitars.  Tinges of that are still apparent on this album, but it’s mostly a polished and slick affair.  But they do so without sounding sterile.

The main man Aaron Marsh pulls off something that’s very difficult.  First, his light and pure singing — very androgynous (look elsewhere if you’re looking for testosterone) comes across as very sensitive and emotional without sounding melodramatic.  And his lyrics employ fairly generic words, like love and pain and eyes-wide-open, yet none of the songs are shallow nor obvious.  When I try to write songs, I try to bring in exotic words to sound fresh and to camouflage its deeper meaning — but this guy does so with very everyday-language.  Yet its emotional depth is not diminished in the least, and even clichéd lines don’t sound so.

“Chin Up” is the album’s emotional center piece.  Stacked with soaring harmonies and lush strings, this is perhaps the most overtly dramatic songs on the set.

“With your eyes closed,
Watching a strange show play out in your head,
But you were smiling somehow.
And your day froze,
And everyone in it sat still as a rose,
But we were moving somehow.

Back to when we started losing who we were.
Maybe we should only tip a bottle back to keep us filled up.
Back to when we started losing who we were.
Everybody knows that you’d break your neck to keep your chin up.”

On the first listen I thought this was really melodramatic — the punch line about how you break your neck, simply to keep you chin up — the “chin up” gesture seemed too small for the violent “break your neck” image.  But then it occurred to me how true that is — meaning, how we go out pretending, trying so hard to present to the outside world that we are OK, when inside we are desperate and reeling in pain.  Keeping our chin up is such a small accomplishment for the heavy price we pay, the great extent we go to hide the truth.

Despite the tongue-in-cheek corny name like You Are My Sunshine, Copeland really pushes my “sensitive guy” button. It’s subtle and deep enough to withstand repeated listens, too, though the songs are fairly short, arrangements simple, and vocabulary un-exotic.  I highly recommend it to everyone who digs sensitive pop/rock bands with literary and insightful lyrics, like Toad the Wet Sprocket, Jars of Clay and Death Cab for Cutie.

Jars of Clay has always been an act I greatly admire but I don’t like.  I’m sure if I meet them in person, I’d be great friends with them.  And it’s not that I can’t stand their music — in fact, I really liked their first album, and their acoustic-studio hybrid “Furthermore.”  In the other words, when they try to play the role of generic electric rock band — I check out.

But I digress.  The song “Work” is a very big exception to my relationship with Jars.  I don’t just like it, I love it.  I have always loved Dan Haseltine’s insightful lyrics and everyman voice.  I usually don’t like what he does with his voice, but I feel like he struggles quite a bit with his narrow range as a singer — a struggle I very much share.

And this is one occasion where what he can do with his voice just really falls in place within the context of an electric band.  Being aggressive and insightful at the same time don’t come easy for most bands, so for this one, Dan went for the raw universality of loneliness, the debilitating desperation of it.  The fact that it’s in a weird key for guitars suggests they carefully had to place it in the right spot for Dan to go all out — and all out he does, in the cathartic climax. The fear of being alone isn’t exactly my personal deepest fear but I just can’t help being drawn in.

“When all the demons look like prophets
And I’m living out every word they speak.”

I like the punchline about the fear of drowning, too, but to me the most sobering moment comes from the lines above.  How many times have I done things, knowing they are wrong?  Fully aware that I shouldn’t do them?  The feeling that I hook onto this song sits right there — the fear of admitting that I am an uglier soul than I’d like to admit, being something I don’t mean to be, but can’t seem to help myself.  Feeling powerless to control my own behaviors.  If that is not akin to the fear of drowning, then I’m not sure what is.

Incidentally, the video they did for this song is also one of the finest ever, not just of theirs but of all the music videos, in my book.  It’s a hit-you-in-the-chest display of the band actually slowly submerged into water — from the muted colors to the manic expressions in Dan’s performance to the sheer technical brilliance of pulling off the whole thing in a single, unedited take, everything in this video lines up to make a gut-wrenching emotional impact.  Boy, what I’m writing really doesn’t do justice to the feelings I get watching from it.  The official clip on YouTube forbides embedding, but you can certainly watch it there.

On Saturday July 25, I got to see Willy Porter & Toad the Wet Sprocket at Cabooze in Minneapolis.  I went because Toad is one of my all-time favorite bands — I listened and listened to their last 3 albums, Fear, Dulcinea and Coil.  They broke up in 1998, but since then they seem to regroup every year to play a few dates.

I debated with myself whether I wanted to go to this or not, as I am interpreting their action as “cashing in” on their past glory.  A band that called it quits 11 years ago is, I hate to say it, is a “has been” act.  The only reason for them to reunite and play shows is because the incentive is there — either money or re-living of their old glory thanks to their VERY loyal fan base.  I realize I’m being harsh here, I am not saying I won’t do what they are doing if I were in their shoes — but let’s just say it’s safe to assume that their shows are not driven by artistic motiviations.

Anyway, Willy Porter was up first — and boy, was I ever glad that i went early enough to catch him.  He walked on stage by himself, with a pristine looking Guild acoustic in his hand — and proceeded to start tapping on the strings like a madman.  At this point, I thought “oh, he’s one of those instrumental acoustic virtuoso” like Michael Hedges.  But then, he started to sing.  While tapping on his guitar like a madman. And not just afterthought vocal lines, either.  The songs really were all top notch compositions.

Wow.

The man completely re-defined my notion of what was possible to play and sing at the same time.  His percussive acoustic riffing were literally like he produced a whole band with just a single guitar — it really sounded like the music didn’t need anything else.  His songs were humorous, his vocal range impressive, and his pacing superb.  This is a man clearly seasoned by many years on the road.

I’m sure he has absolutely no need for a producer in studio — he just strikes me as a man who’s very, very smart — but if I were to make a suggestion, I thought that his tapping and banging wizardry was so impressive that when he went into more traditional fingerpicking, it just seemed so mundane in comparison.  He did that very well, too, mind you.  Oh, and I almost forgot to mention his completely improvised song — he had an audience call out some lyrical themes — that sounded totally like a well-thought out song.  Perhaps he has some formats or melody lines he reuse for these, but still, it was impressive.

I’d have to count Willy among one of the most talented musicians I’ve ever seen.  He just had everything, all in his self.

After that, I thought there was no chance that Toad could follow up and top Willy, and I was right.  It was very generous of Toad to let a man who was singularly more talented than all four of them combined open for him.

Toad opened the show with “Something’s Always Wrong” which was slow and uninspired.  I noticed that while Glen (vocalist and the chief songwriter, who’s been pursuing solo since the breakup) was in fine shape both physically and vocally, but Todd (guitarist) and Dean (bass/bgv) were very overweight, making them totally look like middle-aged men reliving the good ol’ days.  And Randy (drums) — what happened to him?  His hair seemed totally gray and he appeared so frail, I was worried that he wouldn’t be able to hit his drums hard.

However, as they got into their set, Toad seemed to ascertain its footings — and things began to gel.  The set included many songs from Dulcinea (though “Fly from Heaven” was conspicuously missing), and most of them translated very well.  It helped, I’m sure, that the place was packed, mostly by 30-something yuppies, who were all too happy to see their college favorite return.  The band was very gracious and played most of their hits.

I never realized what a good bass player Dean was.  I already knew his soaring backing vocals were a force to reckon with, but he seamlessly alternated between  finger-picking to flat-picking and was always locked in with Randy.  And Randy did just fine, too — I needn’t have worried.  There were a few false starts and such, but they came from Glen mainly.

Which brings me to my next point.  Glen sang well and were appreciative of his audience throughout, but I couldn’t help notice his grave facial expression that crept up here and there, particularly when Todd was taking a solo.  No, I don’t think Glen was jealous of Todd or anything — but it really looked to me like he wasn’t having fun.  He wasn’t without smiles, he wasn’t inattentive to his crowd, and the band played well all in all — but it was more a professional affair than a joyful one.

Speaking from experience, there usually is much appreciation on the part of artists when people gather to see them play.  It was there, too, that night, but for Toad it seemed to have come from a bit shallower place.

This is pure speculation, but I can’t help but imagine that for Glen — a man who’s been struggling with a meandering solo career since the breakup — this is a bittersweet experience, to see people gather to hear him play with his old band, who’s long been “done” creatively.  And this is further speculation — but judging by the fact that the rest of the band continues to collaborate with each other on and off among themselves, I suspect it was Glen who found the band setting confining to his artistic growth.  (I recall reading Todd saying something to the effect that it was Glen who vetoed the band getting back together full time)

All of this, of course, is none of my business, but as a fan of the band, I felt a bit unfulfilled by their professional, dutiful performance.  Perhaps I’m reading a bit too far because my pre-conceived notion of where they are with their careers.

They did have one extra member, John Hawthorn, who played lap steel and mandolin mainly.  Unfortunately, his contributions were much buried in the mix and I really couldn’t hear what he was adding, except for sporadic solos here and there.

Anyway, I was still glad I went, as it was a great reminder of what great their songs were.   They don’t sound dated at all.  And it was cool that they were experimenting a bit by having one additional player with them.  They played well and were attentive to their crowd.

But I came away feeling that their performance was missing one key ingredient — heart.  Will I go again if they come my way?

I’m really not sure.

If I’m going to write some reviews of live gigs, I better have some photos, shouldn’t I?  I’ll try to remember that, the next gig I attend.  I have a decent camera, too.

This last Saturday was International Children’s Festival in downtown St. Paul, so my family and I checked it out.  While the booths they had set up was ho-hum, the live acts were terrific.  We caught the first two acts on Sunday morning.

Rince na Chroi is a Celtic dance ensemble for girls, and they were accompanied by Two Tap Trio.  The girls were extremely well-trained, and I also noticed how relaxed they seemed on stage, with smiles abound on everyone’s faces.  They certainly knew how to put on a good show!

Two Tap Trio was able accompanists, and in particular, I was very impressed by their bodhran player.  A bodhran is an Irish drum that’s about 1.5-2 in diameter and skin only on one side.  Here’s a pretty thorough tutorial on it:

It’s a very, very expressive drum in the hands of an able player, and the skinsman in Two Tap Trio was great. He had dynamics and pocket, and never overplayed. It’s funny because I have produced 3 Celtic folk albums so far, but each time my job was to put in elements that are not traditionally Celtic — so I really am ignorant of what “traditional” Celtic music is supposed to sound like.

Two Tap Trio was very competent and pleasantly understated.  If I were to produce them, I would put them in a nice wooden room, hopefully use abundance of room mics (as well as close mics) and capture them playing live together.

Next up was Up till 2, a pop a capella group.  Now, I am not as unfamiliar with this type of music — after all, I went to St. Olaf, where they have a in-house group called the LimeStones — and I have seen a few groups over the years.  And what strikes me about them is how similar they are to each other.  Not just in terms of their sound, but also in terms of their characters.  These vocal groups tend to attract middle-class, well-educated and slick-looking and sounding guys, unlike most indie rock musicians.

So if they are so similar to each other, what’s Up till 2’s claim to fame?  Well, they had one guy who was the dedicated beatmaker — yes, he made drum sounds using his mouth and a microphone — so their music had beats.  Now, that’s one fundamental way to differentiate themselves from the run-of-the-mill vocal groups.  And the guy was good, too — his rhythm had a nice propelling momentum to it, and he locked in tight with the guy who was singing bass.  They claim to make sounds of a band using nothing but voices, and they did it fairly well, but beyond the “rhythm section” I felt like what fell on top didn’t go quite far enough to support their claims.  If they’re going to reproduce a whole band, they can feature imitations of guitar riffs and horn swells more prominently.

Which brings me to my next point: if I were to produce them, what would I do to further set them apart from other vocal groups?  Most a capella recordings I heard are simple live captures of their performances, but in these guys’ case, I’d try overdubbing and have them fill out their music more with their staple imitation of instruments.  Of course, I’d be careful not to overdo it, so that the live versions of their songs won’t sound thin and disappointing, but a studio is a studio — subtle enhancing on essence is perfectly allowed, in my opinion, even for vocal groups.  It’ll also be interesting to play with different mics and effects on voices.  I’ve never heard of a vocal group who really take advantage of what a studio offers to more regular bands, so that’ll be an exciting experiment.

All in all, they put a very entertaining show — they were animated and energetic on stage, and their chemistry together as a group was apparent.  A good family entertainment, for sure.

I recently was treated to an evening of instrumental rock.  There were 4 instrumental acts on the lineup on Friday, May 22nd at the Terminal Bar in Minneapolis, and I caught 3 of them — the Woodsman from Colorado, and local acts History and Falcon Arrow.  Instrumental rock isn’t exactly a genre I immerse myself in, but a friend of mine (Tate, who plays in History) sent me some sketches of his band’s material and I really fell in love.  I need to get hold of some Mogwai and Explosions in the Sky (the big guns of this genre) now that I realized how much I like this type of music.

The Woodsman is a 4-piece with two guitars and two drummers.  Yes, that’s right — 2 drummers.  I’ve always been curious about 2 drummer acts (there aren’t that many — Allman Brothers and some incarnations of King Crimson come to mind), as I am just a fan of drums and percussions.  Probably growing up in Brazil has something to do with my love of percussive instruments.  Anyway, the drummers were indeed very interesting, as it seemed like the two of them played a single kit — there was only one hi-hat and one kick drum, and one of them helped out in the melodic department on a glockenspiel. After they were done, I asked the drummers about their setup and they said that originally they started with two full kits, but they trimmed them down to the current set up as there were just a lot going on.

The Woodsman’s music is like an ocean tide, rising and falling over extended periods, flowing and ebbing constantly.  I don’t think any of their songs were under 5 minutes.  As far as live acts go, they were so beautifully and fully developed — the foursome completely filled up the sonic scape.  There wasn’t anything I would have added to the mix.  If I was producing them, this would be a great case of simply putting the band all in one room and capturing their performance — with effects and all.  I’d lean heavily on room mics to capture the air that they’re moving.  And because they are fully developed and has little room for additions, I’d say they don’t really need a producer — just go into a studio with an able engineer and self-produce an album.  And if/when they do, I’d for sure be checking that out.

History is a local 3-piece of guitar, guitar, drums.  (I wondered if “no bass” was to be the theme of the night, but that was to be remedied amply by the last act)  Their set was filled with youthful energy and great performance — they were definitely the most entertaining act to watch that night.   Their songs balance melodic content with rhythmic complexity.  Drummers play very important roles in this kind of music, as guitars aren’t often doing anything too complicated (technically speaking, that is) and History’s skinsman didn’t disappoint in this area with lots of inventive drumming that always supported the song.

As a producer, this is an act I’d love to work with, as I heard lots of untapped potential in their music.  They may balk at the idea but if I were producing them, I’d try adding bass and keyboards to the mix.  They didn’t rely on effects as much as the Woodsman so I felt that there were some spaces left to be filled.

Falcon Arrow is a 2-piece (things were progressively getting leaner as the night went!) duo of bass and drums.  Man, what they did with those two elements totally defied my expectations.  The bassist played a Precision with generous amount of distortion, and looped various parts and concocted a huge wall of sound.  His techniques were flawless, as he moved seamlessly from busy strumming to single note lines.  The drummer was rock solid and equally inventive.  Add in liberal amount of punky attitude and you’d get music like no other.

If I was producing this act, I’d be tempted to see what other elements can their music accommodate — OK Computer/Yankee Hotel Foxtrot style electronic manipulation and noises, perhaps?  It’ll have to be sparse and nothing too obvious or recognizable, as the two of them really take up a lot of space.

All in all, it was a pretty eye-opening evening, and I’ll have fun digging up some new stuff from the genre of instrumental rock.  All 3 acts are great live performers, so I’d recommend you checking them out if you have a chance.