It has been a crazy week here at Citizen Dick and around the world, chock full of special occasions and semi-holidays. In case you haven’t been paying attention, we had the Snuggie Pub Crawl here in Chicago on Saturday, 4/20 on Monday (I’m not quite sure what this means myself, but I have been told it is a big deal in certain circles), Earth Day on Wednesday, The 25th birthday of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on Thursday (yeah, that one makes me feel a little bit old), and this whole week has been designated as Sparkle Week in NYC (no idea what that means, but I have been donning sequins all week in celebration anyway). With so much going on lately, the idea of TGIF couldn’t be more accurate. Although, for some of you, I’m sure that our weekly Hodge Podge column is reason for celebration in its own right, so maybe we should hold off on the relaxation for one more day and rejoice in a handful of kick-ass mp3’s to get the weekend started. As our Turtle friends would say, “Cowabunga, dude!”
Although they are yet to release a single album, Clues is a band that has been hyped in indie circles for nearly a year now. Originally formed in 2007, performing a handful of clandestine shows in random Canadian venues, the band is the brainchild of Unicorns founder Alden Penner and Brendan Reed, formerly of Arcade Fire. Given the pedigree of the primary members, the amount of buzz the band has generated should come as no surprise. Unicorns has long been one of my favorite bands despite only being around for a short period of time, with their excellent 2003 release Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone? still in regular rotation on my iPod, and I think that the work of Arcade Fire speaks for itself. When Unicorns disbanded back in 2005 a small part of me died, so the imminent release of Penner’s new project is of particular interest to me. After being utterly let down by Islands, the side project from the other Unicorns founder Nicholas Thorburn, it was obvious that Penner was the brains behind the operation and heavy influence from previous Unicorns recordings is prevalent in the handful of Clues songs I have heard so far. Earlier this week, the band’s label, Constellation Records, set the official release date for Clues’ debut self titled album for May 19th and made public two tracks from the album. Both of those tracks are posted below and are oozing with all the eclectic lo-fi goodness that made Unicorns so amazing. I suggest that all of you mark your calendars for 5/19 and snag this album right away; I have a feeling it is one you will not want to miss.
Clues – “Remember Severed Head”
Next up today is a band that I have only recently discovered, regardless of the fact that they have been together and putting out music since 2003. Wooden Shjips is a San Francisco quartet that describes their sound as minimalist psych bop, which isn’t an inaccurate description by any means. The group recently released their second album, appropriately titled Dos, on Holy Mountain records just a few days ago. Containing only five tracks, the inclusion of a few mammoth jams stretches the length to just shy of 40 minutes, thus technically making Dos a proper long player.
The core of the band’s sound revolves heavily around fuzzed out guitars and barely-there vocals set to a backdrop of whirling rhythms that maintain their beat with the ferocity of a mountain lion. In other words, the strength of Wooden Shjips lies in their ability to inject each track with heavy doses of furiously hypnotic repetition. The result is a dark and primitive sound, void of any noticeable production sheen yet still seemingly polished. And despite the glaring overtones of gloom and whirling repetition, you could easily get up and dance to this album. Though since this record is obviously meant for folks who are way too cool for dancing, a bit of toe tapping and head nodding should work just fine instead.
Today’s vault track comes from Sparklehorse, the musical identity of multi-instrumentalist genius Mark Linkous. As a pioneer in the do-it-yourself arena of indie music that has become increasingly popular today, Linkous has been making records under the Sparklehorse name since 1995. Beyond his musical exploits, Linkous is also a bit of a modern marvel in and of himself, having actually been legally dead for a brief period of time back in 1996. While touring with Radiohead in London in support of his debut album, he overdosed on a combination of anti-depressants, alcohol, and heroin, causing his heart to completely stop for several minutes and nearly leading to the loss of both of is legs. Luckily, Linkous survived the scare with both legs intact and has continues to provide us with his unique brand of avant-garde electronically manipulated roots music. The track “Comfort Me” comes from the 2001 release It’s a Wonderful Life, the first Sparklehorse record that was both written and recorded in its entirety while Linkous was clean and sober. The song itself is an ideal embodiment of the Sparklehorse experience; beautiful yet broken, delicate yet rough, and uplifting yet drowned in pain. As is typically the case with Linkous, the lyricism is poetically irreverent and performed in a voice that seems as fragile as the arrangements that accompany it.
That’s my picture of Sparklehorse there. Just heard the news. Peace to the man. He was great to work with that day, was learning Sunday Morning Coming Down (the lyrics are on his knee), and we walked slowly through Brooklyn to a graveyard.