The Summer of Scott Pilgrim

Back when I was first talking to Bryan Lee O’Malley about his upcoming “Scott Pilgrim” book series in 2004, neither of us ever imagined what a huge sensation it would become. International best-seller, lauded by critics and media outlets, a cultural touchstone for an entire generation of slacker hipsters. Even with all that’s come before, though, summer 2010 will be remembered as the summer of Scott Pilgrim. It all starts next week with the release of the sixth and final volume in the series, Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour, wherein all questions will be answered, all plot threads tied up, and we’ll all have to move on to something else. A mere three weeks later sees the release of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game on the Playstation Network. The 16-bit River City Ransom homage sports squeal-worthy art direction by acclaimed animator Paul Robertson and an original soundtrack by Brooklyn’s own chiptune power group Anamanaguchi. Fandom is sure to reach an all time high, though, with the August 13th release of the major motion picture adaptation Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, directed by Shaun of the Dead‘s Edgar Wright and starring a cavalcade of hip young actors from everything cool in the past decade.

Intense new seasons of cutting-edge TV drama

The two most-talked about season finales last year were those from Dexter and Mad Men. One season ended with a small core team of the characters quitting their jobs, stealing everything they could from their old office and setting up their brand new agency in a tiny apartment, the other ended with the protagonist stopping the world’s most successful serial killer only to find his wife as the killer’s final victim and himself with no alibi (see if you can guess which show was which). Dexter and Mad Men were both already among the most popular and celebrated shows on television, but the status quo-changing finales last year served as fantastic set-ups for what are absolutely certain to be fresh and exciting new seasons. The characters are all forced into wholly new situations (starting a new business from the ground-up, divorce, single parenthood, suspicion of murder), the intensity be positively rife.

New albums from the biggest names in indie-rock

2010′s already been pretty great for music. We’ve seen long-awaited returns from the likes of Gorillaz, Gil Scott-Heron, and Devo, powerful returns from Los Campesinos!, LCD Soundsystem, and Xiu Xiu, and stellar debuts from the Drums, Fang Island, and Sleigh Bells. Fantastic as all that has been, there’s the very good chance all of that may be forgotten when the tidal wave of summer and fall releases hit, including new albums from the Books, Menomena, Arcade Fire (whose The Suburbs is seen at right), Chromeo, !!!, Klaxons, Eels, Interpol, The Thermals, Les Savy Fav, Röyksopp, The Walkmen, Of Montreal, No Age, Ben Folds, and Antony & the Johnsons. If there’s not a band in that list that gets you excited and tingly then you probably aren’t hip enough to be targeted by national advertising campaigns for your valuable interest. Plainly stated, that’s a pretty epic lineup of album releases. Here’s hoping most of them don’t suck!

Toy Story 3

It’s hard to look past the history of the Toy Story franchise. The very first entirely computer-animated theatrical release, the original Toy Story captivated audiences fifteen years ago. It’s sequel in 1999 met with universal acclaim, a surprisingly existential family film that provoked thought and feelings in a way uncharacteristic of summer blockbusters. Toy Story 3 had started as a Disney project independent of creators Pixar, but when Toy Story 1 & 2 director John Lasseter became chief creative officer of Disney animation studios in 2006 his first duty was scrapping the entire production and putting Toy Story 3 back in the hands of Pixar to start from scratch. The result is the most emotionally poignant film I’ve seen in years. The final thirty minutes has the entire audience in a constant stream of salty tears.

Breaking Bad season 3

Bryan Cranston has won two Emmy’s for best lead actor in a drama in a row, and with good cause. The best show on television only got better in its third season as Cranston’s Walter White dug himself deeper into the dark underworld he never wanted to be a part of. Aaron Paul’s Jesse Pinkman gets out of rehab with a new lease on life – to be “the bad guy.” Dean Norris’s Hank Schrader had a series of violent emotional breakdowns, culminating in an edge-of-your-seat showdown with two of the most brutal characters in recent television history. Anna Gunn’s Skylar White even “broke bad” herself, becoming the most actively deceptive character in the cast. The first two seasons of Breaking Bad certainly had their intense moments, but the bar was truly raised this season. It will be hard to wait a whole year to see the ramifications of the cliffhanger finale. Only time and creator Vince Gilligan will tell if these characters can cope with the decisions they’ve made along the way to breaking bad.

Starscream’s The Space Years

Future, and It Doesn’t Work was one of the most pleasant surprises of 2009. The young New York duo Starscream gave us chiptune prog rock that carried audiences on cascading waves of warbled atmosphere and crashed into the rocky cliffs of crunchy garage drums. The delayed follow-up concept EP The Space Years takes this established formula and runs as far as it can go. Fully expecting their audience to be patiently captivated, Damon Hardjowirogo masterfully builds anticipation with long shoegaze-like threads of squarewave harmonies. The relaxed playfulness is like jazz, juxtaposing well with samples of a frantic preacher lecturing about the necessity of repenting ones sins and worrying not for one’s job or Game Boy (ah, I see what you guys did there). George Stroud’s powerful drumming frees the listener from the tension of the slow climb and announces escape velocity, the point at which Starscream explode through the mesosphere. With The Space Years, Starscream have succeeded in making a musical recording that is both other-worldly and grounded, alien and human, takeoff and landing.

Yes, Love Is All have gone ever-so-slightly tropical, presenting a friendlier image than usual (not that they were ever all that threatening, even when singing songs about cat ladies and possibly having killed ex-lovers), but they seem intent to still bring the big fuzzed-out energy that brought them to us in the first place, as evidenced in the very first track:

Faster! Louder! My love for you!
Bigger! Bolder! My love for you!
There’s no sense trying to make that smart, I simply hate every minute that we’re apart!
Taller! Stronger! My love for you!
Wider! Brighter! My love for you!
There’s no point trying to sound smart, I simply hate every minute that we’re apart!

It’s not exactly Shakespeare, but it is fantastically endearing in its straightforwardness.

Not much of a rocker of an album, “The Birds Were Singing With All Their Might” will likely call to mind Phil Collins’ “Sussudio” and “A Side In Bed” is almost slowdance-worthy. The songs are all pleasant enough, but nothing really stands out as something you want to share with your friends, with the possible exception of “Less Than Thrilled” as an example of what Vampire Weekend’s Contra might have sounded like with a female singer.

Two Thousand And Ten Injuries isn’t Love Is All’s worst album so much as it is their third-best album. As background, it is completely inoffensive and even fun and danceable, it just never crosses the threshold into rave-worthy rock and roll.

It’s no secret, of course, that Bloc Party’s next two albums, while commercially successful, were largely disappointing. Outside of a few catchy singles, both A Weekend In The City and Intimacy were largely, well, not very good. It wasn’t all that shocking that the band went on hiatus after a month of touring the UK this past October. So what are a bunch of popular young musicians supposed to do when they take a break from working together? Side projects, of course!

Bloc Party founders Kele Okereke and Russell Lissack already have their projects set for release in the near future. Kele (who as a solo artist goes by his first name only) has teamed up with electronic producer Hudson Mohawke and Alex XXXChange (better known as the DJ to MC Spank Rock) for his solo debut The Boxer set to release at the summer solstice of this year. Lead single “Tenderoni” will be released in June and no music has been heard from the project yet, but considering who is involved (and that the one promo photo features Kele cradling an Akai drum machine), it’s a fair assumption that the production will be a largely electronic affair with an emphasis on rhythmic vocals.

Far more interesting, in my opinion, is Lissack’s long-running Pin Me Down, a power-pop two-piece that originated at Bloc Party’s very first show in New York City. Russell bonded with Milena Mepris from opening band Black Moustache and the two have been swapping tracks over the internet ever since. Their debut single “Cryptic” was released by Kitsuné in 2008 and their full-length self-titled LP is due later this month. Through songs released on their MySpace page over the past three years, Pin Me Down have proven to be utterly danceable and thoroughly rocking, combining Russell’s trademark new-grunge guitar melodies with Milena’s pop siren leads (she’s also written songs for Shakira and Alice Smith).

Bloc Party bassist Gordon Moakes has also formed a new band, Young Legionnaire, with members of The Automatic and La Roux, but not much has been heard from them yet.

Still we are all ever so enamored because of Bloc Party’s debut that we continue to anticipate what will come next. Lissack was quoted in an interview with NME about Pin Me Down that “we’re probably going to pick up again with Bloc Party later this year. I mean, we wrote a lot of new material on the last tour.” I wouldn’t be surprised to hear a couple of new Bloc Party tracks early next year. Whether they’ll be worth the wait is anybody’s guess. Personally, I’ll be happy with more Pin Me Down.

Fang Island’s self-titled debut LP (following two prior EPs) is an exuberant celebration of good times. The sunshine and positive energies of girlsareshort crossed with the well-intentioned guitar thrashing of Wyld Stallyns. Lyrics are minimal and largely unimportant because the soaring guitar harmonies tell all the stories that ever needed telling. Literally starting with fireworks (first listen may have you thinking your stereo speakers are popping), opener “Dream of Dreams” welcomes its audience into the gospel of Fang Island with swelling organ and the chorus “They are all within my reach. They are free.” All are welcome, all are loved. And then the friendly competition begins.

Reminiscent of late 80′s-early 90′s stadium rock, Fang Island’s sound is huge and yet never overwhelming or abrasive. The band describes their own sound as “everyone high-fiving everyone” and the comparison is apt. Lead single “Daisy” sounds positively triumphant. The slow synth chanting of “Davey Crockett” would fit in perfectly with any freak-folk jam before the dueling lead guitars square off in elated squeals of exultation. “Welcome Wagon”‘s swirling apogees bring to mind the end credits of classic Mega Man games of yore.

The overall vibe of Fang Island is that of success. Strife was in the past, the battle is won, we are here to tell the stories, but before that we are here to raise our fists in the air, whip the sweat-drenched hair from our brows, breathe a sigh of relief, and celebrate our victory. Summer camp rock at its absolute best, time will tell whether Fang Island are the next great thing in rock or just another voice to get sick of. For now, though, play it loud and play it proud, Fang Island is one of the most vibrant and exciting releases of 2010.

Linkin Park (the band) (your younger brother probably loved their song “One Step Over” nearly a decade ago) have decided to make a massively multiplayer online iPhone video game. In the process, they are attempting to capitalize on the recent wave of retro-nostalgia (Mega Man 9 & 10, New Super Mario Bros Wii, the chiptune craze, MacGruber) by making the game… ahem… “8-bit.”

It’s so… I can’t… ugh, just watch the trailer:

There are so many things to be upset about here., I’ll allow my friend Joe Larson to do get us started:

1. Where’s the 8-bits? I don’t see anything even remotely 8-bit. Oh? Those chunky pixelated 32-bit era pixels? Fail. That map, no 8 bit. Those weapons, no 8-bit. YOUR CHARACTER, no 8-bit. Your room, no 8-bit. Besides…
2. If this is supposed to be nostalga vs modern then first of all my money is on modern. It’s just better.
3. Oh, they’ve taken a remixed Linkin Park into blippy tracks? Oh, well that might be 8-bit. But it’s still based on pretentious quasi-teen mock angst. Lard, my ears throb just listening to it.
4. I love how they show you the idiot taking a shot at a guy and having the laser pass harmlessly through them, pause, realize it’s a friendly before moving on. Yeah, way to showcase your bad game design there.

It MIGHT be less of a betrayal to its very name if you will eventually change everything into chunky pixels, and it looks like that MIGHT be the case looking at the trailer, though they’re still distinctly 32-bit (like the SNES) sprites and character avatars and weapons are never at any time in the game anything less than hi-def.

Near as I can tell they’re making this game for one person, the Linkin Park fan. That being the case I really hope they plant a subversive piece of code in the game where if you play it for more than 20 hours it detonates your iPhone killing the user and ridding the world of the pretentious middle-class white kids who were probably going to go on a killing spree at some point anyways.

Man, I hate this thing.

Joe, a game developer of his own right (the excellent and much-buzzed ASCIIp0rtal was his doing), makes some excellent points, but there’s just so much more to hate about this project. Just off the top of my head:

1. Do people still care about Linkin Park anymore? Does name recognition like that sell a game? My teenage sister and I refuse any setlist in Rock Band 2 that includes the Linkin Park track or the Paramore track.
2. Unlock an exclusive song? That HAS to have been done before. I can’t cite the example off the top of my liquified-upon-submission-to-nonsense-game-trailer mind, but I refuse to believe there’s never been an exclusive song unlocked in-game before (I know that 50 Cent game last year had a whole bunch of “unreleased” tracks in it… “unreleased” in that they were too shitty for the album… even a 50 Cent album). Besides, that song’s going to be on YouTube and any blogs that still give a crap about Linkin Park the day after somebody competent buys/steals the game.
3. The developer – Artificial Life, inc. – also did the iPhone ports of the Adult Swim games, which in my experience have been mostly shitty, so at least nobody’s besmirching their good name with this nonsense.
4. My favorite t-shirt and hoodie are now soaked with vomit. Thanks a fucking lot, Linkin Park. Why did I have that banana for breakfast? Yuck…

Available to friends within arms’ reach for the past month, Sanskrit Mixtape Volume 23 is hereby available to the internet at large.

1. Temp Sound Solutions‘ “Heart Pitches”
2. Tom Vek‘s “Things Are Here To Stay”
3. Times New Viking‘s “Teen Drama”
4. The Microphones‘ “I Want To Be Cold”
5. Arms‘ “Shitty Little Disco”
6. Wave Machines‘ “Punk Spirit”
7. Plumtree‘s “The Lies I Tell Myself”



8. The Replacements‘ “Birthday Gal”
9. Chris Smither‘s “No Love Today”
10. Spoon‘s “Towner”
11. Diamond Nights‘ “Buddies”
12. Restless People‘s “Days Of Our Lives”
13. Beulah‘s “My Horoscope Said It’d Be A Bad Year”
14. John Gorka‘s “People My Age”
15. Cake‘s “End Of The Movie”

Download the mix in m4a (iTunes) format here. (46.5 MB zip archive)

Sophomore album The Optimist attempts to be more of a serious affair, much like LCD Soundsystem did with great success. All the elements that made Fantastic Playroom are huge dancehall hit remain largely unchanged, yet The Optimist falls far short of any expectations.

The fashionable kids of NYPC have taken the ’80s new wave vibe and run with it, clearly inspired by acts like Blondie and Talking Heads in their new material, but along the way they seem to have lost what people loved about the band to begin with: the fun. Atmospheric instrumental breaks and slower vocals on tracks “Stone,” “Before the Light,” and “Architect of Love” create a dream-like haze that is frankly nauseating. The poppier tracks like “Dolls,” “We Want To,” and “Chaos” are dance tracks you could fall asleep to. Tahita Bulmer’s vocals noticeably end on down notes far more frequently than in previous efforts, giving the entire affair a dour misanthropic vibe.

Here’s hoping we can chalk this LP up to growing pains and the sophomore slump. A more ambitious production with little thought given to the ultimate outcome, The Optimist is a merely decent album from a previously exciting and attention-worthy band.

According to Wikipedia, the lazy man’s source for credible research, The Hives were one of the four tent posts of the garage rock revival of the early 2000s, alongside The Vines, The Strokes and The White Stripes (though little more research shows that The Hives had a number of international hit songs a good solid year before the other three bands). Is it the fact that they are Swedish which prevents us from taking them seriously? Maybe it’s because they wear such dapper matching black and white suits? Perhaps we dislike them because The Hives are so clearly having a great time whenever they play and we simply cannot abide a band being that happy.

Whatever the case, I am here to say The Hives rock and here are some examples to prove my point:

First, the song that sold them on me in the first place, “Two Timing Touch and Broken Bones”:

The Hives first hit our collective radar with their catchy anthem “Hate To Say I Told You So.” Capitalizing on the lo-fi sound and classic aesthetic of the band, the video looked like it came right out of 1970′s public access in the best way possible:

Hitting the air just as MTV was on its last legs of relevancy as far as music was concerned, striking lo-fi videos like “Hate To Say I Told You So” as well as the Michel Gondry-helmed “Fell In Love With A Girl” for The White Stripes were attention-grabbing for their artistic merit more than their glitz and glamour.

It was their next hit video that embraced a classic Russian Revolutionary/Bauhaus style and reminded design nerds like me that these boys were from the land of the Univers type family. “Main Offender” was also featured in those Rock Band games the kids today seem to love so much:

The band’s humor and affection for the swedish art scene came to the forefront again with the 2007 video for “Tick Tick Boom”:

Yes, I know the video cuts abruptly at the end. Stupid YouTube.

Is it just me or are these guys long overdue for a team-up with The Lonely Island?

Even Timbaland likes the Hives, enough so to have collaborated on the song “Throw It On Me” with them. I don’t think I’m overstating to say that without Timbaland’s collaborative powers, significantly fewer people would care about the work of Missy Elliott or Justin Timberlake, so that man has great taste in partners.

Keeping that collaborative spirit going, The Hives teamed up with Cyndi Lauper for the charming “A Christmas Duel” in 2008 and lent their b-side “Fall is Just Something That Grown-Ups Invented” to Cartoon Network for the cable channel’s 2007 broadcast identity.

But yeah, man, look at those suits! These guys are dapper, and you’ve got to love that. The Strokes have major boutique designers dressing them, and they just can’t pull off a photo shoot like The Hives.

And so here we are, after years of teasing and hinting, Beulah mastermind Miles Kurosky has finally released his debut solo album. It has been a slow and exacting process, bringing to mind the rumors of obsessive perfectionism during Beulah’s The Coast Is Never Clear sessions. What does Miles sound like as a “solo artist”? Are the results worth the excruciating wait?

Not exactly…

As expected, the orchestration is impeccable. Soundscapes are lush, with absolutely the perfect implementations of strings, horns, choral vocals, brushed drums, hand claps, twangy electric guitar, vibraslaps and just about everything else in the catalogue. Indeed, the music is as grand as we’ve come to hope and expect from Kurosky. It’s the content that many fans will find lacking.

Beulah’s output was largely personal and confessional, even if that meant nearly half of their material screamed “we’re breaking up really soon.” In what has become a standard move for newly solo songwriters, the tracks on The Desert of Shallow Effects take a turn towards the troubadour, the storyteller, the first-person omniscient. It’s a noble pursuit as a songwriter to attempt to craft such tales for an audience, but frankly Kurosky hasn’t flexed those muscles as well as the self-deprecating slander of his youth.

The lyrics are still undeniably strong. “How silver-sweet: A voice that makes the heavens drowsy and weak makes no sound for me. It’s an empty vessel, lost at sea. Old Hollywood could not dream up a tale so tragic…” Miles croons in “She Was My Dresden”. “He first did drugs in ’84. He’s never been the same as before. It’s the fault of the suburbs, prog-rock and his mom. She still calls him all the time to see if he’s failing…” in “Dead Language Blues”. Overall, though, The Desert of Shallow Effects feels like a less complete effort than any of Beulah’s work. Nowhere near as dour as Yoko, but more of a sad bedroom version of The Coast Is Never Clear on account of the grandiose instrumentation. Having essentially written a folk album in the trappings of indie-pop, I can’t help but wonder how these songs would hold up without all that wonderful ensemble soundtrack behind Kurosky’s voice.

Ultimately The Desert of Shallow Effects feels like the bridge album between the end of Beulah and the start of Miles’s proper solo career. An excellent entry point for new fans, but surely a disappointment for those of us waiting years to hear what a man like he had up his sleeves for so long.