Two totally unrelated notes about Brighten The Corners:
The day the record came out, a little over a decade ago, my friend Jenny was enjoying it so much that she ran a red light and totaled her car while listening to it. I view this as a positive sign for the album, and a negative one towards her driving ability.

Also, my brother worked at Capitol Records when the album hit the streets, and I pestered him for a rumored--yet never confirmed--Brighten The Corners promotional nightlight. I swear, I don't need a nightlight anymore (not since I murdered my imaginary friend), but I was really enamored with Pavement. Failing me yet again, my brother never got me the nightlight, but he did get me a promotional chocolate bar for Spearhead's Chocolate Supa Highway album. Woo.

Anyway, Brighten The Corners has just received the deluxe, double-disc, reissue treatment courtesy of Matador. Having recently come off the commercially stifling Wowee Zowee--an experimental record released at a time when most fans just wanted Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain II--Brighten The Corners featured a more streamlined Pavement (see simpler, catchy numbers like "Stereo" and "Embassy Row" for proof of that), but ultimately failed to live up the mammoth expectations the band had been saddling since the early excitement of Slanted and Enchanted.

As far as the bonus disc goes, as expected, it's loaded with gems (24 tracks!) and more than a few songs that might have been best left alone; although the title "Neil Hagerty Meets Jon Spencer in a Non-Alcoholic Bar" is worth a chuckle (in a mid-'90s sort of way), the song isn't necessarily the best use of studio time. Better examples of the quality on the Nicene Creedence Edition bonus disc are Scott Kannberg's "Destroy Mater Dei," a sloppy little number with the enduring line "I'm Spiral Stairs and I Live in East Berkeley" (he does, or he did, since I used to know his neighbors--and here is where you'd refer to me as your "fact checking cuz"), and the band's wonderful, and meandering cover of Echo & the Bunnymen's "The Killing Moon." Throughout, frontman, Portlander, and fantasy sports enthusiast, Stephen Malkmus demonstrates his ease for writing carefree little slack-rock jams--how songs like "Winner of The," "Nigel," and "And Then (The Hexx)" didn't make the final album cut is beyond me.

LISTEN:

Pavement - "The Killing Moon"

Pavement - "Type Slowly" (live)

CD's come in the mail (note to PR people: not enough these days... I know the economy sucks but you've got to spend money to make money... so get in touch, eh?). Most of the yellow padded envelopes that arrive are filled with garbage, but every so often something brilliant shows up that I'd never have found.

(And for the matter of digital releases, I will say I find the physical copies easier to digest--it's easier to let them play out as I go about my business, rather than trapped in the world of computer headphones. I will also say that album covers and liner notes help immensely in sorting through the torrent of music.)

Anyway, thanks to the good ol' US Postal Service I received a stunning album from Nico Muhly--one I probably never would've found otherwise.

Muhly is a classical composer and a young one. He's 27, from New York, flush with degrees and a compositional voice all his own. Muhly is modern and old, beautiful and brooding, eccentric, and--to use I word I rarely do--brilliant.

Over his short career Muhly has embarked on a number of projects but produced relatively few recordings--two albums and a part of a film soundtrack. Mothertounge, Muhly's most recent, is staggering; classical instrumentation surrounds electronic flourishes, found sounds and chirping voices. The album is comprised of three disparate compositions, each congruent, unique and split into sub-sections.

On opener "Mothertongue," a four-part piece, Muhly is entranced by voice as words and numbers are layered and fired off at light-speed by mezzo-soprano Abigail Fischer. It is frightening and energetic, paraniod and spiced with moments of occasional clarity and sunshine.

"Wonders" at times recalls The Books, only led by ridiculously dense, radical compositional hand. It's second movement, "The Devil Appear'd In The Shape Of A Man" begins almost as bedroom indie rock (sung, however, with god-given talent and deft precision) before inducing mind-bending scales, horns, harpsichord and a dizzying swirl.

Finally, with banjos and Sam Amidon's vocal rasp, "The Only Tune" harkens back to the era of field recordings and dusty Americana--again, warped through Muhly's twisted prism. Pt. 2 becomes perhaps at once the most traditional and modern piece of music I've heard in some time. After melting down "The Only Tune" blooms, reaching up to the air and sunshine on a dewy spring morning (think Sufjan Stevens).

Throughout Mothertongue Muhly maintains a frightening ability to blend and shift chords. A pecking, staccato sense of foreboding schizophrenia is suddenly and slyly covered by a blanket of warm gold. And back again. Muhly warps feeling with expert ease.

Although I'm going to, please know I'm loath to share excerpts from Mothertongue as the multi-part pieces should absolutely be listened to in their entirety for full emotional impact.

Really, you should just go out, get this album, turn the lights low, lie on the floor, maybe smoke some pot, turn this fucker up LOUD, and listen intently, front to back.

"Mothertongue Pt 3 - Hress:

"The Only Tune Pt 3 - The Only Tune":

Ryan Adams has made a point of producing consistent, vibrant and refreshing (if not arguably redundant) material since his late '90s split with alt-country darlings Whiskeytown. But where his earliest solo albums illuminated a minimalist Lennon-esque honky-pop, once the Love Is Hell albums came to be released, followed by the experimental foray into straight rock 'n' roll on Rock N Roll, it seemed a necessary artistic detour to hook in with a powerful session band. Enter The Cardinals. And ever since this marriage of reckless troubadour and steady-as-she-goes backing band, Adams has seen his most ambitious and varied musical ruminations yet.
Cardinology espouses this perhaps even more than last year's Easy Tiger LP or the Follow the Lights EP (also released in '07). The album opens with the Apache shuffle jam "Born Into A Light," with a pedal steel current rippling through waves of staccato melodicism.
"Magick" bulges with an eerie Stevie Nicks cadence, backed by the most aggressive tune forged by Adams since the horrid "Halloween Head," from Easy Tiger, a song that has never once not been skipped over in my late night bedroom whiskey-sipping sessions. Luckily, the strut hits stride early and carries you through to a bouncy chorus.
A majority of Adams' perceived formula for success seems oddly absent from this collection, despite the lack of any new sort of arrangements or instrumentation. The fact becomes apparent by the time you hit "Fix It," that Adams is just evolving so much quicker as a songwriter than history tells us is natural. Take away the prolific nature of his songcraft - the fact that he's put out 11 albums since 2000 - and it becomes obvious (almost painfully), that he's, simply, a better songwriter than his peers, and their peers. And sure, there are catalogued classic rock band points to reference song-by-song. There's the melody on "Magick" that sounds like it could be Fleetwood Mac, or the intro to "Cobwebs," which invokes visions of The Who, or even any number of foci derived from early '00 NYC retro rock. He's a sponge for only the most seminal of influences, yet he delivers them in a decidedly robust and varied manner. Cardinology, while far from being his most distinct or best work yet (that title would have to go to 2005's double-album Cold Roses), is another indication of the peaking Ryan Adams looming somewhere in the foreseeable future.

I've been singing the praises--here, here, and way back in '05 right here--of Astronautalis for years now, but it's only recently that the Seattle-via-Florida emcee really hit his creative stride. His dismantled hiphop rhymes filtered through a solid mass of introspective indie rock has always been an acquired taste. It either hits you like a ton of bricks, or sails wide and comes nowhere close to making an impact. I'm in the smacked-in-the-grill-by-bricks category, a longtime fan who has abused this humble soapbox of mine to repeatedly swoon about the ways of Astronautalis.

Let's keep swooning.

Pomegranate (out today!) is the latest from Andy Bothwell (the man behind the Astronautalis moniker), and it documents time spent in his former stomping grounds of Denton, TX, where he collabroated with John Congleton (Explosions in the Sky, Modest Mouse) to further eschew his hiphop leanings and create something far more unique than just about anything else out there. I suppose the most untouchable of the Anticon crew, Why?, would be the closest comparison, but with his gravely delivery, Bothwell is closer to Tom Waits, had the junkyard troubadour been raised on a steady diet of '90s indie rock and the Def Jam catalog.

As a whole, Pomegranate is just as ambitious as his other recordings, but this time around (possibly with the direction of Congleton) Bothwell is more focused and direct than ever. Less attention is placed on navel gazing lyrics, and instead the record is assembled like a series of short tales--about everything from heartbreak and loss to opium runners--that work together to form one mighty collective work. I wish all records were this exciting.

LISTEN:

Astronautalis - "Two Years Before the Mast"

Astronautalis - "Trouble Hunters"

Photo: Jostin Darlington

Years back when Rilo Kiley came through the Meow Meow a slew of the band's fans presented them--mid-show--with a large homemade "We (Heart) Rilo Kiley" sign. Loved by most anyone with a pulse, they were the type of band you made arts & crafts for.

So what the fuck happened?

When Team-Love released Jenny Lewis' debut solo effort, Rabbit Fur Coat, in 2006, they made the record a free download (except the Traveling Wilburys cover, because the ghost of Roy Orbison will haunt your family if you download his music without paying for it). As expected, the record was a huge success, propelling Lewis to a larger position than her fellow Rilo bandmates and establishing her as a respected solo performer. Now Lewis is on the cusp of releasing solo album number two, Acid Tongue, but this time it's on Warner Bros, and there is a slight difference on how this record is being released...

First off, this is how the record arrived:

Uh-oh, looks like someone in Legal got to write the copy again. These vaguely threatening watermarked CDs are common these days, and while I understand why labels want them, they don't really function as intended (the album leaked this weekend). My watermarked copy of Acid Tongue does not play on my home stereo, nor will I even attempt to insert it into my computer. It works fine in my car stereo, which means I can listen to the album in a pair of six-minute intervals on my way to, and from, work everyday. Pray for traffic Jenny Lewis, because that is the only way I can listen to another song. This is one of the reasons why Acid Tongue won't be as successful as Rabbit Fur Coat.

The other? It's a pretty terrible album. Much like the audio trainwreck that was Under the Blacklight, the baffling 2007 release from Rilo Kiley, this album is directionless and confusing. Hell, Lewis doesn't even sound like herself until five songs deep, the title track is the first listenable moment of Acid Tongue, and the cameos (Elvis Costello, Zooey Deschanel, and the tall dude from Black Crowes) don't pull their weight. Songs like "The Next Messiah" and "Black Sand" aimlessly meander, and lack the charm and homespun charisma of her previous work. Perhaps I'm a little biased--seeing how I have to limit my listening experience to time spent behind the wheel--but all I think about when listening to this stale recording is how I miss that band who took the Meow Meow stage so many years ago.

LISTEN:
This is the part of the blog post where I'd normally post a song, but since the CD won't play on my computer, here is some audio of a kitten purring. Seriously.

"Purring Kitten"

Although the record isn't due out for another few weeks (July 15th, to be exact), over at their Myspace page The Hold Steady currently have Stay Positive, in its entirety, streaming for free!

I have quite a few lengthy things to say about the brilliance of Stay Positive, so please continue on after the jump to hear me rant about why this record may prove to be the finest in their catalog, and why The Hold Steady are easily the greatest working band in rock and roll.