Claudia and Alejandra Deheza are the twin sisters whose crystal-like harmonies are at the heart of School of Seven Bells‘ music. I lost their 2008 album Alpinisms in the shuffle of that year’s deluge of like-minded music coming out of the NYC area, and while I remember liking it well enough, it didn’t stand out as anything remarkable. Understandably then, my hopes weren’t high for their follow-up–nor was my interest–but now in 2010, the songs on Disconnect From Desire are actually standing out in the shuffle of my music library. “Heart Is Strange” was the first song that came up in a random playlist of new music, and its undulating, shoegaze-inspired lushness reminded me of all those great 4AD records from the 90s that I’ve since forgotten. Benjamin Curtis (formerly of Secret Machines) provides the jangly guitar melodies to accompany the Deheza’s honey sweet harmonies, which in turn cruise along at a modest pace thanks to the album’s rhythmic pulse. I didn’t recall the first record sounding this melodic and beat-driven, and a quick trip back to it reveals that I was right. In the time between records one and two, School of Seven Bells have coalesced as a band. Disconnect From Desire sounds like it was effortless, spun from the trio’s collective muse as a fully formed piece of work.
Phantogram have remixed Disconnect From Desire track “ILU”, which will be on the upcoming Heart Is Strange EP, You can download the remix for yourself here, in exchange for your email address or agreeing to share the track on your social network of choice. Have a listen to it below, as well as the album version of “ILU”, and if this peak’s your interest, get your hands on Disconnect From Desire. You won’t be disappointed. Guaranteed.
"Old Fangs" live on Jimmy Fallon and "Restoration's trippy new video
How can you not dig that sticky, sweet organ riff? Black Mountain brought some heavy riffing to Late Night with Jimmy Fallon on Tuesday, performing “Old Fangs” in anticipation of Wilderness Heart‘s release in a couple weeks. Apparently, there’s review copies out there to be had be I haven’t had the pleasure of hearing the whole disc yet. The more I hear this song, the more I love it. I am in full anticipation mode for this record now.
Equally as trippy is the brand new stop-motion live action video for The Acorn‘s “Restoration”. “Rolf Klausener told Spinner a bit about the process that went into creating it: “We arrived on location at 4PM on a Saturday in July, and the crew had already been up for over 24 hours. We ate and then hauled ass in the back of a flatbed to a small forest on the other side of a gigantic soy plantation. The whole process was shot in stop motion; so, we spent the next 20 hours, mostly sitting on a picnic table that was jerry-rigged to a rail cart, moving in two-inch increments. The crew was tireless and totally focused. The cyanide-based smoke machine they used took about six years off our lives. By 7AM, everyone was delirious, seeing apparitions in the foliage and speaking in tongues. We napped for 15 minutes and then drove seven hours back to Ottawa. None of it seemed real — neither the location, the crew, nor the lights that were emanating from deep in the woods.”
QBiM SPiNS: Luke Doucet and the White Falcon Steel City Trawler
He’s referred to it as his idea of a “rock and roll” record, a descriptor that had me a little leery about what Steel City Trawler would turn out to be. What I loved about Luke Doucet’s last album, Blood’s Too Rich was the rich tapestry of musical influences woven with Doucet’s unique lyrical sense. By “rock and roll” did Doucet mean he was going for the brass ring, the mass appeal that he rightly deserves but has alluded him?
The short answer is no. Happily, Steel City Trawler is not Luke Doucet’s generic take on love, loss, and sex. Using the city of Hamilton Ontario has his backdrop, Doucet’s latest record is a blunt, often confrontational look at life in the rat race. In comparison, his last record Blood’s Too Rich is a more lyrical affair, poetry set to flowery arrangements. Steel City Trawler is the friend that pulls no punches, telling it like it is even if that’s the last thing you want to hear. The change of style is a bit of a jolt if you were looking for the sequel to “The Commandante” but by the time Doucet and wife Melissa McClelland settle into the slow sexy groove of “Hey Now” you’ll willingly go along for the ride through this dirty old town. First-time producer Andrew “Sloan” Scott brings a wealth of knowledge about the rock and roll songbook to the table, pulling classic elements together to create a musical record that sounds familiar in places and fresh and new in others, often times all in the same verse. Doucet’s cover of Gordon Lightfoot’s “Sundown” might sound like a bold choice, but he manages to make it sound all his own without tarnishing the song’s musical legacy. You don’t have to be a musical historian to recognize some of the touchstones that helped shape Steel City Trawler: The Rolling Stones, 60s folk rock, 80s college rock and British new wave. It’s not a pastiche album, though. Doucet is one of the finest guitarists and songwriters working in Canada now, so what you get here is a balance between reverence and reinvention.
I live in a city built on the steel trade that lost its lustre years ago. I know the streets Doucet’s been walking and driving down since he moved to Hamilton in 2008, because they’re the same as the ones I pass to and from work every day. The difference between he and I is that he’s been paying attention and observing the people he sees while I have been ignoring them, trying to forget that this place is dying a slow death around me. You don’t have to know Hamilton or have lived their to appreciate Doucet’s storytelling, as perfectly exemplified on “The Ballad of Ian Curtis”. Hamilton and Manchester, England, they’re not so different. Both are places that can suffocate and choke the creativity out of you if you let it. The tragic story of Joy Division’s lead singer could easily be told on both sides of the Atlantic. When Doucet sings “I wasn’t thinking I could be the one/to save the soul of this town,” he speaks for a voiceless many who’ve struggled to rise above their situation in life, and found the weight of expectation too much to handle. It is a pitch-perfect tribute to Joy Division and New Order’s signature sound: bass-driven melody, tight rhythm section, and sparkling guitar lines; like I said before, it’s respects its source material rather than just ripping it off.
Doucet and I are the same age, born a mere 48 days apart, and a quick once-over of the bio that accompanied this CD confirms for me that he and I shared many of the same musical touchstones in our early years (Blue Rodeo’s Diamond Mine, Pixes’ Bossanvova, Violent Femmes’ Why Do Birds Sing?, Rheostatics’ Whale Music). We’ve also shared a number of defining milestones, some simultaneously, some years apart, but Steel City Trawler reminds me that where we’re different is that instead of being the observer (like Doucet) I have become the observed.Steel City Trawler is a mirror reflecting some aspects of my life right back at me. “Baby,” he sings on the record’s penultimate track “Dusted”, “I don’t know if I’m here/’cause I don’t know where ‘here’ is”, and all I picture is a colossal illuminated map of my life, like the kind you find in the middle of a shopping mall, and I’m staring at a red dot labeled “You Are Here”, not knowing exactly how I got here.
He’s referred to it as his idea of a “rock and roll” record, a descriptor that had me a little leery about what Steel City Trawler would turn out to be. What I loved about Luke Doucet’s last album, Blood’s Too Rich was the rich tapestry of musical influences woven with Doucet’s unique lyrical sense. By “rock and roll” did Doucet mean he was going for the brass ring, the mass appeal that he rightly deserves but has alluded him?
