TOP PICK
MUSIC
CRUSHED OUT Want to Give
Cool Clear Water | November 2012
ANNE PACEO QUINTET YôKAÏ
Laborie Jazz Records | October 2012
Anne Paceo is a French percussionist and composer. YôKAÏ is her first quintet record, composed specifically for its musicians (Leonardo Montana: keys, Stephane Kerecki: bass, Antonin Tri Hoang: sax/bass clarinet, Pierre Perchaud: guitar, Anne Paceo: drums/ composition/vox). The album oozes with jazz roots and world influences, a sum of Paceo’s travels and experiences. Paceo is a thoughtful, engaging composer and arranger—especially when writing for guitar and saxophone. She blends tones, ranges, and the line between written music and improvisation. The record evenhandedly features solos from each talented musician (guitarist Pierre Perchaud shines!). But for me, it is Anne’s interaction with each member that brings the record to life. Listen to this: if you want beautiful, thoughtful background music for studying or dinner parties. — Jo Schornikow
When Hoier croons “Silky Jean/ in her room/ sixteen/ Black Sabbath blasting/ 1971,” you are there with our teenage rock heroine in her parents’ house, hoping she’ll hear that 1968 Chevy pull around the corner. Want To Give is a record holding hands with Roy Orbison skipping down the slide guitar highway together. The music is tambourine heaven, beating like angels wings, somewhere out in the Nashville night. Listen to this: “If you wanna honky tonk till around 2 or 3,” as Hank Williams Sr. would say. — Matthew D’Abate
The Odds
Dischord Records | November 2012
If “acoustic post hardcore” was a thing, or if Fugazi got back together to tape an Unplugged (ha!), it might sound like The Evens. Partners Ian MacKaye and Amy Farina sing sparsely arranged, yet provocative songs about workers, socio-economic breakdown, unrest, healthcare, the prison industrial complex, and how they’re all connected, and do it with an understated, but undeniable, righteous rage. MacKaye supplies his trademark angular, eventempo, arpeggiating guitar riffs, strummed and picked aggressively; Farina more than matches him with her off-beat, full-range, and often unpredictable percussion. What they lack in volume they make up in force and intent, with songs that won’t shy away from asking difficult questions, and with a sound that continues to expand the possibilities of so-called folk punk. Listen to this: while spending quality time with a life partner (platonic or romantic) who helps you feel like you can be the change you want to see in the world. — Jamie Varriale Vélez
RAH RAH
SAD HORSE
STREET EATERS
Hidden Pony | October 2012
Water Wing Records | June 2012
Cut the Cord That…Records | September 2012
The newest album by the Canadian indie-rock outfit Rah Rah begs you to prepare your best footwork for their boisterous and emotionally charged beats in songs like “First Kiss.” Rah Rah is stepping out with a new video for “Art and a Wife,” the album’s opening track, a song that rallies the entire feel of the album. You will fall for their melodies in a drippy haze with songs like “I’m a Killer,” completely reeling you in with catchy pop and killer beats. What we get is a big and energetic album that can be as uplifting as anything from a band like The Polyphonic Spree or as fun as The Blow.
Lucky enough to catch the Sad Horse duo midtour this fall, I got an ample dose of much-needed jitter-driven lo-fi punk bathed in NoPo (Portland!) affectation. Elizabeth Venable wails on the kit and into the mic, while Geoff Soule’s catchy and pitchy-as-tree-sap vocals accompany guitar that isn’t so much strummed, but rattled to the bone. On Purple on Purple Makes Purple, Sad Horse totes their trademark disjointed jangle but skittishly delves into melody, including the self-conscious “Harmony”, where Venable’s soft ethereal voice is cut by discordant guitar and yelps of “this ain’t harmony!”
Listen to this: for a trip back to your finer years. — Attia Taylor
Listen to this: Driving around the leaf-bitten fall, banging your palms against the steering wheel, air-drum style. — Anika Sabin
Street Eaters’ Megan March and John No are a drum/bass duo from Berkley and Oakland, CA. Members of Fleshies, Younger Lovers, and Triclops, the two pound the sound that a supergroup of Mecca Normal, Guided by Voices, and Tsunami could produce. March astounds as she shifts complex octaves steadily driving danceable dark beats. No provides a swift and surly, surfy bassline on “Certain Fate” as the two share vocal duties. The quick duet in “Culture War” allows for a colliding protest. All in the course of fifteen minutes and six songs, Street Eaters create a decisive set that seems to play for a much longer duration.
The Poet’s Dead
52
Just because you’ve got a fella on a guitar tearing into honky-tonk with heavy gain riffs and a lady drummer punching in beats made for two-stepping with your sweetheart on a sawdust floor, don’t mean they’re working for Jack White. Beyond superficial comparisons, Crushed Out, a big fuzz jangling duo comprised of Frank Hoier and Moselle Spiller, is all heart. Like two big heavy boots stomping on the floor boards, Want To Give is the Grand Ole Opry gone electric.
THE EVENS
Purple on Purple Makes Purple LP
Self-titled
Listen to this: Late at night when force is needed to drive through to morning, through a piracy of shelves and carbon papers, lacquering the pages with perfect pitch and with each pulse, making the zine of your dreams. — Bonnie MacAllister