Audiversity's Quarterly Concern

We introduced the idea of a quarterly review in March as a kind of self-indulgent roundtable review of things we had, er, already reviewed. It sort of worked in that you saw where each of us was coming from and where we'd intended to go. Same rules apply here; unfortunately, no alcohol was involved in the making of this entry. Of course, there's plenty of time to tweak the system... But first, the disappointments!

Michael: I try not to listen to disappointing music. Too much good music to listen to something that lets me down. Fridge was kind of disappointing, only because my hopes were way too high. I don't think they could have released anything to reach my mental standards for it. I have found all things NoW hip-hop pretty disappointing. Truth be told though, that Lifesavas record was pretty refreshing. I do honestly want to be into that scene, but nothing has grabbed my attention so far.

Patrick: I think the problem with the NoW stuff is that they all have the same message and it's all supposed to be inspiring and "different." But they're not really that different from themselves. They act as a collective rather than individual groups. A unified voice is nice sometimes, but you don't want to be totally faceless...

Michael: Too much of a scene. Maybe if they just did an album together...

Patrick: Best hip-hop album of the year.

Michael: The first track of that TTC was pretty stupendous, but the rest of the album didn't really hold up... I haven't listened to as much hip-hop as I usually do this quarter. I have been listening to a lot of classic Brand Nubian lately, but that's neither here nor there. You?

Patrick: Phat Kat or Mansbestfriend, probably. Something struck a chord with the Detroit thing earlier this year. The whole post-Dilla movement has been invigorating.

Michael: For sure. Too bad it took his passing to instigate it.

Patrick: Or for the press to instigate any kind of attention on them. I didn't have to deal with many disappointments, though Panthers and Justice stand out as sorely whelming. I cared so little about Black Strobe at the end of that album that my review was littered with factual inaccuracies.

Michael: Hahahaha, you got called a "tard"... I can't get into the whole indie-dancefloor mash-up-everyone-and-their-cousin thing.

Patrick: Sticks and stones and the "mud" that makes them. What do you think your big story was for this quarter? Everybody was talking about the critical mass of blog-house, but you admirably (and ignorantly) blew right by it. That's why people still read us, probably.

Michael: Blog-what now? Chicago musicians keep blowing my mind, so varied and incredible. Fred Anderson & Hamid Drake are at the top, that album was phenomenal. (((Powerhouse Sound))), Lichens, Watchers, Chris Connelly, Zelienople, Chicago Underground Trio, Numero Group, Fred Lonberg-Holm Trio, The Jai-Alai Savant, fucking Bumps. The Narrator certainly had their moments.

Patrick: The Jai-Alai Savant are part of my larger story of artists you might've forgotten about coming back in really excellent ways: Matthew Dear, The Icarus Line, Moonbabies, Hot Cross, Maserati. People floating right below the radar of memory. Well, that and people love links.

Michael: That Matthew Dear was one of the most pleasant surprises... Though he ripped off TV on the Radio pretty badly during the latter half of that album.

Patrick: And Air right at the end, but better them than Hinder.

Michael: A lot of good international stuff. I really dug that MoMo. Michio Kurihara of course. That Ibrahim Ferrer was excellent. World is typically what I listen to when I get the option. Other surprisingly good stuff: Black Moth Super Rainbow, Welcome, Opsvik & Jennings, The North Sea. Von fucking Südenfed.

Patrick: Mikhail, and add Omar Rodriguez-Lopez to that list. Because Se Dice Bisonte, No Bùfalo wasn't Frances the Mute.

Michael: Anything that isn't Frances the Mute is ok in my book.

Patrick: Boris slayed with Michio Kurihara. I think that's going to be one of our collective favorites this year. Though it took us forever, Apparat too. Maybe not this year's Orchestra of Bubbles, but...

Michael: You know, I have never heard that album, hence my lack of comparisons.

Patrick: We're probably the only review that didn't namedrop Ellen Allien.

Michael: Gorgeous artwork. Favorite album covers?

Patrick: Apparat since I first saw it. So vivid and free, really abstract and flowing. I liked the clean lines of Matthew Dear. Savath & Savalas. Babils was faithful to their sound, very disorienting. Von Südenfed was throwback but stylish, all thin fonts and combed haircuts.

Michael: Mine: Apparat's Walls, Savath & Savalas's Golden Pollen, Zelienople's His/Hers, Boris with Michio Kurihara's Rainbow, Efterklang's Under Giant Trees... I'm big into the artwork really matching the sounds within.

Patrick: Which version of the Boris/Kurihara art? The repackaged blue sky or the first-pressing white release?

Michael: The reflected sky with the waves. So simple but so effective. It matched the skewed natural sounds of the music. Some weird morphed reflection of an organic music; yea it's a guitar solo... But that shit was of a wavelength all it's own.

Patrick: The white cover was too Silent Alarm-ish anyway. But what good is the artwork if it doesn't have the album to match. Your top slot?

Michael: Best album of Q2: Fred Anderson & Hamid Drake's From the River to the Ocean. I think the Jai-Alai Savant's Flight of the Bass Delegate was the most overlooked.

Patrick: They're still one of the best reasons to keep up with GSL. And come to think of it, they had a good album cover too.

Michael: Damon Locks is a genius.

Patrick: Naturally, the elephant in the room of this conversation is Battles.

Michael: I considered that a given.

Patrick: "Tonto" is one of my favorite songs this year, right up there with Matthew Dear's "Vine to Vine." So cerebral.

Michael: I really like the last track on the Von Südenfed, "Dearest Friends" I believe.

Patrick: And for all the beat-based stuff we've had this year, Aa definitely. Really left-field, but in a good way.

Michael: When is left-field a bad way?

Patrick: When it's Adam Green.

Michael: Is he the one with the sparkly album covers?

Patrick: You're getting old. Jessica Simpson?

Michael: Didn't she go to jail?

Patrick: That was Paris Hilton. Jessica Simpson's too stupid to go to jail, that's how I remember her.

Michael: I don't think I have ever actually listened to Adam Green, and it looks like I never will now.

Patrick: With so many other things to listen to, Adam Green is about as worth your while as The Stooges. The Weirdness is one of those albums that makes you thankful there was such a thing as "post-rock." So what do we have in store for the future here?

Michael: Improved content? Bigger better interviews? Fans that care?

Patrick: Or fans? Sounds like a dynamite third quarter to me.

Michael: As long as the music can keep up.

Patrick: With us? Funny, cf. 5/13/2007. Very meta.

Michael: :)

Audiversity's Quarterly Concern

Michael: We here at Audiversity have been toying with the idea of a quarterly review highlighting some of our favorites from the first three months of 2007. The biggest problem with this idea: All we do is champion our favorite records, so what the hell would be the point of doing this? The point is… well there is no point to be completely honest, but points are overrated and you know it. What's the point of year-end lists? To showcase your heartfelt opinions obviously and concurrently open them up to your peers' often-harsh criticism. And what the fuck is up with some of that?

Recently a good friend and colleague of mine had a video of her browsing Reckless Records and talking about her DJing displayed on the front page of YouTube, and some of the comments left were just straight appalling. The shroud of anonymity is both exhilarating and dreadful in our current interwebbed world. I'm glad she has a strong personality because I would have suffered an anxiety attack if I were in her place (and nearly did when we were featured in the Wall Street Journal a few weeks back).

Jordan: This quarter's been about finding my feet as a reviewer. It's hard finding words in the heavy air of the blogosphere, and it can become a race to beat the other guy to the critical punch, but that would be losing the plot. You blog because its fun and it doesn't feel like homework. I think we Audiversitarians try our best not to deliver proclamations from on high. We're just trying our best to keep afloat in the massive flow of information; fiercely curious dudes who like music and feel the need to write about it. Triangles are a perfect shape as evidenced by soccer, and our three-cornered assault will hopefully continue for a long time to come.

Patrick: And quarterly reviews aren't just about thinking of the past. If we summed it all up by saying how much of a failure LCD Soundsystem's #46 chart position in the opening week on the Billboard charts was for the elitist indie underground, we wouldn't be telling you anything you already knew. In the media world, they call the phenomenon of foresight "spinning it forward:" How do we take the big stories of the first three months of the year and transform it into something useful for you for the future? How does our bloated sense of self-worth relate to you?

We try hard to make music you might not ordinarily hear as humane and as mundane as possible. That sounds like a slight, but it's not: By disguising the far-out sounds of Andrew Douglas Rothbard or subtractiveLAD and by recontextualizing (a favorite word of mine) Frank Turner or The (International) Noise Conspiracy, we hope we can at least convince you to reconsider what you thought you already knew.

Michael: But we confusingly digress; this is supposed to be about music. Looking back at the albums presented on Audiversity in the last three months, it's hard to pick one favorite. My recent obsession of everything West African is all too obvious, both the wonderful Western Saharan blues of Tinariwen and the bubbling, exotic electric guitar of Group Doueh had a big impact on me. Not to mention that great Golden Afrique box set, but that was actually southern African music.

I've also been very moved by some of the great ambient music being produced lately, especially the gorgeous swells of Stars of the Lid and Ethan Rose's excellent Ceiling Songs.

The hype proved true on a few occasions, especially Marnie Stern's shredding In Advance of the Broken Arm, Deerhunter's swirling Cryptograms, Panda Bear's hazy Person Pitch and The Twilight Sad's epic Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters.

Then there are the dependables like the excellent new albums from El-P, Low and most everything Thrill Jockey has put out recently, especially Bobby Conn, Arbouretum and the Exploding Star Orchestra's "Cosmic Tomes Part 2", which gets my vote for best song of 07's first quarter. That just leaves us with the surprises, which I'll have to reward to Kode9 & the Spaceape's menacing Memories of the Future, Woods' folksy At Rear House and Baja's laptop psyche Maps/Systemalheur.

Jordan: After spending a year or two out in the wilderness, its fun being an information cowboy once again. Checking all the Boomkat and Forced Exposure update emails, digging deep into Oink! for that cassette only release of some impossible to obtain Jeweled Antler material. This first quarter is sprinting off with strong "its my noise" releases from Not Not Fun, Night People and the ever steady Important Records. Over in the electro world old players are still making powermoves. BPitch Control, Kompakt, and the "upstart" Ed Banger churning out tons of great music. Did I mention Kavinsky's "Dead Cruiser"? Well, Kavinsky's "Dead Cruiser." And !!!.

Patrick: I spent last quarter immersing myself heavily in the business side, but it was always the personal spin that got the better of my supposed journalistic integrity: I went to CMJ, but instead of seeing Justice and Digitalism at Studio B in Brooklyn at 1.30 in the morning, I got lost in Queens when I missed a train and then wandered around thinking I could walk my way to Williamsburg. What a fool.

This quarter was different: I've been doing a lot of school and caring less and less about music. No endless SXSW reviews, no barrage of half-assed live shots, no gushing "shoulda been theres" to speak of… Other than Battles in Chapel Hill, but anytime Battles plays and you're not there, you shoulda been.

What hit me musically hit me harder, in other words. And that's kind of how this blog has evolved beyond Chicago, beyond Columbia, beyond The Wall Street Journal: We only do reviews because we want you to feel the full impact, the brute force of something like Gallows or Deerhunter. Sometimes, the most powerful music in words hits the ears most delicately. Sitting in bed during one of my few moments of respite this year, a playlist including LCD's "Get Innocuous," 8yone's "Glacial Sunburn" and something from Soft Circle, I don't remember what… This is what hits me hardest nowadays.

Jordan: I would like to think we make good meat&potatoes, solid reviewing on a daily basis, working out a smart one touch style of blogging. Sure, we could be more intensive, but we all have lives to lead. Not to mention that we'd have to cut back on all those raucous bar convos where the night ends with a knife stabbed into the table. Always value the necessity of intoxicated discussion and the resulting half-cocked ideas for revolution.

Michael: Not bad at all for just three months worth of music.