STACK #137 Mar 2016

MUSIC REVIEWS

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THE DRONES FEELIN KINDA FREE

O nce Gareth Liddiard decided to emancipate himself from the traditions of his instrument – which he asserts were choking him – the inherent weirdo qualities of his interest in sound slid free, just like this album’s title. While most effects are curated around the pedals and filters of thick electric guitar, the rhythms are pugilistic and the sonic details tiny and odd like a centipede

in a jar; you’ve got the plucked strings and mosquito swarms of Boredom , the aerial whine in Tailwind that accompanies slow, deep electronic beats and something that sounds like a glass windchime on a very still night, and the almost revolting beauty of seven-minute opener Private Execution – it offers a kind of emotion sickness that is so exquisite. To Think That I Once Loved

You is a wheeling but utterly solid lament that shows off Liddiard’s voice in all of its agonising majesty. Most tracks include bassist Fiona Kitschin lending her breathy, elfin responses to Liddiard’s acerbic tone. Meanwhile, divisive as it may be, the thumping Taman Shud stands out to me as one of the best songs of last year. (Tropical Fuck Storm/MGM) Zo ë Radas

STACK Picks Taman Shud, To Think That I Once Loved You, Shut Down SETI

VIOLENT FEMMES WE CAN DO ANYTHING

MIIKE SNOW iii

MUSIC

T here’s much to be said about a band that will cheerfully rhyme “Genghis Khan” with “get it on”, and not all of it pertains to English as a second language. Swedish-American electro-pop trio Miike Snow will chase a feel-good hook beyond

Y ou may receive a slight existential jolt when you see a recent photograph of the Violent Femmes, yet in their new studio album We Can Do Anything , the boys display that their maturing age hasn’t reduced their sense of adolescent fixation over love, life and slaying dragons.

rushing to the defence of their bloodied friend in a schoolyard fight. Opening track Memory presents an endearing investigation into nostalgic love, evoking empty gaps and chipped paint rather than some whimsical reverie. In the album’s concluding song I’m Not Done we

the pale and back again with whatever their neighbour left on the verge, whether it’s an old hip-hop beat, a Stax soul horn sample or Charli XCX in full schoolgirl pout (that’s her feat.ing, as she does, on For U ). As hitmakers for the likes of Britney, Kylie and Madonna, Christian Karlsson, Pontus Winnberg and Andrew Wyatt know what they’re doing all too well. The candy coating drips so thick that substance is barely missed as they expertly balance falsetto soul, mechanised grooves and a toy shop full of vari-sped and otherwise craftily treated gimmicks into a toddler’s delight of plastic goodness and cooing suggestion. Lead single The Heart of Me bleeps it up for the fluoro kids, I Feel The Weight drags like a stoner’s neurons and Genghis Khan has a nutty video. This stuff ain’t built to make history but as a reflection in the virtual mall windows of the 2016 pop market, it sure is real. (Atlantic) Michael Dwyer

The ten-track release (and the band’s first full-length in 15 years) draws from lead singer-songwriter Gordon Gano’s collection of old journals and cassette tapes. Along with this historic influence comes the iconic Femmes sound of loose

hear an admission of mortality and a rejection of slowing down because of it. Together, these two work as a sort of framing device that encases the

album in a sleeve of man-child wisdom. That doesn’t mean it’s all philosophical meanderings. In I Could Be Anything , we’re pulled into the imaginative world of Bongo the dragon slayer. The playfulness is carried by an oom-pah marching band rhythm that, along with the backing vocals, creates a communal atmosphere somewhere between a German beer hall and a Boy Scout social held at your local community centre. Full of slap-dancing and fraternity, if you don’t like this album you’ve grown up too far. (Add It Up Productions/Universal) Eli Landes

guitar strings slapping against splintered wood, made famous by the first few seconds of Blister in the Sun . Now 52 years old, Gano’s perpetually only-just- broken singing voice is still able to capture the cathartic moments before a good cry, by closing the back of his throat and letting out a howling gurgle. He’s aided in backing vocals from fellow band founder Brian Ritchie and Kevin Hearn of the Barenaked Ladies, who sound like two goofballs

MARCH 2016

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