Download: Music Go Music “Warm In The Shadows”

(from Expressions available now from Secretly Canadian)

With the likes of Miley Cyrus and Lil’ Wayne topping the “pop” charts these days, the simplicity and directness of pop music seems adrift. Music Go Music manages somehow to recapture the true idea of pop: music made for singles, music made for dancing, music made for fun. The new LP, Expressions, compiles three previously released 12” singles, and appropriately so. No grandiose double LP concept albums here! A single is like an arrow shot into the air—quick, sleek and to the point—and Expressions is a quiverful of hits. “I Walk Alone” takes a running shot with strummed minor chords and a rhythmic fortitude reminiscent of Shocking Blue, particularly with the powerful contralto vocals of Gala Bell. This band is from L.A., yet they have a definite Netherlands vibe—a sort of postmodern take on Abba, Luv’ and the like, especially on “Light of Love” and “Warm in the Shadows.” They employ synthesizers coupled with guitars and drums that serve the songs as a whole, at times evoking later Roxy Music and the Long Blondes. But Music Go Music arrives fully formed: sophisticated and slick, refreshing and dance-floor ready. If your music listening experience could use a bit of levity, I’d check out this collection.

—Eyad Karkoutly

Roundtable Discussion: The Role Of The Record Label

Via: NPR

At the beginning of this decade, record labels were still a way of indexing artists; of positioning them within a community, a scene and a movement. Throughout our end-of-the-decade coverage, one reccurring theme is whether context still matters. After all, one of the most glorious (if not overwhelming) changes to take place in the last 10 years is how much music is available to us, and from everywhere.

So, while the notion of community has been broadened and redefined — we may no longer see record labels as megaphones for towns and the bands therein — perhaps we still need someone to help curate and make sense of the music out there. Personally, I still turn to certain labels as a means of filtration.

And, while plenty of musicians have acrimonious relationships with their labels, just as many do not. Musicians still choose to work with specific labels because they are aware of their history and want to be part of a tangible community of people and supporters. [Read More + Listen]

Download: BLK JKS “Molalatladi”

(from After Robots out now on Secretly Canadian)

If one more person compares BLK JKS to Vampire Weekend, we might explode. This South African band writes pop songs, rock songs, slow tunes and fast tracks; they get proggy and they jam. There’s a great amount of variety on BLK JKS’ latest album After Robots, but the only thing the band imitates is the sound that reality transmits through their nimble fingers. Guitarist Mpumelelo Mcata breaks it down for Daiana Feuer.

Mpumelelo Mcata (guitar): I forgot my sunglasses on top of the guitar amp there in Los Angeles. It was sucky—they were a gift.
Do you lose many possessions in your travels?
Mpumelelo Mcata: Yes, it happens all the time! Sometimes your mind, sometimes your heart, sometimes your sunglasses.
When was the last time you lost your mind?
Mpumelelo Mcata: I think it was Philly. I am not sure how long ago that was. Maybe I haven’t found my mind yet. The concept of time has been warped. Meeting people, various people, and life on the road, always on the road—you lose your heart and your head. It feels pretty schizophrenic. The days go by like day after day with hardly any rest.
Is that a dream come true? Would you rather be in a studio or a stage?
Mpumelelo Mcata: I like being around sounds and making music and just around art in general outside of music. It’s cool to have these kinds of problems. I don’t have a particular preference—as long as I’m doing it, it’s alright. But in the van for so long, driving for so many hours is what it is. Being in the studio, pressed for time, is what it is. We always have these things to keep us grounded. A little bit of cramped, a little of this and that. Broken amps need fixing. We never really step back to look at what’s going on from outside and say, ‘Well, this is all well!’ The situation, though—how can I say it? I am happy to be in it.
As a musician, do you find sounds or create sounds?
Mpumelelo Mcata: Finding or creating? Receiving. Which is different from those two in some ways. It’s all out there and finding requires one to be looking and looking may be a bit difficult to do in a sincere way. Not saying it’s impossible. But it’s hard to be looking and still do honorable work. I think receiving is key and hopefully one can communicate what comes to them truthfully and be an honest voice. There’s a lot of information trapped or stored in phonics, you know? Besides what musicians put in the lyrics and also what is said in interviews. A lot of stuff is just said in between the sounds—as in between the waves. I am sure music is a form of communication.
How do four different minds or receivers create one sound together?
Mpumelelo Mcata: I think one of the first points that we’d have to—I don’t want to say understand because that’s also a conscious in the mind thing—something that we have to feel is that all is one already. Once the American comedian Bill Hicks said all matter is energy condensed to slow vibrations. There is no such thing as death. We are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. So! That is the basic idea. We are one already. So the individual is allowed to exist completely. We find that conflict to be interesting—experiencing ourselves subjectively. That is the point. If everybody felt this way in the world maybe the world would stop breaking up. Maybe not. Maybe this is just part of the human condition. But we need to accept all parts of ourselves. I think that’s what we do in the music, as schizophrenic as it may seem.
There sure are a lot of sounds going on in your album. A lot of directions. I was intrigued by the emotion and the musical shifts in your song ‘Lakeside.’ What’s the story behind it?
Mpumelelo Mcata: ‘Lakeside’ is basically—OK, all the songs have a bit of a backstory, but ‘Lakeside’ is basically about the taxi industry. ‘Lakeside’ and ‘Taxidermy’ follow each other on the album but ‘Lakeside’ is about this young boy-man-kid who is caught up in a taxi accident. The taxi rolls off the freeway and lands up next to a lake. In his head, he has been trying to escape the city—Johannesburg and the mundane situation that he lives in. And he is very imaginative and kind of in some ways it’s autobiographical on our part. Living in the confusion of Johannesburg. And so he imagines his taxi as a UFO and he imagines himself as having been caught up in a crash-landing situation. It’s a terrible thing that has happened. People are bleeding. He is lying outside on the grass. People are suffering. But at the same time it is a beautiful thing that his mind is doing in the song. That’s basically ‘Lakeside.’
That’s a heck of a story. Does a song that comes out of a story lyrically influence the music as well or is that worked upon separately?
Mpumelelo Mcata: With ‘Lakeside’ it was definitely the music first. We didn’t know what that song was trying to do. We were jamming and somehow it kept coming up in those different directions. So what you hear on the record in the beginning—in the rehearsal room, ‘Lakeside’ was really that Molefi, Lindani, Tshepang, and myself fighting against each other and pulling the song in different directions. Like, ‘We can’t stay here—Molefi’s gone over there so we have to follow him.’ Or, ‘We’re going to follow Tshepang and see what happens.’ That was the nature of most of our rehearsal room sessions. Coming to the center, running to and from all four corners and meeting at the end. So—sound first. Then we listen back to the take and everybody thinks about what it means to them and then we discuss it and feel it out and it comes out lyrically if it’s going to be really elaborate—if that happens. Sometimes it’s just we’ll breathe over it and that’ll be it. Like ‘Molalatladi.’ For that song, the lyrics happened immediately as the music. It’s a different purpose.
What would you like to get out of this experience that will nourish you as artists? Aside from getting to play and seeing the world?
Mpumelelo Mcata: I mean, we’re getting in touch with our faith, more in touch with our faith, which is this miracle. Us being alive, you being alive as Daiana and floating in outer space. To us it is really a miracle. People like to intellectualize or coffee table talk about bands but for us, it’s like—we’re here, we’re together. You can either like a band—you can walk into the room or walk out. People like to say this band sucks, that band sucks. I wouldn’t even say that even when I wasn’t in a band because at the end of the day, who knows what? We’re all just here. To get into different cultures and to see how people react to the sound which is created out of a South African context, us receiving signals and those signals going through our filters. Out of Johannesburg, we’re presenting them to the world, we’re going to Japan—it’s going to be super interesting. And it’s always excellent to see people’s reactions, whatever that is. To us, the fact that the conversation is even occurring in the first place is the point. I think we’ll get a lot from that. Who knows, maybe one day we’ll be like the Brazilian Girls—writing songs in many languages about different places. Our context right now is what it is. This is our introduction to the world.
What’s the last thing that made you smile?
Mpumelelo Mcata: The last thing that made me smile? I know the answer to that but let me mine my thoughts for a second. Let’s see! You know what always makes me smile? At every show the people coming up saying, ‘We like what you do.’ That’s always a pleasurable thing. That makes me smile that it touches them. It makes me smile when the media makes negative comments about our songs. It’s funny because we have the same conversation before we make the song but we go for it anyway. Or when we see something someone says and this guy has no clue whatsoever. That makes me laugh. The whole journey, enjoying the journey makes me smile. Not pining for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow but enjoying the rainbow—that’s what makes a brotha smile.

AQUARIUM DRUNKARD PRESENTS BLK JKS WITH THE GROWLERS AND MACK WINSTON AND THE REFLECTIONS ON THUR., OCT. 15, AT SPACELAND, 1717 SILVERLAKE BLVD., SILVERLAKE. 8:30 PM / $10-$12 / 21+/ CLUBSPACELAND.COM. BLK JKS’ AFTER ROBOTS IS OUT NOW ON SECRETLY CANADIAN. VISIT BLK JKS AT BLKJKS.COM OR MYSPACE.COM/BLKJKS.

ANTONY AND THE JOHNSONS WITH ORCHESTRA ON TUE., OCT. 14, AT THE WALT DISNEY CONCERT HALL, 111 S. GRAND AVE., DOWNTOWN. 8 PM / $30-$58 / ALL AGES. LAPHIL.COM. ANTONY AND THE JOHNSONS’ ANOTHER WORLD EP RELEASES TUE., OCT. 7, ON SECRETLY CANADIAN. VISIT ANTONY AND THE JOHNSONS AT ANTONYANDTHEJOHNSONS.COM OR MYSPACE.COM/ANTONYANDTHEJOHNSONS.

Bodies of Water
A Certain Feeling
Secretly Canadian

Bodies of Water’s sophomore release, A Certain Feeling, shows no signs of slumpage. Building upon their debut’s bombastic wall of sound by adding big riffing guitar, prog keyboards and a slightly more ominous tone, the band has accomplished a difficult task: refining its sound and evolving while keeping the core elements that made its debut such a striking and powerful work. Lyrically, A Certain Feeling frequently returns to Ears Will Pop & Eyes Will Blink’s emphasis on questioning, accepting and embracing spirituality, but melodically the band has moved a little further away from the church and a little closer to the arena. The dynamic range is wider than on their debut and the composition a bit more diverse, so that when the band erupts in its tremendous four-part choral harmonies, it packs an even greater punch. With its galloping acoustic guitar, Morricone guitar lines and ABBA-esque melodies, standout track “Darling, Be Here,” sounds like an thrilling amalgam of “Cecilia Ann,” “Knights of Cydonia” and “Lay All Your Love On Me” …. which may come as a surprise to the band, but I hope the comparison is taken in the spirit it is intended. With my musical tastes, it is truly a compliment.

— Patrick Newsom

Bodies of Water “Under the Pines”

Bodies of Water are from Highland Park and are hoping to get a pet goat someday. Their newest A Certain Feeling is out next week on Secretly Canadian.

What was the band name that was second-choice to Hitler’s Gay Son?
David Metcalf (singing/guitar): Once somebody comes up with Hitler’s Gay Son, there’s no need to really discuss further. You know a winner when you hear it. I was probably seventeen.
Meredith Metcalf (organ/singing): We had a reprise when we first met—we did one free jam of Hitler’s Gay Son right after we were married.
How do your changing band names reflect your development as human beings?
M: When we very very first started, before we were even really a band, David and I played music together in the house, and [drummer] Jessie [Conklin] and [bassist] Kyle [Gladden] were with us but not playing shows. So we just used David’s email address, which was Unicorn of Death. I’m glad we ditched it before the unicorn craze! You realize anything that’s pretty funny and that you really latch on to—that kind of humor? Snark-core? So weird and lame that it’s cool—I really like that kind of thing. But I know now to avoid those things because it’s in a three-year cycle. If you think something is the most original thing you ever thought, in three years Urban Outfitters is gonna have a shirt with that logo. You have to restrain yourself. It takes a lot of willpower. And ‘Bodies of Water’—I don’t think anything about it. It doesn’t bug me. ‘Oh, there it is.’
That’s the kind of enthusiasm we love.
M: I’d rather be indifferent than embarrassed.
D: In the long run, people who don’t care come out on top.
M: Sometimes I really wish I could be one of those people who don’t care. Historically people who care too much are people who go crazy. Sometimes I sense this in myself. I have friends who are wired totally differently. They don’t have that sense of urgency. I’m like that in everything. Whatever I do, I’m really invested in it. I can’t just kind of halfass something.
Which Os Mutantes album is most like A Certain Feeling?
D: I like the first one so much—I like all of them and I don’t like anything beyond the first three. I bet I would probably get into it now, though. At the time, I was like, ‘Prog blows!’ Now I’d sit down and enjoy it. When I first went to college, I had a drawing teacher, and drawing labs are like free hours. He’d play that later-era Leonard Cohen stuff, and I’d never even heard Leonard Cohen then, and I was like, ‘This is the lamest thing I ever heard in my life.’ Cohen and Dead Can Dance for three hours repeating—pretty relentless. ‘This DOES NOT ROCK!’ But every record I really like now, I actually disliked when I first listened to it.
Which was your biggest reversal?
D: Ziggy Stardust I really didn’t like. And my friend’s older brother had Aladdin Sane. ‘This is sick!’ I was like twelve or something. And the first Os Mutantes record—I didn’t hate it but the mix is all weird and the guitar is the only thing you hear when it comes in, and then you kind of get it.
M: It’s a real inspiration to listen to that, especially when you’re recording. If Os Mutantes cranks that totally weird line-in guitar to be the loudest thing and it’s awesome, you’re like, ‘Oh, you can totally do that kind of thing.’ Because it just seems so wrong.
How many auxiliaries can Bodies Of Water muster up?
D: Joe and David both play trombone—Joe plays bass trombone and David plays tenor—and Andrew plays trumpet, Heather plays viola and she’s on the first record, and Laura is also on the first record. But they don’t play live with us anymore.
M: Noah plays drums and Adam plays guitar sometimes. For a while—last December—we did our first show with horns and strings and thought, ‘Oh, that’s the way to go!’ But then we pared down again for tours, and we just tour as a four-piece. Most of the bands I really like aren’t more than four people. It’s a really different thing. With more people, you don’t have to work as hard to bring the energy on stage, which I kind of really like sometimes! Everyone feeds off each other. But there’s something more raw with four people, and I like watching smaller bands better. You can focus on the members rather than the big experience. It’s more compelling for me. Audience members are like, ‘It’s so epic with all these people!’ But I think it’s more epic when it’s fewer people totally going for it.
How do you maximize your bombasticism?
M: I think of horn trills and extra drums. It’s more raw-rocking with fewer people. Our sound is different. It’s the same songs, but people walk away thinking, ‘Orchestral indie pop!’ And when it’s just us, they’re like, ‘Oh, it’s like the B-52’s! You’re like a really raw B-52’s!’
Can you describe what you were doing when you wrote the line ‘the love I have for my axe is weak’?
D: When did I write that?
With your shirt off and a lightning storm outside?
D: I have no idea. I think I pulled it out of my book of writing. Usually I write all the lyrics before the music, and change pre-existing lyrics to get the meter right. Make them rhyme if I have to, but that’s not always that case. Usually I’ll have the skeleton of a song and a melody, and I’ll kind of show everybody the way it goes. More so on this record, I’d have a couple sort of movements and we’d link them together.
Did you fit the songs on the album together in a particular way?
M: It just felt very good—it felt like it had an ending like a movie I would like. Kind of left you going, ‘Huh. OK.’ You put song order together the same way you put a song together—especially our songs, with so many different parts. Just fitting more fully formed pieces into a bigger structure. My favorite is when it goes into ‘Darling, Be Here!’ It strikes me as funny—it lulls you down and then it’s like, ‘Alright! Come on!’
What do you think of the quote ‘soul makes you fear God more’?
M: This would be a really amazing game show. I would like it and nobody else in America would like it.
It’s from James Brown.
M: I bet he totally pulled that out his ass. ‘I gotta say soul and God in the same sentence—people love that shit!’ It’s hard with transcribed things. That’s why I’m afraid to do interviews. When I read things I say, they’re totally different. I’m afraid I’m horrible! I say the most horrible things, and if you didn’t know me, you’d think I was horribly racist or really stupid.
Is your label concerned about this at all?
M: It’s kind of our edge in this market—the stupid and racist market we’re cornering.
D: Toby Keith has cornered it too long.
M: I’m still thinking about that quote. I can’t shake the idea that he just said that and didn’t know what it means. It sounds powerful, but maybe… my idea of soul music is a pretty strong feeling you get.
He was the Godfather of Soul.
D: He wasn’t actually related to soul.
M: If soul’s parents die, would he take care of it?
D: You shouldn’t pay so much attention because he hasn’t been involved in it for a while.
Well, he died.
M: I never understood the godfather-godmother thing—does that really happen? Do they really take the kids?
How come you picked Lefty Frizzell’s ‘I Want To Be With You Always’ and not Webb Pierce’s ‘I Don’t Care’ as your favorite love song?
M: Because that’s the song David and I danced to at our wedding. And I just love that song. When we first met, David made me a mix CD of old country music and that won my heart over. Whenever I hear it, I’m like, ‘Ohhhhhh, the salad days!’ That’s what country is genetically engineered to do—for when you’re bummed out or when you fall in love.
D: There’s something almost biological about the appeal of that kind of stuff. That show Radio Lab was saying country music is popular all over the world. Australian aborigines are really into older country music, and it’s really popular in sub-Saharan Africa. People I’ve never heard of will sell out stadiums in Kinshasa. Some Texas crooner that isn’t popular in America.
Which is your most tear-in-your-beer heartbreak song?
M: ‘Love Will Call You By Name.’ It has steel guitar—totally like an old country song.
D: On the first EP we put out.
Is that the one available only with a special cash offer?
M: Yeah, someone emailed me and said, ‘I’m willing to pay upwards of twenty dollars!’ And I’m like, ‘Hmm, I could really use that money…’ I’m so sentimentally attached. We made them all by hand, and I always think, ‘Well, nobody wanted them then—they can’t have them now!’ But if I can tell someone is a superfan—well, paypal me five dollars.
Why is the new record more passive-aggressive than the old one?
M: That’s such an off-handed thing! It didn’t mean anything!
D: I meant every word of it. The first one is more in-your-face. And this one is not like that.
M: It’s not aggressive—it’s assertive!
D: ‘Assertive’ is a euphemism for ‘aggressive.’ The emotional tone is just different. It doesn’t run up into your face. It’s kind of doing its own thing. This crept up toward your face. The other one ran at your face.
M: This doesn’t make any sense—I don’t think you should put that in the interview!
We always put in what people say not to put in.
M: Good to know—goodbye!

—Chris Ziegler

BODIES OF WATER WITH THE HENRY CLAY PEOPLE FOR RELEASE PARTY FOR A CERTAIN FEELING ON THUR., JULY 17, AT THE ECHO, 1822 SUNSET BLVD., ECHO PARK. 8:30 PM / $8-$10 / 18+. ATTHEECHO.COM. BODIES OF WATER’S A CERTAIN FEELING RELEASES TUE., JULY 22, ON SECRETLY CANADIAN. VISIT BODIES OF WATER AT BODIESOFWATER.NET OR MYSPACE.COM/BODIESOFWATER.