the echo and echoplex » 2010 » July » 9

Friday 07.09.10: ARIEL PINK’S HAUNTED GRAFFITI / MAGIC KIDS / PURO INSTINCT (Formerly Pearl Harbor) @ echoplex

Posted by damara - filed in 18+, echoplex, events

arielpink

Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti || Listen

Ariel Pink’s best songs are surprising, and there’s a real sense of musical delight on Before Today; the sections sound logical but never predictable, and there are wild bridges and short bits that emerge seemingly randomly but wind up taking the song somewhere unexpected. So “L’estat (Acc. to the Widow’s Maid)” goes from a rollicking organ-led opening section to a catchy call-and-response chorus hook the Monkees might have liked to a short double-time instrumental section to a jubilant coda, and all the while the stitches never show. Songs like “Little Wig” have so many interesting interlocking parts that they can almost feel proggy, despite their relative brevity and tight pop structures.

Since a number of these songs exist in earlier versions on other records, it’s easy to hear how they benefit from Before Today’s more worked-over approach. “Beverly Kills” was a fine song in its original incarnation on the 2002 edition of Scared Famous (it also appeared on last year’s Grandes Exitos comp), but it has so much more power here. Opening with roller-rink keyboards, a popping bass, and car chase sound effects, it feels loose and casual until the falsetto vocals snap into place, sounding suddenly like Philip Bailey on a lost Earth, Wind & Fire jam. The delicate soft rock of “Can’t Hear My Eyes”, also heard twice before in slightly cruder forms, benefits greatly from just a few more dabs of production mousse. It’s a song that wants to be slick, bringing to mind carefully layered singles by Alan Parsons Project, complete with swells of synthetic strings and a smooth sax interlude.

And then there’s “Round and Round”, one of indiedom’s most unifying and memorable songs in 2010, which is barely recognizable from its early four-track incarnation as “Frontman/Hold On (I’m Calling)”. It’s another song of smartly integrated units of melody, any one of which might be built out into a great song of its own, but which together become something astonishing. Its circular bassline doubles with low-chanted voices that build up tension and mystery, a connecting section that opens the song up with a high-pitched plea, and an interlude section with a ringing phone and some jazzy keyboards, all of which build to the massive sing-along chorus. “Round and Round” was mastered at Abbey Road, and not a cent of that cost was wasted. It is endlessly replayable. – Pitchfork

With:
Magic Kids
Puro Instinct || Listen

@ Echoplex
enter at 1154 Glendale Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90026

ticketweblogo

8:30pm / $12 advance, $14 day of show / 18+

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Friday 07.09.10: Club Underground and Echo present HARLEM / BLACK APPLES / AUDACITY @ echo

Posted by damara - filed in 18+, MP3, echo, events

harlem

Harlem || Watch || MP3

Harlem are an Austin three-piece that opt out of messing with fuzz pedals and wear their grime on their sleeve instead. You might say they rub some people the wrong way. Their first record’s title, Free Drugs, was punctuated with the following, ironically placed emoticon: ; – ) Their band name doesn’t do them any favors with the more politically correct. Their current press bio reads as though it came to its author on PCP, nonsense slapped together solely to give hapless music journalists migraines. : – ( Their live set is comprised of as much on-stage, intra-band ribbing as their jukebox rock’n'roll. But they do seem to care deeply about one thing, and that’s their songwriting.

A garage band studied in the ways of Nuggets but clearly enamored with Pixies, they are committed to crafting bubblegum choruses flavored with booze and cigarettes. Hippies, their Matador debut, showcases just how strong that commitment is from the opening bell. On “Someday Soon”, sometime-frontman Michael Coomer runs us through an exchange in which his friend catches fire and asks for a little help being extinguished. The pleas are ultimately declined for kicks. It’s sick but singable, the Nirvana-nodding “Torture Me” one other deliciously dark example. Coomer shares time playing guitar and drums with co-founder Curtis O’Mara, the two halving songwriting/guitar/lead vocal duties. The split provides a duality in tenor that does the record some serious good. When Curtis is in charge, as he is during the psychotropic shimmy of “Faces” or Casper tribute “Friendly Ghost”, the bent is relatively hopeful. If the strep-throated Coomer has the reins, expect thunderstorms. – Pitchfork

with:
The Black Apples
Audacity

ticketweblogo

8:30pm / $10 / 18+

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