Where Is It Going: A Review of Weekend's "Jinx"

Weekend's debut (not to be confused with the Weeknd) album, Sports, came at a time when noise-rock wasn't noise-rock. Noise-rock was more like "pop songs buried in tape hiss and artificial distortion", thanks to the popularity of bands like Wavves and Times New Viking at the time. But Sports was a respite, with fuzzed out, sickly sounding guitars and a pounding rhythm section, in the vein of classic noise-rock albums, such as My Bloody Valentine's Loveless, The Jesus and Mary Chain's Psychocandy and even The Velvet Underground's White Light/White Heat (which many would cite as the birth of noise rock).

But all of this was back in 2010, and now it's 2013. On Weekend's sophomore record, Jinx, the band sets their focuses more on post-punk and new wave. This decision can make it harder for bands to stand out of the pack of groups aiming for this similar sound. In the past two years we've had bands like Craft Spells, Wild Nothing, DIIV, Frankie Rose, Dum Dum Girls, Merchandise and even this year, Beach Fossils released the excellent Clash the Truth which focused more on post-punk than indie pop.

So needless to say, Weekend were going to have to pull something amazing to sound as refreshing as they did back in 2010, with the release of Sports. And luckily, Jinx is able to achieve that.

Weekend has always been a dark band. The snatches of lyrics that you could actually make out from the distortion on Sports were self lacerating and creepy ("something deep inside of me turned off", "I awoke from a coma summer"). With the listener able to understand the lyrics on Jinx, the band's darkness has grown (or consumed them even more). This darkness isn't forced though, after hearing about front man and bassist Shaun Durkan discuss recent events in his life. The passing of a loved one, a mental breakdown and six months spent in therapy has all built up to the cathartic music that is found on Jinx.

The band as a whole, has also found a change of scenery, by moving from San Francisco to Brooklyn. Truth be told, their sound didn't fit in with the sunny pop of Girls and psychedelia of Thee Oh Sees and Ty Segall.

Similar to what many Brooklyn (and lo-fi bands in general) have been doing on their sophomore records, has been to strip away the noise. This change is apparent on the album's first track and single, "Mirror". It begins with disembodied vocals and piercing flickers of static before the bass kicks in, much more audible than it was on Sports. The guitars sound like something that The Cure would appreciate. On "Mirror", Durkan seems to be painting a picture of a Jekyll and Hyde like story with lyrics like "he only comes in the night, someone just like me".

With the stripping of the noise, the band's musical palette has expanded as well. Songs like "Sirens" and "Rosaries" sound like Radio Dept. b-sides. The way the bass and guitars ring out on "Celebration, FL" sounds like the funky swing that Depeche Mode sometimes carry with them.

The one downfall of the album, is that it can feel very front loaded at times. The highlights like "July" (a chronicle of love in the month) and "Oubliette" (which contains some of the darkest lyrics, "dogs gave up rib thin gaunt") come in the first 15 minutes of the 45 minute long album. But after multiple listens, every track reveals it's necessity to be included in this album. "Rosaries" and "Sirens" may seem like meandering interludes, but work in the context of the rest of the album. The closer, "Just Drive" sounds unremarkable by itself, but by being the last thing we hear on Jinx, it seems fitting.

So, Jinx is much more subtle than Sports but it slowly reveals it's brilliance to the listener after repeated listens, something that The National employed on this year's excellent Trouble Will Find Me. On Sports, Weekend were trying to prove something. Now that they've done that, they have the opportunity to become more subtle and expand their musical palette. Some may be upset that the ear killing noise is gone, but Jinx adds a whole new layer to Weekend.

Weekend - Jinx
8/10
Recommended Tracks: "Mirror", "July", "Oubliette", "Scream Queen", "Just Drive"

The Open Road: A Review of Daughn Gibson's "Me Moan"

A fixation of the open road is nothing new to indie rock. The 90's had Modest Mouse, with albums such as This Is a Long Drive for Someone With Nothing to Think About and The Lonesome Crowded West. The latter featured a 10 minute long song called "Trucker Atlas" which was about, well, a trucker's atlas. Through the lens of Isaac Brock's dark worldview we got a view of a darker, crumbling America. Deserts rivaled by shopping malls. 

Even the 2000's have had artists who use the road as an inspiration. In 2011, The War On Drugs made the great Slave Ambient, a record which successfully blended rootsy-Americana with shoegaze. And even this year, Dirty Beaches released the brilliant Drifters/Love Is the Devil a record in which the main protagonist was wandering the world, a man without a home (from Berlin to the Danube River).

It seems logical to put Daughn Gibson's excellent new record, Me Moan in the ranks of these records. After all, Gibson was a trucker for a decade, trekking across America with an 18-wheeler. So compared to Dirty Beaches, Gibson works on a much smaller scale. The characters who populate Gibson's songs aren't lost, wandering strange European cities at night. They're meeting each other in roadside motel rooms, getting drinks at the Rio Bar and Grill or saying goodbye to Lynn Falls.

Daughn Gibson himself may seem just like a character as well. He's handsome enough to be an Ambercombie & Fitch model, yet he's driven a truck while playing in the stoner metal band Pearls and Brass. He's currently residing in Pennsylvania where his best friend lives. His best friend happens to be Matt Korvette of sludge punkers Pissed Jeans. Oh yeah, and his real name's not Daughn Gibson.

But when he released his 2012 debut, All Hell it became clear that Gibson was a musician worth watching. It was a record that was largely sample based, but with Gibson singing in his (now) signature baritone which recalls Johnny Cash, Tom Waits and Scott Walker. He proved to be an adept story teller as well. A perfect example of that is "Tiffany Lou", about a daughter who keeps seeing her father getting arrested on the TV show "Cops".

Because of the uniqueness of All Hell, but also because of it's short length (only half an hour), it wouldn't be surprising to be thinking hard of what Gibson would do next. Not to mention that he was signed to indie behemoth Sub Pop. So the questions were raised. What would Gibson do with a higher studio budget? What would he do with an actual backing band?

Daughn Gibson's Me Moan

When it comes down to it, the only logical answer is that he would make Me Moan. With his higher studio budget he's been able to feature more instruments (ranging from trombone to cello) and invite distinguished musicians to play with him (John Baizley of Baroness, Jim Elkington of Brokeback). He hasn't lost his style of forming samples, electronic and country music into one blurry, but satisfying whole.

This subtle change of pace is perfectly exemplified on the album's first song (coincidentally the first single as well), "The Sound of Law". The bass sounds funky, and the guitars and drums chug along, just like a truck. Gibson chronicles his birth, which, according to him was on the side of a highway. He also paints a dark picture of his "father", who just doesn't kill a man, but "[blows] that fucker off to hell". What makes this line so shocking and maybe even heart breaking, is that it follows the lyric, "he laid a kiss in my little hand".

A handful of songs are still sample driven, just like Gibson's earlier work. "Mad Ocean" samples militaristic bagpipes rivaled by driving drums. The disembodied vocal samples of "You Don't Fade" sound like the beginning of a Clams Casino beat, and the tick tocking of the drum machine of "The Right Signs" sounds like Chromatics' "A Matter of Time".

But where Gibson really shines are on the tracks that feature more daring and live instrumentation. These songs just happen to be the ones with the best lyrics as well. "Won't You Climb" features swooping violins and choir vocals as Gibson recalls a teenage love in his boring town. "Kissin on the Blacktop" starts off sounding like a joke with it's twangy, honky tonk guitars before Gibson reveals the adventures he's had in the Rio Bar and Grill. He's been ditched in the parking lot by his grandfather and did a little something with a female patron in the restroom.

Much of the lyrical content falls back to doomed relationships on Me Moan. Gibson and his girlfriend recall Bobby and Helen of James Mills' novel, The Panic in Needle Park on "The Pisgee Nest". They steal money from parked cars to pay rent. But she just happens to be the sheriff's daughter and a prostitute. On the album's excellent closer, "Into the Sea", Gibson succumbs to the bottle after a relationship ended the night before ("I don't want to drink the day away / but it's so unfair the way it went last night"). He discloses this all to us over shimmering piano arpeggios.

But it's the album's centerpiece, "Franco", that really hits you straight in the gut. Instrumentally wise, it's sparse. A lone guitar strikes some piercing notes and sometimes they're assisted by a drum beat and piano. On "Franco", Gibson knows the relationship's over, but he's trying to come up with different ways to preserve it. "You and  I can say goodbye to Lynn Falls / a better view of the city life / we could make it a paradise" is one of the many pleading lines that Gibson offers. He says he'll try to take a job and he'll wait for her even though "time can only bend". But the emotional climax is when Gibson sings the line "I wish we had a kid / who never wanted to die".

When it comes down to it, the characters in Daughn Gibson's songs aren't like characters found throughout the ages of rock music, but more literary characters. The characters of "Phantom Rider" who are hiding in hotel rooms with the doors locked recalls the paranoia and violence of Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men. Gibson's Nick Shay of Don DeLilo's Underworld speeding down a desert road, only to encounter a former lover. On the mundane life studying "All My Days Off", he's the drug addled characters of Denis Johnson's Jesus' Son, roaming the small towns in which they live in. Daughn Gibson is all of these compelling characters, but he remains his own as well. And he's just as compelling.

Daughn Gibson - Me Moan
9/10
Recommended Tracks - "The Sound of Law", "The Pisgee Nest", "You Don't Fade", "Franco", "Won't You Climb", "All My Days Off", "Into the Sea"

Why I Love Mac DeMarco

In music, there's something I like to refer to as the "click". The "click" is really just when the music clicks with the listener. When the listener realizes the genius of whatever they're listening to. It's great when you realize how great the music is upon first listen, but it's the music that burns slowly that's even better. It'll slowly unfurl, revealing it's brilliance to you.

Some examples of a "click": waiting for my best friend outside the Dunkin Donuts on Court Street, three days before Christmas while listening to Pavement's Slanted and Enchanted. Listening to Merchandise's Children of Desire on a flight back from London to New York. Walking through Dumbo, post Hurricane Sandy listening to El-P's Cancer 4 Cure. On an empty Q train at six in the morning, listening to Willis Earl Beal's Acousmatic Sorcery. 

But a couple days ago, I think I had the most important "click" yet (most likely to be replaced by something else soon, but who cares?). I was walking on the Brooklyn waterfront, while the sun was setting at 9:00 pm. There had just been a thunderstorm and the air smelled like wet pavement. The good ol' iPod Classic was on shuffle, and King Tuff's "Just Strut" had just finished. Following the Mighty Tuff, were some cheap sounding guitars, almost sounding like Parquet Courts, but much more gentle and wistful. Then, the voice came in, crooning "viceroy, early in the morning". What did I realize? I realized it was Mac DeMarco's "Ode to Viceroy". Quickly fumbling to grab my iPod from my pocket, I scrolled quickly to Mac DeMarco's 2. I listened to the half hour duration of 2 while wandering around Brooklyn as the sun set.

Mac DeMarco's Canadian. A couple of years ago, that wouldn't have meant anything unless you were Feist or part of Broken Social Scene (or as Sub Pop stated, "there was a time when you needed 18 members to be a band in Canada"). But now with a bevy of new musicians emerging from Canada, DeMarco is a welcome presence along with Metz, White Lung, Doldrums, Grimes, Fucked Up and some band who I don't talk about much, Japandroids.

Mac DeMarco is sleazy, slimy and a genius. With Alex Calder he was Makeout Videotape and made scuzzy, fuzzy garage pop that was recorded in a garage in Vancouver. He then struck out on his own at age 21, releasing Rock and Roll Nightclub on the Brooklyn label, Captured Tracks. The album was creepy and sometimes felt like a parody, with DeMarco singing in quiet baritone, glam rock impersonations, or having skits of him playing a demonic radio DJ. The lyrical content was downright weird. On "Baby's Wearin' Blue Jeans", DeMarco lusted after a woman because of the jeans she was wearing.

Mac DeMarco walked a line between a creepy crooner and a straightforward singer/songwriter on Rock and Roll Nightclub which was the album's downfall. Mac didn't exactly know who he wanted to be on his first album. On 2 (released only nine months after Rock and Roll), Mac DeMarco perfected his craft to make a career defining, perfect album.

It's hard to throw around the term "perfect" these days. Because then, musical purists will claim there hasn't been a perfect album since Who's Next. So, let me rephrase what I said. 2 has all intentions of being a perfect album, it's just barely out of reach (if that makes any sense). The aspiration is there, it's just not achieved throughout the entire album. But, hey, that's fine. Nobody's perfect.

In regards to discussing the genius of Mac DeMarco, and how it's reflected through 2 requires discussing the 11 songs of 2. So here we go.

The genius begins with "Cooking Up Something Good", which opens with some loose guitars before falling into an almost mechanical pattern with the drums. But the lyrics are where Mac shines, with him painting a mundane picture of family life in the first verse. His daddy's the pride of the neighborhood, his mommy's cooking up something good, his brother's in the ballet ("it seems he's got it set") and then there's Mac, up at midnight smoking his cigarette. After the chorus ("oh when life moves this slowly / just try and let it go") we learn his dad's the pride of the hood, because he's cooking meth in the basement and getting one of his sons to sell it for him. Our expectations of what the song would be are completely flipped, and the most heartbreaking moment is when we learn what Mac is doing through all of this. He's still up at midnight, but this time, he's chewing nicorette.

The album slides into "Dreaming", featuring languid guitar tones and Mac singing in a tired voice. Again, the genius of Mac shows, because he flips our expectations of the song again. We think it's a love song, with him finding the perfect woman but then in the chorus we hear "dreaming / I'm only dreaming". "Freaking Out the Neighborhood" is next, and it almost feels like a sequel of "Cooking Up Something Good". The main protagonist returns home and realizes how nothing's changed since he's left. The song also acts as an apology to his mother, while at the same time referencing how strange Mac is. "It's no fun / when your first son / gets up to no good / starts freaking out the neighborhood!"

There's album highlight "Ode to Viceroy", but first there's one of the album's many love songs, "Annie". It's one of the album's many love songs, with jerky guitars and Mac pleading to "Annie" wanting her to sit next to him before revealing "daddy won't let me". "Ode to Viceroy" features shimmering guitar arpeggios, but at the same time, they are kind of unsettling. It's a love song in the least traditional sense. It's an ode to a brand of cigarettes ("ohhh honey / I'll smoke you 'till I'm dying"), notoriously the worst tasting cigarettes as well. The song fades into dueling guitar solos, which both feature precision.

What follows is a trio of love songs, "Robson Girl", "The Stars Keep On Calling My Name" and "My Kind of Woman". On "Robson Girl", Mac sings in a pained voice asking if him and his lover can try this again when they're older (guess it's not working out). Mac doesn't exactly "shred" but he makes an attempt on "Robson Girl". Mac bought his guitar for $30 when he was 16. It sounds it. "The Stars Keep On Calling My Name" acts both as a love song and a song about escape. He's trying to convince the girl he loves to skip town with him, even though they don't know what exists in the outside world. Another album highlight follows, "My Kind of Woman". It features guitar arpeggios similar to "Ode to Viceroy". The guitars are wistful and Mac declares that you're "[his] kind of woman" ("my oh my, what a girl").

The instrumental "Boe Zaah" precedes the final two songs, "Sherrill" and "Still Together". "Sherrill" is another love song, possibly being the least original of the album (but it's no big deal). What makes the song interesting, is that through Mac's laconic lyrics, there's references to him being fired from multiple jobs. Mac made a move to Montreal once, but because he couldn't speak French he had to take strange and sometimes demeaning jobs. He signed up for multiple human science experiments and held a job at an animal morgue.

The album ends with the beautiful and mellow "Still Together". Accompanied by only a lightly strummed acoustic guitar, Mac gives us his biggest surprise yet. A beautiful falsetto in the chorus, that is unwavering and doesn't break once. After an album, where love has gone wrong for Mac, it's nice to see that him and his significant other are "Still Together". Maybe it's the same girl from "The Stars Keep On Calling My Name" and "My Kind of Woman". The song is dedicated to his girlfriend, Kira, who's living in the apartment her and Mac share in Montreal while he's on tour. The song ends with hushed dialogue: Mac wakes Kira up, tells her it's time to bed, tells her he has to leave at the moment, tells her he loves her, and then we hear a door close.

And 2 is over.

Critics like to relate Mac DeMarco to modern folkies like Cass McCombs and Kurt Vile. Despite how brilliant these two are, Mac isn't one of them. Mac is a complete weirdo and Vile and McCombs aren't. Mac belongs in the ranks of King Tuff, Sam France and Jonathan Rado of Foxygen and Alex Coxen and the rest of our boys from Milk Music.

In regards to weirdo wannabes Alt-J/∆, Pitchfork asked "where'd all the real weirdos go"?

They're right here.