thepaul’s Neighborhood

Kordan, I’m still befuddled.  When I finally sat down for a proper listen of Longing, my immediate thoughts were “where did I go?” and “how long am I staying for?”  As I’m sure I mentioned in previous reviews, the power of Kordan lies in their ability to transport listeners to a strange, rich realm of multi-sensory experiences.  Perhaps that’s an exaggeration; but for most of us, whose lives are defined by shopping malls, mid-size vehicles, Starbucks lattes, and the occasional wild night of domestic brews and bar darts, Longing feels like a vacation from the mundane.  We will never be this hip, but for roughly half an hour we can pretend.

The Longing is essentially an elaboration of Fantasy Nation, Kordan’s first EP released July of last year.  Same bag of tricks, that is.  Dizzy, spacious sound layers over a steady beat—at the core, dance grooves with an experimentalist complex.  Where Fantasy Nation tapped the club vein, Longing searches for the abstract quality of pop music.  Listening to the album is like listening as a musician attempts to define city or love or life simply in audio.  Of course, this reads pretentious, as does any creative adventure that involves conceptual thought.  The reason I’m not harder on Kordan is simple:  despite the possible pretense, I can’t imagine the band playing any other style of music than this ultra stylized pretty.  There’s truth in purposeful cool, even if it’s easy to spot the GWBs (Girls With Bangs) and BWGs (Boys With Glasses) somewhere in the crowd.

Thanks to production magic or magic hands, “Fantasy Nation” and “Tokyo Tears” softened a bit from their EP debut:  flavors steeped, mechanics fine tuned, less thrust more lust.  Actually, compared to Longing, Fantasy Nation sounds decidedly reduced, as though Eisele and co. were practicing for grander occasions.  Such is the occasion.  Besides “Fantasy” and “Tokyo,” tracks like “Mirror” and the haunting “Shinjuku” stand out while in sum, the album remains fairly amorphous.  Eisele’s distant vocals amidst the instrumental mixed bag keep Longing interesting, but I wonder what’s next for Kordan.  Logically, the progression favors total ethereal bliss (as it is, the lyrics seem secondary), but I accept all bets. 

For now, the band keeps busy with live shows in and around New York City.  Visit their Website / Myspace / Facebook for more information. The Longing is set to officially release in February of 2010.  You can preview the album here.

It's hard to believe that it's been a decade since Y2K.

In 1999, the doomsayers predicted the end of the world as we know it - in the form of computers all over the world crashing because of the so-called millennium bug. It never made sense to me, I mean if it were a problem, couldn't you just change the date ?

I spent the New Year's eve in Vietnam, away from civilization. The next day, nothing changed. Not even an incident. All that scare were for thing. But it wasn't all for nothing, the Y2K bug inspired quite a few things - among them, music, televisions, and books.

WHO'S AFRAID OF Y2K?
geometrid.co.uk ♥ myspace.com

There was a period when I tracked down all the projects that were related to Belle & Sebastian, including The Gentle Waves/Isobel Campbell and Looper. Looper was was basically B&S's Stuart David and his wife, Karn, who actually met via penpalism (as told by their song, Impossible Things).

They did garner a bit of fame through "Mondo '77", a really great catchy "binary"-video gamey song (it's been featured in Vanilla Sky, video games, and anti-drugs commercials). But unfortunately, their third (and final?) album, The Snare did not have any really catchy songs. The ruder and darker themed album was due to David's book The Peacock Manifesto (whos character also appears on the cover and songs of The Snare).

Anyway, in 1999, Looper released a double A-Side called Who's Afraid of Y2K? and Up A Tree Again, which I picked up, among other singles, at a Flaming Lips show (Looper was opening up for the band).

Both are excellent songs, although there were two remixes of "Up A Tree Again". I normally don't like remixes, but these were pretty different from the original album (which actually sounds pretty stale compared to these upbeat mixes). The "singles mix" of "Up a Tree Again" was interesting to say the least, focusing mostly on the "la-na-na-na" section and DJ-scratches, while the Chocolate Layers remix was pretty much only the "la-na-na-na" section.

Looking back, I suppose "Who's Afraid of Y2K?" song was a bit of novelty. Ironically enough, the song was awashed in electronic quirks and beats - all the things that Y2K would've destroyed supposedly.

Currently, Looper's on hiatus. I haven't heard much in terms of a new David novel or Looper release. Most of the recent releases were made free on their website, geometrid.co.uk.

BRAVE OLD WORLD
dccomics.com/vertigo

I thought the concept behind this William Messner-Loebs-written Vertigo mini-series was interesting enough: a group of computer hackers working on a solution to the Y2K bug at the end of 1999 - only to find themselves in 1900.

The series explored some interesting concept, like what would you do, if you had all this computer/understanding of technology, only to be trapped in a world that still operated via candlelight? The women in the comics had it worst, let's face it, women didn't exactly have freedom back then. And if you were doing something strange, you're a witch and killed, etc.

So what's the group to do to try and back to 2000? They had to build a computer, by "inventing" their own technology.

Like I said, a very interesting concept. It sort of got a bit boring towards the end (by the last issue, I didn't really care for the characters so much).

Vertigo comics has yet to collect this in a trade, I suppose after the Y2K fiasco, it probably wouldn't be worth reading. I mean, we all know as fantastic as going back in 1900 would be, it didn't happen - just like the Y2K didn't happen. Still, if you want to re-live what it was like, or what Messner-Loebs was thinking back in 1999.

PREPARE YOURSELF FOR Y10K

Chances are, I'll be dead, so I wouldn't care so much what would happen. Wikipedia thinks it's a problem, but I suspect by the year 10,000, that our computing technology would be so advance, it wouldn't amount to anything.

Until then, have a great New Year. Take care of each other. I'll see you in 2010.

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BRITPOPCAST #6: THE GIRLS OF BRITPOP (wave 2)

The show was actually longer, but I'm including more Jarvis-stalking festivities until next week. This week is all about the second wave of girls of Britpop (the first wave consists of Powder, Sleeper, Salad, Echobelly, Elastica). Since we've talked so much about them already, I thought talking about the second wave was a little more interesting.

Second wave:

• Kenickie (Lauren Laverne - all girls band)
• Kenickie, believe it or not, was the only all-girls Britpop band.  There was another band called Fluffy around this era, but they were more hard-rock than brit-pop.  While Fluffy's ultimate was branded with "eight tits no talent", Kenickie was more loved in general.  While their music is often more polished punk/pop early on, they shifted their sound to more lounge for their second album.  Obviously the band was still in their infancy ... but eventually broke up shortly after the second album.
  
• Lush (Miki Berenyi & Emma Anderson)
• In early Lush's history, they were two best friends, Miki Berenyi & Emma Anderson.  They were fanzine producers, and started their own band based on their love of shoegazing music with their EPs and debut album Spooky. You can hear their love of melodies as they sing in and out.  Of course, when you have two songwriters, they often clash if they have other interests.  In this case, at the time Split came out in 1994, some of the songs were clearly "britpop"esque.  Even the naming of the album (Split) was an indication, between aggressive pop songs like "Kiss Chase" and "Hypocrite" - the britpop songs would later continue with "Ladykiller" and their ultimate britpop moment with Jarvis Cocker on "Ciao!"  While I did tend to like the Miki songs, Emma did coin a few great pop gems like "Shake Baby Shake" (which is about the love of her car).
  
• When we heard that drummer, Chris Acland committed suicide by hanging himself, we all knew the band would be split up after this.  And it's true, they never quite recover.  I was lucky enough to catch them before the tragedy and continued to follow to see what the band's been up to.  The last I heard, Emma is in Sing-Sing, which had a great pop song called "Feels Like Summer".
  
• Catatonia (Cerys Matthews)
• Since we previously talked about Catatonia in our previous Welsh Britpop bands, I'll only briefly mention them here.  The thing with Catatonia for me was that each of their song was either a hit or miss... no inbetween feeling.  I either hated or love it. But the songs I really love, I really love, so that makes up for them.  I love the way Cerys sings, in fact, all Welsh people have a particularly weird accent to them and it's always a nice earful when you do hear them sing or talk.  It's like they're speaking English, but learned it from another planet.
• Favorite songs: "Mulder & Scully", "I Am the Mob", "Karaokee Queen",  "Road Rage", "Dead from the Waist Down"
  
• Theaudience (Sophie Ellis-Bextor)
• This was a very brief band from 97-99, fronted by Sophie Ellis-Bextor - who went on to have a series of very successful Eurodisco releases.  I must admit, I never followed the band that much - they arrived a little too late for me.  I didn't buy their debut album (it was never released in the US), but managed to get their debut single, "I Got the Wherewithal".  The song is quite good, and even their b-side "Penis Size and Cars" is amusingly catchy.
  
• Bis (Amanda MacKinnon)
• I love this Scottish band.  Although they were far too "kiddish" in their cute unreadable spellings and anime-influence, they were pretty damn cute and catchy.  Songs like "Kandy Pop" topped many playlist around this time, although in retrospect, looking back, it was a pretty mindless dum (dumb as in DUM) song.  Unfortunately, many people, including myself, didn't regard Bis as a Britpop band, but they're often grouped in.  My favorite song: "Action & Drama"!
  

Honorable mentions:

• Black Box Recorder (Sarah Nixey)
• Very catchy/dancey, but not Britpop.  Their bassist is Luke Haines, formerly of the Britpop band The Auteurs.
  
• Dubstar (Sarah Blackwood)
• This British act came out during the birth of Britpop, but they were far too alternative-dance/electronica to be considered Britpop.  The singer is Sarah Blackwood, who, I reckon the band ditched toward their later music releases.
  
• Sneaker Pimps (Kelli Dayton)
• Fluffy
  
• Republica (Saffron)
  
• Fat Les (Lily Allen sings on their last single???)
  

Dear Minnesota,

I’ve been a little busy performing Christmas miracles, lunching with the Obamas, and bestowing bad karma. But I wanted to send you a quick note to say I’m sorry. Sorry for the snow. If it makes you feel better, I was aiming for Wisconsin.

Love,

GOD. 

Cold, sad Midwest, warm your hearts this season with a music video. Inspired by the misery of being on weather lock-down, our friends in UltraChorus spent the holidays shooting a video for “Margins” (from the recently released Ultra-Def).  The finished product is both wistful and mildly unsettling (the shaky camera, bright lights, creepy slow walking, and 2:24 – 2:30 reminds me of a dream I once had wherein the unassuming drifter killed me in the end).  Check it out!

Also, Minneapolitans, mark your calendars:  UltraChorus is playing at the Kitty Cat Klub this Saturday, Jan. 2^nd (2010!).  Visit their Myspace or website for more information.

UltraChorus "Margins" Video

 12/29/2009 00:51:52 ♥ lara (/lara206.vox.com) ♥ ultrachorus.com ♥ myspace.com/ultrachorus