Matthew Zapruder - Dragon Chinese Cocktail Horoscope - SideCho - 2009

It can be troublesome describing what an artist sounds like, but perhaps Michael Zapruder has taken away some of the guesswork since he serves as Pandora’s musical curator. A little predictably, the music genome project spit back three other white guys that play songs, listing Will Oldham, Luke Haines, and (huh?) Dave Matthews. But to me, for richer or poorer, Zapruder more closely resembles Randy Newman. Like the better Newman moments, his latest full-length Dragon Chinese Cocktail Horoscope is raggedly intimate, even-keeled, and admirably restrained. The dry consistency, however, at times caricatures Newman “just singing about what he sees,” slowing the pace to a drip with sentimental imagery bordering on antiquity.

The pace lends the record a restlessness that doesn’t always afford enough patience to allow its slow development. A clanging railroad crossing and reel-to-reel hiss displace “Can’t We Bring You Home” somewhat jarringly from the contemporary, an effect echoed by the acoustic hymnal “Second Sunday In Ordinary Time.” These cuts float on their brevity, but the same cannot be said of “Black Wine” a pastoral epic that clops along for a redundant nine minutes, despite vocals recalling a tender Roger Waters. With a difficult narrative thread to follow and minimal thematic variation, “Black Wine” becomes a medieval chore with little at stake for payoff.

Yet Zapruder generates great suspense when he’s inclined to hurry, as proven by “Ads For Feelings,” which strolls along a meandering guitar and surprising orchestration grounded by a charging bassline. It’s an interesting way to manipulate the tempo into a whistling shoegazer somewhere between Fujiya & Miyagi and Yo La Tengo circa I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One. Likewise “South Kenosha” is well-balanced, effectively distorted, and punctuated by a warm organ that shimmers through a pelting hi-hat cymbal. Appropriately, lush instrumentation and narrow vocals understate a build that recalls Sufjan Stevens. Here, Zapruder really warms up, the electricity less stratified as if thatched together by the hum of feedback. And as another display of Zapruder’s range, “Bang On A Drum” grooves hypnotically, playing an organ’s wobbly timbre against an in-and-out tabla that eventually takes control of a pounding break.

Yet perhaps the more reserved and symphonic efforts ask too much of the storytelling for an album where images are not as spartan as they are threadbare. While Zapruder admirably removes the mood from the contemporary, the album’s staid pace and sleepy vocals isolate the work. And that perhaps, is not a bad thing, if each singer-songwriter is marooned at their piano. But the haunting lack of urgency in Zapruder’s voice and keys evokes uneasiness, its unabashed leisure, the brand reserved for a flaneur, sprawls over the entirety of the record leaving too much air to breathe.

1. Happy New Year
2. Lucy’s Handmade Paper
3. Ads For Feelings
4. Can’t We Bring You Home
5. Black Wine
6. Harbor Saints
7. South Kenosha
8. Bang On A Drum
9. White Raven Sails
10. Second Sunday In Ordinary Time
11. Experimental Film

by Jay Dryburgh
for Tiny Mix Tapes

The Future Will Come - The Juan MacLean - DFA - 2009

After a 14-month gestation, The Juan MacLean’s 12-inch single success “Happy House” has finally blossomed into sophomore LP The Future Will Come. For MacLean, the long cultivation yields abundantly, with new wave and cosmic influences sprucing the framework of solid disco-house. DFAll-Stars Gerry Fuchs of !!!, Nick Millhiser & Alex Frankel of Holy Ghost!, and vocalist Nancy Whang guide MacLean through his robotic coming-of-age narrative masterfully. Despite some darker moments, their truly colorful playing keeps MacLean’s introspective robo-protagonist grounded, halting his steely gloom on the brink of short-circuit. In a sense, The Future Will Come is like a robot growing from the earth, often cold and exact, but equally organic and fresh.

The album’s first half sets off a bit manically, reeling from a pre-album breakup on “The Simple Life.” From here, MacLean endures some growing pains; each track holds up individually, but there is some clunking along as MacLean is rewired. The Hercules & Love Affair string arrangement on single “One Day,” for instance, doesn’t seem to jive with the vocoded Italo-cheese of “A New Bot,” which in turn seems to have little in common with the solemn horn-infused house ballad “Tonight.”

But from there, The Future Will Come blooms incrementally, driven from the ground by the grittiest keyboard performance heard on a dance album in some time. The percussion from a stable of synthesizers and ivories emulates the raw, soulful pierce of Whang’s pipes, bringing both energies to a head. “No Time” is particularly exemplary, as MacLean and Whang find computer love across verses that reveal the lubricious details of robot-on-woman flirtations. The trope is sustained by sonic counterparts: a stammering organ jitters against the drunken wonk of the other, as the fling climaxes in an impressively compact build.

Yet Whang’s strong performance is double-edged, as it exposes an uneven vocal effort from MacLean. At times, his melancholy breaks the deadlock grapple for mood between heavy instrumentation and Whang’s effortless pep. But with MacLean sharing leads, “The Station” drags like an awkward karaoke duet of The Human League, and the otherwise strong title track sounds as if MacLean forgot to boot up his voice box.

Still, while “The Station” stumbles and “Human Disaster” is a strange melo-operatic turn, the remaining tracks — including album-ending trump card “Happy House” — never derail. “Launch me into space,” Whang echoes to herself on the swan song, an ambition requiring both man and machine. This makes the inclusion of MacLean’s most galvanizing single seem appropriate rather than a cheap afterthought. It marks a dance album somewhat evolved to the point that even a robot could come around on its human potency.

1. The Simple Life
2. The Future Will Come
3. One Day
4. A New Bot
5. Tonight
6. No Time
7. Accusations
8. The Station
9. Human Disaster
10. Happy House

by Jay Dryburgh
for Tiny Mix Tapes

Weird electronic shit with female vocals.

Tom & Jerry - Hecuba
The Royal Family - Free Blood
You Are Amen - Pollyester
Summer Song - YACHT
Ms. Broadway (remix) - Glass Candy
Cable TV - Fol Chen

Mondayed #5

April Fools Mix

Wednesday on Mondayed Mix

Shack Up - A Certain Ratio
Funky Way - Calvin Arnold
Upside Down - Carol Cool
Straight to the Bank - Bill Summers
If You Want Me To Stay - Sly & the Family Stone