2K7 in Review: My Favorite Albums, #9
Hey, how ya been? I've been typing like a fiend. In addition to the following, check out my recent interview with local popsters 1997. And let's get on with it.
9. Marnie Stern, In Advance of the Broken Arm (Kill Rock Stars)
Traditional guitar shredders deserve respect for their dedication to their craft, but many simply can't put a song together to save their lives. Instead, they typically offer an array of string exercises, noodly atmospherics and other sonic wallpaper that nobody except other guitarists can enjoy. Take Steve Vai, who sounded great playing with Frank Zappa and Devin Townsend, but whose average solo material is pure wank, or Yngwie Malmsteen, whose brand of cock rock is all Eurotrash flash and no heart. Then there are the guitar god grandpas of the indie rock world, dudes like Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore, Dinosaur Jr.'s J Mascis or Built to Spill's Doug Martsch. Each an artful and creative player, yes, but the ramshackle cerebral aesthetic of their chosen styles often leave someone craving precision wanting. Somewhere between those disparate schools lies the shadowy post-hardcore outgrowth known as "math rock" because the practitioners' wacky flurry of notes and rhythms seems mapped out by a freaking calculus major. While this seems like odd company for a thirtysomething lady guitarist, that's about the only place Marnie Stern really fits. She does such unusual things within the realm of guitar wizardry, that fact that she's a rare female shredder is simply overshadowed by her vibrant music.
On this, Stern's debut LP, the New York native toes the line between formal experiments and off-kilter indie rock, coming up with a fresh and singular style in the process. With influences cited as including Sleater-Kinney, Don Caballero and Melt-Banana, that's bound to be the case, and the result - a blend of energetic grrl-rock and twiddly math-punk - is giddy and easy to like. Stern literally recorded Arm in her bedroom over a two-year period, with drums provided by Zach Hill of noise rockers Hella. Her densely layered guitar lines often loop, build and crash together like a less metallic, more enjoyable version of experimentalists Orthrelm. "Precious Metal" begins as a nearly formless racket, gradually morphing into a strident, off-time spy theme. When tracks like "Grapefruit" or "Put All Your Eggs In One Basket and Then Watch That Basket!!!" threaten too much repetition, Stern's often-multitracked vocals add another attraction, like an unapologetically girly gaggle of stoned, candy-crunching cheerleaders. Even more ponderous tracks such as "Logical Volume" and "This American Life" offer plenty of interesting shifts and buried sonic surprises. An unabashed oddity runs throughout, culminating in the first half of closer "Patterns of a Diamond Ceiling," which consists of Marnie intoning bizarro descriptions of the musical track beneath her. She calls out the changes as if she's reading instructions for emergency evacuation procedure; it's kind of eerie and very neat. Arm probably wouldn't be as bracing without Hill's wild percussion (check out his furious attacks during "The Weight of a Rock" for proof), but its finest moments such as the squalling shoegazer detours in "Absorb Those Numbers" or the brightly shifting patterns of "Healer" all belong to Stern. It's too active, noisy and plain-out weird to please everyone's palate, but for the audio equivalent of neon fireworks, Marnie Stern is the lady to see.
As far as I know, there is only one official video from Marnie Stern's In Advance of the Broken Arm... see below.
"Every Single Line Means Something"
9. Marnie Stern, In Advance of the Broken Arm (Kill Rock Stars)Traditional guitar shredders deserve respect for their dedication to their craft, but many simply can't put a song together to save their lives. Instead, they typically offer an array of string exercises, noodly atmospherics and other sonic wallpaper that nobody except other guitarists can enjoy. Take Steve Vai, who sounded great playing with Frank Zappa and Devin Townsend, but whose average solo material is pure wank, or Yngwie Malmsteen, whose brand of cock rock is all Eurotrash flash and no heart. Then there are the guitar god grandpas of the indie rock world, dudes like Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore, Dinosaur Jr.'s J Mascis or Built to Spill's Doug Martsch. Each an artful and creative player, yes, but the ramshackle cerebral aesthetic of their chosen styles often leave someone craving precision wanting. Somewhere between those disparate schools lies the shadowy post-hardcore outgrowth known as "math rock" because the practitioners' wacky flurry of notes and rhythms seems mapped out by a freaking calculus major. While this seems like odd company for a thirtysomething lady guitarist, that's about the only place Marnie Stern really fits. She does such unusual things within the realm of guitar wizardry, that fact that she's a rare female shredder is simply overshadowed by her vibrant music.
On this, Stern's debut LP, the New York native toes the line between formal experiments and off-kilter indie rock, coming up with a fresh and singular style in the process. With influences cited as including Sleater-Kinney, Don Caballero and Melt-Banana, that's bound to be the case, and the result - a blend of energetic grrl-rock and twiddly math-punk - is giddy and easy to like. Stern literally recorded Arm in her bedroom over a two-year period, with drums provided by Zach Hill of noise rockers Hella. Her densely layered guitar lines often loop, build and crash together like a less metallic, more enjoyable version of experimentalists Orthrelm. "Precious Metal" begins as a nearly formless racket, gradually morphing into a strident, off-time spy theme. When tracks like "Grapefruit" or "Put All Your Eggs In One Basket and Then Watch That Basket!!!" threaten too much repetition, Stern's often-multitracked vocals add another attraction, like an unapologetically girly gaggle of stoned, candy-crunching cheerleaders. Even more ponderous tracks such as "Logical Volume" and "This American Life" offer plenty of interesting shifts and buried sonic surprises. An unabashed oddity runs throughout, culminating in the first half of closer "Patterns of a Diamond Ceiling," which consists of Marnie intoning bizarro descriptions of the musical track beneath her. She calls out the changes as if she's reading instructions for emergency evacuation procedure; it's kind of eerie and very neat. Arm probably wouldn't be as bracing without Hill's wild percussion (check out his furious attacks during "The Weight of a Rock" for proof), but its finest moments such as the squalling shoegazer detours in "Absorb Those Numbers" or the brightly shifting patterns of "Healer" all belong to Stern. It's too active, noisy and plain-out weird to please everyone's palate, but for the audio equivalent of neon fireworks, Marnie Stern is the lady to see.
As far as I know, there is only one official video from Marnie Stern's In Advance of the Broken Arm... see below.
"Every Single Line Means Something"
posted by SoulReaper at 9:03 PM
1 Comments:
Poppin' like it's 1997
1997 has built a winsomely sweet sound in less than three years, one that ably straddles the indie pop and emo scenes. The band was formed by former members of emoists Constance, metalcore upstarts Funeral Etiquette and popsters October Fall, hailing from Elk Grove Village, Roselle, Hoffman Estates and Chicago. The sextet offers professionalism along with honest-to-gosh emotion, making for pleasant melodies that are just slightly rough around the edges.
The result, as heard on last year's debut for Victory Records, A Better View of the Rising Moon, incorporates a bevy of atypical instruments, providing an erudite bed for their breezy boy/girl power pop tunes. Despite its focus on the ups and downs of love, the record is ultimately hopeful, sincere and young at heart.
Vocalist/keyboardist Alida Marroni joined 1997 last year, replacing Kerri Mack, who is heard on A Better View. Marroni's first recording with the band, On the Run, is due in stores on May 27. She called to discuss her time with the rising group and their upcoming shows, including April 26 at Addison's St. Paul School of Rock.
Q: Were you a fan of 1997 when you came into the band?
A: Actually, no. I hadn't even heard of them. They went to high school with a mutual friend of ours, and she showed me the band around the beginning of April last year, as soon as Keri Mack left. I guess they'd been auditioning people. My friend suggested that I audition with them, I practiced with them a few times and it just immediately clicked.
Q: What drew you in? Was it the music or the people?
A: I heard the music first, and the first song on their first album called "Water’s Edge" was definitely what drew me to the band. I think that song embodies their attitude at the time, and the feel for all of their music is captured in that song. That song really got me, it was really catchy. I learned how to play it on the piano and how to sing it in about two days. I was really drawn to their sound judging from that one song. As soon as I met them and sang with them, it was so natural and they were so inviting, I couldn't have been happier about it. We all just knew as soon as we played together that that was how it was supposed to be.
Q: It seems that vocal harmonies and layering is important to 1997's sound. Do any of you have formal musical training, or is that something you picked up along the way?
A: Before I joined the band, I was studying to be an opera singer. I actually couldn't get into the music schools that I wanted to get into, so I was stuck in a rut. When I met them, it was the perfect outlet. But before me, none of them had had any kind of vocal training or anything. It was an essential part of the sound that they needed to create regardless of how trained they were for it. It needed to happen, and it just kind of does. There's a lot of it on the new album as well.
Q: Can you tell me a little about 1997's incorporation of instruments that are not typical in most rock?
A: I think that a lot of it is derived from our interest in folk music. We listen to a lot of Bob Dylan, Bright Eyes, Maria Taylor, Saddle Creek bands, Elliott Smith, things like that. We've always wanted to be a little more unique than what you see when you flip on the television. We're trying to incorporate harmonicas… on the new album, the bass player [Alan Goffinski] plays a singing saw, like Neutral Milk Hotel did a lot of that. We want to be as well-rounded as we can. We want to be musicians, we don't just want to play the typical pop you hear on the radio. We want to experiment and have fun. It's a creative outlet, so experimentation goes hand in hand with that.
Q: How does the upcoming album compare with A Better View of the Rising Moon?
A: The main adjectives that people have been using in comparison have been natural and organic. It's grittier, it's not as fine-tuned, perfect, poppy. It's a lot more raw. The subject matter differs in that the first album was a lot about heartbreak and it represented them as heartbroken teenagers with an optimistic undertone. Now, this is called On the Run, and it's all about change and restlessness and discontent in all sorts of friendships and relationships. It talks about loss. We even have a song with subject matter concerning the stock market and things of that sort. It's got a lot more ideas than just heartbreak.
I think we're all excited about it because it's saying things that a lot of us really felt around the same time, touring as a band and as like a family unit. We've all gotten to know each other and ourselves in a lot of different ways than we have known anyone else. Touring and sharing our music has been the most unique situation any of us have ever been in. This album really captures the new feelings and experiences that go hand in hand with what it's like living in a new place everyday.
Q: As you mentioned, the lyrics on the first album deal with love pretty often, and they're not all doom and gloom. Has that attitude been carried forward?
A: A lot of our relationships have suffered from the fact that we can't be home all the time, so I want to say that the love songs are a little more pessimistic on this album (laughs).I can't think of a song that's that much of a positive love song with the exception of songs that Caleb [Pepp], the guitarist, wrote for his daughter, Lily. He just found out that he's a father. That's probably the only time that 1997 is excited about love and life.
I don't want to make us sound like a depressed band, but right now we're searching for something, and this album is all about self-discovery and the process of finding what that is, sensing that there's an inevitable change approaching us and dealing with that. As a result, relationships and things of that nature suffer.
Q: It still seems very emotion-centered. What do you see as the difference between playing emotional music and playing "emo"? Most bands hate that tag, but it can often give a listener an idea of where a band is coming from.
A: I think that there are a lot of cliché lyrics that do hit home with a lot of people and can be tagged "emo." At the same time, I think that all the music I want to listen to is created with emotion, and I think that if it's real feelings written by real people, it's going to hit home with other real people. That's who we want listening to the music and that's who we're talking to. Not that we're trying to steer clear of the emo tag or anything, but I do find a difference between that genre and what we're trying to do right now. That genre is getting a little stereotypical, boring and predictable. That's the last thing we want to do right now because we're really trying to express ourselves in the most unique, natural way that we possibly can.
Q: Can you tell me about the St. Paul School and what shows are like there?
A: Yeah, we've played there, I want to say two or three times in the last year. There are two places the bands play. One is a large stage in a gymnasium. It's pretty cool, it can holds about 300 or 400 kids. It's your typical gymnasium, a bunch of kids having fun, a really big, spacious stage and merchandise on the right side of the gym. It's a nice atmosphere. It's at a church, so no cussing on stage, but it's a really positive place. There's another stage in the basement, the cafeteria, and it's pretty cool because everything's cleared out and it's just us and the kids standing on the same level, just being surrounded by our friends and our fans. It’s probably our favorite way to play, when you feel like you're right in front of people, and that's where we'll be playing on the 26th. We're really excited about it.
Q: You'll definitely get to play to bigger crowds on the Warped Tour this summer.
A: Absolutely. We love playing different kinds of shows, it makes us more well-rounded performers. We're really looking forward to Warped Tour, now that you mention it. I think it's going to be really good for us.
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