Most Springsteen albums are generally musical, positive, epic, and possess lyrics that are so detailed that the listener becomes immersed in Springsteen’s nostalgic but romantic tales of growing up in blue collar America. Nebraska, is different. Nebraska, is a set of songs Springsteen recorded as demos and, as legend has it, carried them around in a back pocket of a worn pair of jeans until he was convinced that the tracks sounded better without the E-Street band. The result is an album that tells tragic stories of blue collar characters in a United States that is about to enter the Reagan era.

To match the lyrics, is a low-fi production recorded by Springsteen alone, in a room, with a four-track machine. Not only is this unplugged recording style an important platform for lo-fi indie albums of the 90′s, but the medium echos Spingsteen’s themes of despair and hopelessness and makes the perfect backdrop for his story telling.

This is an album for the dark.

Bruce Springsteen – Highway Patrolman

Noah Lennox of Panda Bear and Animal Collective fame was nice enough to answer a couple questions for us by email. Below the fold, he touches on a new family life in Lisbon, the success of Person Pitch, and his thoughts on the music industry. Josh wrote an introductory post here. Thanks, Noah!

Loaded question, but how’s Portugal treating you? And the married life, and fatherhood? It’s a big lifestyle change…

portugal is treating me very well i should say and i really like it here. i love my wife and i love my daughter, but as with anything really worthwhile they’re not without their challenges and difficult parts and i mean that in the best way. the little differences add up here i would say, but its not like everything is different if you know what i mean. i was in new york the last week or so and it was pretty crazy noticing just how i felt day to day there compared to here.

Person Pitch has an entirely different sound than Young Prayer, and I know that trying to make it a more positive album was a conscious thing, but was there any particular inspiration for that? Do you think this was a product of living in Lisbon and/or the family life?

yes i would say so, but its kind of hard to trace, and hard to quantify if you know what i mean. trying to be more positive on the simplest level and on the smallest scale is something i’ve been concerned with for a bit. i suppose living here in lisbon helped out with the process and my wife for sure too, but i think i started a while ago like before portugal. i guess i just want to say that i don’t think of portugal as an end to everyones problems.

I read somewhere that Person Pitch was the first album you did entirely electronically. What was the creative process like? Is it something you’d like to try again?

my process was the same for every song and it involved a lot of testing and trial and error and tinkering and listening maybe most of all. i listened to the repetitions of the song parts over and over again until the singing parts began to appear inside me if you know what i mean. i was always working on the jams in animal collective breaks and i would never work on something unless i felt like it and i think that had a positive effect on the sounds for sure. if i started to play music and didn’t do anything i liked then i’d stop and do something else. that was pretty often i should say, and the good times for music making for me go in waves so i’ll do nothing i like for a while like a week or so, and then i’ll have three days or so where i like my ideas about things almost every day.

There’s been a lot of comparison by critics with your vocals and the textured… psychedelia to Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys. Is that likeness something intentional? How do you feel about the comparison?

it wasn’t anything intentional and i’d like to always be doing things in my own way if i can, and i don’t have any desire to copy or mimic if you know what i mean. you could say it’s impossible not to steal somehow, but thats a long conversation for sure. hearing the comparisons a lot (its happened a bunch with animal collective as well) only makes me feel disappointed in myself mostly and makes me want to try harder the next time.

You sang in a choir as a teenager, which comes through in your ethereal yet angelic harmonies. What was that like, and what kind of impact does it have on your music?

i had a lot of fun singing in the choir, even though it was difficult sometimes. it was an after school thing and it wasn’t just students, sometimes it was just people in town as well who were psyched on choir singing. it’s hard to put my finger on the influence but it think i safely can say that it made me think about combinations of melodies and harmonies and just about the way things fit together in new ways.

I’d imagine 2007 was a huge year; Person Pitch and Strawberry Jam are both huge successes and I’m sure breakthrough for you. Is that critical acclaim and the expectations that come with it stressful?

sometimes i guess, but i feel more stress and pressure to provide for my family more than anything else and that comes just from me. i don’t mean to make it sound like my wife or daughter hassles me about it, but that pressure guides a lot of my decisions i should say, and the way i approach things. for example i think i worked quite a bit harder on the person pitch jams and was far more willing to spend lots of time touring as a direct result of the pressure i’m talking about. things balance out too–i’d imagine lots of people will blast the next one if i do one and thats ok.

Anything new in the works?

i’ve been doing a lot of thinking about making new songs, but haven’t really put any of it into action. i’ve got titles and i know pretty much the setup ill use and i think thats a really good start, and i’m excited i should say.

Another loaded question, but what do you think about music blogs sharing a couple tracks, the music industry as a whole, and about Radiohead and Trent Reznor/Niggy Tardust’s sales and distribution model? Is it something you think could work with smaller, but equally dedicated audiences? Is it something you’d like to try?

it is something i’d be psyched to try, and i’ve thought about trying to set up something where if i make a song or an album then someone can buy it cheaply from me directly as soon as i’m done it. i don’t like all the waiting and strategy and all of that, although i understand why its important for labels and distributors and that kind of thing. i’m excited about new models and new ways of sharing and releasing music, and i’d imagine that sooner or later someone will come up with a new system and a new way of releasing music that will become the standard (because it seems like the traditional method is breaking down all over the place). i suppose time will only tell if the radiohead and trent reznor jams will be the new way or not but perhaps.

Anything in particular that you’ve you’ve been listening to much of recently?

i really like black dices load blown album, it make me feel intense and charged if you know what i mean.

Closing Thoughts?
thanks very much for the interview and i hope you are very good today.
PEACE

On the inside cover of Person Pitch is a list of “thank you’s” that includes a number of artists. The top two are, Basic Channel and Luomo, minimal techno artists. This is not surprising considering Person Pitch is a sampled album. In basic structure, it’s not that different from what one may find on a minimal techno record, but the rub is in the samples Panda Bear has chosen. Rather then blips and bleeps, one is going to find claps, voices from a choir, a roller coaster, someone crying, an owl, guitars, Panda Bear’s vocals, which sound eerily similar to Brian Wilson’s, and interestingly enough, sounds and instruments that are reminiscent of those used in Pet Sounds (see Bros and Ponytail).

One thing this decade will be remembered for is the way artists are beginning to use digital technology to do new and different things with samples. Girl Talk and A-trak are examples of this, so are Panda Bear and Animal Collective, though in a completely different light. Girl Talk and A-trak use them to make the ultimate mix-tape. Panda Bear uses samples to convert into an album his appreciation of different experiences and influences. Person Pitch is not just a beautiful record, its also a personal statement about being an artist and how one should conduct himself as such.

“get your head out from those mags
and websites who try to
shape your style
take a risk just for yourself
and wade into the deep end of the ocean”

Paw Tracks

My Space

So, I remember back in 1995 when I finally got my first album, a CD from Spacemen 3. It was in NYC, in a small basement store at the East Village. It was one of those magical music related experiences, finding something I was about to give up. That store was the best I had seen thus far. They had all official releases of them and pretty much any other band you can think of, plus a lot of bootlegs. That’s another thing, it was much harder less than 15 years ago. Today if you love a band you can download it. In the recent past you first needed to find a place that had it for sale, then you needed to have the money to buy it. I didn’t have the money. In the end I only bought this one. I had just got some others about 2 years later when in Europe, but man, this was one of the very few albums that I literally knew entirely. The CD player was always on repeat. Insane. Then, a bit later, I started to judge the quality of record stores by the amount of different Spacemen 3 titles they were selling. Trust me, at the end of the 20th century this kind of filter used to make sense. If a store was selling an album by a cult band from some other place on the globe, that was a fucking great store. It was a huge world. The local bands were just that, local. You or your friends needed to travel to different countries, dive into their respective scenes, and then come back home to show what you got, like if it was a trophy. Are you following me? You know those old, old, photos of animals hunted? It was close. And the cults used to begin that way. And the word cult was proper, in the sense of concentration. Not from my time, but as an illustration, Bowie goes to live in Berlin and his music gets intoxicated by the place. Before the Internet, before traveling becomes so affordable, even if you were already a really well established artist, to go and live in another place, and mind you Berlin is really close to London, could make deep turns to the way you deal with things. The cultural shock we watch in “Lost in Translation” was so much deeper and used to happen in any direction, not only very distant locations. Spacemen 3 was also my introduction to older bands like Suicide, The 13th Floor Elevators and The Red Krayola. They even had an album titled “Taking Drugs to Make Music to Taking Drugs to”.  That was seduction to a kid willing to know more, willing to know better. They were full of references – intelligent ones. They made a live record, “Dreamweapon”, consisting of 45 minutes of distorted guitars. Fuck, a cool band didn’t use to make those kind of things back then. Hypnotic. Extreme. The vocals are so slack. Slow ambiances. I’m writing all this because after 5 years or so I just listened to this album again. You know, kinda like that old girlfriend you will always love but life moves on and relationships aren’t supposed to last, but sometimes, sometimes you two see each other and get together and everything is right and makes total sense. Listen up.

Things’ll Never Be the Same

Take Me to the Other Side

Transparent Radiation (Flashback)

Matthew Cooper aka Eluvium was kind enough to answer a few questions for us via e-mail. Here, you can find his thoughts on file sharing, some book, movie, and album recommendations, as well as a bit of insight into Eluvium’s latest LP, Copia.

* Can you tell us about the moment you first realized that making music was going to be your career?

- I think that ever since I have been truly aware of music or sound, it has seemed obvious to me. Sound has always been one thing in my life I have never questioned or felt uncomfortable with. It is always evolving, as well, from instrument to intention to scientific understanding and experimenting, into simplicity and pop and everywhere in between and others not noted.

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* As an artist, what are your thoughts on file sharing and its effects on the music industry?

It’s something that will be, whether you like it or not. It seems sort of foolish to be against it. I personally find the concept of listening to music using a computer very convenient, and when I hear something I like, I go to the record shop and purchase it. It doesn’t seem too different from listening in the store, which most independents have always done. I suppose it is a shame when people take advantage of this ease, but who am I to argue? It is the way that it is. If only all forms of commodities could eventually end up this way we’d be fine. If someone purchases my albums, I can use that money to go to the store to get some tea, but when someone “illegally” downloads my albums, I can’t, unfortunately, download a cup of tea, but things are forever changing. Perhaps, next week, I will be able to. Although a friend of mine was telling me about a new program that can build furniture from any design you draw into it. Perhaps people will one day be illegally downloading furniture.

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* Any good books you’ve read lately?

I’m starting “The Savage Detectives” right now – been wanting to get into this for a while now. Just finished “The Double” by Saramago – that was okay. Wanting to start the Javier Marias books soon. Um… Kobo Abe’s ,”Inter Ice-age 4″. Oh, “Specimen Days” was really good too (Michael Cunningham). Been keeping my eye on “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” as well (Michael Pollan).

Sorry, I like books quite a bit. I’m usually buying 5 to every 1 that I read.

Other favorites are Murakami, Proust, and W.G.Sebald. The Harry Potter books were fantastic as well, and I also just re-read all the Salinger stuff – can’t go wrong there.

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* ..movies you’ve seen lately?

Usually lots of “bad” action movies, espionage and stuff. But my favorite movies to watch are “My Dinner With Andre” and the Pixar catalogue, but “Wings Of Desire” is wonderful too, as is “The Burbs”.

I particularly liked that “Stranger Than Fiction” movie as well. Not sure how much it had to do with Max Richter being in the soundtrack.

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* ..albums you’ve listened to lately?

-Murcof – Cosmos
-David Byrne -The Knee Plays
-Glenn Gould- Two and Three Part Inventions (Bach)
-Leon Fleisher – Two Hands (especially his “Sheep May Safely Graze” and his “Clair De Lune” )
-Bedhead – What Fun Life Was
-Benoit Pioulard – Precis

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* What was your inspiration for Copia? Was your inspiration similar and/or different from your earlier records? How so?

Aside from nature, which is inherent in everything I do and think, it also had many things to do with waking up early and walking while listening to fantastic records. I think it started with an amalgamation of Moondog, and Gabriel Rheinberger (he’s an organist I’m fond of). Although I don’t think the records actually influenced me so much as being awake and in a strange and lovely frame of mind, helped by the records. I would usually start working on music immediately on the return home from a walk, which was completely new to me. Everything I had worked on in the past, had been written very very late in the night, somewhere between 3 a.m. and 3:01 a.m.. The kind of late at night that is no longer a time so much as an institution.

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* When you begin creating your albums have you already decided what you want the essence of your album to be, or is it something that grows with the album’s construction?

It used to grow one hundred percent with the construction. I suppose that was another change in style and attempt. Since the E.P., and much more so with Copia, there was a lot more songwriting prior, and definitely more of a chosen direction. Although, I still wouldn’t try to control it so much so that intention prevails over experimentation. Rather, I will record material completely composed going in, but as things move on in the process, there is still mutation that was certainly never considered in the beginning.

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* Copia, more than some of your other albums, feels more emotional. It feels as though you’re reaching out a bit more and, as a listener, I tend to respond more empathetically towards the music. Is this intentional? If so can you tell us about some of the emotions that you experienced during your recording and/or emotions you wanted to convey?

That’s a tough call because it’s hard for me to say that. Although the changes and interest in earlier records can be considered more subtle, I wouldn’t go so far as to say they are less emotional or conveying any less than my newer stuff. That being said, there was definitely a part of me, while recording Copia, that wanted to push the envelope musically a little bit. Before writing any of the music, my original idea was to do something over the top dark. I kept on picturing something ala Phantom Of the Opera or at least the resounding quality of that kind of insanity, but when the songs came they were much different in notation. Around that time I read a poem by my friend Emily Wahl (she also played Clarinet on Lambent Material) and how the poem made me feel was exactly what I was beginning to feel with working on Copia, which to me, at least, is trying to discuss the idea of “the future”, having the ability to be anything we wanted. It doesn’t have to be like what movies show us, like in The Terminator or Blade Runner or Thx 1138. It can also be full of lush nature, prosperous for everyone, and a common sense world filled with understanding and perhaps, to even take that a step further, to be comfortable with the possibility that this future may not be ours, but it will be someone’s.

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* Have you begun working on any new projects? Can you give us a preview of some sort?

I’ve got a few things slowly moving forward here. Recently a new project called Concert Silence released a free album at concertsilence.net, and we are pretty proud of that work – warts and all, as they say.

I have also been putting together some loose sketches for Eluvium, but I’m still a ways off from anything solid so I can’t really say much about it yet.

I’ll be touring most of the first half of 2008 so after that is all done, I’ll probably start to focus more on both of those projects. I’ve got a few other things keeping me entertained for the time being. Where they will eventually end up – no one knows.

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* If the audience of your albums could walk away with one thing, what would you like that to be?

Everything will be okay.

Matthew Cooper, under the moniker Eluvium, offers an aural antidote filled with rich soundscapes, deep textures, and at times sparse resonance. Eluvium’s latest LP, Copia, has the same depth and introversion that is the cornerstone of Eluvium’s discography, but here the guitar is abandoned for brass, a piano, an organ, and other strings. The change in instruments creates a shift in mood from Eluvium’s recent albums. Copia is more uplifting and feels, overall, more positive. If Talk Amongst the Trees is the sunset, then Copia is the sunrise. Its the innocence of the morning and a detox from the evening.

Eluvium – Prelude For Time Feelers

Purchase 

Local Philadelphia radio station, 88.5 WXPN has compiled their list of the 885 most important moments in music history. I’ve never been a huge fan of lists when ranking is based on nothing more then opinion, but the collection of historical music events does succeed in illuminating some of the most pivotal moments in music.

I’ve spent a few hours getting lost in some of the events and their consequences and I’m bound to come back a few more times and explore other events. In short its worth a gander. Oh and their pick for the most influential moment in music history: ’69 Woodstock.

WXPN’s List: http://www.xponentialmusic.org/blogs/885mmmm

Radiohead releases In Rainbows today. From my first couple of listens I can say the album is the sort of caliber that you would expect from Radiohead. Their album site seems to be down at the moment.

In Rainbows

Yet Tarr’s style is mesmerizing and penetrating. It creates a dark, bleak world of relentless winters, muddy streets, and frightened citizens. The characters seem real. The black and white shots are sometimes dramatic, sometimes beautiful, and sometimes horrifying. I really enjoyed this film, but as I said, its not for everyone. I’ll provide the opening takes below as well as the song from the video.

Víg Mihály – Valuska