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Damon Albarn: Everyday Robots

25 Aug

Everyday Robots is a lovely album. It’s amazing how British that word can be. Damon Albarn is no stranger to the British album. Some of his stuff with Blur, like the unmistakable classic Parklife, is as British as you can get without being the Village Green Preservation Society, but that is the snarky and cynical Brit. This is a more introspective album. This is an album with honesty and with sadness. This is a quiet chat indoors because of the rain.

Everyday Robots is Mr. Albarn’s first solo album. As with Blur, social commentary runs through this album. This time, he speaks of technology and how far it takes us from each other. However, this album is not about society at large as much as the singer. This is by far the most personal album that I have ever heard from Damon Albarn and it makes a nice change.

This is a beautiful, if sometimes a little haunted, trip through his mind. This album does an excellent job of using melodies to reinforce lyrics, both of which hold strong throughout. Standout moments include the downbeat funk of “Lonely Press Play”, the thudding beat of “Photographs (You Are Taking Now)” and the choral effects of “Heavy Seas of Love.” This album does a great job of hitting emotions.

Damon Albarn has to be one of the first people to mind when thinking about auteurs of the past 30 years of music and with Everyday Robots, he remains a powerhouse. However, here he does so intimately. This is a new skin for someone who has been around a while and he wears it well. Everyday Robots is a very good album.

– @murthynikhil

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Outside Lands Day One – 8/8/2014

10 Aug

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Outside Lands is the largest music festival of the year for San Francisco. It’s cousin from the South, Coachella, is larger in every way, but it is still a big thing for those who stay in the City by the Bay. Normally I skip these things, but for this one that wasn’t an option. You’ll find out why below.

Run the Jewels

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My Outside Lands experience started with Run The Jewels, the hip-hop duo consisting of Killer Mike and El-P and they started it well. They came out aggressively and ran an intense set. Run The Jewels was one of the best rap albums of the past year and made for a fun live show. Killer Mike also took some time to respect the bay, remembering Mac Dre and calling Too $hort his father figure. They even brought out SF native and hometown hero DJ Qbert who ran the turntables like a champ. This was quite the opening to a day full of music.

Warpaint

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Next on my list was the excellent indie rock quartet Warpaint. Their sounds have the gossamer delicacy of fine silk and intrigue of a murder mystery. Simple to the point of being almost unadorned, their pop has a natural beauty that is incomparable. Unique and wonderful, their show was a delight.

Chromeo/Grouplove

Sadly, the show then hit its low point with Chromeo. They drew quite the crowd and an enthusiastic one at that. Their show however took all their flaws and magnified them. They lost what little charm their albums hold and came off as purely unintelligent and unlikeable in concert. The high point of their show was choosing to leave it.

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I crossed the field just in time to listen to Grouplove cover BeyoncĂ©’s “Drunk In Love”. They couldn’t do it full justice. BeyoncĂ©’s voice is exquisite. Still, they tried and the result was worth the listen. They followed it up with a couple of mediocre songs and a couple of good songs. I’m not going to buy tickets to a full Grouplove concert anytime soon, but I could have done worse than to watch them for half an hour.

Tegan and Sara

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Next on the list were Tegan and Sara. The indie rock duo was more fun than anyone else in the concert. Their songs were upbeat and bouncy and they kept breaking up their set with some quite amusing banter. I was quite sad that I had to leave them early, but I wanted to make sure I found a good place for the next concert.

Kanye West

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I bought tickets to Outside Lands purely to see Kanye West and he did not disappoint. Intense, challenging and of unparalleled quality, this is exactly what I wanted from a Kanye West concert. I just didn’t know how well he would deliver.

He opened with “Black Skinhead” eliciting the expected crowd excitement, and the following hit “Mercy” kept the hype rolling, but it wasn’t until later that we really began to see what this concert could be. In the middle of “Clique” he broke off the song to speak about the hate he gets and how his listeners are his clique. Chanting the chorus took a new intensity immediately after.

His anger in “New Slaves” was nothing short of palpable. One of his oaths in that song physically rocked me back. The crowd naturally knew most of his songs, so he kept cutting them up into pieces and making the crowd go over certain parts multiple times. You could say he was a leader and we were followers.

Kanye West is not the kind of guy to pander during a concert. He did shout out to SF during “The Good Life” instead of the normal second set of cities with the Bay Area line. We must have gone over “Blood On The Leaves” five times because he wanted mosh pits for when the bass drops in that song. “POWER” was abruptly broken because he felt like switching songs. Kanye does what he wants, and that’s why I go see him.

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The later part of the show featured quite a few of his older hits. He started with “All Falls Down” to bring back the memories and then kept going. “Jesus Walks” still holds up as one of his best songs and works very well in a crowd. Also, “Diamonds of Sierra Leone” was quite the throwback. I remember watching that song on TV back when it first came out. “Touch The Sky” and “Stronger” also came out to represent one end with “Bound 2”, “All of the Lights” and “Run This Town” pushing the other. The man has quite the discography.

As always with Kanye though, a large part of his appeal is being able to relate with his sentiments. Often, it seems like he is the only angry person left in music. This time for me it was “Can’t Tell Me Nothing”. It has been quite a while since I last heard it and it was the right song in the right place. Shouting the chorus with the crowd was nothing short of cathartic and “I feel the pressure, under more scrutiny/And what I do, act more stupidly” hit all the right notes.

During an extended singing part of “Runaway”, Kanye stated that his songs are about promoting self-confidence and that being a fan of Kanye was being a fan of yourself. This is the kind of concert that makes you be both.

– @murthynikhil

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Broken Bells: After The Disco

8 Aug

Broken Bells, the side-project of the Shins’ James Mercer and Danger Mouse, have come together here to make their second album. After the Disco proves to be a very listenable, if rarely challenging pop album.

This is a consistent and cohesive album, running its themes of the disco beat by way of synth pop and occasionally blues-rock. “Holding On For Life” does a strong Bee Gees impression over a pulp science-fiction
story. “Leave It Alone” provides an interesting diversion into soft-rock and confessionals. However, the album as a whole lacks strong moments. The sum is a little too bland to recommend.

After the Disco ends up being a very gentle album. It has no major offenses, but fails to achieve distinction. This is a pleasant album and I enjoyed listening to it, but I’m not going to regret forgetting it.

– @murthynikhil

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Phantogram: Voices

21 Jul


Voices is exactly what it appears to be, a good indie pop album. There’s a little more R&B and a little more hip-hop here than you would find on, say, the CHVRCHES album, but it still hits all the notes you expect it to and hits them well.

Sarah Barthel’s vocals are excellent throughout and shift the songs around the more static beats behind them beautifully. The beats themselves are easy to fall into. This is a hard album to tire of.

The album suffers from some inconsistency though. Songs like “Black Out Days” and “Howling at the Moon” cannot help but be stand-out tracks, but much of the rest does not bring that same level of intensity. Also, while Sarah Berthel’s vocals are amazing, the couple of times that the other half of Phantogram, Josh Carter, takes the mic are sub-par.

At the end of the day, Voices is an album with plenty of strengths, but ends up a little forgettable.

– @murthynikhil

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Robyn & Röyksopp: Do It Again

5 Jul

Everything about this collaborative EP screams experimental. Certainly neither Robyn nor Röyksopp have ever been scared of doing something new. Do It Again is chock-full of ideas. Unsurprisingly though, those ideas vary in quality.

The EP opens with “Monument”, a gorgeously somber and reflective piece that is then intruded on by the mediocre electronic of “Sayit”. The title track, “Do It Again” is then a more standard Robyn track, showcasing her vocals over an exuberant beat. While not quite a Robyn classic (such as Who’s That Girl, if you wanted initiation), it is still fun. “Every Little Thing” aims for unexpected but falls a little too hard into tiresome. Finally, the closer “Inside the Idle Hour Club” brings us back into introspection and then keeps going. The wordless, synth track is undeniably self-indulgent and overlong, but nonetheless lovely.

It’s always nice to see something new, and Do It Again manages that in spades. It doesn’t reach the quality bar I’ve come to expect from Robyn, but that wasn’t its point.

– @murthynikhil

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Lana Del Rey: Ultraviolence

23 Jun

I enjoyed Lana Del Rey’s 2012 album Born to Die. It was over-stylized and a little too easy to digest, but nevertheless good, intriguing music. Even if it painted in clichĂ©, the album itself made an interesting whole and the pictures it drew were unique, if not wholly novel. Additionally, it was highly consistent and coherent, both of which are necessary for something that tries to be new. Ultimately though, the album failed to live up to its breakout single “Video Games” and similarly her second album Ultraviolence fails to live up to Born to Die.

The album starts well. The title track is a wonderful trip into her world. There is all of the theater that defines her work, the sounds and imagery writ large for none to miss. When she does well, she can do very well. Her voice drifts languorously through exquisite soundscapes. It’s hard to find music quite as evocative as her best.

Sadly, that doesn’t sustain long enough and the album collapses a little on itself. Her pose starts to feel tired and the album devolves in places to mere emotional hooks instead of actual statements. Additionally, the lyrics are bad enough to break the mood in places. I don’t really need her crooning that she’s a bad girl and the ending of “Brooklyn Baby” is so painfully obvious that actually saying it is just crude.

The album does sound quite different than Born to Die. This is slower and less catchy, but more rich and atmospheric, more theatrical. This is still very clearly a Lana Del Rey album though and there are not enough of those around. No one else makes pop that sounds like hers. All told, this is a quite reasonable album and she does get points for uniqueness, but this is still nothing more than reasonable.

– @murthynikhil

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Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds: Push the Sky Away

15 Jun

Push the Sky Away is one of the most consistent albums of recent memory. It does an amazing job of setting a tone and a quality bar and sticking to both. Mildly disconcerting and quite ominous, this is the aural equivalent of walking at night in a strange forest.

The enunciated, almost groaned, vocals make for a potent atmosphere and the bass and drums push it far into the sinister. It is rare to get an album this coherent and it is quite the pleasure to listen to. The music itself is very solid. Despite a lack of true hooks or accessible entry points, it is quite easy to sink into the depths this album affords you. The songs unfold at their own leisurely pace, but carry you along the entire way. These are songs capable of grabbing you early and never letting go.

Save for lyrics that are never as clever as they seem to believe, this is an excellent album and well worth a listen.

– @murthynikhil

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Kendrick Lamar: Section.80

2 Jun

Section.80 is the work of a very talented kid. This is Kendrick Lamar’s album before good kid, m.A.A.d city and before “Control.” This is back when he was just a guy with talent and not one of the biggest names in the rap industry. The inexperience shows, there some degree of searching for who exactly he is, but there is also enough identity to make a very good, very individual album.

There are some stellar cuts on this album. “A.D.H.D.” is an excellent tale of life in the poorer parts of L.A. “No Make-Up” is a positive track in the vein of Goodie Mob. “HiiiPower” is K.Dot’s take on “So Appalled” and “Keisha’s Song” is “Brenda’s Got A Baby” and both are exceptional themselves. However, the album has its share of weak points and lacks the consistency of a more experienced rapper. His flow is a pleasure to listen to, but his lyrics have moments of weakness amongst all the cleverness.

In summary, Section.80 is a little bit rough but well worth a listen, even three years and a sequel into its history.

– @murthynikhil

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Diana: Perpetual Surrender

22 May

Perpetual Surrender is now inextricably linked to the video game Hearthstone for me. The nice thing about Hearthstone is that it is a game that you can play with whatever music you like and I have had Perpetual Surrender on hand for a while now. This is good, solid music. I could listen to this album indefinitely. I just doubt that I will remember any of it later.

This is a glossy, 80’s revivalist pop album that is fun to listen to. That statement is neither praise nor damnation, merely fact. It is the kind of album where soft saxophone solos play over synths. “Perpetual Surrender” is often intriguing. “That Feeling” is an excellent song with undeniable catchiness. Yet, for all of the album’s many strengths, it is a little too bland to truly champion.

This album is a person at a party, a person who is dressed nicely and seems to have everything together. A person with whom you have an interesting chat and share some laughs. A person with whom you enjoy the time you spend. At some point though, you have to leave the party and you leave unchanged. I needed something more.

– @murthynikhil

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Snoop Dogg at the Regency, SF (17/4/2014)

5 May

It’s been quite some time since 1992 when a young Snoop Doggy Dogg stepped into the game on Dr. Dre’s The Chronic. A lot has happened since then, including the death of 2Pac, some experiments with reggae and a Call of Duty voice pack, but Snoop is still one of the giants of hip-hop and a fine man to see live.

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Snoop is also a man with an unquestioned ability to have fun. This was not so much a concert as party time with Uncle Snoop. In the middle of the concert, he played Joan Jett’s “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll” and just chanted the chorus with the crowd. His charisma is undeniable and his happiness was clearly genuine and very infectious. I don’t think it is possible to go to a Snoop Dogg concert and not have fun.

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This playfulness resulted in a far more eclectic show than I expected. Not only did a Joan Jett song make an appearance, but also Kriss Kross’s “Jump”, and even The Notorious B.I.G.’s “Hypnotize”. Of course, he followed that with the west coast classic “2 Of Americaz Most Wanted”, sadly without the associated 2Pac hologram.

He dropped classics from all across his career over the show. From “Lodi Dodi” and “Gin & Juice” from his debut album Doggystyle to “P.I.M.P” and “Drop It Like It’s Hot” to as recent a song as “Hit Da Pavement” from 7 Days of Funk. His has been a long and storied career and we were treated to the entirety of it.

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Uncle Snoop took us out for one of the most fun nights that I’ve ever had. No one can make rap look as easy as he does.

– @murthynikhil

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