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3 Tracks: Dodos - Visiter

Albums are as much a construction as a whole, the way the parts fit together, as they are about their individual songs. The way Southern Point pauses, breathes, and flows into Two Weeks on Veckatimest, or the way Have a Cigar quiets into Wish You Were Here with that gentle pause and the crackle of the TV radio.
Those albums build like a film - rising and lowering to perfectly find the mood that you want. So what I want to do in this column thing, which I will try to do every Wednesday, is highlight the way good albums are produced (and give you the music, for real).

The way good songs flow into each other, to give you brilliant (the way light is brilliant) stories.

To start with some strong and real: Dodos first album, Visiter.



Red and Purple-->Eyelids-->Fools

It opens the way a camera flashes with a huge burst of light and a sudden strum of the guitar. The Dodos sound is not about convention. The rough, crayony album art speaks to that. Immediately you are introduced to sonic guitar, a literal fly by of 12- string and piano pulsing, and the horse-clap of the drums. It's that rough feeling that starts the album, the way a street performer sings and his drummer hits overturned plastic buckets.

"Come and join us in the trenches
Red and purple by our side"



Is it a revolution or a love album? By the end, you know it's an anthem. The pace quickens, and Long's clevver lyrics transition into the succinct "Eyelids." His hope is that you will meet him when arrives he says, as he finishes, and just as you hope: the sticks come in.

"Fools" moves in a gallop, and the first thing you want to do is slap your thigh in tempo. The guitar comes cascading down, the sticks clack together, until finally Long relaxes with:

"I've been, I've been silent"

It's an exciting, stopless debut from a band just getting started. When songs come together, especially without breaks, you feel a sense of pace building, and to let that expel is criminal. The Dodos take advantage of your mood in Visiter: a sense of gathering; of following the ones you love and of revolution. Each song folds into the next one nicely, and there is an optimism to it that lacks in a lot of already great rock albums.

The Dodos - Red and Purple

The Dodos - Eyelids

The Dodos - Fools

Blitzen Trapper, Black River Killer, Coen Brothers Rejoice

Spinner online is featuring Blitzen Trapper's new Blood Simple-esque "Black River Killer" video. Are your Bob Dylan knives and blunt tools ready? This is fun. There's some pretty shots of high shutter masks floating in a fiery ocean (like the golden fur in their song, Furr) and it would make the Coen Brothers, Larry McMurtry, Fleet Foxes, Dylan, and John Wayne's boots proud.

This is the Best Song for July 4th

The only decent American thing to do on July 4th is to listen to music and drink beer. In Los Angeles, the sky is either hazy or shock blue, and every where else there's a flood of fireworks. Great, you say? You need a good song. If we're going to celebrate it, let's do it right. There are many applicable songs; a crashing symbol and timpani; the Presidential band; the wicker chair you're sitting in as crackling Lee Greenwood nonsense practically destroys the cheap school speakers.

I prefer Folk. In this case, a minimalist harmonica laid over some Americana harmonies. I'm going to go with The Low Anthem. Aquarium Drunkard published a brilliant interview with them recently, and their new CD, Oh My God, Charlie Darwin, is out now on iTunes:

"And who could heed the words of Charlie Darwin
Fighting for a system built to fail
Spooning water from their broken vessels
As far as I can see there is no land"

Speechless. Now, unfold that crusty metal chair, put down the aviators, open a beer, and let this song wear you. Don't pussy out with Lee Greenwood, or blow the fireworks away with crap Billboard hits (though Grizzly Bear is up there now...), try some new Americana folk, some rolling skies and a harmonica.

The Low Anthem - Oh My God Charlie Darwin

Joe Pug - Bury Me Far from my Uniform

If you heard Joe Pug playing on the street, would you stop?

Pug's been touring with Horse Feathers, who after a few Paste interviews, NPR sessions, and some wildfire folk-blog posts, is still undeservedly unknown.

"Merciful God please remember my face"

A striking and tender song, literally (in this video) with crickets playing behind him. I hope people remember him.

Joe Pug - Dodging the Wind

Wilco the Bull Black Nova (Live at the Greek)

In 2003, Wilco played a tiny show in Dallas at the Gyspy Tea Room. The venue was small and burning-hot with sweaty Son Volt lovers. Bearded roadies were roaming the stage with fingerless gloves. Wilco played a set, and came back for an encore. I'd never seen an encore at the Gyspy Tea Room, never seen one since. It wasn't ego.

They played Immigrant Song (yes the Zeppelin song), but Jeff Tweedy didn't sing -- a roadie who moved speakers did. It was remarkable and kick ass.

On Saturday, they played under the California moon at Berkeley's Shakespearean Greek Theater. It's true what Pitchfork says about their Rembrandt-like sound: no one is more precise live than Wilco. They opened with "Wilco (the Song)": it was scalpel-sharp, bright, like that sound a fastball makes when it hits a glove. The audience was (predictable) too baked to dance, but minus a crusty-with-smoke brain, I know they would have.

Nels Cline roared his electric. Kotche stood on the drums in a shaft of blue light for the sizzling "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart." Every note was strong. When you listen to Wilco live, you are home. Don't mistake this for being familiar or uninteresting, Tweedy always manages to surprise: "Bull Black Nova" is a mechanical, scattering of sounds like hundreds of cells splitting off, a spearing repeating piano note, and the driving sounds of Tweedy's poetry:

"If I’m the one with blood on my sofa
Blood in the sink, blood in the trunk
High at the wheel of a bull black Nova
Then I’m sorry as the setting sun"

Perfectly, the moon above was knife shaped. Freaking brilliant. To me, Wilco has been about letting go. Certainly A Ghost is Born was about that - the "you'll miss me" declaration of suicide in "Theologians":

"I'm going away
Where you will look for me
Where I'm going you cannot come"

But something has changed with Wilco (the album). Tweedy has found a way to smile, and his band knows how to rock. The two together combine like metals in a bomb, and they become unstoppable. Have you re-listened to Wilco's first album, A.M., recently? "Casino Queen" blows the doors down. They just, quite simply, didn't give a shit. Why should they? They play good music, across the board. They've infused that same optimistic carelessness throughout the album, and live it couldn't sound better.

"All you fat followers get fit fast
Every generation thinks it’s the last
Thinks it’s the end of the world"

"I don't care anymore," Tweedy sings. It's the same sentiment in Dylan's "The Times They Are-a Changing," with a modern twist: just have fun, man.

Their new album, Wilco (the album) is out everywhere. Right now. Go to Starbucks, Best Buy, Amoeba, Barnes & Noble, and listen to some good friends (music).

Wilco - Casino Queen

Wilco - California Stars

Avett Brothers - I And Love And You

Spinner online is featuring a new track from The Avett Brothers currently buzzing new album I And Love And You. Emotionalism, their last album opened with the surprising Paranoid in B Major - a banjo dance-around-the-pole with the Bro's usual harmonies and Merle Haggard / Nelson heartache. It was feral and jocular--almost to the point of silliness.

I And Love And You is something else. It's the reflection of a band that's been hitting the road hard, and the hurt of moving too fast. They sound tired and damn beautiful. According to Paste's recent feature, the band has been pushing towards this moment--their new record is their first Big Label release. It's apt that their first track is not a blowout like their jubilant "Talk on Indolence," it's more genuine and down-to-earth.

I went back and forth on the sad strings, but the honest songwriting is there. They don't dress their lyrics, they just tell you what's going on in here (pointing to chest). When you're dealing with real country-blues, it's the only way to go.

The Avett Brothers - I And Love And You

The Avett Brothers - The Weight of Lies