Volcano Choir – Repave
By Max Wall
On “Perth”, the opening track of Bon Iver’s self-titled second album, Justin Vernon proclaims, “This is not a place.” Indeed, the ethereal sound of Bon Iver seems not to be part of any physical space. On Repave, his new record as the Volcano Choir, a collaboration with fellow Wisconsin residents Collections of Colonies of Bees, Vernon touches ground.
The band adds musculature and rhythmic focus to the sound developed on the second Bon Iver LP through ping-ponging stereo guitars and warped stadium-rock drums. Announcing that he would be winding down and walking away from Bon Iver, Vernon’s latest record with the Volcano Choir is the declaration of a new beginning. Repave is an effort to start again, to redefine. Vernon subsumes his identity in the press photos. He is the least visible band member, off to the side, covered in a sort of purple light-leak mist.
Repave is not the first time Vernon has recorded as the Volcano Choir. 2009’s Unmap was a scattered Pro Tools effort, full of rough loops workshopped across continents. It was like a journey into the woods or a long road trip where you just get lost and are okay with it. Repave is what emerges on the other end of the process. Boldly moving forward from the collapse of Bon Iver, heedless of what might be left behind, the Volcano Choir is like the TV screening of a quality movie, cropped to a boxy 4:3, yet brilliant.
Gone is the creaky “Skinny Love” balladry of For Emma, Forever Ago. The closest thing to this is Repave’s “Alaskans” which evokes the warm copper tones of Vernon’s favourite TV series Northern Exposure. On album closer “Almanac” Vernon even attempts a red-blooded “Wolf Like Me” era TV on the Radio singing style. “Dancepack” is a standout, managing a subdued yet driving rhythm throughout. This is not a drafty cabin record, it’s as if Vernon and the guys spent a warm winter inside the studio this time and emerged with, yet again, another fine record.
Earl Sweatshirt – Doris
On the heels of his debut mix-tape Earl — recorded when he was 16 — hip-hop wunderkind and Odd Future member Thebe Kgositsile was sent by his mother to Coral Reef Academy, a boarding school for troubled youth in Samoa.
Though it was behavioural issues and not his violent, sexual music that inspired his mother’s choice, Kgositsile — better known as Earl Sweatshirt — only contributed to the Odd Future gang once during his exile, and was absent while the group’s popularity climbed.
“I have trouble wrapping my head around things like OF being on the Coachella ticket or there being a more-than-substantial international fan base,” he told The New Yorker. “You can’t really experience that vicariously, no matter how hard you try.”
The emotional turbulence of Earl’s absence and his sudden return colour most of the tracks on Doris. Only a few of the tracks have hooks, and fewer still see Earl stray from his monotone, MF DOOM-inspired delivery. The album’s production is similarly austere, relying on atmosphere and minimalism that give all 15 songs gravitas.
But despite its funeral march tone, Doris is (arguably) the best hip-hop album to come out of the Odd Future collective. Earl’s raps are clever and cynical far beyond the rapper’s 19 years. “Chum”, the LP’s crown jewel, is a deeply felt piano-based autobiography that may be the best hip-hop song this year — sorry, Kanye.
Like Frank Ocean, whose verse on “Sunday” is an album highlight, Earl is working on a higher level than his OFWGKTA comrades. Though his surrogate big brother Tyler, The Creator’s fingerprints are all over Doris’ more childish passages, Earl’s intelligence and undeniable talent make it only a matter of time before he moves on and makes a name for himself.
Sonic Youth – Daydream Nation
Sonic Youth were on their third drummer. They’d toured the States, but found that their enigmatic brand of avant-rock appealed more to Europeans. Their star was on the rise — each of their four studio albums had sold better and fared better with critics than the last. Critical of the business practices of their previous label, SST, they made the jump to Enigma Records.
Then Daydream Nation dropped.
The 12 tracks on the LP — 14, if you elect to separate album closer “Trilogy” into three distinct songs — are the unofficial high water mark of indie rock. Whether you plan to dominate the charts or win hearts in the underground, Daydream Nation is the album to beat, the one that proves just how good it can be.
Twin guitar virtuosos Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo, both former members of Glenn Branca’s avant-garde guitar orchestra, duel it out over the album’s expansive instrumental passages, short-form versions of the band’s now-legendary live jams.
Kim Gordon’s simple bass-lines anchor the album’s more formless experiments, while Steve Shelley’s energetic drumming simmers to a frantic boil.
But beyond the technical wizardry of Daydream Nation — not to mention its lofty status as indie rock’s creative zenith — this album is fucking awesome. Moore’s vocal was never more emotional; Ranaldo’s, more polished; Gordon’s, more ferocious.
It’s the latter’s lines that stand out to me the most: her frenzied interrogations of American consumerism and insincerity on tracks like “The Sprawl” and “‘Cross the Breeze” are among the album’s most visceral moments.
Most Sonic Youth fans separate the band’s pre-millennial output as pre and post- Daydream Nation. Before, the band’s output was challenging and esoteric; afterwards, they signed to a major label and went mainstream.
But no record from either period can match this one. Sonic Youth didn’t just perfectly sit on the fence between total discord and rock-and-roll with their fifth studio LP: they built the fucking fence, and painted it, too.
