RECOMMENDED

About the same time the world messed itself while listening to Panda Bear’s “Person Pitch” in 2007, Animal Collective’s other half went and issued an album with his now ex-wife, múm’s Kría Brekkan. Avey Tare’s “Pullhair Rubeye” didn’t attract the same sort of misguided attention as “Person Pitch,” and certainly not the kind of frenzy “Merriweather Post Pavillion” garnered a few years later when the world caught up with what Animal Collective had been doing for just about a decade. Read the rest of this entry »

What if Pitchfork, the web site, rated, Pitchfork, the music festival? We thought we’d fill in the gap.

FRIDAY

Gatekeeper
5.4
“We specifically enjoy [movie] scores that use early synthesizers and drum machines,” Aaron David Ross said in an interview with F Magazine. That vague notion seems to sum up bland Chicago duo Gatekeeper, of which Ross is half. They enjoy playing stormy synths and drum machines on stage and, with the exception of some sunglasses and matching black tank-tops, it seems they enjoy little else. As the opener to a festival already glutted with synth-pop, Gatekeeper’s tepid stage presence made their name their only relevant characteristic. Read the rest of this entry »

Three stages. Forty-five bands. An abundance of musical styles. With a lineup as intricate and obscure as Pitchfork’s, it’s easy to get lost. Newcity Music has compiled a list of videos to help curious audiences sort through the madness. Below are representations of each artist performing this weekend, arranged by day and in reverse chronological order. Go forth, brave festival-goers, and explore the music responsibly! Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

Efterklang’s juggling of experimental electronics, pop and post-rock has made for three solid records, most recently “Magic Chairs,” the Denmark group’s first for 4AD. The collective manages to avoid Animal Collective joylessness while maintaining many of the same musical elements; quite simply, Efterklang is just prettier, and it goes down easier. Lead track “Modern Drift,” with its heavenly and incessant dueling piano parts, could’ve been a straight-up dance track (and it would’ve worked), but the band shows restraint and pulls the elements into one tight pop force, a remarkable decision and a bold way to begin a record. The rest of the record may not reach the height of its opening song—”Alike” sounds like a phoned-in Peter Gabriel, and “I Was Playing Drums” is so melodically misguided you’d think it was a different band entirely—but that’s a minor complaint for a band that’s not quite great, but oddly admirable. Plus, live, Efterklang has ten thousand people on stage, so you’ll have something to look at as well. (Tom Lynch)

March 8 at Lincoln Hall, 2424 N. Lincoln, (773)525-2508, at 9pm. $12.

There has been a steady ongoing wave of electro-noise floating through the independent musical seas for a while now. The dynamic duo cleverly titled Truman Peyote brings a crisp and carefree attitude to what is often clogged with pretentious high concept, well, noise.

Hailing from the Boston neighborhood of Jamaica Plains, Caleb Johannes and Eric Farber pump out elongated sound-filled structures, using samples, field recordings and anything they can gets their hands on, making noise reminiscent of Animal Collective, The Rapture and Matt & Kim. Along with their LP “Light-Lightning,” the twosome has a twelve-inch split with fellow Whitehaus Family band Many Mansions and a split seven-inch with Turtle Ambulance on Breakfast of Champs due out this month, featuring the track “New Life, New Wife.” The song’s already received much love from Pitchfork.

Farber and Johannes discuss their music, their busy schedules and the town that influenced their sound. Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

A way to get a dirt-cheap education on some interesting names bouncing around Chicago’s venues these days, this show, headlined by The Names That Spell, features some up-and-coming local acts. The Names That Spell offer creatively cutesy, largely unpredictable art-pop, filled with harmonies and sporadic percussion. A bit more straightforward than Animal Collective, this band benefits from smooth vocal deliveries. Kellen & Me relies heavily on well-established pop sensibility; Jessica Hernandez offers glossed folk-pop with an elegant sweetness. Claire Stahlecker (pictured), who Newcity has covered before, has the sort of mainstream talent and musical grace to end up on 101.9 FM any day now. (Jarryd Scott seems to be the dud of this bill.) Overall, a pleasant and quiet evening. (Tom Lynch)

January 7 at Double Door, 1572 N. Milwaukee, (773)489-3160, at 8pm. $3-$5.

Top 5 Records
Loney Dear, “Dear John” (Polyvinyl)
A.C. Newman, “Get Guilty” (Matador)
Future of the Left, “Travels With Myself and Another” (4AD)
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, “The Pains of Being Pure at Heart” (Slumberland Records)
The Antlers, “Hospice” (Frenchkiss)
—Tom Lynch

Top 5 Albums
Animal Collective, “Merriweather Post Pavilion” (Domino)
Luciano, “Tribute to the Sun” (Cadenza)
Jesse Rose, “What Do You Do If You Don’t” (Dubsided)
The Juan Maclean, “The Future Will Come” (DFA)
The xx, ” xx” (Young Turks)
—Duke Shin Read the rest of this entry »

By Tom Lynch

At the end of each year, media outlets the world over assess the top achievements of the last twelve months, each critic or collective taking a stab at selecting the “best” or “top” records, tracks, live shows and music videos (still!) that have made the grade. Newcity’s no exception, and while I look over the list of releases of 2009 and consider the enormous amount of live shows I’ve attended in the last year, I can’t help but think: so that’s it?

Curiously, most best-of-the-decade lists that are popping up online don’t include many, if any, 2009 releases. Of course, this could be because the albums released this year haven’t had enough time to settle in critics’ hearts and minds, but it’s also possible, maybe even likely, that there isn’t much from this year that’s especially notable. Instead, it’s been a year of non-releases, as many of the top acts in the world were absent in new recorded form, and those established artists that did offer new material came up short. There have been debut records from bands that have been rewarding and show immense promise, but if any of these artists are lucky, their best work lies ahead of them.

Call me a grump, and I’ll nod and shrug, as it wouldn’t be the first time. But there were exactly zero records that were produced this year that I couldn’t stop obsessing over, let alone any that I could look back upon, years in the future, and grin in bittersweet nostalgic recognition as a piece of history, personal or otherwise, that represents this moment in life. Read the rest of this entry »

Wow, people love this band. They love ‘em. Everywhere you look is Grizzly Bears. When the issue of the best record of 2009 comes up, everyone is always saying “Veckatimest,” Grizzly Bear, are you crazy. And Animal Collective. People love those bands a lot. But I don’t! Grizzly Bear’s debut record, “Yellow House,” from 2006, was profoundly overrated, a commendable exercise is acoustic-electronic bridging and vocal harmonies that came off very pretty and very boring. With “Veckatimest,” the band grows more ambitious and ventures down the pop-rock road. Excessive vocal harmonies are still in tow, as is the overall mellow disposition, but like “Yellow House,” it’s just so painfully dull and under-expressed that by the time the middle of the record comes around I want to smother myself. (The band’s set at Lollapalooza this year somehow managed to be a tremendous disappointment despite me expecting nothing good to come from it in the first place.) Dreaminess comes with a price—Grizzly Bear can construct a song that’s calming and that seems to slow down the whole world, but they need to harness that talent and not induce sleep in the process. So far, snooooooze. (Tom Lynch)

September 27-28 at Metro, 3730 N. Clark, (773)549-0203, at 7pm. $25.

Well, the rain stopped, but it was replaced by some intense humidity and heat. A number of people were collapsing from heat stroke, and even a friend in my group hit the ground pretty hard after trying to stand up too fast. I caught a glimpse of a dude on the Blue Line heading down there chugging Jack in preparation for the fest, donning a “Vagetarian” t-shirt. Classy! Oh, and musically, Day Two kinda sucked. Read the rest of this entry »