Garage Punk Jay Reatard’s Entire Band Quits; Jay Responds With “Band quit ! Fuck them ! They are boring rich kids who can’t play for ahit anyways .. Say hello to your ugly and boring wifes opps I mean …” – Jay Joins Billy Corgan As Musicians Most Unwilling To Admit Their Own Douchey-ness, In Light of Most Obviously Being Douche [Brooklyn Vegan]
Watch San Francisco’s Girls’ Frontman Christopher Owens Cover Daniel Johnston’s “True Love Will Find You In The End” – Match Made In Neurotically Depressed Heaven (Which I’d Imagine Looks a Lot Like An American Apparel) [Gorilla vs. Bear]
Stream Brooklyn’s The Antlers Covering Dark Side of the Moon Track “Breathe” With Holly Miranda; Can You Get More Haunting Than The Original? (No, You Can’t…Not Even You, Peter Silberman) [NYC Taper]
Joy Division/New Order Bassist Peter Hook Confuses Himself With More Sinister Hook; Admits To Faking Legendary Joy Division Frontman Ian Curtis’s Signature On Memorabilia [Pitchfork]
Fox News’s Glenn Beck Did Not Get Contacted By Muse to Retract His Praise; Elsewhere, This Story Irritates Me [NME]
German Electro Artist Ulrich Schnauss Sues Axl Rose For Ripping Off Two of His Compositions – I Somehow Feel Bad For Rose, Like a Lost Puppy, How Could He Know Any Better? [Idolator]
Stream an Unreleased Jackson 5 Track “That’s How Love Is;” I Want You Back! Unreleased Masters, A Collection of Unreleased J5 Cuts, Released November 12 [NME]
Brooklyn Self Proclaimed “Poet Laureat of Generation Y” Tao Lin, And Hipster Runoff Blogger Carles Release First Single As “Jesus Christ The Indie Band” – Stream It, Feel Ironic, Feel Self Aware, Feel Nothing, Realize That’s About As Deep As Mr. Lin Goes, Chuckle At Their Website [Gorilla vs. Bear]
compiled by Max Sebela
August 24, 2009
The Antlers | “Two”
IN THE TUBE
We here at JM.com love The Antlers – we’ve featured them twice in our Monthly Feature show, and cover them live any chance we get. Hospice is one of the more refreshing albums to come from a Brooklyn artist this year, and a contender for my year-end list. It’s a heartbreaking document of loss and solidarity, and perhaps should be seen as 2009’s answer to Bon Iver’s For Emma, Forever Ago…only without all the snow.
Hospice track “Two” is the kind of song that is all about a build-up; what starts as a simple guitar strum, and whispered vocals in five minutes manages to transform into a clashing mass of organs, drums, and shouts. It becomes something enormous, fitting for a song about a relationship between two people – it’s a small number to count on your fingers, but with people, two might as well be infinite.
In the video for “Two,” we see an animated version of frontman Peter Silberman sitting alone on his floor, strumming that guitar part. Balls of color float away from the neck with every note he plays, filling his small room. As each instrument is added, the video cuts to another member of the band, playing by himself, colors pouring from the music. By the time the build-up is finished, the rooms are brimming with these colors. Eventually, there is too much for the room to hold, and the color breaks out into the street. And just as this happens, the animated Silberman breaks apart into pieces, and floats away with the color.
Silberman puts everything into his music. For listeners, that’s great – the music on Hospice will get played over and over before you’re ready to listen to something else. But, what makes The Antlers such a special band, is that even through all this catharsis, it’s never resolved. The build-ups don’t lead to a sense of relief; they just end right back at square one. It seems like everything is going to get better, and then it breaks apart. The colors escape the apartment, as they can’t fix anything, even in such huge numbers. And in the end, the image of Silberman’s head floating out with the color is the one that resonates. Just because you can turn a problem into something beautiful, doesn’t mean you are any better for it in the end.
by Max Sebela
Annual New York Music Film Extravaganza CMJ Announces Initial Line-Up: Atlas Sound, Cymbals Eat Guitars, and The Antlers All Confirmed (Man, I Wish That Was Just One Showcase); CMJ Runs October 20-24 [Brooklyn Vegan]
Black Eyed Peas Set New Record For Most Consecutive Weeks As Number One Single; Music Fans Confused As To Who Exactly Has Been Listening To The Black Eyed Peas [NME]
German Electronic Pioneers Kraftwerk To Release Epic 8-Disc Box Set, With Not So Epic 8-Bit Artwork [Pitchfork]
Michael Jackson’s Doctor And Dermatologist To Be Charged With Manslaughter According To…Err…Fox News? [NME]
Patrick Wolf Apologizes For Stage Freakout; More Importantly, Video Of Freakout Remains Mildly Humorous [Pitchfork]
Stream Danish Shoegazers Mew’s New Album, No More Stories…, (Just a Little) Early; Released August 24 [NME]
Banned And Unflattering 1972 Rolling Stones Documentary Cocksucker Blues Streaming On Internet – See Mick Jagger and Keith Richards Come Off As Assholes BEFORE That Was Obvious Upon Seconds of Exposure! [Prefix]
Southern Rap Pioneers OutKast’s Big Boi Announces New Solo LP, Sir Luscious Leftfoot: Son of Chico Dusty (Uhh..Awesome); Will Be Released “In A Few Months” [The Tripwire]
compiled by Max Sebela
LIVE JOURNAL
JezebelMusic.com @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
May 29, 2009 | Au Revoir Simone w/ the Antlers
Photo by Jen McManus
Brooklyn darlings Au Revoir Simone and The Antlers’ tour is heavily underway, but I thought we could all do a little musing in their absence. The gang began their journey a few weeks ago at a fittingly sold-out Music Hall of Williamsburg show, the crowd an even blend of creatively coiffed underage girls, nerdy MacWorld attendees, and (surprise surprise) self-proclaimed members of the press. Interestingly enough, no one was really dancing; something about the eight-dollar cocktails and the professional stage lighting. For Au Revoir Simone, the setting made perfect sense. But for The Antlers, I for one would have rather seen them in some parent-free suburban basement.
Their rollicking, dense sound can be likened to the Arcade Fire, but with a fraction of the people onstage. Peter Silberman, Darby Cicci, and Michael Lerner aren’t just three guys capitalizing on the usual tropes that come with pedals and loops. They are three guys playing six instruments at once (especially Cicci, whose Wurlitzer was topped by another keyboard, and supported below by organ pedals, which he proceeded to play with his socked feet.) Each song is melodically simple, lyrically verbose, and gently fleshed out through the layering of musical parts. Silberman’s vocals are trembling, yearning, wailing, painting the perfect scene of lost potential and malaise. The build is epic, often celebratory, and backed by some of the tightest drumming I’ve heard at a show. At the end of the set, they loosened the reins a bit to let Lerner really fly, exemplifying what live music should be – spontaneous, underpolished, and passionate
More on Au Revoir Simone & The Antlers @ Music Hall of Williamsburg | 05.29.09
SEE IT LIVE
JezebelMusic.com @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
May 29, 2009 | Au Revoir Simone & The Antlers
[All images copyright 2009 Jen McManus]
The Antlers
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compiled by Elana Jacobs
