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Mission of Burma: The Sound, The Speed, The Light

Scott, October 23, 2009 in Music Reviews. 0 Comments Tags: , , .


I once had a fine agree-to-disagree argument with an acquaintance about Mission of Burma’s contributions to the “importance” of the “independent underground”.  He told me he felt they were nothing special; that it was all kind of boring hype.  I told him I felt the same about My Bloody Valentine.  My argument was yes, Burma was/are nothing special, but they’re smart and honest.  Any idiot can stomp on a fuzz box for emphasis.  Mission of Burma is not that type of band, and it’s obvious on The Sound, The Speed, The Light that they are four smart individuals bringing four thought-out opinions to rehearsals.  Songs are at times catchy, at times beautifully awkward and obnoxious, at times cause the listener to dance around pumping their fist high and sing-along rock songs.

The first three songs on the Sound showcase this argument, the highlight being the opening track “1, 2, 3, Partyy!”, sung by Clint Conley.  He is adept at penning up thumpers that really get the toe tapping and the adrenalin shaking the hell out of itself.  “Partyy!”, “Possession”, and “Blunder” all bulldoze nicely into the calming, introspective “Forget Yourself”.  Like 1982’s “Trem Two” before it, “Forget Yourself” is one of the reasons it’s so easy to defend Burma in a music taste/opinion argument.  The mellow yet awkward melody of the song makes a nice blanket of sound for the mantra-like lyrics. We’re all worked up, very stressed for many reasons. All of us still alive who were born after 1918, essentially.  Sometimes we need to take a deep breath, look all around us and CALM THE FUCK DOWN.  It’s also obvious on this song that no one in the “post-punk” era has even come close to harmonizing so individually together like Lennon/McCartney the way Roger Miller and Clint Conley have done so well.  The following song “After the Rain” is a nice compliment.  “One Day We Will Live There” begins the second half of The Sound as a welcome and surprising departure from Peter Prescott’s usually pent-up, can’t-take-it-no-more, angsty vocal delivery.  It’s a slight ballad that even the geekiest of Volcano Suns fans wouldn’t have seen coming but would definitely find themselves enjoying.  The album rounds out with some fierce thumpers in “Good Cheer” and “Comes Undone” before jamming on the introspect again with “Slow Faucet”.  When Mission of Burma gets going like this, it’s an amazing mix of all their influences like The Beatles, Husker Du, early pink Floyd and the Stooges.

What I’ve always admired about Mission of Burma is that they seem to have the attitude that things can always improve.  You can always learn more, can constantly fuck up well into the twilight of yr life and never be “happy”.  This theme is relevant in their sixth album The Sound, the Speed, the Light and with the aptly titled song “So Fuck It”.  Writing this review and my argument with my buddy, I realized I may have a slight bias when it comes to Mission of Burma.  It just seems that when most folk hit a certain age they shut down and wait.  Somewhere, someone said “adult” and people got in line.  The three (and a mysterious fourth!) gents in Mission of Burma are obviously matured humans, yet still make better music than most kids under the age of thirty these days because they know they still have so much more to figure out.  The music they have made together for the better part of the last three decades is a venting and a testament to the mapping out of all of that.

Video Daughters: Birds, Sing the Car Alarm EP

Burton Parker, October 15, 2009 in Music Reviews. 3 Comments Tags: , , , .

vdaughterscover

If you’re short on time I’ll tell you right now, Birds, Sing the Car Alarm has two great songs, two good songs, and two neither-great-nor-good songs. Put another way: this is an EP that should have been a 7″. There’s far more to say, but in short this effort represents an imperfect sampling from a group with a lot of potential.

Let me just get the negative bits out of the way now. For starters, “Resume” should not be on here. As the second track it absolutely kills the momentum of a truly great opening track. Having an equally strong third track only makes it seem more out of place. I’m not trying to pick on this one song, but from the very first listen all I could hear was Andy Samberg. If this isn’t Andy Samberg yelling into a microphone then I might have recently suffered a stroke. The second half is mostly above average, but it ends poorly and I’ll get into that later.

As for the highlights, I don’t know if it was the side effects of the Beatles remasters I was also listening to, but “Tri-State Area Blues” totally reminds me of old rock music. So much modern music is about fitting into a sub-genre, “sounds like”, “for fans of”, and so on. “Tri-State Area Blues” is just a rock song, simply, and it’s a great one. Of the 6 songs on this EP, this is the one that seems most able to grab your attention immediately, and I even found myself singing along several times. One irony of the 10 Listens methodology is that I did become quite aware of how overly bass-heavy this song is, especially when cranked. And through headphones it’s quite clear someone in the right channel sucks at singing in tune. Ultimately, though, it doesn’t detract from the song.

I was even more impressed with “Pink Screaming”, and this is where my 7″ argument comes in. This plus “Tri-State Area Blues” on a 45 would be a great find at a record store. I love the vocal in particular, it’s isolated in a way that consistently reminded me of Superchunk, and that’s rarely a bad thing. Where “Tri-State Area Blues” is raucous and lively, “Pink Screaming” comes off almost introspective and small. It wound up being my favorite track to hear through headphones, as well.

As noted earlier, the final three songs represent a mixed bag. It’s worth mentioning that there’s a lot of atmosphere going on throughout these songs. There are samples, loops, diversions into chaotic noise – the sort of stuff that happens during band practice. In fact, if you drop the treble during some of these songs you’d swear your neighbors are running through their set again. “Blood Pressure”, with it’s distinctive opening guitar and spasmic ending, is the song you’ll remember from this half, but “Another Season for the Priests of Reason” is more interesting. With it’s tribal background arrangement and awkward harmonies it wouldn’t be out of place on an older Animal Collective album. It’s certainly better than the closing track “Wild People”. Like “Resume” before it, it’s rather obnoxious and, for me, it’s a rather poor way to end the EP. The temptation to skip the track and move on to Warren G in the iPod was always there.

All told, I think the interesting bits here overpower the dead weight. Not every piece or collection of music is perfect, or genius, but Video Daughters deserve your ears. Birds, Sing the Car Alarm is still on my iPod, it’s been played more than 10 times, and if Video Daughters ever put out a full length I’ll gladly give them another 10 listens.