Album review: Pillowfight

Dan The Automator (DTA) is a well accomplished music producer to be sure. His credits include the first (and, arguably best) Gorillaz album, the last two Kasabian albums, Deltron 3030, Peeping Tom, and the seriously underrated Handsome Boy Modelling School among others. The man is undeniably talented and has some amazing records under his belt to show for it. His latest project is a collaboration with American songstress Emily Wells and it goes by the name of Pillowfight. The blending of smooth hip-hop beats and smokey lounge-soul is nothing new to DTA, he did a similar trick with Mike Patton and Jennifer Charles under the moniker Lovage in 2001 (Music to make love to your old lady by).

Pillowfight is a pop album more than anything else but it has enough of its own style and approach to stand well apart from the madding top 40 crowd. Lead single 'Used To Think' is aiming straight for the Kendra Morris / Alice Russell / Gin Wigmore set and hits it out of the park. On it she gets to play off the ever charming Patton so an absolute winner of a song. Faint elements of trip-hop (remember when that was all the rage?) are woven into Pillowfight's DNA. The stuttering jazz beats, samples, turntable scratches, and moody guitars of 'In The Afternoon' can attest to this. It is a lovely throwback to bygone era of music that is too easily forgotten about.

If there is one word to describe Wells' performance on this album it would be sultry. Just like Jennifer Charles in Lovage her role on this album is to be sex-appeal personified, accompanied by a world class DJ all the way. When not playing the jazz club siren she gets a chance for some light rapping on the fun 'Get Your Shit Together' and has a P-Funk style throwdown on 'Get Down'. These songs are subtle variations on the main musical theme but they breathe an amazing amount of fresh air into proceedings. DJ Kid Koala and MC Lateef The Truthspeaker show up to add in a little extra flavour but this is a two man show and we know who has top billing.

The album closes in style with 'Lonely City', a heart-wrenching tune that certainly leaves you wanting more – the last in a near-endless stream of heavenly melodies on offer. From start to finish, Pillowfight is brilliant showcase for the talents of one Ms Emily Wells. In DTA she has a sympathetic partner. He is a bona fide veteran of the music industry and she keeps pace with him throughout with ease and grace. We can expect big things in her future, be that in another Pillowfight album or something else entirely.

Rating: A-

Recommended tracks: Used to Think, Lonely City, Get Your Shit Together

Album Review: Tomahawk - Oddfellows

Tomahawk (consisting of members of Mr Bungle, Jesus Lizard, and Helmet) are possibly the world's best band. I have already argued this point so I can let that bold statement stand for itself. After six long years they are back with album number four, Oddfellows, and it finds these fellows in a very odd mood. It is the natural progression of Tomahawk's sound from Mit Gas and Tomahawk. None of this would be even remotely unusual if it weren't for 2006's Anonymous. As good as it was, that album was an anomaly in its style and subject material. It barely sounded like Tomahawk and, considering that they were between bass players, it really does stand alone outside of their main discography. Speaking of bass players, the band have brought in underground legend and frequent Mike Patton collaborator Trevor Dunn (Melvins, Mr Bungle, Fantomas) for four-string duties. Unsurprisingly he fits the band like a glove and, if anything, his bass work plays a much more prominent role on this album than Kevin Rutmanis ever could have.

In fact, after multiple listens the Mit Gas comparison is quite inescapable. They both open with brooding menace ('Bird Song' or 'Oddfellows') that then transition into the album's “single” ('Rape This Day' or 'Stone Letter'). As a stand-alone single 'Stone Letter' is perfectly serviceable if unimaginative. We have heard this style of driving rock from Patton many times before ('Last Cup of Sorrow' anyone?) and for an artist who pushes the envelope we might have caught him in a rare moment of treading water. If only the new album had an ending as impressive and outright disturbing as 'Aktion F1413' then the parallels would be complete. Instead we are treated to the manic surf metal track 'Typhoon', a song that packs a riff that feels as if it was cribbed directly from Toxicity. Another musical touch point is Mr Bungle's California, again not a surprise given the personnel on board. That album helped to invent an evil style of lounge music that rears its head a few times on Oddfellows, particularly the introduction of 'Rise Up Dirty Waters' and 'Baby Let's Play ____'.

Tomahawk have two default modes: they are fast and twisted or they play it slow and creepy. The faster numbers tap into the punk backgrounds of Stanier and Dennison whereas the slower tracks play right into the strengths of Patton and Dunn. As you can see its a win-win scenario. With the caliber of musicians involved with this band when they are on fire they they are absolutely unstoppable. Take 'South Paw', a delicate fusion of hardcore punk ferocity and pop song writing. It is a balancing act so improbable that in lesser hands it could blow up in your face. As it is I feel compelled to listen to the track dozens of times daily – this is real earworm material.

So what we are left with is the classic Tomahawk sound, sharpened to a fine point by their absence and thrust directly into the brain. These guys are simply too strange to receive any major amount of popular acclaim but that seems to suit them perfectly well. Rather than a watered-down dose we get a full hit of gonzo rock right to the face and the only cure is to hit play and experience it all over again.

Rating: A

Recommended tracks: Oddfellows, South Paw, Rise Up Dirty Waters

Idle Worship: Puscifer

The Players

Maynard James Keenan (Tool, A Perfect Circle) – Vocals

And many more ...

The Albums

V is for Vagina – 2007 (Puscifer Entertainment)

C is for (Please Insert Sophomoric Genitalia Reference Here) EP – 2009 (Puscifer Entertainment)

Conditions of My Parole – 2011 (Puscifer Entertainment)

When Puscifer was first announced to say that it drew a mixed reaction from Maynard James Keenan's existing fanbase is a gross understatement. Many died-in-the-wool Tool fans feared the worst; another side project from their beloved frontman could only mean that his attention was turned away from Tool's already languid release schedule. After all, if your favourite band only makes an average of one album every five years you wouldn't want anything interfering with that. However, as a longtime Tool fan myself, I chose to see things differently. Instead on one (maybe, at most) Tool album that we would have gotten since 2006's 10,000 Days we have two Puscifer albums and an EP in the same time period. For once I found myself being the optimist. Many might have asked aloud “is this a joke?”. Perhaps it was – a parody of popular music that knew how much some people would revile it but continued to thrive anyway. With song titles like 'Vagina Mine' and 'Country Boner' you can see where some of this despair was coming from but the humour is never given the opportunity to outweigh the songwriting. The punchline was that the music this joke was built on was too good to be dismissed.

Musically, Puscifer could hardly be farther divorced from Tool's sneering industrial art rock. V Is For Vagina focused on dark disco rhythms built on acoustic guitar chords, uncomfortable dance beats, and Keenan's Gregorian baritone. It was feel-bad music in the purest sense: the recurring topic sex manifested itself as un-sexily as possible, happiness as decadent, and joy as utterly hopeless. Tried and true elements of mindless pop music were turned fully on their head. Conditions Of My Parole managed to alleviate the mood slightly, testing new ground and prodding at more genres. Maynard's baby was evolving at an astounding rate. The gloomy trip-hop was dialed back to allow elements to 80s goth ('The Weaver'), dubstep ('Horizons'), and traditional rock in ('Toma'). 

The true genius of Puscifer is that it is a persona that extends beyond just the production of music. Their multi-media live shows are so intricate that all details are carefully guarded secrets, journalists sworn to secrecy so as to not deflate their majesty. Music, lights, videos, comedy, cabaret … but lets be honest, if you haven't seen it then you just don't know do you? Then there is the website. Most bands use their web presence to sell their music, merchandise, and keep the fans updated on all of their goings on. The Puscifer site is that and so much more. As well as all of the standard trappings it also incorporates a full-blown market that sells everything from posters to branded jeans, comedy DVDs, and albums by other bands. Ever felt in need of some live Brian Posehn or Don Rickles comedy, or perhaps Maynard's wine making documentary Blood Into Wine? Well now you know how to get it.

This brings right up to December 2012 and the announcement of their new EP, Donkey Punch The Night, due out February 19. Even more tantalizing is the promise that it will contain covers of Accept's 'Balls To The Wall' and Queen's legendary opus 'Bohemian Rhapsody' among other original songs. Its been a wild ride and I am intently looking forward to the next installmen. Until next time ye crazy gentlemen!

From the Professor's Page: Anniversary of an Uninteresting Event

I can vividly recall Irish comedian Ed Byrne mocking the 25^th anniversary edition of Michael Jackson's Thriller album. I'm a big fan of Byrne and his words rang particularly true with me on this subject. “For such a curio one would have to go to an HMV” he taunts in an affected foppish accent. News flash! Thriller – in all of its garish 80s pop splendour – is available everywhere, all the time. So who are these bloated, indulgent re-releases made for exactly? Perhaps we are witnessing first-hand the symptoms of existential anxiety on the part of the music industry. There are rafts of statistics that prove that people are less willing invest in physical copies of albums than ever before. All of this begs the question: is the industry self-eulogizing in order to stay prominent in people's minds?

To return to my previous example; surely anybody who has ever wanted to own Thriller already does so. It is – by one definition or another – as classic album and an all-time best seller. We have already established that it is a readily available musical article and has been since its release 30 bloody years ago. A small percentage of people who bought said anniversary edition were just shelling out some pocket money (kids still get pocket money, don't they?) to fill out a gap in their CD collections. This is an admirable use of one's disposable income and I thoroughly recommend that you do it more often. But buy-and-large the purchasers are highly invested (i.e. gullible) life-long fans of the artist who feel compelled to own every edition of every record that their idol has ever made. And there we have, in a nutshell, why the music industry is in such dire straits: they have relied on the same market for too long and they are steadfastly unwilling to give them anything new to enjoy. It is, after all, much easier to market something to somebody if you already know they like it.

Did anybody without financial incentive to do so actually ask for this?

What is worse is that this manic march to self-edification has gotten notably faster. In 2012 the 20^th anniversary edition of Rage Against The Machine's self-titled album was released. As someone with five years experience working in music shops, I think I can safely that not only is that particular album readily available to all at a reasonable price but also that it is still selling fairly well for an older record. The desire to remaster the audio of music from the 60s, 70, or even 80s holds some merit so that it can match modern audio standards but we are talking about something that was made in the early 90s for God's sake! Will your ever-so-slightly fancier stereo system really benefit from an ever-so-slightly crisper sounding “Know Your Enemy” or “Bullet In The Head”? I'm sure Zack de la Rocha is far from pleased with this unseemly turn of events and would have some choice words on the matter. At least with Thriller they put in some effort in the bonus tracks department. It was over-stuffed with two-bit modern artists trying 25 years too late to get on the Thriller band wagon but the material was still there. In a world where practically every album is made to have bonus tracks you are going to have to try harder than just a few poxy live recordings to drag my hard earned money out of me.

At this rate in 2013 we will see the 10^th anniversary of Kings Of Leon's Youth and Young Manhood in your local music shop right next to the 5^th anniversary of Chinese Democracy and the 3^rd anniversary of Gorillaz Plastic Beach. Are these good albums? Yes (mostly), but how many editions does one album really need? Is there ever a good reason for an anniversary edition? Absolutely. Many King Crimson CDs available to you and I today were basically extinct until the remastered editions came out some years ago. I also believe that era defining records – Sgt Peppers, Dark Side of the Moon, etc – deserve ONE (count them, one) edition to honour their legacy, but surely no earlier than 30 years since their release. Those are my two examples and I'm sticking with them.

So what can be done to dig us out of this creative abyss? Personally, I think the solution lies in the industry investing in new artists and albums. When Adele's 21 has ruled the albums charts for TWO STRAIGHT YEARS it is no wonder that us music lovers are forced to live in the shadows, muttering to ourselves about how hard it is to find good new music these days. The music industry's reliance on the same cash cows has lead it to the current state of creative bankruptcy and we are all feeling the pinch. Us fans (sometimes) have money that we are (kinda) willing to spend on a worthy cause when we can find it. All that the bigwigs need to do is provide us with one. If this paradigm does not change traditional music channels and outlets are going to die the death that we all fear they will.

Honour the past but never at the expense of the future.

Support good music and fuck the rest.

Sincerely

“Professor” Ricardo Kerr