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Neon Indian Psychic Chasms

Neon Indian

Attacking music in the philosophical direction that Alan Palomo, the knob twister and guts behind Neon Indian, is yanking it from can be adequately described as “the most fun you could have while rummaging through the video vault at a PBS studio”. You may be wondering where or who that quote is from. Coming clean, we are quoting ourselves here. We know, what jerks! Anyway, rolling in a pile of Public Broadcast Service tapes of a forgotten nature would be such a nice way to spend a few days – plumbing the depths of un-YouTubed child programming, all of it from before the digital age. We wish this would happen to us and Psychic Chasms manages to bring this out. Amongst other things VHS inspired, the album also finds a way to – in the course of it – trip through some alternate dimension where upon its trip back brings with it something resembling a Nintendo DS. It’s no ordinary DS however. It’s an inter-dimensional Ninentedo DS. And at a closer look this other-dimensional DS seems to have been created by Ryuichi Sakamoto. So, this thing being from an alternate dimension and all, we must point out that Sakamoto-san – in this alternate dimension – has done nothing but been creating intro and outro music, not only for NHK News programming, but also ditties to be utilized for the accompaniment of anything humans do while getting dressed. Those things would include looking in the mirror, sucking in their stomachs, petting the dog, looking out the window or maybe reading a text message. In short, Psychic Chasms, this interdimensional sounding DS that was created by an equally alter-dimensional Ryuichi Sakamoto, is definitely a treasure. It’s certainly unique and in an excellent way.

Palomo’s modus operandi (that’s pronounced mo-dous-oper-rendie): “The (musical) idea of memory before you were old enough to have memories”. Well, that sounds A-OK with us! Although, a statement like that seems like something that is both impossible and kind of at odds with itself. It sounds good though. It’s also a bit too, let’s say, cavalier, ok. Promising us memories or an experience worth recalling to other humans in a nostalgic way is way to much to be hoped for. Like we said it’s too cavalier. That is unless you actually get a chance to hear Psychic Chasms without reading that blurb on his website. You’d be surprised how much you find yourself agreeing with a statement like that. Point being is that guy has somewhat delivered on his own premise. His music’s containing an element of nostalgia that comes from somewhere we either never really had, or have forgotten where exactly it’s from. Thankfully, Palomo is one of the few new artists to lend a sliver of comprehensible analysis to his own art. And, saying something like that is definitely not as obtusely depressing as, say, someone flicking a lit cigarette in your face or showing up to the Grammy’s in a prehistoric looking egg – hoping for a really subtle nod from academia or something. Psychic Chasms is a relief. A big psychedelic Jolly-Rancher at the end of a rainbow that had ripped it’s way through the fabric of time and space, bringing with it that magical, Ryuichi Sakamoto consrtucted, Nintendo DS.

The result from all of this is some stellar pop music that seems more like a collection of taffy pulled guitar tones and synths, sugar flaked electro drums, a months worth of cream filled vocal patterns and blue raspberry flavored chillwave that, when dissected, “normal” people wouldn’t ever find themselves enjoying, and sounding less like some sort of self-indulge-a-thon that ends up feeling like you should be going to sleep instead of paying attention. Whatever that means. Neon Indian makes music as well balanced, tempered and jovially non-camp as only certain groups from Japan have been able to calculate. All from this bygone era of Yellow Magic Orchestra, Finger Five, or something as schizoid as Hikashu, Psychic Chasms is as well assembled as it should be. It’s a relief and it’s pinata filled rhythms keep all of its enthusiasm contained, giving you a record that is something you’ll love swinging the bat of your tastes at.

Electric Wizard Black Masses

It definitely sounds like we talk about weed a lot at getdelicious. We sure like writing about it when talking about music. That’s not our fault. It just happens like that.

What does weed have to do with Electric Wizard’s Black Masses for your enjoytime in 2010? Not too much. People may totally get into stereotypes about Doom Metal or the people that play Stoner Rock or the way people’s clothes stink who listen to Troll Cloud Heavy (Spliff-core), but we’d say remain skeptical when dealing withthe stereotype that people who like doom, stoner, grind, blaze, king spliffs metal always deal in doobies by the fistful. This just isn’t always true. We think. God we hope it’s not true. If it is true we’re definitely missing the couch parties here. Plus, maybe Ronald Regan wasn’t cracked when making a case for the dire situation of drugs, mainly cannabis sativa, seeping its way into the States via Mexico all those years ago.

Like we said, what does any of the weed jokes or stereotypes have to do with Black Masses – surprisingly nothing. This record seems to sound like Electric Wizard. That is to say it’s got all the fuzzed-way-the-hell-out four chord demon riffs you need, all the leg breaking detuned grooves that sound like Toni Iommi’s guitar had had it’s own boxing career, of which we count on Electric Wizard for, and solos and drums and uh, man…oreos. Anyway, it’s big, it’s black, and all of it’s 2010’s now belong unto it. In no way is this among all the other goodies of 2010 on getdeliciousDOTnet because it is some consolation record. In terms of Electric Wizard’s catalogue, Black Masses will kill you and your brains. It’ll kill you ded! If we were the types of people to define the merits of a record in comparison to all the other musical things people gave the public in 2010, Black Masses would HAVE to be up there on any list. Luckily the idea that a record worth putting on a list because “what else are we going to talk about” is sick, not to mention a bit spineless. We don’t have to like anything if “that’s all there is”.

Then again, in the blogdom you have got to talk about something.

All the spooky cool restrained jams on this album are at some point delicious graduations of songs that Black Sabbath would write. I am not blowing legs off with that . Black Sabbath was not only Black Sabbath because they were “real” metal. Black Sabbath was the safest way to not totally fit in. You could like all the Zep and the Hendrix or The Who you wanted to, but even though I was not alive when all these bands were in their prime, I bet that it was one of those things where if you say
“I like Black Sabbath” you became a guy who liked taking girls into vans to get them hooked on illicit drugs. It was probably the Electirc Wizard of it’s day to say you liked Black Sabbath. It was “too” heavy, and also set you, pathetically, apart. Black Sabbath was also the hardest way to bang-your-head. It’s important to remember that people still consider Led Zepplin as a metal forerunner as well. Black Sabbath is kind of considered “Heavy Metal” then. Really? Sure. Why not? But, would you ever say that Led Zepplin and Black Sabbath sounded the same? Of course not. A better example of the sub genre grandfathers would be, would you ever find yourself reccommending, to a huge fan of Led Zepplin, Masters of Reality or Paranoid?

If you would do something like that then I bet you probably don’t have many friends asking you to go see Electric Wizard or The Melvins or Boris without them also telling you what to wear to the show.

The real thing about Black Masses is that it’s a real good romp in a genre specific trip down doom lane. A lane of which is covered in blood and the entrails of all non-believers or anyone who thinks it’s okay to wear pink or believe in a God that doesn’t have horns. What Electric Wizard has been able to do is inspire people to do more, experiment, as well as still being able to friggin’ enjoy themselves. Another thing to note is that you can do so much cool stuff and have that cool stuff enriched if you do it while listening to Black Masses.

(Some of the) Things to do while listening to this record involve:
Lifting weights
Fixing Mustang engines
Imitate practicing witch craft
Use grease paint
Chopping wood (outside)
Chopping wood (inside)
Riding Motorcycles
Wearing leather jackets
Breaking glass
Bad mouthing woman
Smoking cigarettes

Ty Segall Melted

Indifferent, not so pissed-off at all, and from California, who sounds like he has recently gotten back from a trip to the beach may be a nice description of what Ty Segall is. Telling people who he is, we wouldn’t dare, but if his music was any indication of the things that Segall would like to do, you’d have to think the guy likes a whole helluva lot of stuff that a whole helluva lot of people should like too. Like rock and roll. Or maybe like hanging out in allies that face the beach. Maybe like finding out what’s in the bottom of holes. Or maybe looking for rainbows without a digital cameras. Judging by his latest, Melted, people should start believing in trolls, dogs that can talk, and that you probably shouldn’t be a professional in any one thing. But instead they should more than dabble in many things. All of that sounds like good advice. We’d be inclined to follow that advice too. However, through it all, we think the key thing to remember when grooving to the sounds Segall it’s paramount to just be cool man. Be real cool.

Yeah, he sounds like the Kinks. Yeah, I could listen to the Troggs instead. How many of these bands are you going to make me listen to? Man, “I could paint that” is what it sounds like. No. That’s the wrong attitude. That attitude is a “I could stick my head up a bull’s ass to see what 2 lbs. of sirloin looks like but I’d rather ask a butcher” type of thing we’re dealing with. Melted’s so much more fun than sticking your head up inside a bulls ass. It’s more fun than even looking at a bull and guessing how long you could “hang on” for. Ok. let’s say girls actually love confidence. They like being around someone with it, or being around someone that seems like they have it. You can relax around people with confidence, maybe, and be cool around them because if you “don’t got it handled”, rest and know that “they done got it handled, dude”. Melted is the “get’s the chicks”. It could be something else too, but Melted is so deliciously sure of itself that you, in a sense, let all of your ironic bullshit go and you find yourself starting to *gasp* enjoy yourself. This type of thing, from a strictly marketing point of view, is incredibly dangerous. So what happens when music is this self assured is that the listener becomes so convinced that this music is genuinely existing and is genuinely good that the energy for the fans to follow through “spreading the word” becomes a “it’s OK, he’s got it, dude” attitude. No one is going to bend over backwards to indirectly promote your music if your music sounds this cool. The idea is that the music will take care of itself. This brings us to the conclusion that Melted is the Fonzy album of 2010.

We hope Ty never grows out of making albums like Melted or any other incarnations of himself he has recorded to date. By the looks of it, after this is posted, he will have already put out another split 7″. In the meantime Melted is gutted and refilled Eco music that sounds like you’re always going to have enough money even when the economies of the world combust. So, In Ty We Trust!

Thee Oh Sees Warm Slime

Conceptually, The Oh Sees are more than the most deserving band to be played while you get ready for a date at a bowling alley.

God, that’s an awful first line. You should be ashamed for reading it. You should whip yourself with a wet noodle more than eighty thousand times if you thought about it in a “positive” way. In fact, we’ll go as far to say that we are so sick of writing about Thee Oh Sees that we’re tired. Not to eager to tell friends and “those inclined” about them much either. They Got Us! They Win! Warm Slime is another hot stinky chapter in the book of “How To Kill Rock and Roll”.

At a glance, Thee Oh Sees have way better album art than most. So good that if you saw any of the artwork out in public you’d look for the nearest garbage can a Muppet could be hiding in. If you accidentally eavesdropped on what someone had playing from inside their house, and what you heard was Thee Oh Sees then you probably wouldn’t be capable to explain to someone, at a later date, why it was, precisely, that you really liked what you heard. If you had heard it and then did try to explain to someone why it was great, you’d be overcome with genuine fear that the person whose time you had wasted would, then, be in their legal rights to knock-your-block-off! What you just read was nonsense. We’re sorry but we sad we were tired. Okay, all of that was just some weird way of saying that in an instant Thee Oh Sees can seem samey, similar and, without a doubt, a band you could hear at any spot in San Francisco. The reality is that you can’t judge a book by how it smells. You can’t buy it because of the sleeve. You’d be shot if you lingered on the first sentence and told your friends you’d read it.

In this case I m recalling a part of The Social Network, where the actor playing Mark Zuckerberg tries with all his feeble skills to look perplexed and happy about saying to another character, “We don’t know what it (the Facebook) is yet.” Warm Slime is NOT facebook. Warm Slime is NOT the Internet. Rest assured though that Warm Slime is still music, but maybe it’s a little more. We don’t really know. The sound of Warm Slime is kind of like the world’s newest way to make a sandwich. All the gristle and electricity it contains is all but mellowed out, or shellacked over with a groovy Rock and Roll mayonnaise. Its sound seems even more balanced even for Thee Oh Sees. Usually when you get a garage band breathing heavily it all becomes either one of three things: muddled; hair raisingly psychotic sounding; or just not enough of something. Warm Slime has found a way to do all of those three things in a such an enjoyable tone that you may be inclined to try a puff of a marijuana cigarette in front of a congressman immediately after finishing “Meat Step Lively”. Whence you take the fatal puff in front of the good congressman, you’ll have done it with the hopes he’ll join the fight to repeal Prop 8.

I apologize for this nonsense. We’ll be back at some point with something intelligent to say. We’ll also make it coherent. Anyhow, we’ll keep on trucking on this decaying tooth of trash.

Warm Slime’s an extraordinarily short album. It’s a one inch punch of psychedelic garage music in a beautiful container. Why make something that short and call it an album? Why are people still making albums at all? We have the iTunes store. You can get on mailing lists that, for a low rate, will get you a whole travelers dictionary of 7-inches bi monthly. Amazon.com has next day shipping, but also it’s own digital library and by the way, digital music files are getting more and more fidelitous by the year (that may not be true). But, the Internet allows people to supply the fans of their art with such immediacy that potentially there could some sort of new artistic dialogue that could emerge, we thinks. Is Warm Slime a step in that direction – who knows? Albums still have there place make no bones about it, but Warm Slime is, instead, maybe the mark of a real, legitimate, artistic band. The album is a lovenly exact piece of candy, it never gives you enough time to get bored, has a very groovy and warm opening track that gets you red hot with “man, bring it!”, and does what Thee Oh Sees do best – never gives you what you had expected, at least not exactly. It’s 2010’s I Just Had A Real Good Conversation album of the year!

Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings I Learned the Hard Way

Trying to reverse engineer any of the sounds spilling out of a Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings record would have to involve two things: moving to New York and building a time machine. Both of those things are really, really tough to do though. In fact, they may be damned impossible. For instance, the New York you’d need to move to is the New York that they used to call Detroit. The machine you’d need to create would not only have to get you back in time but would also need to inform you of how to “have a (real, genuine) soul” and, in doing so, at the speed of light. Kind of like kung-fu or something. Man, instead you may as well just listen to I Learned The Hard Way and anticipate what’s next.

The Dap Kings without Sharon Jones become known just as The Budos Band. The Budos Band are The Budos Band without Sharon Jones. These types of things are the maths of what we will call “Holy Shit, That’s Who That Is”. And speaking of maths, maths involve many equations. Equations of which can be built bigger and bigger upon proven constants and other empirically simpler calculations. What Sharon’n Her Dudes do is only final in terms that they produce sounds of a bygone era of music that we all miss and wish, maybe secretly, was still around. I Learned The Hard Way by no means is something you have heard before. That is unless you own any earlier album of theirs. Even then that simplification is mostly oversimplified. Trying to get the idea across that a group who sounds like a really, expertly developed tribute band is NOT an expertly sounding wedding band, I guess, is not and explanation even worth the Internet it’s written on.

Some people sample things that sound as golden as the tracks on I Learned The Hard Way, other people get in the studio and cover their favorite songs with hideous equipment, and with equipment, I think, of having the intention of giving said music a “less gritty sound”, whereas a lot of other artists just focus their attention somewhere else in the genre. What’s “the best”, in this case, is that when people get together and realize that dumpster diving for equipment, scouring craigslist or maybe garage sale bombing the hell out of cool places, such as New York is, is that those types of behaviors can become part of some sort of historical aesthetic. The Dappers and Sharon actually seem more like some sort of music science geek-phalanx rather than a group of people worrying about how to make something that hain’t broke work for them. They are the car restoration group of Motown and Soul. We all already know how good the engine of Motown purrs. Everyone has seen the muscle car performance of the Four Tops or some such group. We want to gather around the tailpipe of it all again, but stand around it slightly differently because it’s not “their” time anymore. It’s ours.

One more thing. I had a girlfriend once. This was before, well, everything. It’s not worth getting into, but what it is that I am trying to say is that this particular girl, who was my romantic lover and friend, always told me, whether I wanted to know or not, everything that would happen to her. She would recap her days like I had refreshed my tumblr iPhone app. With that app, as with most, all the stuff that had transpired since I last clicked the thing opens and what glows at me are some things I like – and some things that are a complete waste of my time. Also important, sometimes when you try to flip past a page on an iPhone, accidentally an app will open. That moment, this was her. Not God bless her, but I guess sometimes that was nice. Sometimes what she said would surprise me. Sometimes what she had to say was as important or insightful as saying “ow!” from an itchy mosquito bite. Despite it all, it was alright to be audience to.

So, this person was definitely my age and born in the latter half of the 20th Century. A Century in which a ton of stuff has happened. One glaring thing though that has happened, it seems, is this blatant disregard/obliviousness for tact or for the artistry of conversation. Maybe that’s true, maybe that’s not, however something like I Learned The Hard Way, albeit some elegantly regurgitated, and genre fried stuff, is pretty indicative of what I am obtusely referring to; what with what has “happened” to things, people and behaviors in the 21st Century. Too many things seem really literal these days. They are boring and just end up being a bad xerox of something. They don’t add on to anything, they just sort of start leaving a bad taste in your mouth. However this being 2011 and last year being 2010 and the Year We Did It All, Slightly, Over Again, Sharon and crew have hit the sweet spot of “man, why can’t all stuff be like this”. It would be awful if that became true, but maybe not, if done as well as what’s heard in I Learned The Hard Way.

Airel Pink Haunted Graffiti

If getdelicious thought of itself as a more respectable music blog, it’d definitely have more than a handful of articles up. It would actually be on people’s blog radars, we’d have more friends and we especially would not admit that the only reason this comically repugnant snide thing of a record, Haunted Graffiti, made our list “just because”.

THIS JUST IN!: getdeliciousDOTnet does! think of itself as more than just a respectable music blog-thing. We’ve got guts. We have nerve. We are telling you that we have what it takes, so why wouldn’t we actually have it? We still don’t have any friends and we don’t care. The statement stands – Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti is only being written about here “because”!

It could be apparent that, really, this record was more of just a two minute, three sentenced “conversation” in any noisy bar about how Haunted Graffiti is really cool, and much less about making a case for the validity of this kind of new, hip thing named, uh, glo-fi, dude. Haunted Graffiti seemed and still seems different. It has definitely set itself apart from other weird incarnations of stringy, teenage looking dudes that make pastiche sounding music we think. Well it’s set itself apart in 2010, that is of course if you hadn’t been just under the crest of this new candy-pop, synth heavy stuff washing up in the first decade of the newest millennium. With the popularity of this album, a lot of the blogging people had almost as much to say about the relevance and nifty ideas being represented in Haunted Graffiti as they did about the “birth of”, then the “death of” glo-fi that was brought to you by Mr. Pink. Maybe they are right. Maybe this is the sweetest thing since sugar and, upon looking at the finer print on the back, feels as bad for you as Sweet’N Low.

You wouldn’t want to go as far to say that Mr. Pink has repackaged your favorite slices of American Funk while cutting it with discernible lyrics, of which are sung in a intimate and guilty tone. No. However, it is that a little bit but there is something else in it that reminds us of what it’s like to buy ice cream at midnight – and that would only somewhat cover a little of what this record feels like. What Haunted Graffiti feeds you is much more developed than just thinking about where you have heard those cuts before. It does however manage to pass your time if you’re into generalizing how much of something has been inspired from VHS episodes of The Care Bears and what other percentage is emanating from something sounding like Aurthur Brown, yet without fire. Being moody is alright in doses. Getting down is almost always much more preferable, and if it sounds like it’s getting down in a graveyard that makes the stuff great! It’s just about the right juxtaposition of indifferent pop music and seeming “informed” about music or something. Heck, this is the record that could make your friends think you were more than just “keen” on music. This is the Everyone Wins! album of 2010.

Big Boi Sir Lucious Left Foot The Son of Chico Dusty

You know Big Boi had landed mega hard into 2010 with his Sir Lucious Left Foot, The Son of Chico Dusty when the dude, Sasha Frere Jones, said that the operatic sample on Boi’s track “Genreal Patton” was one of the most tasteful and hideously cool things to happen in hip hop since The Wu Tang Clan. That isn’t what he actually said, but it’s close! The neat-factor was that Big Boi was just reppin’ himself while still reminding people that he is and always will be an ATLien (that’s pronounced A-Tee-El-Ian), at least in spirit.

If Purple Rain is kind of how people in the Hip Hop community talk about making the “War and Peace” album of their career than we guess that Chico Dusty or Sir Left Foot or S.L.L.F.T.S.O.C.D is something in line with holding it’s own. It’s no “War and Peace”. Not by a long shot. Big Boi sure has hell has more to offer too, but Luscious is heavy and pumping on all cylinders – a “step in the right direction”. Especially against the current backdrop of fouled out, diamond ringed, possibly butt padded, dried out kitsch masquerading as the “new! and entertaining! hip hop” thing, of which also had its time in 2010. All of the other people’s time in 2010 sure made us miserable it did. Alas, the best way to respond to any of those types of things , we assume, as an musical artist is to not address any of them at all; instead dig in, do your work, punch the hell out of your wardrobe people but hold yourself responsible. Beyond that Chico Dusty is an intergalactic shoulder pad of funk that has been recorded in such a way that it seems way too loud. Way too loud on all cylinders. That could seem like it’s a slam or that sounding loud as all out doors is some kind of flaw. I will ask you this – do you know how hard is to make sure that everything on your record sounds way too loud? We’re not just talking the actual levels of everything either. We’re talking meter, mood what they rappin’bout, bizarre asides preceding tracks as well as following them. That is what we are talking about. Everything on Sir Dusty help make the sports car edges of Big Boi’s newest 2010’s Most All Around Sunglasses Wearing Record.

Most of why Sir Left Foot means something in the scope of 2010 is how it managed to make one of the decades coolest stand alone singles, “Shine Blockas”, something the universe was waiting for is really beyond comprehension in what it does. For something whose opening sounds are similar to the mealy backing tracks of a Minaj song-thing, “Shine Blockas” is a shield of justice, righteousness, and, in the name of the moon, is what will punish the shit out of anyone who thinks pop music can’t be saved. Don’t know what “to be saved” really means in this case, but in keeping with the emergent theme of 2010’s artists, if it ain’t an old, re-envisioned version of the past then well maybe it’s not as cool as it could be. That’s a terrible conciet. It’s not ours! It just seems like that’s what’s trending. InsteadChico Dusty is the world’s longest pimp cane of “Bah Humbug!” to an attitude like that. We think you could just simply say that the album is fresh.

あふりらんぽ (Afrirampo) We Are Ucho No Ko

This, the apparent final chapter of the real Japanese Psychedelic duo, Afrirampo, is a real interesting thing. Even if you are familiar with Afrirampo’s excellent history it’s not the easiest group to 1. know how the hell you feel about them and 2. tell others how you think they are worth the time of day. Being in the presence of them live is something that (now) is not going to be happening any time soon. However, if you had had the chance to see the gals live, what you get is a weird distribution.  The audience ends up being much like what you’d maybe expect – a collection consisting of people who know why they are there, people who have not the faintest idea as to why they are there, people who just like watching bird-like creatures make things up live! because a friend told them about it, a few others who read the rags smashed into the corners of the Internet, a female or two and, finally, everyone getting the chance to see some legitimately improvised music between two sister-like lifeforms. If you don’t talk about the live aspect of a band like Afrirampo when talking about Afrirampo then you would be missing the point, maybe.

(We’re not talking about We Are Uchu No Ko, yet.) Whatever you think about Japanese Psychedelic music, or however indifferent you are to it all Afrirampo is getdelicious’ pick for The Most Complete-est, Subjectively Obvious Group of 2010 DUH!

The Uchu No Ko album spasms, screams, cat calls, bird rills, drum kicks and guitar scratches it’s way out of the cosmos with the frivolity and consequence I am inclined to believe that no band in the United States is currently capable of. If an American band did something even remotely similar sounding to Afrirampo they may have immediately found themselves terrorists or a semi-giant success.  Realistically they would have been handcuffed by the Serious Police, where they would then have been taken away to what Huey P.Newton calls, “The Soul Breaker” – never to be let out ever again, and never to perform music again. OK.  Getting arrested would probably not happen, but you seriously cannot really expect to escape from 2010′s contemporary music landscape composed of analog dregs, fairy dust throwback, or the city-boy-gone-fishin’ trend, unless you built a room in your house whose design it is to have you crawl into it with the intention of never crawling out of it again – or you could simply listen to We Are Uchu No Ko. You don’t have to be forced to excavate Rock and Roll’s past in order to take a break from the “new” stuff that you may not be crazy about. What we’re saying is that you can like brand new music that isn’t one of those three genres that seemed to be 2010’s “the things to listen to”. You don’t have to start liking Norweigan Death Metal either – although, that stuff’s super good most of the time. Instead, get We Are Uchu No Ko! Listen to it. Let all the endearing, exaggerated enthusiasm touch your heart, and let all the chaos, animal lech and psychedelic gun-cocking hit you where it hurts so good.

I have a friend. One of my only real friends I guess. It’s tenuous though. He may possibly think of me as less of his friend than I would think he is a good friend of mine. We play in a band together and he writes about video games. What’s important here is that in the case of Afrirampo he had said something extraordinarily significant.  In fact I think it may have become the most-rightest sounding critique  about a band I have ever heard, ever. He doesn’t even write about music, at least publicly. I am young though so I imagine I’ll hear other really correct-sounding stuff later on however indifferent about the prospects of that I really am. This “right sounding thing” he said was veiled, as it was just about Afrirampo. It could be extrapolated onto all performance and music(-theory), especially when talking about the “real stuff”.

So it was about them and how intricate seeing what it is Afrirampo does live as opposed to how they sound on record. To go into it with proper depth and reverence would mean I would have to start crumbling nuggets of crack into my coffee, which would give me the power to stay awake for a week and allow me the focus required to get it out, and get it out the right way. Instead I’ll just paraphrase: ‘ Afrirampo, I think,’ and this is him paraphrase-ily speaking, ‘after playing a song they’ve already kind of written, and then playing it out on tour, put their music down on record in order to kill the song – I think – rather than have that song reinforce a part of any current record.’

Afrirampo and the We Are Uchu No Ko album are like some bizarre, technological cave painting. Maybe the record matters but what’s implied in the will to conceptualize things like Afrirampo, it is so much less important to hear without it also being great to watch.  That is a mystifying sentence.  Afrirampo manages to bridge the divide between performance art and just being music in the same way that a bird of paradise doesn’t get laid without also dancing.

The Fresh and Onlys Play It Strange

If being selected as one of the albums to listen to of 2010 were really a contest (which it kind of is) then 1st prize for most uninteresting and God-blowing album art goes to Kanye West (lol). Second prize goes to The Fresh and Onlys Play It Strange. There plain hain’t nothing that is as fun as basketball is about it. Period. Luckily album art having to do with how good something is is not the case. The look of an album has little to do with the merits of how it sounds or what exactly might be going on. Now, this may sound really weird because “of course the album art has to do with it!!!” Most of the time you’d be right. Most anything of consequence should at least be making a joke about the art or about the album, or, for pete’s sake, at least have it relate in some way. *NOTE to bands: if you only think your album art looks cool, maybe you should worry more about the entertainment aspect of your group like the Gorillaz or Wavves or something. (I don’t know, it’s your band)*

Play It Strange is another really nice record for 2010. It’s all about remembering that America is still America and that means America is BIG. It so big it hurt, big. I hear it so big that big wants it’s big back. A lot of music busting the American blogs up with slung shot pebbles instead of bullets are these pastoral groups like The Smoke Fairies or Iron and Wine or some other bearded jerk-off – if a male – or fringe haircutted cunt -obvioulsy female- wearing a pair of cowboy boots talking about what it’s like to love a person while standing on a street corner. My mother has told me that if you don’t have something nice to say then don’t say nothing at all. Well, then, I guess I will just say that there are a lot of people from big cities writing songs about falling in love and pretending to be from a farm. The idea of it is actually a cool one , but apparently no one has gotten the memo that both literal interpretation of either actual country records or literal interpretations of the “mood” of your favorite country places are not 1. exciting 2. sounding pretty cool or 3. the owner of any testicles whatsoever.

Introducing The Fresh and Onlys. The guys that kind of get “it” and get “it” right. What is the “it” am I talking about? Well, “it’s” the not making really boring soundtrack music for an equally bad, yet to be imagined independent film that would end up wasting your time, or not tell you any jokes. The Fresh and Onlys’ Play It Strange is that movie about a surfer kid from Cali who moves to Ohio only to bring his savvy surfer know how to aggressive inline skating. This gets him the girl and pwns the preps. Not to leave Play It Strange at that but this is about it. What it’s really kind of like as well is a show, of which we cannot totally remember, about a kid from Ohio in the 60’s who is forced to move to Califonia, learns how to surf and starts to exhibit super powers – like predicting the weather, and calling upon elements and such. We may be hallucinating here but this surfer-goes-country trope found in The Fresh and Onlys’ Play It Strange is pretty cool. It’s a nice sensibility and much more American Rock than most other bands that try.

Tame Impala Innerspeaker

That group of mates from Aus. that sound really, really groovy!

It is of the opinion of getdeliciousDOTnet that Tame Impala was the unknown explosion of 2010. They were however actually on peoples radars before 2010, make no mistake (especially if your radar covered music from the south Pacific i.e. Australia). By no means is this band really an explosive thing though, but they sound young and full of what it takes to blow the socks off of the doors of our future- if they just keep mining this nostalgic vein of rock and roll might. Tame Impala themselves are king of the compression in terms of everything they do. Never over the top. Never giving you everything. Never knowing when not to just stop working exactly. It’s like when it comes to extreme restraint, they’re sloppy somehow. That totally blows our minds too. Not just restraint, but total restraint. Potentially you could play Innerspeaker for your grandparents as well as your friends and no one would ask you to change the station. We have heard a person say, or at least it has been written down somewhere that the measure of entertainment is in its potential audience. Man, that is really true for Innerspeaker.

Tame Impala will trick you too. It is still not clear if the imperfections in the studio performances on the album are one of three things: actual blemishes; intended; the after effects of inhaling too much of, as track one says, “…smoking weed.” Whatever the hell they are, I really don’t know what Innerspeaker would be without them. It’s the feeling that makes you want to take your little brother to see his first R-rated movie. Something endearing and naive. Noticing the minimal imperfections of the physicality of Innerspeaker is both vainly gratifying and completely intimate. Maybe those are the same things, or maybe both of those things should always happen together? Some critics would say that anything less than complete solid fidelity is insincere and only worth the time it’s apparent that the artist took to complete their work. Whatever man! Only going to touch on this next idea for a sentence or two, but why haven’t any of these really “studied”/layered groups left us, the audience, with any gafs that can be found on a recording the likes of which a DVD gives us Easter eggs? The most immediate, bizarre example that comes to mind is the “COOKIES” line from the song “Hold On”, off of John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band LP. Now that type of thing isn’t necessarily studied or “intelligent”, but hell! if it don’t make you get a chunk of weed brownie clogged in your throat with “what the hell was that!?” It’s an intimacy thing. Some people just lack it in real life – they then need it from somewhere else. Some people can handle it in both real life and the space between the appreciator and the artist. Other humans also want that mystery and excitement of never really finding out. For those that can do it all/want it all, it’s Innerspeaker for your 2010.

It is the sincere hope, of we at getdelicious, be them imperfections or no imperfections, that the groovy, syrupy vintage thing Tame Impala does stay sticky.

Salem King Night

Love this or hate this glo-fi, witch house, drag, dub-step, chill wave, windy trash bag music that is hesitantly trending now, SALEM brought it to ya this year. It is nice to see that genre names are sounding more and more like a failed bubble gum or third shelf candy you’d have to risk getting car jacked for. But beyond that, all the times you were trying to remember what it was like the first time you saw someone get high on film, the nostalgia – that never quite happened the way you remembered – was here in 2010. It came in the form of two refuseniks with a notoriously non-indulgent approach to anyone interested in doing more than just listening to King Night or any of their other previous mixes. That attitude turned people off. That’s obvious. We dug King Night and for all the right reasons. The idea that it would be difficult to have a continuous game of pool with music makers (a music maker) when you’re asking them “what does it mean when…” and having the music makers immediately split their pool cues in half and threaten to impale you with them if you don’t start shutting the fuck up seems to really bother people when it comes to thinking about liking their music. No one wants to think that the time wasted giving attention to someone else’s art cannot be reciprocated exactly how one thinks it should be reciprocated maybe. Even if you’re not reciprocated the way you planned on being, being reciprocated to in a positive way always helps it seems. What bothers people is when the artist apparently don’t give a shite, which is kind of how people have been reacting to SALEM as of late. Well, the music is all that matters so who really cares. We at getdelicious cannot really understand why people allow things like that to come in front of music that sounds like someone buried a super-intelligent mole with a Afrika Bambata record and Crux Shadows only to dig it up and see what happend?

Whatever the personalities of a given group do for you when listening to music it’s kind of nice to feel like the people who constitute SALEM are really lanky clarinet players that were wrestling with the idea of what an elevator ride through a church gym should feel like where every Saturday they have basketball, instead of the two sports jersey wearing guys that do make up SALEM.

When in the midst of making something and you are you’re only audience, and you happen to know exactly why you like what you’re doing, where it could be coming from, and what you’re trying to say, it gets a little insulting when someone asks you “what does this mean when…” Instead of asking those types of questions, take a second and project. You may be right. You’re probably way the hell off, but if you spin it in a delicate and relevant way, well that’s cool too. The person may let you know where you’re wrong and maybe give a little as to what they were trying to do. Ok, that last statement seems somewhat empathetic and not right. However, if something is as explicitly gothically “gansta” sounding as King Night, you know, you may want to paste-what-you-think-here before you go directly enquiring about the “real answer”. It’d be a disservice to the aesthetic of what SALEM does if we said they were “self explanatory”. They aren’t. King Night is fun, dense, overbearingly idiotic and really, expertly intelligent of how they go about grinding on you while your passed out. That is the charm.

If Rock and Roll music is about pissing your parents off and making your ears bleed, then 2010 is sad and unfulfilled. If King Night is about getting excited by yourself and talking in an Indonesian accent for no other reason than “that don’t sound like no English I’ve heard’ve” while a party is being thrown at your parents house in Michigan, then it’s done it’s job. It could be worse. Much worse. We could start trying to find out the deeper meanings as to why Kanye West is really popular. It could be proven, scientifically, that the earth was going last for at least 70 billion more years and that we’ve cured death. Hopefully neither of those three things ever happen and in the meantime we can cold lamp to the grooves of King Night.

The album isn’t necessarily Rock and Roll but definitely comes pretty close to being able to piss your parents off. All of it sounds like a mistake. All of the repetitive, dryer cycle bass blasting and VNV Nation choral that is lining all of the goofy, well unthought-about keyboard licks are as biographically dumbfounding as it would be trying to place this album with any of the other witchouse, gang bang, drop out, smoked up CD-r releases of the past year. We like those’n too, but they just don’t have the nuts nor the will to be aggressively as un-boring as King Night.