The Decade's Best Music

Showing posts with label Metacritic. Show all posts

Pause - Four Tet

Posted by JustinSlick On Thursday, December 03, 2009 0 comments

Released: October 2, 2001
Metacritic Score: 85 (155th)
Genre: Electronica, Post-Rock
Length: 43:08 (11 Tracks)
Label: Domino Records
Follows: Dialogue

Seeing the genre listed as “electronic,” I wasn’t completely sure what I was getting myself into with this album until I started playing it. Obviously electronica comes in a lot of different forms, some of which I’m not usually a big fan of. I don’t really listen to pure electronica, and I’m definitely not a dance-techno fan.

Listen to "Everything Is Alright"

However, I do very much enjoy the downtempo style offered by bands like Zero 7 and Thievery Corporation, especially as background music when I’m either falling asleep or working on my computer. Thankfully, Four Tet’s style tends to be much closer to downtempo than dance, although comparing Pause to albums by Zero 7 or Thievery Corporation is still something of a stretch.

The most notable disparity between Pause and my favorite Zero 7 material, is that the use of vocals is pretty sparse, with the emphasis obviously placed on production, sound manipulation, and experimentation. Personally, I enjoy one or two fully instrumental tracks on an album with a lot of vocals more than one or two vocal samples on an album with mostly instrumentals.

Perhaps the root of that preference is that as a non-musician I have a harder time recognizing brilliant musicianship than I do excellent lyricism. Whatever the reason, my preference for lyrical-based music is personal taste, and there are plenty of people who would just as soon have it the other way around.

All that aside, Pause was still quite an interesting and enjoyable listen. While I can't guarantee you'll like it, I can say with certainty that you'll hear sounds and instrument combinations you probably haven't encountered before unless you're already into the whole ambient-electronic scene in which case you probably know a heck of a lot more about Four Tet than I do anyway.

Things I loved

Variety. One of my main criticisms with this type of electronic music is that, to me it can start to feel monotonous. Four Tet succeeds at bringing wide variety of sound to the table, and packs an eclectic mix of influences, instruments, and techniques into the album’s eleven tracks. It gives the album a sense of exoticism and unpredictability that added a lot to the experience without ever making it feel disjointed.

The fact that an acoustic guitar is used so prominently in an electronic album is a fantastic example of my last statement.

The recurring type-writer motif definitely provided a nice sense of cohesiveness to the album and helped to rein everything in. Actually, Four Tet's overall use of found audio samples was one of the album's strong suits.

Bottom Line

Definitely not my favorite album of all time, but so far the more I’ve heard it the more I’ve liked it. To me it isn’t captivating enough that I’ll sit and listen with my focused attention, but I have no doubt it'll find its way into my rotation as something to play in the background while I’m working on paintings, designs, etc.

Rapid Fire

Favorite Track: Everything is Alright
Also Loved: You Could Ruin My Day

Least Favorite: Tangle, I'm gonna say.
Best Moment: There’s this segment during the end of the second track that stood out to me…I don’t really know how to describe it—sort of a gradual metamorphosis in sound (almost like a switch from stereo to a lo-fi mono recording) that I thought was pretty interesting.

Pause on Amazon
Four Tet on Last.FM

Up Next: Comicopera - Robert Wyatt (#101)

Chutes Too Narrow - The Shins

Posted by JustinSlick On Thursday, December 03, 2009 0 comments

Released: October 21, 2003
Metacritic Score: 88 (40th)
Genre: Indie, Pop
Length: 33:50 (11 Tracks)
Label: Sub-Pop
Precedes: Wincing The Night Away

Like so many others my age, I was first introduced to the Shins by Natalie Portman in Zach Braff's 2004 indie-flick Garden State. If you haven't seen it, Natalie's character hands Braff a set of headphones and says, “You gotta hear this song. It’ll change your life, I swear.” Man was she right.

Listen to "Saint Simon"

Five years later,

I don’t think there’s a single song I’ve listened to more times than “New Slang” from The Shins’ debut, Oh, Inverted World. It’s one of my favorite songs of all time, and at least in my case the famous line from Garden State was true. Before seeing that movie, I was pretty single minded in my listening habits, which at the time included a lot of DMB, Dispatch, and little else.

“New Slang,” and a couple other entries from the Garden State Soundtrack opened my eyes to the indie scene, and showed me that there was life aside from jam bands. Now, I know that some have insisted that the Shins’ initial success was due more to the hype machine surrounding Garden State than the quality of Oh, Inverted World, but I politely disagree.

I acknowledge that there were probably more than a few people that “liked the Shins,” because liking the Shins was cool. However, for every one of those there were probably three or four *real* fans, since…you know… the music is pretty freakin’ awesome.

Thoughts on the album

Metacritic has The Shins’ sophomore effort Chutes Too Narrow ranking in at number 40 on their top 200 with an overall score of 88. For whatever reason, it looks like Metacritic never catalogued Oh, Inverted World, which is unfortunate because I would have been pretty interested to see which album the critics preferred.

(Actually, Pitchfork does have both in their top 200 of the decade, with Chutes at #41 and Oh, Inverted World at #115ish).

Anyway, the album opens on a high note, with the strange, image-evoking “Kissing The Lipless,” and never really misses a step. While I don’t think any single track is as atmospheric or “life-changing” as “New Slang” was, I would say a few come close. The final track “Those To Come” is probably the most comparable in mood and character, and also the most poetic.

Whether due to improved production or a conscious transformation by Shins front-man James Mercer, I like the vocal delivery better on Chutes Too Narrow than Oh, Inverted World. Mercer sounds different somehow, clearer perhaps, or more contemporary.

Either way, plus one for the Shins. I don’t want to go on too long, so I suppose I’ll get down to—

The Bottom Line

While “New Slang” and “Caring is Creepy” are probably still my favorite songs from The Shins’ first two offerings, I can’t say for sure whether that’s musical quality speaking or just pure nostalgia from having heard them first.

I will say that I enjoy listening to Chutes Too Narrow cover to cover a bit more than I do Oh, Inverted World. I tend to favor the crisper production on Chutes, and think some of the tracks on the Shins’ debut would have fared better with the same high-budget treatment. Apart from that, I think the stylistic tweaks the Shins made between albums, and the decision to feature guitars over Oh, Inverted World’s keyboard were well implemented.

Chutes Too Narrow is a great album from a great band, but you probably already know that. If somehow you missed it, totally go give it a listen. Here’s hoping 2010 brings us a fourth entry in the Shins’ catalog.

Rapid Fire:

Favorite Track: For me, I think it’s gotta be “Saint Simon.”
Close Second: Album-closer, “Those To Come.”
Best Lyric: From Those To Come:

“quaking leaves and broken light
shifting skin the coming night
the bearers of all good things arrive
climb inside, twist and cry
a kiss on your molten eyes.”

Favorite Moment: The minute or so of soft whistling at the end of “Those To Come.” Even though it closes out the album, it has the effect of sticking with you to the point where its almost impossible not to keep whistling the melody long after the song fades away—and in this case that’s a good thing.

The Shins on Last.FM
The Shins on Amazon

On Deck: Four Tet – Pause.

The Decade in Music

Pause - Four Tet

Chutes Too Narrow - The Shins

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