BeatRoute Magazine Alberta print e-edition - March 2016

Seth Bogart
Adult Books
Running From The Blows
Burger Records
Adult Books put out an album on Lolipop Records,
this one’s on Burger Records and let’s just get this
out of the way now: they’re cooler than you. Everybody
they know is cooler than you. Their life is one
long photo ‘essay’ from one of those magazines
that are 90 per cent ads for clothing brands you’ve
never heard of.
But damn if, on the evidence of this album,
they’re not charming. Their sound is roughly power
pop, mostly garage rock, somewhat post-punk,
a little surfy in places, there’s synths and holy shit
if the songwriting isn’t just there, right where you
want it to be. There are a lot of West Coast bands
at the centre of the venn diagram created by AB’s
genre reference points, and a fair few of them are
on Burger Records, and the only thing I can say to
make you pick up this and not the grimier together
PANGEA, the surfier Guantanamo Baywatch or
the party-er Dirty Few is that the songs here just
work better. If this was still the kind of musical culture
that could make The Lemonheads the biggest
indie rock band on the planet then on the strength
of the song “Suburban Girlfriend” alone these guys
would be huge.
• Gareth Watkins
Alpenglow
Callisto
Chizu Records
Brooklyn-via-Vermont band Alpenglow make
the kind of expansive, folk-tinged psychedelia
that seems like it belongs in a tourism commercial.
It’s the kind of emotionally-charged,
wispy folk-rock that soundtracks road trips or
mountain excursions.
The four-piece’s music lies on a spectrum somewhere
between Jim James and company in My Morning
Jacket, and the gentle folk of Fleet Foxes. Callisto
is the band’s debut album, following the release of
their Chapel EP in 2014. Chapel was recorded in a
small Vermont chapel and its sonics reflected that.
The band moved into the studio for Callisto, and the
results are quite impressive. The band’s incorporation
of drum machines and synthesizers is subtle, but very
effective. The band has also reigned in their reverb
slightly, but tracks like the stand out “Solitude” still
find them going big.
Frontman Graeme Daubert’s voice is one of the
biggest draws to the album. He really anchors every
track with his vaguely twangy coo. The band
does well to mix his voice front and center.
• Jamie McNamara
Autograf
Future Soup EP
Independent
After their first single “Metaphysical” received a
warm reception, Autograf has announced their
next release: an EP entitled Future Soup which
becomes available March 11. The album art
seems to pay homage to one of the band’s artistic
influences, Andy Warhol. As a live act, the trio
incorporate creative and innovative methods of
producing their music, while integrating actual
art elements as well, providing audiences with a
thorough experience.
This live electronic trio has built upon their first
single, which was an impressive first effort; “Metaphysical”
is a bright, summery tune with a serene
vocal line complementing the melody and carrying
the busy, progressive house bass lines.
On Future Soup the group has very much indicated
a step towards collective maturation. The
drum lines are more organic and tight while still
being very danceable. The bass lines still in places
have the brightness of “Metaphysical,” but there
is a new, refined degree of depth. Another important
factor in this release is the prevalence of
featured vocalist Patrick Baker on the title track,
which provides a whole new degree of soul and
ultimately aids in the group’s journey towards a
more solidified identity.
Autograf manage to cover a broad landscape in
emotion and feel over the five tracks of this EP. For
instance, the tracks “Hearbeat” and “Slow Burn”
are much more melancholic, downtempo grooves
highlighting the instrumentation of the guitars and
drums. “Horizons,” has some of that brighter, almost
tropical-esque tones and a quick, synthy pace. The
final track “Ocean Glass,” slows things right now and
closes out the EP on a deep, soulful note.
If this release is any indication of what’s to come
with this trio, they are going to be an act to keep
on one’s radar, both for live performances and
future releases.
• Paul Rodgers
Baauer
Aa
LuckyMe
Let’s get the “Harlem Shake” part of this review out
of the way. Baauer helped create trap music as an
EDM staple, and that created a viral staple of the
early genre’s wall of shame. Lame dads on newscasts,
pre-Snapchat tweens and YouTubers who would die
out with the Ice Bucket Challenge all embodied the
spirit of the mis-named “Harlem Shake” phenomenon.
But can we just let Harry Bauer Rodrigues live
at this point? He lost damn near every cent he made
on the track, has made weird but irresistible shit for
LuckyMe ever since and has finally deigned to put
out an album four years after that cringey piece of
internet history.
Aa reckons with trap, to be sure. In fact it sneers in
the face of all its copiers with detonators like “GoGo”
and the brutally MC-showcasing “Day Ones.” Baauer
shows that when trap is used right, it’s completely
unstoppable.
There are plenty of politely inconspicuous transitions,
too. But where Rodrigues really hits home
(aside from his reclamation of the throne) is when
he goes head to head with worthy collaborators like
unrepentant UK oddball Tirzah for art school garage
track “Way From Me,” Slumdog-gone-Wu Tang cut
“Temple” with G-Dragon and M.I.A., vogue-referencing
“Make it Bang” with TT the Artist or perfectly
contemporary “Kung Fu” with Pusha T and Future.
It would be easy to hate on this album for making
no sense, but every left turn brings another “oh shiiit”
moment. Turn up.
• Colin Gallant
The Basement Paintings
Mystic
Independent
One of the greatest things about instrumental music
is that even though it does not use words and obvious
storytelling methods to create emotion, it still
has the power to be unimaginably evocative. Perhaps
more so. For within the spaces between soaring
echoes and lingering notes, our minds weave together
fantastical landscapes, pull up long forgotten
aspects of our psyche, and create a space of swirling
dark matter capable of transforming into anything.
When I was first acquainted with the basement
paintings, it was after they had just released their
second album and I was immediately drawn into the
powerful complexity of what they had created. Their
process, as they described it, was long, laborious, and
overwhelmingly organic; much like the creation of
the earth itself. This gargantuan atmosphere has been
fine-tuned on their third release, Mystic. Filled with
smoldering sounds and no sense of hurry, the album
is made up of deeply nuanced, unexpected turns but
comes together sounding masterfully cohesive and
flowing. Upon each listen the album seems to unveil
more and more of its hidden depths, and invites the
listener to dig in and give in. “Portal” is an especially
well crafted gem, and is reminiscent of their previous
album, Time Lapse City in its sprawling, elliptic
glory. Like the ocean gradually swelling and falling to
overtake the wreckage of a city, the song slowly builds
into an unstoppable tempest. Cement crumbles
and waves slowly shape the decaying landscape into
something of wonder and mystery. “Cave Dance”
boasts a similar reverence inducing rise and fall,
eventually trickling off into soft darkness like a dying
flame. While their previous release fell more towards
the post-metal spectrum, this album seems more to
fall in a category without genre distinction, and more
of overwhelming cinematic resonance. Overall, Mystic
is a powerful, arcane collection of sounds that is
best listened to as a whole, and with full attention, as
there is much to glean and much that can be gained.
• Willow Grier
Seth Bogart
The Seth Bogart Show
Burger Records
On his debut album under his given name, Seth
Bogart is a Hunk without his Punx. Not that he needs
them: Bogart has personality to spare and lays himself
out more vulnerably here than on any past release.
The idea of making a “show” of himself gives him
permission to be upfront under the guise of a plastic
performance. Bogart skewers and acknowledges the
ease of slipping into a vacant Angelino with opener
“Hollywood Squares.” This track sets the musical tone
of lo-fi but punchy pop hooks via crunchy guitar and
plinky synths, and also sets up the dynamic of real vs
plastic to follow.
Despite its playful title, “Forgotten Fantazy” is an
open look at Bogart emerging from a moment of
romantic weaknesses to restake a claim on his own
identity. “I’m surrounded by your thoughts / But I’m
not listening,” he sings sternly but tenderly to the
lover who has smothered him.
Bogart further explores his romantic entanglements
with the saccharine post-jealousy-tantrum
of “Smash the TV” and asks to be wanted on
“Lubed Up.”
The Seth Bogart Show doesn’t completely shed
Bogart’s penchant for glitzy camp; “Eating Makeup” is
equal parts TLC and John Waters, with a stupendously
bratty vocal turn by Kathleen Hanna, and “Nina
Hagen-Daaz” splits the difference between outsider
art and consumerism.
Through it all, Bogart manages be tongue in cheek
without detaching himself from an honest exploration
of self in relation to the overstimulating world
around him.
• Colin Gallant
Demise of the Crown
Demise of the Crown
Independent
It happens in life, far more often than we’re aware
of, that the sound or sight of something causes an
instant, automatic physical reaction. In the case of
sound—Demise of the Crown being the prosecutor—we
find ourselves duly fazed. A Montreal
five-piece with a love for power metal probably
doesn’t seem like a sinister enough thing to do
permanent damage to everything you ever thought
metal is. Yet, here we are. In sheer, harmless terms,
Demise of the Crown is cautiously unorthodox in
it’s “genreability” and predictably impractical in
piggybacking itself on anything other than regular,
everyday, neighbourhood watering-hole Canadiana.
That said, a pitiless checklist:
Are they musicians and was it musical? Yes, yes.
Did the drummer drum? Yes.
Did the vocals work together? No. While Bay Area
thrash was a clear influence here, there was too much
disconnect between the “singing” and the “screaming”
to keep it in proportion.
Did every track have an okay guitar solo? Yes. Fans
of noble-sounding overtures and breakdowns will
find lots to discuss.
When the album ended, was it apparent that
this is what Death Angel might sound like if they
dropped their schtick and covered Queensryche-esque
songs? Absolutely.
48 | MARCH 2016 • BEATROUTE