Underachievers - Cellar Door Terminus Ut Exordium (Brainfeeder 2014)

         The Beast Coast collective shares more than origins in Flatbush. They also share a set of new age-y reference points that they reference in raps, centered around third eyes and a bit of debunked 80's pseudoscience called indigo child theory.  It's all a little corny. The Underachievers seem skilled at wrapping new age-ism and indigo theory into a loose mythology in which they can insert their personas, in the way Sun Ra inserted themselves into cryptic mythologies a generation ago.

          Opening track Luminescence is a loop of a few sparse guitar strums, syruppy violin strings and an ethereal sounding maraca beat, as AK and Issa Gold exchange frenetically paced raps about building cultures, demolishing negativity, paving paths for rebirth. "Chrysalis" is an exasperated second wind breath over ethereal sounding chants and light trap hi-hats. Radiance is a nearly identical Static Selektah produced song with battering ram raps.

           The album's similar beats make it feel coherent and of one piece, but it also makes the tracks difficult to distinguish from one another. This is not helped by one word track names that are all thematically similar. With names like "Luminescence", "Radiance",  and "Ethereal", it feels a bit like reading the track list of an Enya album. The standout track is lead single "Metropolis". It distinguishes itself with a spiraling flow, mirrored by the staccato percussion underneath. It starts off with a bold mission statement - "Death to the radio n****/this is where that saga ends/up by the light of David".  It's fine that Underachievers work within new age mythology, partially because it allows them to carve out a niche that is more or less untread in hip hop. Even within Beast Coast,  Flatbush Zombies have focused more on re-orienting horrorcore as avant-spirituality in the the same way Gravediggaz did, Pro Era on their post 90's thing. There aren't a lot of rap acts with the same schtick as UA, and if there are, there certainly aren't any as lyrically talented or earnest as them. But it's far more rewarding when Underachievers transcend their schtick, if even for fleeting moments on Metropolis, which they wisely based a single and video around. At first it seems refreshing that neither of them mine their personal lives for narratives, but as the tracks go on, vague positivity and lyrics about streams of light and rebirth only offer so much meat to pull apart, and the album could benefit from narrative momentum or the kind of contradictory and human essence that makes the raps of their peers relatable. But maybe the indigo child theory, however debunked it has been as baby boomer pseudoscience is correct about one thing: relatability is overrated.

Advance Base - Plastic Owen Band (Orindal, 2014)

(Full Name: Plastic Owen Band: Collected Covers, Compilation Tracks, Demos & Rarities 2011-2014 mixtape)

This is the most recent covers album Owen Ashworth has put out under the Advance Base moniker. The previous albums were shorter EPs usually focusing on a single artist, like his Tomorrows Houses Today EP which covered every song on Stephin Merrit's House of Tomorrow EP. This album is a full length focusing on traditional acts that lean more to the folk and country side of classic rock, like neil young, kris kristofferson, bill withers, Creedance Cleerwater. But the two strongest tracks are actually Owen Ashworth covers - Riot Grrls and Natural Light. Ashworth wisely reinterprets "Lodi" - originally an uptempo and heroic sounding Cleerwater track, as downtempo and melancholy. Appropriate, since the lyrics are regretful and detail a failed attempt at seeking fame and fortune. Ashworth's cover of Kristofferson's circular, illogical, homespun advice song "To Beat The Devil" is a fine addition. His cover of Philadelphia comes from a place deep and broken, Ashworth practically mumbles over xylophones and choral falsetto effects that chime in near the end of the soft, painful track. "Motion Juice", a slightly more upbeat track is a new song intended for a DC Pierson young adult novel titled Crap Kingdom. Riot Grrls is a a slower and much more low-fi version of a song from Shut In's Prayer, stripped to nothing but a drum machine and synth. The song, about a middle aged gen x-er reminiscing about liberal arts college friends in the 90s, is a sad and wistful and and accomplished a piece of storytelling on any CFTPA album. Like many CFTPA/Advance Base songs, it's a melancholy song about longing that simultaneously does not mince words when talking about the misery, toxicity, and privelege of twenty something artists, while not condemning the same. The song "Natural Light", a cover of a CFTPA cover of a Mark Kozalek song might be the strongest and most puzzling track. Owen sings the track with a kind of southern old man affect that just barely works but makes the song, about longing and nostalgia and regret provoked by glimpsing an old photograph, all the more sad. The LP closes out with the Julie Byrne assisted "Summer Music" - Byrne showed up on previous Ashworth song "Holly Hobby", and a lighthearted instrumental track titled Harpsichord. 

Rutu Modan - Exit Wounds (Drawn And Quarterly, 2007)

I love love loved Exit Wounds by Rutu Modan. This book made a bunch of end of year lists the year it came out and I had meant to read it, but never got around to it. I didn't realize how long ago it came out at this point. Exit Wounds takes place in Tel Aviv; it is a story about two strangers meeting because of a recent bombing and a mutual person they know who may or may not have been a victim of the bombing. It is told mostly from the perspective of Koby Franco, whose occasional omniscient narration sometimes opens or closes the four chapters of the book. Koby's reaction to the news that his father may or may not be dead is unsurprised, unemotional and unsentimental, as are his thoughts about everything regarding his family and relationships. The lack of sentiment or saccharine explanations or glamor or stark moralizing is what makes the story of Exit Wounds feel realistic, free-floating, easy to navigate and gives it darkly comic overtones. Nothing about the world or the characters feels condescending and a moment never occurs when Modan asks us to bask in empathy, or terror, or even some kind of gushy unencumbered romantic love. That the story finds itself becoming a romantic comedy and resolving itself in a way similar (but far more ambiguous) way as a romantic comedy seems like an inexorable structural and narrative path to allow the characters to enter and possibly exit one another's lives. But it does not feel forced. In fact, a conversation that Koby has with a naive old woman near the end of the book who spouts religious platitudes and uses the word "soulmates" seems to confirm this lack of sentiment. The overall tone of the book is darkly comic; one running joke is that there are so many bombings that people get two recent bombings in cities with similar sounding names confused. A visit to the coroner finds the coroner curt and dismissive, to no one's surprise. The ending of the book and its ambiguous final page presents what appears to be a positive, or optimistic action. But the preceding dialogue insinuates it is the only available option, and when we visualize the end results of the act there is no way for the next (unseen, because the book is done) panel to be anything but completely absurd. It isn't just an affirmative act; it is a quixotic, goofy, and ultimately pointless one. And that's where the story of Exit Wounds excels. This is not a story about the redeeming power of romantic love; romance is presented as a borderline unhealthy exercise that lonely people partake in because they have no other color or shape to their bleak lives. Exit Wounds is a book about the simple will to live and to find laughter and pleasure in the company of other people, something far more redemptive and reliable than romance.

The art relies on disarmingly simple character design, bold outlines, and light colors. The characters' body language and facial expressions convey an uncanny range of emotion in every panel. The body language and facial expressions seem so human that it seems almost photoreferenced or rotoscoped. I would have trouble believing that models weren't used to design the two main characters. The character of Numi in particular is so idiosynchratic and fully realized that it would be difficult to imagine that she doesn't exist somewhere in the world. The emotional range of these characters' expressions is so rich that it makes the world of Exit Wounds feel very much alive and worth visiting.

Dorian Concept - Joined Ends (Ninja Tune, 2014)

Dorian Concept is Austrian electronic musician Oliver Thomas Johnson. His previous album  "When Planets Explode" - which I have only heard little snippets of- is an explosive dancefloor orientated album with with a vibrant and cacaphonic range of sounds and jagged, scattered changes in register. This is a very different album that I like more. Whereas his previous album relied on a microkorg, Joined Ends is made using a wurlitzer piano and analogue synthesizers. Most often the synthesizers are emulating wind instruments, saxophones and flutes in particular. The overall tone of the album is bright and optimistic, maybe even christmas-y and choral in their reliance on vocal emulator choruses and bell sounds. The opening track "The Sky Opposite" is twinkling and hypnotic while fast-paced, like a josiah wolf beat. My favorite track is "Clap Track 4", with what sounds like several high pitched choral style singers (but which is probably just Oliver himself looped in harmony) singing something that I maybe didn't understand because it's austrian, in a swinging and neighborly sounding melody. "Nest Nest" is similar, with a more transcendant sounding chorus over very simple emulated strings, bells, and synthesized wind instruments. It adds up to something really simple and elegant and beautiful. "The Few" is more driving and aggressive, utilizing live drumming and washed out vocals to create something like a much more muted Prefuse 73 track. The closing piece Tried (Now Tired) is a longer piece that begins with a more cinematic, dramatic narrative sound and devolves into a sparse, twinkling melody, scaling up and down piano keys until the sound and the album fizzle out.

Isan - Plans Drawn In Pencil (Morr Music, 2006)

I am really enjoying this 2006 album by electronic duo Isan. Spacious, ambient music with bright and optimistic movements that take their time to build, high pitch sounds and rich, glitch fueled textures. This is a really soothing album. The granular sound textures will be familiar to anyone who enjoyed early 2000's Stereolab, particularly in the Sound Dust era. The soft, peaceful, grazing, meditative and kind compositions will be appealing to anyone who is into sigur ros. I am often looking for electronic music with similar textures and an optimistic and playful sensibility. It is difficult to find these days; most popular electronic music on soundcloud is ableton live produced, hip hop influenced ambient music with trap beats that sounds a bit repetitive to me. This is a solid release that holds up  eight years later for its attention to space and structure, even if the glitchy textures and and chirping beats sound somewhat of-their-era. (It was a good era, anyway, in my opinion.)

Vashti Bunyan - Heartleap (2014)

The third full length album from Vashti Bunyan and only the second album since her 2000's revival/return to music. This album sounds like a swan lost on a thin sheet of ice somewhere. Her voice is more restrained here than ever. This album eschews easy melody and structures moreso than the previous one. Everything is hung calmly on minimal harps with occasional flowering overtures of piano or violin, as if on ice that is about to break. 

Origin (Marvel Comics 2001)

2001 origin story for the popular antihero wolverine, told as a self-contained miniseries with no guest stars and no connections at all to any of the events in the then current marvel universe continuity. The word "mutant" is never used, there is no parade of guest appearances from familiar marvel mainstays or any reference to anything in the marvel universe. The first two issues are a moody, gothic romance with clear reference points in books like Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre , including epistolary narration by a female protaganist and really overt themes of class that mediate romance and family relationships. As an official origin, it doesn't quite work; it's too clean, too freudian, too perfect. The main character of "Rose" is too obvious and freudian in name and look. Her presence explains Logan's tendency to befriend younger women, and her red hair and name are an explicit reference to x-men character jean grey that is so obvious that it lends a eery quality to the rest of the proceedings. Origin works best as a lynchian alternate life of wolverine that neither officially happened nor didn't happen. I like to think of it as a trauma induced dream that wolverine has while being contained in that vat with all the tubes in the Weapon X facility.