Album Reviews

GHOSTLAND
OBSERVATORY
Robotique Majestique
(Trashy Moped Recordings)

½ star

Pitchfork recently dubbed Ghostland Observatory’s latest album “Daft
Punk for frat boys.” Which isn’t quite right. It’s really more like the
Rapture for retards, although even that isn’t really fair to the
developmentally disabled (or the Rapture or Daft Punk or frat boys, for
that matter). Because Ghostland Observatory are really just that
bad—a watered-down, middling, cock-rocking pastiche of the most
obvious electro and dance crossovers of the past half dozen years.

That the Austin duo can pull back-to-back nights at the Showbox,
consecutive years at Sasquatch!, and a top-10 ranking on KEXP’s charts
just proves the hideous power of the bell curve and everything your mom
ever told you about life not being fair. This is dance music for the
mediocre hump—robot rock for the flyover states. You remember
that commercial where the real, authentic cowboys can’t believe you’d
eat salsa that was made in NEW YORK CITY!? Well, this is like
that: Why the hell would you eat Ghostland Observatory’s mild Texan
electroclash when you can just as easily get the real thing?

Ignoring the analog wank-off of “Opening Credits,” the album proper
begins with the cold pacemaker pulse of “Heavy Heart,” and for not
quite a minute, it sounds harmless enough, a chintzy grab at Simian
Mobile Disco. But then, vocalist Aaron Behrens’s wails and yelps and
yowls—a deflated Zeppelin by way of At the Drive-In—arrive
like crib death. What follows is 40 more minutes of GarageBand-quality
electro rock and painfully practiced classic-rock yarling.

Another image: the famous Disco Demolition Night, July 12, 1979, at
Comiskey Park in Chicago, only this time, instead of wearing “Disco
Sucks!” T-shirts, all the mustachioed, mulleted meatheads are proudly
sporting “Disco Rules!” apparel. That is the sound of Ghostland
Observatory. ERIC GRANDY

Ghostland Observatory play Fri April 4 (all-ages) and Sat April
5 (21+) at the Showbox at the Market, 8 pm, both shows sold
out.

THE BREEDERS
Mountain Battles
(4AD)

It’s pretty goddamn hard for the Breeders to do any wrong in my
eyes—and it’s not that I instantly loved any of their albums.
Last Splash was one of the first rock records I ever bought,
which led me to get Pod, then, years later, Title TK (with the couple of EPs and whatnot along the way). But each Breeders
album, including this long-awaited return, is a
slow-burner—evasive, noncommittal, and at first not quite
satisfying, until, after repeat listens, I suddenly know all the lyrics
and riffs and realize, fuck, I’m loving this! What is not to love?

Recorded by old Breeders buddy Steve Albini (All Wave, which I guess
means all analog) over the last five years, Mountain Battles is more of that old glorious mess, that same raw deal. Kelly charms
en español (“Regalame Esta Noche”), Kim is goofy
auf Deutsch (“German Studies”), and both rekindle the
Breeders’ Dayton, Ohio, truck-stop, folk-rock roots (“Here No More”).
“Walk It Off” is a better Pixies song than “Bam Thwok,” sounding like
Trompe le Monde as Kim sings: “The singer gets laid/and the
drummer gets paid/I wait for Mercury to fall.”

Slyly hooky, almost equal parts Splash‘s bright, melodic
riffery and Title TK‘s atmospheric, spare postnarcotic slow
drags (minus the latter’s sleep-dep’d, drug-steeped jitters, plus a
good 15 years of life’s wearing-down). And just like the underrated
TK, they stuck their poppiest joint dead last: the scratchy,
sun-drunk Dinosaur Jr.–Jr. of “It’s the Love.” Hazy Venice days
and blunted lethargy waft off the record like late-
summer heat
distortion, and even though it’s only springtime, the coolest Kim in
rock just saunters in, cooing, “Still the sun shines/it hits my shield
and ignites… feel the light on my face.”
LARRY MIZELL JR.

AUTECHRE
Quaristice
(Warp)

Somewhere in the late ’90s, I lost interest in Autechre. The
openings into the duo’s electronic worlds had become too small and hard
for me to enter. There was no jouissance in their
music—no joy, seduction, humanity, or narrative. Their
soundscapes began and ended with the condition of difficultly. And any
amount of difficulty that offers no rewards, solutions, development,
climax, or narration seems stubborn and mean-spirited. Agreed, a
listener should not be lazy, simple-
minded, or completely reject
difficulty, but give the listener something that will draw him/her in
and enlarge the dimensions of his/her soul. Between 1995 and 2007,
Autechre ignored this plea. Amazingly, their most recent release,
Quaristice, is profoundly sensitive to the listener and the
lover of innovative electronic music.

Quaristice is not an easy record. But in its most
convoluted corners and passages there’s always some shimmering pattern
or effect that encourages further and deeper exploration. Many of the
20 tracks on the CD are short. And so if a track is to harsh, inhuman,
or cold, it ends before your patience does. But what is gained on the
one hand (a brief jarring work) is lost on the other (some of the most
seductive, beautiful, enchanting tracks end too soon). One wants to
hear much more of “paralel Suns” (3:03), “Theswere” (2:12), “Tankakern”
(3:39), and the solar bliss, the jouissance, of “Altibzz”
(2:52). The best track on Quaristice, however, “rale,” a work
of robot worship in the tradition of electrofunk, thankfully runs for
nearly four minutes. In the end, what you get from Quaristice is a sense of the galactic. To listen to a track is to stand on a world
barely warmed by two distant suns.
CHARLES MUDEDE

Autechre play Mon April 7 at Neumo’s, 8 pm, $15, 21+. With
Massonix and Rob Hall.

Habanero

Serrano

Jalape&tilden;o

Pimento