Music

TV on the Radio

Pop Addict: TV on the Radio’s Nine Types of Light

Every Thursday, Pop Addict presents infectious tunes from contemporary musicians across indie rock, pop, folk, electronica, and more.

TV on the Radio: Nine Types of LightTV on the Radio: Nine Types of Light (Interscope, 4/11/11)

TV on the Radio: “Caffeinated Consciousness”

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In 2009, TV on the Radio announced that it was taking a break. After years of crafting futuristic, genre-bending soundscapes, the band had decided to take a step back, take a breather, and entertain other endeavors. However, after several critically acclaimed albums, the decision to split seemed sudden and a bit disappointing. After all, the hiatus was announced not too long after the release of the band’s arguably best achievement, Dear Science, a showcase of everything from relentless outer-space indie to beat-infused dance pop, computerized schizophrenia, and soft atmospherics. But it actually looks as though the break did some good: the band has returned rejuvenated and self-assured with its latest effort, Nine Types of Light.

From the onset of the new album, TV on the Radio comes off as revitalized and refreshed. Downplayed is the frantic, fast-paced rock gems that usually sit atop the track lists of albums past. Instead, the band ushers in softer, sophisticated melodies — more mindful of arrangements than how many different noises can be jammed into a track. The first three songs are lighter and more delicate (but still showcase the band’s signature multi-instrumental tendencies), as if the band was in a very good place when the songs were written. But TV on the Radio’s strongest suit has always been molding all of its musical differences together and shaping them into one cohesive sound. Nine Types of Light continues that trend seamlessly.

Antenna Gallery

Gallery Spotlight: Antenna Gallery

During the summer of 2005, New Orleans resident Anne Gisleson and her friends were in the midst of developing Intersection New Orleans, a collaboration that encouraged 25 pairs of artists and writers to find inspiration in 25 intersections throughout the city. After Hurricane Katrina ravaged the city, Gisleson and her friends were determined to regroup and continue providing a cultural refuge for locals.

“It was just kind of an imperative need to start doing things after the storm, because nothing was happening culturally, for obvious reasons,” Gisleson says.

The informal art shows and literary events that the group hosted in the months after the storm led to the formation of Press-Street later that year. In 2008, Gisleson and her partners opened Antenna, a gallery space on St. Claude Street in the city’s Upper Ninth Ward. Their intent with Antenna was to create a place that would support and inspire the local creative community by focusing on cutting-edge contemporary art.

“It’s a space where the commercial end is taken out of the equation,” Gisleson says. “It’s a space where people can do the sort of projects that they wouldn’t be able to do in a for-profit gallery, which tends to be a bit safer and market oriented.”

Antenna Gallery

Morrow vs. Hajduch

Morrow vs. Hajduch: GDP’s Useless Eaters

Scott Morrow is ALARM’s music editor. Patrick Hajduch is a very important lawyer. Each week they debate the merits of a different album.

GDP: Useless EatersGDP: Useless Eaters (Run for Cover, 3/29/11)

GDP: “Quintuplets”

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Morrow: With a background in hip hop as well as hardcore and punk, New Jersey rapper GDP approaches his genre with a unique perspective, coupling an unfiltered vocabulary with sociopolitical themes, banging beats, and a decidedly Aesop Rock-style delivery.

His newest full-length, Useless Eaters, quickly gets at the underbelly of America, whether discussing drugs, war profiteering, climate change, or big-brother distrust.  “Neural Circuitry” begins the album with high-energy hi-hats and a nearly G-funk synth groove, but it hits hardest with its subject matter: hardcore drug use.  There’s underlying intellect, however, and in making a passing reference to Afghani opiates, GDP rhymes, “Soldiers aren’t dying for us / they’re risking their lives for the change / a full ride to college or a meaningless grave.”

Hajduch: Australian producer Aoi makes clanging, colorful synth-based beats that remind me somewhat of the kaleidoscopic dubstep pushed by people like Hyetal.  It’s glammy and full of square waves, and for all the clamor and seeming lightness, it still bangs.  The fidgety beats fit GDP’s restless rhymes well.  He’s equally comfortable deploring battle rap as he is deploying it.

Gingerbread Girl

Zine Scene: Gingerbread Girl

Gingerbread GirlPaul Tobin & Colleen Coover: Gingerbread Girl (Top Shelf Comix, 7/7/11)

Annah Billips is one strange girl.  A self-described tease, she flirts and dates, has boyfriends and girlfriends, and apparently can’t fall in love for one very strange reason: her mad-scientist father removed her Penfield homunculus when she was nine years old, and it became a clone named Ginger who ran away with Annah’s ability to feel strong emotion.  Or did it?

Gingerbread Girl, the new graphic novel by husband-and-wife team Paul Tobin and Colleen Coover, boasts a bizarre storyline that runs the strong risk of alienating some.  Self-consciously odd and full of narrative daring, the comic has its own charms, though, and an adventurous reader can’t help but be drawn into its central mystery.  Does Annah really have a twin named Ginger walking around, or is she actually crazy and deeply scarred from her parents’ divorce years before?

Gingerbread Girl doesn’t give any answers, but it does take a fascinating journey through Annah’s psyche, as seen by lovers, bystanders, pigeons, bulldogs, a neuroscientist, and a magician.

Tobin chooses to tell Annah’s story via a fluid stream of narrators, each of whom speaks directly to the reader and then passes the story amongst the other narrators. How each speaker chooses to define Annah, or judge her sanity, gives us a little insight into the narrator. As the reader follows Annah on a date with her girlfriend, Chili, Tobin wisely leaves Chili’s perspective for last.

A.Armada

A.Armada: Razor-Sharp Post-Rock

On the strength of its sprawling 2009 EP, Anam Cara, Georgia-based post-rock band A.Armada broke out from its under-the-radar status and toured its material worldwide for the first time.

Chrissy Murderbot

Guest Playlist: Chrissy Murderbot’s top collaborators

Chrissy Murderbot: Women's StudiesChrissy Murderbot: Women’s Studies (Planet Mu, 5/9/11)

Chrissy Murderbot: “Bussin’ Down” (Feat. DJ Spinn)

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After releasing a number of mixes, EPs, and LPs on his own label, Sleazetone, Chicago-based footwork/juke DJ Chrissy Murderbot (a.k.a. Chris Shively) is set to release his Planet Mu debut this May. The record, titled Women’s Studies, comes on the heels of a whirlwind year in which Shively released a mixtape every week for one full year (www.yearofmixtapes.blogspot.com). Here, he highlights his Women’s Studies collaborators with a collection of 10 choice tracks.

My Collaborators and Why I Love Them
By Chrissy Murderbot

On my new album, Women’s Studies, I work with a lot of guest vocalists, DJs, remixers, etc. A few times already, interviewers have asked me, “How did you find out about these people?” or “What made you choose this particular group of people to work with?” So I thought I’d take this opportunity to show you the songs that turned me onto all the great musicians who’ve contributed to my new LP.

1. Rubi Dan & The Heatwave: “Higher Heights”

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Rubi Dan is a British MC who performs on dancehall records, UK garage records, grime records, and pretty much anything else you give him. This is a dancehall tune from 2008, produced by UK bashment crew The Heatwave. I met the guys from The Heatwave in 2005, and after I heard this tune, I asked them to put me in touch with Rubi Dan. We’ve made two tracks together so far: “New Juke Swing” and “Pelvic Floor,” both of which are on the new album. For the record, I’m really glad I can say I’ve released a tune called “Pelvic Floor.”

Fang Island

Guest Spots: Fang Island on Teenar, Girl Guitar

Fang Island - s/tFang Island: s/t (Sargent House, 2/23/10)

Fang Island: “Sideswiper”

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Fang Island, with its three-guitar attack and lightning-fast riffs, knows a few things about shredding. Logic dictates that it also knows a fair amount about guitars. For guitarist Nicholas Sadler, there’s one axe in particular that stands out: a weirdly human girl-guitar of mysterious origins. In this piece penned for ALARM, Sadler laments the fact that he didn’t conceive of the musical mannequin first and goes on to explain what exactly makes Teenar so magical.

I Wish I Had Thought of This First: Teenar, Girl Guitar
By Nick Andrew Sadler

Teenar, Girl Guitar

My name is Nick Sadler, and though I hate guitar players, I love guitars. This one is a work of mad genius. Here is Teenar, my dream guitar, at what could be a middle-school, father-daughter dance with her pervert-savant creator / daddy,  “Sunset” Lou Reimuller. I am absolutely enamored with Teenar, and I really wish that I had thought of this first.

Teenar is totally baller, outfitted from head to toe in vintage clothing, without arms, ahead of her time with a set of fiery Beavis-legs, and sporting a smart, belly-thru-body guitar that peeks out from behind her bodacious, above-the-knee, low-cut denim skirt. Cute! Teenar, Girl Guitar also has 21 frets on a beautiful blond neck that has been carefully integrated into her never-developing torso, two skin-colored, single-coil pickups that straddle her rock-hard bellybutton, and a fleshy six-string, yummy-tummy bridge, just like the one that my big sis got when she moved out of the house and began dating [Mikey] “Bug” [Cox] from Coal Chamber.