Thursday, February 06, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Listening Station

The Sea and Cake

One Bedroom

One Bedroom--The Sea and Cake's fifth studio effort--evinces what was proved on earlier albums such as The Biz and 1999's Oui: This band can craft. The tapestry of tightly layered synthesizers ripples from the start, a stretched, warm ribbon of caramel. And with drummer/keyboardist John McEntire at the mixing board and the band in complete control of its product, such precision is inevitable (or expected at the very least).

As Sam Prekop and company mold the intro to "Four Corners" into a kinetic pabulum of Pink Floyd and Richard Strauss in Synth-burg, The Sea and Cake's technical prowess becomes immediately apparent. What guitar glimpses are permitted, in "Left Side Clouded" and especially "Try Nothing," shine among the technophilia, for their smoky flavor and acumen. "Shoulder Length's" impressively agile vocal melody flits around a meandering dance beat and dallies a la Beck on Midnight Vultures. Even David Bowie's "Sound and Vision" sounds at home here: in both S&C's smooth electronic blend and vocals. In fact, it's probably the best singing on the record, certainly the most varied.

The vocals stagnate quickly. Quite unlike those on earlier, more guitar-centric endeavors, Prekop's breathlessly affected delivery is almost banal, anesthetic. Perhaps it is so only amid all the iMac-orange and opiated swirls. Or perhaps I'm too edgy for the oh-so-milky mellowness. Whatever the cause, the instrumentals out-groove and stand ahead of the vocals. But curiously, One Bedroom still prevails as a piece of ambient beauty, if only slightly flawed.--Chad Lietz

The Liars

They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top

At long goddamn last--a "The" band that isn't swinging the garage rock schtick. Instead, The Liars roam far afield from any shrink-wrapped revivalism and muck about in a gloriously muddy bog of their own that sounds like the Minutemen run through a broken Atari 2600, a tech-savvy Trenchmouth or a non-gay, shoegaze-free version of Modest Mouse. Comparisons aside, They Threw Us All teems with its own enterprising near-genius, and it appears most often in the form of balancing lo-fi living-room minimalism (gotta love those supple, naked basslines on tunes such as "We Live NE of Compton") and geekcore indulgence (gotta love the Casio sputters and dial-up sounds that lace the chant-like "The Garden Was Crowded and Outside").

But it's the beats and the unapologetically bouncy bass--the groping boor at this office party--that drive these songs. They Threw Us All takes off with equal parts spunk and funk, with track two, "Mr. You're on Fire Mr." standing out as the album's best, a sorta white-funk-for-indie-nerds tune that employs a propulsive rhythm and programmed hand-claps--for musicality's sake, not irony's. "Nothing Is Ever Lost or Can Be Lost My Science Friend" sasses along with gawdy thrusts of bass, complemented by a sharp guitar line that sounds like the errant whine of a violin; "Loose Nuts on the Veladrome" alternately bounds and squalls with controlled violence. Final track "This Dust Makes That Mud" might be called a "closer," but, clocking in at 30 minutes, it's more a centerpiece than a curtain call, a gelid, spacious rock tune textured with sampled snippets of dialogue and ambient noise laid over a simmering tempo. After 10 minutes, its repetition curdles it into forgettable background noise. But the feat is that The Liars make you listen the whole thing through--just in case you miss something.--Andrew Kiraly

Puretone

Stuck in a Groove

When you were young and new to clubbing, you would hear a song for the first time and wonder where it came from. Naturally, you assumed it came from an album; most songs on the radio, after all, can be traced back to their artists' CDs. Later, you found out that an overwhelming majority of the tunes DJs play in clubs are actually vinyl or acetate singles, their authors typically releasing solitary songs as opposed to full albums. Unless you found the song on an electronic dance compilation or mix, you had to buy the vinyl single to obtain the song--that is, if you could even identify the artist and the song's title.

Surely, most of the people hearing Puretone's "Addicted to Bass" in their favorite strobe-friendly watering holes have no idea who created the song--they just remember that throbbing rubberband tempo from Middle Earth; vocalist Amiel Daemion's articulate, no-nonsense sassiness; and her accentuated confession: "I'm totally addicted to bass."

Well, "Addicted" is one of the rare clubstormers that is part of a bigger work. In fact, both its drum 'n' bass original and hidden Different Gear remix are arguably the centerpiece of Stuck in a Groove, the debut artist album by Puretone--otherwise known as Australian producer/remixer Josh Abrahams. But, surprisingly, there's much more to the album than the single.

Stuck is an impressive sampler of rhythms and atmospheres, which makes sense given Abrahams' penchant for musical variety. "Keep On" and the title track take their cues straight from '80s dance music, while "Lift Me Up" (assisted by producer Dan the Automator) borrows from that era's earliest R&B/hip-hop hybridizations. "Thrillseeker" sounds like "Late Show" ringleader Paul Shaffer gone Crystal Method, and "Breakup Song" recalls Zero 7, but more lilting, thanks to Daemion's lucid yearning.

There are a few masturbatory moments that could use some paring down, but the multi-style spirit of Stuck is as essential to this recording as its totally addictive hit.--Mike Prevatt