one-listen wednesday

so here's maybe what i'm thinking: i'll alternate weeks with local and national releases. that seems like what's happening anyways. last week all enjoyed one for the team, so this week i'm going to check out radio 4.

radio 4
enemies like this
EMI

well, first of all, now friends like these can't call their album enemies like this. i still miss their old domain name whoneedsenemies.com. that was so clever, but probably harder to remember than friendslikethese.com. the title track, which opens the record, has something in common with the more gothic dance punk stuff i've heard. i love you but i've chosen darkness aren't particularly dancy, but R4 has a little of that vibe, although much more free of reverb and amped up to 11 and cut in two with a rusty wire. there are these manic single stroke rolls in practically every measure that really keep you on edge.

right before i started listening to this i was listening to minus the bear, and i'm catching a little afterglow of that on this one. mostly in its immaculateness. and hey, it was mastered by the same person, emily lazar, who mastered heiruspecs' last album. apparently there are really only like four mastering places to have your stuff done. i'm thinking of the lodge, magneto mastering, (mumble mumble) and that other one.

this isn't exactly subtle music, but the differences between bands of the minimalist dance punk stripe generally reveal themselves over time. just how much gang of four have they listened to? bloc party? tons. franz ferdinand? less than bloc party, but enough. i'm already at track 3, "too much to ask for," which is showing its gang of four/clash influence proudly on its sleeve.

first impressions are a funny thing. oftentimes, as i'm listening through a record for the first time i'm having all kinds of different ideas about the disc, but the ultimate test seems to be if enough stuck at the end of the record to bring me back for more. there have been plenty of records that didn't initially seem that great that kept pulling me back for reasons i couldn't really figure. at the drive-in's relationship of command is one, crystal skulls' outgoing behavior is another.

"everything's in question" is the most interesting track so far. it has a massive attack-worthy bassline that seems a little dub and some echo-y edge-style guitar in the post-chorus section.

apparently, franz ferdinand's singer is putting out a cookbook of his recipes. i would assume the franz ferdinand diet is something like the all-ramen college student diet. gotta keep that wispy frame.

"this is not a test," which directly follows "everything's in question," is showing further sonic broadening. a decidedly (or maybe stereotypically) african rhythm track begins it and then squiggly guitar lines snake in over the top. this kind of broadness is making me feel better about the earlier, more straightforward tracks. it's got a chant-like mantra that repeats the title. entrancing.

and here comes the melodica. speaking of at the drive-in, i thought they were punk geniuses for using it in "quarantined" (i think that was the track; the names rarely had anything to do with the lyrics), but it turns out that, yep, gang of four did it fifteen years before them. the melodica is a little keyboard that you blow into like a recorder. you might not know what to call it, but when you hear it, you know it. ben folds uses one every once in a while. basically it seems like tracks 5, 6 and 7 are like a big old dub-influence samich. watch out, the clash.

one problem i had with the bloc party album (the silent alarm) was that it had this very strange characteristic of seeming great when you heard any one track and kind of underwhelming as a whole. there was a lack of connection amongst the tracks. i got the sense that you could shuffle the whole thing in itunes and the running order would make just as much sense. i think radio 4 might have a little of that going on. in that several of these tracks could make your summer mixtape a wonder to behold, but if you threw on the whole disc at a party it wouldn't make a dent after the first couple songs.

we're winding up to the last track here. this is nothing if not a crisp listen. i think i like this on first listen. at first it seemed to be a very straight-ahed dance punk kind of thing that didn't seem distinct from a lot of other stuff i've heard, but those middle three tracks really spread it out. funny how a couple tracks that show off another side of the band can make the down-the-pipe ones feel more significant. there are some really great little guitar stabs and the polyrhythmic aspects are a welcome change from four-on-floor stuff.

and scene.