Mini Revews June 2015: Donnie Trumpet and the Social Experiment, Sun Kil Moon & Jamie xx

So, it's taken me a while to get to this point, but here are my opinions on a few albums that have come out recently. I had eagerly anticipated these albums, and the opinions I formed are pretty similar.

Donnie Trumpet and the Social Experiment- Surf
This album started out pretty great with the song 'Miracle', but my interest soon waned. I wasn't expecting Acid Rap 2 or anything, but as Chance the Rapper is a member of this group, I was expecting maybe a little more contribution from him. I found some of the production here to be a little muddy, with some less than amazing features (with the exception of Busta, Noname Gypsy and Saba). I think this album may have fared better with me with some better production value, some more input from Chance, and maybe some editing, as some tracks just cluttered up the flow of the album, with the instrumentals feeling like little more than interludes.



Sun Kil Moon- Universal Themes
If you follow this blog at all (and I assume you do jk), I had previously listed Benji as one of my favorite records of last year. With that being said, expectations were high. Unfortunately, Mark Kozelek did not really deliver a product as cohesive or relate-able as Benji this time around. This album got bogged down in some minutia, long song times that did not hold interest, and some very personal, but ultimately mundane song topics (having an inconsequential conversation with Jane Fonda in a hotel is not an entirely fitting concept for a song). I do appreciate Kozelek's interest in expanding beyond his acoustic arrangements with some garage rock sounds, but the mixing here was a little sub par, which rendered some of his vocals incomprehensible. I can respect the more experimental nature of this album, but I think it was a bit of misstep.

Jamie xx- In Colour
I was a pretty big fan of Jamie xx's remix album of Gil Scott-Heron tunes, We're New Here, and the xx is a pretty decent band, so I came in pretty interested here. I have to say, I wasn't entirely bowled over. This album is pretty much a compilation of every UK electronic development in the past decade or so, but with a little less urgency or emotion. There's hints of garage, dubstep, and all that, but something just seems cold about it, like its being viewed from a distance. I realize its club music you aren't supposed to dance to, but it could've had a little more energy. Really dug the steel drums on 'Obvs' though. Some fun tracks, but all in all, not that engaging for me personally. Also, too much Young Thug. Any Young Thug is too much Young Thug.

So those were pretty much my opinions on those projects. All a little disappointing to me, but not terrible. What did you think of these albums? Do you have any new projects that you're excited about? As for me, I'm looking forward to a pretty good number of projects, but I'll just have to see how they turn out.



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I Saw My Morning Jacket!

Reviews are coming, but I had to share my experience of seeing My Morning Jacket live, because it was pretty awesome. I won't go too much into the opening act, Floating Action, mainly because they didn't particularly interest me (if Mark Kozelek thought the War on Drugs sounded like beer commercial rock, I would've liked to hear his opinion on this band).

All jokes aside, My Morning Jacket started out with a cut off their new album, before going straight into some Z era songs. 'Wordless Chorus' made me tremble, it was so powerful. After another Waterfall cut, they played 'The Way That He Sings' and 'War Begun' and I really liked the jam that they played after it, and it was a nice, mellow kind of mood changer before some more Waterfall songs. The crowd got pumped up again on 'Circuital', and then after some more Waterfall tracks, they closed their normal set with 'Off The Record' and one of my favorites 'Touch Me I'm Going To Scream Pt. 2' which was amazing. They also did this weird thing with a looper pedal at the end where the pattern sped up instead of down like it does on the album, which was great.

The encore consisted of 'Compound Fracture', 'Cobra' (which I was super excited about, but not so many other people there. Apparently not a lot of them had heard Chocolate and Ice, or anything before It Still Moves for that matter), 'Gideon' and 'Mahgeetah'. The last couple songs almost sounded too loud. Not sure if the mixing was off, or if my ears were just giving out by that point.

The band played amazingly. Carl Broemel blew me away with some of his solos and Tommy and Pat found a rhythmic pocket and held it down. Jim's voice was great (not all live vocals are), which is so telling, as it shows that what he sings is how it goes onto the record, with very little in the way of editing. He also had some soloing opportunities that impressed me (I remembering him doing some fret tapping that was particularly awesome).

All in all, I thought it was a great show. Some of the fans in the area where my girlfriend and I were standing were a little insufferable, but obviously not the fault of the band, and not enough to ruin my experience. The concert also had the added benefit of improving my opinion of The Waterfall. In my review, I was a little ambivalent, and commented on the lack of full blown rockers on the album. In a live setting, that is not the case. Some of those tracks rocked ridiculously hard. I can't remember if it was 'Tropics' or 'Spring', but one of those was so much harder in a live setting. Great concert. Great album to tour on. Looking forward to the new album coming next year.

Check back in later, as I comment on Universal Themes, the new Jamie xx, and Surf in some mini reviews.

"Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use."