Review: Jack Conte – “VS4″

I’ve been a Jack Conte fan for a while now. I first discovered this wonderful musician as part of Pomplamoose, where he collaborates with his partner, Nataly Dawn. Initially, I was awestruck with Dawn’s beautiful singing, and the enchanting way she stares down the camera whilst singing. I remember thinking that Pomplamoose must be the pinnacle of musicianship. Then I discovered Jack Conte’s solo work.

Now, I haven’t bought any of his albums before this one (largely because I am poor), but I had some iTunes credit from my birthday, so I thought this one of the best uses I could put it to. Boy, am I glad I made that decision. Since buying it, I’ve been listening to it almost non-stop, because it’s just that good. Anyway, enough about me, this is s review, so I should get reviewing.

VS4 is, a you might have guessed, the fourth offering from Conte, part of a series of albums named “Videosongs”. His older albums (from what I’ve listened to on YouTube) are very reminiscent of Radiohead. Not badly so, but there’s an energy there that wouldn’t be out of place on albums like Kid A and OK Computer. This new album, though, changes up the tempo a bit. Conte himself mentioned he felt there was a lot of Beatles influence in it, but I can’t help but wonder if there is some weird simultaneous development between Conte and Liam Finn in New Zealand. Admittedly, I haven’t heard much of Finn’s latest album, but VS4 and Finn’s first solo album, I’ll Be Lightning, are strikingly similar. Again, not in a bad way, both albums are unique and wonderful in there own right, but the similarities are remarkable. Musically, there are similar influences present, but add to that the fact that both Conte and Finn are multi-instrumentalists, and both recorded their albums by themselves, and you are left wondering whether they are actually the same person. (They both grow remarkably good beards too)

VS4 is so wonderfully constructed. The opener, ”Make The Grade”, starts off with a simple piano riff, accompanied by self-deprecating lyrics that makes you really want him to actually make the grade. The song is laden with instruments and complex arrangements, and shows you just how talented Conte is. All in the first track. It only gets better – “Sinking Feeling” has a similar multitude of instruments, but the arrangement seems subtler. Conte continues with multiple vocal tracks – it’s hard to tell exactly how many voices there are, but my guess would be somewhere around 5. This technique gives his voice such a rich depth, and really fills out the songs.

“The Time Has Come” changes things up a bit, with an almost polka like verse (complete with pulsing piano-accordion), before launching into a wave of vocal harmonies, and the simple request, “Wouldn’t it be nice/to have a bit more time”. This is followed by “Off With His Head”, a much simpler piece backed with an orchestral arrangement which harks back to The Beatles. The song feels almost English, too, and makes me yearn for a good cup of tea.

Other favourites are “Long Long Time Ago”, which is more of a story than a song, and “Mercenary” which could be the softest call to arms I’ve ever heard. These two lot nicely into the middle of the album, where I feel a lot of albums lose impetus. Conte manages to keep interest  by changing the style, from the layered-vocal, almost chanting feel of “Away”, to the loud, driving beat of “Only Dreaming”.

The absolute stand-out of VS4, though, is ”Get It Out”. The song starts off with a drum beat very similar to that of Blur’s “Song Two”, but it shakes off those shackles immediately, and launches into what could almost be described as a 3-minute symphony. The song is such a good piece, in fact, that I often find myself returning to it after the end of the album.

I can’t help but feel that the album starts to trail off at this point. “I Would Be Happy” and “I Wonder Where The Moments Go” feel a little weaker to me, and I do wonder whether it might have been better to make it 11 or 12 tracks long, as opposed to 15. Still, the album picks up again with the off-beat “Mister Money Bags”, where Conte appeals to this mythical fat-cat for a little pocket change (a feeling which I know too well). “Push It” is yet another expertly constructed track, starting with simple guitar picking and echo-ey vocals, before bashing your ear drums with another punching chorus.

All in all, this is a hugely enjoyable album. The odd weaker track, but that certainly doesn’t hold VS4 back. The opening 5 songs are really almost perfect as a combo, and there are some absolute crackers dispersed throughout. And at only US$10 (about NZ$12), it truly is a bargain for such a good album. Click on the picture up the top, and you’ll find the links to download the album.

Public Service Broadcasting

I just watched this video from Penn Jillette, talking about the US government cutting funding to NPR, a public service radio station in the US. Now, I’ve never had much of a chance to listen to NPR, but from what I hear, they have a lot of valid programming, and do a very good service. Penn, himself, agrees with this fact. Now, I’ve you’ve watched the above video (which I recommend you do), you’ll find he’s unhappy with the government funding any sort of broadcasting. In his words, he says “What. The. Fuck.” Oddly enough, my response to his opinion was similar. Penn has every right to say his point of view, and I agree with him on a number of issues, despite him being a hardcore libertarian. However, there is so much wrong with his point of view that I felt it necessary to make a response.

Here in little ol’ New Zealand, we face similar issues of cuts to public broadcasting. TVNZ7 is on it’s way out, and Radio New Zealand is constantly under threat. The situation is probably quite different, to be fair. In NZ, we can’t really afford not to have government funded broadcasting, because there probably wouldn’t be enough variety if we didn’t. Further, any news or media would come from private interests, which really is far worse than having the government involved. Penn disagrees with that in the video, but let me explain.

Private interests are just that – private. They have no need to provide content that the public may find helpful, and can broadcast anything that provides them with more money, more attention, more publicity, more whatever. The government, however, exists purely to serve the people. The people vote representatives into office, and if you’re ruling, it’s because the majority wants you there (this is disputable, but in most democracy’s, this is true). It’s the job of the government to serve those people. Not to make more money, not to gain publicity. If they are there to do that, they should be (and usually are) voted out. In this case, regardless of how corrupt you feel the government is, I would rather have a conglomerate of numerous elected officials who could be voted out for doing a poor job, than one media mogul like Rupert Murdoch, who has no one threatening to remove him from his position. What this boils down to is a huge lack of faith in the role of the government, which I feel is wholly unfair.

Penn also says he’s happy to pay more, and have the government not involved in the funding of a public broadcaster. Fine. You can pay that $10 million, Penn. Oh wait, you can’t? Of course you can’t. And you know what, some people CAN’T FUCKING AFFORD TO PAY FOR THEIR NEWS CONTENT! Surely every person has a right to access information, and public broadcasters like NPR help spread that information. That’s why things like the pay wall on the New York Times is so incredibly wrong. If every broadcaster is suddenly charging you hundreds of dollars a month to access their content, then first of all, that’s a very expensive way of staying informed. Further, you would probably only pay for access to one or two outlets, meaning you have no variety in your content. Once again, the masses stay uninformed. It sickens me to think of a society where people have to pay money to get news sent or broadcasted to them.

Frankly, public service broadcasters, and their public funding, is really the best way to ensure people are remaining informed, and not ignorant. Problems of government influence on the news can be avoided. I know how much you hate government legislating, but legislation could prove hugely important in ensuring full access to information. Why not make it compulsory for the government to make a level of funding available for public service broadcasters, and at the same time, legislate against the government having any involvement in what content goes to press or air? It seems like legislation legislating legislation, but it works.

And for the New Zealand case. TVNZ7 was a fantastic broadcaster. The fact that they are being forced to close is incredibly sad. RNZ is one of the best radio stations in New Zealand, and needs to stay alive. If it was to ever die, it would be a dark day for this country. Let’s hope the National government doesn’t do anything else stupid.

Is bFM Still Relevant?

Yes.

Who The Fuck Is Arcade Fire?

This year’s Grammy Awards seemed to have a lot of talking points (although this woman would disagree), the biggest being the prized Album of the Year being presented to Canadian band Arcade Fire.  When I heard this, two things sprung to mind:

1. Fuck yes. Finally someone who deserves to win a music award actually wins.
2. Really, though? For The Suburbs? Funeral and Neon Bible were better albums, but The Suburbs is the one to actually win?

It seems that my sense of shock paled in comparison to others, though, as cries of “Who the fuck is Arcade Fire?” or even “Who the fuck is The Suburbs” could be seen across Twitter and Facebook. These comments even inspired someone to create this website.

“OK,” I thought, “So people haven’t heard of them. That’s fair.” To me, Arcade Fire were never going to get any kind of mainstream recognition, so for them to win Album of the fucking Year, I was amazed. Yes, this was a shock, but the album was great, and deserves to be heard by more people. Moreover, if it was a shock to me, then I could entirely understand the lack of knowledge surrounding the band.

Still, what really struck me was that people weren’t upset because Arcade Fire’s album was bad (most hadn’t actually heard the album at all). Rather, people seemed to be upset that the most popular artist didn’t win. It stuns me that people don’t understand the concept of awards. Awards do not go to the most popular artist, actor, sportsman, or whatever. Awards (should) go to the most deserving person, regardless of how much recognition they’ve gained from media or the public. If awards were popularity contests, then Toy Story 3 should win Best Picture at the Oscars. Will it? No.

Obviously my opinion counts for very little, and I’m not going to be preaching to anyone in particular, but what really needs to happen here is recognition of what awards truly are. No disrespect to Eminem, or Katy Perry, or Lady Gaga, or whoever, but for mine, it’s about fucking time somebody recognised that there is good music out there that not everyone knows about. The Suburbs is definitive proof of that.

Oh, and if you haven’t heard it yet, do. It’s bloody good.

NaNoWriMo

OK, so in a fit of madness, yesterday I decided to join in National Novel Writing Month, otherwise known as NaNoWriMo. Promising start so far, as I have 2000 words, and a basic idea for a plot etc. buzzing round my head. The working title at the moment is “Never Much”. I’ve decided to dedicate the first few chapters to establishing the characters, as you do, so here’s the first few paragraphs of the novel, for your first glimpse at the main protagonist, Hayden.

“I’m so fucking bored”, he said before taking another drag on a cigarette that should have been put out 5 minutes ago. The cool midnight breeze sent a chill through him, but he didn’t care. If he felt cold, at least he knew he was awake and alive. “I mean, here I am, just another 20 something, stuck doing a degree that I hate, that leads me nowhere in life, with no direction or desire at all. It’s not that I don’t care, I do, I really do, it’s just that I don’t have anyone to care for. Except you, that is.” He looked over to his right, where Porsche the cat had already made her way to the bushes to take care of her business. “Good to see that someone cares”, he remarked, with sarcasm dripping off every word.

Hayden had always been good at sarcasm, if that was something you could be good at. He knew he had a way with words, that he could write and speak well enough. He also knew, though, that he wasn’t clever enough to do anything with that skill. It was the same with a lot of his so-called ‘skills’. He could play a bit of guitar, he could use a hammer or a screwdriver every now and then, he wasn’t too bad with a football or a cricket bat either. He knew he could do lots of things, but always thought he wasn’t good enough to pursue any of them further. Perhaps more importantly, though, he didn’t want to pursue any of them. Self-reflection definitely wasn’t one of his strongest points, and he could never put the time or effort into figuring out exactly what he wanted to do with his life. Ultimately, Hayden was a wanderer. “I’m just so fucking bored!”, this time yelling at the top of his lungs.

So there you have it. I’ll post a bit more later, I think, but I’m wary of plot stealers around this time of the year, so it’ll largely be secretive, I guess.

Sup.

Haven’t seen you in a while. Blame two things.

Number One:

I’ve been spending a lot of my time lately at this wonderful wee radio station, and that either means a) staying up all night and not really feeling like doing much the next day, or b) feeling rather newsed out, and not bothering to blog for the sake of sounding repetitive and boring.

Number Two:

I’ve recently rediscovered my love of simple video games, including this one, Bejeweled Blitz, and others like Tekken 2, or FIFA 10. There’s nothing quite as satisfying as beating someone half to death or putting 5 or 6 goals past someone playing on the other side of the world.

Long story short, I haven’t lived up to my promises of weekly, relevant blogging. Fuck it, it’s my blog, and I’ll do what I like. It’s not like anyone reads this anyway.

I might post a music review or two up here soon. For now, listen to J Biebz sounding like Sigur Ros.