Found Sound

In case you were distracted at the record store by the flashy cover art on the new Arcade Fire album (and why wouldn't you be) there were actually some other new releases worth noting last week. Air released a new album last week featuring tracks with Jarvis Cocker and Neil Hannon from the Divine Comedy, which would be worth noting if it weren't just a watered-down version of their previous albums (though, to be fair, I haven't really been on the Air bandwagon since Moon Safari). More impressive is the new album from Brazillian/British beatmeister Amon Tobin. The album is called The Foley Room and, as such, relies primarily on sound effects and ambient noise rather than synthesizers or music samples (like John Cage if he didn't hate his audience). Despite all the lofty conceits, he manages to keep it from sounding gimicky or forced. It actually feels surpsisingly similar to his previous albums, with sounds as distinctive as water dripping or an engine revving blending seamlessly into his usual mix of jazz-inspired jungle beats, which, like all of his music, maintains the sinister quality of a David Fincher movie. Definitely worth picking up.

In other recent musical acquisitions, I've been on an Of Montreal kick since I downloaded their new album, Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?, which thankfully is every bit as weird, but not near as pretentious as its title suggests. Pitchfork says it's their "darkest and most experimental record to date," which is to say that it's still got sugary pop vocals - they're just putting them over noisy synth lines and drum-machine beats instead of the usual psychadelic guitar and piano (this is still definitely the same band that recorded The Gay Parade). I would say it's more melancholy than their previous work, but now that I go back and listen to some of their older twee-pop material, it's pretty apparent that Kevin Barnes has always been writing songs about how lonely and depressed he is. On this album he's just stopped trying to compensate for it.