Hallo, Anathallo!
Aug. 30th, 2008 10:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomusThis week we've been bringing the music here on Click Opera -- reconstructions of early David Bowie, Oorutaichi, Alvin Lucier, suggestions that blogs are the new record labels. I've also been writing an essay for the booklet of Yximalloo's forthcoming record, Unpop. And now I want to introduce you (except those of you who know them already, of course) to a young and very interesting band, Anathallo, who've just signed to Anticon and will release a new album -- entitled Canopy Gold -- in November.
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Anathallo -- there are about seven of them -- are Midwestern Americans who sing mostly in Japanese. As you do. (Hold the press, Matsuri-kei Japanizes the Midwest!) Their songs are -- naturally -- adaptations of Japanese folk tales. Something about the sound of them reminds me of Brian Eno's statement that "empathy is the basic unit of social intelligence".
There's lots of empathy here. There's lots of intelligence, too: this is a band who financed themselves (fed seven hungry mouths) in the early days by making music for a Vick's commercial rather than signing immediately to a label. Their first releases were homeburns. The track in the background here is "Yuki! Yuki! Yuki!" from their self-distributed album Floating World.
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The large number of members -- and some sense that they're not so much a band as a religious cult -- reminds me a bit of The Polyphonic Spree. They're also very much a post-Animal Collective band, it seems to me. The vocal layering and the boho-hippy art school vibe frame them with the Rhode Islanders. Less obviously, according to Impose Magazine, there's even something Momus-like about them. "More than good, great," raves the Impose writer. "Sort of like Godspeed meets a Philip Glass quartet getting overdubbed by Momus." Who knew that egosurfing would prove such a great A&R tool?
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But why the Japanese? "This is going to sound really heady and stupid," says co-founder Matt Joynt, "but we decided to use the Japanese culture and linguistic differences as a sort of backdrop to balance the way that we try to narrate our lives based on the different systems that we have around us. So we have this sense of two different languages pitted against each other in a sense of uncertainty by the listener, who will probably think "What are they singing? I can't even understand it." To have that sort of tension between the two things opens up a dialogue about -- I think, anyway -- how we narrate our lives."
Oh, and bass player Seth grew up in Japan, and likes to tell folk tales about dogs and buried treasure.
Parish notes (Berliners only): Joe Howe plays a show as Germlin on Wednesday here in the Neukolln hood. Come along!
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Anathallo -- there are about seven of them -- are Midwestern Americans who sing mostly in Japanese. As you do. (Hold the press, Matsuri-kei Japanizes the Midwest!) Their songs are -- naturally -- adaptations of Japanese folk tales. Something about the sound of them reminds me of Brian Eno's statement that "empathy is the basic unit of social intelligence".
There's lots of empathy here. There's lots of intelligence, too: this is a band who financed themselves (fed seven hungry mouths) in the early days by making music for a Vick's commercial rather than signing immediately to a label. Their first releases were homeburns. The track in the background here is "Yuki! Yuki! Yuki!" from their self-distributed album Floating World.
[Error: unknown template video]
The large number of members -- and some sense that they're not so much a band as a religious cult -- reminds me a bit of The Polyphonic Spree. They're also very much a post-Animal Collective band, it seems to me. The vocal layering and the boho-hippy art school vibe frame them with the Rhode Islanders. Less obviously, according to Impose Magazine, there's even something Momus-like about them. "More than good, great," raves the Impose writer. "Sort of like Godspeed meets a Philip Glass quartet getting overdubbed by Momus." Who knew that egosurfing would prove such a great A&R tool?
[Error: unknown template video]
But why the Japanese? "This is going to sound really heady and stupid," says co-founder Matt Joynt, "but we decided to use the Japanese culture and linguistic differences as a sort of backdrop to balance the way that we try to narrate our lives based on the different systems that we have around us. So we have this sense of two different languages pitted against each other in a sense of uncertainty by the listener, who will probably think "What are they singing? I can't even understand it." To have that sort of tension between the two things opens up a dialogue about -- I think, anyway -- how we narrate our lives."
Oh, and bass player Seth grew up in Japan, and likes to tell folk tales about dogs and buried treasure.
Parish notes (Berliners only): Joe Howe plays a show as Germlin on Wednesday here in the Neukolln hood. Come along!
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(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-30 02:54 pm (UTC)This "unpop" indie pop band here is on the anticon(formist) label, but their sound totally conforms to what a 20-something Animal Collective fan at Pitchfork would want to hear in a band he reviews.
How do I explain this contradiction?
(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-30 03:57 pm (UTC)And for the record, I love pop music. I'd rather listen to just about any Kelis single than to this band.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-30 03:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-30 04:25 pm (UTC)But aren't, you know, 80% of Americans Christians?
(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-30 03:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-30 03:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-30 04:14 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-30 04:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-30 07:14 pm (UTC)That's because your non conformist and really bad just like the music you listen to,lol. My humble apologies to your 5 readers.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-30 07:55 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-30 10:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-30 09:14 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-30 10:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-30 04:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-30 04:27 pm (UTC)flannel-kei
Date: 2008-08-30 05:22 pm (UTC)Re: flannel-kei
Date: 2008-08-30 06:15 pm (UTC)Re: flannel-kei
Date: 2008-08-30 06:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-30 08:40 pm (UTC)-John Flesh
(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-30 08:42 pm (UTC)-John F
(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-31 12:47 am (UTC)(And yes, I'm a different CMU anonymous alum than above).
The banality of the midwest (mid-Michigan especially) forces area artists to seek out new perspective (as there's very little flavor here, not much informing taste variety). Unfortunately, in the excitement of discovering a world of color beyond this culture void, we sometimes end up a bit too on the nose with how our influences "mix" together; we get a bit too inspired with one kind of sound, and create music that ends up seeming a bit too "familiar," creating solid music, but not bringing much new to the table. I feel like a lot of artists in this area fall into this pattern, in art making. Many of us don't have that "sponge filter" that develops from growing up on the "coasts" (or wherever) and we end up indulging to excess, like puppies discovering chocolate.
Nice to see these guys making it though, always very friendly.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-31 12:51 am (UTC)