REVIEWS

Album Review: David Bowie – The Next Day

David Bowie: The Next Day

Similar Artists: David Bowie, David Bowie, David Bowie, David Bowie

Genre: David Bowie, David Bowie, David Bowie, David Bowie

Label: Columbia

Deciding to write music reviews was the worst decision I ever made. There is nothing more torturous to me than constantly thinking “how can I put this into words” while listening to new music. I can already see what will happen if I decide to (properly) write a review of this album, so instead, I am going to talk about something that is much more important. So if you have listened to this album, (most of you should have by now) you have surely formulated your own opinions and I hereby deem them worthy. There is no reason for you to hear my opinion.

We need to wipe our minds clear of this elitist system of pseudo intellectualism. I have read a lot of reviews in my day and they are all garbage. They all say the same exact thing, which is, “I have a really good taste in music, and that is why this music is blah, blah, blah. If we were really all that smart we would know the fact that music isn’t meant to be put into words. Many critics feel they could bypass this aspect through skilled penmanship and a keen ear, but unfortunately, we were dead wrong.

Everyone hears music differently, so how can one sequence of notes be considered “better” than another. I have tried to rid my reviews of the hierarchical rating scale, but that has only slightly alleviated the problem. Who am I to tell you what music is good or bad? I don’t have your brain, so I surely wouldn’t know what makes it tick. Sure, on my short time on this earth I have listened to quite a lot of music, but lately I feel that that just makes me a pretentious snob rather than a higher authority on the topic. As a means towards putting a stop to this vile and rudimentary system of opinion-as-fact, I have decided to post a censored version of my album review which shall not influence your view on this album in any way.

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…………… David Jones ……………………….. Comeback Album …………………. Mod …………………..…… Space Oddity ……….…… Ziggy Stardust ……………………. Iggy Pop ….….……………………. Sex …………………………. Fashion ………………………Spiders From Mars ……… Record Label …..……………………………………… Sound & Vision ………………………………………………… Thin White Duke ……………….……………………………………. Bisexual ……………………………………. Album Cover ………………………. Glam,Glam,Glam ……………………… Reinvention ……………………. Buddhism …………. Drugs, Drugs, Drugs ……… Berlin Trilogy …… Brian Eno …………………….…………………… Low ………………………. Heroes ….. Tony Visconti ………………………………….. Scary Monsters ……………………… Man Who Fell To Earth …………………… Starman …………… Heart Surgery …….……………. The Next Day ………………………. Scott Walker ………………………………………………….. End.

Track Listing:

1.) The Next Day

2.) Dirty Boys

3.) The Stars (Are Out Tonight)

4.) Love is Lost

5.) Where Are We Now?

6.) Valentine’s Day

7.) If You Can See Me

8.) I’d Rather Be High

9.) Boss of Me

10.) Dancing out in Space

11.) How Does the Grass Grow

12.) (You Will) Set the World on Fire

13.) You Feel so Lonely you could Die

14.) Heat

Diving With The D-List: Splash is a Guilty Pleasure

by Michael Tyminski

Splash: Tuesdays 8pm Eastern Time, ABC

Since American Idol brought the competition show back to prime-time network television a decade ago, we’ve seen the genre mostly built around singing, dancing, and cooking. We’ve also seen competition shows for close to everything else such as ice skating, weight loss, job hunting, and now ludicrously enough, platform diving.

Splash is ABC’s diving equivalent to it’s other, more venerable competition franchise: Dancing with the Stars, and the competitor pool seems like it’s built from similar, if less flashy cloth, with “stars” ranging from Ndamokung Suh to washed up child stars Drake Bell and Keshia Knight Pulliam to skier Rory Bushfield (whom I have never heard of before this show) to Louie Anderson (whom bewilders me that we see him in a show about athleticism and grace in the 2010’s). The stars are coached by legendary diver Greg Louganis and advertises 2012 gold medalist David Boudia as one of the judges.

This show follows the Dancing with the Stars model of video interludes of training leading into the performance. This actually creates an interesting dissonance, as the video segments seem fairly serious, while the in-studio segments are some of the campiest and most overblown segments on network TV (the divers enter with full blown entrance music and water effects – I would kill for Louie Anderson’s theme music, which is a full blown funk score).

David Boudia and Steve Foley are a serviceable pair of judges, with Boudia providing constructive criticism, while Foley plays a much nicer Simon Cowell role. Joey Lawrence (wearing the worst haircut ever) plays a passable host, but seems shaky whenever he has to interview someone or really say anything that’s not on a teleprompter. Charissa Thompson co-hosts but comes off considerably stronger than Lawrence, albeit that’s expected from someone with extensive sportscasting experience. Greg Louganis feels criminally underused, often only appearing in videos, but comes off as the most unfailingly positive coaching figure this side of Richard Simmons. He maintains this even in the most dire of situations, such as when himself, Suh, and Kareem have to pull Louie Anderson out of the pool on the first day of training.

If there is one main concern I have with the show, it’s the casting choices seem to set up an anticlimax, as a big-air style skier (Rory Bushfield) already seems to have a huge built in advantage. Thankfully the judges seem to be grading on a curve (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Louie Anderson both received higher averages for weaker dives than Katherine Webb did). I also did not appreciate that despite claiming the audience is responsible for half of the score that we never actually get to see the audience score, since between that and the vastly sliding scale the judges use for degree of difficulty, I get the vibe that the eliminations (or at the minimum whom is forced to dive off) will very likely be arbitrary.

Additionally, the pacing seemed fairly slow, as we only saw half of the divers on the first show, and all 10 dives and packages probably could have fit in sixty minutes if they didn’t focus on padding out the remainder of the time with three synchronized swimming numbers and taking an agonizingly long time on the board before each dive.

The Final Verdict: Splash is the definition of a guilty pleasure. I enjoyed it, but if I didn’t review these for the viewing public, I would probably deny that I ever saw this show. It has potential to be a much better show if they dropped some of the over-intense reality cliches and let the show do what it shines at: being a slightly cheesy show about celebrities falling from high places. If this show can ever get it’s out of it’s own way (and with a future shift in seasons), I could very easily see this being the post-Wipeout summer mainstay that ABC’s been looking for the past few years.

Album Review: Doldrums – Lesser Evil

by Rio Toro

Doldrums: Lesser Evil

Similar Artists: Gang Gang Dance, Black Dice, Animal Collective, Purity Ring

Genre: Post Pop, Post Rock, Post Noise

Label: Souterrain Transmissions

In Norton Jester’s beloved children’s novel, “The Phantom Tollbooth”, The Doldrums is a place where nothing ever happens. The inhabitants of this fictitious area follow a strict set of daily routines and live out dull repetitious lives. It is surprising that Airick Woodhead decided to borrow this name for his musical project, because his work is the polar opposite of mundane. In fact, there is often so much going on within any few measures that it can seem messy and overwrought. This is maximalistic ADHD music that could only be described using words like post-rock, post-pop or post-noise. Although it is not without its noticeable influences, on “Lesser Evil”, Airick has either created one of the poppiest noise albums or noisiest pop albums in recent memory.

Most of us were introduced to Doldrums through his remix of Portishead’s “Chasing the Tear” in 2010. It sounded almost nothing like the original, and it showed off Airick’s tight production work. The combination of vocal samples, noisy guitars and melodically layered electronic overtones proved Doldrums to be an artist to get excited about. Three long years have came and went and now the one man band is finally releasing his debut album, “Lesser Evil”. He hasn’t changed his style much in those three years, so it speaks towards his aptitude that this music still sounds so relevant and modern.

Although at face-value, much of this album comes off as dance music, I am often left to wonder if these songs are meant to leave me ecstatic or woeful. While some might say that the album’s lack of musical cohesiveness is a weakness, you would be hard-pressed to call it boring. However, this music is much more ambitious to simply be called “entertaining”. It’s abstractness has occasionally left me empty, but in the end it works towards the album’s otherworldly themes.

While comparisons to other left-of-center Canadian pop acts such as Grimes and Purity Ring are apt, the most glaring reference point to Doldrums is Brooklyn’s “Gang Gang Dance”. Both groups create psychotically induced dance music that is founded through the use of heavy percussion and bass. The heavily ornamented sound also brings to mind Animal Collective’s 2012 album, “Centipede Hz”. Likewise, Airick’s nerdy voice is a combination of Panda Bear’s tonality with Bjork’s overreaching style. Countless artists come into mind while listening to this music, but at its best, Doldrums reinvigorate otherwise worn out trends.

Airick is always pushing his hardware to the tipping point, which makes the music feels as if it could break apart at any moment. While he is obviously having fun toying with his machinery, the music is also beautifully composed within its sporadicness. Second track “Anomaly” opens with bursting Cocteau Twins vocals and shoegazing guitar strumming only to retreat into a sentimental electro ballad. Many of the songs contain snippets of drum & bass or hardcore techno, so even the mellower songs can’t really be called such. What makes the seemingly bizarre instrumentation impressive is how all the musical styles are used so tastefully. Don’t get me wrong, this album is packed full of disorder, but the inharmonalities speak towards Airick’s warped musical vision instead of being artistic missteps.

It might be a mystery as to exactly what we should feel while listening to this music, but what I do know is that Doldrums is solely meant for escapists. When I listen to this music I am in a fantasy world, or better yet, an alternate universe. Many people will see passed how dark this release is and tag it as a party album. There is no problem with dancing, but these songs require much more analysis than the dance floor will allow. Much like the book its name is contrived from, Doldrums is a beautiful, stimulating and unpredictable adventure that I can’t seem to put down.

Track Listing:

1.) Intro

2.) Anomaly*

3.) She Is The Wave*

4.) Sunrise

5.) Egypt

6.) Holographic Sand Castles*

7.) Singularity Acid face

8.) Lesser Evil*

9.) Golden Calf

10.) Lost In Everyone

11.) Painted Black

* – Album Highlight

You’ll Go Crazy Over Bates Motel

by Michael Tyminski

Bates Motel: Monday’s at 10p.m., A&E.

Throughout the history of the horror genre, we’ve seen our fair share of notable villains. From Jigsaw of Saw who simply sees self-mutilation as the means to appreciating one’s life for the better, to the seemingly immortal Michael Myers of Halloween fame to Jason Voorhees at Camp Crystal Lake, we see the end result of years of psychological illness in the form of a machete and some poor misguided co-eds.

However, Bates Motel asks, what turns these people into our most beloved serial killers? It does so by following around iconic slasher Norman Bates during his teenage years in a prequel to the Alfred Hitchcock classic. This means we will get a glimpse into Norman’s family life, as Norman was always horror’s preeminent mama’s boy.

Our first episode revolves around Norman moving to White Pine Bay and getting adjusted into this new location, trying to get a new start six months after the death of his father. Norman is the sort of nice shy boy that girls seem to take to fairly easily, and his teachers want him to get involved in the school’s athletics (particularly the track team). His mother Norma however, is guilt-tripping him at every turn, claiming she needs him at the Motel all the time. This eventually leads to Norman sneaking out of his house to go to study only to end up at a house party.

The second subplot revolves around a man whom returns to the plot Norma bought in order to “take back his property”. While Norman is out at said party, the man returns, trying to rape Norma. Norman walks in at the last second and smashes him over the head with a iron, which leads to Norma killing him soon thereafter before spending a day or two figuring out where to stuff the body and hiding it from the cops (one of the best whimsical moments of the pilot involved the Sheriff giving Norma a puzzled look as to why she named her son after herself).

The main pairing of Norman and his overbearing mother Norma Louise Bates (as played by Freddie Highmore and Vera Farmiga respectively) are both played excellently, particularly Farmiga as Norma Louise Bates, playing the sort of unsettling, unstable, mother that leads a man down the road to insanity. Norman is played as a sweet gawky teenager who hasn’t been completely down the road to ruin. Both however, are played with the sort of subdued nature required to sustain a prequel show like this for multiple seasons, and the development of both of those characters over time will be a key factor to the show’s success.

The writers do an excellent job mixing not only the mundane moments that are necessary at the start of the series to establish character, but also providing tension where it does pop up, whether it’s Norman’s discovery of his father’s death or the very intense rape/murder scene that occurs in the middle of the episode. In spite of that, the show makes it a priority to let these moments breathe, as it’s most truly unsettling parts come from Norma’s reaction to both situations (and some lesser ones such as Norman’s request to join the track team).

The soundtrack to this show also is pretty impressive, following the classic horror soundtrack that one would expect from a series built around one of horror’s most psychotic characters. Soft piano music plays through happier segments, while your standard horror strings move through the tense parts. The visuals are equally impressive, often relying a palette of beiges, and yellows to provide a quaint feeling.

The Final Verdict: Bates Motel is everything that a show like The Following wishes it could be. It’s creepy, it’s unsettling, and it’s most intense moments are frankly uncomfortable enough that it eschews the jump scares. It ultimately feels like one part Smallville, one part Twin Peaks, and one part any twisted family drama you can think of. Check it out, you won’t be disappointed.

Album Review: Autechre – Exai

by Rio Toro

Autechre: Exai

Similar Artists: Aphex Twin

Genre: IDM

Label: Warp

Can “unpredictable” still be used as a term to describe Autechre? After all, for 20 years they have churned out album after album of nightmarishly difficult IDM while maintaining a similar aesthetic. To be truly unpredictable, Autechre would have to make a pop album with traditional verse chorus verse song structure. Of course, that is not the case here, as Exai, the duo’s 11^th album, continues to break all of the rules and then some. This is music that adheres to no principles or formalities, and the lack of grounding can often seem like what you are listening to isn’t music at all. Although us fans have become somewhat used to Autechre’s blend of broken, seemingly haphazard metal machine music, it remains shocking and exhilarated for the fact that only a handful of other producers can make music this complex.

This will most likely be the most difficult album I will ever attempt to review. Sean Booth and Rob Brown have gotten progressively harsher and more disorienting as the years have gone by; this enormous quadruple LP is a continuation of their claim to fame and raises the stakes yet another bar. The album’s length is truly menacing when one is considering the music we are dealing with. While lengthy albums/EPs were always the name of the game for this group, this is by far their longest. What makes this length tolerable (and what many critics seem to not understand) is that you are not required to listen to all of it in one sitting. No one is asking you to digest these tracks on the first go around, and the reason is because it’s impossible. You are going to have to devote a lot of time with this behemoth to really sink your teeth in, and I certainly hope that you do, because what it contains is excellent.

Enjoyment from this album will be based on if you are willing to listen repeatedly for at least a few days (more if you are new to this group). On the first track, “Fleure” we are immediately dropped into the unrelenting storm of non-repeating patterns and unfollowable structure that represents the band at their most volatile. Although this is one of the shortest tracks on the album, it is representative of the 16 yet to come. A complaint here would be that the track sequencing doesn’t allow for many breaks. There are no ambient interludes in play to calm our nerves or help us readjust. Exai is raw, and often sounds as if it’s being played live. So a recommendation for your own safety: if your brain can’t handle anymore ricochet percussion and stabbing collisions of metal then you should probably take a break.

While my favorite way to describe this duo is “a fucked version of 90’s UK elektro”, Autechre have proved they can make music that is entirely mechanical and inhuman, yet somehow melancholic and evocative. Some might say that Autechre did a better job of harnessing this balance on their earlier work, (I would have to agree with this) but the best of these tracks still hover around the line of tranquility and disgust. Playing games with our senses is what many of the best electronic producers are capable of, and it is why Autechre’s music often sounds fresh after years of listening to it. Although this is a new album, I believe these tracks will prove to have similar longevity. It is not hard to see that these two are working at the top of their game.

So despite what some might claim, these tracks do have feeling attached to them. The emotion is certainly buried under broken, erratically placed keyboards and schizophrenic drum programming, but the best of these tracks represent coalescence between man and machine. Possibly more than anyone else, Booth and Rob Brown’s create music that suggests they are one with the machines they are working with.

Pretentious is a term thrown at these guys quite a bit, but Autechre are not in this business in an attempt to create the most bastardized and incomprehensible music of their time. Even at Exai’s most chaotic, everything from the jackhammer bass to the nefarious drones and pulsating collisions of high-end effects loops are purposeful. While previous albums, such as the heavily disputed “Confield”, have incorporated randomly programmed generators, the musicians are in complete control of the music experience this time around.

I will end this review by mentioning that I crashed my car while listening to this album. Surprisingly, when speaking of something this abrasive, the accident occurred because I fell asleep at the wheel. While this isn’t the kind of music that would be able to lull most to sleep, in the exhausted state of mind I was in, I couldn’t resist the transportative qualities the current track was suggesting. Eventually, fighting against my dream state was not an option. Thankfully, no one was hurt, but the experience made me think about the power that music has over us. If it can convince me that entering a dream state is more important than driving, than this stuff should come with a warning label.

Track Listing:

1.)	FLeure
2.)	irlite (get 0)
3.)	prac-f
4.)	jatevee C
5.)	T ess xi
6.)	vekoS
7.)	Flep
8.)	tuinorizn
9.)	bladelores
10.)	1 1 is
11.)	nodezsh
12.)	runrepik
13.)	spl9
14.)	cloudline
15.)	deco Loc
16.)	recks on
17.)	YJY UX

Family Trade is a Bad Bargain

by Michael Tyminski

Family Trade: Tuesdays 8 pm, GSN

Am I the only one who remembers when GSN only showed game shows? Probably, but in the last half decade or so they’ve expanded their reach, whether it’s trying to capitalize on the poker boom in the mid-00’s (High Stakes Poker, and World Series of Blackjack), competition shows (reruns of Dancing with the Stars), and whatever you would call Kenny vs. Spenny.

Their biggest stretch from the original format of the network has been their new found obsession of grafting “reality” programming into their scheduling. Tonight marks the debut of GSN’s newest offering to the genre: Family Trade. Family Trade depicts the life of a family whom owns an automobile dealership in Vermont. The key twist, however, is family patriarch Gardner Stone’s guarantee that he will accept anything in trade that he thinks he can sell in exchange for a BRAND NEW CAR! (Sorry, I just couldn’t resist the urge there.) His children, Todd and Darcy, question this strategy at every turn while having the difficult task of moving the objects that their father just bartered away a car for.

So how does this mash-up of Let’s Make a Deal and Pawn Stars fare? Well for starters, the stakes don’t seem that high. In both instances, the barters only covered a portion of the down payment, which takes all of the stakes out of the game (one barter for Maple Syrup involved $2,500 in Maple Syrup, however the cost of the truck in question was over $50,000). Furthermore, there seems to be an absolute minimum of substantial conflict as Gardner always wins these disputes (one employee flat out states it).

The show was also advertised as having a focus on family drama, yet Family Trade comes out lacking there as well. In the first two episodes, there was a dearth of conflict or even raised voices. This becomes particularly glaring as the show relies on filler shots, a tension chord, and straddling deals over commercial breaks to create a seemingly false sense of tension.

This lack of drama would suffice if there were other reasons to emotionally invest in the Stone family. Unfortunately, Family Trade limits each of it’s primary characters to a cardboard cut out. We only learn about Gardner that’s he bull headed and he’ll trade for and with anything as long as he comes out ahead. Similarly we learn that Todd is skeptical of the barter business and that he thinks Gardner is nuts for taking the deals he has but that’s it. Darcy and Travis, the two other employees of G-Stone motors who get remotely regular screen time tend to come off as faceless entities.

When the focus changes to Todd and Darcy dealing with the ramifications of Gardner’s decisions, the show gets considerably more interesting. This is particularly notable when Gardner and Darcy can’t bring themselves to sell the pigs they bought from a customer looking for a trailer at a farmer’s auction. Darcy’s imploring Gardner to find a more humane end for the pigs while Todd is bewildered at why they took the trade to begin with. Similarly, when Gardner sells maple syrup in barter to win a selling contest for the leftover maple syrup with Todd, the two squabble because Gardner made a “profit” in credit from the restaurants while Todd took a loss but picked up actual cash.

The Final Verdict: Family Trade is incredibly bland. Whereas many shows in the reality genre focus on hair-pulling or seemingly life and death choices, Trade is hyped to be a big deal but ultimately focuses on life’s little problems and a quirky dealership. The show probably would have worked better if they spent less time trying to punch it up in the drama department and instead focused on taking a more slice of life perspective and divulging a little more on its’ key stars than the two dimensional caricatures we get. Skip it, Tuesday’s one of the stronger nights on the dial and once you’ve seen one episode you’ll feel like you’ve seen all of them.

The Last Exorcism Part II: Movie Review

by Ryan Shea

The Last Exorcism Part II, left off where the first movie ended. The original film was shot documentary style about a devious evangelical pastor’s job to exorcise a demon from a farm girl. The original movie is shot through the perspective of the Preacher and his film crew. Director Daniel Stamm followed the ever popular found footage style of American horror fims. Louis Sweetzer, the father of the possessed girl, contacts Reverend Cotton Marcus because he believes his innocent daughter, Nell, is possessed. Turns out Nell is possessed by a demon named Abalam. And, as movies like these go, Nell/Abalam over power the Reverend and kill him, his crew, and her family. The movie ends with the camera lying in the woods of Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

The Last Exorcism Part 2 — Movie Poster for the Last Exorcism Part II

The Last Exorcism II, begins with an unidentified couple finding the exorcised Nell in their home, cold and trembling from her time in the woods. The beginning scene had one “jump” moment but was otherwise uneventful. Nell (played by Ashley Bell) is examined by a doctor, bathed by a creepy nurse, who cuts a peice of her hair and places it in a pouch, and sent to a half-way house in New Orleans. The house “father” gives Nell the cross necklace her mother had given her but tells her to decide whether she is a religious person or not. Nell soon befriends the other girls in the home and gets a job cleaning motel rooms. Frank Merle, the man who runs the house, helps Nell to deal with the past events of her life, and she decides that the events that took place and the demon were not real.

When all things seem to be going good, Nell has a boyfriend and is socializing well, she is visited by her father. His presence warns her that the demon still wants her and will do anything for her. Soon, Nell starts showing signs of procession and all around creepiness. She is seduced by the demon in her dreams and is followed by strange characters wearing masks.

Nell is scared and ready to get rid of the demon for good, and the creepy nurse from the beginning turns out to be a voo-doo priestess who has been watching over Nell and has a plan to rid her of the demon for good.

The nurse calls in two men who strap her to a table and hook her up to a monitor and begin to “exorcise” the demon for good. Well, things don’t go according to plan and Nell must choose to die free or accept the demon into her for good.

I won’t give away the ending in case you do decide to go see the movie. However, I would not recommend wasting your money on this movie. The movie was boring and not frightening at all. The acting was comical and the movie dragged on and on and on and on… You get my point! If you enjoyed the first movie then you might want to catch the second part, but it does not answer any questions or expand on the first film what-so-ever!

OZ: The Great and Powerful Movie Review

by Ryan Shea

The Wizard of Oz starring Judy Garland is one of my favorite movies of all time! The story line and imagination behind that movie captivated me at a young age. Still to this day I can recite every line and sing every song. Also, recently I had the pleasure of seeing Wicked, the Broadway play about the witches of Oz and fell in love. The story was enchanting, exhilarating, and even comedic.

So when I saw the coming attraction to Oz: The Great and Powerful I was curious to say the least. This film is a prequel to The Wizard of Oz and describes how the Wizard found his way to Oz.

James Franco starts the Wizard of Oz, a mediocre carnival magician, with a habit of flirting with the wrong women. Franco’s performance was much like his characters magic tricks, dull and insipid. His portrayal of the Wizard of Oz was lifeless and monotone. I was extremely disappointed in his performance and his depiction alone ruined the movie for me.

The plot of the movie was also lacking imagination. Mila Kunis plays Theodora who starts out as a good witch but after being scorned by the Wizard turns wicked. Yet another boring performance! Kunis lacked emotion and was not the right pick for this character. Rachel Weisz takes the role of Evanora, a wicked witch right from the beginning, and Theodora’s sister. Weisz actually did an admirable job depicting this character. Her performance was believable and her character was conniving and wicked.

Michelle Williams stars as Glinda, The Good Witch. The Wizard is decieved by Evanora to believe that Glinda was actually the Wicked Witch and, in order for Oz to take his place as King of the Land of Oz, he must kill her by breaking her magic wand.

If you aren’t confused yet, just watch the movie. The plot was a little to outrageous to click with the original story line. There are too many differences that do not add up. In this film, Emerald City is controlled by the Wicked witches, and the munchkins are only a small portion of the Oz population.

Oz: The Great and Powerful was anti-climactic and unimagined. The story line was too far off from the original outline of The Wizard of Oz, and the acting was disappointing. I was really looking forward to this movie and am sad to be so let down. I suggest saving your money and going to see Wicked instead!

Album Review: Atoms For Peace – AMOK

by Rio Toro

Similar Artists: Radiohead, Thom Yorke

Genre: Experimental Techno

Label: XL

Ever since Kid A, Thom Yorke has been obsessed with electronic takeover in music. This guy is a true EDM aficionado, and he has been leaning in the direction of going full on techno in different ways through his career. Through his many reincarnations, what has always kept us intrigued is the fact that Thom’s music sounds little-to-nothing like the artists he states as his inspiration. During the Kid A period, his main influences were Warp Records’ flagship acts Aphex Twin and Autechre, but in all seriousness, if his goal was to sound like either of those acts I would have to say he failed. Nowadays, he hangs out with state-of-the-art producers such as Flying Lotus and Four Tet, and although Thom seems to think he is making music of a similar vein, this new release won’t remind you of those artists in the slightest.

This is an artist whose work truly exists beyond influence. Analyzing why an artist is original can drive a critic mad, but I have always felt Thom’s uniqueness is spurred by a factor outside of his wild imagination and occasional mental instability. After years of being Radiohead’s biggest fan, I have become convinced that Thom has a skewed perception of reality that causes the waves and frequencies of music to reach him on an entirely different level. Everyone hears music in a slightly tweaked fashion; but quite simply, Thom must hear music in a much different way than everyone else. This may be the most apparent when he is describing his own music, in which he seems to think is straight up pop rather than anything alternative. I attribute this skewed perception to the cause of his self-image issues in the past, as well as the reason why it can take the band 4+ years to release new material. I’ve gotten a tad bit off topic, but regardless of whatever crises have affected Thom in the past, his love affair with abstract techno has finally come full circle, and he sounds as confident in his surroundings as he ever has been.

It is truly a wonder how the members of Radiohead haven’t cracked under pressure and disbanded countless times by now. Due to the band constantly topping and reinventing themselves for 20 years, each release is marked by exceptionally high expectations. People don’t just want a new Radiohead release to be good, they want it to be their best yet. This makes it easy to understand why Thom would need to occasionally distance himself from his longtime band mates. Being overly serious in the music making process can lead to disastrous effect, so it seems healthy that Thom takes a load off by involving himself in solo/side projects every now and then. Unfortunately for him though, people seem to set the same ridiculously high expectations in whatever environment Thom is in.

Although he has joined with some friends for the making of this album, “Amok” should be seen as “The Eraser pt. 2”. The band name is borrowed from that album, but it certainly isn’t the only thing. There are some borrowed chord sequences which might prompt a passerby to believe he was listening to an Eraser remix album instead of an entirely new set of songs. Similarly, before uniting to become “Atoms for Peace”, the other 4 musicians who took their part in this album, (Joey Waronker, Flea, Mauro Refosco and the indispensible Nigel Godrich) were called forth to create live renditions of tracks from “The Eraser”. Needless to say, this album was birthed into being through the conception of full band arrangements based on “Eraser” compositions. It’s a continuation upon that style for sure, but the expansion in terms of depth and integrity are absolutely appreciated.

Although Amok isn’t a complete reinvention of style from Thom’s previous solo outing, that doesn’t mean there aren’t differences between the two albums. In some ways, Amok is the least Radiohead sounding project Thom has worked on. Gone are what one might call “Radiohead moments”. An example of one of these moments would be the last two minutes of “All I Need” or “Karma Police” where the song branches off unexpectedly and we are greeted to an entirely new musical style. Even The Eraser had moments such as this; albeit on a smaller scale. There are no major chord/tempo changes mid song to claw at you for attention, so those of you who only listen to Radiohead for these sections will not find much enjoyment here (you will probably enjoy Coldplay a whole lot more anyway).

These tracks are indebted to experimental techno as they revolve around key chords that rotate and mesh for the entirety of the song. The highlights are always in the subtleties, so the album will certainly leave a few dry on the first listen or so. Originally, I was even hesitant to call these pieces “songs” due to a meandering flatness that was permeating them, but after some time, they rise off of their surface to form into full bodied compositions. Despite me labeling this as a solo album, each member’s role is audible. While some have complained that this album fails to make use of its musician’s true talents, the music never would have worked with Flea’s slap-tastic bass lines covering the atmospherics. We are seeing a different side to these musicians, and it is what prevents Atoms for Peace from falling into common “supergroup” clichés.

Amok was recorded in a mere 3 day session; Thom and Nigel spent the remaining countless hours analyzing the material and organizing it into compact pieces. Seen as one of the best living producers, this album’s production is certainly befitting to Nigel’s name. Listening to this on a pair of good headphones is an experience not to be missed. Hearing the splices of vocal samples layered between muted bass, gorgeous keyboards and the tinkering of meticulous drum programming is awe-inspiring and calls me back time and time again. Oh yeah, and in case I didn’t mention it, Thom’s voice is excellent here as well. The King of Limbs saw him going down a more challenging, yet assured path with his vocal delivery, and here he travels down a similar trajectory. So this is a good, often great album, but those looking for the same pleasures that a Radiohead album holds will be disappointed, but like I said earlier, maybe those weren’t true fans to begin with…

Track Listing:

1.) Before Your Very Eyes…

2.) Default*

3.) Ingenue*

4.) Dropped

5.) Unless

6.) Stuck Together Pieces

7.) Judge Jury & Executioner*

8.) Reverse Running*

9.) Amok

* – Album Highlight

This Reviewer Could Use Some Therapy after Watching L.A. Shrinks.

by Michael Tyminski

L.A. Shrinks: 9 p.m. Mondays, Bravo

I don’t often review reality shows for a number of reasons: namely the lack of “writing” and “acting” gives me very little objective thread to justify my opinion, and outside of the premise there isn’t very much to objectively judge on when it comes to the genre. However, with March providing a fairly thin slate of new shows, and the bulk of those new shows being reality, I guess I’ll take what I can get, with tonight’s show likely being the low point in terms of premieres this month.

My original impressions of this show and the implications thereof make me cringe. In particular, the idea of having a fly on the wall camera in a psychologists office bothers me, as people are now releasing their innermost fears, issues, and traumas in front of a camera (and let’s be real, being watched has never changed human behavior, right?). These visits are then wrapped around while the show deals with the real traumas of it’s star psychologists, which seems to imply that the show is going to trivialize the issues of people with real mental health issues for the significantly less problematic issues of the doctors themselves.

So…did my worst fears come true? Within five minutes it seems like Dr. V. (Venus Nicolino) is mining her patients for comedy, taking a catty tack to not only her patients in general, but seemingly making light of her Michael and Georgie (her two patients’) sex issues in confessional scenes. The implications are made worse when she snap-accepts Michael’s proposal of them recording their sex for the next episode without checking in with Georgie. Dr. V’s segment of the show seems the most outlandish, due her bouncing all over the emotional Richter scale (from catty to shattered) and in every scene that she’s not giving therapy she’s barely clothed (bikini or underwear) to not clothed in a bathtub and giving vampy looks to her husband when he gives her wine.

The other two therapists seem more down to earth, even if they both can gravitate into peevish about the field (Gregory seems to gripe about both his clients anger, and the fact that he can’t pass gas in the office, while Eris gets annoyed at a client whom can’t get enough sex, stating that three to four times a week is an insanely high amount of sex for a married couple, before dropping a statistic that the average couple has sex twice a week). Needless to say, while their patients do not make matters easier, their peevishness towards these clients whom are on their first session comes off as a little cold and petty.

Furthermore, one gets the vibe that many of the therapy scenes are shot in a studio. Dr. Cason’s office in particular seems to feel like it was shot in a multi-camera layout. Similarly, it seems weird that these handpicked clients happen to hit the exact nerves that the doctors layout in the beginning of the show (Most notably Gregory’s issues with the preparation for his commitment ceremony to Kevin, and Eris’ need to have more sex with her husband).

Finally, all ethical issues aside, this show takes all of the classic manipulative editing one expects from the reality genre and takes them to ludicrous extremes (to the point where certain shots look flat out redone). Similarly, Eris trying to resolve her sex life through a full-blown aphrodisiac dinner so that she can have a child feels completely absurd when you discover that she’s been taking birth control. I get that reality shows are about as “real” as professional wrestling, but would it kill you not to blatantly lie to me? Taking the least simple route makes sense on reality shows with a Deus Ex Machina element like say Survivor, The Amazing Race and (probably the king of making this trope work) The Mole, but less so when you have a show that is about day-to-day life.

The Final Verdict: This show is the Real Housewives of therapy. Our therapists problems seem incredibly manufactured and blown up to give a false equivalency to the problems of their clients’ (whose neuroses admittedly also seem fairly minor and only related to the amount of sex they are having). When the show moves away from the office, the show really objectifies its’ women (Venus seems to be in undress for large segments of the show, and they even sneak in a long shot of Eris wearing nothing but underwear). If you’re into particularly trashy reality television, you’ll probably love this, but if you have any standards whatsoever you’ll probably be as repulsed by this series as I am.

REVIEWS

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