Video: Guided by Voices: “I Am A Scientist,” 30th Anniversary Version
Guided by Voices celebrates the thirtieth anniversary of their album Bee Thousand with a remake of one of their early, most-beloved songs, “I Am A Scientist,” via Rolling Stone.
In an interview with RS, frontman and principal songwriter Robert Pollard describes “I Am A Scientist” and Bee Thousand as follows:“The song and the album opened the door for me and allowed me to play rock music for a living.” Prior to that, he was a science teacher.
Guided by Voices
Strut of Kings
GBV Inc. (2024)
The ever-prolific Pollard and band have released dozens of titles. Their most recent recording,Strut of Kings, streeted late last month. Pollard is joined by guitarists Doug Gillard and Bobby Bare, Jr., bassist Mark Shue, and drummer Kevin March in the current iteration of Guided by Voices, which debuted in 2017 and has proven a durable unit.
The opener, “Show Me the Castle,” has a slow, crunching guitar riff over which Pollard sings the first verse laconically, the second double-tracked with quirky interval relationships. The band double times in the chorus while Pollard’s line remains in the original tempo. A flute synth interlude leads into the third verse, which is adorned with a different vocal harmony, followed by a brief burst of sustained guitar. This moves directly into the next song, “Dear Onion,” which is played in a loping mid-tempo groove of interlocking rhythm guitars. Unlike “Show Me the Castle,” which is built up in multiple sections, “Dear Onion” is typical of Pollard’s more aphoristic song craft, in which an entire narrative can be found in under two minutes and the skin of an onion.
Even by the elliptical standards of Pollard’s titles and lyrics, “Olympus Cock in Radiana,” which includes the phrase “Strut of Kings” in the lyrics, is one of the more unusual ones. Power chords speed up and slow down, with Pollard’s voice serving as the eye in the hurricane. “Caveman Running Naked” is another weird title for a tuneful song, with March’s brusque fills offsetting the guitars’ duet breaks and Pollard’s quick delivery. The coda overlaps open string arpeggiations in a marked contrast to the rest of the song. “Leaving Umbrella” is led by a sinuous vocal, the band punctuating it with emphatic downbeats.
“Timing Voice” embodies the grandeur of seventies prog, incorporating a Romantic chord progression and a guitar solo that channels Steve Howe. “Fictional Environment Dream” is another standout, with duet vocals on a memorable chorus. “Serene King” and “Bicycle Garden” deliver a one-two punch to conclude the album, with its best hooks and most energetic performances from Pollard.
Some artists creatively dry up as they age, others flourish. Pollard is among the latter camp, and Strut of Kings is ample evidence. While Bee Thousand and other earlier albums should still play a part in live set lists, Guided by Voices also has memorable new songs to play.
Guided by Voices – La La Land (Guided by Voices, Inc.)
A colleague recently quipped that “it is a new fiscal quarter, so there must be another Guided by Voices album coming out.” Indeed, Robert Pollard and company (a rotating list of musicians) are prolific almost beyond measure, a situation in which one might wonder about issues of quantity versus quality: they needn’t worry.
Joining Pollard on La La Land are a slate of long time collaborators: Doug Gillard and Bobby Bare, Jr., guitars, Marc Shue, bass, and Kevin March, drums. They know Pollard’s style thoroughly; even in his most ambitious songs they turn on a dime to meet their intricacies.
It would be difficult to ascribe a throughline to Pollard’s writing style. Recently, there are more complex songs, and long songs, amidst the sparkly, incisive singles. La La Land has both the microcosms and macrocosms that the songwriter explores. The opening track, “Time to Heal,” at less than two minutes long is an example of one the more aphoristic Guided by Voices songs, (yes, Pollard creates musical worlds, evocative ones, with even less time). It transitions directly into “Released into Dementia,” another two-minute song with a mournful melody.
It is the lyrics for “Instinct Dwelling” from which the album title is derived: “Don’t let them see your contraband, You’ll wind up in La-La Land.” It is a song with grit and a dose of anti-institutional paranoia. “Queen of Spaces” is a standout, with a delicate, extended acoustic guitar introduction and a yearning, captivating vocal.
“Slowly on the Wheel” clocks in at six minutes, double or triple the length of most of Pollard’s songs. Repeating bass and guitar octaves accompany a constrained introduction and verse. The band and vocals open up on the chorus, with harmonies abounding. After the second verse follows an emphatic interlude and a return of the chorus. The intro’s material then returns, and is succeeded by the stark guitars of the interlude to finish the song. A non-standard structure for a popular song, closer to prog, makes for a fascinating formal experiment. Another is “Cousin Jackie,” which combines the refrain “Make it rain” with a number of vocal countermelodies and guitar solos. One of the best hooks of La La Land, Pollard is not content to let it remain in a straightforward context, again demonstrating a playful sense of organization.
On La La Land, Guided by Voices manages the unusual feat of balancing recognizability, like the punchy “Caution Song” and “Face Eraser,’ with the adventurous work mentioned above and the varied treatments of the refrain “An invitation to suffering” on “Wild Kingdom.” The final song “Pockets,” consists of lists of what one can use to fill up their pockets, which then turns to small groups, phrases such as “pockets of weak information.” A minimalist guitar break outro ends the proceedings enigmatically. Guided by Voices still keeps us guessing.
As with their previous album Luciferan Towers, a published manifesto accompanied the release of Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s seventh LP, G_d’s Pee AT STATE’S END!. While further left than Bernie Sanders, some of the planks of Godspeed’s platform – defunding the police, taxing the wealthy, prison reform, climate change mitigation – seem newly relevant in light of the (first?) two pandemic years and their concomitant political and social awakening. Rather than curse the darkness, this time out the band makes music that is defiant, indefatigable, and even exuberant in demeanor. Long and short form pieces, with post-rock’s customary accumulating arrangements tweaked to break the formula in significant places, reveal some of GSY!BE’s most compelling work to date. Best song title of the year goes to their “First of the Last Glaciers.”
Hey What
Low
Sub Pop
Following the progression further out that began with 2018’s Double Negative, Low has released Hey What, their most experimental album yet. Those who are surprised may only be familiar with their more mainstream mid period music. Look back to the band’s earliest recordings and a clear connection to their slowcore beginnings can be seen in the recent turn to sonic adventure. This is not to suggest that the songs on Hey What have been divested of melody or memorability. Quite the contrary, “All Night,” “Days Like These,” and the rousing two minutes of “More” contain some of Low’s finest hooks. That the sound environment surrounding them is distressed and distorted proves no hindrance. In this case, a thirteenth album is a lucky break – with tradition.
IT’S NOT THEM. IT COULDN’T BE THEM. IT IS THEM.
Guided by Voices
GBV Inc.
True, IT’S NOT THEM. IT COULDN’T BE THEM. IT IS THEM., Guided by Voices thirty-fourth – yes, that’s right, thirty-fourth – album has some audacious arrangement choices. This is especially true of the first track, “Spanish Coin,” which begins with acoustic guitar playing harmonics and strings – yes, that’s right, strings on a GbV album – playing a slow introduction before the song kicks in with an Iberian progression. It soars chromatically upward partway through before being supplanted by an honest to goodness mariachi trumpet solo.
Fans of GbV’s nineties lo-fi work may scoff, but they don’t make the rules: Robert Pollard is still in the captain’s chair. Besides, there are plenty of trademark Pollard songs, aphoristic yet blooming with melodic interest and harmonic twists and turns; for example, the rollicking “Dance of Gurus” and “I Share a Rhythm,” atmospheric multi-part “Maintenance Man of the Haunted House,” and impish, syncopated “I Wanna Monkey.” Guitarists Bobby Bare, Jr. and Doug Gillard, bassist Mark Shue, and drummer Kevin March may not be the classic lineup, but all have been working with Pollard for years and they prove, as always, to be a tight unit that can get rough around the edges as warranted. One assumes album number thirty-five is likely in train, but in the meantime Pollard and company have supplied us with songs to savor.
Acoustic and Ambient Spheres, Vol. 2
Popul Vuh
BMG 4xCD/4XLP
A treasure trove for prog and film music enthusiasts alike, Acoustic and Ambient Spheres, Vol. 2 on BMGcontains four albums from the seventies and eighties by Popul Vuh: Seligpreisung, Agape-Agape, Coeur de Verre, and Cobra Verde. The latter two are evocative soundtracks for films by Werner Hertzog. The first band to use a Moog synthesizer, Popul Vug also incorporated acoustic instruments, Non-Western source material, drone, chanting, and incipient elements of ambient; all alongside the kitbag of Krautrock. So many styles and artists have propogated from their work.
Seligpreisung’s lead off track, “Selig sind die, die da hungern,” demonstrates several of the afore-mentioned elements of their sound, but also that Popul Vuh could rock out with the best of them in 1973. A decade later, Agape-Agape evinces spiritual questing and a penchant for post-minimalism. One wishes that a few more recent film composers would give a listen to Cobra Verde and arrange accordingly; “Der Tod Das Cobra Verde” is a track that begins with unforgettable deep-throated chanting and moves into a hybridization that is part Koyaanisqatsi, part Can, and quintessentially Popul Vuh.
Live in Brighton 1975
Live in Stuttgart 1975
Can
Mute Records, two 2xCD sets
Can eschewed live albums, and it is a pity. One can imagine collectors of Krautrock and jam bands alike thrilling to their improvisatory escapades onstage. Two surprisingly good-sounding bootlegs have surfaced, both from the band’s heyday in 1975. Of the two, Live in Brighton 1975 is a bit more rangy, with a few miscues along the way, but eventually it coalesces into some extraordinary playing that incorporates thematic material from the band’s then recent recordings alongside a great deal of improvisation. Live in Stuttgart 1975 is tighter in terms of ensemble, yet still features imaginative extended suites. Song titles don’t appear: the music is too dense with cross-references and fresh material that disappeared into the ether, never to be worked out in the studio. One is grateful that this pair of buried treasures have come to light.
Strange Fortune
Powers/Rolin Duo
Astral Editions
Gerycz/Powers/Rolin
Lamplighter
American Dreams
Ohio based musicians dulcimer/autoharp player Jen Powers, guitarist Matthew Rolin, and percussionist Jason Gerycz don’t talk a lot before they play, maybe thirty seconds to a minute, according to Powers. On the American Dreams album Lamplighter, the pieces the trio crafts are mostly improvised, and their collective work coheres into imaginative designs that incorporate folk music, drone, and urgent post-rock. The dulcimer isn’t often associated with rocking out, but Jen Powers makes it seem like the instrument was made for it. One of the tracks I have played the most this year is “Rotations,” which is bold, richly textured, and propelled by Gerycz’s energetic drumming. Though the trio likes to hang, they also create a concise rambler, “June,” that resembles song structure more than a long form jam.
Powers and Rolin perform as a duo on the Astral Editions recording Strange Fortune. Here Rolin plays twelve-string, and the blend that Powers and he achieve creates a beguiling atmosphere on “Birdhouse” and “Tea Lights.” The twenty-minute long “Amaranth” is a sonic waterfall of ambient psychedelia.
I Don’t Live Here Anymore
The War on Drugs
Atlantic Records
If you view the Tiny Desk video below, you get a sense of the newly elaborate arrangements that War on Drugs are employing. It is impressive, given how many tracks are layered in each song, the high percentage of the record that they are able to replicate live. Frontman Adam Granduciel continues to reference totemic figures: Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen, Mark Knopfler, Bob Dylan, et cetera. But more than ever the songs transcend these influences to put eighties pop through a decidedly 21st century lens. Singles like the title track and “Change” are stretched out to the five and six minute mark with multiple solo breaks, reminding us that rock can take its time instead of bowing to an arbitrary framework.
Uncommon Weather
The Reds, Pinks, and Purples
Slumberland
In 2021, how do you financially survive in San Francisco as a creative artist? Are ‘scenes’ left after tech money and gentrification move in? Should single people give up on finding love in year two of distancing due to the pandemic? Glenn Donaldson deals with heavy subjects on Uncommon Weather, his third album as The Reds, Pinks, and Purples (in less than three years, no less). Despite this, his lyric sensibility and sure songcraft save us from bathos. Long a lo-fi musician, Donaldson records most of this himself, with a bit of help from guitarist Thomas Rubinstein and bassist Charlie Ertola. Reverberant echo and drum machines remind one of a host of influences, with Television Personalities frequently mentioned as a touchstone. Uncommon Weather wears these influences lightly, and supplies the listener with memorable songs that channel our frustration with current crises, both collective and personal.
Mogwai
As the Love Continues
Rock Action/Temporary Residence Ltd.
On February 26th, twenty-five years into their recording career, Mogwai hit #1 on the UK charts. The band’s two previous full length releases were in the Top 10 in the UK, but the success of As the Love Continues, their tenth album, is remarkable.
Known for a live act that is one of the loudest in history, Mogwai retains a musicality that often hews close to the shaping of post-rock, with varied textures supplied both by synthesizers and electric guitars replete with pedals. The looping melody of “Dry Fantasy” evinces minimalist sympathies, as does “Here We, Here We, Here We Go Forever,” the latter combining a looping chordal ostinato with drums providing one of the more danceable grooves in the band’s catalog.
Vocals treated with vocoder appear on a couple tracks, and the album opens with a spoken word excerpt – Benjamin John Power (Blanck Mass) apparently speaking in his sleep – that also serves as the song’s curious title, “To the Bin My Friend, Tonight We Vacate Earth.” What follows seems to emanate from a dreamstate, with heartbeat drums and haloing of harmonics giving way to overlapping melodies for synth-piano and guitar that provide a slow burn prior to one of the band’s patented anthemic choruses. Mogwai often gives their music enigmatic titles. The track “Ritchie Sacramento” was inspired by a record store clerk’s mishearing of Ryuichi Sakamoto. However, the piece, the only one with non-modified vocals, is more somber than this pun would suggest, referencing grief, not just for the COVID year, but for departed musician friends, among them David Berman.
Some emphases have changed, and As the Love Continues shows the band relishing a temperament for exploration. Mogwai still makes thunderous rock. “Ceiling Granny” is inspired by a scene from TheExorcist, and the terror that Braithwaite experienced upon viewing it is translated into roaring guitars and triple forte drumming.
Listen to an interview with Stuart Braithwaite and some live performances below.
