El Ten Eleven - These Promises Are Being Videotaped

Here comes another pay-what-you-want-for-me album, and this time it's the third LP from one of my all-time favorite bands. El Ten Eleven is a simply a drummer (Tim Fogarty), a bassist (Kristian Dunn), and a lot of pedals, and before now their sound was technical but heavily melodic. Each song, though sometimes involving quick tapping and low power chords, was pleasantly dreamy and used looping to build on soothing harmonics and bass lines.

These Promises Are Being Videotaped is a dance album, but still maintains the instrumentation and virtuosity. Fogarty's beats are hastier and provide the constant thump omnipresent in the modern club, and Dunn's playing comes out more as a square wave than a sine. It all comes together brilliantly but keeps a bit of ground from territory already ruled by groups like Ratatat and MSTRKFT. Unlike the latter two, El Ten Eleven performs and records all the layers of its tracks.

But sometimes the new formula is forgotten. Fat Gym Riot is reminiscent of the described past, and on such a short album, it's surprising to find a cover of Paranoid Android that emulates with a few intentionally missed pitches. What El Ten Eleven has done is evolve, which is extremely pleasing. I would have treasured another Every Direction is North, but now I'm genuinely impressed. These Promises isn't an easily accessible piece of electronic pop, but it's destined to be enjoyed by fans of post rock and will probably garner a few remixes (Boys Noize?).

UNLKE - End Titles... Stories for Film

Filmscore is one of my favorite genres so when UNKLE came out with this album, I was excited to say the least, but the lack of excitement from the community lead me to believe that this album was just an afterthought. This is strange considering that we only recently got More Stories, the B sides compilation associated with War Stories. The reality, however, is that More Stories was the afterthought. After all, it was only released in Japan and Australia, and it contains only two tracks (Heaven, Blade in the Back) that stand on their own.

End Titles... Stories for Film retains the gained/chorused rock sound that defined War Stories but it also returns to the more epic sense of it's predecessor, Never, Never, Land. There's a heavier use of strings and quite a few transition tracks such as Even Balance (Part 2) which has flowing feedback and vocals and serves to buffer the next, more fleshed-out piece, Trouble in Paradise. The latter finds UNKLE sampling from straight filmscore. The album is long too. With 22 tracks it clocks in at about 74 minutes. End Titles also relies even more on collaboration than others before it, and almost every track holds another artist's name.

I love End Titles, but it doesn't feel as well packaged as UNKLE's three other LP's. This could throw off the average listener who might be a bit overwhelmed by the shear content of the album. Not only that, but the ethereal sound of some tracks don't seem to fly with a many of my friends. Still, some, like Heaven, have gone over well. In the end, however, this is an album for UNKLE fans.

Stars - Your Ex-Lover is Dead (Owen Pallett / Final Fantasy)

Edit: I'm hosting this tab as a file and a few of my other sheets on my new site.

I've had this one in my head for a while (not fully) so I took the time to transcribe it. This is the Owen Pallett (formerly Final Fantasy) remix of the Your Ex-Lover is Dead that's off the interesting but strange Do You Trust Your Friends. What strikes me about this song is how easily Pallet makes the transition to pop music composition. It's a beautiful reworking of an already beautiful piece and also makes for good stand-alone piano.

Shaun Tan - The Arrival

I was handed this book as a way to pass a small amount of time recently and 20 minutes later my eyes were stinging with tears. Every one of it's pages holds a spectacular pencil drawing that wordlessly depicts a nameless immigrant's journey to a foreign industrial capital. Opposite the cover and back, multiracial head shots (probably taken for identification) checker the paper. This follows the culturally blind scheme of the book as the world described would easily be intensively foreign yet familiar to any modern reader. If the story had been told with words, it would have only needed a few. Soon after it begins, the main character finds himself gesturing more than speaking. I would imagine words subtracting from the gravity of his confusion. Thus, in order to fully understand the story I was forced to examine the pictures more intensively in the same manner I might have walked down the hallway of a museum. I was told this was a graphic novel, but it hardly seems similar to things like Ghost World and Shortcomings. It would be much more accessible to a child then either of those, and would fit well on either a coffee table or in a bookshelf. Pick it up or give it as a gift if you have a chance.

Emily Haines - Detective Daughter

I finished transcribing another piece in my free time. This one's a bit harder to play and sing, but the all together it's wonderful. I'd recommend getting Knives Don't Have Your Back if you get the chance. Let me know if you want the .pdf.