WEEK IN RELEASES

The weather’s getting colder, but the music’s getting hotter. October has seen a bevy of stellar new releases and this week is no different. Feast your eyes and ears on my picks of the week:

Pylon

Chomp More

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In 2007, the good folks at DFA unleashed one of the decade’s best reissues with Gyrate Plus, an expanded edition of Pylon’s 1980 debut. Now two years later comes Chomp More, a deluxe version of the band’s second, (and save for a subpar reunion album in 1993, final), record. As contemporaries of R.E.M. and the B-52s, the Athens, GA quartet specialized in angular, jarring post-punk mixed with an underlying post-disco funkiness that could get your body moving. Along with British counterparts, Gang of Four, Pylon paved the way for a slew of bands that aped its vibe, including Bloc Party and Franz Ferdinand.

Jay Farrar & Ben Gibbard

One Fast Move or I’m Gone: Music from Kerouac’s Big Sur

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When I first heard that Jay Farrar, alt-country legend from Uncle Tupelo and Son Volt, would be teaming up with Ben Gibbard, indie rock god from Death Cab For Cutie and Postal Service, to write music to passages from Jack Kerouac’s Big Sur, I thought to myself, huh? While I like both of these artists, I couldn’t imagine how’d they mesh. Happily, they’re two great tastes that taste great together. The music possesses a stronger Farrar flavor, but that makes songs like “California Zephyr” and “These Roads Don’t Move” sound like an alt-country version of Death Cab or a indie-fronted Son Volt. It certainly doesn’t set the world on fire, but fans of both bands will be pleased with the results.

Kings of Convenience

Declaration of Dependence

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With 2001’s Quiet is the New Loud, the Norweigen duo of Erlend Øye and Eirik Glambek Bøe helped spearhead (and inadvertently name) a movement of delicate, acoustic-based indie music that includes Jose Gonzalez, Alexi Murdoch, and Iron and Wine among its ranks. The Kings are influenced more by the gentle melodies of Simon & Garfunkel than the droning cool of the Velvet Underground. On Declaration of Dependence the duo continues with its winning formula, adding a dash of bossa nova rhythms to its hushed finger-picked gems. Take this one to the beach and lose yourself in its quiet beauty.

Richard Youngs

Under Stellar Stream

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I always welcome a new release from the prolific and versatile Glaswegian multi-instrumentalist, Richard Youngs. Whether it’s layers of detuned guitar, vocals, and oboe on top of a two-chord, five-pulse piano figure in bewildering repetition or minimalist piano-based folk music, Youngs’ restless spirit keeps his output fresh and continuously rewarding. For his latest record, the avant-garde composer revisits the spare song-based format, creating a short cycle of melodies built around guitar, pump organ, synthesizer, harmonica, bass, and his lovely voice. The proceedings are muted and glisten with a meditative repetition that’s soothing and challenging at the same time.

Alec Ounsworth

Mo Beauty

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The debut record by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, originally self-released by the band, became a bona-fide sensation among the indie crowd. And rightly so. It was a refreshing take on the exuberent sounds of Talking Heads, with lead singer Alec Ounsworth expanding on David Byrne’s signature vocal style. The band’s much anticipated follow-up, 2007’s Some Loud Thunder hit the streets with a resounding thud. It was more whimper than thunder. So it was welcome news to hear that Ounsworth was taking a break from the group to expand his horizons with a solo outing. The Philadelphia native headed down south to New Orleans and recorded Mo Beauty at the famed Piety St. recording studio with a bevy of legendary local musicians, including George Porter, Jr. (The Meters), Stanton Moore (Galactic), Robert Walter (Greyboy All Stars), and Matt Sutton. The resulting sound is a refreshing, and more mature, twist on the music of Clap Your Hands, although his quivering and straining vocal acrobats are still firmly in place.

Flight of the Conchords

I Told You I Was Freaky

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I’m not a fan of “joke rock.” Both “Weird Al” Yankovic and Tenacious D leave me cold. But the duo of Bret McKenzie and Jermaine Clement, aka Flight of the Conchords, are irresistable. Unlike other musical comics, these guys write some genuinely fabulous songs and feature inventive arrangements that bolster the hysterical lyrics. As a fan of the Conchord’s HBO series of the same name, I’ve heard all of these tracks in the proper context within the narrative of an episode. Even so, they work on their own. To really test this, I played the album for several people who never saw the TV show. And just as I thought, the hilarious send-ups of current musical trends had them in stitches. Take a listen to “We’re Both in Love With a Sexy Lady,” the boys’ parody of the Usher/R. Kelly duet, “Same Girl,” and try not to laugh.

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