Heard Here

Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Yeah Yeah Yeahs EP

I’m not sure if I should write a review of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ music, or of the hype that has been following them around since Rolling Stone named them one of the 10 “artists to watch.” Since then the Yeah Yeah Yeahs have figured prominently in numerous free-weekly “spot checks” and on the lapels of the Strokes’ “Saturday Night Live” appearance (in mini-pin form). This kind of talk has indie wonks declaring them the “next big thing,” and placing them in the same vast conspiracy that brought us the Strokes and John Ashcroft singing self-composed tunes to close out speeches.
Thankfully, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are far less painful to listen to than our Attorney General. A trio composed of singer Karen O, drummer and recent Conservatory alum Brian Chase (also of the Seconds) and guitarist Nick Zinner, YYY have been making headlines for their spectacular live shows, which include Karen O gyrating across the stage and ripping indie kids into a dervish-like frenzy. Karen O wonderfully exploits her voice, which whips between growls and robotic speech (with little breathy noises in between). Chase and Zinner do a wonderful job backing O, more than making up for the lack of a bass with their tangled and lashing riffs.
Even with only five songs, the EP covers a wide range between the primal and sex-soaked opener “Bang” and the closing theme song “Our Time,” in which O declares, “It’s our time to break on through/ It’s the year to be hated…It’s our time/ to be hated.” They plant their collective tongue firmly in their cheek for “Art Star,” which begins with a spoken ditty about inspiration backed by bouncy guitar and drum, then transmutes into driving drums and bottomed out guitar noise, then back, and then back again. Surprisingly, it works. For “Miles Away” O turns to strident PJ Harvey mode, as the music builds to a classic post-punk climax.
YYY fall into that fascinating and ever growing group of rock bands putting out really fun and ultimately unoriginal music. They’re in excellent company with the White Stripes, the French Kicks, the Strokes and other bands with “the” names. That may sound like a dig, but I don’t demand that the music I enjoy be exhaustively free of stolen guitar riffs and vocal techniques. I’m happy to endorse the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and I look forward to savoring the spectacle of their meteoric rise in the musical world. I applaud them for their scope and recommend them to fans of Le Tigre, John Spencer or any of the above named bands.

–Neil Freeman

Tomlab and Audio Dregs — Various Artists
For Friends

For Friends, a compilation of various artists and electronic songs, is, to be blunt, nice. It was compiled a year or two ago by the German Tomlab label as a sort of internal audio Xmas present, and now, with the American label Audio Dregs, they’ve released an expanded version for a wider audience. All of these artists are on either the German or the American labels and most have forthcoming albums. Carpet Musics, Adlib and Casiotone for the Painfully Alone all contributed tracks.
Musically, there are lots of toy noises and messy or abstract things which invariably, with a few exceptions, coalesce into melodic and rhythmic things before they revert back again. This is playful and light music. Stuff slides around and bumps into itself and explodes without too much damage. There isn’t any wind-blown esoterica or evil and brooding beats here. This music evokes the image of a smiley and colorfully dressed European who doesn’t smoke running by trees and pounding German soil with painted metal. Gabriel Pumple (OC ’03) said he saw a “stoned pink kidney shape having adolescent sex with a stylized Flemish dolphin, in a fucking Jetta commercial, I don’t know,” when he listened to this album. It is an apt description.

–Andrew Leland

Nerissa and Katryna Nields
Love and China

And then there were two. Having spent the last decade or so expanding what began as a folk trio into a five-piece rock band, the Nields sisters have now scaled back their act. For years, The Nields have been a heavyweight in the highly competitive, New England-based folk circuit. Their band was made up of the two sisters, their husbands and a drummer. But on March 5, Katryna and Nerissa Nields released Love and China, their first recorded and marketed endeavor as a duo.
From the first moments of the first track, it is clear that some things never change. The distinct and unmistakable sounds of the Nields are still present on this record. The vocals are just as unusually striking, the influences of classic bands such as the Beatles are still heavy and the sense of investment and dedication are just as strong as they were on any of The Nields’ nine previously released records.

However reminisent of the earlier incarnations of The Nields it may be, Love and China definitely has a new and different feel to it. To start with, although the album is produced by Dave Chalfant (the bassist for the Nields), the presence of the rest of the band that made up The Nields (David Nields on Guitar, Dave Hower on Drums) is noticeably absent. The hard edge which often drove many songs on previous records is now missing. Instead, Love and China is a softer and more intimate look at the two people who have been the core of a larger band for many years and who are now venturing out on their own.
Alternating between songs heavily influenced by a sort of cowboy-country style and a more classic folk singer-songwriter sound, the tracks on this album seem to access more personal and raw places than earlier Nields records have. From the disillusion evoked in the memory-fueled title track, to the uneasiness dealt with in the upbeat “All These Years,” the songs on this record deal with the issues of loss, transition and hope in a very prominent way. A simple re-recording of the song “This Happens Again and Again” from their first record serves as yet another comment of the transient and yet permanence of a long career and life in and out of the music business.

Even though much of this record sounds as though you may have heard it somewhere before, there are some very keenly felt moments which leave you feeling as though you are listening to a project which is very near and dear to the artist’s hearts. Love and China is a very interesting new addition to a long line of unique efforts on the part of The Nields.
The Nields sisters will be performing at All Ground Up in Elyria on March 20.

–Lucy Wainwright Roche