Word: lo-fi
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TAPES 'N TAPES THE LOON If you like indie rock, you probably own a dozen albums just like this Minneapolis, Minn., band's taut, lo-fi debut--and you will want this one too. The lyrics are from the Pavement school of abstraction ("Kelly the insistor/ Your brother is a blister"), and lead singer Josh Grier has the same dry, almost cracking voice as David Byrne. What's original is Tapes 'n Tapes' ability to spin out compelling little mood fantasias, from the spooky isolation of Omaha to the drunken, bluesy instrumental Crazy Eights. The Loon feels eremitic and weird...
...conditioning are manifested in the work of many contemporary musicians, ranging from experimental electronic artists like Pluxus and Providence-based Marumari to geeky power-poppers and former Weezer tourmates Ozma (most renowned for their wall-of-sound cover of the "Tetris" theme), both of which paid tribute to the lo-fi gamer aesthetic in their music. Hella start their debut album (2002's masterful "Hold Your Horse Is") with an 8-bit intro, before launching into their more familiar noise-rock stylings. Even Beck released an EP of 8-bit style remixes of his 2005 "Guero" album, borrowing the Nintendocolor...
...music itself makes no great claims to originality. The Arctic Monkeys' lo-fi guitar jags are cribbed from the Strokes and Franz Ferdinand (who cribbed them from Lou Reed and Television and so on), and the band's ska rhythms and martial drums come courtesy of the Clash. But singer-guitarist Alex Turner, guitarist Jamie Cook, drummer Matt Helders and bassist Andy Nicholson play with a swagger that obliterates any trace of ancestor worship. They aren't referencing anything as they fly through tunes like The View from the Afternoon; they're just playing as many hooks as possible...
...audio document of Bonnie “Prince” Billy’s (née William Oldham) seasonal tour of Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, and North Carolina. His detour in the South is reflected in the album’s sound: Oldham’s usual lo-fi folk aesthetic is dropped in favor of a Skynrydesque Southern-rawk. The album’s harder sound is also due to Matt Sweeney’s guitars: the last time Oldham and Sweeney collaborated, as the alt-country power-duo “Superwolf,” the results were...
Songs from this decade of lo-fi recording and prodigious songwriting mostly fall into certain series. One such series, dominated by song titles beginning with “Alpha,” develops the narrative of a couple entwined in a mutually destructive and inescapable relationship. “Tallahassee,” the group’s first album for label 4AD, arrived in 2002 as a culmination of this series, a concept album that tracks their attempts to salvage a failed marriage and the eventual divorce...