‘I Blame You’
by Obits
label: Sub Pop
genre: rock
suitable for: drinking Schlitz in a parking lot

This is the only record in the column this week with lyrics. There are many defunct bands whose members have spawned additional projects, but there are only a few whose lineages have been 100 percent awesome 100 percent of the time. Drive Like Jehu, I believe, is one of them. Formed in San Diego in 1990, the members, specifically John Reis and Rick Froberg, have since been single handedly improving the chances of rock music surviving into the next generation. Reis founded Rocket from the Crypt and is currently in Night Marchers; Froberg, the voice of Drive Like Jehu, and Reis teamed up again in 1999 as devious punks Hot Snakes. Now Froberg is in Obits, thank God.

Not a lot has changed in Froberg’s formula here. There’s a ton of energy, lyrics of little consequence, pure rock posturing and volume all coming together in brilliant songwriting. Obits, though, is a band interested in its roots. Overdriven vintage amps and accompanying spring reverb are like instruments unto themselves on this record. There is a rockabilly influence throughout, as well, and dig the garage stomp on the last track “Back And Forth,” one of the most uncharacteristic tracks I’ve heard on a Froberg-related album. “Widow of my Dreams,” the opening track, is one of my favorites in the Froberg songbook to date. Can’t wait to listen to this with the windows down.

Visit www.obitsurl.com.

‘Choral’
by Mountains
label: Thrill Jockey
genre: outdoorsy
suitable for: backstrokes in the lake

Mountains, the Brooklyn-based duo of Koen Holtkamp and Brendon Anderegg, have been successfully bridging the gap between the digital and organic world for years. Pastoral, timeless, folksy—all would apply to the duo’s electronic take on Americana, one that relies as much on tradition as innovation.

Holtkamp and Anderegg have been extremely important in the computer music world since founding their own label, Apestaartje, in 1998 and releasing their first phenomenal album soon after, a record of primitive acoustic guitar, field recordings and digital tones that continues to stun. Their strength lies in the use of real acoustic instruments—“Choral” features guitars, organ, banjo, cello, bells—and then using the computer to subtly augment those familiar sounds into the unfamiliar.
Recorded and looped in a mostly live setting, “Choral,” the band’s first album for Thrill Jockey, is the pair’s most natural sounding work to date. It’s true drift music, pulsing with new layers of sound while changes in tone and volume ebb and flow atop a booming foundation of drones. Though there are no drums, the upfront acoustic guitar and defined song structures place this alongside some of the best instrumental rock music out there, including Explosions in the Sky, with whom Mountains have shared a bill. It’s some of the best new music around, and really good for falling asleep on the couch.
Visit www.staartje.com.

‘Box of Birch’
by A Broken Consort
label: Tompkins Square
genre: love songs
suitable for: appreciating what you have

This is a somewhat grueling listen. UK artist Richard Skelton, a.k.a. A Broken Consort, created his own private press label, Sustain-Release, in 2004. The handmade special editions pair his recorded music with the artwork of his late wife Louise, who passed away at a young age in 2004. Skelton issued the first release soon after his wife’s death, dedicating that release and everything that would follow to her memory.

This is a domestic version of one of those releases, which originally came packaged in a wooden box accompanied by, among other things, pieces of birch Skelton gathered from the West Pennine Moors. “Weight of Days,” “Something Fell,” “The Elder Lie”—I don’t think these song titles mask the pain with which Skelton composed this music. And it is some of the most emotionally taxing music I have heard in a while. In a lot of ways, “Box of Birch” has the feel of traditional instrumental folk. But the acoustic guitar, bowed strings, piano and other instruments sound improvised and strung together without form or structure; the heart wrenching sounds are loosely unfurled into the air with what feels like physical strain. It’s the sonic equivalent of emotional release. Worth listening to many times, particularly the final song “The Elder Lie,” a simple piece featuring an endlessly looped cello that evokes both deep loss and the hope of future healing.
Visit www.sustain-release.co.uk.

‘s/t’
by Red Horse
label: Rel Records
genre: bowed everything
suitable for: hysteria

At night, underneath a wig and cascading fluorescent lights, Boston-based musician Steve Pyne thrills crowds as guitarist for glam-rockers Semi Precious Weapons. But Pyne lives a musical dual life. He is also an instrument inventor, a student of classical avant-garde, a modified organist, and a quiet storm who recorded some of the material on this first Red Horse LP in a warehouse before the sun rose.

Red Horse is Pyne’s project with percussionist Eli Keszler, a duo noted for explosive, ever-changing live shows highlighted by Pyne’s invented instruments, freaked out guitar playing, and Keszler’s manic drumming. On this, their first official LP, one hears metal, dulcimer, inventions like the click box, speaker array and string barrels, all of which is bowed, motorized, or in some other way manipulated to produce alien sounds that are strangely soothing. Pyne’s string barrel—two metal containers propped up on sawhorses and connected by a bass string which is then bowed and amplified—appears like a monstrous drawl at the end of side A. Side B starts out with a familiar Red Horse wall of percussion and noise that swells but then nosedives into a high frequency hum that lulls the LP to a close. In addition to the music, the intricate presentation—200g virgin vinyl, screen printed cards, an insert and a “vellum wraparound”—make listening to this record an event, not unlike Red Horse’s anticipated live shows. There are only 300 of these records in the world forever. It’s a rare gem from the New England underground.

Visit www.red-horse.org.