Currents: Wavves, Best Coast, Taken By Trees

Wavves: King of the Beach
[Fat Possum 2010]

Wavves' breakthrough second album Wavvves was highly divisive for the audacity of its production: ridiculously bare, ugly lo-fi. It was grating, rude, and, in my mind, actually pretty interesting.  Under the impression that Nathan Williams will do what he wants regardless of the haters, it's no surprise that King of the Beach is also divisive, but for a different reason: an embrace of snappy pop punk. King of the Beach is significantly more cleaned up and user-friendly than prior releases and much more focused on catchy hooks that still punch with punk sneer and fuzzy flourishes.  That said, while songs like "Post-Acid" and "Super Soaker" are propulsive hits, many of the album's hooks actually don't have much staying power and the album feels awkwardly ordered between tight punk and looser atmospheric noise rock.  King of the Beach still sounds pretty good blaring with the windows down in its native summer/beach habitat, but those seeking a more enduring revolution in Wavves' progression will have to wait longer.

 

Best Coast: Crazy For You
[Mexican Summer 2010]

Bethany Cosentino keeps it simple: summer, love, lovesickness, weed, and her cat form the conceptual crux of her droll, easy-going surf pop. Rising artists since last year after releasing a number of catchy '60s-girl-group-inflected singles (including the as yet un-topped "Sun Was High (So Was I)"), Best Coast (Cosentino and Bobb Bruno) have finally released their first highly anticipated LP Crazy For You.  Their hooks still hold the melodic charm and sunny innocence of their earlier, more lo-fi tracks, but as before, Cosentino's punky SoCal demeanor and Bruno's fuzzed out guitar lend a not-so-innocent underbelly to the surfy aesthetic. The format is consistently engaging and pleasantly accessible, although the base level simplicity of her lyrics can make Crazy For You a drag at times.  But simplicity is a powerful thing in music, and when it's as happy and catchy as Crazy For You, it's hard not too like.

"When the Sun Don't Shine":

Taken By Trees: East of Eden
[Rough Trade 2009]

The world is rapidly shrinking and "world music" (the term and the common idea) doesn't cut it anymore. For the modern discerning indie music community, influences are pinpointed and appraised for authenticity and creative contributions, not the fact that "African" drums and Latin influences are thrown into a mix to let listeners be passive globe-trekkers.  I think these critical listeners would welcome Victoria Bergsman's second solo album East of Eden as Taken By Trees.  Bergsman (The Concretes, "Young Folks") traveled from her native Sweden to Pakistan to record her new album and in working with local artists, the results are immersed in qawwali instrumentals and a decidedly South Asian bent.  She keeps one foot in the West, however, singing in Swedish on "Tidens Gång" and producing a easy-going cover of Animal Collective's "My Girls" (it's "My Boys" here).  Her graceful melodies and delicate vocals allow the West-meets-Pakistan fusion to feel seamless, with the only downside being the too-short 30 minute run time.  Finding this beautiful inspiration in such an unexpected place is a credit to Bergsman's abounding creativity and already builds anticipation for where it will take her next.

"Watch the Waves":

Video: "Super Soaker" by Wavves

I think the new Wavves album King of the Beach will be very good and surprisingly, a smooth and better transition from distortion-hoarding fuzz to smarter, cleaner punk.  Not sure if I'm sold on the live or studio versions being the better of the two (both available on youtube), but overall, infectious song in line with "Post-Acid".  Who knew after Wavvves that this band actually had legs?

"Post Acid" by Wavves

Album Review: Wavves - Wavvves

Wavves: Wavvves

[Fat Possum 2008]

6/10

I can imagine the story of Nathan Williams, a.k.a. Wavves, as going something like this: the 20-something-year-old stoner was watching TV and smoking a joint one day alone on a couch in a San Diego basement. Bored out of his skull, the non-musician picked up a guitar and began to love the amp-frying distortion he was creating. Soon experiments in fuzzy melodic noise turned into basement demos and escalated into 2008’s Wavves and last year’s breakthrough Wavvves. In the course of little over a year, Wavves has gone from a bored idler to an indie rock curiosity awash with buzz, partying/performing at SXSW with Pitchfork.tv in tow.

Underneath all the hype, there lies Wavvves, 36 minutes of abrasive and discomforting noise punk with strong influences of surf rock. It’s safe to say that Wavves’s claim to fame is the ultra lo-fi aesthetic that consumes all his music. The primitive recording and production tear his riffing guitar and moaning vocals into fuzzy shreds that sound pressed up against soon-to-be-dead amps. The result is a claustrophobic atmosphere of distortion that doesn’t let up, for better or for worse.

Rather than sounding too much like a shoegazing band in blending in to its wall of sound, however, the best songs on Wavvves feature catchy snippets of surf rock and punk fury that pull away from its cramped quarters. The surfy riff of “Gun in the Sun,” the oddly anthemic “So Bored,” and the ferocious punch of “California Goths” are among the highlights in this regard. Drumming on tracks like “Sun Opens My Eyes,” “So Bored,” and the brutally grim closer “Surf Goths” further contributes to the album’s primal paranoia.

Not to diminish his songwriting chops, but it seems as though Williams mostly writes about what he knows: weed and boredom (well, perhaps goths could be included for obvious reasons). In this way, however, Wavves’s simplistic messages are genuine and pointed, from the funny sarcasm of “Gun in the Sun” (“I’m just a guy having fun in the sun”) to the disarming directness of “No Hope Kids,” perhaps the album’s best and most catchy number (“Got no car, got no money, I got nothin’ nothin’ nothin’ not at all”). As Wavves’s curious subject matters produce some solid gems, there are just as many points on the album where simplistic choruses and repetition drive songs into the ground. Forgettable tracks like “Beach Demon,” “To the Dregs,” and “Summer Goth” don’t escape the all-consuming guitar fuzz, and they basically pass by as noisy, middling affairs.

Back to the noise factor, while Wavves’s primitive recording is at once the band’s greatest asset, it is also it’s greatest weakness. Despite the album’s groundedness in downer pop melodies, periods of guitar screech, sound overload, and static fuzz make for a bit of an endurance test, even at 36 minutes. “Killr Punx, Scary Demons,” a throwaway interlude that sounds like it could have literally been Williams pounding on an organ and howling at the moon, demonstrates well the limits of Wavves’s lo-fi aesthetic and its ability to amplify the band’s unique mix of punk, surf, and noise rock.

To William’s credit, his short but impressive rise to his sudden burst of popularity has been about as D.I.Y. as it gets. But expanding on his sound with album-long focus and a harnessing of his lo-fi recording techniques are key for Wavves to have true staying power. Wavves has earned admirable and understandable comparisons to bands like No Age and Times New Viking, but for those familiar with Wavves, they absolutely know a Wavves song when they hear one. And here lies perhaps Wavves’s greatest strength and promise for future success: Nathan Williams has a sound that is undoubtedly his own.