2006
CAD 2614 - The Mountain Goats / Get Lonely
Released August 21 2006
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Coming off of the two strongest, most fully realized -- and most harrowing -- albums of his career, in particular The Sunset Tree, which helped bring him to the attention of a larger audience, John Darnielle (who's somewhat better known as the Mountain Goats) took something of a career digression with a record that, while retaining the production clarity and expanded instrumental palette of his 4AD output to date, marked a clear withdrawal, if not in quality, certainly in scope, from its phenomenal predecessors. Thematically at least, Get Lonely is the sparest, bleakest record in the Mountain Goats' discography. Much was made of the unprecedentedly autobiographical content of The Sunset Tree and We Shall All Be Healed, and it is true that they conveyed a sustained emotional potency that was largely new to Darnielle's repertory, but both contained so many lyrical loose ends, disjointed perspectives, and ambiguous imagery that it was difficult if not impossible to glean any consistent context in them, let alone a coherent through-line. Get Lonely, on the other hand, is practically monotonous in its lyrical focus. Every one of its songs features a first-person narrator in a state of desolation, near-desperation, solitude (always), and grappling, more or less explicitly, with the psychic effects of recent loss: extreme listlessness, emotional paralysis, intermittent attempts at deterministic redirection; nightmarish delirium. In most of them, almost nothing happens; the plot of "Wild Sage" consists of its protagonist leaving the house, walking outside, falling down by the side of the highway, and lying there. Sometimes he can't even leave the house. It's a break-up album -- an almost uncharacteristically straightforward conceit for Darnielle -- the chronicle of a person dealing (or attempting to deal, at least on his best days) with loneliness, grief, and the pangs of memory. Whether or not it's a literal chronicle of a period in Darnielle's life (he had, at the time of its release, been married for many years) is irrelevant; forgiving a slight turn for the phantasmagoric towards the end of the album (before its ultimate, resigned submersion into the Atlantic in the graceful, serene "In Corolla,"). It's hard to deny the fundamental, emotional truth contained in these songs, especially as it's conveyed in his uninflected, almost painfully restrained delivery. It's not all unrelentingly somber -- "Half Dead" and "Woke Up New" strive for a sort of resolute pragmatism, with musical backing that could almost be described as sprightly, though their plain and plaintive lyrics ultimately belie their hummable ditty-like choruses. And the churning, jazzy percussion of "New Monster Avenue" and brass band swagger of "If You See Light" provide welcome instrumental relief that befits their fanciful, imagistic lyrical tone. But these are almost necessary respites, since at its darkest and starkest, which is much of the time -- particularly on the central quartet of the shell-shocked title track, the spirit-haunted "Maybe Sprout Wings," the hallucinatory "Moon Over Goldsboro," and the agitated "In the Hidden Places," Get Lonely is nothing short of devastating. These songs may be primarily built around uncomplicated acoustic guitar parts (with judicious instrumental embellishments), but they're a far cry from the rudimentary lo-fi zeal and nervous energy of Darnielle's early years -- he's become significantly more sophisticated since then, as a composer, a writer, and an observer of the human condition, and this is in many ways his most mature work to date. - K. Ross Hoffman, All Music Guide
CAD 2611 - M. Ward / Post-War
Released September 04 2006
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Laconic California indie minstrel M. Ward's fifth offering is a thrift shop photo album filled with histories that may or may not have been, dust bowl carnival rides, and slices of sunlit Western Americana so thick that you need a broom to sweep up the bits that fall off of the knife. Ward makes records that sound like he just wandered in off the street with a few friends and hit the record button, but what would feel lazy and unfocused in less confident hands comes off like a tutorial in old-school songwriting and performance that hearkens back to the days of Hank Williams and Leadbelly if they had had access to a modern-day studio. Post-War is not only Ward's best effort yet, it's one of the best records of the year. While his distinctive half-second-delay drawl assumes its usual position as the ghostly broadcast from a more sepia-toned time, the production is far grander than on his previous outings. Opener "Poison Cup," sounding for what it's worth like a cross between the Walker Brothers' "Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore" and an outtake from Dennis Wilson's Pacific Ocean Blue breathing fire into the choruses with her trademark howl, the rowdy "Requiem" sounds like a , kicks things off with sneaky keyboard strings that fade into the real deal, reaching elegiac heights by the diminutive track's end. A catchy cover of Daniel Johnston's "To Go Home" features guest vocalist Neko CaseTom Waits version of Queen's "Fat Bottomed Girls," and the peerless "Magic Trick," with its brilliant refrain of "She's got one magic trick/just one and that's it/she disappears," kicks off a suite of tunes that snake their way through to the album's end like a shot of Apple Jack. Like early Pavement, Ward knows how to make sloppy sound succinct, and it's that magic mix of earnestness and apathy that makes Post-War the secret bounty that it is. - James Christopher Monger, All Music Guide
CAD 2616 - Various / Plague SongsReleased October 02 2006
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Plague Songs is an unusual collection of songs corresponding to the ten Biblical plagues as revealed in the book of Exodus in the Old Testament. The set was conceived by Penny Woolcock, who used the songs (performed in her filmic retelling of the Exodus), as reflected and refracted through the seaside resort area of Margate-in-Kent in southern England. Sponsored and produced by Artangel as part of its guerilla program of sparking contemporary debate on modern culture, and involving as many participants as possible, not only artists but those outside that world, too, who live, work, shop, love, raise children and die in local communities throughout the United Kingdom. A series of live events were performed by local inhabitants, singers and players and were produced by the great musician David Coulter. The Plague Songs recording project was curated and produced by Hal Willner who worked with both Artangel's co-director Michael Morris and Woolcock.
with The array of artists here, all picking one of the deck of plagues and contributing original music with titles corresponding is startling: Stephin Merritt, Scott Walker, Laurie Anderson, rapper Klashnekoff, King Creosote, Cody ChesnuTT (sic), the Tiger Lillies, Imogen Heap, Brian EnoRobert Wyatt, and Rufus Wainwright.
CAD 2609 - Johan Johannsson / IBM 1401, A User's Manual
Released October 30 2006
The first album for 4AD from this Icelandic composer is an expanded version of a performance piece originally written for the dancer and choreographer Erna Omarsdottir, and which has been performed in more than 40 European cities. This new incarnation was scored for a 60-piece string orchestra and the four original movements were joined by a completely new finale. The final mix incorporates electronics and vintage reel-to-reel recordings of the IBM 1401 mainframe computer which inspired the piece in the first place.
CAD 2619 - Beirut/ The Gulag Orkestar
Released November 06 2006
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The best album to come out of Albuquerque since the Shins decamped for the Pacific Northwest, the debut album by Beirut (aka New Mexico-born 19-year-old singer/songwriter Zach Condon) bears an immediate resemblance both to Denver's DeVotchKa and the current passions of the Athens, GA, crowd formerly associated with the Elephant 6 stable. Like DeVotchKa, Condon is heavily influenced by Eastern European folk music and, to a lesser extent, the mariachi trumpets and Latin rhythms of the desert Southwest: the songs on Gulag Orkestar are lousy with mandolins and similarly plinky members of the string instrument family, accordions, horns, and hand percussion clearly played with dramatic in-studio arm flourishes. But like the Athens folks (some of whom appear here in a supporting role, most notably A Hawk and a Hacksaw and friends use the folk instruments primarily as really cool-sounding textures, exotic backdrops for 's Jeremy Barnes), Condon isn't interested in mere approximations of traditional forms. CondonCondon's melodic indie folk tunes and impressionistic lyrics. The lyrics, it must be said, are the album's most obvious flaw, clearly the work of a young, romantically inclined teen who has never been to Europe but has seen a lot of foreign art films about, like, Gypsies 'n' stuff. Ignore the clunky lyrics -- easy enough to do since Condon is an unexpectedly appealing singer with a rich, mellifluous voice that, no kidding, recalls the great bel canto crooners of the pre-rock era (along with a little Nick Cave) -- and Gulag Orkestar is an infinitely more appealing album. - Stewart Mason, All Music Guide
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