Fontaines D.C., Boards of Canada, and starting a new chapter

No. 1365: Fontaines D.C. - Skinty Fia

Everything changed for me in fall of 2021, and then everything changed again in summer of 2022. I ended a job that gave me a feeling of security, but which became increasingly hard to do on the opposite coast, part-time, as a contractor. And I was planning to make the leap into being a full-time freelancer. (Which I stopped last year, but hey, sometimes you gotta take the plunge! No regrets, and it was fun while it lasted.)

But the transition neatly coincided with a trip I took with my wife on her birthday to Iceland. It was a necessary hit of the reset button, a week in a beautiful country with more unspoiled wilds than people, sometimes to the detriment of our rental car. But it was magical, and uniquely quirky: My wife often remarks at how hard I laughed when we passed by some graffiti of an elf.

But obviously I bought some records while I was there. If you’re ever in Reykjavik, go to Lucky Records, it’s loaded with great stuff, and I bought six records there, a diverse bunch as you can see. The clerk slowly nodded his head as he went through my finds and said “I like it… I like it a lot.” 

Fontaines D.C. were at the top of my list of records to buy at the time. I was kind of a casual fan before, having seen them live opening for Idles in 2019. They were fun, garagey, with catchy tunes and a lot of great energy. But I didn’t keep up with them so closely until 2022 when they released Skinty Fia, and it’s astonishing how much growth they had undergone in just a couple years.

With this record they shot up to being one of my favorite contemporary bands, in large part because of the gothic pall and more complex approach to songwriting they took here. There’s a simmering intensity throughout that I find strangely irresistible, and the darkness within these songs is in large part what makes them so compelling. Like leadoff track “In ár gCroíthe go deo,” whose title comes from a story about an Irish woman living in England who wanted that phrase on her gravestone (it’s Gaelic for “in our hearts forever,” I think?) but was denied the request, and there’s a chilling sensibility about it all, with the eerie choirboy vocals and the tense droning bassline beneath it. Likewise, “I Love You” speaks directly to their home country of Ireland, their conflicted relationship with it and affection for it despite that, which reaches an intense climax at the end when Grian Chatten starts his epic bridge section (“Selling genocide and half-cut pride…”). I saw them live recently and this was an easy highlight of the show, an intense penultimate track, though there were lots of highlights.

Which brings me back to how this coincided with a transitional time in my life; two years later, their next album arrived in another new stage of my career. Which is another story for another time, but it’s a curious comfort having this band around every time the tide changes in my life. If I’m being honest, it’d be cool if they gave me a little time to catch up, but I’ll also never turn down new music from Fontaines. Rating: 9.4

Listen: “I Love You”

No. 1366: Boards of Canada - Geogaddi

Boards of Canada brings out a lot of strange emotions in me. I think that’s the point—their sound is ostensibly IDM, but it’s quite some distance from the abstract mechanisms of Autechre or the oddball sonic mayhem of Aphex Twin. It’s, for lack of a better word, more human. Their debut album Music Has the Right to Children captured feelings of nostalgia that were hard to place. Employing samples from Canadian educational films and warm, analog synth tones, the duo seemed to capture something uncanny that never actually existed. When I heard “Roygbiv” for the first time, it was a deeply confusing, yet moving experience. I wrote about the album for our Treble 100 series, noting that AI couldn’t make a record like this because AI can’t understand these hauntological nuances. Sure, it can make vibey pictures of abandoned malls or whatever, but not this. This is far too complex for an LLM to understand.

The same goes for follow-up Geogaddi, but it’s a very different kind of album. This is, by and large, a much darker record. The original running time was 66:06 for instance, and there are references to cult, murders, Satan and so on. But there’s also something really playful about it all. Though the album samples the creepy as hell numbers station recordings of The Conet Project (the same year that Wilco did! … but years after Stereolab), it also includes a sample of Leslie Nielsen talking about volcanoes. It’s somehow both sinister and smirking at the same time, which you can’t all necessarily absorb in a single listen. (I summarized a lot of its most villainous qualities in another article.)

When I hear this, it strikes me as another album that AI couldn’t create because this strange blend of humor and horror is something that’s difficult to fully grasp without experiencing it. There’s something to Boards of Canada’s music that strikes me as wholly inimitable. Perhaps that’s what keeps drawing me back in. Rating: 9.5

Listen: “Music Is Math”

No. 1367: Mastodon - Remission

It’s more than a little bittersweet to be writing about this record after the untimely death of Brent Hinds in a motorcycle accident last month. He and the rest of the band had what appeared to be an acrimonious split—they said it was amicable, his social media activity suggested otherwise. But his death in a motorcycle accident brought a sad end to it all. Nonetheless, Mastodon endures, and they paid tribute to their late former bandmate, though it’s all just kind of a bummer.

Truth be told, Mastodon haven’t topped their first four records, or really first three in my opinion. If you’re the type that wants to draw historical parallels, their catalog mirrors Metallica’s pretty neatly; 2009’s Crack the Skye is the proggy counterpart to And Justice For All, 2004’s Leviathan and 2006’s Blood Mountain are the twin masterpieces like Ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets, and their 2002 debut Remission just plain rips, much like Kill ‘em All. (One caveat: Mastodon’s later albums are on the whole much stronger than Metallica’s but they certainly settled into a comfortable groove.)

Remission is about as killer a metal debut as you could ask for, and the group takes the sludgy tones of Neurosis, the proggy technicality of The Dillinger Escape Plan and the melodic intensity of Cave In and offer up something that sounded wholly new and modern in the early 2000s, while capturing a groove in the process—something that’s seemingly innate to all great southern sludge bands. They even have a kinda-sorta conceptual thread going from the start, not to the extent that Leviathan found them running with it, but still developing a four-elements theme that came to set that early quartet of albums apart.

I’ve seen Mastodon live twice; the first time was a run-through of the entirety of Crack the Skye, which was great, though I was hoping for some of the classics. The second time around at FYF Fest in 2017, they played a little bit of everything, including half of Blood Mountain and closing with this album’s highlight, “March of the Fire Ants.” An absolute ripper of a show. 

RIP Brent Hinds. Rating: 9.2

Listen: “March of the Fire Ants”

No. 1368: Orchestra Poly-Rhythmo de Cotonou - Vodoun Effect

An Afro-funk group from Benin, T.P. Orchestre Poly-Rhythmo de Cotonou go by many names—sometimes with the T.P., sometimes without, sometimes L’International and so on. They have a grip of releases, many of them never properly reissued stateside, all of the originals wildly valuable on Discogs (if you can even find them), and the band itself had a ton of members. Almost literally a funk orchestra.

But while a lot of their music isn’t in print, a few labels have put in the work of reissuing some of their material, like Analog Africa, whom I wrote about in the last roundup with the Cameroon Garage Funk compilation. This is an earlier release from the label, and it comprises a lot of singles from the group from the 1970s. And yes, I also bought this in Iceland. 

While the Orchestre’s music has a similar verve as the early, vibrant funk of Fela Kuti, when some of his compositions were still under 10 minutes apiece, there’s something even wilder at work here. It’s, well, kinda like garage funk, but more elaborate. James Brown is an apt comparison at times, but a song like “Mi Ni Non Kpo” stands on its own, spiky and abrasive, agitated and intense. What a fun record. Rating: 9.2

Listen: “Mi Ni Non Kpo”

No. 1369: Kælan Mikla - Undir köldum norðurljósum

So I have this thing where, when I go to a major city or a foreign country, I have to buy a record from an artist from that place. It’s the law. My law, specifically.

In a place like Iceland, it’s not hard to find music by Icelandic musicians, but some of the records I was thinking of either weren’t available at the shops I went to, or they’re just out of print. (I’d be wildly into getting one of GusGus’ first two albums, but one’s been out of print for a long time, and the other, I don’t think it was ever pressed on vinyl? Might be wrong on that one, but it’s not one I’d expect to see, regardless.)

But Kaelan Mikla is a band I’d gotten into relatively recently at this stage, having seen them at The Cure’s Pasadena Daydream festival, and they were awesome. Synthy darkwave, catchy, danceable, but still eerie and ominous. So naturally they were near the top of my list when I thought “I should buy an Icelandic record!” And this is pretty much in the same vein as their previous record, with maybe a slight upgrade in fidelity, plus an appearance by Neige of Alcest. But it’s great after-hours goth deliciousness, which is ironic, since we were in Iceland in summer—when night never quite comes. Rating: 8.7

Listen: “Svört Augu”

No. 1370: Pixies - Come On Pilgrim

I don’t mean this to sound snotty or anything, but I genuinely always forget that Pixies have released a bunch of albums after Trompe le Monde. I mean, there’s a reason for that: Most of them aren’t great. None of them feature Kim Deal, it’s kind of not the same thing, you know? But they have their moments, and they’re still a blast live. When I first saw them reunite at Coachella in 2004, I wasn’t entirely convinced; I’m not sure they were either. When I saw them 15 years later at Pasadena Daydream, they were absolutely on fire, ripping through around two dozen songs from throughout their catalog, most of them early-years classics.

I’m glad they continue to enjoy recording together and writing new songs, but I doubt they have any illusions about the fact that people really want to hear “Bone Machine” and “Planet of Sound” and “Dig for Fire.” Me, I’d love to hear them play “Holiday Song,” a top five, maybe top three song from the band that they got right from the get-go on their first EP-slash-mini album, Come on Pilgrim. Which they do, pretty regularly, I just somehow haven’t been in attendance anytime they do (much like with The Cure and songs from Pornography—one of these days!)

There’s a looseness to this set of songs that puts it just a notch or two below the tuneful chaos of Surfer Rosa, but it rips. Just absolutely rips. The opener, “Caribou,” is both intense and haunting, while the early version of “Vamos” is a proof of concept for a live staple. (Almost 1,000 plays according to Setlist.fm!) But it’s still “The Holiday Song” that I keep returning to, all forward momentum and roaring, surfy riffs. A perfect rock song. Surrounded by other perfect rock songs. Rating: 9.5

Listen: “The Holiday Song”

No. 1371: Björk - Vespertine

I mean, I suppose it’s only fitting that I end up buying a Björk record in Iceland. I thought perhaps it was a little too obvious, a little too cliché—like buying London Calling in London. Except, oops, I actually did that. I’m not usually that corny, but sometimes the occasion calls for it.

But you can’t overstate the importance of Björk in Icelandic music. It’s just not possible. On one afternoon in Reykjavik, we went to the Icelandic Punk Museum, which is a converted subterranean public restroom featuring exhibits on Iceland’s history of punk. It’s pretty small—Iceland isn’t a huge country!—but it’s a fun visit all the same, and there’s no getting around the fact that Björk, herself, plays a pretty massive role in Icelandic punk and alternative music. Not just The Sugarcubes, but KUKL and Tappi Tíkarrass. Plus she also had that one-off jazz album before Debut, and the record she made as a kid. What hasn’t she done?

I’m not sure what Björk’s most quintessentially Icelandic album is. Homogenic maybe? (“How Scandinavian of me…”) But Vespertine is the one that, at the time, I had wanted to pick up. Her first four records are all pretty unimpeachable, and her record since has been pretty strong, but this basically ends a string of perfect, or perfect-ish records. It’s not my favorite—that’s Post—but there’s an intimacy about it that’s intoxicating. It’s arguably her most theatrical record, but contains subtler highlights, the likes of which form some of my favorite moments in her catalog, like the instrumental “Frosti,” or the twinkling “Sun in My Mouth.”

Look, maybe buying a Björk record in Iceland is something you just have to do. And I can go ahead and say I’ve crossed that one off my list. Rating: 9.5

Listen: “Hidden Place”