Led Zeppelin, and when bands go double

No. 1461: Led Zeppelin - Physical Graffiti

There’s not a listener among us who doesn’t have mixed feelings about double albums. On the one hand: Who doesn’t want more music? On the other: What if the extra songs aren’t that good? That’s always the struggle, and while I default to actually being a big fan of double albums, I’m clear-eyed about the fact that they’re messy. In fact, I kinda like that aspect of it, that you’re just loading all this music into a record and eventually it’ll lose cohesion. But it’s also important to note how our perception of what comprises a double album has changed over time. London Calling, for instance, was initially released as a double album, since vinyl was the dominant medium. But after CDs overtook records, it fit on a single disc, whereas Smashing Pumpkins’ Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, for instance, stuffed a bunch of music onto two CDs, which actually fit onto three LPs, making it a triple album. And you can’t tell me that doesn’t have too many damn songs, though many have tried. (The tendency of artists to write CD-length albums after the early ‘90s or so has been hard habit to shake; all but one album featured in this roundup is technically a double, since you can only fit so much music on one side of vinyl.)

Physical Graffiti fits perfectly into my characterization of double albums because it’s simultaneously a whole bunch of great music and maybe too much music. I don’t really listen to side 4 that often, for instance. But it’s still some of my favorite Zep. Like “Custard Pie,” which is just some good power-chord riff rockin’, or the grooves of “The Rover,” or especially the epic “In the Light,” which is Zep at their most metal, and which, if you’ve seen the show, you know was used in a great scene in the Netflix series Mindhunter.

There’s also “Kashmir,” which is probably the best known song here, and which I maybe don’t have to hear that often due to its ubiquity. However, there’s also “Houses of the Holy,” which isn’t featured on Houses of the Holy (how often does something like that happen?). In many cases, you could rightly argue that a double album would be better as a single album, and you’d be right. That might be true here, but ehhhh… I can’t do it. Physical Graffiti, imperfect as it might be, just makes more sense as a double.

Despite Led Zeppelin being a band that helped to launch my lifelong obsession with vinyl collecting, it took a long time to finally get this one, as I didn’t want to spend $50 on a new reissue of it, and I didn’t actually see it in used bins all that often. But eventually it does happen (they pressed millions of these, they’ll turn up if you keep looking), and here we are, in all its sprawling glory. Rating: 9.3

No. 1462: Katatonic Silentio - Les Chemins De L’Inconnu

I’m going through another phase of periodic purges of my record collection, inspired in part by Nabil Ayers’ recent writing about keeping his record collection from getting out of control. (Mine is and will remain out of control, so that battle’s lost, but also, I don’t need to keep everything.) My general rule is that if I haven’t listened to something in a year or two, then it merits serious scrutiny. I often buy things for a specific purpose; for instance, I had a short-lived metal night in San Diego for which I bought a bunch of things that I don’t really spin much, like Rainbow’s Rising. A great early metal record? Absolutely, but I never listen to it. Or albums that I bought for one or two songs, or records whose going price on Discogs is much higher than my desire to keep them (like dEUS’ Pocket Revolution, which satisfies both of these—that was the first to sell of this batch, btw). 

I bought this curiosity of an industrial techno album a little over three years ago in part due to deeper dives into the Ilian Tape catalog (Skee Mask, et al.) and it’s not something that’s in regular rotation, so I had to ask myself if it’s a keeper. Upon relisten: dear god yes. This record rips so hard. An Italian producer who makes dark, ominous techno and IDM, Katatonic Silentio creates imposing soundscapes similar to those of Andy Stott. They’re occasionally danceable, and often accessible in spite of their abrasiveness.

But then comes along a lengthy track like “Hypothese d’Hypnose” and it’s just an absolute motherfucker of an 11-minute industrial banger. In relistening, I’m reminded of why I was in awe of this record in the first place, and for that matter, reminded of why I should listen to it more. Which is another reason to do an audit of your record collection every now and then: You’ll find something you forgot how much you loved. Rating: 9.0

No. 1463: Kelela - Raven

The release of Kelela’s Raven coincided quite neatly with a period of several months in which I was beefing up my collection of techno, IDM and other electronic and dance music. (I don’t call it EDM—it was stupid in 2011 and it’s stupid now. IDM is also stupid but at least the term exists to describe something specific.)

The prior year, Beyonce had released Renaissance, which found her diving into house music and kind of honoring its space as a uniquely Black art form (as well as featuring Grace Jones, so you gotta love that). But, and I say this with no disrespect to Ms. Knowles-Carter, Kelela had already been doing something similar for a while. But her sound is quite a bit different so don’t mistake me here. She’d been making futuristic, vibey R&B for a decade by this point, with a stellar debut mixtape (Cut 4 Me), a stellar first album (Take Me Apart) and some great EPs as well.

Raven is, for my money, her best album. It’s rife with lots of club-heavy sounds, house beats and Amen breaks, techno and jungle, just all kinds of great stuff. It’s a sexy, nocturnal album, but it’s rich with stunning production and an intoxicating voice. In fact, it’s so smooth and vibey I somehow forgot about the guest rap on “Missed Call”? That’s how thick the mood is and how seamless the listening experience is. She’s got another new album out this month, and I still need to hear it, but my best guess is it’ll be similarly dope. Rating: 9.2

No. 1464: Autechre - Tri Repetae

Next to Aphex Twin and Boards of Canada, Autechre are probably the biggest artist in IDM, “intelligent dance music,” a dubious term if there ever was one. But for Autechre, particularly after their first decade or so, it does take a certain level of appreciation of more highbrow conceits to get into their work. Particularly with a record like 2001’s Confield, a great album that does a lot of really rhythmically weird stuff, but it’s stunning all the same.

Tri Repetae is not that kind of album, not exactly. It’s a phenomenal record, one that takes the elements of techno and heats them until the metal starts to bend, but it’s still ultimately based in 4/4 rhythms, and there’s even a danceability to it in tracks like “C/Pach” and “Clipper.” It’s not as, for lack of a better word, straightforward as Incunabula, their 1993 debut, but rather blends in more strange textural elements and a darker, heavier element borrowed from industrial. Which is maybe why I respond to it as well as I do. 

I remember back in high school first hearing Autechre on the short-lived MTV electronic show Amp, which showed the video for “Second Bad Vilbels,” which at the time was on the U.S. release of this album, sold as a 2xCD set titled Tri Repetae++ featuring bonus EP material. This isn’t that. It would have to be at least a triple-album on vinyl to fit all that on here, and that gets expensive quickly. Still, this 2xLP set is pretty epic, an odyssey through the darker, weirder end of electronic music that holds up amazingly after more than 30 years.  Rating: 9.5

No. 1465: Pile - All Fiction

It’s a little hard for me to believe this is the first entry for Pile in this whole series, well into the 1400s. It’s true, but it’s still a bit of a head scratcher, Pile being a band I’ve been listening to pretty consistently for the past decade and change, who always release a new album that I end up loving, whose new album is always somehow their best. That’s the idea, right? If you’re not outdoing what you’ve done before, what’s the point?

That was certainly the case with All Fiction when it was released, and it was then usurped by the record that came afterward, which I also now have in my collection, so as you can see I’m righting past wrongs. But All Fiction was a pretty interesting entry into their body of work at the time. Pile, a Boston band who for a while was kind of split up in different cities but seem to be mostly back in Boston now, play post-hardcore and noise rock bruisers with a touch of folk twang—the founder and songwriter, Rick Maguire, used to play solo before Pile became a real band, and his guitar playing style has a lot of bluesy, folky idiosyncrasies that you wouldn’t necessarily expect to hear in loud rock songs. 

But All Fiction diverts from the path by having more electronic elements. From what I remember of what the band said about the record at the time, it was inspired more by Björk and Portishead than actual guitar music, which when combined with their urgency makes for a really interesting listen. Just check a song like “Loops,” which has a kind of dark ambient pop atmosphere but the drums still absolutely kick ass. Or the opener “It Comes Closer,” which is more of a Rick solo joint, but has an eeriness in its vocal layers that lends it something extra, something strange and unsettling and wonderful. And there are some moments that just plain kick ass, too, which you always want on a Pile record. But I love that they’re willing to just get weird with it. Those are the bands that stick with you, and those are the band I stick with. Rating: 9.2