Animal Collective
Strawberry Jam
[Domino]

by K. Vicious

“Let me take you down because I’m going to…”

If you were to take apart or rethink all the finer, more enjoyable moments of the so-far-so-exciting recording output of Animal Collective – everything from early lysergic pop spectacles like ‘Chocolate Girl’ on Avey Tare and Panda Bear’s debut collaboration Spirit They’re Gone, Spirit They’re Vanished (2000) to the fearless folk fabrications of their 2004 indie breakthrough Sung Tongs, the element of pure adventurousness has always been there without fail, along with their ability to create something that sounds odd but traceable and yet completely unique at the same time. Strawberry Jam is easily their most direct record full of such compelling moments that leap at your senses and you really can’t fault a band like them that aspires to go for broke over and over again.

Their latest animal serenades start off innocently enough. With its cherubic lyrics about making mazes for a monster and picking the skeleton of a dinosaur wing, lead track ‘Peacebone’ perpetuates their trademark permanent vacation from adulthood while adding crackling slices of sinister soundscaping to the mix – for more of this sort of shit, tune in to the modern psychedelic travails of Panda Bear’s Person Pitch also released this year, or the absolutely winsome ‘Derek’ that closes Strawberry Jam sung by Panda.

The next two songs ‘Unsolved Mysteries’ and ‘Chores’ foregrounds Animal Collective’s tendencies to flourish in compressed shards of runaway noise, much like their buddies in Black Dice. And seriously, the overall effect is interesting enough on initial listens though I am not all too convinced about these two particular songs too. But the next two spectacular tracks that are at the heart of the order are where Strawberry Jam shatters all my doubts.

The brilliant and ferociously conceived ‘For Reverend Green’ will either summon you into a pounding fit of dancing in tongues (“Now I think it’s alright to feel inhuman now, now I think it’s a riot” exults Avey Tare) or inspire you to hit the bourbon whisky bottle real hard to, um, keep it real (I’ll take the latter option anytime anyway, for everybody’s sake) – a soliloquy for a manic soul’s own private raptures.

What follows is the transcendental ‘Fireworks’, a pop masterpiece that has the indescribable, beyond-cinematic effect of willful child prodigies waking up from final fantasies to the realization that well it’s goddamn time to grow up. Full of vulnerable grace, ‘Fireworks’ sounds like something that could have only been written or recorded in the most fleeting moments of nostalgic contentment.

True enough, my feelings have always been that music is the surest instrument for nostalgia – as I find out when I heard The Beatles’ ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ play scrupulously on the radio this morning and I really wanted to cry – and if Animal Collective is giving enough hints and indications in their work that dramatize our purest, most innocent and fucking beautiful longing for the preserved past without sounding the least bit pretentious, then Strawberry Jam has come pretty close to yet another unqualified success in their catalogue of modern pop forms.

Monofone
Monofone
[Self Released]

by Andre

Much has been expected of Monofone since their climb to fame in the year 2005. After all, it was them who stupefied the local music scene with their runner up finishing in radio station POWER 98FM’s annual band competition PowerJam 2005. And to add icing to the cake, the competition also saw them sweeping the Most Popular Song award, thanks to their hit single ‘Sylvia Reborn’.

2 years later, Monofone found themselves in the limelight again. Not only were they one of the nominees for the category “Best Breakout Band”, they also won the rights to perform at Singapore’s largest indie music festival Baybeats as one the top 10 local bands. Everything seems to bode well for their future until the day of their EP release.

For a band underpinned by outstanding credentials, Monofone’s first self-titled EP is more of a disappointment and an anti-climax rather than compelling or ingenious. It is no where near the type of music they are attempting to fashion – “one, wholesome, infectious loud music” which supposedly defines Monofone.

To date, ‘Sylvia Reborn’ remains their most haunting song, attesting to their creativity and ingenuity. But sadly, their EP showed none of the creativity and ingenuity that ‘Sylvia Reborn’ promises. Hym’s vocal range is prodigious but trite and is unmistakably Singapore’s answer to Muse’s Matt Bellamy, suggesting that Monofone have yet to find its own voice. Credit must be given though for successfully replicating Matt Bellamy’s voice; it’s no easy feat, mind you. But it is the winning combination of creativity and originality that will captivate and win the hearts of many.

Empty promises seem to be the theme for their opening 2 tracks, ‘Home’ and ‘Embrace End’. Both have a stimulating opening but tend to get dreary and monotonous as the seconds tick by. Hym’s head-turning voice is unquestionably the band’s greatest asset but surprisingly, that wasn’t the story in ‘Home’ while ‘Embrace End’ sees him optimizing his vocals chords in a fashion only Matt Bellamy knows best.

‘Out For Last’ though is the antithesis of both ‘Home’ and ‘Embrace End’. Its zestful melody, beautifully forged by Jules’ subtle keyboards and Hym’s hard strumming guitar, is an excellent accompaniment to his voice. ‘Out For Last’ is one of Monofone’s better songs in their 5-track EP, coming in second to their hit single ‘Sylvia Reborn’.

Without a shadow of a doubt, Monofone’s playground lies amongst the likes of Electrico and The Great Spy Experiment. Technically, they are a band with limitless boundaries and have tons to offer but until they find their own voice and recreate the magic and buzz that ‘Sylvia Reborn’ brought them, neither will ever be attained.

I/D
ELITE, kVlt, Irrevocably tr00
[Flux-Us]

by DJ Ung

To begin with, I’m not a noise fan. The Acid Mothers Temples and Merzbows of the world offer none of their tenacity and energy – for which they are famed for – through the digital veneer of the stereo hi-fi, lost in the recalibration and conversion of pure sound into little 1s and 0s. And this, to me, is what noise really is – the vigour and exhilaration (not to mention sheer volume) of the live performance, not for late night reveries over a cup of coffee. Or perhaps I just don’t get it.

The I/D collective (or “noise-rock supercollective” as they put it; ironically, of course), made up of several local luminaries such as George Chua, Evan Tan and various members of the Flux-Us cast, is, unfortunately, not able to compensate for this loss of energy in their debut effort ELITE, kVlt, Irrevocably tr00. Loosely (and I use this word in the most liberal of senses) divided into 3 “suites”, all the tracks display a similar aesthetic: messy, lo-fi, all-over-the-place, or just simply what is commonly known as “improv”. The opening suite, ‘Suite of the Elite’, is all screaming and screeching, with I/D choosing to employ harsh and frantic guitar feedback complemented by equally harsh and frantic drum beats.

I/D , however, does not rehash the same rock-and-fuck-all attitude throughout the album. While the drums trudge on mercilessly amidst incessant guitar noises on ‘Give Me Shit I Give You Rock’N’Roll’, the track does not exactly culminate in a cathartic climax, but there exists a sense of calculated madness in its restrained approach, hypnotizing and almost meditative.

The second ‘Suite For What is Kvlt’ follows this similar angle; ‘Ethno-Spa Forgery’, probably the most accessible track on the album, quietens the mood somewhat with its, as the name suggests, tongue-in-cheek take on watered down spa muzak, ethnic gamelan and all.

The album ends on the same visceral tone on which it begins, with ‘Acid Mothers Doom’, an explosion of brawny, blood-and-guts blues which sounds like a cross between an even more drugged-up Hendrix (!!), late, Ascension-era Coltrane and, well, a chainsaw. There are moments, however, where the cacophony makes sense, where a fluid pattern of motion can be discerned under all that bedlam, but I would suspect only in a live performance would this intensity well and truly translate to captivate the listener.