FTR

For the Record

Sam Prekop

Who's Your New Professor

(Thrill Jockey)

In the pagan realm of rock music criticism, different genres and their demigods are commonly delegated distinct aspects of the earth and its firmament. Adjectives like "breezy" and "airy" have been summoned to describe Sam Prekop's music so frequently that the man himself might one day become irrevocably associated with the wind. Imagine: Prekop, God of the Gentle Winds that blow effortless pop through the Windy City at the inception of spring; Prekop, destined to be robbed of the capital "P" and absorbed by thesauri, last in a long line found under "wind"; Prekop, sufferer of the same fate brought on Zephyr by the hand of Metonymy, perhaps the most unmerciful agent of language, which has always been and will always be a body violent to music.

It seems especially unjust to do violence to Prekop's music, which is the antithesis of violent. He plays every chord so delicately that I would not be surprised if he has never broken even a high E-string. Prekop is primarily known as the post-rock poster child of Shrimp Boat and Sea and Cake, the Chicagoan with the voice so breathy it sounds as if it miraculously avoids all reverberation in the larynx. We learned six years ago with his first quietly acclaimed solo album (produced by Jim O'Rourke) that Prekop is a rare breed of front man who is better off without his established band. When alone and completely in charge, he's more carefully attuned to the fact that his "airy" songs and sigh of a voice need plenty of open space to successfully function.

Who's Your New Professor is Prekop's second solo effort. Though somewhat less impressive than its predecessor, Professor still rises far above the cramped synth and computer effects cluttering recent Sea and Cake releases. It has the open feel of sitting on a stoop on a nice spring day. "Magic Step," "Chicago People," "Neighbor to Neighbor," and "Between Outside" breathe the same comfortably warm neighborhood air that their titles suggest. "Chicago People" makes me lightly sway. "C+F" has handclaps and a spiraling outro with gorgeous cornets, the album's only discernible wind instrument.

Who's Your New Professor's disappointing moments are few. It is easy to forget the annoying synth line that wafts in about halfway through "Two Dedications," or the fact that "Density" outstays its welcome and, as the album's longest track, could easily have been halved. But Professor, as a whole, is more self-conscious of its pleasantness than Sam Prekop, his first release, and thus less sublime. In "Chicago People," Prekop coos that "the weather's fine," an observation that seems to show he's now more conscious of his reputation as a strictly fair-weather musician. This, however, does not keep Who's Your New Professor from being a good album that strongly reinforces Prekop's reign over the Domain of Breezy, Urbane Grooves. Its denser sound, though, is somewhat ominous. Here's hoping that the breeze doesn't turn into an overwhelming Sea and Cake-esque gale.

Regardless, several of these new songs have a subtly infectious tossed-off quality, something that allows them to peacefully burrow into your thoughts. Chief offender: the first song, called "Something." It also features the cornet. It sounds like the soundtrack to a documentary about the first sailboat of the year on Lake Michigan. It drifts and swirls in an easygoing way, as if blown across the water onto Lakeshore in late March, borne on a playful prekop.

-Ben Mercer

Eluvium

Talk Among The Treees

(Temporary Residence Limited)

 

By The End Of Tonight

A Tribute To Tigers

(Temporary Residence Limited)

Sure, originality is important. Often, however, drastic changes to what we have come to expect as conventional in music are written off as being experimental for experimentalism's sake. Solving the eternal problem of remaining innovative without alienating one's audience requires both subtle innovation as well as personal creative vision. One label that has consistently treaded this middle ground is Baltimore's Temporary Residence Limited.

Temporary Residence Limited has featured such indie rock and ambient artists as Explosions in the Sky, Tarentel, and Cex, all of whom have brought their own unique take to the increasingly diluted genre of "experimental" rock. Rounding out this list are Eluvium and By the End of Tonight, whose newest albums Talk Amongst the Trees and A Tribute to Tigers, respectively, are in many ways unalike, but share the mark of the individual artist: that flicker of originality that transcends the dull and the unimaginative.

Eluvium, a.k.a. Mathew Cooper, delivers as much of an experiential as musical performance on his third album, Talk Amongst the Trees. Building on the compositional style that defined his second album, An Accidental Memory in the Case of Death, also a Temporary Residence release, Talk Amongst the Trees is an elegant ambient composition that draws the listener into a personal space that feels intimate rather than confined, and Cooper's strength lies in his ability to construe interpretively open compositions.

Cooper's intricate layering of guitar and piano tones are suited particularly well to the long song format characteristic of most ambient music. "New Animals From the Air" and "Show us our Homes" make use of the album's variant drones, ambient washes, and unrecognizable instrumentation. Taken together, these features form a backdrop for an imagined space in the mind where memories and visions rise to various levels of consciousness. One can almost hear a group of small children on the landing, a party on the floor above, and sounds from the street leaking through an open window. But Cooper's music doesn't lose you in its revery as much as it guides you through it; the long guitar mantra that takes place in "Taken" penetrates the consciousness while the background tones resonate as a sort of soundtrack to personal revelation. "One," the final track, seems almost epic in scope and depth. Cooper rightly deserves comparison to Brian Eno. Eluvium makes the sort of music that's best listened to on headphones at high volume.

A Tribute to Tigers, the new album from By the End of Tonight, a manic math-rock group from Alvin, Texas, may seem diametrically opposed to Eluvium's cerebral Trees. With Jeff Wilson's toy drum set at the helm (and garnering most of the band's publicity), the band puts out an astonishing amount of sound-none of which is gimmicky. Mixing punk, metal, emo, and jazz with results both static and sublime, one hardly notices the higher pitch of the piccolo snare.

Tracks like "4's, 5's, and the Piano That Never Made It Home" and "Stop, Drop, and Roll Does Not Work in Hell" are killer post-rock songs; structured around building to a climax and releasing during the subsequent denouement, they endure streams of constant syncopation and virtuosic rethinking. The songs nod to prog-rockers like King Crimson but also look ahead to some robotic speed-metal future. "Setting Sail in April" borrows from a retinue of heavy metal guitar progressions that showcase brief emo and experimental punk riffs. In a driving and emotional, nigh-contemplative piece, "Tigers" emphasizes for the listener By the End of Tonight's aptitude for sustained melody. And in "7:30 Easter Morning," that aptitude for melody does not exclude the schizophrenic chord mashing and histrionic repetition that make the final track an essentially defining one for the group.

Both of these records, in their own way, contribute something new to the notions of what post-rock can do and how to do it well. Creativity and new ideas are one thing, but both Eluvium and By The End of Tonight also execute their game plan admirably.

-Nolan Shutler

Take Me Out

Saturday, March 12

Risd Tap Room

Benefit Street At College

7p.M., $5

Winter is a fairy princess. Rest your head on her icy god-shoulder if you don't have anybody else, or if you've watched the Fred Durst sex video so many times you can no longer tell the difference between his dick and the sun. Shows are always sensuous or, at least, fleshy events in Providence. The sweaters come off, the Technicolor scarves confuse the eyes, the psychedelic videos put everybody in the mood for a major fuckfest. And the music? It says, "Take me here, take me now, away from this cold and discomfiting place." Large Numbers strokes the synth punk of its former band, Add N to (X), with gentle grace. Fashion Flesh is unpredictable homemade electronics symphonics. Mudboy is Terry Riley's organ on crank, repping Providence. Winter better watch her chastity belt.

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