Dirty Impound

Like black smoke rising against a bright blue sky, West (released September 13 on Thrill Jockey) stands out on the horizon, beckoning one closer as fires burn and throw off crackling, barely contained energy. The third long-player from San Francisco’s Wooden Shjips jettisons earlier obfuscation for a modernized psychedelic bent that’s direct, powerful and determined to bust through to what’s on the other side. “The other side of WHAT?” you ask. Specifics are hard to nail down but these are surely songs more than mood pieces, moving through the night and seeking flight, purposeful vibrations that snake dance and shimmer in the fog, outlines clearer than past efforts but a sharp focus remaining elusive. There’s room to maneuver as a listener within West, which honors their S.F. liquid light forefathers by snagging the match and lighting new things ablaze.

Wooden Shjips’ drummer Omar Ahsanuddin joins us to wrestle with DI’s philosophical survey.

boldly going where others have gone before

Smart people tend to have lots of interesting bits pinging around their heads. Whatever their chosen craft might be, their minds range into all sorts of subjects, grabbing at the world with an inquisitive yen most leave behind with sailor jumpers and wooden blocks. Vinny Peculiar strikes us as someone who hasn’t lost that boyish, primal urge likes to poke at things, or perhaps peel them back and get a good look at the entrails. Solid measures of sweetness and cynicism play in his work, clearly a man who comprehends the tremendous power people possess to nurture AND destroy one another. While generally sway-ready pop-rock gold, his songs juggle big ideas AND the smallness of workaday life, finding connections we’d have missed without him. It helps that one can readily hum along as he digs around in museums and record shops for tidbits o’ wisdom in the paint and vinyl. Vinny finds humor and compassion in our universal foibles, which makes him a great candidate for Impounded Inquiries.

And do yourself a favor and check out his new video for Dave Davies-esque “My Generation (I said goodbye)” off his boffo new album, Other People Like Me, at the end of this piece. If you missed DI’s rave for Mr. Peculiar’s latest, here it is. Thanks to Vinny for indulging us.

tinned peaches & fine old English ales await

Fiercely intelligent, unapologetically raunchy, funny as fuck and astutely honest, San Francisco’s K.Flay proffers a modern sort of autobiography. Yes, beat smart as all get out, saucy and sarcastic too, but where Kristine Flaherty’s footsteps trod isn’t far removed from Rousseau, Keroac and other folks willing to dig a rusty fork inside their heads and serve up what they find.

If one must put a name to her music – all available for download here, including her most recent EPs from April, I Stopped Caring In ‘96, which you can snag for free – there’s elements of hip hop, downtempo, Prince, spoken word (think The Last Poets on weed and too much coffee) and proto-electronica (more in common with Kraftwerk than Kaskade), but like kindred spirits Buck 65 and Themselves, there’s just no labeling this shit. Her flow is vicious, a brilliantly concocted word stew that’s mouth watering and thought provoking. Flaherty also swears wonderfully, as conversant in profanity as any pimp or teamster.

The music behind the voice is grimy and slippery, a fidgety sibling to K.Flay’s lyrical bounding. Her knack for unexpected pacing, beautifully timed pauses and sick breaks infuses each cut with an abundance of infectious energy that instills a NEED to get close to this music. It begs questions of us but the answers it kicks to the surface may not always be to our liking. But in her grappling with the modern condition, K.Flay emboldens one to tussle a touch more bravely, wearing our confusion and contradictions proudly, unafraid to be afraid in this everything-all-the-time age.

We’re pleased as punch that Flaherty agreed to tackle DI’s philosophical survey.

honey baked ham awaits you!

Buck 65 has a very busy brain. Given the peacock array of associations and images in his music, we wonder how the guy gets any sleep. Such folks tend to have a grasp on the universe in a way we want to hear about, so we reached out to Buck aka Richard Terfry to see what he had to say about the Impound’s philosophical survey. Pleasantly, he consented despite being busy promoting his bangin’ new album, 20 Odd Years (released February 1 on Warner Music Canada), on a U.S. tour that resumes on August 9th in Albuquerque, NM (catch full tour dates here). And for more with Buck 65 check out Dennis’ recent chat with Richard over here.

H-p 1 (released June 21 on Thrill Jockey) rushes at the universe, a flurry of strange communions and melting skies that seeks to bend reality or perhaps split it open to root around inside. The latest from NYC’s White Hills blasts most contemporary attempts at psychedelic exploration with an elephant gun full of black hole shavings and solar flares. Everything about the massive, skulking, oddly groove-tastic double album seems hell-bent and screaming to break on through to…something. It’s hard to say just what White Hills are on about but the sputtering, enveloping torrent of their searching begs one to hop into a psychic kayak and make for the white water just around the bend. Only Julian Cope and Sunburned Hand of the Man are moving in this domain with the same excellence, and frankly neither has made an album as downright absorbing as H-p 1 in donkey’s years. White Hills have pinned down a real experience on this album, which rides high on the list of candidates for Bong Hit ‘n’ Headphone Album of the Year.

We asked White Hills guitarist Dave W. to puzzle over our five-pack o’ philosophizing.

Espresso & absinthe? Yum!

On the surface, early polar exploration doesn’t seem like prime material for a quietly moving modern song cycle but I’m Kingfisher swoops and dives at life in unique ways. This new solo incarnation for Sweden’s Thomas Jonsson is thoughtful but not somnambulant, inquisitive but rarely direct, ready to blame it on the boogie or credit the darkening of the sun to one’s failures but in the next breath putting everything into making a thankful, strong future, all the while the aural landscape shifts subtly, acoustic guitar the rudder but all manner of moods and textures touched upon.

Arctic, I’m Kingfisher’s tantalizing debut, travels from “Willing Night Plants” through “Deer Theatre” and a “Smile With Your 1000 Teeth,” winding up on a lost continent surrounded by foxes. It is a meditative, melancholy trek but one flecked with humor and oddly beveled poetry, a relative to Iron & Wine, Damien Jurado and most especially M. Ward – about whom Jonsson is “like an Iron Maiden and Tokio Hotel fan combined in one person.” The natural world and the inner world swirl their complexities in I’m Kingfisher, with leaves stealing one’s virginity and dreams becoming tangible on a clear day. It is, like all of Thomas Jonsson’s earlier work, worth simmering inside, where the true flavor and depth arrive with time.

We asked Thomas to ponder our lil’ philosophical exercise and here’s what he had to say.

off to the whale hunt!

While the Impound has never been to Manitoba – a Canadian prairie province according to the ever-wise Wikipedia – we get a sense of the place from When You Left The Fire, the humming, pastoral edged full-length debut from The Wilderness of Manitoba. There’s something remote and weathered and gently wild about the sounds inside this lovely grower of an album, which taps into quietude and quality thinking with a diviner’s wand, and then lets the well spring they’ve unearthed bubble up steady and slow.

Stefan Banjevic, Will Whitwham, Melissa Dalton, Scott Bouwmeester and Sean Lancaric generate music that’s warming but without totally dispelling the literal and figurative elements that knock at our windows and doors. There are surface similarities to Fleet Foxes and Midlake but their vocal arrangements suggest a more woodsy relative to the swinging pipe weaving of Lambert, Hendricks & Ross. Captured at remote house, often late in the evening, When You Left The Fire (arriving May 10 in U.S. on TinyOGRE) slots into our own shadow hours, where the clutter of the day falls away and world and mind come to a still place, managing to be uplifting and ruminative without ever resorting to bombast, its arguments and observations speaking volumes in a hush.

We asked the band to ponder our lil’ philosophical exercise and here’s what they brought to the table.

boldly going where others have gone before

There’s still a pervasive notion that rock ‘n’ roll isn’t a smart medium, and while dumbstick fun has its place, there are happy, brainy exceptions like Arbouretum, who are savvy enough to tap Carl Jung’s Red Book for inspiration for their latest album, the glorious, early Best of 2011 contender The Gathering (released February 15 on Thrill Jockey). What’s extra cool is how hard and heavy The Gathering brings it while throwing the band’s lyrical reach into heady notions of existence, identity and the nature of things. Dave Heumann (guitar, vocals), Corey Allender (bass), J.V. Brian Carey (drums) and Matthew Pierce stir up a grand, shaking racket without dumbing down the conversation, creating a song cycle that’s slow to give up all its intricacies but a pleasure to dig around in as one makes their way to the center.

We asked Dave Heumann to ponder our signature philosophical segment. We figure anyone hip to Jung is gonna be swell at our silly little musings!

pot cookies and a jam with Jerry!