Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Blaqstarr - The Divine EP

Album Review
SPIN
March 2011
Link 
8/10



Cover Art: DJ Blaqstarr, 'The Divine EP'

Bluntly moving booties and slyly haunting boudoirs

Charles "Blaqstarr" Smith is still the insular Baltimore club scene's best crossover hope. The ghostly, layered repetition and subwoofer thump of the DJ/producer's 2007 Supastarr EP still remain after a jump to M.I.A.'s label (he also contributed substantially to her last two albums). But on this follow-up, Blaqstarr artfully chops and manipulates his own vocals -- a soulful rasp, an Auto-Tuned robot cry -- while integrating more organic instrumentation that owes a debt to indie aesthetics. Eerie, empty spaces and guitars that range from bluesy acoustic to jet-engine distorted help transform The Divine EP into a mesmerizing, nuanced seduction.

New House Bill Seeks Full Dodd-Frank Repeal

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January 18, 2011
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SEC Changes Course, Allows Vote on Parachute Proposal

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January 18, 2011
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Directors Can’t Choose Lawsuit Venue, Judge Rules

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January 18, 2011
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AMD Board Ousts CEO Over Strategic Concerns

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January 18, 2011
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FDIC Expands Probe Against Directors

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J&J Directors Sued for Missing ‘Red Flags’

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January 10, 2011
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Alcatel-Lucent to Pay $137 Million in FCPA Settlement

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January 10, 2011
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Study Suggests CEOs Influence CFOs in Accounting Fraud

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January 10, 2011
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Consolidation Among Proxy Advisors

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January 10, 2011
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Have CEOs Become Permanently Risk-Averse?

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January 10, 2011
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SEC Lags on Dodd-Frank To-Do List

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January 10, 2011
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Bailout Rules Force Unique Clawback

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January 10, 2011
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Regulators to Propose Bank Pay Rules in Jan.: Source

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January 3, 2011
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Time Management Leads Marty Lipton’s Docket for Boards in 2011

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January 3, 2011
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MetLife Shifts Pay Guidelines to Avoid Buffett Comparison

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January 3, 2010
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Discover Cuts Executive Salaries, Links Pay to Benchmarks

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January 3, 2010
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Thursday, January 6, 2011

CFCF - The River EP

Album Review
Pitchfork
January 6, 2011
Link
6.8


The River EP











Mike Silver has left the bedroom and is now running up that South American hill. After an underrated 2009 debut LP of mostly instrumental electro-pop, Continent, followed by last year's slightly more scattershot Drifts remix EP, the Montreal producer known as CFCF takes inspiration for his latest from Fitzcarraldo, a 1982 Werner Herzog film about an Irish rubber baron who wants to build an opera in the Peruvian jungle-- but first must haul a riverboat up a small mountain. In keeping with its source, The River EP is cinematic, slow-paced, and more organic-sounding than previous CFCF releases, almost a mini-soundtrack in its own right.

There are still moments of remarkable beauty here, but you have to wade a little bit deeper to find them. The River is at its best when its productions feel most contemporary. See "Frozen Forest", with its Fever Ray-frosty synths, José González-hued acoustic guitar, and R&B slow-jam breakbeats. Another standout is the six-and-half-minute title track, all panpipe-like synths and urgent tribal pounding until a sudden, exhilarating crescendo that might evoke the image of Fitzcarraldo's vessel finally cresting-- and tumbling-- over the hillside. Elsewhere, the EP's more directly nostalgic tracks, whether the krautrock chorale of "Upon the Hill" (which distinctly recalls Popol Vuh's soundtrack for Herzog's film) or the opening and closing ambient synth pieces, are no less elegant and foreboding, though they do tend to drag. For whatever it's worth, you won't find any of the movie's signature Caruso arias.

Like Fitzcarraldo itself, The River EP isn't a perfect, unified statement. The digital bonus version (included with vinyl purchases) swells to more than 50 minutes-- longer than many albums-- and includes two epic "Frozen Forest" remixes. Luckily, both Brooklyn producer/DJ Jacques Renault's no-guitars house rework and UK Balearic duo Coyote's elastic scrawl are rewarding enough in isolation. A catchy, concise remix of hypnotic ambient trip "It Was Never Meant to Be This Way" by Games, the duo of Oneohtrix Point Never's Daniel Lopatin and Tiger City's Joel Ford, similarly amps up the dancefloor potential. On the other hand, a big part of Fitzcarraldo's appeal is that its director was as mad as its protagonist, filming his story on location and without special effects. "It's a land which God, if he exists, has created in anger," Herzog would later say. CFCF has wrought a fine and auspicious record about that land, but something is missing; you can't hear the place itself. In more ways than one, The River EP seems like a transitional effort.

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

ceo - Halo (Beyoncé cover)

Track Review
Pitchfork
January 4, 2011

Link

"Halo" (Beyoncé cover)












BeyoncĂ©'s I Am... Sasha Fierce smash "Halo" has already lived a startling number of lives. Co-written by Ryan Tedder of Leona Lewis' "Bleeding Love" fame, this heavenly power ballad almost went to Lewis instead, as Tedder himself has acknowledged; Kelly Clarkson once complained Tedder gave her the same arrangement for her own "Already Gone". In addition to Mrs. Jay-Z's Grammy-winning original, BeyoncĂ© has sung "Halo" as a Michael Jackson tribute and, with Coldplay's Chris Martin on piano, as a Haiti tribute. The cast of "Glee" blended "Halo" with Katrina and the Waves' "Walking on Sunshine", Florence and the Machine remade it as a soulful belter, and Major Lazer transformed it into a deliriously weird dancehall hybrid.
Still, no cover of "Halo" has been quite as inspired-- or as perversely logical-- as this wonderfully over-the-top take by ceo, aka Eric Berglund, aka one-half of Swedish agit-pop duo the Tough Alliance. Swapping Sasha Fierce's staid piano and trance-y synths for Spanish-flavored acoustic guitar, 1980s-TV-theme electric guitar, bumpy beats, strings, and even horns, Berglund builds on the original's all-encompassing surge, enunciating the lover-as-salvation lyrics with the same wide-eyed sincerity his former group brought to covers like "Lucky", "Mine Was Real", and "Velocity Boy". A heavily manipulated rapped outro reminiscent of Salem adds an appropriately swaggering conclusion: "We have never been cheap, we give it all."

Monday, January 3, 2011

Smith Westerns - Dye It Blonde

Album Review
SPIN
January/February 2011
Link 
9/10


Cover Art: Smith Westerns, 'Dye It Blonde'








Spirited Teens

Windy City upstarts set their wide eyes on the stars

It's time to stop calling Smith Westerns garage rockers. On their self-titled debut, the Chicago foursome mashed Nuggets scruff and T. Rex/Bowie stomp into some pretty immaculate songs, usually about girls and/or dreams. They also nicked their cover art from Nirvana's Nevermind. These kids dreamed big.

For the follow-up, the band recorded in a real New York City studio, with a real producer, Chris Coady (Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Beach House). And the songs are even better. They're still usually about girls and/or dreams. But Smith Westerns no longer rehash niche genres -- unless early Oasis or Double Fantasy-era John Lennon count as niches. Adding considerable production gloss, they worship their heroes the most devout way possible -- by trying to top them.

"Is this fantasy?" wonders frontman Cullen Omori. "Or am I just lucky?" Whatever. Dye It Blonde should be the kind of smash not heard in the City by the Lake since Fall Out Boy, if not the Pumpkins. With searing guitars, swooning keyboards, and airy, not-that-innocent vocals, Smith Westerns unabashedly "want you to feel what it's like to be loved with all your might" ("Only One"). Their weekends suck when you're not here ("Weekend"). They're comfortable going a little bit disco ("Dance Away") and don't blink at acoustic breakdowns ("Smile"). When Omori slips in coy lyrical self-references, he's not running out of inspiration; he's creating the band's own mythology.

Tennis - Cape Dory

Album Review
SPIN
January/February 2011
Link 
8/10


Cover Art: Tennis, 'Cape Dory'








Tide is high for sprightly couple's bon voyage

The Mile High City isn't the first place you look for sweetly fuzzed beach pop. But with a handful of vinyl- and cassette-only tracks last year, Denver's Alaina Moore and Patrick Riley proved to be masterfully quick students of the genre. Though titled after the husband-and-wife duo's well-traveled sailboat, their debut cruises along due to its swaying girl-group songcraft, with Moore as the elegantly serenading siren. Cape Dory establishes an enviable fantasy: two lovers happily adrift. Where Best Coast is too cool for school, Tennis seem (almost) too good to be true.

GM CEO Calls for Looser Pay Restrictions

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December 20, 2010
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Companies, Investors Debate Say-on-Pay Fine Print

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Morgan Stanley Readies Pay Cuts: Sources

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COSO Risk Oversight Surveys Reveal Need for Improvement

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