Slipped Discs - Discs You May Have Missed by John Noyd

Pavement

Brighten the Corners: Nicene Creedence Edition
Record Label: Matador Records
Review published: December 2008

Shaggy, lop-sided fastballs sketch slacker social history as, “Brighten,” boasts goofy insights from smartass punks who bop, stomp, tattle and taunt over snakey guitar, pogo bass and loose-limbed drums.  Fortified by singles, b-sides, out-takes and radio performances, Pavement’s fourth is now a delicious double-disc documentary illuminating the band’s late-nineties indie-rock genius.

David Byrne & Brian Eno

Everything That Will Happen Happens Today
Record Label: Todo Mundo Records
Review published: December 2008

Wide-eyed enlightenment, the blissed-out innocence of “Everything,” is calmly counter-balanced by ominous undercurrents, finicky mysteries playing among Afro-pop guitars, country and western acoustics and extraterrestrial playfulness. Eno’s studio synergy dances alongside Byrne’s Pentecostal allegories for strangely familiar worlds, sweetly creepy treats plucked from glittering, ocean forests.

Cale Parks

Sparklace
Record Label: Polyvinyl Records
Review published: December 2008

Aloha percussionist’s sophomore solo sojourn percolates processed pandemonium, chilling robo-rhythms into spacey sambas, molding twilight techno from fleeting sequences. Seething and seizing in fitful digital sonambulism, Parks’ cascading cacophony cultivates sonic stampedes, a cavalry of cyber-tribal consciousness. “Sparklace,” floats in a sea of whispered suggestions, pulsating messages projecting a drowsy virtual after-life of programmed transcendence.

All The Saints

Fire on Corridor X
Record Label: Touch and Go Records
Review published: December 2008

Tunneling thunder, “Fire,” blazes into vapors, eclipsing itself in devouring sounds and molten machinery. Muttering prophecies washed in fiery take-offs and soft landings, ALS fearlessly steers from heavy to haunting – astral druid choirs subsiding in cathartic blankets of ghostly tones taking left-hand turns into crashing vibrato and moaning tremolo.

Fireman

Electric Arguments
Record Label: MPL/ATO Records
Review published: December 2008

Thirteen tracks recorded in thirteen days, experimental joyrides juggle genres in Paul McCartney and Youth’s third collaboration. Reversing TF’s previously faceless techno-ambient stance, “Electric,” is in your face naked hopes and determined demons. Shooting from the hip, the duo produces unglued blues, truly beautiful ballads, country minstrel wisdom, flower-power raves and unabashed busker’s boogie.