playlist

So I’ve been giving Mariam, EW's high school job shadower, some assignments that I hoped would stoke her creativity and, more importantly, get her to relax at the keyboard and just write. One of those assignments was to write the lamest, shittiest, most clichéd album review ever. Then I thought I might as well join in on the fun and write up a crappy review myself. Decide for yourself whether either of us were successful by clicking HERE or reading below to see both of our reviews for Of Montreal’s Skeletal Lamping. Also, read to the very bottom for details on how to get Skeletal Lamping as a download for FREE!!! (Only one lucky winner, as this contest is merit-based, not a random drawing!)

For today's Playlist entry, EW's new arts intern Mariam Wahed reviews Brightblack Morning Light's Motion to Rejoin. In this week's issue, Jeremy Ohmes wrote a preview of the concert that is much more forgiving than Mariam's, but since she's under 21 her dismissal will have little impact on BBML's 21+ show at Sam Bond's on Oct. 8. In either case, here's another take on this album.

Brightblack Morning Light (a.k.a. Eternal Despair)
Busy looking for meaning in life? Your fruitless endeavors stop here.

Exhaustion. Suffocation. Death by heat and prolonged thirst — a miracle first granted only after a journey through all the states of depravity in between. They left me stranded in a vast desert, engulfed by taunting mounds — no, impenetrable walls — of sand. My lungs no longer make an effort to inhale. Organs collapse. I watch from afar as my body deflates and the empty skin casing melts like candle wax into the cracks of the keyboard …

Brightblack Morning Light is worse than Dracula. Song after mind-numbing song will suck all the life and energy out of the room before the final track savors its last, infinite second of demonic triumph. After ten minutes of begging the first track to end, I glance at my playlist only to find that I have already finished listening to the first half of the album.

Ahh, a sip of caffeinated beverage is the only ticket to revival (other than pressing pause and delete). I need to reawaken all the senses that the monotonous, flat sound of Motion to Rejoin has deadened. I feel like a huge lump of lead. I just want to crawl in a corner and hide from all the miserable images that this music evokes within me: nightmares of searing summer heat, segregation, broken glass, thugs hassling bums for a day’s worth of work, spare change and switchblades, heat waves broken by jalopies and an eternity of the Great Depression.

“Nobody wants oppression. You don’t need oppression.”

Well, Brightblack Morning Light, you might be right about that, but your new album is the worst state of mental oppression I have experienced since kindergarten English drills (imagine a five-year old German with no friends and no means of communication). — Mariam Wahed

Brightblack Morning Light and Warning Broken Machine play at 9 pm Wednesday, Oct. 8, at Sam Bond's. 21+. $6.

Despite being named after a town on the California-Mexico border, Calexico is based out of Tucson, Arizona. As such, they are privy to a wash of Latino culture amidst a sea of the pale-skinned Golfing Rich and leather-skinned East Coast expatriates. This culture clash sits at the base of Calexico’s music, where they can often be seen taking two parts SoCal alt-country and blues and adding a chaser of south-of-the-border mariachi kick. 2003’s Feast of Wire and especially 2004’s Convict Pool carried this tradition to epic heights. Then Calexico made an album with Iron & Wine (2005’s In the Reins) and lost all its guts. Their follow-up album Garden Ruin saw them trade their gusto for Iron & Wine-style acoustic spareness. It was a slight disappointment.

On Carried to Dust (released this month) Calexico still remain cooled off (if there are horns, they are jazzy and mournful like a trumpet busker on the street-lamp-lit corner of a dusty border town). But they have rediscovered their regional flavor. If In the Reins and Garden Ruin are All-American, Carried to Dust is a triumphant return to Tucson and the open and always-threatening Sonoran desert, where illegal immigrants aren’t the only ones risking life and limb. The album grows upon repeated listens.

Key Tracks
“Victor Jara’s Hands” – Soaring horns and a throbbing chorus. It’s a hit!
“El Gatillo” – A return to fast-tempo mariachi.
“House of Valparaiso” – For those who loooooved Garden Ruin.
“Contention City” – No Country for Old Men, in song form.

See Them Live
Calexico play at 9 pm this Saturday, Sept. 27, at the Crystal Ballroom in Portland. All ages. $16 + service charges. Tix can be purchased here.

Playlist is a feature where we write reviews of new albums we are listening to. The frequency of Playlist posts are entirely at the whims of those who write them.