2008-10 Vital Source Mag – October 2008
Grails
Some folks label the Portland, OR band Grails instrumental. I deem it ambient or Narada metal. The prolific (and I use this term with a large measure of chagrin) quartet’s 9th release this millennium, Doomsdayer’s Holiday, really is just more of the same, and all the more agonizing because of it. The seven songs within dabble in a few textures, but all of it just blows wind (literally, in many unfortunate instances) and is entirely forgettable. Many have come before Grails, and to much better results. There’s “doom” metal (just grubby blues licks) on “Reincarnation Blues” and “Predestination Blues.” Then there are the aforementioned wind samples, high-fret guitar chimes, and recycled “large room” percussion on the opening title track. The only creative touch or compelling moment of any kind comes at the very end, with the Pink Floyd-apeing “Acid Rain.” All of these songs are frustrating in their sheer lack of direction and overall dullness. Virtually everything here is pretentious: the artwork (perhaps an homage to Danzig: naked breasts, check; power animal, check; fog, check; ominous trees, check), the songwriting (with ho-hum musicianship at best) and the production (will Steve Albini get royalties?). I can best describe this (and in fact, their entire output) as merely different joints all rolled from the same bag of weed. Now, I must ask you … have you ever smoked eight-yearold weed?
Oct 1st, 2008 by Troy Butero
Visual Arts Picks
On Thursday, September 4, a video tribute dedicated to the victims of September 11, 2001 aired at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul. It prompted a visibly upset MSNBC commentator, Keith Olbermann, to apologize for its insensitivity. A week later, he was yanked as anchor for the November 4 election coverage. “Razor blades. Pocketknives. Scissors. Corkscrews. Nail clippers. Lighters. Match boxes. Innocent, everyday items, once routinely carried onto planes, took on different meanings after the events of September 11, 2001.” So reads a press release for Michele Pred: (dis) possessions, now through October 12 at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan. Pred’s materials? Personal items (yours, mine) confiscated at airport security checkpoints. A California artist who exhibits globally, her “Fear Culture” features red, white and blue Petri dishes, each containing a seized object. Assembled to resemble an American flag, it challenges the core of American freedom – rather than preaching, it informs in a minimalist manner. It’s a good fit with the October 5 lecture in the Lubar Auditorium at MAM. Listen (for free) to “Monument Men” survivor Harry Ettlinger, who helped rescue artistic and cultural items plundered by the Nazis during World War II. Prints in MAM’s Gallery 13, titled The First World War: Its Horror and Its Aftermath, will prod you forward to November 4. On October 10, the 2007 Mary Nohl Fellowship Award event debuts at inova/Kenilworth. Photographer Kevin Miyazaki’s Camp Home series records the Tule Lake Japanese internment camp where his father and his family were placed during World War II. And on Gallery Night, October 17 the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design’s Media Projects 2008 (curated by artist/ MIAD professor Jason S. Yi) includes the work of Bethany Springer, who explores place and its relationship to biology, terrorism, communication and security; at Dean Jensen Gallery, The Newspaper House unfolds. Peruse the newsy walls, inside and out, while considering the fragility of nature, and further, the fragility of life as the elections loom. Stop.look.listen: an exhibition of video works (from 14 global artists) starts October 23 at the Haggerty Museum of Art. Janet Biggs’ two-channel video installation (Predator and Prey, 2006) will air on huge plasma screens, similar to those displaying the 9-11 video at the Republican Convention. Images: past, present, and future. What is their role in shaping our perceptions in the year 2008 and beyond? VS
Oct 1st, 2008 by Stella Cretek
The Sea and Cake
The latest album from Chicago’s The Sea and Cake finds the band mid-lap on the race begun on last year’s Everybody, in which the jazzy, poppy, light post-rock was more ebullient than the band’s debut material in 1993. The mid-lap shows whether the participants are capable of following through. The Sea and Cake have produced a fluid group of songs, most likely because these are their most quickly-penned compositions to date. Last year’s album had an effervescence it might not have claimed without the four years between it and 2003’s One Bedroom. That lifts the burden of the element of surprise from Car Alarm, which takes much of its attitude from the less-than-ayear-old Everybody. Sam Prekop – more Chet Baker than Stephen Malkmus – builds on the momentum of the previous release, which reached for the roots of Nassau-esque jazzy-pop and abandoned the more electronic leanings of One Bedroom. What the band had abandoned at that point is what makes Car Alarm kick in. A noticeable element of urgency gives a spark to opener “Aerial,” with driving drums and strong but fuzzy guitars making way for hints of electronic noodling. A driving tempo and smooth, steady instrumentation is tailored for natural electronic inclusions in the run of the album. This occurs in the oxygenated “CMS Sequence” – one minute and eight seconds of straight-up electronica, and a genre precursor to “Weekend,” which mixes the jazz-pop and electronic flavors nicely. Think of Everybody and Car Alarm as participants in a relay race consisting of two people: the strong and steady starter followed by a substantial and sparkling finisher.
Oct 1st, 2008 by Erin Wolf
