The Figurines - The Wonder (Video)

Hey Everybody. Be sure to swing over to Pitchfork Media today and check out their interview with The Figurines. Remember you heard them at Cacophony and Coffee first!

Don't you wish your band could be state-sponsored as Cultural Ambassadors!

And enjoy this great video that mixes parts Un Chein Andalou and Michel Gondry. Classic!

Pitchfork Interview: The Figurines

Love Is All - Aging Had Never Been His Friend
Love Is All - Busy Doing Nothing

I'm not sure why we do it, but whenever a band comes from someplace other than our hometown, we feel the need to draw comparisons with that locale's major exports. Perhaps it's a holdover from Elementary School reports about some country and we'd just grab whatever we could from the Encyclopedia. (I wonder if that's different now that we have the internet?) Maybe after writing so many reviews and blogs about music, we latch onto anything that sets this band apart. I could see that being the case for mainstream magazines, and blogs where the music covered never strays too far from one genre, but I don't think we should be able to get away with that here at Cacophony and Coffee. If Patrick had made some link between Chicago's famous architecture and Dwayne Wade... or even worse, some far-fetched comparison with Mrs. O'Leary's cow, I would have called him on that shit. (Not in a public forum... but he'd know.)

Lots of great stuff comes out of Sweden like Volvos and Muppet Chefs and Gummi Fish candy and my family-name. Lots of reviewers mention these things whenever they're discussing a band from Sweden. If they're lucky, the band warrants an Abba comparison, and then the writer can call it a day.

But I have a genuine comparison. Love Is All is Ikea in reverse.

Ikea provides affordable (read: cheap) furniture for those of us who have a little taste and just a little money as well. Ikea looks pretty nice and well-designed, but that's all on the surface. Closer inspection (and the fact that you put it all together with hex-bolts and Allen wrenches) reveals that this not investible, classic furnishing; it's a cheaper simulation.

Love Is All give it to us backwards. The recording is lo-fi and full of warmth and good old overdrive distortion. But the "cheap" veneer does not immediately reveal the intricate layers or musical complexity LIA is putting down. Their debut full-length could have been recorded with all the sound perfectly mastered and balanced in the vein of Yngwie or countless Praise bands, but I'm sure I wouldn't be as into it. The lo-fi quality is far from a pandering-to-the-crowd maneuver akin to Smashing Pumpkins "indie debut" either. It's the proper production for these songs. (And I'm already curious to hear how further records will be produced as well as how LIA might sound live with "professional engineering.")

Love Is All profess a strong affinity for Eno-era Roxy Music and the comparison is apt. Beautifully written pop songs are given an airy, experimental, almost atmospheric treatment that remains tight, nearly claustrophobic at times. The brilliant melody remains intact but the typical pop song clichés are avoided by throwing in a dash of distortion and 'skronky' saxophones. (And, of course, the production itself.) Every chance to take a wrong turn is missed; every decision seems to be the right one. Love Is All has all the right stuff to be a perfect band: punk veracity, pop hooks and melodies, an avant-garde edge, and an exotic foreign origin.

Of course, if you read Pitchfork daily, you've probably been after this record since their glowing review when the record wasn't even available in the States. But those of you who aren't obsessed with being hip or don't have some time to kill at work on a computer to keep up with the latest, take a listen to Love Is All. It's definitely been one of my most-played in the weeks since we've on hiatus. Maybe it'll be one of yours too.

(Buy Love Is All Nine Times the Same Song at Amazon.)

Rah Bras - "Poisson"
Rah Bras - "Bus Stop"
Rah Bras - "The Fifth Allen"
Rah Bras - "Skin=Chronized"

One of the things I used to do in between bands at shows was try to count up all the shows I'd been to. I can still remember the show when I realized I could no longer count them up. I had started going to shows pretty regularly and I just lost track somewhere along the way. I remember the band playing was called fLUF and they were just about the worst thing I had ever heard. Maybe they aren't so bad, but I certainly never gave them a second chance. I stepped outside to the patio at Old World and started to mentally go over the shows I'd been too. (I think it was partly because some of the first shows I ever went to were at Old World and it put me in a contemplative mood.) I felt slightly proud of myself for getting out so much and by the time I was done reminiscing it was time to try and grab a spot close to the stage for the next band, Jawbreaker.

It's hard to narrow it down to a favorite show ever, but that came pretty close. Despite fLUF's awful contribution, I can remember the other opening was called Blacktop Special or something like that (not Blacktop Cadence) and they had a rootsy sound and garage bin lids for cymbals. Goddamn... Blacktop something or other. At any rate, flash forward a few years and I'm discussing memorable shows with a co-worker and he brings up his first show ever: Jawbreaker at Old World. I reply with the standard, no, really? But deep down inside I want to say, "Aha, bitch! That was the show when I couldn't count up how many shows I'd been to... condescending asshole." But I don't say a word about it.... instead I soak in my own self-gratification like one-man reach-around. And like Colbert said, "That's a difficult thing to do, but worth it." (About the one-man reach-around, mind you.)

But what even trumps Jawbreaker for me was the time I saw Rah Bras at Che Cafe. Che's at least an hour and half away from where I live, but sometimes, when the bands were important enough, my friends and I (or sometimes just me) would head down to the UCSD campus for some 'intimate live music.' Back then the Che was really chill and there weren't any Security or professional booking agents; volunteers ran it all and they did a phenomenal job. I never had or saw any trouble at the Che.

When the Rah Bras played at Che, The Locust opened (or headlined) so some of my 'other' friends were there too. See, Locust is hard enough to balance out the 'weird' for these folks. They were more interested in Zeke's favorite Taco Bell items than what time signature or vintage synth The Locust were using. So when these squares were actually impressed with the Rah Bras, I knew they had something special. (Rah Bras, that is.) I think my friends were most impressed with the band's closing number, a cover of Ginuine's "My Pony." Whether or not my friends knew it was a cover is unclear, but they did enjoy the ridiculous lyrics and the way the drummer acted out the song.

Most impressive for me was the fact that the Rah Bras could completely pull off their insanely arranged songs. The layered and strange sounds all made their way to the stage that night. It was like having their songs spelled out for you and you're still in utter disbelief. They made all that sound with their mouths, a bass, keyboard and drums? And even more phenomenal, the drummer recreates his off-kilter beats with the technical precision of a fine craftsman. He totally rocked "Poisson" live like you couldn't believe. To this day I have no idea what he was playing on "Water Damage," but he managed to reach down to the floor, pick up this washboard-type-thing, and give it one hit, put it back down, and never miss a beat. Now if you've been reading for a while, or know me, technical proficiency is not really all that important to me, but when you witness something this incredible being created in front of you, and when you are familiar enough with the work to recognize the complexity, well, you just can't forget something like that.

Rah Bras have been, since Concentrate to Listen to Rondo We Christen King Speed came out so many years ago, one of my favorite bands. And their newest album is almost good enough to make me drop the "one of." I've never been able to commit to a favorite band, but Rah Bras just may be it. (Now admitting this opens me up to a lot... what if you HATE this band? Can we still be friends?) Perhaps it's because Rah Bras manages to embody just about everything I love about art and music. Yes, they have the skills but they also have a ton of ideas. Yes, they have a sound but they manage to progress with each release. And while I don't like Ruy Blas as much as the earlier EPs, this makes me like the band even more. Who else would attempt to create some kind of Medieval Sex Jam record? There's all the art but none of the artifice (unless it's sort of silly.) The keyboardist/vocalist sold used bras after the show rather than merch. And she even gave consultations on the best size. I think I would have called it 'performance' if I knew what that was at the time.

After a good friend and I attempted to discern the lyrics from the bridge on "The Fifth Allen," we sent what we had figured out to the Rah Bras. They even wrote me back with the 'correct' lyrics, but said that they liked our version better, I doubt that I could explain any better than this series of sound bites and anecdotes, but their latest record which came out late 2005, Whohm, surpasses all the esteem I already held for this band.

Their early efforts always had an epic, operatic underscore to them that sometimes worked well with their bizarre post-rock arrangements and sometimes took to the forefront. Whohm finds the same grandiose sound and vision but with such a refined focus it thumps you in the chest. And I could be mistaken, but I believe this album introduces to the Rah Bras with the Blast Beat, which is more potent than that most brutal cacophony of all time from "Bus Stop." Yes the double bass pedal can be used effectively.... or shit; maybe this guy just hits one that fast. I honestly wouldn't be surprised. Rah Bras also make use of the almost as hard as the whammy bar to use well, the synth pitch bender. Have you heard a better riff in your life than "Skin=Chronized?" How about one with bended notes? Ever?

The rest of the album is just as mind-blowing. (Did I really just use mind-blowing?) The rest of the album continues along the trajectory set by "Skin=Chronized," the second track, and builds from there. Each song contains so many details that are easy to miss for the big hooks and grooves. The sound is even fuller as Rah Bras uses the production to near its full effect in capturing and creating a gale force of timbre, textures and textbook music terms. I don't know what time they're playing in most of the time, but I know I'd be hard pressed to ever write a song so difficult. Once in a music class I thought to myself, like the Beatles were groundbreaking in digging the foreign American blues records, maybe Rah Bras have records from Atlantis or some indigenous culture as yet undisturbed by the Western world.

I don't think you'll like Rah Bras as much as I do, but I do hope you'll find something you've never heard in there. And hey, you might be really into them like me and start your own blog. And the entire catalog is great as far as I'm concerned and you'd do well to find it all. (Though even I don't have the tour seven-inch with "Bus Stop" live in Japan.)

Here are the lyrics to that bridge from "The Fifth Allen:"

"When there's time / there's a place with poison gates / I bitterly eat the bars on my plate / And all those wires / They made my mouth all tired / An optical exception with an illusion of mire."

You can listen to "No Furture," "No Lime" and "As She Rah" on Whohm's MySpace.

(But Rah Bras Whohm at Amazon.)