It's been a pleasure and a privilege to share DNA with the drummer from Times New Viking this past week. The media blitz has made me a giddy fanboy and proud brother. Rip it Off will prolly garner a Metacritic rating over 90% as critics and bloggeratti alike lauded the album's pop virtues. It pains me that I can't take the time to review such an incredible step forward for the band, but I'm likely to be the slightest bit biased. Doug has an exhausting list of links to prove my point. Let me add one more from People with Animal Heads (an excellent daily read, btw), and while this is not exactly an article specifically regarding TNV, it's interesting nonetheless. There's really little for me left to say, and what I can and will say is strictly indie-rock Nostradamus-esque hyperbole -- like it or not Times New Viking are the harbingers of the Shitpop (edit: excuse me, Shitgaze) Revolution. And by Revolution I'm speaking of a giant cultural shift that 's about to take place, of which TNV's trademark sound will remain at the forefront. Believe it.I would however like to comment on my favorite song (at least in the present) "Relevant:Now," the mammoth (in Viking vernacular) mountain of fuzzy riffs and tortured strings (courtesy of C. Spencer Yeh) that ends side one. If you own the vinyl (trust me, it's worth owning) you'll notice it falls into a locked groove -- which potentially means this thirty-one minute record could go on forever if you want it to. Sure it's a novelty, but here it takes on new life as a chain between the trio's noble aesthetic experiments and their penchant to alchemize noise into pop. I've done a little trolling to find similar albums that contain the endless groove and so far have only found 2 -- Brian Eno's Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) and Lindsey Buckingham's oft-overlooked solo outing Go Insane. I'm sure there are plenty more, so I ask readers (all three of you) to help in my quest and here compile a list of any others you know of or find through freak accident.
8 comments:
Expressway to Yr. Skull on Evol by Sonic Youth has an awesome side-ending locked groove.
I guess the "obvious" one is Sweet Lou's Metal Machine Music. Also, the groove at the end of the B-side of Spoon's "Someone Something" single on Merge is locked . . . if I remember right it becomes a drum/bass groove with a backwards "oh" repeated. Both of those are "final side" locked grooves (I really dig TNV's locked a-side).
That's all I can remember off the top of my head.
Incidentally, I posted my stammering Rip It Off appreciation piece tonight (www.nextbestrecords.com/blog).
tyvek side of the cheveu split 7", first song on the LA Drugs one-sided LP, the last song on the first side of Slicing Grandpa's 'electric shitstorm' lp
sgt. pepper's ends with inaudible noises that are supposed to be irritating to dogs followed by a lockgroove of sped-up beatles voices
sonic youth also put a locked groove on evol, forget which side
sonic youth also have one on evol, forget which side.
V.3 "Launchpad Explosion" at the end of side 3 I think. You really don't realize it's a lock-in until about 2 minutes of it go by.
Hey my friend... where can i find the new record here in NY? I wanna buy it so bad! Miss you guys.
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