Album Review: Electric Needle Room- It's Getting Personal

Electric Needle Room missed an opportunity to perpetrate a great hoax. 

Had the Kansas City band anonymously posted a few songs from the new album It's Getting Personal and claimed they were home recordings from Brian Wilson's lost years, disheveled material like "Please Don't Forget To Take Care of Yourself" and "We'll Make It" might have become internet sensations.  The endearingly amateurish lo-fi songs contain the sort of melodies and song structures associated with Pet Sounds. 

Other guileless Electric Needle Room songs bridge the divide between untrained anti-folk and geeky nerdcore hip-hop. "Maybe Not" is like a dismal rebuttal to the Flaming Lips' "Do You Realize."  "The Colic Song" resembles a Ben Folds Five outtake. 

While it's only going to appeal to listeners receptive to its unprocessed aesthetic, It's Getting Personal is a brave little record.


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I reviewed the Winter Jam festival and a Stone Sour concert last week.

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Stan Kessler is Plastic Sax's 2013 Person of the Year.

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"So long, it's been good to know you."  I never acquired a taste for the music of Pete Seeger.  Even so, the subversive "What Did You Learn In School?" and "Little Boxes" reflect my world view.  Here's my friend Dale W. on the Weavers- "These people were reviled in their time ... the biggest pop stars and a threat to the establishment that made Johnny Rotten look tame."  Amen, brother.  Seeger died last week.

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The Marr Sound Archives posted an essay about the late Anne Winter's donation to its collection.  (Via Mark Manning.)

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Kansas City's Mime Game has a video for the Evan Dando-esque "Do You". 

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The video for Matt Pryor's "Kinda Go to Pieces" is hilarious.  (Via I Heart Local Music.)

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"Fed Up" is the latest video from Kansas City rapper Beama.

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I don't know why I expected to be bored by Helen Sung's Anthem For a New Day.  It's tasteful but not tedious.  RIYL: Chick Corea, eclectic swing, Ingrid Jensen.

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I feel like a number.  Business Week examines the demographic mining that fuels the commercial aspirations of the revived Okeh label.

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Too True, the new album by the Dum Dum Girls, doesn't contain a single original idea.  I like it anyway.  RIYL: The Jesus and Mary Chain, unvarying formulas, Siouxsie And The Banshees.

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Metal Albums With Googly Eyes is genius.  (Via Mike Stover.)

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The ballyhooed electronic elements of Mogwai's Rave Tapes are fine, but it's really nothing to write home about.  RIYL: Loud new age music, Explosions In the Sky, sterility.

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Morgan Delt's self-released spot-on recreations of kaleidoscopic psychedelia were recently re-released.  RIYL: The Dukes of Stratosphear, paisley, Red Krayola.  

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I didn't smash a single thing as I auditioned Throwdown's Intolerance. RIYL: Cro-Mags, rage, Hatebreed.

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Curtis Harding's "Keep On Shining" is an advance track from his forthcoming Soul Power album.  RIYL: Aloe Blacc, the ghost of Curtis Mayfield, Charles Bradley.

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I was initially thrilled to discover Get the Blessing.  Yet I've decided that the band is less concerned with forging a new direction for jazz than with updating the Canterbury scene.  RIYL: Soft Machine, jazz that's not really jazz, Pink Floyd.

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I'll be spending a lot of time with Mutations, the forthcoming album by Vijay Iyer.

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The Hold Steady used to be my favorite rock band.  Here's a trailer for the band's forthcoming album.  (Fingers crossed.)

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Kansas City Click: My official picks are published here.

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)