Vinyl Floor is a self-described 3-piece rock/pop band from Copenhagen, Denmark. Vinyl Floor and its record company Karmanian Records is composed of Daniel Pedersen, Rasmus Bruun, and Thomas Charlie Pedersen. Their second album, Peninsula, is scheduled for release on February 20th.

Peninsula is a bit of a concept album playing with the notions of utopias and dystopias. In the notes accompanying the complementary copy we received, the first six songs represent the “Utopia” A-side and the second set represents the “Dystopia” B-side of the album. In blending the two sides, some of the songs feature parallel stylings and lyrics to tie the album together into a unified whole.

Upon my first listen of Peninsula, I felt perhaps the album was a bit out of my comfort zone. While the band’s Facebook fanpage lists their genre as pop/rock/alternative, a space I usually embrace, the album sounded more like the classic rock or guitar rock genre. As a side note, I have been playing a lot of Rock Band lately and have been immersed in the rock anthems and power ballads of REO Speedwagon, Journey, and Damn Yankees. Perhaps my preliminary listening sessions with Peninsula were tainted by my Rock Band hangover? So I checked out some early reviews of the album, and my music reviewing colleagues squarely designated Vinyl Floor’s influences as The Cure and Coldplay.

The Cure? Coldplay?

On a hunch, I typed in the name of the band into Last.fm and the online music service popped up a single from Vinyl Floor’s previous release. I was a little surprised and checked the biography section which stated the band has “its roots primarily in the melodic and energetic 60s and likewise in the edgy rock of the 90s.” Ok, but I was still a bit puzzled. I wasn’t hearing these influences distinctly at all. So I went back to my notes and then back in for a few more listening sessions with the album.

Overall, I place the band’s sound as reminiscent to the guitar rock of the 1970s and 80s, so really somewhere between the 60s and 90s. Some songs strikingly recall bands like Electric Light Orchestra, The Scorpions, or even Styx. Considering the differences among these influences, perhaps Vinyl Floor’s sound is a little difficult to pinpoint.

Peninsula’s opening track, “Frames and Orchids” highlights a classic rock arrangement of electric guitars and violins. The instrumental is actually quite pretty, moving from a soft mellow melody to an edgier bridge. It has gusto, it has choral chanting, it has a similarity to 80s inspired rock ballads. It’s a great prelude to the album, hinting at the types of music we’ll hear throughout the rest of the album.

There are some standout songs on the album, but the reasons they stand out vary. “Ghost of England,” for example, features guitars and violins, but also horns and piano, and the whole melodic ensemble works to create the nostalgic mood set forth by the lyrics which long for an idealized England (“sitting in an English garden”) which is no more. The piano evokes to create that early 70s style in the song, and maybe here Vinyl Floor is influenced by the 90s rock style of a pianist like Ben Folds. The piano is hard at work again on the track “In the Air” (from the Dystopia B-side of the album). I imagined that if Ben Folds were to form a Danish guitar rock band, it might sound like this song. The lyrics, while not nearly so arch as clever as Folds’, do meditate on themes of lost love and nostalgia.

Peninsula is clearly a guitarist’s album, and the guitar-driven songs are the best gems on the album. The symphonic inclusion of classical strings and piano is a brilliant strategy in arrangement. The weakest part of Peninsula and perhaps of Vinyl Floor in general is the vocals. While the whole album has a guitar rock or hard rock vibe hailing from the 70s and 80s, the effect isn’t complete without a vocalist who can hit the higher ranges of notes necessary on the slow “power ballad” songs and even offer up some pitchiness to complement the edgier guitar playing found on tracks like “What Lies Ahead” and “Force You Through,” the latter of which verges a bit on thrash rock. In addition to range, the vocalist’s actual articulation of the lyrics is a bit fuzzy, and the words get lost in the sandy raspishness of his vocals on tracks like “Car in the Sky” and “Diverging Paths” which depend on strong vocals to succeed. The overall effect is an almost flattening of the songs which do feature spirit-raising guitar playing, but cannot be totally saved by a vocalist who is overextended.

Despite the weaknesses of the album, I think the band itself is a strong messenger of the rock/pop scene in Denmark. The experience of listening to and researching Peninsula has led me to a quick dip in the Danish rock scene seas and Vinyl Floor is a fine ambassador of what I have been hearing. The blending of genres, the wistful arrangements, the stirring guitar solos are all part of the fun in rock music that seems to be happening in Denmark as well as in its neighboring Scandinavian countries.

Artist: Vinyl Floor

Album: Peninsula

Label: Karmanian

Date: February 20, 2012

© 2012, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

When I first heard “Somebody That I Used to Know” six months ago, I fell in love with the track. I had to know everything about the artist Gotye and his past musical accomplishments. There wasn’t much for me to discover at the time, but his third and most recent studio release, Making Mirrors, is taking off in the US. Every day, I am seeing something on TV about Gotye that probably has placed the artist out of the independent arena of this website in record time. (And apparently a YouTube video of “Somebody That I Used to Know” featuring ten hands on a guitar was a quirky fan favorite on The Today Show.)

Gotye is actually Belgian-Australian Wouter “Wally” De Backer, a passionate musician who spent much of his young career experimenting with vocals, synthesizers, percussion – largely what we would consider DJ music, but not so much in the style of Moby or Fatboy Slim, but more in line with Girl Talk and The Orb. That European electronica influence is an essential part of his first two albums, Boardface and Like Drawing Blood.

But Gotye has changed up his formula for Making Mirrors, which features a lot more of his own vocals on songs that seem much more raw and personal to the artist. The new album is a departure from the heavily stylized previous albums; the tracks feature a lot more of his own rough vocals and cut back on the sampling and his hallmark DJ mixing.

The stripped-down approach works well on a track like “Giving Me a Chance.” Here, the principle of ‘less is more’ works: the vocals are highlighted and supported by instrumentation and the lyrics are simple and sincere. It all works well together. But it’s too short. “Easy Way Out” is another good track. It’s upbeat with a variety of instrumentation, and overall, it’s catchy. The cheeky vocals equally contribute to the fun: “Seventeen seconds and I’m over it” is the opening line. But again, these gems are too short.

His back-to-basic take on this album may make the themes more accessible to listeners, especially on a track like “I Feel Better” which is like a 1970s rock devotional. Such a genre is suited to rocky relationships and troubled romance. “Eye Wide Open” blasts a bigger sound. It’s more of an anthem with its bold vocals and ‘wide open’ beats. “We walk the plank with our eyes wide open,” croons de Backer with a rhythm reminiscent of 1980s Steve Perry songs.

Again, relationships figure as matters of life and death for Gotye, full of strife, and near-survival. They are pessimistic, but with a glimmer of hope. “Somebody That I Used to Know” (featuring Australian female vocalist Kimbra) is the centerpiece these themes and of the album.

The latter half of the album falls apart for me. “State of the Art” might recall his DJ roots, in a mid-80s kind of low-fi way, but it’s boring. “Save Me” is overdone with an overstrained voice, and “Bronte” is forgettable.

Compared to his previous albums, this album is a bit rough, jumbled, and on the whole not as slick and smooth as his previous albums. Like Drawing Blood, for example, was a much more unified offering of Gotye’s talents. It better showcased his voice, his rhythms, his sampling, and his electronica experiments. And it’s a better dance album to boot. At the risk of blaspheming, I liked it better than any of my Thievery Corporation or The Orb albums.

It’s not that I don’t appreciate Gotye’s willingness to try something a little more low key, but his voice sounds strained and the experimental tracks sound cliched and forced. While it works on the song “Somebody That I Used to Know,” it fails to make an impact in other tracks.

Like Drawing Blood and Boardface are likable upon a first listen. The influences of ska, tribal infusions, and electronica are better blended and better matched with Gotye’s smooth vocals and easy lyrics. If you are new to Gotye, then Like Drawing Blood is the album to purchase without regret. But Making Mirrors is an acquired taste. Still, there is no denying “Somebody That I Used to Know” is an infectious track.

Gotye’s Making Mirrors  (Eleven) was released in the US on January 31, 2012.

© 2012, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

Looking for the next Arcade Fire?

It seems like every band is hoping to be the next Arcade Fire or Fleet Foxes or Bon Iver. I imagine the DJs at all the public radio stations receive hundreds of music files upon the hour every hour, and in some ways I both envy and do not envy the task of giving them all a listen to find that band which is both talented and original, and not an imitation of a current fan favorite. It would seem that the DJs have stumbled upon a band from Iceland called Of Monsters and Men who may be the next darlings of independent music for their charming vocals, enchanted lyrics, and subtly layered instruments.

When I think of music in Iceland, I think of Bjork and the Sugarcubes. I still like listening to old Sugarcubes tunes — they still seem fresh and dynamic, whimsical and crazy, mixing the masculine and feminine to create a culture that all their own. I guess I expect a band from Iceland to somehow pay homage to their famous predecessors, to build upon that legacy. Of Monsters and Men, despite a band whose very name evokes William Blake-like tones of mythology, morality, and inescapable duality, really doesn’t sound like The Sugarcubes at all.

In fact, they kinda sound like Arcade Fire.

Maybe even more like Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros.

And personally, I hear a lot of The XX, Kate Nash, and Mumford and Sons, too. Maybe even some of The Decemberists, lyrically, but I could just be biased there.

Of Monsters and Men has a sweet success story, too. They won the Icelandic version of Battle of the Bands, the Músiktilraunir, something that not even the Sugarcubes won (though to be fair, I have no idea if they even competed in it). Their song “Little Talks” became a top ten hit in Iceland and is now receiving recognition and airplay on the public radio stations on this side of the Atlantic.

It’s no surprise. “Little Talks” is a catchy song, leaving the listener feeling good and perhaps a little more upbeat by the end. It’s this song that leads me to think that anyone who loves the catchy rhythms and happy narrative lyrics of the now ubiquitous Edward Sharpe tune “Home” would certainly want to give Of Monsters and Men a listen. I was charmed by the comingling vocals of lead singers Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir and Ragnar Þórhallsson, the atmospheric sounds of a creaky abode on the swirling seas, and the affirmative chants of the six-member band acting as a chorus. I think it was this latter part, a repeated device used in a handful of their songs, that reminded me of Arcade Fire.

Their full-length debut album My Head Is an Animal is set to release early this year. (It was released in Iceland on September 20th, 2011 on the Record Records label.)  I’m happy to report that the rest of the album holds up to the enchanting “Little Talks.” Many of their songs feature animals and mythical encounters in magical woods. Animals talk, supernatural events haunt, and legends gain life in their tales. But the stories in the songs never replace the instrumentation and the lyrics, the vocals, and the band working evenly together to create an impressive collection of songs.

The band has been falling into that Indie-Folk category, for traits such as twangy guitars, lazily buzzing accordions, and a mix of new folk rhythms and old folk traditions. “King and Lionheart” features all of these elements plus the wonderful story “singing” of Nanna and Ragnar — almost like a call-and-response style of duet. This is where I hear the XX influence: Ragnar’s vocals are especially reminiscent of the XX. Also, the slow build up of the song is similar: it starts with the dual vocals and slowly the band’s instruments build into a crescendo of sound.

I personally love these new big folk-rock bands with all the variety of vocals and instruments coming together-instruments we haven’t seen in popular music in some time. Of Monsters and Men draws on native sounds and experiments with new rhythms. Truly, the songs on My Head Is an Animal are carefully crafted compositions, like canvases exploding with magnificent color and patterns.

On the whole, the album is Romantic with a capital R. And I do think they are similar to their approach in songwriting to The Decemberists. Like Colin Meloy, Nanna and Ragnar read stories that inspire their own songwriting. This was Meloy’s approach in writing The Crane Wife and The Hazards of Love. And like the songs on these albums, Of Monsters and Men takes bits of fable and folklore to create their own mythology in their songs. The whimsical sound combines with simple, childlike metaphors which explore the worlds of death, ghosts, ships, houses… all in lyrics which are fantastical, even nonsensical, yet infectious with their layered melodies and choral enthusiasm.

© 2012, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

Recommended Labor Day Reading: Studs Terkel’s Working

Recommended Labor Day Viewing: John Sayles’ Matewan, City of Hope, or Sunshine State

Recommended Labor Day Listening: Hmmm . . .

Labor Day music playlists have been compiled before, and disappointingly they always feature the same stock tunes (Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5,” Bachman Turner Overdrive’s “Taking Care of Business,” Huey Lewis and the News’ “Working for a Living”). We at the Indie Mine have our own take on the Labor Day playlist. And for a unique spin, we’ve categorized our list to provide a more eclectic selection for your Labor Day turntable.

Indie Mining Town

Whether in West Virginia or Chile, miners’ lives have always been difficult, inside and outside of the mine. More than just soot and grime and Loretta Lynn tunes, mining life is one of blood, sweat, and tears, taking a toll on everybody and everything around it, including the land. Few musicians have highlighted those plights as well as Billy Joel in “Allentown” and Midnight Oil in “Blue Sky Mine,” but there is a brand new gem we’ll be spinning in the Indie Mine this weekend.

“Rox in the Box“ from The Decemberists’ most recent album The King Is Dead, exhibits classic Americana folk rhythms, acoustic guitar, and short, sharp lyrics that recall Wilco and Springsteen. Colin Meloy has always written songs about odd occupations, so it’s not unusual that he chose the miner’s life, but I am surprised at how well this song works. Borrowing the rhythms of early jigs, “Rox in the Box” keeps your foot tapping even while the perfectly rhyming lyrics make your soul a little weepy.

Also on our list: Tennessee Ernie Ford’s classic “Sixteen Tons” with its refrain, “Sixteen tons, what do you get? / Another day older and deeper in debt,” is a maxim that even the modern day office worker can understand. For a more modern twist, check out The Eels live version. Tom Waits’ version of the Disney classic tune “Heigh-Ho”  features ambient machinery noises and Waits’ gritty voice echoing the mantra, “Dig, dig, dig.” You won’t find any whistling in this mine.

Blue Collar Life, After Five

Tom Waits captures the bittersweet life of an industrial town on the decline in many of their early songs. Tom Waits has hardly strayed from his melodies about the drunken misfits and beautiful wrecks of society. Without sentiment or woe, Waits’ “Heart of Saturday Night“ and “I Can’t Wait to Get Off Work“ capture the small joy of working your way through the week so you can shine, however softly, on a Saturday night at your favorite watering hole. 

Surly Workers

This section features all remakes of classic working songs. While Bob Dylan’s “(I Ain’t Gonna Work on ) Maggie’s Farm” often makes the Labor Day Top Ten, I prefer the U2 version of this song. Performed live in several locations in the mid-1980s, Bono’s earthy anger and righteous indignation shines through in this arrangement. John Lennon’s “Working Class Hero” also makes the list, but it is Marianne Faithfull’s “Working Class Hero” which is most remembered by music connoisseurs. Her raspy vocals coupled with synthesizers give this version a tad more gravity than Lennon’s. Finally, “Moonshiner” is a classic Americana tune recorded by many artists, but Uncle Tupelo’s live version that stands out for me. The life of a moonshiner is full of broken dreams and wobbly barstools, simple wants and unfulfilled desires: “And the whole world is a bottle, and life is but a dram./ When the bottle gets empty, well, it sure ain’t worth a damn.”

Westward Ho!

There are a number of folk songs which highlight largely solitary jobs, like truckers and drivers. I guess what’s nice about these songs, while their melodies are mellow, the narrators experience exuberant joy in their travels. These tunes are quietly happy in their feel-good attitude, as the drivers steadily move towards home. We recommend Son Volt’s “Windfall” and Old Crow Medicine Show’s “Wagon Wheel,” both about truckers rolling through the Carolinas.

Also on our list: Glen Campbell’s “Wichita Lineman”: listening to Glen Campbell croon about the “singing in the wires” will make anyone nostalgic for AM radio. The Decemberists’ “The Engine Driver” somehow connects the lives of engine drivers, linemen, and writers.

Let’s Make Lots of Money

In the decade that gave us Gordon Gecko, it also gave us quite a few songs about making money. Lots of money. My particular favorite for its cool British style is Pet Shop Boys’ “Opportunities” with its unabashedly decadent refrain “Let’s make lots of money.”

Also on our list: Mick Jagger’s feel-good anthem “Let’s Work” and Dire Straits “Money for Nothing.”

Military Life

While there are probably more than enough country ballads about soldier’s lives, we prefer a less literal approach to military life at The Indie Mine. Metaphorically, Elvis Costello’s “Oliver’s Army” offers a great cynical approach to the genre. And The Decemberists’ “Legionnaire’s Lament,” about a desert-marooned legionnaire, is just a fun, quirky tune. But nothing combines the pathos and hypnotic rhythm as well as the alternate universe of The Flaming Lips’ “Yoshima Battles the Pink Robots (Part One).” Narrating the tale of one girl in all the world who can fight evil, Wayne Coyne sings, “She’s got to be strong to fight them/ so she’s taking lots of vitamins, / ‘Cause she knows that / it’d be tragic/ if those evil robots win.” Destiny’s a bitch.

Service Industry

One of my favorite summertime songs is Warren Zevon’s cover of Prince’s “Raspberry Beret” about a guy “working part-time at the Five & Dime” when salvation breezes through the store. The startling vocals of Zevon gives this pop song makes a rockin’ edge.  

The service industry is not so redeeming in Live’s “Waitress” and Belle & Sebastian’s “Dear Catastrophe Waitress.” Both of these female workers face ungrateful customers, soda cans in the head, and a severe lack of tips. But as the Live song pleads, everybody deserves some frakkin’ change.

The Daily Grind

No one illustrates the daily grind as well as The Bangles do in “Manic Monday.” Written by Prince, this late 80s song captures the spirit of a Monday morning which seems more melancholy than manic. Droning alarm clocks, rainy skies, crowded trains … I’m glad my days aren’t like these. Ditto for Hard-Fi’s “Cash Machine.” Living paycheck to paycheck? Always spending more than you’re saving? Well, at least it’s got a great dance beat. RJD2’s “Work” is not so lyrically depressing, but the arrangement creates the mood. “Work” uses blues instrumentation, drum machines, and a lot of reverb to create the impression of exhaustion.

As a non-comics person, I love Crash Test Dummies’ “Superman’s Song” about the Man of Steel. There’s nothing colorful about an illegal alien working the double-shift with little reward or vacation time. The comparisons to Tarzan provide a great foil. Unlike that guy who hangs out with chimps in trees, Superman needs to stimulate his brain. This song highlights that the life of a superhero can be a real drag, but a real superhero doesn’t complain.

White Collar Boy

When we think of songs about traditional white collar jobs we can’t leave out The Kinks “A Well Respected Man” and The Beatles “Taxman.” But it’s easy to poke fun at these conservative stereotypes. We prefer a modern day take on the white collar employee. Jonathan Coulton’s “Code Monkey” is what we recommend for your Labor Day playlist. I’m hard-pressed to think of another song about an applications programmer. And while it features the expected tokens of Mountain Dew and Fritos, it also features some developer smack-talk: “Maybe manager wanna write goddam login page himself. ” Of course code monkey not say it aloud. Even while he delineates the boring aspects of the software industry, Coulton reminds us that we can find the joys in the office that make the work day a little more bearable.

Also on our list: Belle & Sebastian’s “Step Into My Office, Baby”

Showbiz Kids

Being famous isn’t always an easy gig, as David Bowie’s “Ziggy Stardust” can attest to. The ballad of an ego-tripping rock star reveals the highs and lows of the glamrock life. Turns out that it’s work, especially if you are a Spider from Mars.

Also on our list: Glen Campbell’s “Rhinestone Cowboy” and Billy Joel’s “The Entertainer.” Joel’s song offes an astute depiction of the manacled musician: “If you wanna have a hit, you gotta make it quick, so they cut it down to 3-0-5.”

Some other songs for the Labor Day playlist:

David Bowie’s “DJ.” I think this is the musical response to Ziggy Stardust: a song about the lonely DJ who spins the music of others instead of making his own. Unlike the frenetic “Ziggy,” the “DJ” is more strung out with synthesizers, dragging at places, jaunty in others.

The Beatles’ “Paperback Writer.” Classic.

Belle and Sebastian’s “Piazza, New York Catcher.” While this song is more of an homage to the 1960s and the mythology of baseball, it has one of the greatest lines about how we conflate our lives with our jobs: “Life outside the diamond is a wrench.” Sometimes work is the easy part and the rest of life is the difficult part.

Amy MacDonald’s “Footballer’s Wife.” MacDonald’s song confronts reality TV shows like The Real Housewives, revealing that these women do not experience the “struggles and strife” they think they do.

© 2011, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

Brandon and I have both started reading The Hunger Games series together and thought we would provide our unique insights in companionate reviews. First up is volume one of Suzanne Collins’ young adult series.

She Read

Katniss Everdeen: A Complete Heroine in a Fractured World

Touted as the currently most popular series in adolescent literature, The Hunger Games features a resilient heroine, Katniss Everdeen, in a dystopian North America known as Panem. Katniss lives in the outermost Zone 12, the mining district of Panem, steeped in stark poverty and degradation. (There was a Zone 13, but the central government obliterated it for their insubordination and as a warning to the other 12 zones.)

The Hunger Games presents a dystopian future of Western civilization, similar to Children of Men, 1984, V for Vendetta , or even the classic German film Metropolis. In these stories, there is always an elite class living in opulence and luxury while the masses toil in abject poverty. This dystopian society is often fractured into specialized zones or sectors with which the citizens are deeply identified. In Panem, the central government not only rations out food to the citizens in the zones while mandating hard labor for little pay, but they also host a yearly entertainment event called The Hunger Games. One boy and one girl are selected as “tributes” from each of the 12 zones to participate in the televised survival competition, killing each other until one sole survivor ultimately outwits, outplays, and outlasts the other 23 contestants. It’s presented as bloodthirsty entertainment in the tradition of The Running Man, Death Race 2000, and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, but unlike those films, the participants here are children. The games further deepen the dividing lines between the zones, pitting their children against one another in a grim battle to the death, subtly rebuking any swell of unity among the zones that could arise from the horror of the games themselves.

I found the setting and plot to be both intriguing and startling. I wondered how Collins could pull off the feat of presenting such violence in a young adult book. Could her narrator Katniss kill for her survival and still be considered a hero? From the beginning, it is evident that an ex Deus machina device couldn’t possibly be employed. Katniss wouldn’t stumble upon an underground revolutionary group in the Capital, she wouldn’t disarm her fellow tributes with persuasive rhetoric, and she wouldn’t martyr herself for the lives of others. The first person narration and the published presence of the follow-up two volumes assured her survival in my mind, but I kept wondering, at what cost?

I’ve always craved adventure stories featuring heroines. I adore Buffy the Vampire Slayer for the heroine who lives a double life that is both normal and supernatural. Sometimes the bogies of domestic troubles, rocky relationships, and financial struggles are more daunting than the vampires and demons Buffy slays regularly. Modeled after Superman tropes, Buffy’s double life is often unrewarding, but deeply necessary in maintaining the human race. And like Superman, Buffy follows a noble code: despite how rotten some people can be, Buffy doesn’t kill humans. The limitation is almost a flaw, but if she did cross that line, her nobility would be tarnished. She would no longer be a hero.

Collins’ book dives directly into this dilemma. While not superhuman, Katniss is stronger, faster, and smarter than most girls and boys her age – a born survivor in many respects. Like heroines such as Buffy, Katniss draws her strength from those she protects: her mother and her young sister, Prim. Again, the similarities are striking, for Buffy sacrificed herself for the love of her younger sister, too. But in The Hunger Games, Katniss has put herself in the position of either “kill or be killed,” and it is this sick twist on these games that makes them so popular with Panem. So the real crux of the story is not wondering if Katniss can win the Hunger Games, but can she do what it takes to win? Can she kill other children and live with the consequences?

Collins offers us a look at one past winner in the character of Haymitch who habitually self-medicates with alcohol decades after his victory. Observing Haymitch, Katniss wisely knows that there is no real winner of the Hunger Games and the government knows it, too. It is yet another way to subordinate the people, to keep them powerless and nearly subhuman. While Katniss is well aware of this agenda, she travels to the Capital to participate in the games. Her motivation to win lies in her maternal need to care for her mother and sister.

Panem is a depressing portrait of inequality taken to extremes. When I picture the world of Panem, especially of Zone 12, I see it as the rundown future. Black, gray, and brown colors seem to permeate the atmosphere. When Katniss travels west to what was formerly Colorado but is now the Capital, the heart of Panem, it must be like Dorothy waking up in Oz or Alice tumbling into Wonderland. All the new luxuries and bright colors abound, and yet Katniss envisions her death in this place. Like Alice and Dorothy, Katniss longs for home and she knows it will be a battle to reach it. Like Alice and Dorothy, risks will be taken and difficult decisions will be made. And like all heroes in young adult novels, Katniss will grow, will come of age, and will learn the difference of moving painfully from childhood to adulthood.

In many ways, Katniss is a preternatural adult, forced to grow up more quickly due to base necessity. Her mother is ineffectual and after her husband’s death failed to be a mother at all, laying all the responsibility upon young Katniss’ shoulders. By hunting and gathering, Katniss functions as the literal nurturer of this family of women. By focusing on the needs of others, Katniss has denied her own emotional needs. While she deeply cares for the well-being of other citizens in her zone, she denies her own personal feelings of attachment to others, whether it is her hunting partner Gale or her Hunger Games partner Peeta. Despite this denial, Katniss learns in both relationships that two people together are much more effective than one person alone.

Some reviewers have asserted that while practical and resourceful, Katniss is emotionally stunted, never asserting herself and her own desires. But again, I find this self-negating quality in Katniss to be the very mark of the hero, constantly thinking of others’ needs above her own. And from this devotion, the seeds of a revolution are actually planted in Panem. Katniss subverts the carefully scripted intentions of the Games by paying “tribute” to a fallen tribute, decorating the lifeless body with flowers and singing native songs – a gesture which moves the tribute’s fellow citizens so much, that they actually pay Katniss with a gift of bread – something that has never occurred in the Games before. The Games finally culminate in another courageous act of unity in the shape of a suicide pact, which is devised by Katniss from both cunning and exhaustion.

Suzanne Collins has given us a complete heroine with Katniss Everdeen in the fractured world of Panem. Katniss is physically and emotionally strong, able to withstand the harrowing experiences of the Hunger Games and survive intact. In doing so, she has fractured the power center itself of Panem while further unifying the disparate zones. While some reviewers remark that Katniss is not a fully actualized heroine, I think time will tell as I read the next two volumes. I suspect the love triangle of Katniss, Peeta, and Gale will move toward resolution as Panem itself moves toward revolution.

He Read

The Hunger Games: A Fascinating Imagining of a Possible Future

I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t keep up with all the popular trends.  That’s why The Indie Mine has a staff to help me fill in the gaps.  So it should be no surprise that prior to a month ago, I’d never even heard of the book The Hunger Games, let alone the feature film set to release next year.  And after being told it compares favorably to the Twilight series, I was content with my ignorance up until that point.  A reveal of the basic plot of the first novel in the series, however, turned me on my head.

The first element of the story that caught my attention is the world in which the characters exist.  It’s a reconstructed North America sometime in the distant future.  The general populace has been wiped out by natural disasters and war at some point in the past.  I’m always intrigued by post-apocalyptic stories.  I enjoy the character study involved and seeing how society has physically rebuilt itself, whether people still behave with the same morals and laws, and what the ruling/governing structure is like.  In other words, I like to know what remnants of our current selves remain and what’s changed to adapt to the new world.  Has society stripped out the bad or the good?

The division of Panem is a fascinating one.  There’s a wealthy, technologically advanced capital along with twelve separate impoverished districts or zones.  Those in the capital want for nothing while everyone else does whatever they can just to stay alive.  To rise against the current power means death or worse as evidenced by the complete demolition of zone 13.  The capital keeps a Big Brother-like eye on everyone and has established the barbaric Hunger Games as a way of reminding its citizens that rebellion is futile.

The Hunger Games is an annual gladiatorial style event in which two children, one boy and one girl are selected at random from each district, paraded around as mascots, and dropped off in an unknown, remote location to do battle with one another until one competitor is left alive.  The whole event is broadcast to everyone in the nation like it’s the Super Bowl on steroids.  Wages are often placed on the entrants and sponsors can choose to send aids to their chosen entrants for exorbitant prices.  It’s a neat premise, but hardly an original one.  However, it’s not often where an event forces children into a war-like setting, and perhaps that’s what first drew me to picking up the book.

The actual set-up for the event is mostly predictable.  Inevitably, the protagonist, Katniss Everdeen, is going to end up in the event one way or another.  Having her substitute for her little sister is a nice twist and does help to set her apart from some of the other characters.  However, pitting her against Peeta, a boy from her district to whom she owes her life, is a rather obvious way to insert a moral conflict.  The only more obvious choice would’ve been if her best friend Gale had been chosen and probably would’ve forced me to put away the book in disgust.

The days leading up to the start of the combat are an interesting read.  The author provides great detail in all of the pomp and circumstance involved.  Participants, or tributes as they are called here, are paraded around like beauty pageant contestants in order to try to garner financial support during the fight.  Tributes are also evaluated on their various survival skills which are of use during the fighting.  Their scores go a long way towards determining how many sponsors they will pick up.  The decadence of the capital is revealed through the sheer volume and sophistication of the meals and banquets provided to everyone involved.  This portion of the book provides a great look at the dichotomy between the “haves” and the “have nots” and works to draw the reader towards disdain for the ruling power.

The Hunger Games itself was a combination of both fun action and disappointing predictability.  Knowing that the series is a trilogy, you never feel any real sense of danger for Katniss.  However, it’s still fun to see how she eludes her pursuers and deals with the changing conditions of the environment brought on by the event organizers.  The shifting alliances forged by Katniss also keep the plot interesting.  As I stated before, there’s a fair amount of predictability here.  In fact, of the 24 tributes, I correctly guessed who the final three would be before the fighting even started.  In that sense it’s not really different from any number of Hollywood survival action movies.  You know who the major players are and because of that knowledge you know they will be there at the end.  The fun is in seeing how they get there.

The romance between Katniss and Peeta is played up off and on through the book once the two are selected as tributes.  Naturally it was also the aspect of the story I was least looking forward to after having heard the Twilight comparisons.  However, most of the actual execution and use of it I actually enjoyed.  The two characters use a fictional love between the two of them to garner support from the sponsors and sympathy from just about everyone witnessing the events.  They even use it to force a rather unsurprising rules change towards the end of the book.  I enjoyed this aspect of the relationship; however, I did not enjoy the teen drama surrounding it.  I understand that Katniss is a young character, but I couldn’t help but be annoyed by the number of times the author brought up the fact that Katniss didn’t know how Peeta felt about her.  There’s a difference between being doubtful and being oblivious.  Even if Katniss couldn’t put it together, the author didn’t have to keep hitting us over the head with it.  Thankfully, that storyline didn’t dominate the entire book; however, it leaves me a little concerned for the sequels.  I’m far more interested in how the world around Katniss will change, not which guy will shine brightest in her eyes.

For a novel aimed at a younger demographic and arguably another gender, I was surprised how much I enjoyed it.  Suzanne Collins has built a fascinating world with a society and history I’m genuinely interested in learning more about.  It’s my hope that in the sequel we’ll get to see much more of that world and see how the general populace’s feelings and actions towards the ruling government change after the events of The Hunger Games.  I have concerns over the predictability of the story and the romantic angst of the main character, but that wasn’t enough to stop me from finishing this first title, nor will it affect my interest in the sequels.

© 2011, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

The song was Tally Hall’s “Good Day,” the single from their debut album Marvin’s Marvelous Mechanical Museum. This visceral album introduced the world to Tally Hall, a band that defies a singular description, but could be understood as a cleaned-up Bloodhound Gang meets BNL: lots of witty lyrics, upbeat rhythms, and an out-of-bounds sense of fun.

The members of Tally Hall are often recognized by their color-coded neckties: Rob Cantor (yellow-vocals/guitar), Zubin Sedghi (blue-vocals/bass), Ross Federman (gray-drums), Joe Hawley (red-vocals/guitar), and Andrew Horowitz (green-vocals/keyboards). The band formed at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor just a decade ago. Much like The Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album, Tally Hall’s 2005 Marvin’s Marvelous Mechanical Museum (re-released by Atlantic in 2008) should be listened to in its entirety to appreciate its whimsical brilliance. The band has described their genre-bending brand of rock as “wonky rock” or even “fa-blue rock” and perhaps only mashed-up adjectives can describe their mashed-up styles of jazz, lounge, country, psychedelic, funk, soul, and rap which ultimately leads to an album like MMMM, full of quirkiness and charm, and more than a dollop of acid-dropping fun.

Andrew, Ross, Rob, Joe, and Zubin

The trippiness of MMMM was supported by Tally Hall’s Internet Show  in 2008. Borrowing the styles of Flight of the Conchords, Robot Chicken, Kids in the Hall, and The Monkees, Tally Hall produced ten shows aired biweekly on their website that combined skits as short as fifteen seconds, parody commercials, animations, and goofy stories starring themselves.

The ten-minute collages of video reveal that Tally Hall’s comedic writing is generous with wit while sparse on snark. They are the polite boys next door in suburbia, but artsy and fun, borrowing from their collective childhood histories steeped in popular culture as they reference classic reruns, cheesy infomercials, and investigative reporting segments, offering up a pastiche of styles in their skits. Being children of the 80s, television and short video seem like a natural outlet for this group of energetic individuals. To be considered just a band with one creative outlet seems far too restraining for this troop of extraordinary gentlemen.

But their most recent album is exactly that: an exercise in restraint. While this statement did make the cult following of the Michigan band a little nervous, fans seem to be embracing Good & Evil as a classic Tally Hall follow-up to the conceptually brilliant MMMM. And being that it was six years in the making, I think fans are more than just a little bit relieved that Good & Evil has finally arrived.

Good & Evil, 2011

 The opening track “Never Meant To” immediately set the tone for this album. This group has settled into a nest of collective sounds rather than an organized chaos of psychedelia. There is a slight melancholia running through the song, and sometimes it hint at some of their similar Canadian colleagues, such as The Weakerthans. There is a beauty and a sadness in the world of the everyday which surrounds us. And Tally Hall continues their exploration of the strange cosmic physics that comprise our ordinary lives: “See the sun the shadow casts / From all the times I floated past. / See the ocean spinning out / With all the hope and all the doubt.” While this opening track seems like a foray into existentialism, the album does contain much levity.

My favorite track “&” is styled in the mashed-up fashion of Tally Hall’s previous album. The refrain of the song is an enormous list of items: “John & Yoko & dark & light,….” Featuring the expected funky guitars and drums, it is dreamy and fantastical, but anchored by the sing-song rhythm of Joe Hawley’s voice. The conclusion changes gears a bit, pitching the song into an almost swing rhythm before its abrupt conclusion. In a similar style, “You” is largely acoustic, with humming added to the sing-song rhythms. However, it is the raw emotions in the vocals that keeps this song, and most of Tally Hall’s songs, from falling into polished copies of marionette quintets that you might see on amusement park rides. Their entire first album used the arcade hall/mechanical museum/ funhouse motif and its presence is still felt in this paired down album.

Many of the songs borrow from the band’s influences. You can hear the 1980s pop influence in a track like “You and Me,” but it’s not cloying. Upbeat and whimsical, it is grounded by Zubin’s determined bass line. It’s a sturdy track, designed to make you tap your foot in time with the song. “Sacred Beast” features a feverish borrowing of decades of pop influences, including auto-tuning, but the harpsichord and whistling warmly recalls the opening credits of The Partridge Family.

Other songs build on the theme presented in the opening track of the album. “Hymn for a Scarecrow,” for example, questions our everyday existence, cosmos, and everything in it. The quiet beginning builds to a bombastic conclusion that is the trademark of Tally Hall: a controlled chaos in which richly layered sounds and textures seem like they will spiral of out control, but artfully the band reigns in the chaos and gives it structure from which to blossom with brilliance and radiance. It’s a marvelous listening experience.

One of the more striking pieces on the album falls in the middle. “A Lady” recalls the melody of “&” but it sounds more like a tempered Moody Blues recording of “Knights in White Satin.” It’s length is abbreviated, too, getting to the point with no waste. It’s a minute long. “I knew a lady, good & evil / showed me that I was a gentleman. / Wait for the girl to blossom into / colors that grow where you can.” It’s the shortest and most central song on the album, echoing the title and alluding to the magic that Tally Hall creates from its everyday surroundings, that combination of reality and imagination. It’s like Tally Hall grew up watching Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, but they missed the trolley back to the living room and instead are still hanging out with the eccentric Lady Elaine Fairchild in her spinning carousel of a museum.

“Fate of the Stars” closes the album and it does seem like the exit music at an amusement park. The band knows that they draw their songs from the kitsch of modern life, but this song has much more gravitas. Tally Hall asks the cosmic questions and while they can give advice, our fate like theirs is in the stars. We live, we act, we react, but ultimately we move toward an eventual exit, “trapped in active depart.” Like in MMMM, they bid the listener farewell and hope we enjoyed the show. Come back when you can, for Fate’s fated performers will be here for you.

Good and evil are in everything. They are one in the same, or maybe it depends on how we view it. Tally Hall offers a multi-faceted approach with their latest offering.

Who will adore Tally Hall’s Good & Evil?

• Anyone who has created a Last.fm or Pandora station with the tag They Might Be Giants, Jonathan Coulton, or Ben Folds Five.
• Anyone who loves the humor and wit of the Bloodhound Gang, but needs a proper substitute when mom and dad are visiting.
• Anyone who appreciates the experimental creativity of Oingo Boingo, but listening to the Elfman brothers these days makes them look more old than hip.

© 2011, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

When it is so easy to simply download a song here or there, I wonder if anyone still values the album as its own complete entity as I do. The album is something outside the tangible plastic discus; it is a living, breathing organism –not just a container for randomly composed songs. I have always been a firm believer in considering the whole album, and not just the bits and pieces that comprise it. And I always like those artists best who consider the album as a carefully constructed artwork and not just a thrown together collection of songs.

When deciding on the best albums of 2011 thus far, I immediately go to Bon Iver’s self-titled album, the follow-up to Justin Vernon’s largely solo project of 2007, For Emma, Forever Ago. I remember 2007 being a rather barren year for new music, and I remember just clutching the introspective moody Bon Iver debut closely to my chest and immersing myself in the profound sadness and moving passion. It was the only album that year that made me somehow feel something, that transported me to somewhere else. “Skinny Love” was practically an anthem for me, allowing me to feel vindicated for past broken relationships by just running a little faster on the treadmill when it played on my MP3 device. And maybe that’s the quality I like best about Bon Iver: songs that on the surface may be cordoned into the emo subgenre of folk, but are actually full of pure, high-octane energy.

Bon Iver maintains the subtle, yet dynamic experience of For Emma, Forever Ago while broadening the musical range. Bon Iver has moved from Justin Vernon’s largely solitary musical project to an actual band project, bringing a new range of sounds and instruments to this album. Bon Iver’s own lyrics are deeply layered, but now the music is richly layered, too.

This album is impressionistic and far less strained. The opening track “Perth” opens with a slow electric guitar solo building in the background of Justin Vernon’s distinctive vocals before breaking open into a carefully layered pattern of fife and drum. The winsome vocals, the jagged guitar twinges, and a shrill violin — sounds that separately could be weary and jarring– dovetail into a crescendo of soulful sound on this opening track. Nearly all the songs on this album are named for dwellings –both real and imaginary– and perhaps on “Perth” you can hear the untamed nature of a variety of instruments coming together in some structure, but unraveling gently at the seams, perhaps symbolizing an “outback meets civilization” theme without hackly resorting to any tribal sounds or overly mechanized synthesizers. As always, it is Vernon’s own vocals which are the central design in the fabric.

“Minnesota, WI” borrows distinctive sounds of ‘70s band –some jazz horn and drum beats– that at first recall both Steely Dan and the steady pulsing energy of The Police. The reverberated vocals blend with the horns while a sweet acoustic guitar, soon joined by the twangy rhythms of a soft banjo, accompanies Vernon’s pitchy cries. The weaving of multiple vocal tracks forms the base of this tapestry, and as we expect with Bon Iver, is the highlight. “Never gonna break, never gonna break, never gonna break” repeats Vernon.

The lyrics for this project are at once both beautiful and downright arcane. Bon Iver released the lyrics for all the songs early online. At first, the lyrics seem difficult to comprehend and almost random, but they are not as haphazardly strung together as they might seem. They are impressionistic, but not the product of a casual stream of consciousness style. Rather, the lines are more reminiscent of Walt Whitman and James Joyce, requiring careful study if you are to assign a precise paraphrase of the verses. But these lyrics are meant to be heard and digested as sounds, not read and interpreted, and when combined with the layered instruments and vocals are best appreciated holistically.

Still, by examining the lyrics, such as in “Hinnom, TX” one can gather some common themes throughout the album. According to the Biblical Encyclopedia, the meaning of “Hinnom” is unknown, but in the book Jeremiah, the prophet uses “Hinnom” to reference the “valley of the sun.” As a biblical allusion it works well as Vernon sings of nature’s elements in motion: sand and sun, dirt and ice. And like all the songs on his album, the antiquated sounding biblical allusions –such as to the Noahchide– all contribute to the poetic majesty of Bon Iver’s songs. Noachide laws recall Old Testament fire and brimstone, for these were the laws supposedly given to Adam and Eve and all of humankind. The Noachide laws include prohibitions against idolatry, murder, theft, lying, sexual immorality, and cannibalism. And looking at its shroud imagery, “Hinnom, TX” is perhaps a song about the afterlife, except in Bon Iver’s song, the bodies remain on earth, recuperated by nature’s elements and afterlife is given no presence, no definition. As much as Vernon alludes to Old Testament imagery, it is never in a monotheistic interpretation, but rather a reimagining of those allusions in a secular light.

The songs that are the highlights on the album are impressively good. “Michicant,” for example, offers the nostalgia of a boyhood in a place that is maybe too ideal to actually exist like the title itself suggests: not Michigan, but Michicant. It even features a childhood bicycle bell ringing in sync with the other instruments. It’s both soft and quiet, stirring without disturbing, a meditation on a less complex time and place.

“Calgary” is the standout, and a featured single on KCRW, WXPN, and other public radio stations. The rich tapestry of unusual sounds layered to create a soulfully textured, masterfully crafted song that echoes of ghosts and personal struggles, is an easy choice for single of the year. It features all the hallmarks of Bon Iver: strong vocals, crescendos, cadence, poetic but puzzling lyrics. And it’s not the typical sorrow-infused lyrics featured on For Emma, Forever Ago, but something that haunts with passion. Any themes of sadness and regret are not awash in these strung-out cries for forgiveness, but are like prankster demons rattling the pots and pan in the kitchen at night.

Bon Iver ends oddly with the song “Beth/Rest.” On the surface, it seems like a 1980s homage, featuring synthesizers and electric guitar twangs that remind me of the “power ballads” of REO Speedwagon and Toto as well as the soft rock sounds of Bruce Hornsby and Howard Jones. There’s even a Kenny G-like clarinet. The highly stylized quality suggests wide expanses, maybe tying together all the locations on the album. It’s not my favorite song, mostly because of its retro qualities which continue on throughout the tune. But like the other songs, they are carefully layered sounds, artfully crafted to create a mood which is both melancholy and hopeful at the same time, perhaps depending on how well you like synthesizers.

Who will adore Bon Iver’s latest album?

• Anyone who has a Band of Horses, Iron and Wine, or Fleet Foxes tagged Last.fm or Pandora station.
• Anyone who wishes Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes could be just a little more moody, but just a little less angry.
• Anyone who appreciated the complexity of Paul McCartney and Wings’ “Band on the Run” despite the nonsensical lyrics.

© 2011, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.