• Ratatat – Mildly entrancing though it is, you can keep NIN’s Ghosts I-IV, for this duo of electro New Yorkers has cut the instrumental album of the year, as far as I’m concerned. LP3 is as transfixing as it is eclectic, its genre-hopping (here a bit of flamenco guitar, there a whoosh of stuttering beats, everywhere lots of Brian Eno ambience) grounded in an enveloping digital wash that holds this soup together like thick chicken stock. I find it mesmerizing when I concentrate or hear it in a video, like the one for “Mirando” above. And I love it as a sleep-inducer as much as Bon Iver’s For Emma, Forever Ago. People have been swearing by Ratatat for years, but after first encountering this lot last year opening for Bjork at Nokia, I had been waiting to be impressed by a studio work. Here it is. If anyone can tell me how the Fonda gigs were earlier this week, I’m eager to know.
• Amos Lee – Meant to say something about the subdued singer-songwriter before he played last weekend at House of Blues Anaheim, but welcoming a baby into one’s life tends to kick everything else to the curb, and with my superpowers not yet including cloning, I couldn’t figure out how to be at the Mouse House and at the Forum to see Nine Inch Nails simultaneously. But Lee’s latest, Last Days at the Lodge, merits mention regardless. Detouring away from the sleepiness that kinda sunk 2006’s Supply and Demand, the Philly native this time has stepped up the soulfulness, resulting in a warm listen that owes much to ’70s influences like Bill Withers and Al Green (the latter of whom is in remarkable form on the new Lay It Down … but more on that next week). If anyone caught Lee’s Anaheim gig, I’d love to hear how it was — and whether he was able to pull off the new approach live.
• Radiohead – Didn’t catch ‘em at the Hollywood Bowl? Not to fear: The Englishmen’s other Bowl show, Aug. 28 at Santa Barbara Bowl, has been streaming in its entirety since Monday on NPR’s All Songs Considered site, where you can also find a link to Thom Yorke’s guest-DJ appearance from February, plus interviews with the group’s sound engineer and production manager. Then keep exploring: The show’s Live in Concert series now includes complete performances from Randy Newman (at Largo), Tom Waits (in Atlanta), Spiritualized, the Ting Tings, Fleet Foxes, Jim James of My Morning Jacket, the Raconteurs, Lou Reed and more.
• Brian Wilson – His latest album, That Lucky Old Sun, has been getting much acclaim since well before it arrived this week, and it’s easy to see why: Emboldened by his breakthrough in completing the brilliant, mythical, long-abandoned song cycle SMiLE, the Beach Boys’ fractured genius has finally found both the confidence and the backing band to conjure a new work that lives up to his storied reputation for sunny, meticulously arranged orch-pop. It’s a little hokey in spots (“Forever She’ll Be My Surfer Girl” is too sentimental even for a 65-year-old wistfully recalling the past) and it’s about as logical as a Van Dyke Parks concept album — which is to say not very logical at all. Yet it’s rich on detail, sumptuously harmonious like the masterwork that clearly inspired it — and Brian hasn’t sounded so vocally confident since he returned to recording. See if he can muster that same strength at one of three shows this weekend at the Hollywood Bowl.
• Travis Barker and DJ AM at the VMAs – The ballyhooed performances, save for Pink’s, bored me to tears. But what the drummer and the turntablist were whipping up side stage, deconstructing hits with assistance from, among otherse, Katy Perry and Lupe Fiasco and LL Cool J (there he is doing “Going Back to Cali” in the clip below), was wicked cool. I’d have preferred two hours of that mixed with Russell Brand’s off-the-cuff jokes than what MTV actually presented.
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