Arts & Entertainment

November Z2ist 2012 - Over the Edge

AC NEWMAN

at,

AG NEWMAN

SHUT OOWN THE STREETS

JORDAN TUCKER
ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

Carl Newman, whose professional
name is AC Newman, is well-known
for being the vocalist and main

songwriter of The New Pornographers.
Carl Newman is the de facto leader
of the Canadian super group, and has
been since the year 2000. Their five
albums have received consistently good
reviews, and Newman’s songwriting
skills have contributed much to their

success. It was with interest that I began
the quest to review this album. The New
Pornographers have been my favourite
band for a few years now (shout out to
ladies’ man, man’s man, man-about-
town Brian Doddridge for getting me
into them) and yet I have never actually
listened to any of AC Newman’s solo
work. I’ve dabbled in Destroyer, enjoyed
some of the coigns of Cathryn Calder,
and been enchanted thoroughly by Neko
Case, but have never listened to Mr.
Newman himself. Previously a member
of Superconductor and Zumpano in
the 1990’s, Newman has only recently
embarked on solo success, a surprising
fact due to his key role in the greatness
of the groups he has been a part of. Not
surprisingly, this album has some great
songwriting. It sounds like a slightly
deflated New Pornographers record -
imagine Mass Romantic. Got that? Okay.
Pretend it’s a beach ball, and someone sat
on it, except as more air escapes from it,
the sadder the beach ball gets. They Shut
Down The Streets is a sad beachball of
a New Pornographers album. This is not
a detrimental thing, or suggesting that

Newman is indistinguishable from the
supergroup he fronts. If anything, this
album, which is excellent, just serves
as evidence of how instrumental AC
Newman is to the New Pornographer’s
success. While Newman himself typically
shies away from being referred to as the
leader of the New Pornographers (which,
to be fair, would be quite the thing for
his grandma to google) it’s difficult to
imagine who else could do it. This album,
from the sweet vocals down to the guitar
riffs and sugary-sweet accordion, is a
New Pornographers album; AC Newman
just forgot to invite the other members.
One New Pornographer who does appear
quite frequently on this album is Neko
Case, the other high-profile member of
the group. Her wonderful alto provides
a lovely contrast to Newman’s sugar-
sweet grit, and the listener is left wishing
the two would just make musical babies
forever.

This is a lovely album full of Newman’s
trademark fantastic songwriting and
sweet n’ sour vocals. Weirdly, and
whether this is a feature of production
or just how Newman likes to sing, the

vocals actually aren’t super clear. The
lyrics tend to get a bit muddied and
lost, which is a shame because the man
has a killer voice and writes very well.
The album itself is low-key and peppy
at the same time. In an interview, AC
himself said that Shut Down The Streets
“is all about birth, death, happiness
and sadness, chronicling a time in my
life where all those things had to learn
to coexist side by side.” It shows.
Simultaneously miserable and elated,
this album wistfully pans through the
whole spectrum of human emotion. It’s
meandering, thoughtful, and makes you
want to hug people.

Bottom line: for an enjoyable indie-rock
album, listen to Shut Down The Streets.
If you miss the New Pornographers,
listen to Shut Down The Streets. Listen
to this album the morning after a night of
heavy drinking with good friends, with
hot coffee in your hands and smeared
makeup on your cheeks. It’ll do your
body good.

CRYSTAL CASTLES

JORDAN TUCKER
ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

Alice Glass is back, folks. Also
with her is the other half of the
experimental, edgy duo of Crystal
Castles, Ethan Kath. Hailing from
Toronto, this vocalist-producer duo
a la Gnarls Barkley made waves
for their experimental, shard-like
sound. Radical techno featuring
shrieking female vocals, the Crystal
Castles formula is barely changed.
This album opens with the sort of

“wheeeerrrrr wherrrrrr” that summer
blockbuster Prometheus pioneered,
drawing parallels between this album
and an _ otherworldly, threatening
and alien soundscape. This album
is actually a lot more accessible
than previous EP’s or full-lengths.
While it does have the characteristic
shrieking and weird dissonant twang
to the sound, III actually adheres to
a more mainstream path than has
been chosen previously by the group.
For this album, they elected to not
use any computers or synthesizers
whatsoever: what they did use is
beyond me. It’s a joy and mystery
to behold, any way you slice it. In
the second track, “Kerosene”, Glass
sings, “I’ll protect you from / all the
things I’ve seen.” It’s hard to imagine
what Glass has seen, but her vocals
are certainly interesting. Kath met her
when she was fifteen, and decided to
make her his protege, so unique was
her voice. Glass has a very rare way
of making her voice both hoarse and
melodic at the same time. She can go
soft and sweet, and yet her penchant

for not shying away from the louder
end of the spectrum betrays her
background as lead singer of an all-
girl crust-punk band. Essentially,
the formula works something like
this: Ethan Kath creates a series of
electronic/industrial tracks with Glass
in mind, and she picks the ones that
she likes to write lyrics for. It works
out to be heavily contrasted, in their
favour: while Glass’s voice is gritty
and fragmented enough to function
as a parallel to Kath’s heavy rhythms,
her vocal and lyrical fragility betray
the softer side of the act. Kath’s music
is not a background whatsoever:
the heavy pulsing, rhythmic and at
times erratic melodies he brings forth
have a personality of their own. To
listen to Crystal Castles, according
to the BBC, “is to be cast adrift in
a vortex of deafening pain without
a safety net. You get the feeling you
could do anything in the world, but
that ‘anything’ would ultimately
mean nothing. Crystal Castles marks
a nuanced emotional territory that
dance music never covered before.”

Music like Crystal Castles are part
of the reason that anyone saying
electronic music isn’t music is short-
sighted and narrow-minded; the
incredible songs and emotions that
Kath can summon are every bit as
evocative as any acoustic set. As a
painter can still create artwork with a
bit of coal, one gets the feeling that the
musicians of Crystal Castles would
be celebrated artists in any musical
genre. Jack Shankly describes their
sound as “ferocious, asphyxiating
sheets of warped two-dimensional
Gameboy glitches and bruising drum
bombast that pierces your skull with
their sheer shrill force, burrowing
deep into the brain like a fever.”
Love it or hate it (while I certainly
recommend that you at least try to see
something wonderful in these ethereal
shredscapes, it is ultimately your
choice) it is undeniable that Crystal
Castles and their ilk are creating
revolutionary new music. Listen to it,
and let me know what you think on
the Over The Edge Facebook page, or
stop by our office!

3. Parallels - XII

6. The xx - Coexist

1. The Caretakers- Love, War, and Propaganda
2. Wax Mannequin - No Safe Home

4. AC Newman - Shut Down the Streets
5. Mother Mother - The Sticks

7. Rah Rah - The Poet's Dead

8. Cat Power - Sun

9. The Sheepdogs - The Sheepdogs

10. Nuela Charles - Aware

11. Kreayshawn - Somethin ‘Bout Kreay
12. Amanda Palmer - Theatre Is Evil
13. Nu Sensae - Sundowning

14. Chilly Gonzales - Solo Piano II

@FUR Top 20 Albums

15. Artichoke - Etchy Sketchy Skies

16. Sienna Dahlen - Verglas

17. Pet Shop Boys - Elysium

18. Boombox Saints - For The Moment
19. The Zolas - Ancient Mars

20. Kandle - Kandle