If you’re interested in another take on Spotify, Adam Caress over at Mule Variations brings up two interesting points: Spotify has the potential to be wayyyy better than ASCAP for artists, as well as hold listeners musically hostage. It’s a good read.
Starting the final leg of the road trip tomorrow, which means posting will be sketchy until Tuesday.
Independent Clauses is pretty much your Hoodie Allen clearing house. Thankfully, this new Hoodie video is much less confusing than that other one that one time. This time he just looks supremely uncomfortable at a raging house party cause he can’t get to the prettiest girl in the room. I think we have all felt this pain before. But then… well, just watch the vid. It’s cool, and the song is smooth as well. His mixtape Leap Year drops tomorrow. And yes, there will be a review.
This is also pretty much your Josh Caress fanblog, so this gorgeous live session rendering of “Follow the Firelight” is a must.
The world gets bigger and smaller when you’re deep into a subject: Even though Football, etc.‘s tour video doesn’t have the band It’s a King Thing in it (as far as I can tell), the phrase appears twice on a wall (big!). Also, they go through Oklahoma City, which until recently was my stomping grounds (small!).
The last post in Phratry Week covers the quietest material the Cincinnati label puts out: the contemporary classical/acoustic post-rock of The Terminal Orchestra. “Contemporary classical” is a foreign phrase to most indie rock listeners, but “acoustic post-rock” means pretty much the same thing, but with some context.
A telling fact: this sextet lists one person (Anna Eby) dedicated solely to “bells.” Other credited instruments include violins, bowed stand-up bass, and classical guitar. This is not your normal band, and the music they release is not your average sound.
The strings play a large part in making up the sound, being on par with the acoustic guitar in the melody duties. Composer Jesse DeCaire is credited with guitars, percussion and conducting/arranging, and while there are percussive elements (“Fall Song”), the first and the third are the primary items of importance.
The Seasons is eight songs long: a song for each season, with an introduction/interlude preceding each one. DeCaire chose to represent the seasons as an ode to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, as it “is situated in just the right place, geographically, to allow for four distinct seasons.”
“Summer Song” is the first of the seasons, and it’s a portrait of a lazy summer instead of a hyperkinetic one. It’s a touch on the morose side for what I envision of the hottest season, but it’s a pretty song nonetheless. The waltzing middle part does evoke summer nights extremely well.
“Interlude No. 1” is a walk through crunchy leaves that leads into “Fall Song,” which is surprisingly martial. It has a bit of an ominous feel to it; I suppose that with a brutal winter coming on, fall in Michigan must feel a little bit foreboding (in Oklahoma, it’s the most anticipated season of the year). The guitar and strings interlock nicely here. There are no vocals in The Terminal Orchestra, but the acoustic guitar takes up the melody mantle.
A desolate, cold wind blowing starts off “Interlude No. 2,” which leads into “Winter Song,” the bleakest of the compositions. The violin takes a lead role here, shuttling the listener through the slow, pensive piece. This is the winter I know: the song goes on for eight minutes without very much variation in tone. The soloing violin keeps the interest level up, but it’s definitely a bleak winter.
And then, finally, it’s time for “Spring Song,” which is 15 minutes long (the whole album is only 40 minutes long). If I was going to visit the Upper Peninsula, I would certainly do so in the spring, because DeCaire’s musical transcription of it is the most beautiful of all his pieces. Adding a rumbling tom into the guitar/violin duology, the hopeful song sounds similar to some of Josh Caress’ earlier works. Caress used to live up there in Michigan, so it’s not surprising that the two have a kinship. The song still has a fair bit of sad to it before the optimistic conclusion, but perhaps that’s just life up in Michigan. Or maybe that’s just spring.
Fans of Balmorhea, first-album Bon Iver and orchestration will find much to love in Terminal Orchestra’s The Seasons.
First things first: IC fave Josh Caress‘s new project Come On Pilgrim! has released its first single. “The Region of the Summer Stars” is a growth and continuation of the path toward Arcade Fire-style indie rock that he’s been following since rebooting his sound for Josh Caress Goes On An Adventure! I was incredibly excited for the album, and now I’m even more stoked. Caress’ vocals have a confidence that comes from being comfortable with your backing band, which is a big step forward.
The Appleseed Cast, another IC favorite, released Middle States EP last month. It is a true EP, in that is marking time between two major releases: 2009’s Sagarmatha and 2012’s promised album. The 28-minute EP contains only four tracks and three real songs, as “Interlude” is exactly that. Of the three realized songs, “Three Rivers” is a 14-minute, simplistic post-rock tune that stretches out too far even for a fan of post-rock, minimalism and Appleseed Cast, leaving “End Frigate Constellation” and “Middle States” as the treasures here. The former shows off the band’s churning composition skills and incredible drumming, while the latter sounds vital and oceanic. The first is Peregrine, while the second is Mare Vitalis. It’s not really a full release, nor is it supposed to be. But man, am I ever excited for the next Appleseed album.
My love of Josh Caress is extremely well documented on this site. Ever since Letting Go of a Dream, I have been in his musical thrall. I have liked some of his albums more than others, but I have eagerly awaited each of them.
Perestroika, his latest and maybe last solo album for a while (nooooo!), contains the seven best songs that Josh Caress has ever written. There is a slight issue with this (there are twelve songs on the disc), but that’s still an incredibly high percentage of powerful tunes.
While his rate of success is somewhat astonishing, his formula is not that surprising: Caress has taken the best parts out of each of his last four releases and made a cohesive sound. The dramatic, sweeping, romantic pop soundscapes of Letting Go of a Dream form the core of the tunes. The inventive, complicated, Sufjan-esque instrumentation of The Rockford Files layers on top of this, bringing a depth to Perestroika‘s songs not present anywhere else in his catalog. The distorted guitar oomph that first appeared on Wild Wild Love lends an Arcade Fire-esque bombast to the tunes. The insightful lyrics of Josh Caress Goes on an Adventure! cap off the entire experience, lending meaning to the moving musical proceedings.
Add in the mix the unique voice of Josh Caress, and you’ve got a distinct set of songs that ranks highly in my top albums of the year.
While Caress splits the album into two sides of six songs each, I find it easier to analyze the album is in three parts: tracks 1-4, 5-8, and 9-12.
Tracks 1-4 take the Jayhawks-style Alt-country of Wild Wild Love and replace the twang with an epic indie rock flair. Each tune is an anthem in their own right, and I mean that in the very best possible way. In the opener and title track, he’s yelling “Perestroika! On! My! Mind!” as suitcases thump and bells ring. “Is That What You Want?” sees the pulsing guitar line making the song into an epic instead of the vocal line. “We Will Fight” features a choir yelling/singing its way through the whole song, culminating in the chorus: “We will fight! We will fight! But not with violence! We will fight! We will fight! We will fight to strengthen the things that we’ve made!”
The final song of the suite is “You Are the Light,” which sounds like a lost Joseph Arthur song on uppers. The chorus is a glorious singalong. It is a blissful cap to this set of tunes. There are literally no parts to complain about in these songs. They are nigh on perfect.
Tracks 5-8 are a bit of a headscratcher, as Caress takes a sharp turn into Radiohead sounds. There’s some Kid A electronic work (“Deconstruct”), some Hail to the Thief/In Rainbows-style rock (“Searching at the Edge of the Real Thing”), and more. They’re not bad at all; he appropriates their sound nicely. Even his vocals, which have always been a bit wavery and high, fit well in context. They’re good tunes, but they make little sense in the context of the album, and they’re just not as good as tracks 9-12.
While it is somewhat disappointing that the middle of the album turns away from the formula he spends two-thirds of the album perfecting, there is an upside. Josh Caress has gotten better by testing out sounds before incorporating them fully into his songwriting. If considering the melancholy electronica and rock as a potential future inclusion to Caress’ sound, this becomes a less frustrating suite of songs. Imagining his current powerful sound with electronic underpinnings helps me get over the fact Perestroika would be an incredibly cohesive album if not for the middle.
The last third of the album returns to the sound that Caress established in the first third. While “Everything I Wasn’t Meant To Be” is probably the least engaging of the eight folk/indie tracks, “Pulling the Curtain Back” is one of my favorites. It grooves hard, has a great melody and includes a stylistic throwback to Letting Go of a Dream. But the cascading guitar riff doesn’t revisit the style near as much as “Prodigal Son,” which uses the heavy reverb that was the trademark of Letting Go. The very specific mood it creates (and recalls) makes the track one of my favorites.
The closer, “By the Light of the Lantern We Go,” is true to its name, as the track is a nearly eight-minute-long journey. From the glockenspiel at the beginning to the full-on roar that occurs at the end of the tune, Caress takes the listener through all of his styles, motifs and ideas in one symphonic burst. It is a fantastic way to cap off a brilliant album.
The lyrics of Perestroika are relentlessly optimistic in the first and third acts, which matches the sound neatly. They include some of the most poignant that Caress has penned, especially in “Perestroika On My Mind” and “You Are The Light.” The middle third’s melancholy and conflicted verses match the sound. Again, the middle isn’t bad; it’s just not near as good as the rest.
If this review seems disjointed, it’s because I feel that way about Perestroika. If this had been an eight-song album, or if something else had happened in the middle, I would be hailing this as the album of the year. It’s still going to be in my top ten for sure: the songs are just that good. Heck, the first four tunes alone constitute the best EP of the year. It’s my favorite JC release since Josh Caress Goes on an Adventure, certainly.
Josh Caress is edging ever closer to his masterpiece, and Perestroika is an enormous step in that direction. Do yourself a favor and get this CD.
I blew up my computer a few weeks ago, resulting in the lack of posts. I apologize for the deathly pallor that seemed to settle over Independent Clauses. It’s been a pretty crazy few weeks. I get my new computer Friday, and we should be rolling again.
I love and hate live shows. Transcendent, life-affirming and soul-expanding are all phrases I have lavished on excellent sets; soul-crushing, abrasive and interminable are all words with which I have belittled terrible performances. A thoroughly average act skews more to the interminable side, which means the room for error is large.
Making matters even more sketchy is this all-too-common occurrence: that band with lovely recordings which smushes my expectations into the dirt with a reprehensible live show. One band that shall remain nameless suckerpunched me twice: the first set I saw was so awful that I incorrectly passed it off as “an off night” and felt optimistic going in to the second set a year later, which ended up being exponentially worse. I don’t listen to that band any more.
And yet, through all of this potential for letdown, I keep anticipating live shows (I’m resisting a comparison to love and relationships). That anticipation has translated into a new and ongoing project: I’m going on a quest to see all top twenty of my most-listened-to bands (according to my Last.FM). Here’s the list, complete with current statuses. Bold indicates I have plans to see them before the end of the year.
1. The Mountain Goats (1,063 plays) – Seen twice, once in Norman and once in Dallas
2. Sufjan Stevens (1,010 plays)
3. Novi Split (597 plays)
4. Coldplay (490 plays) – Seen once: Ford Center, Oklahoma City.
5. Damien Jurado (487 plays) – Seen once: Opolis, Norman.
6. Joe Pug – Seen once: The Conservatory, Oklahoma City.
7. Low Anthem – Seen once: Rose State Auditorium, Midwest City.
8. Elijah Wyman
9. Death Cab for Cutie – Seen once: Cain’s Ballroom, Tulsa.
10. Relient K – Seen 4-6 times, various Tulsa and Oklahoma City locations.
11. Josh Caress
12. Owl City – Seen once: McCasland Fieldhouse, University of Oklahoma, Norman.
13. Josh Ritter
14. Rocky Votolato
15. Switchfoot – Seen once: Cain’s Ballroom, Tulsa.
16. Bleach – Seen 3 times: various Tulsa locations. RIP
17. Mumford and Sons
18. The Avett Brothers – Seen twice: Austin City Limits 2009; Rose State Auditorium, Midwest City.
19. The Tallest Man on Earth
20. Before Braille – RIP
And to get myself back into writing about music, I’ll be writing about each of the bands, in order.
Country has long been a component of Josh Caress’ singer/songwriter sound, so it’s not surprising that he’s dedicated Wild Wild Love to exploring that element of his style. While he plays within the conventions for most of his first foray into Ryan Adams-esque alt-country, he does create a handful of beautiful, adventurous tracks that make this album worth it.
Josh Caress Goes on an Adventure! was the first real display of Caress’ country leanings, and it is still one of my favorite Caress albums. Adventure! worked because Caress displayed what he was made of. There wasn’t any Sufjan-esque instrumentation (The Rockford Files) or fuzzy drone underneath (Letting Go of a Dream). It displayed Caress as an introspective troubadour with complex arrangements, catchy melodies, folk/country leanings, and a cinematic bent. There’s nowhere to hide in Adventure!, and it is all the better for it.
The ability to hide the songwriting within the surrounding instruments is part of what makes Wild Wild Love a decent but not astounding release. The title track opens with a forlorn harmonica and some weary guitarwork. It had my attention immediately; it’s great. Then, at around forty seconds, pedal steel, electric guitar, bass, drums and old timey violins come in. There’s nothing wrong with any of these things, but collectively they feel like overkill. The message could be sent that this is a country album without several of these markers.
Josh Caress knows this, too; the chorus of “Wild Wild Love” drops out the violins and bass, leaving only pedal steel, acoustic, gentle electric guitar and voice. It’s still a lot, but it sounds like not much (in context) and it’s beautiful. It’s a problem that was present on Rockford Files as well; just because Caress can do something doesn’t mean he should.
But it’s not just massive instrumentation that allows his to hide. Caress busts out his electric guitar for several songs, dropping into honky-tonk mode (“Be My Baby Tonight”), righteous anger mode (“I Won’t Let You Strip Me of My Soul”) and even straight-up American rock and roll (“Don’t Believe the Rock and Roll”). It’s not that these songs are bad (although “Be My Baby Tonight” does stretch the limits of credibility); it’s just that they don’t seem fully honest. Perhaps it’s the initial learner’s curve of writing rock, I don’t know; but these songs don’t connect as well as his quieter work.
There are moments of intense clarity, though: “Lake Michigan” takes motifs from Adventure and ideas of instrumentation from Rockford Files to create one of the best tracks he’s ever created. It’s beautiful because the pedal steel, mandolin, drums,organ, secondary guitar and background vocals are used perfectly. I could listen to “Lake Michigan” over and over; if I had to put together a Josh Caress greatest hits album, this would be on it. “Everybody’s Got Something to Prove” provides heart-crushing lyrics and one of the most steady vocal performances Caress has ever produced; it’s another stand-out. The control that Caress exercises over his voice on this track is impressive; this track alone is a major step forward in his songwriting style.
“I Wanna Be Your Man” is one of the better louder tracks here, as the vocals are memorable. The blue-collar, Joe Anybody feel of “A Path, Through Suffering” channels Springsteen (sorta). They’re louder and enjoyable; so it’s not like Caress can’t write a good loud song. It’s just that his quieter, more introspective stuff (at this point) works better.
There are lots of tracks here that are enjoyable, but the sum definitely feels like the experiment it is. “Lake Michigan” and “Everybody’s Got Something to Prove” are almost worth the price of admission on their own, so the recommendation here is definitely “buy.” But there are definitely some things that Josh Caress needs to get adjusted to in the alt-country genre if he’s going to keep chillin’ there for a while.
Band Name: Josh Caress
Album Name: Josh Caress Goes on an Adventure!
Best element: Brilliant, beautiful songwriting.
Genre: Acoustic singer/songwriter
Website: www.myspace.com/joshcaress
Label name: n/a
Band e-mail: joshcaress@yahoo.com
Josh Caress went on tour in support of his previous album Letting Go of a Dream, and as he went on tour, he took notes about the places he visited. He then went all Sufjan on us and composed an album about his journey through America. I couldn’t be more pleased with the results.
I had the distinct privilege of listening to this album as it was intended- as a travelogue. I took a four-day trip, and pretty much all I listened to was this album on repeat, with occasional other bands when I got too entranced with Caress’s rich, full voice and sonorous guitar playing. When played on the road, this album becomes one amazing album- it has traveling woven in it, and when on the road this album reveals itself. Listening to it at home is still an amazing experience, don’t get me wrong- but it’s a traveling CD all the way.
Each song is peppered with city names, landmarks, people, and stories. “Dixie County” is about traveling through the South and realizing that “I know this is right, I just have to know for sure.” The story of reminiscing on college pasts is told in “The Tower of Babble/Carolina Stars”, while “Goodbye, Savannah!” tells the story of a man who is separated from his lover, but “I’ll see you again, when I come back to marry you!” Stories of carousels, thanksgiving, Omaha, and many more run around inside this album- it’s a very, very personal album, but it’s also very universal.
The poignancy of these tales lies not only in Caress’ lyrically plaintive way of relating the stories, but in the fact that the only instrument on the album is an acoustic guitar. Where Caress had loops and strings and beats all over the place in Letting Go of a Dream, Goes on an Adventure! is a much more organic experience. He does layer the guitars, playing second guitar parts as well as creating the effect of droning strings by playing vibrato on the higher strings of his guitar. But it never gets too cluttered- the free, open spaces that it was written in still reside in the framework of the song.
Caress’ lyrics have gotten much better- in picking up a new style of songwriting, the sometimes-clunky lyrics of previous releases have been cut. His delivery of these lyrics has improved as well- the over-the-top issues that seemed to come from too much studio tinkering have been eliminated in this much leaner album. Each time that Caress goes for a vocal line, he hits it, and more often than not, it’s shiver-inducing. The baritone is sure and steady on tunes like “The Happiest Place on Earth”, and it is simply amazing. It sounds as if Josh Caress were born to sing “The Happiest Place on Earth”- his voice and the guitar work together to make a perfectly comfortable song.
If you’re a fan of singer/songwriter fare, you need to do yourself a favor and listen to Josh Caress’ early works. He will be making waves in the bigger music scene, so it’s best to jump on the bandwagon early and get the most out of his beautiful, incredibly written music. Especially if you’re taking a trip through the Midwest.
-Stephen Carradini
independentclauses@hotmail.com
Band Name: Josh Caress
Album Name: Letting Go of a Dream
Best element: Strong command of layers and mood.
Genre: Indie songwriter
Website: www.myspace.com/joshcaress
Label name: –
Band e-mail: joshcaress@yahoo.com
Some genres are trendy—fads like nu-wave emo, pop-punk, and post-grunge that have all come into their own in the past ten years. As soon as the media binge on those genres stops, bands will stop forming in those genres. The only bands that will play post-grunge in twenty years will be hardcore believers in the sound of post-grunge, which is the way I think it should be.
But there are a few genres that are consistently bloated—and the genre of singer/songwriter is the easy choice for that crown. That’s why it’s so exciting to me when a singer/songwriter of true merit comes along- an artist bucking the trends, ignoring the naysayers, and putting full faith in what they’re doing. Josh Caress is one of those rare songwriters.
By no means is Josh Caress’ debut album Letting Go of a Dream perfect- there are moments when his low, Dylan-esque voice warbles so much that it feels wrong (“A Summer Night When We Were Young”), sections of lyrics that should’ve been left on the cutting room floor (The musically excellent “The Bus Shot Through the Night and I Believed”), as well as a little bit of musical narcissism (the excessive length of “A Summer Night…”), but on the whole, this album is a dramatic statement from a new artist.
Josh Caress’ emphasis isn’t on virtuoso guitar playing or perfect vocals or immaculate production. Caress’ emphasis is on the mood of the songs he writes. This album flows beautifully, and although there’s a song here or there that doesn’t match up to the quality of the rest, the flaw can be ignored when you see how it connects to the rest of the songs in the context of the album.
“Sally’s on My Side” is the song to hear if you want to know what Josh Caress is about. It starts off with a muffled, distant electronic beat until a simple electric guitar strum comes in. A world-weary, downtrodden voice comes in, accompanied by an acoustic guitar on top of all that already is. The chorus brings in another layer of guitar and a tambourine. And it’s still quite mellow. The next verse brings in a far-off drumbeat and a doubled vocal. The song is building and building, and the changes flow right. The song surges upward in a crescendo until the very end when Caress takes his vocals up an octave over pounding layers of music, in a beautifully cathartic cry of “Wish you never loved him, wish he never hurt you!” Then the song drops back to its beginnings, with a simple beautiful guitar strum and an electronic beat.
All of these songs funnel the themes of loss, regret, and hopeful optimism through motifs of stars, night, wind, travel, and many more. The sound is lush, full, and beautiful- a legato indie-pop orchestra. From the tenderly forlorn “Opening Theme” to the final dying chords of “Letting Go of a Dream”, this album is beautiful.
I was once told to listen to a copy of Confusion Ends.’ album Hello, I’m Noah while riding a city bus. I was told that you would never feel more alive then to watch life pass while listening to the music. I’m telling you this: You will never feel more alive then when you listen to Josh Caress while watching life go by. The beauty in the CD makes life seem so much more beautiful than it is. Or maybe it unlocks the beauty that life already has.
