Feature

A Review of Boyer's Survey of My Failures This Far

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The size of this tome makes one think of Wallace’s Infinite Jest, or Stein’s The Making of Americans. Boyer’s iconoclastic style would seem to bear out these comparisons, yet the subject of this book does not pretend to the coherence of Stein’s or Wallace’s. There is no single consciousness bringing the work together, which may be part of the point: the second sentence of the book reads, “I am so many different sorts of people it makes me want to stick my fingers in your mouth.” The surreal, absurd non sequitur here is a consistent feature of a book that is, ultimately, a mystifying miscellany. A Survey of My Failures This Far is seven books in one volume. Each is markedly different in terms of genre as well as style and subject matter. “Chewing in the Land of the Bonobos” is written as absurdist drama in the manner of Beckett; “Shorthand with Periodic Tenderness” is a collection of poems reminiscent of Kerouac’s Mexico City Blues. Boyer’s experimental impulse occasionally yields nuggets of philosophical wisdom or narratological insight, but a large part of the appeal of this work is musical and imagistic. Much of it operates according to the logic of nonsense: even individual sentences plunge us down into a new rabbit hole. In the central book within the book, “The God Game,” Boyer gives us some sense of his method in the form of a playful instruction manual about creation itself: “[W]e are using words in a manner similar to their original meaning, while simultaneously giving a new twist for our purposes. This level of involvement is post-culture creation, or rather simultaneous with culture creation.” Got that? This is Barthian postmodernism on crack, or one man’s insistence that printed narrative may not be exhausted, but it can be exhausting.

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952 Pages
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Animal Hospital -- Good or Plenty, Streets + Avenues

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I guess 2009 is officially Animal Hospital’s coming out party. I first became smitten (and rightly so) by the release of Memory on the illustrious Barge imprint and apparently this little puppy preceded Memory by a month, so it looks like I am taking in the releases in reverse order. Of course, this matters not at all. A cursory listen to either album would quickly lead a listener to the other release on the basis of sheer goodness. Oh Animal Hospital, will you never stop healing our poor pets and wild Earthly co-inhabitants? Hopefully not. Good or Plenty, Streets + Avenues is a wonderful addition to the Animal Hospital repertoire that was presented on Memory. The album avoids the lengthy, dramatic surgeries displayed on that release and instead focuses on the standard day to day operations of animal hospitalateering: daily check-ups, medicine prescriptions, happy customers. GorP,S+A is a light hearted dip into the joys of healing animals via layers and layers of homespun loops. As a refresher for those who were unable to wade through my lengthy review of Memory (or simply missed it altogether), Animal Hospital is not “Animal Hospitals.” It is a single edifice and as such is the pseudonym designated for a single musician from Boston named Kevin Micka. Micka’s work here is built around his slowly evolving and elaborate looping of guitars, percussion and electronics. Unlike Memory, GorP,S+A steers clear of weighty crescendos and instead offers beautifully intricate character sketches with each track. In a way, this kind of meandering structure is harder to pull off, but Micka proves ownership of a keen ear and adept musicianship by executing each track with the utmost precision and always keeping things interesting. Good or Plenty, Streets + Avenues is one of those rare albums I’ve found that I can always listen to even when nothing else will do. Really solid work.

1. We Can
2. Novel Moments
3. March and June
4. 11 18 07
5. What If They Are Friendly
6. Good or Plenty
7. Define
8. Barnyard Creeps
9. Labor Day

Digital album available to stream or download now!

Animal Hospital -- "Good or Plenty, Streets + Avenues" (Copy)

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Metropolinvisible

Originally published in Metropolinvisible

The first decade of the twenty-first century is almost over, and we still consider the post-rock reservoir of musical innovation to be pure folly. Though there are still bands that can interpret the sounds of Mogwai & Co. with extreme precision and dignity (see “our” Port Royal, the Low Frequency in Stereo, This Will Destroy You and a few others), it is undeniable that the vast majority of contemporary post-rock is marked by what can only be termed a mannerist period.

Precisely because of these considerations, the work of Kevin Micka (formerly of the Common Cold) and his Animal Hospital takes on a more pronounced value because it manages to escape from the net of label support, showing an attitude that reminds us of another time, about fifteen years back, when post-rock was anything but a simple genre, instead representing a global transformation of music.

Five years after he started his official one man band, in 2009 this Boston feels that he has lots to say, releasing two albums in short order: “Memory” (published in early March by Barge recordings), and the latest “Good or Planty, Streets + Avenues.” The latter contains a number of tracks recorded by Kevin in an off-handed manner between 2007 and 2008, which were only later collected in a single record.

And it is perhaps because of this extemporaneous quality that the full expressive power of Animal Hospital is unleashed here, that after the intro of “We can” invades our senses, “Novel Moments” opens with a visionary drone-folk imbued the best of Roy Montgomery. The slight sway and move of “March and June,” calibrated by the beautiful voice of Katharine Fisk Shields, pleasantly recalls the atmosphere of winking Aerial M, while the quasi-fennesziana “11:18:07” with its harsh environment and “What If They Are Friendly” appear to be symptoms of a deviated isolationism and convulsive. The electroacoustic interlude of “Good or plenty” then ferries in the final part of the disc, which is more properly post-rock. “Define” is poised between Tortoise on the one hand, and Fly Pan Am on the other, while “Barnyard Creeps” recalls the valuable with elaborate textures of Windsor for the Derby sometimes topped with glimmers of noise, and the concluding “Labor Day” is an array of environmental and noisy psychedelic abstraction which seems vaguely reminiscent of the settled cosmic country of Rex. The post-rock of the 90’s was an open laboratory for testing and contamination: Animal Hospital has revived that spirit and the rest of us will never be grateful enough.

(The above article was translated from the original Italian by the editors with the help of Google Translate. We apologize for any mistakes.)

1. We Can
2. Novel Moments
3. March and June
4. 11 18 07
5. What If They Are Friendly
6. Good or Plenty
7. Define
8. Barnyard Creeps
9. Labor Day

Digital album available to stream or download now!

Even More Majestic: A Review of Big Trouble in Little China

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Maarten Schiethart

Originally published by Penny Black Music 04.25.2009

Named after the 19th century Hungarian composer, the Liszts, however, are a combo singing in both Mandarin and English alike. Their diction and phrasing give away an American heritage and while (obviously I cannot account for having any detection quality when the language in question originates from a country I have never been to) also that of China. As foreign as that may all seem, the Liszts deal in rather familiar ethics. And before you even became aware of it, the Liszts embrace sounds that one would not be able tell apart from that of other established indie rock or college radio starlets, so let us forget about any exotic ethnicity for once.

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Animal Hospital -- "Good or Plenty, Streets + Avenues"

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Besides being a frequent cause for derision from my fiance, music that falls into the “ambient-drone” category is a staple for me. It lends itself to heavy headphone affairs in which I can be completely lost in washes of synths and looped guitar distortion to a diligent companion to late night War and Peace read-a-thons with Addy. The only downside is that when I hear an amazing instrumental album I immediately get a sense of sadness once the giddiness goes away, I think, when am I going to listen to this again? When can I recapture the thrill of the first time I heard this? The good thing about bands that fall into the ambient drone camp is that they always retain a sense of “newness” at every listen, without recognizable hooks or melodies each song is a limitless resource of sounds and musical ideas that gather weight with each listen. Animal Hospital’s Good or Plenty is an album in which every song is as fresh and exciting as it was on first listen (as exciting as an ambient drone album can be). is a remarkable recording full of sunny, beautifully recorded instrumental forays into sound and texture. Kevin Micka is a masterful sound manipulator, taking seemingly standard song arrangements of guitars, drums, turntables, hand claps and the human voice and creates looping soundscapes that are rife with discovery. Never giving into the temptation to let his wanderings turn into an irrelevant wad of noise, Micka lets his instruments prop up each song giving them of a depth of a fully fleshed out pop song. His layers of shiny guitar washes over processed feedback and manipulation put him in the ranks of Aidan Baker and Christian Fennez, while his aural dexterity and dedication to creating beautiful soundscapes recall a Talk Amongst the Trees era Matthew Cooper. Good or Plenty is what I am guessing is a companion to his full length put out on the amazing Barge Records earlier this year, I’m guessing they both go in my list of favorite instrumental albums of the year.

1. We Can
2. Novel Moments
3. March and June
4. 11 18 07
5. What If They Are Friendly
6. Good or Plenty
7. Define
8. Barnyard Creeps
9. Labor Day

Digital album available to stream or download now!

Animal Hospital: Good or Plenty, Streets + Avenues

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Good or Plenty, Streets + Avenues, the second full-length album by Boston-based musician and producer Kevin Micka (aka Animal Hospital ), presents a satisfying, forty-three-minute set of guitar-based instrumentals and electro-acoustic explorations. Not having heard his 2004 self-titled release, I can only imagine how it compares to the new material but I’m willing to bet Good or Plenty, Streets + Avenues represents a significant advance (something I’m sure we’ll also hear when Micka’s Barge recording, Memory, is released). The range of sounds he coaxes from the guitar shows he’s clearly a resourceful player, and one who, to his credit, eschews histrionics for a subtler approach. He proves equally capable of folding repeating patterns into hypnotic lattice-works (“Good or Plenty”) as he does sculpting meditations both vaporous (“What If They Are Friendly”) and shuddering (“Labor Day”), and he’s also got a nice way of using well-timed stabs to kick the material into a higher gear when necessary; hear, for example, how the otherwise polite funk workout “Barnyard Creeps” springs to life the second Micka’s guitar roar enters. Contrasts abound: a seeming septet of electric guitarists collectively threads melodic patterns into a ruminative whole during “Novel Moments” while steely tones and washes stretch across the background; waves of guitars swarm and cascade throughout “11 18 07” while a plodding rhythm keeps funereal time; and the jubilant and light-footed “March and June” drapes wordless vocals by Katharine Fisk Shields and Micka over a lightly swinging, Afro-tinged rhythm base, with acoustic guitar and a celeste-like melody adding further colour. Good or Plenty, Streets + Avenues doesn’t radically advance the guitar-based soundscaping genre but there’s still much to admire about Micka’s execution of his material and his conceptual approach (love the album cover too).

1. We Can
2. Novel Moments
3. March and June
4. 11 18 07
5. What If They Are Friendly
6. Good or Plenty
7. Define
8. Barnyard Creeps
9. Labor Day

Digital album available to stream or download now!

Animal Hospital -- Good or Plenty, Streets + Avenues

in ,

Love and Mathematics

Originally published 02.15.2009

My favorite Brian Eno album always has been and always will be “Another Green World.” Anticipating Eno’s ambient work that soon followed in its use of meditative repetition and quiet electronics, that 1975 lp has always been more interesting to me because of its added complexity: the way, for instance, that guitars, bass, drums, and the occasional vocal allow the music to retain contact with the standard rock format even as the compositions moved far beyond. So you might call “Another Green World” an “ambient” album, but it’s much more than that; and you might call it “experimental rock,” but it’s much more than that, too.

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