August 31, 2004

{ Poor Aim: Love Songs by The Blow }

Seven tracks. Seventeen minutes. Stuck in your head- forever. Khaela Maricich and Jona Bechtolt have forged something amazing here. While there is an incredibly accessible side to this album's brilliantly crafted lo-fi electro-dance-pop, Poor Aim: Love Songs is also conspiratorially intimate, warm and sweet. Like diary pages set to hook-laden beats. It's as though your best friend's cool older sister, whom you've always had a crush on, suddenly pulled you into her room to whisper secrets in your ear while playing new-wave records at top volume to mask your conversation from her jealous brother. You realize as she's speaking just how well she knows you, and why you've always loved her. Her brother breaks in the door just as you're about to share your first kiss.... I can't tell you exactly why this album works so wonderfully well. Part of it has to do with how unassuming it is. These are Love Songs, but they're hardly cliched happy endings. More often they are half-realised longings, moments of bitterness tempered with truth, bright and catchy laments for what never was. Maricich's confessional lyrics and personal tone find perfect expression over Jona Bechtolt's laptop beats and drizzly electronic rhythms. The opening track "Hey Boy" is one of the best songs I've heard this year and "Come On Petunia", the closing track, offers a restructuring of the chorus from "Every Little Thing She Does is Magic" (The Police) that sends shivers down my spine it's so amazingly good. This album is the first of many upcoming collaborative efforts between States Rights Records and Slender Means Society, aptly dubbed the Pregnancy Series. If Poor Aim is any indication, the Pregnancy Series will soon be nursing a string of hits. Only 700 copies of the CD are being produced, and you can mail-order a copy right now. Or you can wait until the official October 5th retail release date, and just hope there are some copies left, and that you're lucky enough to get your hands on one. The LP version will be out on K records later this year. Also, peep out Crown Dozen's coverage of Jona Bechtolt's main project Y.A.C.H.T., with our review of the album Super Warren MMIV. Just hit "archives" over there on your right and look for it under "Music"

     » States Rights Records (order here)
     » The Blow
     » Y.A.C.H.T.

By Adam in Music | Comments: