Though Six Demon Bag came out in early 2006 it’s possible you might not have caught on until the summer, after Man Man’s memorable set at the Pitchfork Music Festival in which the raucous quintet challenged established acts like Spoon, Os Mutantes, and Devendra Banhart for show of the festival. The barnburning set featured the Philly crew in their customary white garb and warpaint, and showcased the slew of instruments they play with boisterous energy and rousing sound. Attendees and blog-readers fast picked up on the performance and the band’s notoriety increased exponentially.

The kitchen-sink approach makes for thrilling live shows, but struggles on the album. The sound is necessarily restrained by the constraints of a studio recording and while the energy still shoots through it undeniably begs for the live setting, tracks like “Banana Ghost” and “Engwish Budd” in particular are almost unlistenable on the album. Make no mistake, for all the seemingly disparate elements and rowdy demeanor the band is well versed in the different genres they touch on and even with all the sometimes discordant noise they never fully abandon songcraft just for the sake of experiment, and at times even close in on a sound that might be appropriate for the pop charts, see tracks like “Van Helsing Boombox” and “Ice Dogs.” At the end of the day Man Man craft the tightest “Viking-vaudeville” and “manic Gypsy jazz” (genres invented for the band) songs you can find.

Man Man

The John Frusciante quasi-legend exists in a sort of symbiosis with his guitar skills and musicianship. During his initial bow with the band he largely imitated Hillel Slovak; then, with the band very nearly one of the biggest in the world he left, disenfranchised with fame and notoriety. His subsequent drug-fueled spiral coincided with solo releases that revealed a fertile music mind. And so, the well-documented drug problems and burgeoning if imperfect solo career became inextricably entwined. Were he just another guitar virtuoso it might not be so interesting, but the death-spiral imbued his artistry considerable poignancy and context.

Once sober and back in the band, Frusciante’s sound fast emerged as the critical and sonic focal point not only for fans but for those generally averse to the band’s tired sound. Flea, Anthony Kiedis, and Chad Smith have all shown over the years to be capable if not terribly interesting or adventurous musicians. Whereas Frusciante, judging by his solo output, was obviously the creative engine during his latter/post-rehab-RHCP records, and was the driving force in transitioning the band from Anglo Funk-Nazis to Cali-Pop Mystics. Frusciante’s influence peaked with By The Way, the recording of which coincided with his work on Shadows Collide With People, released in 2004.

While Shadows Collide With People works as cozy companion piece to By The Way, the album lacks the polish of By The Way, and dare I say the vocal prowess of Anthony Kiedis who either knows his limits or has been told what they are. Frusciante, throughout Shadows…, lets loose his drug ravaged voice, creating an unhinged affect. On first listen this is thrilling, but it prevents repeat listens, it’s too much. Frusciante’s voice works better as backing vocals and is rather well-suited for some of the mid-range blues ballads on the album but also works well when accompanied by a suitable offset like Kiedis or in the case of Shadows… Josh Klinghoffer, who has replaced Frusciante in RHCP. Still, to deride Shadows… because of Frusciante’s vocal limitations is reductive and ignores the plethora of aural experimentation across the album, from the aforementioned blues tracks, to electronica, surf rock, hook-laden pop melodies, and of course straight-ahead rock dirges; Frusciante throws it all against the wall, and while more of it misses than hits, the fearless experimentation is invigorating.

If some of the more prevailing anecdotes are to be believed, Frusciante teeters on the edge of idiot-savant, generally avoiding such vexations as deciphering reality or driving a car, and judging by his profligate, numerous solo efforts and side projects it’s not at all hard to believe that this is an individual dedicated to guitar-craft and little else. Frusciante’s work wont ever be hit material or nestle in for long stays on someone’s rotation, rather, a substantial if unusual interval in the guitar-rock continuum.

I’d make a nepotism crack but I’d rather not offend Jack White. Seriously though he has produced Karen Elson’s (his wife) debut solo album, titled The Ghost Who Walks and the sound is about what you’d expect and nothing spectacular. Enjoyment on this song and the full-length is largely going to be based on whether or not you care to take into account some of the more curious stories from White’s personal life. If so, a country-lite album from his model-wife stocked with foreboding lyrics in the same vein as those in “The Ghost Who Walks,” might be worth a spin or two, and maybe even make for an interesting footnote in White’s career.

Have One on Me is out and the critical reception has been, to nobody’s surprise, quite good. If you are still on the fence about picking up the album, or just don’t have the money for it, head on over to NPR. The pledge-drivers are streaming the album in full for your listening pleasure. If you aren’t yet up on NPR as a source for your music needs, you need to go ahead and cut that out. Not only are they good for the occasional album streaming pre-release but they’ve been known to bag a few scoops here and there. The feature most worthy of your time is their live concert series wherein they offer high quality recordings of shows in-full–for free, just have to listen to a couple of commercials.

Could AOL stake a comeback with The Interface? Doubtful but their selections so far have been pretty solid, and the production is quality. Beach House is their latest featured artist. Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally perform four tracks off in-house fave/obsession Teen Dream. What’s most impressive so far is not only how strong the band sounds in live settings, but the tendency to apply a few subtle tweaks here and there, they sound just different enough to keep it interesting. Legrand alludes to touring as their livelihood and it shows, their performance works even though their stage presence is the guitarist seated and the singer behind a keyboard. We’ve got “Lover of Mine” for you here but recommend you check out the whole show.

Check back Friday for our look back at Devotion, the band’s 2008 album.

Mustachioed Franz Nicolay might be gone, but The Hold Steady is Craig Finn’s band and they now have a new album announced for May 4th and named Heaven is Whenever. The release has been recorded deliberately and many of the songs have the benefit of being road tested, according to Finn. We’re interested to see the product of such a generous recording process, as well as an album that promises a greater focus on guitar.

Heaven Is Whenever tracklisting:

1. The Sweet Part Of The City
2. Soft In The Center
3. The Weekenders
4. The Smidge
5. Rock Problems
6. We Can Get Together
7. Hurricane
8. Barely Breathing
9. Our Whole Lives
10. A Slight Discomfort

The Besnard Lakes are a band I’ve slept on. The name pops up enough in the blogosphere and Jagjaguwar (a personal fave) releases their albums–never got around to listening them. So my first experience with the band, new single “Albatross”, off the forthcoming The Besnard Lakes Are The Roaring Night made for quite the experience. Steeped in atmospherics rendered by the spacey lyrics of Olga Goreas, the ooh-ooh backing vocals, and the heavy and hazy sonic palette, the cumulative effect makes for a sound that feels at once fresh and yet indebted to rock history, not unlike label-mates Black Mountain and Pinkmountaintops.

The Besnard Lakes – Albatross

The Besnard Lakes

Big Release 2010 got a little clearer now that we have an album title and release date for The New Pornographers’ previously announced album; Together will release May 4th from Matador. We also have some indication of the sound (familiar: A.C. Newman and Neko Case sharing vocals against propulsive guitars and drums) with “Your Hands (Together).”

The New Pornographers – Your Hands (Together)

Revealing an inclination for soundtrack experiments displayed in subsequent releases, most notably the unforgettable The Jesus & Mary Chain scored finale for Lost in Translation, the gleefully anachronistic double-album for the otherwise sleepy Marie Antoinette, and most recently the decision to have Phoenix score the soundtrack for upcoming Somewhere (another showbiz-centric tale drawn off her life), in all Sofia Coppola has shown a propensity to eschew convention with regards to creating the soundtracks for her movies, a trend first noticed in The Virgin Suicides. She commissioned Air to record the soundtrack for which the band ultimately created an album’s worth of songs, two of which show up on the official soundtrack. The rest of the songs on the album are plausible, unobtrusive, perhaps even obvious contemporary choices for the film’s 1970s setting. The clear standout at the time and to this day, one of Air’s contributions, the dreamy, horn-infused pop ballad “Playground Love,”  and embodied with the memorable music video featuring singing bubble gum edited into scenes from the movie, best exemplifies the experimental nature of the soundtrack. Embedding is disabled on the video but I recommend you click on through to check it out.

In Caribou’s video for “Odessa”, Video Marsh sends an improbably attractive young woman through a hellish rural snowscape replete with phallic rams, a little blonde girl, a snarling wolf, and disembodied yellow teeth, evoking most readily David Lynch or even Sam Raimi’s A Simple Plan. Though she wrecks her car and comes out bloodied, the woman ruefully smiles…hinting at her successful escape?