Be post-human! Mix and link these together to form your own review of this album! The first 666 respondents get a faux-silkscreen Che Guavara t-shirt! The next 14 typists get a copy of R.E.M.'s homewreckin' Monster!
I got my third Tascam Portastudio today from an eBayer (sorry, dude, I don't do feedback, because ANARCHY) and on the toilet I was reading the hilarious manual The Fast Track to Multi-Track, with stuff about how Sgt. Pepper was made on a four-track. Whoo doggie. Inspiring.
If Phil Elvrum made this album, one would barely be able to approach it for the moat of critical spooge.
Jack Logan's Bulk should be the last album to be culled from a bunch of homemade demos. Because critics just call subsequent collages Bulk-like.
Is the album title a shout-out to the clackity classic The Arizona Record by Silver Jews? Does it have Nebraska's nascent scenelords in mind?
In his fascinating essay entitled "The 'Feminization' of Rock", Tony Grajeda argues that lo-fi represents a girling of genre, using both Pavement and Sebadoh's terrified response to the spectacle of roid-rage that is Henry Rollins. (Grajeda also examines the masculine ad-culture around hi-fi equipment.) Which is funny, because The Omaha Record, an example of 2003 lo-fi, is pretty durn asexual. What are these songs about? One senses that Hudson's resident genius Eli Simon's only passion is to make more songs.
Damn if the bedroom vanguard didn't succumb to overproduction (see Liz Phair's Matrix abomination, see Pavement and Beck's work with Radiohead's knob-polisher).
For those who love blasts: "The Chilling Sorcerer" and "Tokyo" build to sharp, tremendous, glammy blasts.
Hey, speaking of Sgt. Pepper, these soggy Bottom boys love that Beatle solo-tone, which they bring to The Beach Boys on "Eagle Eye" and to the countrified work of the Rolling Stones on "Omaha Ray" (which owes its soul to "Factory Girl"). Can you say 1960s? Waiter, this gravy is wavy!
But wait! Simon often earns the title of Bedroom Bowie, especially on the excellent "Motorcade"! But wait! Simon often sounds like a Virginian ambassador for New Zealand's Tall Dwarfs and Peter Jeffries. Who doesn't love when patriots cop redcoat accents? Hi, Liars! Hi, Mr. Pollard (did you serve as a consultant on "Pockets", with its you-esque lyric, "The fact of the matter is, my friend, they sold you to the wind king"?)!
The intro to the babyfat "Shoop" crosses the line of Barlow-homage by looping its "behind-the-scenes" self-deprecatus. Meanwhile, "Red Election", despite Polara-caliber lyrics and vox, explodes into skree worthy of Rollerskate Skinny and the late, great Jellyfish Kiss.
Even devotees of pawn-shop drum machines must admit that this act is a chunk of studio time away from shedding its everyband veneer. Pity their versatility for being cast into a world in which an "album" is burdened with being considered a coherent statement rather than an audio diary of the last few years' divergent strains.
