Somewhere in the universe odds are there’s a Goth Star… nourishes with your black rays O’ Goth Star! We are not worthy!!!! Original music by Pictureplane, remix by Brenmar.

Four Tet - There is Love in You (2010) [Domino] // Grade: A-

The newest masters of subtlety: Gui Boratto. The Field. Lusine. And now, if he wasn’t there already, veteran producer Kieran Hebden and the organic electro of Four Tet—because even though you’d struggle to box in There Is Love In You with modern minimal, it’s not difficult to hear the references in its winding, hypnotic tracks. This is Four Tet’s most fluid album to date, if not the best, and that has everything to do with a fresh focus on stripping things bare.

‘Course, that concept resonates differently in the Four Tet universe. After more than a decade of critically lauded releases and remixes, Hebden would be hard pressed to trade his signature warmth for the comparative chill of Gui Boratto’s filter sweeps—this guy did spawn the (seriously annoying) term folktronica, after all. It’s all about nuance here; There Is Love In You is more concerned with being pretty than catchy, more interested in how a pattern shifts and stutters over time than how many kids it’ll bring to the floor. Hebden hinted at this smooth, circular nuance on last year’s Ringer EP, and here it bears fruit; from the unintelligible vocal samples of “Angel Echoes” to the looping guitar on “Circling”, the album develops slowly, almost imperceptibly, until it ends entirely different from where it kicked off. Only a few songs (most notably “Sing” and epic single “Love Cry”) deign to flirt with a dance-y vibe—and even then, they make way more sense surrounded by other tracks than they ever will on their own.

So could that be considered the album’s only drawback? Maybe. And also maybe not; it depends totally on how much you like this stuff to begin with. I mean, look at it this way: Four Tet’s never been all that single heavy. Sure, Hebden’s released them, and some have been insanely great (especially 2005′s “Smile Around The Face”). But Four Tet has always relied to some degree on context, and even the best singles shine most brightly in album format. To truly get the dynamics, the build, the simmering and stuttering 45+ minute climax that encapsulates There Is Love, you’ve got to hear it in one go. End of story. Break it up into bite-sized fragments, and it might go a little bland; a little ho-hum, next please. And let me tell you, There Is Love spun all at once?  It’s  anything—anything—but that.

In every thrift store across this great nation, there are used copies of Jerry Maguire on VHS. The sides of the box are red with white font, so they’re easy to spot amongst the other forgotten tapes. It’s not a bad movie, everyone on the planet just seemed to have a copy of it when they upgraded to DVD. As I write this, the folks at Everything Is Terrible have 332 copies of this Cameron Crowe classic stored in their Chicago headquarters. Their goal is to have the largest collection of Jerry Maguire tapes in the history of mankind. But why? Well…why not?

Maguire isn’t the only VHS tape collected by the EIT collective and if you’ve been on the internet during the past two years, chances are you’ve come across some of their bizarrely nostalgic VHS edits. Most of the videos used by EIT are from the mid-80s to early 90s and reflect how far we’ve come and how ridiculous our culture can be. The popularity of this “found footage” is slowly on the rise, but it would mean nothing without the wizards behind the curtain using their keen eye for crap to patiently sift through and make it watchable. Turning a corporate training video into a piece of comedic genius takes time and balls. Recently, one of EIT‘s videos, “So Your Cat Wants a Massage?,” went hyper-viral and landed the video’s star, Maryjean Ballner, on Letterman. The planets of media culture are alligning, my friends.

The folks at EIT gave their eyes and sanity a break and talked the minutea of their craft and the VHS culture with me. One of their members, Lehr the Intern, is busy shooting a project and was unable to participate. But hit the jump below and read all about everything that is Everything Is Terrible!

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“I realized I wasn’t interested in gangsters and crime, I was really interested in the morality of the characters, and their emotional descents into hell.” – Nicolas Winding Refn

For anyone tired of crime flicks whose protagonists dress GQ and speak Guy Ritchie, the Pusher Trilogy is the remedy. Writer/director Nicolas Winding Refn‘s rogues gallery of Danish hoods features some of the most fascinating fuck-ups ever filmed. And as grimy and ultra-violent as the Copenhagen underworld got, I never wanted to leave the side of these bastards. Even when Refn left me alone in a room with these unsavory types, I felt comfortable. As the hypothetical walls close in on Refn’s characters, the films never flinch or compromise their realism.

Pusher (1996): Refn (Bronson) turned down a scholarship to a Danish film school to make Pusher. He jokingly claims that he’s the only Dane to drop out of film school, but thank the gods he did. The film follows Frank (Kim Bodnia), a heroin dealer and his pal Tonny (Mads Mikkelsen). Frank sets up a large heroin deal through his supplier, the Serbian Milo (Zlatko Burić). Through a series of progressively worse decisions, Frank’s little world crumbles around him. Pusher is the weakest of the films, but the weakest of this trilogy is still stronger than most mainstream crime films. Bodnia was the only seasoned actor on the set, which shows. Some of the reactions of other actors in the film are real, as they were actually taken off guard by Bodnia’s intensity. The film ends ambiguously and perfectly (IMO). I was left hypervenitalting through the credits.

Hit the jump for the dish on Pusher II and III…

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Brick City’s Reginald Noble is slated to drop his new album 9 1/2 Weeks later this year and the second single off the record, “Oh My” has just been released to the interwebs. This track is stirring a little bit of beef with the East coast purists claiming that the production is dick riding the South. However, I couldn’t give a fuck less about the purists because this track is an anthem. Globalization is a reality so let’s get a remix of this with either Luda, Bun B or Big Boi and toast to the new world order with the Funk Doctor.

You can download a good quality version of Redman’s “Oh My” here.

Clipse – Lord Willin’ (2002)

Vs.

Kanye West – The College Dropout (2004)

The Game is simple… if only one could exist which would it be?  What’s more important… personal relevance, cultural significance, or simply being the better album all other things aside? Choice is yours…

Join us this Thursday, January 28th, from 7-10pm, for the opening of Goblin – a print series by Jon Vermilyea

Vermilyea, best known for his works in VICE, Fantagraphics and various other publications will be showcasing a collection of his most recent works created for the Мишка line Amulet of the Bloody Goblin.

The print show is a selection of Vermilyea’s favorite graphics he created from the line and each is hand printed on Rives BFK paper in a small edition of 10.

Goblin will be on display at 350 Broadway from January 28 till March 11. A special Goblin t-shirt collection along with Vermilyea’s various works will be available for sale during that time.

Мишка
350 Broadway
Brooklyn, NY
718-388-1725

J/M/Z to Marcy Ave.
G to Broadway
L to Lorimer

Due to some confusion over what sort of partially completed wax job could leave Jenna Elfman’s (yeah I watch her show, fuck you!) pubes shaped like a 7 (was it already shaped like a triangle with another triangle cut out of it?) My GF decided to search “Bikini Wax” on Wikipedia. Thinking we’d mostly just see some academic charts and diagrams on various types of waxes, Wikipedia instead greeted us full on Vagina pics! No pop up warnings, no input you date of birth to proceed, just waxed vadge! SCORE! Wondering then if this was isolated to just the entry on Bikini Waxing we then of course did a little digging and oh yeah… double, triple & quadruple SCORE!

The general entry on Vagina is particularly good starting off point for Wikipedia porn hunting. I like to imagine that this entries author took the photo themselves and then carefully called out all the details so the world would never, ever again confuse the urethral opening from the vaginal one.

But the entry for Mons Pubis is the one that truly takes the cake. Thanks to user Hanna Apple we’re given visual reference in case you were unsure what exactly the Mons Pubis was. Poolside, Hanna gives all us Wikipervs a few camel toes and of course a panty lift to reveal her Mons Pubis. And it looks like Hanna Apple even has a small, but devoted group of fans out there because we then stumbled upon Wikipedia cyber flirting! Of course we have no clue if these sorts of images that say “author submitted” and claim to be their own private parts are real or just random amateur porn finds, but I’d love to believe that the Reflectoporn people have found a new form for exhibitionism since being banished from eBay. We then of course had to get a bit sophomoric and see if Wikipedia also had pics of the taint… Bingo! Arrow and all.

So to our high school (and junior high school) readers in the library at school or with parental guards at home; or just our horny readers working a 9-5 for some prudish company that goes and blocks all the porn sites. You my friends now have an option. Happy hunting and post your finds in the comments section.

Spoon - Transference (2010) [Merge] // Grade: C

“I Turn My Camera On”, off 2005′s Gimme Fiction and “Don’t Make Me A Target” from 2007′s Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga are the two career selections that immediately come to mind when I think of Spoon. Both tracks possess the melodic rock grooves that I’ve come to associate with the band. Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga itself felt so self-assured that it could have served Spoon well as a final album with which to close their career and explore new projects. Instead Spoon chose to explore new territory under the same name with Transference.

Transference is a series of trials and errors (and a few small victories) as Spoon fights to forge a pared down, mature direction for their sound. “Trouble Comes Running” offers a clean bridge from the guitar-heavy Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. It’s different, replacing crispness with crackles, but it works, offering what could have (and should have) been a blueprint for Transference. The melodic “Mystery Road” adds a familiar nod to what we expect Spoon to sound like, but against a backdrop of eight other tracks that barely suggest the band’s past history, it’s easily forgotten.

Spoon just wanted to try something new with Transference, which I appreciate, and different isn’t why the album misses the mark. Transference is too much experimentation too fast, a compilation of “this sounds like a good idea” and “ok, let’s try it” moments. On no track is this more blatantly obvious than “Goodnight Laura”, a displaced piano ballad that early on sets the overriding tone of established band releases confused album. Transference is full of varied new directions, none of which are bad per se, but they fail to connect to one another, resulting in a rarity for Spoon, an album that favors eagerness over development.