For the chilly nights after crazy hot days. My favorite kind of night. I could sit outside for hours.

Bonus: Second Hand Heart – “Trouble” [MP3 via SoundCloud]
Bonus: Second Hand Heart – “Tu me perds” [Link to stream]

Second Hand Heart on the web | Facebook | SoundCloud

Hype Hype Hooray is a biweekly “critique” of the music scene and the blogosphere that feeds it, told through the lens of Jamie Hale, a journalist who likes music about as much as he likes scotch and a firm leather chair. Please enjoy with a grain of salt.

I sat on a plane in the sky, somewhere between Portland and San Francisco. My in-flight ginger ale bubbled nervously on the tray table in front of me. I was en route to Los Angeles by way of San Diego to visit friends. The trip was meant to be fun, a vacation to a part of the world with which I wasn’t familiar, but a small voice inside me begged for something greater, something more significant.

I pulled out my iPod and scrolled through to a record I hoped would calm my nerves: Julian Lynch’s latest album “Lines.” I sipped the soda and leaned back against the hard fabric seat. The music engulfed me at once:

Jangling guitars, thudding drums, discontent synth, and droning woodwinds, all coming together dramatically and at once, playing a chaotic melody of foreboding and fear. I swallowed hard. My ears popped. I stared ahead into a field of blue fabric as the music grew more intense. I was embarking on a journey of great importance, I realized, one with high stakes and dire consequences. The song thudded in step with my heart.

As I accepted this fate, this feeling of purpose, the music faded away. It gave rise to a soothing melody set to a confident rhythm–a simple, tribal sort of song cloaked in thin, whispered vocals, like a sheer cut of silk. It offered comfort in nature, in human nature, it seemed to say, in the raw, uncomfortable emotions I felt that, it didn’t acknowledge, it had made me feel in the first place.

And just as I had accepted that truth of the moment, the song broke down chaotically and faded away, evolving into something else entirely–another song with another emotional objective. While it should have been maddening, the music calmed me down, it showed me that the feelings I had were real, and that in spite of my anxiety there was peace to be found. It was heartening. It was beautiful. It was profound.

Such is the world of Julian Lynch.

***

I don’t hear a lot about Julian Lynch. He’s certainly not on the radio, alongside the likes of Phoenix and Passion Pit. His name isn’t thrown into the same circles as Noah Lennox and Kurt Vile. He doesn’t even get quite as much recognition as acts like Real Estate and Tennis, two of his label mates at Underwater Peoples. The introspective New Jersey musician has four quality records under his belt (and great off-album material to boot), and has earned quiet nods of approval from critics, so why isn’t he a big deal?

The truth of the matter is that he doesn’t really seem to care.

Lynch started releasing music under the name Born2Run, while studying ethnomusicology in Madison, Wisconsin. His first efforts, a small handful of ethereal Eastern-styled meditations, are about as understated as it gets, but the talent behind the meticulous introspection is real.

That talent burst onto the indie blog scene in 2009, courtesy of Underwater Peoples, then an up-and-coming label based in D.C. The label’s hugely influential compilation, “Underwater Peoples Summertime Showcase,” featured Lynch’s brilliant “Droplet on a Hot Stone,” a song which, full disclosure, remains one of my favorite of the last decade. As bloggers took notice, Lynch, alongside Real Estate, Ducktails and others, was on the rise.

This was a time, if you remember, when the indie scene was chilling out in a big way. This was the debut year for both Toro Y Moi and Washed Out, the grandfathers of the much-maligned “chillwave” movement. Lynch wasn’t jumping aboard the bandwagon with his mellow style, he was helping lay its foundation. But as his genre-mates released their debuts to critical acclaim (both Real Estate and Memory Tapes earned “Best New Music” status on Pitchfork), Lynch released “Orange You Glad,” a disappointing debut that felt hastily cobbled together. It’s easy to imagine the musician focused on school, on Madison, on anything but this hypeworthy genre taking over the blogs.

A year later, after chillwave was successfully recast as a pretentious slur, Lynch finally came into his own as a musician. His sophomore release, “Mare,” was everything his debut was not: diverse, lush, powerful. It carried over Lynch’s trademark patience, injecting a sense of confidence that had been missing from most of his earlier work. “Mare” earned Lynch great critical reception (including Pitchfork’s BNM status), and set him on a path to indie greatness.

His next album, 2011′s “Terra,” however, underwhelmed critics, earned him no new acclaim, and actually missed my radar completely. In retrospect, the record is fine–it’s good even. It doesn’t evolve as dramatically as “Mare” did from “Orange You Glad,” but rather finds Lynch continuing to timidly explore the world between instrumental experimentation, traditional Eastern styles and stripped-down folk.

The evolution to this year’s “Lines” is about as thin. We don’t see much new with his latest project, but that doesn’t mean it’s not impressive. Lynch seems to be circling back to the influences that kicked off his career, crafting a more mature, and more dire, sound. While the zen is still there, it’s wrapped in a sense of realism–like a young monk growing older, only to better understand the perils of reality.

It’s this sort of meditative growth that doesn’t bring Lynch to the table alongside his more bombastic counterparts. Critics and fans alike look for music that makes great leaps, not small shuffles. But that’s sort of his point. To push his music to glory for glory’s sake would go against its very nature.

There’s a quote from a book of Eastern philosophy that comes to mind when I listen to Julian Lynch. “Nobody seems to realize how very useful it is to be useless,” it says. The idea is not to focus on doing and changing, but on sitting and evolving–at whatever pace is natural. Lynch won’t make drastically different albums, because that’s not the pace of his evolution. He won’t fit into the formula of a genre or of a movement, because he truly doesn’t seem to care. It doesn’t matter. In the end, in the greater picture, it’s just not important.

It’s from that apathy, and his careful introspective thinking, that an authentic, emotionally-complex sound is crafted. It might not jive with our fast-paced, goal-oriented society of doers, but that’s ok. Lynch is challenging us more than he is himself. He seems quite confident in his ethereal world–it’s the rest of us that have trouble relaxing.

Canary, out of Australia, recently re-released their debut album, Dear Universe, and it’s one hell of a mature effort for a first album. While the styles of sound are uniquely varied, Canary never tries to overdo it. The light and airy textures will keep Dear Universe buzzing in my ears.

Canary on the web | Facebook | Bandcamp

Colors define reality. Dullness becomes hysteria. Do you see color when you listen to the sounds that resonate most in your head? Do you see hot reds and oranges when listening to rock, and grainy blues and greens when listening to folk? Waves of sound become intensely hued. The best sounds make me feel. I view my emotions in color.

Trails and Ways on the web | Facebook

photo: ‘sleeping, bravely.’

song: peter and the wolf – “safe travels”

i was 19. i had moved, recently, from los angeles, where i had been homeless [sleeping in my car, then sleeping in my office when my engine seized] for a month before moving to colorado. i went through bouts of almost- and near- and essentially-homelessness for a few months before finally getting approved for an apartment.

when i found out i had been approved, i was professional and courteous on the phone. i didn’t act surprised. i acted non-chalant. like getting approved for an apartment was normal and that i was like every other 19 year old girl. after walking the many miles to my new apartment and finally being able to pick up the keys, it was late at night.

i unlocked the door.

i walked into the bathroom and i realized that i could bathe whenever i wanted.

for the first time in months, i cried.

my new apartment cost $400 a month; though i was employed, i had lied on my rental application about my income by about $10,000 a year. $400 a month was an astronomical amount for me.

i had to pay the rent late every month.

6 months later, my financial situation hadn’t improved. i worked as many hours as i could, however i was low on the work totem pole and didn’t get great shifts. to make extra money, my boyfriend and i decided to go and sell plasma at a local blood bank.

if you’ve ever donated or sold plasma or blood, you know how this system works. you show up at 6:30 AM so you’re first in line when they open at 7, because they only buy a certain amount of plasma a day and they don’t set appointments. you fill out your paperwork, you sit for two hours watching cartoons on silent. the closed captioning is too small to read.

once you get called in for a preliminary interview, they ask about your sexual history and what drugs you do in an aggressive and violating way. weed is okay, meth is not. they ask this because everyone who sells plasma is addicted to something.

i was addicted to cigarettes. and bathing.

after your preliminary interview, you’re approved or denied. if the former, then you wait around for another hour [the TV has switched to Maury] before getting called up for a blood sample.

my number had been called.

they took my heart rate, they asked me to pump my arm, they pulled a sample. then i was taken to a room where they analyzed everything.

“i’m sorry,” they told me, “your blood pressure is too low. we can’t accept any samples from you.”

next up was my boyfriend, who was approved. the knot in my stomach relaxed as he was led to the back to donate.

while i sat in the front waiting for him, i planned how to spend the $70 we’d receive from his donation. i was going to buy a coffee and pack of cigarettes; i knew he’d want pizza.

i was peaceful.

but then a nurse came from behind the closed door and though she was still 20 feet away, i knew she was headed my direction. she pointed at me and motioned to come over. i followed her and found out that my boyfriend had vomited and passed out while they were pulling the plasma.

they couldn’t finish the donation. there wasn’t enough already donated for a full sample. we wouldn’t be paid.

i helped my boyfriend out to the car; it had gotten hot in the 5 hours we had been at the clinic and the air conditioning didn’t work. my boyfriend was groggy and had vomit all over himself. it smelled horrible.

as i drove home hungry and tired and hot, worried about my 72-hour eviction notice, desperately wanting a cigarette, i realized that this had been the worst day of my life. 6 years later and it still is.

which is an amazing thing, really.

that at 25 years, i’ve already gotten one of my really horrible experiences out of the way. like at the beginning of life, a predetermined number of spiders are released into the walls of your life’s apartment and i had already found and killed one of them. and undoubtedly, i’ll encounter the other spiders soon — spiders of death and illness and not being able to take care of my loved ones — but one spider is gone.

and where you are now, you’ve killed some, too. and since starting the journey, you’ve acquired a shoe, maybe, or a broom or a kleenex of wisdom and experience to help kill these spiders as they materialize. you’ll continue to be better adapted, and you’ll continue to become wiser.

and soon after encountering a spider, you’ll realize that you’re bigger — you’re almost six feet tall. and you’re stronger.

and you’ll be fine.

photo by bari sowa | more

This is going to be a sensitive one.  Fair warning.

Summertime. We’re nearly there, though friends of mine in the eastern US have been sweating their asses off for some time now. Despite torrential downpours and some extreme flooding throughout Germany there have been a few gorgeous, sun-filled half-days sprinkled in for good measure. One of which was a week or so ago when I went to my first open-air gig (aside from a festival) in a very long time. It was in the center of the small town of Dachau, only about 20 minutes by SBahn from Munich: Grizzly Bear and an unremarkable opener I don’t care enough about to look up. Grizzly Bear was good. That’s all I have to say about them.

Now. I’ve spent the better part of 3 years living in western Europe and I am well aware of (and was prior to my move) the unbelievably ugly history a certain small group of folks from the place I now call my home have branded on the entire world, not to mention their relationship with my homeland as far as WWII is concerned. It must be said that the beauty of this country, of Bavaria, the people here, the art, the multicultural neighborhoods, the food, the architecture..everything… far outweigh the aforementioned historical stain. I have to admit I really didn’t pay the history that much attention aside from learning about it in school, realizing its horrors, lamenting on them and then going to math class. Right or wrong that’s the truth. Two summers ago I had the opportunity to visit Normandy, Omaha Beach specifically. The overwhelming sense of loss and sadness I felt while visiting there coupled with the complex emotions my better half, a German, was having were practically unbearable, but necessary. Then I came home and la la la life went on.

I love music. Not all of it. That’s a shite statement given by people who could give a fuck about music at all. “What bands and music do you listen to?” “Oh, you know…everything. The radio…” GAH. Anyhow, while I have definite favorites, my eardrums can bend toward specific and completely different genres depending upon my mood. “Even classical music, Abby? Operas?” Why yes, even classical music. Specifically Richard Wagner. I can almost feel the mood lowering.

Yes, Wilhelm Richard Wagner. You know him from such hits as “Flight of the Valkyries”. And the fact that he is one of the, if not the most controversial composer in history. I think the first time I heard Tristan und Isolde years ago I was enraptured. Hooked. It is just so. painfully. beautiful. You can read all you want about his life, his works, his successful attempt to bind theatre and stage and orchestration and opera and visual art into one glorious, spine-tingling bundle. His attempt to escape creditors, his affairs and his exile to Switzerland is gloriously gossipy. What always seems to stand out however, as it should, are his anti-Semitic political writings and, posthumously, the fancy a certain German political leader of the 1920s-40s took to his music. So. Quite the conundrum, right? Is it wrong, for obvious reasons, to listen?

I allowed myself some time prior to the Grizzly Bear gig to board a bus and visit the Dachau KZCamp for the first time. The clouds were low in the sky and it was cold and rainy. Fitting, as somehow a bright sunny day and the warmth of sun on my face would seem insulting and disrespectful to the many whose lives were taken so tragically. One should feel uncomfortable there, in every way possible, I think. What else can I say? The experience was dark and didn’t feel real. I mean it was real, of course. To see the earth and dwellings that supported so much sadness and hate and death. You can understand my thought process and the heaviness of heart I had only if you had visited the same place on the same day at the same time. You can, however, try to imagine it.

About a year ago I had the opportunity to see British (and Jewish) actor Stephen Fry’s Wagner & Me wherein he travels and unearths the multitude of controversial facets of the composer he has loved (like is responsible for his journey to becoming an artist kind of love) since he was a small boy. Faced with the same questions as I but on a grander scale, he manages with charm, wit and a lot of heart to thoughtfully research and explore Wagner’s influences on politics, music, literature and the arts in general. If your interest is somehow piqued enough to watch it yourself I won’t reveal his conclusion. What I will say is the mere fact the film was made and Wagner exulted on the big screen to begin with is telling.

I left the Camp and went to the show. That was that. I had a temporary diversion of thought: dinner and a gig. And, even now, I really don’t have an answer as to whether it is wrong to enjoy the music of a man whose narrow views completely clash with mine; a man whose music was lauded by one of the most inhuman and hateful beings in history. I do enjoy Wagner’s music terribly though. And if it – the music – makes me jubilant and happy, albeit emotionally drained at times, and therefore a happier and kinder person in the long run, is that troubling? Wrong? Again, I don’t know. I do know that later that same evening the weather cleared and the crisp air danced across our faces, as we all, despite race, religion or mother tongue, enjoyed the universal beauty of music under this Dachau sky…

Photo courtesy of K. Burger, Munich

…and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Happy weekend.

[Abby's Road is a Knox Road feature published every other Friday.]

Wow. These guys came from out of nowhere (well, technically, Norway) to deliver one of my new favorite songs. Frenzied, yet elegant, and one hundred percent euphoric. I love it.

Blåtime on Facebook

Hype Hype Hooray is a biweekly “critique” of the music scene and the blogosphere that feeds it, told through the lens of Jamie Hale, a journalist who likes music about as much as he likes scotch and a firm leather chair. Please enjoy with a grain of salt.

Today I decided to check out Rivers Cuomo’s latest contribution to music, “Homely Girl.” The song is 100 percent, fine-cut Japanese pop. It’s sung almost entirely in its appropriate language. It’s straight out of the closing credits of any anime ever. It’s also unbearable.

I sat down and decided to take a closer look at the song. looked at it from the outside: a well-made ode to popular Japanese music written by a talented and well-respected songwriter. But then I stepped a little closer and saw it for what it was: an awkward, conceited waste of time written by a narcissistic lunatic.

We all remember Rivers Cuomo, right? He was the awkward guy with glasses who fronted Weezer, the alt-rock band from the ’90s who did “Buddy Holly” and “Hashpipe,” among other things. Before he was a confident shooting star however, Rivers was once known as something of a king to awkward, outsider teens, who angrily embraced his words as if they were their own.

In those days Rivers thrived. Remember The Blue Album? It swayed cautiously, yet aggressively into our hearts, burning with a quiet intensity that inflated our troubled souls. We nodded our heads with every word. MY name was Jonas and THAT WAS how I felt.

Then there was Pinkerton. We grew with Rivers from his first album to his second, encountering the same painful experiences in our lives, learning the same lessons he did. This was an opus to being emotionally estranged–a sort of opera for those who isolated themselves within themselves. It was Rivers bearing his raw, beating heart to the masses. It was beautiful, but it ruined him.

He had gone in search of isolation from his newfound fame, but returned with his soul exposed. He called it a “painful mess … like getting really drunk at a party and spilling your guts in front of everyone and feeling incredibly great and cathartic about it, and then waking up the next morning and realizing what a complete fool you made of yourself.” He was embarrassed.

But instead of taking it easy and toning back a little, Rivers gutted himself entirely, taking out all the anxiety, social isolation and pain, and replacing it with vanity, overconfidence and optimism. His songwriting talent remained as a sort of shell, packaging familiar material with a whole different core.

His third record, The Green Album, sported a friendly, cooler band on the cover. It was light and relatively worry-free. It had catchy pop romance in “Island in the Sun” and crunching rock bravado in “Hash Pipe.” It had little substance. It was the white bread to Pinkerton‘s wheat. It was garbage. It felt like betrayal.

I had looked up to Rivers Cuomo. I had pored over his lyrics, felt his music. I played “In My Room” in my room. I once tried to talk to a cute girl in middle school by striking up a conversation about the lyrics to “My Name is Jonas.” She ignored me, but I prevailed in Rivers, who fell just like I did, standing back up to wail on his guitar.

Still, I didn’t give up on the man. With each new album I gave him a chance:

Maladroit was a nice return to Rivers’ hard rock roots, but its best song is the pop hit “Keep Fishin’.” The music video directed the bandmates in a madcap kidnapping story alongside The Muppets. It played every morning on VH1. I filed the album away and moved on.

I never actually bought their next album, Make Believe. I remember hearing “Beverly Hills,” and thinking it was a great sarcastic jab at Hollywood. But as it turns out, the song was never meant to be sarcastic at all–when Rivers sang “that’s where I want to be,” he actually meant it.  After that, everything became absurd. The song had a Radio Disney edit. The video was filmed at the Playboy Mansion. It won Weezer their first Grammy. I hated it all so much.

I clung on desperately to hope with The Red Album, praying that Rivers would again redefine himself–this time in a creatively positive way, one that saw him thinking and exploring rather than vomiting and grinning. Instead we saw a monster in the man, a smirking rock star where our tortured loner should be. The album’s big single was called “Pork and Beans.” It tried to rage against the label that wanted Rivers to write commercial material, but ended up becoming a commercial hit. The video was a YouTube sensation. It won another Grammy.

I walked away after that. I got in my car and drove into the distance. The Rivers I had known and loved was dead. This new man pulled the strings, but nothing worthwhile came about. It wasn’t worth my time. Occasionally I looked in the rearview mirror. I saw an awful album called Raditude, and an only-mildly disappointing follow-up called Hurley–two lazy power-pop catastrophes. I listened to them in passing. There was no reason to turn back.

Sitting down in my home, his Japanese pop song still ringing in my ears, I take a minute to consider what it is that really makes me angry about all this. It’s not just that Rivers is a self-centered ass. Let’s be honest, there are millions of self-centered asses out there, and I could care less how highly they think of themselves. The difference is that Rivers is MY self-centered ass–OUR self-centered ass.

He tore out his soul and handed it to the world, but instead of retreating humbly to put himself back together, he snapped. He threw himself in reverse, hurtling a hundred miles an hour in the opposite direction, out of the beautiful harmonies of the human experience and into the self-obsessive slop of worthless pop music. He betrayed his own creative work, therefore betraying the great importance we placed upon it.

It makes me crazy. It makes me sad. But I don’t think just of myself. I think about the tortured genius who sat in his garage, his mind anxiously churning beneath posters of Ace Freely and Peter Criss, cursing the people who didn’t understand, writing words of love and rejection, passion and pain, plugging in his guitar and playing all his stupid little songs, just like me, just like all the rest of us. I remember that man and I mourn.

Tonight I drink to Rivers Cuomo, may his beautiful, tortured soul rest in peace.

Firstly, we hope all of our American readers had a nice, long Memorial Day weekend involving some form of barbecue (I was on a train and had their BBQ veggie burger. Sounds unexciting but it was fun!). Secondly, with a transition that really has no place here, comes a new song from Anglo-American duo, Rue Royale. Since posting about them in 2011, I’ve had a love-love relationship with the married pair, having listened to Guide To An Escape several times over. I’ve been eagerly awaiting new material, and last week they satisfied my hunger, providing the first single, “Set Out To Discover”, off their forthcoming album Remedies Ahead.

In their typical subdued manner, Ruth and BrookIn Dekker create a wandering melody for “Set Out To Discover,” with elegant, hushed harmonies. In perhaps a slight change of sound, they play around with psychedelia near the end of the tune. I’d like to hear more of that on Remedies Ahead, and expect they may be giving us a small taste to prepare us for what’s ahead.

Rue Royale on the web | Facebook

We are overrated – we humans, I think. While there is a propensity for kindness and love and the pleasant, gentle touches of friends, we are also noisy and hateful and we abuse each other and the land that breeds the means to our own good health and well being. Perhaps this is the reason behind only allowing a handful of folks into my life, as far as friendships are concerned. I have a hunger for closeness and platonic intimacy, obviously, as I have friends (new ones, even), yet seeing my own faults reflected in the actions of others is uncomfortable and depressing and therefore avoided a lot of the time. I have issues, you say? Well, of course I do. Fucking hell. So do you. So there.

Music is an escape. Sometimes a song can be so good it seems to have been created in an otherworldly musical Petri dish by ghostly hands unattached to a mere mortal. But alas, the rhythms blanketing one’s solitary existence are made by people. Though it would be magnificent to witness, the strings aren’t plucking themselves. The human element can lead to disappointment, not so much in the music as in the person behind it, often changing the way a song is heard and perceived. For example: will I continue to listen to Sonic Youth on occasion? Of course I will. That said, will I ever be able to listen to “Silver Rocket” again without thinking Thurston Moore is a complete asshole for shacking up and leading a double life with some young groupie bird who ultimately severed the matrimony of one of rock and roll’s great duos? Nope. We all make mistakes and he killed the awesome.

I hosted a friend from the US in my home this past week (told you…I DO have some) and, as with every visitor I have, we listened to a lot of records and wandered down a few roads less traveled, Bavarian style. Although we were together on these excursions, it wasn’t necessary to have incessant yammering conversation. Sometimes the silent company of another is just as (if not more) satisfying while the sounds and moving pictures of the world around you are enjoyed. We found ourselves on a small boat skating on the water of the Starnberger See to the tiny Roseninsel (“Rose Island”), an oasis where King Ludwig II gardened and built a cozy villa in his otherwise crazy, big and drafty existence. Aside from a couple caretakers who seemed to be doing more smoking than anything else, we were the only humans there. Us The Loud and Cacophonous and a gorgeous symphony of nature.

The island inhabitants were absolutely screaming their songs upon our arrival. Once nesting sea birds were awakened and scrambled loudly through the tall grass. Hundreds of swallows chirped and danced across the water for their buggy lunch. Ducks and geese became protective of their broods with proud, defensive stances and the audible opening and closing of wings. Ancient lilac, ash and evergreen trees were singing in the cold wind, their rustling leaves and needles echoing the sound of water sloshing on rocks and mud and sand. It was music, people. Music with nary an egoistic popstar in sight.

Now, while I do not consider myself a tree hugger and I prefer the feeling of cement rather than moss underfoot, I have a healthy appreciation of flora and fauna. I get it honestly (thanks, dad). Upon reflection, however, this was first time I was so overwhelmingly affected by the sounds of them.

Moving swiftly through life, avoiding conflict with many and reaching out to a few with a soundtrack of records by actual people (not plants) humming the background is necessary. So is human contact. It is inevitable for one’s sanity, mine anyway, even if I do find my imperfect self mumbling “I hate people” under my breath after witnessing someone’s particularly boisterous, ridiculous and rude behavior on a daily basis. I just have to keep reminding myself to listen a little more intently to what the quiet has to say. It will help me tolerate the loud all the better.

Happy weekend.

[Abby's Road is a Knox Road feature published every other Friday.]