Pitchfork / July 11, 2008
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/50926-abe-vigoda-skeleton

Abe Vigoda: Skeleton

Although albums are born and bound by them, it's never easy to find a record's core in just one specific moment. But in the very first second of Skeleton's very first song, "Dead City/Waste Wilderness", all four dudes slam their individual notes into the ropes at once, and from there, everything follows some kind of frenetic punk ballet in which those moving musical parts are hopelessly trying to find their way back to their feet. Somewhere in that fraction of a second, a safe is blown wide, wide open, and its contents are pretty gnarly.
Hailing from Chino but now residing in Los Angeles, the four men of Abe Vigoda have become fixtures and disciples of that city's Smell scene, younger vibe brothers to flag-carriers No Age, HEALTH, and Mika Miko. And while those bands have begun enjoying an impact farther outside the empty of downtown L.A., Abe Vigoda sound ready to be heard everywhere all at once.
The band's debut, Kid City, was reason enough to take notice, but too raw and abrasive at times to allow its more digestible parts to be, well, digested. Skeleton finds the band expanding on and beautifying a sound very much their own: lush, tropical punk that's swallowed as many strains of sound as the images it conjures. Starting with the initial transition between the album's breakneck opener and the centipede guitar parts of "Bear Face", there's little in the way of slowing down. Songs clock in anywhere between 90 seconds and three minutes, but each is fully realized-- and with the exception of the title track, well-sequenced. While the first jabs of the "The Garden" offer a relative respite from the workout, the LP quickly reverts with highlight (and should-be closer) "Endless Sleeper", which shows a band just as capable of slowing down and pacing themselves as they are at exploding.
Guitarists Michael Vidal and Juan Velazquez braid stabbing guitar parts that mirror both the warmth and romance of steel drum and South American six-string traditions, but retain a rapier's point throughout. Any clear tendency to bend towards more sun-stroked vibes is hammered all the way home by not-so-secret weapon Reggie Guerrero, whose stickwork dances with but never overwhelms his bandmates' guitars.
Skeleton's flaws are few and often obscured by the album's mixing: Vidal's vocal adds an additional rhythmic layer, but his lyrical work is interesting enough to be more pronounced and less muddied. That said, Skeleton's manic pacing may prove exhausting-- its rapid-fire songs sometimes feel more like fragments blurred together by hypnotic drumwork and tactile soundscaping. It should take a long time to discover yourself and your sound somewhere within 40 years of pop music, but Abe Vigoda seem to have found their noise some other way. Every triumph and every misstep of Skeleton feels as if it grew organically, removed from the discussion of genre tags, written manifestos, or aural history projects. Some kids want to make loud noises because it's fun. There are too many of those to count in Skeleton.

Pitchfork / June 11, 2008
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/50634-cassettes-wont-listen-small-time-machine

Cassettes Won't Listen: Small-Time Machine

Cassettes Won't Listen is the electronic pop project of Brooklyn's Jason Drake. For his day job, Drake works in marketing for the hip-hop label Def Jux, and he brings his business acumen to the presentation of his own work. After spending the last two years on a stream of remixes (of Midlake, Asobi Seksu, Aesop Rock, and many others), last December he released a free download-only covers EP called One Alternative, whose artwork and song selection (tunes by Pavement, Liz Phair, Sebadoh) were meant to inspire nostalgia in the generation that came of age in the post-Nirvana era. But while Drake has had some moderate success marrying the organic and glossy with the odd remix or cover, Small-Time Machine-- a seven-song, 30-minute album that feels much longer-- meets with more difficulty.
Comparisons have been made between Cassettes Won't Listen and electro-pop outfits like the Postal Service and the Notwist, but neither rings true. Unlike the Postal Service's Ben Gibbard, who had the luxury of laying his gut-punch turns of phrase over Jimmy Tamborello's lunar soundscapes, Drake is working alone and with less sonic imagination. Without the lyrical muscle of Gibbard (or one-time Tamborello associate Conor Oberst), his electronic backdrops don't have the color or edge to distinguish themselves. But the album's most striking weakness can't be chalked up to any shortage of hooky beat construction or bad poetry; rather, it's Drake's inability-- unlike, say, the Notwist's Markus Acher-- to integrate his often scratchy, Doug Martsch-biting vocals as an instrument into the mix.
To live with songs by a one-man band is to be alone with that man and his thoughts, so it's best if he can either invite you in or transport you elsewhere. With so much glitchy, bad CGI-like synth scramble in the way, Small-Time Machine becomes an unfortunate push-and-pull between equally hyperprocessed elements. Which leaves us in kind of a bind, because as much as Small-Time Machine feels like kitchen sinking gone awry, there are a few moments of pop transcendence, most notably at the album's halfway mark. After a rough initial stretch that includes the more abrasive chug and scrape of "Large Radio" and single "Paper Float", Drake opens up his vocal chords a bit and bounces up off the ropes with what could be the album's centerpiece. "Freeze and Explode" boasts blindfolded guitar lines that snake in and out of a chorus that Drake not only sings but drives home with a clarity sorely missing from the rest of the record.
It's sort of weird to think about someone like Ben Gibbard casting such an imposing shadow over Pentium rock. But just seconds after the aforementioned track closes, one more highlight in the lilting but clubby "The Broadcast" presents itself, if only because it bears the most palpable resemblance to Death Cab for Cutie. Which is totally cool, but it also makes that copy of the Postal Service's Give Up seem all the more appetizing right about now.