Albums Reviews: Mixel Pixel and Plus/Minus
Mixel Pixel Music For Plants (Kanine Records)
Don't judge Mixel Pixel based on their hilariously bad website. Trudge through the mangled HTML and take a listen to "You're the Kind of Girl". A tit for tat dialogue between two disaffected hipsters, it could have easily been glib garbage, but instead, shambles about in hypnotic honesty, the negative image of Yo La Tengo's "Our Way To Fall". Sample back-and-forth: "I heard it all before/thought you were only trying to score...Truth is I fucked around/but now I want to settle down". The rest of the album coasts along in this addictive malaise (think just-smoked-opium-in-the-green-room, not Jimmy Carter), which really works for the Pixels. Its a curious atmosphere that these four conjure up, but a unique one, no doubt. Making your way through this dank dance club of an album, you'll rub up against some dolled up freaks, get tanked on vodka tonics, and drop your cellphone in the toilet. But you'll def be back next weekend. Check out "Switchblade Sister", the closest you'll come this year to waking up next to the scene slut, gross but kinda cool.
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Mixel Pixel Official
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± Let's Build A Fire (Absolutely Kosher)
Vocalist Chris Baluyut has a curiously diverse vocal pallet. On ±'s newest release, Let's Build A Fire, he sometimes sounds like Elliott Smith fronting Joan of Arc, as on "The Important Thing is to Love" with its frenetic percussion and mellow vox. Other times he and the band kick it out Dismemberment Plan style, with its sometime-deadpan vocals, like on the terrific "One Day You'll Be There", a most satisfyingly unlikely pop tune. The record is a bipolar masterpiece, an epic tug-of-war between the delirious drumming and the supple motifs contained in each song. Caught in the middle are ±'s trademark sonic accents, samples and crazy effects fluttering around the brou-ha-ha purposefully. Yet even in the midst of this struggle, there's not a hair out of place on this record. Impress your friends and loved ones by including a few of these tracks on a mix CD, they'll think you're "plugged in".
