Albums : MGMT : MGMT
Albums : MGMT : MGMT
Listen To MGMT : MGMT
Psychadelic / noise masterminds MGMT are releasing their self-titled third album on Tuesday, September 17th, but Rdio is offering fans the opportunity to experience the album a week early. Starting today, the full album is streaming on Rdio to subscribers, and there's also a bizarre, full-length music video called the "Optimizer" accompanying the album. Both the album pre-release stream and the video are exclusive to Rdio — a nice coup for a service that has to compete with Spotify and iTunes, both of whom have plenty of exclusive content themselves. While Rdio has offered exclusive content the past (the service was the exclusive partner for Paramore's album back in April and also hosts two exclusive tracks), this does mark Rdio's first foray into offering a video piece alongside the music.
The video itself is a strange and fun piece of eye candy, the type of bizarre visual that feels entirely unexpected coming from MGMT — it's probably not going to win any awards, but it should make for a nice way to experience MGMT for the first time if you're a fan of the band's visual and audio aesthetic. If you're purely interested in the music, you can listen to the album now, and paid subscribers can sync the album to their mobile devices as well. Hopefully for fans of Rdio, this won't be the last exclusive pre-release content the service gets its hands on.
MGMT Review
Before he cracked up, Syd Barrett was the driving force in Pink Floyd, merging child-like fascinations with deeper adult anxieties. It was the sound of babes marching into – and occasionally being consumed by -- the deep, dark woods. After a few short years of genius in the ‘60s, Barrett became one of the forlorn characters in his own songs, and dropped out of public view for good until his death in 2006.
That disorienting feeling permeates the second album by MGMT, “Congratulations” (Columbia), which works as both an homage to Barrett-era psychedelia and a cautionary tale about an instant pop-star life spinning out of control. The album cover depicts a cartoon character on a surf board being swallowed by a fang-baring monster of a wave, and the album brims with psychic carnage. Characters disappear, minds unravel. And yet somehow MGMT’s Andrew Vanwyngarden and Ben Goldwasser never allow all this newfound heaviness to become oppressive. They manage to sound almost playful as their characters’ fortunes slip beneath the waves.
It’s an impressive step up for the Brooklyn duo, who sold nearly 2 million copies worldwide of their singles-heavy but erratic 2007 debut, “Oracular Spectacular,” thanks in large measure to the cheerfully sardonic electro-pop hits “Time to Pretend” and “Kids.”
“No time to think of consequences,” Vanwyngarden sang on “Kids,” the soundtrack for thousands of dorm bacchanals and pagan raves nationwide.
On “Congratulations,” all those debts come due. The nine-song album aims for a more unified and introspective feel, a good deal darker, denser and less instantly accessible than the debut. Instead of concise singles, it more fully embraces the duo’s interests in waving the Barrett-era freak flag. The band directly references its heroes in a couple of song titles, “Song for Dan Treacy,” the Television Personalities singer, and Roxy Music visionary “Brian Eno.”
The duo’s choice for producer is also telling: Pete “Sonic Boom” Kembler, who specialized in mood-altering sonics during his tenure in ‘80s space-rock band Spacemen 3.
With Kembler’s knack for three-dimensional production, MGMT mixes orchestral splendor and fragile intimacy. Keyboards twirl and twist around one another like kaleidoscope colors, and the guitars are beefier and more pronounced than on the debut. The songs don’t jump out as instantly as “Kids,” but they’re teeming with hooks and little melodies – details teased out with each listen.
Even the multi-part, 12-minute “Siberian Breaks” refuses to drag, a procession of surprises that works overtime to engage the senses: coffeehouse guitar strum, tympani-style percussion, undulating keyboards, an androgynous choir.
Most everything is delivered with a gleam in its eye; none of these songs feels self-pitying or solipsistic. But there’s an undeniable queasiness, like the after-burn of a party that went too far. The instrumental “Lady Dada’s Nightmare” starts off lovely and melancholy and then slowly gives way to a shrieking horror. The wistfulness in “I Found a Whistle” couches the desperation of a man literally hanging by a thread. In the title track, the narrator sings, “As strange as it seems/I’d rather dissolve than have you ignore me.”
The playfulness of “Oracular Spectacular” has taken a strange turn. Syd Barrett could probably relate.
Contact MGMT
Website | Facebook | Twitter | Vevo | Instagram
Contact Chicago Tribune
Website | Twitter | Facebook | YouTube
Sources : MGMT Photo | Listen To MGMT | MGMT Article | MGMT Review
Purchase : iTunes | Amazon | Walmart
Listen To MGMT : MGMT
Psychadelic / noise masterminds MGMT are releasing their self-titled third album on Tuesday, September 17th, but Rdio is offering fans the opportunity to experience the album a week early. Starting today, the full album is streaming on Rdio to subscribers, and there's also a bizarre, full-length music video called the "Optimizer" accompanying the album. Both the album pre-release stream and the video are exclusive to Rdio — a nice coup for a service that has to compete with Spotify and iTunes, both of whom have plenty of exclusive content themselves. While Rdio has offered exclusive content the past (the service was the exclusive partner for Paramore's album back in April and also hosts two exclusive tracks), this does mark Rdio's first foray into offering a video piece alongside the music.
The video itself is a strange and fun piece of eye candy, the type of bizarre visual that feels entirely unexpected coming from MGMT — it's probably not going to win any awards, but it should make for a nice way to experience MGMT for the first time if you're a fan of the band's visual and audio aesthetic. If you're purely interested in the music, you can listen to the album now, and paid subscribers can sync the album to their mobile devices as well. Hopefully for fans of Rdio, this won't be the last exclusive pre-release content the service gets its hands on.
MGMT Review
Before he cracked up, Syd Barrett was the driving force in Pink Floyd, merging child-like fascinations with deeper adult anxieties. It was the sound of babes marching into – and occasionally being consumed by -- the deep, dark woods. After a few short years of genius in the ‘60s, Barrett became one of the forlorn characters in his own songs, and dropped out of public view for good until his death in 2006.
That disorienting feeling permeates the second album by MGMT, “Congratulations” (Columbia), which works as both an homage to Barrett-era psychedelia and a cautionary tale about an instant pop-star life spinning out of control. The album cover depicts a cartoon character on a surf board being swallowed by a fang-baring monster of a wave, and the album brims with psychic carnage. Characters disappear, minds unravel. And yet somehow MGMT’s Andrew Vanwyngarden and Ben Goldwasser never allow all this newfound heaviness to become oppressive. They manage to sound almost playful as their characters’ fortunes slip beneath the waves.
It’s an impressive step up for the Brooklyn duo, who sold nearly 2 million copies worldwide of their singles-heavy but erratic 2007 debut, “Oracular Spectacular,” thanks in large measure to the cheerfully sardonic electro-pop hits “Time to Pretend” and “Kids.”
“No time to think of consequences,” Vanwyngarden sang on “Kids,” the soundtrack for thousands of dorm bacchanals and pagan raves nationwide.
On “Congratulations,” all those debts come due. The nine-song album aims for a more unified and introspective feel, a good deal darker, denser and less instantly accessible than the debut. Instead of concise singles, it more fully embraces the duo’s interests in waving the Barrett-era freak flag. The band directly references its heroes in a couple of song titles, “Song for Dan Treacy,” the Television Personalities singer, and Roxy Music visionary “Brian Eno.”
The duo’s choice for producer is also telling: Pete “Sonic Boom” Kembler, who specialized in mood-altering sonics during his tenure in ‘80s space-rock band Spacemen 3.
With Kembler’s knack for three-dimensional production, MGMT mixes orchestral splendor and fragile intimacy. Keyboards twirl and twist around one another like kaleidoscope colors, and the guitars are beefier and more pronounced than on the debut. The songs don’t jump out as instantly as “Kids,” but they’re teeming with hooks and little melodies – details teased out with each listen.
Even the multi-part, 12-minute “Siberian Breaks” refuses to drag, a procession of surprises that works overtime to engage the senses: coffeehouse guitar strum, tympani-style percussion, undulating keyboards, an androgynous choir.
Most everything is delivered with a gleam in its eye; none of these songs feels self-pitying or solipsistic. But there’s an undeniable queasiness, like the after-burn of a party that went too far. The instrumental “Lady Dada’s Nightmare” starts off lovely and melancholy and then slowly gives way to a shrieking horror. The wistfulness in “I Found a Whistle” couches the desperation of a man literally hanging by a thread. In the title track, the narrator sings, “As strange as it seems/I’d rather dissolve than have you ignore me.”
The playfulness of “Oracular Spectacular” has taken a strange turn. Syd Barrett could probably relate.
Contact MGMT
Website | Facebook | Twitter | Vevo | Instagram
Contact Chicago Tribune
Website | Twitter | Facebook | YouTube
Sources : MGMT Photo | Listen To MGMT | MGMT Article | MGMT Review
Purchase : iTunes | Amazon | Walmart
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