Reinventing the label
By Daily Bruin Staff
Aug. 29, 2004 9:00 p.m.
Mission to Mars
From the ramshackle, Replacements-like synergy of “Violet,
Hello” and the chunky, chugging riffs on “Don
Drysdale,” there’s no doubting that the ancient spirits
of ’90s college rock are alive and well in Mission to Mars,
the Portland-based band helmed by UCLA alumnus Philip Golden. But
there’s more to the band’s latest album,
“Lasterday,” than
throwback nostalgia. There’s also a timeless, freewheeling
abandon that perfectly suits the epic grandeur of singer
Golden’s lyrics.
-Andrew Lee
Rick Stone
Released on Stereotype last June, Rick Stone’s first solo
full-length “Turn Me On, Turn Me Out” is brimming with
psychedelic treatments and quirky production tricks, creating an
oddball fusion of indie rock and cut-and-paste electronica. The
longtime studio engineer pairs technical wizardry with
conventional, passionate croon, providing a mix that raises the
album’s strangeness-quotient above anything else currently on
the Stereotype label. More impressive is that the record’s
sonic palette was concocted in Stone’s own home studio:
Bedroom recordings don’t always have to mean four-tracks and
fuzzy analog anymore.
-Andrew Lee
Knee Jerk Reaction
The band’s first release since 1998, “State of
Matter” brings together some fairly similar genres (power
pop, retro-soul, electro-groove), but it’s one of those
records whose whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Many of
the band’s songs incorporate the relationship between science
and the more emotional matters of the human heart, a move that
inevitably leads to lyrics like “And if our love feels faint,
breathe in. / It’s all around you. / My love’s the
oxygen that fills the sky” (“Oxygen”). Judge for
yourself.
-Jake Tracer
