"Phrazes for the Young" : Julian Casablancas' solo album

I heard this in the "Strokes : is this it poll" and frankly, the snippet sounds pretty good :

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damn this embed thing !

http://www.youtube.com/v/GXpXpYLoCek&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&feature=player_embedded&fs=1%22

anyway, it reminds me how I liked his songriting at the time (the first 2 strokes albums) and this sounds very promising.

i am really looking forward to this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXpXpYLoCek

So Casablancas is making a Boards of Canada type of album?

judging from this very short teaser, it really sounds like the strokes to me. same kind of chords and harmonic changes, same kind of melody, same kind of dynamic. only, all synthetic instead of guitar/bass/drums.

this could be amazing !

yeah, it's kind of amazing to me how distinctively strokes-y it is.

also I've never noticed a movie-like trailer/teaser like this for an album : has this ever been done ?

The Black Dog did it for their latest album (16 mins!). I'm quite sure it's been done more often.

ah ok, thanks !

seems more in the italians do it better mode than boards and seems to be taking its visual cues from the prog revival artwork thats back in vogue like the alex moulton record. Great video that. Whos on production?

Julian Casablancas is wrapping up work on his debut solo recording scheduled for release this fall on Cult Records/RCA.

The eight songs were written and recorded over the last 12 months with studio work completed in Los Angeles, New York City and Nebraska. The project was produced by Jason Lader with additional production by Mike Mogis.

The album, entitled Phrazes for the Young, features all new material written by Casablancas. Track titles include: "River of Brake Lights," "Glass" and "Ludlow St."

reminds me of that alex moulton dude ppl were hyping, exodus was the album i htink

exodus is dope as fuck btw

yeah i always meant to get that, was kinda like jean michel jarre kinda stuff right? but more techo?

Friend of a friend is somehow involved with this, so I was listening to it at the first friend's house last weekend. Maybe there's more to it, but it seemed to be boring indie rock plus Casablanca's voice, with far too much space for his retarded lyrics. Said friend really loved it and kept getting up to dance while talking about how "amazingly LA" it is. I was just kinda surprised at the tweeness. But who knows—maybe that's another project, since I didn't hear anything that sounded like this when she was playing it.

Don't see good prospects to surpass Little Joy

i dug hammond's solo joint but not terribly interested in this for some reason

Video is epic. I dig.

http://cdn.pitchfork.com/media/julian452.jpg

"I am a rock star! Really! Even my dog thinks so!"

Between that and the Julian Plenti album, I'm sensing a pattern...

looks like a guitar hero guitar behind him.

Between that and the Julian Plenti album, I'm sensing a pattern...

― 3 mods 1 banhammer (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Monday, August 31, 2009 4:06 PM (10 minutes ago)

Lead singer of pretty good band puts out half-baked solo effort?

I was talking more about the cover art, but now that you mention it....

Oh wow, you're right! Didn't even notice that.

http://www.the-fly.co.uk/upload/images/album_reviews/Julian-Plenti_1.jpg

Two lonely dude sittin' thinkin' bout things.

I REALLY like the preview bit upthread.

yeah i feel like peeps would be all over it if it wasn't the strokes dude.

the little snippet at the end of this awkward interview sounds awesome.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzMJyUboKwQ

yeah i'll be downloading this

xpost:
Yeah, it does.

Lead singer of half-baked band puts out really good solo effort?

Based on the teaser samples of the Casablancas album, I suspect the above corrected statement is probably closer to the truth.

I hope you're right!

(but yeah, that Julian Plenti album is snoozeville... not that Interpol was much to speak of after 2002, either)

I'll have to disagree with you on the Interpol thing, just because I love Antics, but I would cosign if you changed the 2002 to a 2004.

The Plenti album suffers from bad songwriting and awful vocals (wtf happened to Paul's voice?). The decent production can't hide the fact that the songs just aren't up to snuff.

I'm starting to think I'm in a minority of one when it comes to Interpol, I vastly prefer Our Love To Admire to Antics, even though I continually have a difficult time explaining why. I think it may come to much lower expectations I set prior to album number three.

For the most part, I can't get past the brittle production work on OLtA. I do love "Pace is the Trick" though.

Turn on the Bright Lights -- not very original, granted, but good songs
Antics -- not even a copy of the past anymore, but a copy of Bright Lights (only boring)
Our Love to Admire -- who the hell knows (I once referred to it as a peanut butter & doo doo sandwich)

I've been waiting for the Strokes to fragment pretty much since they started to be honest. I got this notion that individually they could be good at a number of different things, but collectively they'd seen a niche and were gonna ride it out, with whatever roleplaying that entailed. I'm not 100% convinced these days. Although I enjoyed Albert Hammond when I saw him live.

http://www.myspace.com/juliancasablancas

song on myspace

when it kicks in the drum machine and synth bass remind me of pet shop boys

Sounds like he's doing a Thomas Mars impression around the 2:18 mark.

Said friend really loved it and kept getting up to dance while talking about how "amazingly LA" it is.

and then wes anderson yelled "cut"

my coworker is genuinely angry that i keep saying that it sounds like mr roboto

I'm still trying to figure out if there's actually a song I like buried underneath all these sounds I like.

This song is AMAZING!!!!

when it kicks in the drum machine and synth bass remind me of pet shop boys

waht

PSB is what I thought of too, also the New Order bass part is nice.

http://cdn.pitchfork.com/media/casa11th452.jpg

the song is great, production bad.

the lyrics are weird and hilarious.

I think the bitrate is pretty low on the myspace page.

i dunno the synths and drum samples sound really thin and preset-y. i suppose that's expected these days. it is a really good song though, i especially like the symphonic middle eight part

i'm not sure if i like it or love it, or if i think it's even a good idea, after a few days of jamming it around the house. (this is "11th dimension" i speak of.) this uncertainty feels like a positive omen.

the line about living on the frozen surface of a fireball cracked me up, and reminded me somewhat of this review:

http://www.villagevoice.com/2003-10-28/music/arty-pop-stars-bust-their-asses/1

aw, shit. that's not the review i meant. whatever Room On fire review it was where the author was saying something about how the Strokes were supposed to be battling some other band-of-the-moment on the surface of the Sun.

ah, here we are:

http://www.citypages.com/2003-10-29/music/resistance-is-futile/

twas jon dolan in minn city pages.

"But it does make it hard to feel much communal warmth from a band whose whole thing is supposed to be how they all live together and shag the same birds and trade clothes and fly around doing battle with Creed on the surface of the sun."

also, the lyrics to this song literalize the HELL out of the album title, no?

new song streaming on his site. kinda crazy. http://www.juliancasablancas.com/

digging it

Pitchfork also embedded a youtube of ~20-second samples of every song on the album, but apparently it's been taken down by RCA.

Don't want to judge based on that, but tbh I was a little disappointed in most of the clips after the glory that is 11th Dimension.

hum. I was and still am quite excited by this album but so far, the 2 first tracks don't really do it for me...
hope the rest is better...

you can't have the hum without the ho!

I played the youtube clip thing last night. First half of the album sounds promising, second half seems questionable ("Brakelights" is in the second half, btw).

this is leaking tonight

either i don't get this album or it's just not good. maybe both.

p.s. never been a Strokes fan.

well there ya go

what i heard ain't doin it for me either

this poster's kinda cool, tho

http://ripcordnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/phrazes-of-the-young-japan-poster.jpg

i thought the different production might change my mind:
i was wrong. it's worse than the strokes.

xpost

so the rest of the album is not better than the first 2 leaked tracks ?
disappointing.

Fantastic album - an easy top 10 of the year for me. Obviously like The Strokes sans the authentic/laconic rock band affectations. Best when he really "goes for it" vocally.

river of brakelights is fucking ace!

did this leak? have promos gone out?

Shitty quality one leaked 2 or 3 days ago. High quality one leaked today.

DUDE

will investigate, thanks.

this album is kind of a mess, but i really like it.

wasn't curious about this, but I liked the song he played on conan. way better than anything on the 3rd strokes album.

aw man his dance moves <3<3 soooo awkward & uncomfortable

i think he does the kenny powers dice roll at one point?!?

also lookin kinda brüno with those highlights :-(

i know theyre really boring reference points but ludlow st reminds me of bob dylan and brakelights reminds me of radiohead

I've only heard five songs, but I love everything so far! "Ludlow St." is my favorite right now.

all the songs are pretty strong. like spencer said, i love it when he pushes his voice, especially on ludlow st.
so far i think my favorite track is glass.

I've listened to the album 2 or 3 times since yesterday. my first reaction is : pretty bad and quite disappointing.
I like "glass" a lot (but that's why I was excited by the album from the preview thing).
"left&right" is ok. "11th dimension" is ok but not much more. the rest is between meh and awful.
and that's coming from someone who thinks he was a great songwriter with the strokes (well, for the first 2 albums and "live once").
maybe that will grow on me but I kinda doubt it.
but really, what do you especially like on "ludlow" and else ? the melodies and arrangements and, well pretty much everything, sound very average to me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDDlBK7z-MI

I can't wait for this. Hope the rest of the record is as good.

aw man his dance moves <3<3 soooo awkward & uncomfortable

i think he does the kenny powers dice roll at one point?!?

― a goon boy (J0rdan S.), Wednesday, October 28, 2009 3:58 AM (2 days ago)

The awkward dance moves are one of the best parts of the whole performance. Hahaha.

The keyboards at 2:53 sound like they're from an StSanders shreds video.

The drummer's head also moves like a bobblehead doll. It looks like it's going to fall off.

These songs are waaaaaaaaaaaay too long.

He doesn't come up with enough vocal melodies to sustain their length.

Yet another moment where I hear something and I'm just totally o_O at how unbelievably bad it is, and cannot understand what people are hearing in it.

I mean, part of it might be because I do not and never have found Casablancas convincing - as a songwriter, as a singer, as anything except an unbelievably hott but rather dumb boy.

But granted, I hated the Strokes, so just taking that whole schtick and transplanting it onto hipster flavour of the week 80s disco is gonna do nothing but annoy the hell out of me.

He does remain unbelievably hott, though. I wish I could pluck mine eyes out.

I love this 11th Dimension song, but doesn't the synth line come directly from a David Bowie song?

its a bit Rebel Rebel i guess

eheh, that synth line reminds me of the synth line intro of "get into the groove" !

and after more listens, this album clearly lacks good vocal melodies/songs.
it's basically one good - but too long - song (glass), 3 ok-ish ("left&right", "tourist", "11th") and 4 duds.
but I guess my disappointment comes from the fact that I was expecting a retro-futuristic synth-pop album and not an album with a country song, a blues and some average rock track.
hence the only retro-futuristic synth-pop track is the only one I really like !

A song ain't country because some bloke ineptly plucks a banjo.

it's not just the banjo. that song is clearly a country song. or an irish folk song !

Only three tracks in and it's thus far a great little synth pop record. Given enough time, anything catchy with synths will break my heart, so I expect to get real melodramatic while this album is playing a few months from now.

See i don't think this is catchy at all. The melody's are dreary, songs are way too long and the production is needlessly baroque.

This is out today! For those of you on the east coast near a Newbury Comics, the physical disc is $5.99 today.

New CD prices continue to plummet. (A few months ago, Newbury started selling the new Yo La Tengo and Built To Spill records for $6.99 apiece.)

had zero interest in hearing this but Whiney's twitter review (The cool kid accidentally makes They Might Be Giants' "Lincoln"#) is kind of intriguing.

$5.99 is very inexpensive for a new physical disc. It's got to be a short-term promotional offer.

can't say i've ever heard the bob dylan with a trashy drum machine aesthetic of 'ludlow street' before

Empire Burlesque?

xpost:

Daniel: Newbury Comics has kind of went nuts with new releases. Most of the big indie releases are $9.99 or under, some have been as low as $6.99, and now they're selling this one for $5.99. Local record stores are just really desperate for customers. I've been shopping there for five years now, and they never used to price things this low. Everything was $9.99 upon release.

NB By local record stores I mean "local record stores in my area." Although it's probably a similar situation elsewhere.

I remember visiting Newbury Comics when I was in Boston last New Year's. It's a great store. Great record section and T-Shirt section.

Yeah! The one in Harvard Square is probably my favorite. Rows and rows of new and used CDs, and a decent amount of new vinyl, too.

Ok I love this so much after four tracks. But I'm a Strokes stan to the point of loving First Impressions, so take that as you will.

I am not a big Strokes fan but I find at least half of First Impressions to be pretty great.

liked the youtube comparison in the pf review today. still would rank the album higher than ryan did.

the cover of the snl xmas song is pretty fun
http://music.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=music.artistalbums&artistid=22507775&ap=1&albumid=14152938&songid=59512310

I've tried listening to "first impressions" again after this and it's really as awful as I remembered it was !
and about "phrazes", I still only like 2 songs and find 2 more ok.
very anti-climatic, I must say.

I really like Phrazes. It's catchy, fun, and successfully employs lots of different instrumentation and textures.

Plus, I'm just glad to have JC sounding playful and enthused again.

If all the tracks sounded like "Left and Right in the Dark," especially the WAKE up WAKE up part, I'd love it.

been listenin to room on fire all morning but atm i really have no desire to ever hear this ever rilly

has anyone seen his solo show? i know he is doing a month long residency in Los Angeles on Fridays, i'm thinking about going to one of those. i also know he is playing San Francisco real soon and probably playing other places on the West Coast as well.

"shit sandwich"

His Conan appearance was very sad -- reminded of Springsteen in '92.

*reminded me

"disappointing" doesn't even begin to describe this album...

I find the lazy joy of "6AM now you're in Hollywood, and you're daanccing, we maade iit," in "Left and Right in the Dark" makes me giggle. It's a messy song but I like it.

still digging this

i cant seem to stop listening to this. not a moment wasted.

11th dimension>>>

but them im prob one of the few people who just love his voice.

hum. to me, this album was so anticlimatic.
1 or 2 songs I could still hear with some pleasure, though.

love this album and also love his voice to the point where i really liked the snl skit he was in, even though it wasn't that funny.

your faith has got to be greater than your fear

the song that starts at 1:17 sounds great.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aX4ohIN4UA

Julian Casablancas, everyone

http://www.stereogum.com/1710786/julian-casablancas-blasts-gq-writer-who-made-him-seem-anti-brunch/news/

"glass" is a great song imo

ok while obv mr casabalancas does come off like a clown, this

Zach did go to Harvard, it’s true. He also put on basement punk shows and wrote impassioned reviews of Dipset mixtape tracks.

is a clowny-ass retort

it's not a good profile either, v transparently, painfully assembled from a bad interview

which to be fair it seems casablancas is unable to give a good one

where julian was born into nyc hipster brunch, zach had to rise up to claim it. plus zach has love for the streets. i doubt julian even knows who juelz santana is.

harvard kids can plan shows too

does julian have any idea what kind of ruggish thuggish shit zach's given numerical ratings to??????? ARCHIVE.ORG PURPOLOGY MOTHERFUCKER! ARCHIVE DOT ORG THAT SHIT BEFORE YOU STEP UP WITH THAT YUPPIE TALK! YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT MY GROOMSMAN!

decaf is an option

not when satirizing old school hip-hop-blog scribes beefing on julian casablancas it aint

who gives a crap about diplo mixtapes?

it's not a good profile either, v transparently, painfully assembled from a bad interview

― emo canon in twee major (BradNelson), Thursday, 9 October 2014 19:30 (Yesterday) Permalink

which to be fair it seems casablancas is unable to give a good one

― emo canon in twee major (BradNelson), Thursday, 9 October 2014 19:31 (Yesterday) Permalink

The RS one is better.

"I'll try anything once" is the best.

I love how Casablancas is all, "I cannot believe they sent a yuppie to conduct an interview I agreed to do with GQ

"When this guy arrived from this men's fashion and style magazine, he was a young urban professional instead of a hepatitic street urchin"

although I'm kind of *over* Sacha Baron-Cohen, I still think of this whenever someone talks about brunch as a subject:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LazrAzBP_0I&feature=player_detailpage#t=219

(@ 3:39)

i quite liked Tyranny so i'm looking forward to the new Voidz album (though i expect i'm completely alone here)

Leave It In My Dreams is a solid Strokes album track but then QYURRYUS is weirder than anything on Tyranny and i have no idea what to make of it

The Voidz album that came out this year - "Virtue" - is pretty interesting, real odd vibe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfhCHsJfKEI

what kind of band is this?

Virtue was pretty disappointing to me, way more of a mess than Tyranny

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jt4XggHzA8

mostly i'm just amused by this ripping off "bizarre love triangle" for a bit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kp-1zpDl1AA

love this