Explosions in the Sky, Radio City Music Hall, NYC 04/06/2011. Photograph by Nick Simonite.

For the longest time, I have not been able to find an artist that I invest in even half as much as I do in Explosions in the Sky. I have never so deeply and consistently cared about release after release from an artist than I have about EITS’s albums (and I’m sure I’m not the only case). So after much reflection, here is my personal review of their latest album released about a month ago, Take Care, Take Care, Take Care.

To properly judge the seventh release to come from Explosions in the Sky, Take Care, Take Care, Take Care, I must look at its relation to the rest of the band’s releases. In their infancy, How Strange, Innocence was released in 2000 and it was apparent that a star was born; something truly brilliant and bright. It was of course a little raw- and amateur-sounding, but… well, to say that the potential was there would be a massive understatement. Riding this new and exciting phenomenon that was Explosions in the Sky’s sound, the band released Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Live Forever in 2001. The argument could be made that the peak or epitome – but I wouldn’t say masterpiece – of their existence was 2003′s The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place. This is surely when EITS was crowned king of whatever you want to call the hill. This peak carried over a bit into the Friday Night Lights Soundtrack but what didn’t make the public eye (or ears) was that during their studio time writing for FNL, the band played around with various instruments and even wrote a lot of material that was shied away from in favor of their previous album releases when it came time to selecting the “right” pieces for the scenes. The band’s experimentation did not stop there as they soon released The Rescue EP which brought with it the introduction of piano, vocals, sampling and even spoons. It was again raw- and a little amateur-sounding and still in its infancy, but exploration is certainly a good thing. The first full-length product of their experimentation was 2007′s All of a Sudden, I Miss Everyone. While it is a solid album, I couldn’t help but feel that this was a premature exposure at a vulnerable time, a time at which experimenting was still in progress.

In Take Care, Take Care, Take Care, the band shows a newfound maturity and wisdom. Repeat listens are a must for this album. Take Care does not have all the hooks of exciting and new as their past albums do. Climaxes are more modest and given less emphasis. Take Care dabbles in innovative sounds involving strings, more sampling and other electronics but remains true to the band’s roots in guitars and a drumset. Take Care‘s tracks tie techniques of old and of late together: The guitar sounds and effects that EITS has perfected, the incorporation of piano and vocals, and the purity of their beginnings. The repetition in the album name blurs together and forms two of the primary feelings invoked by the album. The first, “Take Care,” the always sorrowful (no matter how big or small) feeling of a goodbye. The second, “Care Take,” the warming, comforting feeling of being cared for.

The opening track of Take Care, “Last Known Surroundings,” is the only one that I’m unsure about. It is sounding almost too pretty and and is half invoking in me the All of a Sudden feelings mentioned above but also half proclaiming “We have grown.” “Human Qualities” explores all that makes us human from our eyes to our toes back to our mouth as the vocals and a heartbeat are all we hear amidst the silence in the middle of the song. Then with the most masterful grace I’ve ever heard from EITS, the instruments return from the silence and build up to the eureka! discovery of just how magnificent the human being is. In “Trembling Hands,” EITS does two things they have never done before: Create a 3-1/2 minute song and create a song that is one continuous rock-out throughout the entire song; no crescendos or decrescendos. In “Be Comfortable, Creature,” we are slowly eased into a warm comfort zone and then in the final quarter of the song, we’re pulled out of our body to look around us and realize the refuge that we’ve been so kindly provided. “Postcard from 1952″ has a vintage quality to it (as my wife – I think aptly – points out) and utilizes vintage EITS sound as well. Lastly, if you like tragic endings, you’ll love the album closer, “Let Me Back In.” The climax (both heartfelt and painful) occurs in the middle of the song; it is rather short-lived and restrained; whereas in the past albums, this pivotal emotional point of the song might be longer and more epic. It might also be much more “finale,” but instead we have a nearly four-minute-long fadeout after the climax where we are left to be alone with only our thoughts. Or… is Explosions in the Sky there with us too? As they often are.

View an excellent recording of Explosions in the Sky’s show in Brussels on 05/24/11 in its entirety here.

⇓   Download mp3s:

Explosions in the Sky - Human Qualities Take Care, Take Care, Take Care (Temporary Residence Ltd. 2011) (Buy)

Explosions in the Sky - Be Comfortable, Creature Take Care, Take Care, Take Care Temporary Residence Ltd. 2011) (Buy)

First I should apologize for the comp void for the past month. Rest assured, I am earnestly working on Comp 27. Hopefully it will emerge sooner rather than later.

Now, something to get you by. Something that’s definitely gotten me by. A man named Alex Moulton and his album called Exodus. Above is the very epic artwork. This is only a glimpse into the genius that is behind the artwork. Here is an insight into the album and the man himself (taken from Alex Moulton’s myspace):

We’re constantly being told we live in a hyper-accelerated, hyper-real age, where sound bites and short attention spans are the functional tools of survival. With entire record collections available online as boiled-down bit torrents—with virtually every song ever recorded, in fact, floating around in MP3 cyberspace just waiting to be grabbed—who the hell has any time to slow down and listen to a full-length concept album? Deeper still, who can find the time to make one?

Somehow, Alex Moulton did, even though he arguably logs more travel, face time and 12-hour work days than most high-profile foreign diplomats. As musician, producer, DJ, music video director and CEO of the Expansion Team media production company and record label, Moulton has squeezed several lifetimes of creative output into just the last ten years, and lately he shows no signs of easing off the gas. With the release of his sprawling solo debut Exodus, he conjures a retro-utopian vision of a happier time, when albums were real albums and music was presented not just as disembodied chunks of digital information, but as a full-on experience.

“Although I understand the reasons why, it makes me sad that the album format is breathing its last breath,” Moulton explains. “So just as the final nail is being driven into the coffin, I wanted to honor the tradition of the great epic concept albums of the late ’70s. It’s possible I may be among the last generation that spent hours listening to LPs, staring at gatefold covers and imagining the world that the music painted in my head, and that’s the experience I wanted to recreate with Exodus. I believe those moments turn someone into a real music lover—it doesn’t come from listening to singles.”

That might sound almost hopelessly nostalgic, but Exodus is much more than just a walk down memory lane. Although seasoned crate diggers will detect vintage ’70s influences as far-flung as Tangerine Dream, Giorgio Moroder, Vangelis, Jean Michel Jarre and even Lipps Inc., Exodus moves beyond mere synth-pop prog-rock worship to embody a larger vision—one where the music becomes an all-enveloping narrative, inviting the listener into a gear-shifting, headphone-friendly mindtrip.

“I was trained as a filmmaker,” Moulton says, “so I always write music with a visual in mind. In this case I actually created a full-realized storyline—an epic sci-fi adventure, or a space-opera, if you will—that builds in a climactic arc with all the plot twists and turns. The songs are presented continuously like a DJ set, but they’re also like key scenes for a film. And even though I know what the characters are doing at every moment of each song, I’m hoping listeners will create their own story.”

For his part, Moulton serves as both conductor and funky time traveler, hurtling toward deep outta space (as the late great Billy Preston so elegantly put it) on a musical journey that’s by turns irreverent, groovacious and, at times, exuberantly cheesy. “I think electronic music often takes itself way too seriously,” he laments. “Everyone wants to be the coolest new DJ or whatever, but the electronic acts I love most aren’t afraid to let it all hang out, from Chromeo to Lemon Jelly to Daft Punk. Isn’t that what funky music is all about?”

“All my inspirations get channeled through what feels right for the dancefloor today,” Moulton says, citing the mixing acumen of two-time Grammy-winning engineer Marc Urselli and the mastering stroke of Nilesh Patel (of Daft Punk and Chemical Brothers fame), “so there are some very modern elements to the music, and it’s mixed and mastered the way a record needs to be now. But again, it’s a total concept album. I wanted to make something like a Pink Floyd record, where you put it on and you listen to the whole thing all the way through and it takes you on this crazy journey. It’s progressive, it’s funky and it probably has no place in a singles-driven market, but I’m doing it because when I was a kid this is what I had imagined music would sound like at the dawn of the 21st Century.”

Needless to say, I strongly recommend this album. But be warned, you won’t be able to stop listening to it.

Alex Moulton’s Myspace.