Today's edition of Note for Note features brief letters from the planet Lo-Fi.

The Division League - A Sword Through Your Heart

★★
Mooresville's Dayton Ray Neely is all that remains of The Division League, a decade old lo-fi act that mixes Kid-A ambiance with Animal Collective aloofness. On this six song EP, stretched to a half hour running time, Neely seems preoccupied with exploring a relationship gone stagnant. "It's always been the same. We lose our will to change," he whispers on "Plummet," a modestly propulsive opener. It's hard to gauge what else makes Mr. Neely so bummed simply because it's difficult to decipher exactly what it is he's trying so hard to not enunciate. He drowns much of his vocals in reverb, and misty production that, after repeated listenings, gave the single impression of "sadness." Which is fine, but I'd care more about sadness with a personality. Oh, and shorter running times. Just because it took two years to record an album doesn't mean it should take two years to listen to.

RX & Shiftee - Space Ace Remixes
★★★
A dance music production team from the NYC, RX & Shiftee concocted last year's Space Ace, a three-song lo-fi / dubstep EP, that would go on to become 2011's highest charting release for local label Rad Summer. This four song remix collection, released by Rad Summer as well, features the talents of Wonder, Archie Pelago, Zeppy Zep and Lamin Fofana, who inject more color and muscle into the music. While the opening song, a rhythmically pounding rendition of the title track, drives the point home before running it into the ground, Pelago's electro-jazz rendition of "Orbit", while detached, is the standout if for no other reason than being the least dub of these dubstep ditties. The songs are effective enough for what they were designed to do, but it may seem unnecessary to the uninitiated, mostly because it is.

Jon R. LaFollette is also the founder of the pop culture blog PopTometry

Friday, January 27
Kopecky Family Band, Jascha, Quiet Corral
Radio Radio

Jascha and Friends have been known to throw the audience for a loop; they’re folksy and rocking, and then sort of angry and heated. Something for everyone.

The Kopecky Family Band, hailing from Nashville, Ten., took the stage around 11:30 p.m. They’re not really family, in the biological sense, but they get along the way you wish your own family did. They look like they’re on a porch killing a summer evening. Don’t get me wrong: this is no sleepy-time band—put away your tea. Think Modest Mouse and The National. There’s a lot of energy on this stage. They certainly put on a show: loads of instruments, tons of dancing. “Howlin’ and the Moon” goes over very well.

But let’s jump back to the band between the opener and the headliner. Sometimes you go to places like Radio Radio to discover something you don’t expect: this was one of those nights. Quiet Corral was on fire. From Lawrence, Kan., these guys are overly happy. Their music is like a really rocking Americana version of David Gray. It’s a six-piece band that might as well be 60-piece. The percussion just shook the place. Keep an eye on them—they’ll be back.

Kopecky Family Band - "Little Baby Sister"

Greetings, earthlings! Before getting down to the nitty gritty of music reviewing, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Jon R. LaFollette, and I am the newest edition to the NUVO fold. I am a contributing writer whose primary focus will be posting capsule reviews of local albums every Tuesday and Thursday, among various other things. I've spent my entire life in Indianapolis, and I'm currently attending IUPUI where I hope to graduate with a degree in journalism. Aside from my posts for NUVO, I am also the founder of pop culture-based blog PopTometry, where I post weekly ramblings on music along with the occasional sports rant.

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Borrow Tomorrow — Too Far to Feel

Singer/guitarist Chris Jerles is a simple man of simple tastes with simple wishes. An old house with a picturesque front yard and a cellar full of wine is all it takes to keep him content on “Brand New Start”, a song that begins as a quietly read bucket list of sorts before being given the country-rock treatment complete with slide guitar in a rompin’ stompin’ final minute and a half. But what troubles Jerles is that he has no one to share his ideal paradise with, and spends the majority of Too Far to Feel holding the baggage a faceless heartbreaker left him to handle all his own. What compounds his predicament even more is the fact he doesn’t have the lyrical chops, nor the musical direction, to attract a proper roommate. The band's musical stylings often jump back and forth between slicked back alternative ("Basement Song") and dreary eyed country twang ("Nashville"), which leaves the album sounding at times rudderless. Yet on "Curtain Call", with its Black Crowes-esque crunch, Jerles escapes his troubles by heading west "to nowhere at all". There he's more than content to get lost in a landscape he knows nothing of, and the music is almost as blissfully breezy as Jerles wants it to be. Perhaps he doesn't need a roommate after all, just a change of scenery.★★½

The Shake Weights — Self Titled

If there is such a genre as slime-core, The Shake Weights, consisting of T.A. Breedlove and Mike Contreras, besties who first met at Plainfield High School when Michael Jackson was still black, would be the movement’s patron saints. This self titled album, compacted at a blistering 28 minutes, is DIY punk that’s noisy to a point and scattershot with a purpose. The songs, which oftentimes barely make it to the finish line in one piece, hop scotch their way through tracks which dis rich kids, hipsters, opportunistic money suckers and pesky TSA agents alike. While their jokes aren’t smart, witty or funny enough to stand on their own, as the hollow and preachy “Integrity” and “Bad Art” show, they flesh out their best ideas when they couple their angst with a story and a more focused melody. The standout here is the steadily paced "Cockblockers", a self explanatory tale about that friend we all have. But don't let their seemingly anti-establishment ways fool you. "Don't Call Me A Hipster (Even Though I Am)" proves they'd rather be a Ramones cover band as opposed to a musi-comedy act, and everyone knows the Ramones were a pop group.★★★

College towns are hotbeds of upstart groups that haunt house parties and bars. While these bands all dream of moving on to bigger things, most don’t live beyond the four year undergrad lifespan. Luckily for bright-eyed and bushy-tailed Welsh septet Los Campesinos!, they were able to outlast many of their collegiate counterparts and make quite a name for themselves.

Formed at the University of Cardiff in 2006, Los Campesinos! quickly established themselves in the U.K. indie rock scene.

“At first we were only known in Wales, though,” commented bassist Ellen Campesinos! (her nom du guerre, naturally). “We didn’t have much of a following other than just our friends. We only ever really played in Cardiff.”

The band’s utilization of the Internet allowed them to quickly build a reputation, despite limited live exposure. After only a few months together, the band caught a huge break (and fulfilled just about every college band’s dream), claiming the opening spot for Canadian indie collectivists Broken Social Scene.

“We got the gig through our U.K. label, Witchita Records” explained Campesinos!, “and we made a good impression on them because they really took a liking to us.”

The band’s sound, which made such an impression on Broken Social Scene, is a very angsty, pop driven mixture of almost orchestral indie rock with chaotic punk blasts. The lyrics are wordy, heart-on-sleeve dissertations on self deprecation. On the fantastic title track from 2008’s We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed, singer Gareth Campesinos! belts out the soul-crushing assessment:

“I cannot emphasize enough that my body is a badly designed, poorly put together vessel, harboring these diminishing, so-called 'vital organs'. I hope my heart goes first.”

Beat that, Bright Eyes.

Broken Social Scene passed word of their discovery of Los Campesinos! onto frequent collaborator and sometimes-producer Dave Newfeld.

“Dave took a chance on us” Campesinos! explained. “We were in the right place at the right time.”

Newfeld took the reigns on the band’s first album, Hold On Now, Youngster; and hooked them up for North American releases with BSS’s own Arts & Crafts label.

The band’s popularity took off following the release of Youngster, and they embarked on several European and North American tours over the following years.

“I know we’ve played Bloomington before but I just can’t remember where” said Campesinos! of the band’s 2009 stop at The Bluebird.

Hopefully their stop in Bloomington today, in support of their latest album (Hello Sadness), will leave more of an impression.

The Lemonheads at The Vogue
Friday, Jan. 20
The Vogue Theater

I was a teenager during the 1990s, so there’s really no reason why I couldn’t have (or shouldn’t have) listened to The Lemonheads. I just didn’t. Not on purpose anyway; for a minute there in the early to mid '90s you couldn’t get away from their cover of “Mrs. Robinson.” But beyond that I just recall them being kind of middle-of-the-road: not quite pop, not quite alternative, not quite grunge. After seeing them (really, him) live on Friday night at the Vogue, I’m not necessarily ready to recant that pithy observation, but I will say I’m glad I got the chance to revisit their music and—if nothing else—cross another legendary name off my list.

Dando took the stage alone on Friday. Tall, lanky, and kind of hunched over, he wore a long-sleeved Boston Bruins T-shirt and jeans, his long hair parted in the middle. He mumbled a few words into the microphone, gave a self-satisfied chortle, and then started playing, opening the set with four solo songs on the acoustic.

It was an unusual and yet appropriate way to start the set; The Lemonheads are, essentially, Dando. The “band” has been through so many iterations and lineup changes over the years that Dando is literally the only constant. But it also put the spotlight on Dando’s songwriting which—upon close inspection—can be innocent and unselfconsciously funny while at the same time carry a tinge of teenage pain and confusion. He opened the acoustic mini-set with “Being Around” ("If you like me/If you love me/Would you get down on your knees and scrub me/I’m a little dirty from just being around"), and closed it with a cover of John Prine’s “Sam Stone” ("There’s a hole in Daddy’s arm where all the money goes").

After that, the rest of The Lemonheads took the stage and proceeded to bang out damn near all of Dando’s breakthrough 1992 album It’s a Shame About Ray. Starting with the upbeat, almost punky “Rockin’ Stroll,” they played every song on the album up through a quick version of “Bit Part” ("I want a bit part in your life/A walk on would be fine"). There I kind of lost track, but he definitely picked up the trail again with his cover of “Frank Mills,” a song from Hair (Note: if you get a chance, listen to the Ray version of this song. Obviously written for a female singer, it’s hilarious to hear Dando sing about what amounts to a man crush.)

Soon after that Dando switched back to the acoustic for “Ride With Me” and ultimately an acoustic version of the closest thing Dando ever came to an original hit single, “Into Your Arms,” a smooth, sunny and sweetly-strummed song with a commercial brightness that predated the Foo Fighters’ oddly similar hit “Big Me” by three years, but which didn’t get as much attention.

After that, Dando called a high school friend of his on stage and they did a covers of the Beastie Boys “Fight For Your Right,” and “Louie Louie,” and a half version of “House of the Rising Sun.” At that point I decided that my re-education in '90s alt-rock was finished for the evening. If he wowed the remaining crowd with a stunning performance of an entire side of Sgt. Pepper’s afterward, I apologize to my readers that I wasn’t there to witness it. I felt like I’d seen the best Dando had to offer, and I admit I was pleased.

Mass.-based Meredith Sheldon warmed up the crowd for The Lemonheads with a set of pretty straightforward, bass-heavy, new-wavey rock. Her voice and her vocal interludes came off a little bit like Jessica Lea Mayfield, but with a harder edge. Strong drum work and a wide variety of rhythms gave the tunes some serious backbone. Nashville-based Ranger started off the night in the same vein as Meredith Sheldon, with an innovative, bass heavy alt-rock sound.

Kathleen Edwards
Voyageur
Zoe / Rounder

Let’s just get this out of the way: Kathleen Edwards is dating Justin Vernon. That doesn’t necessarily mean anything about this album or Edwards’ music, except that it does, and this album makes a little more sense knowing it. Vernon co-produced this, so it’s not like he’s JUST a boyfriend. He’s definitely in this. Still, Edwards holds her own—she sounds strong—she sounds like she could be going at just about everything alone. One of those people you admire for their ability to drive it home: listen to “Chameleon/Comedian.” You totally believe her when she says, I don’t need a punch line. It’s got a lot more classic pop than Bon Iver does; where Vernon tends to experiment—play around with suspending single sounds—Edwards seems to expand sounds. This is warm and familiar. Almost country-rock, but with more guitar (and piano) and less twang. You can’t help but notice that “A Soft Place to Land,” brings the same pangs of emotion that Bon Iver can. The same sort of distorted echo and marching urgency. It’s always impressive when an artist can compile an album of songs that fit together so well without a lot of repetition.

Beat Jab offers reviews in prose poetry form from 2011 Eugene & Marilyn Glick Indiana Emerging Author Award winner Micah Ling.

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