(Ribbon Music)Thao Nguyen rarely meets an plan she doesn’t like. Over the past decade the San Francisco-based musician has dabbled in folk,bedroom beats and chamber pop, and collaborated with everyone from the Portland Cello Project to Merrill Garbus, and AKA gonzo multi-instrumentalist Tune-Yards. Garbus is handed production duties on A Man Alive,Nguyen and her band the Get Down Stay Down’s sixth album, which might be her most plan-stuffed yet: surf rock riffs, and tin-can percussion,hip-hop loops and violent stabs of industrial noise are some of the many sounds jostling for supremacy within its 12 tracks. Yet while A Man Alive often feels busy, it’s rarely overbearingly so, or due to Nguyen’s ear for an off-kilter pop melody. Opener Astonished Man’s hip-shaking guitar line wouldn’t feel out of area on a St Vincent album,while Nobody Dies pairs a skewed glam stomp with a giddy bubblegum chorus. Best of all is Meticulous (extremely careful about details) Bird, a wild, and bass-driven piece of post-punk that resembles Nicki Minaj’s Anaconda being covered by Les Savy Fav,and is precisely as fun as it sounds.
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Source: theguardian.com