Album of the Week: Music for Money - Music for Money

Sure, many artists in the past decade have laid claim to the influences of Eno and Berlin-era Bowie (Radiohead, Unwound, Stereolab, just about every post-rock group). Now feel free to add Montreal group Music for Money to this collective. This eponymous titled release features the odd time signatures, space-age electronic sounds, and robot-rock precision that have been played out by MFM’s contemporaries, yet manage to culminate them into something distinct. The album’s tracks swell with shoe-gaze atmospherics, turntablism-style samples, and with instrumental compositions that hold affinity to Mogwai or Godspeed You Black Emperor! (without the inconsistency of the former or the bombast of the later). Check out “La Pasagere” with its Robert Fripp-like guitars that give the track a clear affinity to Eno’s works like “Everything Changes at Night” while “Rendez-Vous” (perhaps the closest thing to a ‘rock’ song on the album) evokes the fiery energy of Roxy Music’s first albums (think “Editions of You” or “Virginia Plain”). Yes, the music of Music for Money may never move from its influences, but like The Jam, Interpol, and Stereolab before them, this group still manages to make great and essential music…even if it is all sounds a bit familiar.

Listen To: Rendez-Vous, Le Passagere, Vague

RIYL: Brian Eno, Berlin-era David Bowie, Mogwai