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| Pitchfork |
 Playing "spot the influences" with James Murphy isn't much fun. Murphy laid out the family tree of LCD Soundsystem on his first single, thanks to "Losing My Edge"'s famous record-collection pissing contest closing minutes. Absent from that laundry list is the first artist LCD ever covered, Harry Nilsson, whose "Jump Into the Fire" was an early live staple and eventual "Daft Punk is Playing at My House" B-side. Nilsson's weird 70s run of records approximate an accurate depiction of the L.A. experience, describing in his gentle, decaying falsetto the melancholy beneath the surface of sunny days and movie stars. So what better time for Murphy to indulge his inner Nilsson than when he's given the chance to go Hollywood, handling film score duties for Noah Baumbach's Greenberg. If previews are to be trusted, Greenberg itself finds Ben Stiller's main character down and out in L.A., so voila, the perfect storm for Murphy to finally make his own version of a sadsack record like Nilsson Schmilsson.Nowhere is that more apparent than "Photographs", the only song to appear in both vocal and instrumental form among 11 tracks credited here to Murphy. A woozy acoustic guitar and piano ballad, it's as far away from LCD Soundsystem as it is close to being a standard-issue indie film soundtrack piece. It also unfortunately is a succinct portrait of the gulf between Murphy and Nilsson, as the former's voice bears more cracks than a dropped carton of eggs-- more the "partied all night with John Lennon" Nilsson of Pussy Cats than the vocal showstopper performance of "Without You". Murphy's singing has gotten a lot better since he basically monologued his way through the first LCD singles, but it's still better left disguised on the solo-Lennon howl of "Oh You (Christmas Blues)" (credited, strangely, to LCDSS) or the Cecilia-ish folk jam of "If You Need a Friend"....full text |
| Prefixmag |
| Soundtrack to the Ben Stiller starring film from Noah Baumbach, writer-director of The Squid & The Whale and Margot At The Wedding and frequent Wes Anderson collaborator. The score is provided by LCD Soundystem's James Murphy, who promises it won't resemble LCD Soundsystem or DFA's signature dance sound. Regardless, the album includes a brand new LCD Soundsystem track, among contributions from Nite Jewel, Galaxie 500, and others. The film goes into limited release March 26. ...full text |
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