Humanity Is Erased

A Frames “Black Forest II” – If you’ve been watching Late Night with Conan O’Brien with any degree of regularity in the past year or two, you’ve no doubt seen Conan slip into a recurring gag in which he affects “cold, dead eyes” – his entire face goes limp and his eyes narrow into a creepy, thousand-mile stare. In some ways, A Frames’ brilliant, horribly overlooked album Black Forest is just like this bit – a startling expression of emotional emptiness and hopelessness affected for the sake of very dark humor. The members of A Frames insist that the extreme bleakness of lyrics is meant to be deadpan, but there’s no shaking the feeling of doom and pessimism in this music. If anything, the ironic nihilism only serves to deepen the despair by refusing to commit to any feeling at all, not even apathy. And somehow, this is a seductive sound, and an album that speaks to me even when I don’t want it to. (Click here to buy it from Subpop.)

The Chiffons “Nobody Knows What’s Goin’ On (In My Mind But Me)” – There’s some beautiful echo in this recording, giving the sensation that the vocals are thoughts swirling around in the echo chamber mind of a stubborn teenager refusing to believe anything but her own irrational heart. (Click here to buy it from Rhino.)