Archive for March, 2007

3/30/07

I Owe It All To You

GOMM "Don't Take A Chance" - "Don't Take A Chance" vamps along steadily for a few minutes, cycling through a twitchy post-punk phase and a droney jam section before settling into a brilliant final third that bounces restlessly as two voices attempt to talk each other out of pleasures, commitments, emotional connections, or anything else that could be considered a risk. The music sounds like a constant threat of danger, and though the male voice puts up a bit of a fight, the woman seems sorta eager to jump into the fire. (Click here to buy it from Bleep.)

Gudrun Gut (with Uta Heller and Matt Elliott) "Rock Bottom Riser" - Covering a Smog song is certainly not the easiest way to my heart, but Gudrun Gut and her partners pull it off, mainly by creating a track that sounds very little like anything Bill Callahan has ever recorded. Their take on "Rock Bottom Riser" is chilly, spare, and rhythmic, with three asymmetrical vocal lines that all fall on a scale that ranges from entirely dispassionate to hesitantly soulful, with opposite extremes overlapping at several crucial moments. Much like the original, they approach the drama of the lyrics with great caution, but Gut's version is more evocative and musically descriptive, and best of all, it lacks Callahan's hideous deadpan vocal inflections. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

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3/29/07

Tiny Scores, Tiny Rooms, Lofty Goals

Last night Marc Hogan and I went to see Field Music and Menomena play a show at the Bowery Ballroom. This morning, we had a little chat about the gig.

Field Music @ Bowery Ballroom, March 28 2007
Give It Lose It Take It / Sit Tight / Tones of Town / A House Is Not A Home / You Can Decide / Working To Work / If Only The Moon Were Up / Pieces / Shorter Shorter / Tell Me Keep Me

Field Music "Working To Work"

Matthew Perpetua: So what did you think of Field Music's set?

Marc Hogan: Their record is so tidy and polite, and yet they managed to get that across almost seamlessly live. Very precise. Very English. It was a bit of a short set, with a few great songs left out, but they're so bashfully charming. And yet it's hard to see a huge mass of Americans clamoring to hear this type of thing.

MP: I was really struck by how much those guys looked and acted exactly as I had imagined them. Really thin and clean-cut, with neat, well-fit and uncluttered clothing. Polite and friendly, but a bit aloof too. They obviously live out their immaculate, uptight aesthetic on every level. The tightness and precision reminded me a lot of Spoon, but they don't have this kinda macho, sexy frontman. They are so reserved and make no attempt to be "rock and roll;" they seem happy to just make this Music For Stylish Introverts. I thought they were really charming whenever they would chat with the crowd.

MH: True, they had that embarrassed (but completely in control) Hugh Grant factor.

MP: Not hilarious, but rather unpretentious, well-adjusted, and good-humored.

MH: As for their differences from Spoon, I think you're right. They're comfortable with making rock that reflects who they are. They're comfortable with being uptight and uncomfortable!

MP: I'm not sure if they ever seem uncomfortable -- a lot of what I like about Tones of Town is that it feels very relaxed and peaceful. It makes me think of really pleasant spring days.

MH: I always hear a nervousness in their music. Maybe "uncomfortable" was the wrong word. On stage, though, there was nothing nervous about them -- they've got this stuff down. How do you think the crowd reacted to Field Music, though?

MP: I'm not sure if the crowd responded to them at all. The audience was clearly there for Menomena, and I guess I was too focused on staring at them with their instruments to scan around. Did you notice anything?

MH: I didn't really notice anything, either. It would be fun to see them in a smaller venue where people had to come see them.

MP: I think even if Field Music was headlining, the response would have been fairly muted because their music is pleasurable, but not exactly fun. It's hard not to just be passive with their songs.

MH: That was my take on their first album. Really, really pretty -- but how do you convince somebody to get excited about "pretty" when other bands are trying to be "beautiful"?

MP: Also, their emotional content is really measured and focused on details and vague, in-between feelings, so you're never going to be too moved by it. That's one of the things I respond to in the songs, but I think most young people want something a bit more extreme and volatile.

MH: Field Music just owns the whole pleasant/pretty aspect. And good for them. They're not looking to wow anyone -- exactly, they're not going to extremes.A lot of the songs are about work, honestly, and how exciting is that? But it's part of our lives.

Menomena "Muscle'n Flo"

MP: They are very formal in their artistic concerns, but so was Menomena, but they went about things completely differently, and the audience seemed to really connect with them.

MH: Yes! That's the common thread -- both bands are definitely focused on form first, but each has its own personality.

MP: It's funny because Menomena's formal concerns are more in radically reworking the dynamics of a pop song, whereas Field Music is all about working within this paradigm we all know and understand, but Menomena's stuff is so much warmer and emotionally direct, and so they get the fans that really flip out for them. Personally, I find it hard to connect with some of Menomena's stuff, especially the ones where it seems like there would simply not be a song without the drummer.

MH: There's an anthemic, sing-along quality to Menomena's music. Field Music don't seem as interested in that type of communal aspect. Maybe it's a Portland vs. Sunderland, England thing. Oh, but that drummer! I could not stop watching him.

MP: Yeah, he really needs a raise. The other guys are fine musicians, but he carries that band. If he quit or died, they'd have to break up.

MH: He was probably the best singer, too. But the reason a song like "Rotten Hell" works so well is exactly because it doesn't rely only on flashy drums. It has a great, swirling melody and words to which people can relate and sing along. As opposed to the more formal work, the songs you mention that feel more like exercises and only work because of the drums. "Rotten Hell" is a political song, but not in an overbearing or self-important way. It doesn't scream, "Look at us, we're being political now."

MP: I had no idea what to expect of them, so I was happy to see how engaging they were as performers. Very funny guys, easy to like. Handsome, mildly theatrical. Theatrical in the sense of "Oooh, and now he's got a tuba!"

MH: They definitely made more sense to me in concert than on the albums. And I already liked the albums quite a bit.

MP: I wouldn't be surprised if they just kept getting bigger. They clearly inspire fandom, but it also seems like they are just getting the knack of writing accessible pop songs. I can imagine them pulling a Modest Mouse in a few years. "Wet and Rusting," "Muscle'n Flo," "Rotten Hell" -- that seems to be the start of something.

MH: Where the cult just keeps getting bigger, yeah. Not every band gets a "Float On," but it'll be exciting to watch these guys develop their pop sense, and move away from their songwriting gimmick. What do they do with computers again?

MP: Wikipedia explains:

The band uses a computer program called the Digital Looping Recorder, or Deeler for short, in the song writing process - it was programmed by band member Brent Knopf. Drummer Danny Seim explains the process, "First, we set the tempo of the click, which is played through a pair of headphones. We then take turns passing a single mic a round the room. One of us will hold the mic in front of an instrument, while another one of us will lay down a short improvised riff over the click track. We usually start with the drums. Once the drums begin looping, we throw on some bass, piano, guitar, bells, sax, or whatever other sort of noisemaker happens to be in the room. Deeler keeps the process democratic, which is the only way we can operate"

MH: "We usually start with the drums."

MP: No kidding!

(Click here to buy Field Music's Tones of Town from Insound and here to buy Menomena's Friend and Foe from Barsuk.)

Elsewhere: My new Hit Refresh column is up on the ASAP site with mp3s from Tujiko Noriko, Elk City, and A Sunny Day In Glasgow.

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3/28/07

Queen Of The Galaxy

Mark Ronson "Stop Me" - Mark Ronson is more than a producer; he's a musical philanthropist who uses his considerable resources and connections to realize crazy pop dreams. He's turned Radiohead's "Just" into a funk number, Britney's "Toxic" into a drag queen vamp featuring Ol' Dirty Bastard, and the Jam's "Pretty Green" into a rowdy Ze Records throwback. Ronson has an uncanny knack for emphasizing the subliminal roots of pop songs, and executing his high concepts with grace and style. "Stop Me" transforms The Smiths' "Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before" into a slick R&B number with his signature horn bleats, crisp beats, and electro flourishes. The vocal starts out sounding a little bit like Damon Albarn, but once it gets going, it shifts into a rather impressive simulation of Prince in his "When Doves Cry" mode. As the song hits its peak, it mutates into a cover of the Supremes' "You Keep Me Hanging On." The transition is clever, fluid, and intuitive, and stands out as one of the more stunning pop moments of the year thus far. (Click here to buy it via Mark Ronson's official site.)

In Flagranti featuring G. Rizo "Intergalactic Bubblegum" - Since it is pretty clear that I'm not allowed to talk about songs on this site without getting into every goddamn pedantic detail, I'll just tell you straight away that this song contains a sample of "Knock On Wood." It's really not the most important thing about track -- I'd like to think that its imperious sexuality, rhythmic vocal hook, and variety of sci-fi whooosh effects are more exciting and essential to its appeal, but hey, sometimes it's more important to assert your trainspotter authority by highlighting trivia rather than, y'know, appreciating the spirit of a recording. (Click here to buy it from Juno.)

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3/27/07

Too Crunk To Ensure The Dunks

Yelle "Je Veux Te Voir" - What do you even call this music? It moves restlessly between identifiable sounds -- punky French rapping, heavy electro, Baile funk/booty bass, twee synth pop, intense rock guitar moves transposed to keyboards -- but it's like everything and nothing else. It's as though they just figured out what 2007 was supposed to sound like and ran with it, making every moment more amped up and ridiculously exciting than the last.

I found the lyrics and ran them through Google's translation tool, and it just gets crazier. She seems to be objectifying this dude, but the lusty bits get mixed up with obscure details about sleepwear, fried potatoes, and lacking a driver's license. Here's the best bit from the translation: "Your posters of Lil' Jon cover those with Magic Johnson / Your body is too crunk to ensure the dunks." It's funny and cute, but also wonderfully precise and well-observed. I get a very specific image of this guy and his life, but more than that, an idea of how smitten she is -- after all, when you have a crush like this, you tend to focus on this sort of silly, endearing trivia.

I don't think that I could ever hear this song loud enough. I want to blast it at such a high volume that it reduces me to atoms. (Click here to buy it via the official Yelle site.)

Elsewhere: Eric Harvey on Alfred Hitchcock's use of music to present a notion of mass-culture passivity in Rear Window.

Let's Have A Contest!!!: As I mentioned last week, Of Montreal are playing a special live-band karaoke show at Studio B in Brooklyn on April 14th. Basically, they are going to have a list of other people's songs, and they'll play them behind whoever is brave enough to get on stage and give it a shot. (I have no idea what songs will be available, but they've been playing selections by Gnarls Barkley, Prince, the Fiery Furnaces, Neil Young, and David Bowie in the past two years.) In addition to all that, they'll play a regular Of Montreal set, which is awesome in and of itself. Obviously, this is a pretty unique and fabulous event, and as such, it sold out in less than a day.

You might be thinking something along the lines of "Why the hell is he telling us this? Is he just trying to make us feel bad about missing this show? Why is the Fluxblog guy such an irredeemable prick?" I honestly don't know the answer to that last question, but I promise you that I'm not trying to make you feel lame about not getting tickets. In fact, I'm actually going to hook some of you up. Well, two pair of you, anyway.

Here's the deal: If you want to get in the running, you have to get creative. I want you to make something that shows off your karaoke skills and/or expresses your personal karaoke philosophy. It can be an mp3, a youtube clip, a set of photographs accompanied with text, whatever. Go wild with it! I don't know what I'm looking for, but the two raddest entries will win the tickets (thanks to New York Magazine, btw), and a few of the runners-up might get something too. The top entries will all appear on the site when the winners are announced.

Please send all contest entries to: ofmontrealkaraoke @ gmail.com by April 10th, 2007. Please do not enter if you can't be in Brooklyn on the day of the show, and/or if you know me personally. (I mean, if we met once super-briefly, fine.)

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3/26/07

The Music You Were Playing Really Blew My Mind

Kylie Minogue "Love At First Sight (Live in Sydney)" - Can anyone listen to this song without getting this amazing physical sensation; this lightness in the chest; this overwhelming feeling of WOW WOW WOW? I can't fathom any other reaction. The music feels exactly like what its words are describing! The lyrics may seem trite to some people, but there isn't room in this song for cleverness or obfuscation of emotion; this is just a pure burst of joy and revelation. It's an Occam's razor sort of thing -- this wouldn't feel nearly as true if it were not so bold and direct. It's about owning these feelings, and not feeling ashamed or talking yourself out of them because they seem tacky or ridiculous.

Kylie Minogue "White Diamond (Live in Sydney)" - Scissor Sisters + Kylie, round two! It's not as sublime and gorgeous as "I Believe In You," but it definitely sounds more like Kylie doing a Scissor Sisters song, which is certainly no bad thing. It's easy to imagine Jake Shears singing this song, but it's clearly built to show off that wonderful, shimmering quality in Kylie's voice. It's sort of interesting that the Scissor Sisters have written two diffuse, ethereal ballads for her -- it says a lot about how they perceive her, and how they interpret their respective strengths as writers and performers. Are Shears and Babydaddy writing these songs based on their idea of who Kylie is, or is this what they want her to be? (Click here to buy it from Amazon UK.)

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3/23/07

Stars Drip Down Like Butter

R.E.M. "Let Me In" (Live in Mountain View, California 10/21/2001) - This is for Chris, who turned 25 today. Like myself, Chris has a deep and totally unapologetic love for R.E.M.'s Monster, though our favorite songs on the album are a bit different. For me, "Let Me In" has always been the painful (emotionally, not aesthetically) dirge that I flick past in order to get from the creepy "I Took Your Name" to the creepier "Circus Envy," but for him, it's the high point of the entire record. As he puts it:

I tend to like songs with a big, romantic, epic longing to them, but who's expressing that longing matters. It shouldn't be showy; it needs to come from a voice or narrator who doesn't always let these things out. Which is definitely Stipe. I just like that the song is so fuzzy and odd, in both sound and lyric, and then that one long keening note just slices through it, followed by that simple, powerful statement.

He's not wrong. The guitar on the album version is almost too much for me to handle sometimes. The tone, attack, and mixing level is extremely atypical for R.E.M., and though it's not the weirdest performance you'll ever hear, it certainly feels like an enormous weight bearing down on the listener and the singer, alternately representing Stipe's gnawing grief, and the vast chasm separating himself and the person being addressed in the lyrics. The dense, crashing chords are distracting and seem to interrupt or drown out his sincere, understated sentiment, but that's exactly the point -- he needs to sing around, or through, this wall of emotional noise.

"Let Me In" has barely been played live since the end of the Monster tour, though it was reprised with a radically different arrangement during the band's performance at the Bridge School benefit in the fall of 2001. The new version replaces the heavy electric guitar and distant organ of the original with uneasy acoustic strumming and a subtle melodic counterpoint on a vibraphone, or something rather similar. The effect of the song is altered considerably, implying that time has distanced him from the intense emotions of the studio recording, but that he's still recovering from the loss eight years later. (Click here to buy the original version from Amazon.)

Elsewhere: Tickets for Of Montreal's special New York Magazine karaoke show at Studio B in Brooklyn just went on sale. If you get shut out, I might be able to help you out next week. Stay tuned.

And: In outer space, no one will judge Batman and Superman's love.

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3/22/07

Just The Nagging Doubt Remains

The Human League "Mirror Man" - After years of loving this song, I still can't figure out its angle on this "mirror man," or, given the way it's sung in the first person but then switches to an ambiguous chorus announcing the arrival of the "mirror man," whether or not the singer is the "mirror man." It seems that the singer is disassociating himself from the part of his mind that is eager to change, and he's afraid that this makes him a bit of a sociopath, or that being so adaptable wipes out his sense of identity. Still, even though the character is chilly and aloof, the song signals some kind of remorse, hinting that maybe he does have some very good reason to feel guilty. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Elsewhere: My new Hit Refresh column is up on the ASAP site with mp3s from Antibalas, RJD2, and Santa Maria.

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3/21/07

The Music Is The Master, Can’t You Hear It Calling You?

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists "The Unwanted Things" - Some people might roll their eyes at the token reggae song on Ted Leo's new album, but as far as I'm concerned, "The Unwanted Things" showcases everything that I love about his music -- effortless warmth and humanity, an easygoing sense of melody, and his thin yet extraordinarily endearing falsetto. "The Unwanted Things" overflows with gentle empathy, and though it strays from his typical style, it still seems like a defining work for the Nicest Guy in Indie Rock. (Click here to buy it from Insound.)

Ted Leo "Rock and Roll Dreams'll Come Through" - At the start of this clip from last week's special marathon episode of the Best Show On WFMU, Ted Leo mentions that he got a request for the Gorch's "Chain Fight Tonight." I was the guy who requested it from the phone room, but honestly, hearing Ted nail Barry Dworkin's classic "Rock and Roll Dreams'll Come Through" instead was much, much better and pretty much a fahntasy come true for this, or any, Best Show fanboy. (Click here to buy the full "Gas Station Dogs" bit on Scharpling and Wurster's New Hope For the Ape-Eared double-disc set from Stereolaffs.)

Elsewhere: The next batch of 33 1/3 books has been announced. I'm pleased to say that some of my friends have made the cut -- Bryan Charles (Pavement), Chris Weingarten (Public Enemy), and Jessica Saurez (Weezer) -- and some guy I don't know at all managed to land a book on one of my five or six favorite albums ever, Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers). Let's hope he doesn't eff that one up, okay? One thing I can guarantee is that Bryan Charles is going to do an amazing job with Wowee Zowee. There really is no one else I'd rather have writing the book on my favorite album (and favorite band) of all time.

Also: Tom Breihan's interview with James Murphy is pretty crucial. If you only click on one blog link today...

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3/20/07

Numbers Are Meaning, And I Want To Know

Shapes & Sizes "Alone/Alive" - There's no nice way to say this, so I'll just be blunt: The dude in Shapes & Sizes needs to let this woman sing every one of their songs. The difference between their tracks on their new album isn't as drastic as on the first, and his voice isn't as painful to hear either, but if you've got this compelling, assertive, supremely expressive vocalist in the band, why clog up the record with songs sung by a guy who sounds like yet another limp, nondescript indie rocker? Why drag down the average when every song could be an A+?

Caila Thompson-Hannant's songs tend to condense epic adventures into compositions that rarely crack the five minute mark, implying moments of excitement, danger, despair, aimlessness, and romance along every twist and turn without seeming disjointed or cumbersome. Her words drop hints, but the sound of her voice is far more articulate, slipping from high pitched squeals to brassy shouts, gradually fleshing out a rich character that is alternately authoritative and deeply confused. (Click here to pre-order it from Asthmatic Kitty.)

Elsewhere: I'm not 100% sure how I feel about this essay that I wrote for Artistdirect. I like it for the most part, but I definitely think I'm biting off more than I can chew at the beginning and the end, and I worry that the general tone is overly peevish.

Also: Glenn Coolfer has some very good ideas about SXSW, Dan Kois is totally OTM about the "inarticulate narrator," Mark Pytlik somehow made me like Sound of Silver more than I already did, and Pageblank quietly defends ~~North American Scum~~ hipsters, or at least the ones that he knows in Canada.

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3/19/07

Singles Remind Me Of Kisses, Albums Remind Me Of Plans

Squeeze "If I Didn't Love You" - The full line is "If I didn't love you, I'd hate you," and the more I hear this song, the more I realize that ultimately the singer is erring on the side of the latter. The woman being addressed is a total cipher -- an object, an objective, a source of unending sexual frustration. He fumbles through these forced, cliched romantic scenarios -- all of which seem distinctly early 80s to me; I've always imagined this being played out by Sam Malone and Diane Chambers -- but for a song about trying to get laid, it seems rather short on lust. Glenn Tilbrook normally sounds warm and friendly, but here he's chilly and aloof, especially when he stutters like a broken robot on the hook. (Click here to get it for cheap on a greatest hits record, or here to spend a lot more money and get the original Argybargy album.)

David Bowie "What In The World (Live)" - Halfway through this live recording from the Stage tour, Bowie and his band cycle back to the beginning of the song, but kick up the tempo to the point that its extreme romantic angst becomes an overwhelming physical sensation. The song seems as though it could derail at any moment, which speaks to the emotional truth of its words while also turning the key line "I'm just a little bit afraid of you" into a hilarious understatement. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

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