March 4th, 2008 11:52am
He Is No Less Lost
Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks “Elmo Delmo” - There’s something in Stephen Malkmus’ voice that keeps him from sounding morose, depressed, or even angry. His songs approach those feelings, but there’s something about his personality and the very sound of his voice that downsizes negative emotions or dilutes them, leaving just an insidious trace of fear, doubt, and longing. He sounds as if he can shrug off anything, and for all I know, he can. I’m not sure if I’d cast Malkmus as an optimist, per se, but he seems entirely incapable of approaching the worst in life without levity and perspective. This may be the root of why I identify with his music so completely — the subtle emotional gray scale of Malkmus’ body of work comes closer to feeling like my baseline state than any other music that I know.
Malkmus’ unflappable, well-adjusted everyman persona is exactly what makes “Elmo Delmo” one of the scariest pieces of music that he’s ever written. The song starts off sounding rather epic and heroic, with language and dynamic shifts that emphasize a sense of courage and strength, even when he’s talking about a purple puma and a meta grotto. That takes a turn after a few verses, when we finally get a sense of what he’s up against: “I’m one with the grid / it turns me into a double form / I risk dissociation at every turnpike.” Immediately after that reveal, the bottom drops out, and an extended instrumental passage takes us on a guided tour of the darker corners of our hero’s mind.
And then it begins: Elmo Delmo. Elmo Delmo. Elmo Delmo. Elmo Delmo. Elmo Delmo. Elmo Delmo. Elmo Delmo. It’s total gibberish, but it burns a hole in his skull, and the mindless repetition beats his brain to pulp. It’s the onset of madness, the break from reality. Elmo Delmo is a cute, cuddly abyss. The worst traps seem innocuous at first. In the end, he rebels. He pulls against the tide, and swears to seize his life from Elmo Delmo, and the song goes out on a fight, but there’s no resolution, just this ambiguous cliffhanger. (Click here to buy it from Buy Early Get Now. You’re kind of a fool if you buy this record any other way.)
3/4/08 2:38 pm
the time i saw malkmus on tour (when he presents his first solo album and i was 17 years old) he gave the image of.. a child. a guy who loves music and plays and has fun with it. i agree completely with his in-ability to see things in a hard, bleak edge. he’s always in some sort of weird ‘malkmus’ mood.
i don’t identify much with that state, sometimes i am, and then, i listen to pavement records.
3/4/08 2:38 pm
the time i saw malkmus on tour (when he presents his first solo album and i was 17 years old) he gave the image of.. a child. a guy who loves music and plays and has fun with it. i agree completely with his in-ability to see things in a hard, bleak edge. he’s always in some sort of weird ‘malkmus’ mood.
i don’t identify much with that state, sometimes i am, and then, i listen to pavement records.
3/4/08 8:31 pm
I imagine a video for this being directed by Sid and Marty Krofft, in the sense that even though the bad guys have harmless and cute sounding names like “Witchiepoo” and “Sleestacks”, it is all still psychedelically unsettling.
I love this record and this Jicks lineup, grizzled veterans all around.
3/4/08 8:31 pm
I imagine a video for this being directed by Sid and Marty Krofft, in the sense that even though the bad guys have harmless and cute sounding names like “Witchiepoo” and “Sleestacks”, it is all still psychedelically unsettling.
I love this record and this Jicks lineup, grizzled veterans all around.
3/5/08 1:42 am
Yeah, good middle, but I think the outro of this song, the whole series of passages following the once and for all end of the vocal, is one of the best examples I think there is of Malk’s Zowee-and-on ability to indicate enormous dread with his guitar (and a specific kinda “I have looked very deeply into all of my millions of weird LPs” rockist dread), that I think ends up explaining why his vocal needs to be so relaxed and kinda just barely representative of this or that rock idiom, and why he ended up chucking all those fake goth-isms that were in his Westing and Slanted lyrics. “Fin” is another favorite example, but I think “Elmo Delmo” might be surrounded by a better record.
3/5/08 1:42 am
Yeah, good middle, but I think the outro of this song, the whole series of passages following the once and for all end of the vocal, is one of the best examples I think there is of Malk’s Zowee-and-on ability to indicate enormous dread with his guitar (and a specific kinda “I have looked very deeply into all of my millions of weird LPs” rockist dread), that I think ends up explaining why his vocal needs to be so relaxed and kinda just barely representative of this or that rock idiom, and why he ended up chucking all those fake goth-isms that were in his Westing and Slanted lyrics. “Fin” is another favorite example, but I think “Elmo Delmo” might be surrounded by a better record.
3/5/08 1:44 am
Oh also I think that the first bit of this song is kind of a Tool joke!
3/5/08 1:44 am
Oh also I think that the first bit of this song is kind of a Tool joke!
3/6/08 12:33 am
I love Pavement, but I am not so fond of this Jethro Tull imitation. Who knew that lurking beneath the genius of the first few Pavement albums was a noodler that would make Pigpen himself blush?
3/6/08 12:33 am
I love Pavement, but I am not so fond of this Jethro Tull imitation. Who knew that lurking beneath the genius of the first few Pavement albums was a noodler that would make Pigpen himself blush?
3/6/08 3:39 am
I don’t know, Martin. I think it’s all a lateral progression from record to record going back to 1991.
3/6/08 3:39 am
I don’t know, Martin. I think it’s all a lateral progression from record to record going back to 1991.
3/6/08 5:17 am
I get your observations, Matthew, but what about “Blackbook?” Maybe it’s the exception that proves the rule, but it’s unrelentingly dark (and, of course, a great song).
3/6/08 5:17 am
I get your observations, Matthew, but what about “Blackbook?” Maybe it’s the exception that proves the rule, but it’s unrelentingly dark (and, of course, a great song).
3/7/08 2:03 am
I definitely see what you mean. I had previously listened to the ‘Real Emotional Trash’ album and thought it was decent, but after reading this, I totally understand what your talking about and I can now appreciate this album more.
http://educateham.blogspot.com/
3/7/08 2:03 am
I definitely see what you mean. I had previously listened to the ‘Real Emotional Trash’ album and thought it was decent, but after reading this, I totally understand what your talking about and I can now appreciate this album more.
http://educateham.blogspot.com/
3/10/08 7:46 pm
I find this whole prog/noodly thing Malkmus gets pinned with nowadays slightly annoying. It very rarely seems to me that his extended guitar stuff seems extended other than in the amount of time that passes whilst it is going on- and I never feel that when I’m listening to it anyway. It always seems to go to someplace I want to go, even if that place isn’t always the happiest headspace such as with this song.
3/10/08 7:46 pm
I find this whole prog/noodly thing Malkmus gets pinned with nowadays slightly annoying. It very rarely seems to me that his extended guitar stuff seems extended other than in the amount of time that passes whilst it is going on- and I never feel that when I’m listening to it anyway. It always seems to go to someplace I want to go, even if that place isn’t always the happiest headspace such as with this song.