Archive for May, 2011

Planningtorock "I Am Your Man"

The conceptual conceit of "I Am Your Man" is ironic -- its singer and composer is a woman -- but its sentiment is entirely earnest. This is a song about being forthright and aggressive in pursuing someone, and having the firm belief that you're the right person for the one you want. This could be creepy, but in context, it's not -- Janine Rostron sings this with a noble sweetness, it doesn't come off as overly intense or creepy at all. This is a song that makes love and devotion sound absolutely fantastic. I hear this song and envy the character. The big question here is: Is this the person that Rostron wants to want her, or who she wants to be? I think it's probably a little of both. Buy it from Amazon.

Fleet Foxes "Bedouin Dress"

Fleet Foxes make very pleasant music, but despite gesturing in the general direction of deeper ideas and some kind of spiritual resonance, I find their songs to be lacking in substance. I'm not complaining about that, really -- I don't get mad at candy for having no nutritional value, after all. The appeal of "Bedouin Dress" is purely musical, it totally crumbles the second I try to pay attention to the words, which are mainly neo-hippie drivel tossed in with a possible allusion to Yeats. The pleasure is in getting swept away in its breeziness and not thinking at all. It's beard folk bubblegum. Buy it from Amazon.

Battles with Kazu Makino "Sweetie & Shag"

"Sweetie & Shag" sounds like an elaborate Rube Goldberg device built specifically to yield this song. There's a lot of moving pieces, and it all sounds connected and precise. I love the use of rhythm in this composition -- every beat seems to have a cause and effect, the hooks bounce as if on metal springs. Kazu Makino, the lead singer of Blonde Redhead, is remarkable on this track. Her voice amps up the energy, pushing the chorus to ecstatic heights while being only barely comprehensible. The words don't quite scan, but the feeling is easy to intuit: Excited, a bit lusty, a bit scared. I've been bored by recent Blonde Redhead records, and frankly she sounds bored on them. Her performance here is thrilling and alive and I hope that she makes more music with Battles because they really bring out the best in each other. Buy it from Amazon.

Sloan "Laying So Low"

""Laying So Low" is kind of an earnest number, I don't know if there's a real joke in it," Chris Murphy says in an EPK clip on YouTube. "It's not often that you get any sentiment from me, I replaced sentiment years ago with wordplay." Murphy seems to be kidding around somewhat in these clips; he's a got a bleak, self-deprecating wit. Even still, it's clear that this self-criticism is something he's grappled with as a songwriter. The thing is, I don't think this is something that would have ever crossed my mind if he didn't bring it up himself. In fact, I can think of a lot of Murphy-penned Sloan songs that are poignant and emotional, even if they may include some clever wordplay. I love a lot of songwriters who definitely favor wordplay over expressing anything obviously personal, but no one in Sloan really belongs in that crowd. "Laying So Low" may be my favorite Sloan ballad. It's melancholy, beautiful and somehow manages to keep to a very small scale while feeling a bit majestic. I suppose that's the point here -- Murphy is singing about hiding in the background, biding time while he waits for someone to decide if they want him or not. It's a song of passive passion, of hoping that someone can get it together and decide what they want before you have to move on. It's a dim hope, though. No matter how lovely and graceful this song gets, it's hard not to pick up on that defeated feeling. Buy it from Amazon.

Lady Gaga "Government Hooker"

"Government Hooker" is a bit out of step with the rest of Born This Way. It's more of a Fame Monster song, really -- harsh industrial dance music with dark, cynical lyrics at odds with the big-hearted affirmations on the rest of the record. It does makes sense that this one is sequenced back to back with "Judas," which is just as bleak and intense. It's like a little island of goth angst and pounding beats on an album that is otherwise focused on ecstatic, campy grandeur. The track, written by Gaga along with producers Fernando Garibay and DJ White Shadow, is a harsh, sleek banger. It reminds me of KFMDM, Basement Jaxx and Goldfrapp in "Strict Machine" mode. It gleefully steals -- and amps up -- the best bit from New Order's "Blue Monday." The lyrics approach some kind of point about politics and sexuality and commerce, but it doesn't quite connect. That doesn't bother me, really -- this song is all about the menacing vibe, and the words end up serving that feeling by suggesting ideas about identity, kink and power dynamics that you can fill in yourself. My favorite detail in this track is the very sound of the male voice. As it turns out, the guy saying "back up and turn around" et al is one of Gaga's bodyguard. There's something incredible about this dude's voice and it's totally appropriate for his role in the song's dynamic. He sounds smug, hyper-masculine, somewhat detached. He creeps me out and I love it, especially in direct contrast with Gaga singing, with a touch of longing, "as long as I'm your hoooooker!" Buy it from Amazon.

tUnE-yArDs @ Music Hall of Williamsburg 5/21/2011 Hatari / Do You Wanna Live? (Party Can) / You Yes You / Gangsta / Powa / Riotriot / Fiya / Bizness / Real Live Flesh / Es-So / Doorstep // My Country /// Killa

tUnE-yArDs "You Yes You"

In my previous experiences with tUnE-yArDs in concert, they were playing to audiences who were not familiar with them, or maybe had heard the first album and had no idea that they were in for one of the very best live acts in music today. Part of the thrill in those shows was the shared discovery of Merrill Garbus' phenomenal talent and charisma -- that "oh my God, who is this woman and where has she been all my life and holy shit this song I've never heard before in my life is amaaaazing" thing. Part of the fun in this show was that it was a sold out room full of people who had fallen in love with w h o k i l l and could not be more excited to be witnessing the great Merrill Garbus in action. This was a loud, excited and deeply reverent crowd. Every so often, when the audience would get particularly intense, bassist Nate Brenner would get this look of bemused pride on his face like "Merrill, you've done it again." That guy complements her so perfectly -- his bass playing is brilliant and rises to the level of her voice and those songs, but he's also this cool, relaxed character who casts her enormous personality in sharp relief. I could gush about this show endlessly. Everything about this performance is impressive, thrilling and life-affirming. It made me feel inspired glad to be alive. The only thing I can say about this show that is even close to a criticism is that the sequence of the set frontloaded a lot of the most thrilling songs, so that I think the peak of the show -- the ecstatic climax of "Powa" -- came a bit too early. That's such a minor complaint, though. I was smiling the whole time. I'm smiling right now just thinking about it. Go see this band play live. Buy it from Amazon.

Thurston Moore "Illuminine"

Thurston Moore's third solo album Demolished Thoughts is a good, pretty record but it doesn't move me. Though it is nice to hear him trying something new after a solid decade in which Sonic Youth has been in a stylistic holding pattern, I think the acoustic-guitar-and-string-ensemble approach here is better in theory than in practice. The problem isn't in the execution -- this is lovely stuff, especially "Illuminine," and Beck did a fine job in producing this music -- but in that Moore ends up sounding sorta drab in this musical setting. One of the things that makes Sonic Youth one of the very best rock bands of all time is that they have an incredible skill for creating sounds with guitars that are incredibly specific and evocative. I don't hear guitars and drums in the best Sonic Youth songs; I hear images and places and melodies and rhythms abstracted beyond instrumentation. This music, though quite pleasant and aggressively tasteful, puts Moore's distinct and familiar melodic tics and cadences into a context where the sounds don't do much but signify the instruments being played. This might not concern me much if it were a different singer, but when I hear Thurston's voice I expect a bit more poetry in the sound. Buy it from Amazon.

Friendly Fires "Hurting"

This reminds me of Phoenix's excellent 2004 album Alphabetical. Friendly Fires go for a similar sort of immaculate funk, but they aren't quite as tentative about embracing the romance in their music. Phoenix has always kept the listener at a distance, hinting at glamor and sexiness in the elegance of their sound while Thomas Mars sings evocative lines tossed in with cryptic gibberish. I love that sort of thing, but at the same time it's nice to hear Friendly Fires' Ed Macfarlane put his heart on his sleeve and deliver this straightforward crush pop. "Hurting" is a perfect expression of infatuation -- heightened and blissful, while also vulnerable and anguished. Buy it from Amazon.

Purity Ring "Ungirthed"

The arrangement for Purity Ring's "Ungirthed" -- probably the best song with a terrible title that I've encountered in some time -- comes out sounding like a modern rap track that's gone "wrong" somehow. Its bounce is a bit off center, its tonality is a bit too bright. But for what it is, it's brilliant and lovely. As striking as the track can be, what really makes this work is the particular tone and cadences of singer Megan James, who sings these clipped, slightly incoherent lines full of apocalyptic imagery in a voice that I find very cute, though not particularly cutesy. The world is crashing down around her, but she doesn't sound panicked. Somehow she sounds optimistic. Visit the Purity Ring website.

Wild Beasts "Bed of Nails"

"Sensual" is a very tacky word, but in the very best way, it is appropriate for describing Wild Beasts' third album Smother. The band's previous records were more obvious in their charms, but this album is very subtle in its pleasures. It lures you in, it gradually seduces you with its luxurious, wonderfully complex melodies, rhythms and textures. Even more so than Two Dancers, Smother is a feast of elegantly crafted sounds. It feels wrong to try to pick this music apart on a technical level -- this is such delicate, evocative stuff that it'd be a shame to spoil the magic. As on the last two Wild Beasts records, the most striking element of the band is the contrast of singers Hayden Thorpe and Tom Fleming. This time around, Fleming's voice conveys patient lust and vulnerability -- he mainly sings about being broken and lost, and needing someone to fill a void within himself. Thorpe, the more flamboyant and operatic of the two, is the aggressor. He's still obsessed with the grotesque aspects of masculinity and the primal, violent aspects of sex. In "Bed of Nails," the album's finest song, he splits the difference between he and Fleming's lyrical concerns and arrives at the thematic center of the record. Thorpe makes two allusions in this song: First, to Shakespeare's mad, beautiful Ophelia, and then to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. I'm especially fond of how he works in the latter. As the song reaches its climax, he characterizes the love between these two broken people as Frankenstein's monster, i.e., when they come together, this awkward, strange creature comes to life. Buy it from Amazon.