Archive for July, 2011

The Kills "Future Starts Slow"

Every other day lately I have a conversation with someone who is anxious to skip ahead to some point in the future. I've spent most of my life feeling that way too, so I have a lot of empathy for that sort of angst. Sometimes it's about wanting far more than the world could reasonably give you, which makes me think of a brilliant lyric from a Maxi Geil song called "A Message to My Audience": "I want the world, and I want it now / can't that be arranged for me somehow?" But in less petulant moments, it's closer to the feeling of "Future Starts Slow," which bleeds out equal measures of passion and fear. Alison Mosshart and Jamie Hince sing about feeling terrified that their passion – for someone, each other, their art, anything – could disappear. And then what? The Kills write from the perspective of people who thrive on intensity and emotional investment, so when Alison sings "if there's a time when the feeling's gone / I want to feel it," it's clear that she's talking about her worst nightmare. The pain of waiting around isn't so much about needing something to happen right away as much as it's about fearing that it will never come, or that you'll somehow go numb while you wait your life away. Buy it for $5.99 from Amazon.

St. Vincent "Surgeon"

"Surgeon" is maybe a strange way of introducing listeners to St. Vincent's third album Strange Mercy. Though it provides a few eye-opening "wow moments," particularly during the instrumental climax, it's something of an outlier on the record. Most of the songs on Strange Mercy have a very active tone, with Clark singing from the perspective of characters who are almost oppressively extroverted – people who make eye contact with such forced assurance that their gaze could blow a hole through your face like Cyclops. "Surgeon" is more passive and sickly, with a fragile protagonist who begs for the "best, finest surgeon" to "come cut me open." It's an eerie, ambiguous piece that alternates between moments when the sounds seem to float in a perfect, serene balance and others when it falls into uncomfortable disarray. Clark's climax isn't quite cathartic, but she definitely makes it so you feel relieved when it's over. Buy it from Amazon.

Slow Club "Two Cousins"

Slow Club have shifted up their style on their second album Paradise, mainly by dialing down the overwhelming tweeness that marked their often exceptional male-female indie folk duets. They still harmonize throughout the record, but for the most part, Rebecca Taylor sings lead while Charles Watson focuses his energy on filling up negative space with ambiance, texture and instrumental harmonies. This was a very good idea. The best moments on their debut Yeah So came when Taylor would break out of tight harmonies with Watson to provide soulful, expressive emotional peaks to standout tracks "Giving Up On Love" and "Trophy Room." "Two Cousins," the first single from Paradise, signals the break from the band's earlier aesthetic. The arrangement is densely rhythmic and heavy on treble, with a sharp keyboard riff that seems to across the song in a diagonal motion. The treble crowds out Taylor's voice at some points, but it's thrilling when she cuts through it, as if she is emoting her way through a wall of bright notes. As always, she's very good at conveying a wounded sadness – in this case, it's something about the way she sings the words "I look into your eyes / you don't know who I am." Pre-order it from Amazon.

Lil Wayne "Rollin' (Freestyle)"

This freestyle isn't exactly special in the sprawling Lil Wayne discography, but it's a fine example of the way he builds momentum as rhymes spill out of his head. He's done a lot of variations on this type of flow, but it never fails to sound exciting, particularly when there's always this moment where he knows he has dropped a particularly clever line and seems eager to top it. The performance comes across as very athletic, but it's ultimately more of a cerebral thing, like a highly entertaining and musical equivalent of some guy burning through a difficult crossword puzzle. Get it for free from DatPiff.

U2 @ New Meadowlands Stadium 7/20/2011 Even Better Than the Real Thing / The Fly / Mysterious Ways / Until the End of the World / I Will Follow / Get On Your Boots / Magnificent / I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For / Stay (Faraway, So Close!) / Beautiful Day / Elevation / Pride (In the Name of Love) / Miss Sarajevo / Zooropa / City of Blinding Lights / Vertigo / I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight - Discotheque / Sunday Bloody Sunday / Scarlet / Walk On // One - Hallelujah / Where the Streets Have No Name /// Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me / With or Without You / Moment of Surrender / Out of Control I wrote a full review of this show for Rolling Stone. Let's talk about "Zooropa."

U2 "Zooropa"

"Zooropa" is as close as U2 has ever come to expressing their artistic philosophy in song. They are true believers in music as a communicative medium that can work on a massive, global scale. When Bono sings "skip the subway, let's go to the overground / get your head out of the mud, baby," he means it as an indictment of every talented artist who shrinks from the possibility of engaging with a large audience. While I can certainly understand the point of view of such artists, I'm very inclined to agree with Bono on this in a broader sense. I genuinely believe that challenging, imaginative artists should push their ideas as far into the mainstream as possible rather than retreating to the margins. When Bono sings this part, he sounds heroic. The music swells to an anthem like many U2 songs before, but it's still has an odd, slightly detached feeling. I think that climax is very well-earned in this piece, in part because I think this pledge to "dream out loud" is genuinely courageous, even if it sounds a bit corny. It's perhaps a bit ironic that this was the only song in this concert where U2 themselves were barely visible to the audience. The band performed within a cone of cascading lights and words, a visual set piece that countered the indifference of some audience members who didn't recognize a relatively obscure album track. At several other points in the show, Bono did his "mugging directly into a camera at close range" trick. I couldn't help but think that maybe that move should've been reserved for "Zooropa," a song that could have benefited from a bit of eye contact. Buy it from Amazon.

Royal Trux "The Banana Question"

Even without Jennifer Herrema growling "Is that a fucking question???," "The Banana Question" would still seem like a rude song, a piece of music that seems to lunge out at the listener to invade their personal space. It's gleefully manic, bouncing and spinning around without any sort of focus. It's a perfect blend of whimsical and belligerent, like punk rock designed to emulate the mood of an overstimulated and cranky little kid.

Royal Trux "Blind Navigator"

I love the way this song balances this fairly loose groove with Neil Hagerty and Jennifer Herrema's desperate yowls and howls. They're not quite hysterical -- it's more like they're just super-charged with passion. Nevermind the blues riffing and the bizarre psychedelic flute-like synthesizers, this is Royal Trux's version of gospel, with the two clinging to some agnostic, strung-out version of faith. Their vocals tangle up, veering in different directions at some points and colliding in others. They're both lost, but it's like they're trying to find their way back to each other in a game of musical Marco Polo.

Eleanor Friedberger "Heaven"

Eleanor Friedberger's debut solo album Last Summer is packed with enough highly specific references to locations within New York City that it practically begs fans to go visit them all, or at least make an annotated Google map. "Heaven" is the exception. It's a somewhat atypical song in the Friedberger & Friedberger canon; at least in the sense that it draws some of its power from lyrical ambiguity rather than narrative and context. Eleanor sings to someone named Lee -- even at their most vague, the Friedbergers can't help but include these sort of concrete details -- but seems to lament that while this person feels lost and restless, a sort of peace exists within them. That's a great idea, but it's complicated by this bridge: "I mention your name / only in hell / it's the same." It darkens the sentiment in an interesting way; it leaves me a little unsure of the relationship at the core of a song that otherwise seems gentle and loving. Truly, this is one of the most light and relaxed recordings in the overall Friedberger discography -- Matthew may have been inclined to overwork the tune and crowd it out with too many sounds, but Eleanor's elegant arrangement frames her voice at its sweetest with subtly majestic horns and a gorgeous piano solo. Buy it from Amazon.

Paul McCartney @ Yankee Stadium 7/16/2011 Magical Mystery Tour / Jet / All My Loving / Junior's Farm / Drive My Car / Sing the Changes / The Night Before / Let Me Roll It / (brief Foxy Lady instrumental jam) / Paperback Writer / The Long and Winding Road / Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five / Let 'Em In / Maybe I'm Amazed / I'm Looking Through You / I Will / Blackbird / Here Today / Dance Tonight / Mrs. Vanderbilt / Eleanor Rigby / Something / Band On the Run / Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da / Back in the USSR / I've Got A Feeling / A Day in the Life - Give Peace A Chance / Let It Be / Live and Let Die / Hey Jude // Lady Madonna / I Saw Her Standing There (with Billy Joel) / Get Back /// Yesterday / Helter Skelter / Golden Slumbers - Carry That Weight - The End

Paul McCartney "Let Me Roll It" (Live in 2009)

This show was such a thrill; one of the best large-scale shows I've ever seen. Aside from the pyrotechnics and fireworks that accompanied "Live and Let Die," this show was pretty light on spectacle. And really, how much spectacle do you really need when you're watching a Beatle perform mainly Beatles songs for three hours straight? And yeah, that's right -- three hours, with only two brief encore breaks. McCartney is 69 years old, but performs with the energy of someone a third of his age. He was in great voice; his band was virtually flawless. I don't think I really need to sell you on the greatness of this man or his body of work, but it's hard to come out of a show like this without feeling awestruck. It's rather like when I finally got to see Prince a few months ago -- these are living legends who can get by in concert simply by showing up, but they both perform with such skill and passion that you come away realizing that a lot of why they have this incredible stature comes from fully committing, pushing themselves as far as they can go and clearly taking great pleasure in showing an audience a good time. Buy it from Amazon.

tUnE-yArDs @ Pier 54 Hudson River Park 7/14/2011 Do You Wanna Live? / Gangsta / Es-So / Powa / Fiya / Bizness / Real Live Flesh / Hatari / You Yes You / My Country // Killa (with fireworks display!)

tUnE-yArDs "My Country"

In comparison to other tUnE-yArDs shows that I've seen, this show was a bit weak -- the audience wasn't as rowdy, the band was slightly out of practice, Merrill Garbus had a bit of trouble with her higher register -- but it was still a thrill. Garbus is so on point lately that an off night is still astonishing. She mentioned being a bit nervous about playing to such a large audience, but by the halfway point in this gig, you'd never know it. She's a natural for this sort of thing: wildly charismatic, huge voice, very theatrical. (This show ended with a fireworks display, which made perfect sense.) I've seen her perform enough times to recognize her tricks, and they work every time. I've had more fun seeing tUnE-yArDs in small venues, but it's becoming apparent that she's going to have to move up the bracket to the big rooms soon. I just hope the next time she plays NYC she books a better space than Terminal 5. Buy it from Amazon.

Wild Beasts @ Le Poisson Rouge 7/13/2011 Plaything / Loop the Loop / Deeper / The Devil's Crayon / We Still Got the Taste Dancing On Our Tongues / Albatross / This Is Our Lot / Bed of Nails / Reach A Bit Further / Hooting and Howling // Lion's Share / All the King's Men / End Come Too Soon

Wild Beasts "End Come Too Soon"

Wild Beasts' third album Smother is a rather luxurious work of art: Elegant in its design and rich in detail; the sort of record that you need to spend time with in order to fully appreciate its nuances. Time is valuable, of course, so I can understand why a lot of people seem to be passing it over in favor of other recent albums that sketch out a more clearly defined mood without suggesting any complicated ideas. The group remain an exceptional live act, or at least the sort of band that impresses with top-class ensemble playing. Hayden Thorpe and Tom Fleming are both incredible, charismatic singers, but the main draw here is probably a hard sell for most folks: Wow, check out that subtlety! Such a fine balance of raw style and musical sophistication! What a fascinating take on male sexuality in pop music! Even still, even if they're presently erring on the side of understatement, they still know how to go epic. "End Come Too Soon," the grand finale, was extended slightly to amp up the drama of its climax, which seems to lament the brevity of the male orgasm. Buy it from Amazon.