Archive for September, 2011

Megafaun "Get Right"

Though there's a touch of melancholy and pain in "Get Right," the song mostly conveys a serene certainty. It's the sound of confusion and doubt gradually shifting into clarity in hindsight. The melody is gentle, the pace is steady, the tone is relaxed. It feels like it could go on forever, and at nearly nine minutes, it may as well. You can kinda feel the music move on as it goes along though – it's a peaceful emotional plateau, but you can't stay there forever. Buy it from Amazon.

Lindsey Buckingham @ Town Hall 9/27/2011 Shut Us Down / Go Insane / Trouble / Never Going Back Again / Big Love / Under the Skin / All My Sorrows / In Our Own Time / Illumination / Second Hand News / Tusk / Stars Are Crazy / End of Time / That's the Way Love Goes / I'm So Afraid / Go Your Own Way // Turn It On / Treason / Seeds We Sow

Lindsey Buckingham "In Our Own Time"

You can read my full review of this show over at Rolling Stone. Here are a few additional notes: 1) There is nothing at all ironic about my love of Lindsey Buckingham's music, but I found that the overwhelming earnestness of the performance and the Boomers in the audience made me enjoy the show in a much more bemused way that I would have expected. It's cute to watch awkward middle aged white folks dancing to songs from Rumours! I mean that sincerely. 2) You have never seen a band look more like a bunch of "cool" uncles than Lindsey Buckingham and his trio of sidemen. 3) At one point, Buckingham said that his drummer Walfredo Reyes Jr was one of his two favorite drummers, implying that the other is Mick Fleetwood. I am wondering if Buckingham considers "making the most ridiculous faces possible at all times" is a key part of being a great drummer. Because oh man... Buy it from Amazon. I wrote an entire week of Fluxblog entries about Lindsey Buckingham's body of work earlier this year. Here are links to all of those posts in case you missed it: • "The Ledge" / "It Was I" • "Monday Morning" / "Hold Me" • "What Makes You Think You're the One?" / "Walk a Thin Line" • "I Want You" / "Crying in the Night" • "Second Hand News" / "Time Precious Time"

Wilco "Dawned On Me"

Jeff Tweedy has a lot of strengths as a songwriter, but I'm very partial to his gift for writing sweet love songs within the context of a long term relationship. It's easy to find a lot of good songs about new love or love that is broken and ending, but Tweedy's tunes about rediscovering or reaffirming affection after years of ups and downs and prosaic routines is pretty inspiring. I'm not too crazy about The Whole Love at the moment – it's certainly not a bad record, but most of it doesn't hold my interest – "Dawned On Me" hits my sweet spot basically by cross-breeding the tone of their classic "I'm Always In Love" with that one hit by Supergrass. <Buy it from Amazon.

Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks @ Webster Hall 9/25/2011 Baby C'mon / Spazz / Brain Gallop / Long Hard Book / Tigers / Pennywhistle Thunder / Forever 28 / Independence Street / Polvo / Share the Red / Animal Midnight / Tune Grief / Gorgeous Georgie / Senator / Asking Price / Stick Figures in Love // Planetary Motion / No One Is (As I Are Be) / You Love Gets Me High / 1% of One

Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks "Brain Gallop"

1. Following the Pavement reunion tour, Malkmus has returned to the left side of the stage after years of performing in the center with the Jicks. I appreciate this: It suits his personality and emphasizes that despite the "Stephen Malkmus and" commercial consideration, the Jicks are a real band, and one that has existed for a decade now. 2. This was my first exposure to Jake Morris, the Jicks' new drummer. He's certainly not in the same class as his predecessors John Moen and Janet Weiss – he simply lacks the former's raw skill or the latter's heavy-hitting power – but he's good with accents and loose grooves. He's sort of like a tighter version of Steve West, and that brings the sound a bit closer to Pavement. "Brain Gallop," for example, is the most traditionally Jicks-y song on Mirror Traffic with Weiss on drums, but this performance was much more Brighten the Corners in tone. 3. The new songs are terrific live. As much as I love Real Emotional Trash, some of those songs could drag on a bit in concert. In contrast, this material is very brisk and snappy, with more rocking stuff like "Tune Grief," "Senator," "Forever 28," "Spazz" and "Stick Figures in Love" coming off particularly well. The pacing of the setlist was sorta weird though, with a good chunk of time in the middle given to new material and mid-tempo tunes. If you're going to have a potentially dull spot, that's not the worst place to put it, but you could tell how relieved the audience was to hear a fast song when "Tune Grief" came around. Buy it from Amazon.

R.E.M. "Discoverer"

The final R.E.M. album begins and ends with "Discoverer," an ecstatic song about facing new challenges and adventures with bravery and enthusiasm. It flashes back to the early days of the band and Michael Stipe's first visit to New York City, recalling the first rush of excitement at the sheer number of opportunities and possibilities offered by the city and the world in general. It all happened for him, too. Stipe and R.E.M. had a phenomenal, unparalleled career and have lived remarkable lives. They did it all on their own terms, with a combination of raw talent, ambition and idealism. "Discoverer," like a lot of the best R.E.M. songs, is an expression of incredible optimism. This is probably the aspect of the band's body of work that resonates with me most deeply. Stipe genuinely believes that the future offers us the chance to live better lives. He believes that positive change can happen if we work for it. And he's right. He's so right. And that extends to this song, and the end of this band. When this song is reprised at the end of Collapse Into Now, it sounds like a moment of pure, heroic triumph. It's a beautiful and appropriate finale for their career – moving forwards and embracing new opportunities while radiating genuine pride over what has already been accomplished. Buy it from Amazon.

Tune-Yards @ Le Poisson Rouge 9/20/2011 Do You Wanna Live? / Gangsta / You Yes You / Es-So / Riotriot / Bizness / Powa / Doorstep / Not Dead Yet / My Country // Hatari / Killa Tune-Yards hasn't been in heavy rotation for me in the past couple months; it was a thrill to see these songs performed again and be reminded not only of their incredible quality, but of my own connection to the music and lyrics. And the performer! The audience is more crazy about Merrill every time I see her perform -- the cult is growing and getting more intense. She really earns this incredible adulation, and the more love the crowd gives her, the more she gives back. It's so nice to go to a show and see the audience and the artist be so totally into it. Everyone was having so much fun.

Tune-Yards "Powa"

I don’t know much about Merrill Garbus’ life, but I feel like I know a lot about her voice, which might be a separate thing. Garbus sings like a person who, at some point in the not-too-distant past, stopped caring about holding herself back. “Powa” starts off sorta gentle and demure, but as it progresses, there’s a clear physicality to her vocals — a startling, defiant swagger. Unlike a lot of “swagger” you hear in modern pop music, it’s not a put-on or thinly veiled insecurity. It doesn’t sound like control or a desire to be controlling either. It’s more about self-possession, and making a clear decision to be exactly who you are and go for what you want, and take what you deserve after years of feeling unworthy. “Powa” is a song about sex, and it feels triumphant and glorious, like a long-earned reward. There’s still conflict and angst, but it all disappears in moments of pure pleasure, as when Garbus’ voice shoots up into into high notes, yanking us up with her into her giddy stratosphere. You feel her pleasure along with her, but you know that it’s an abstraction. If you really want it, you’ve got to get it for yourself. You’ve got to be more like Merrill. I’ve lived with “Powa” for a while now, and I’m pretty confident in saying that it ranks among my favorite songs of all time. I feel like I could gush endlessly about it — in addition to what I wrote over a year ago, I know I could go on and on about every detail in the structure, performance and production of this piece. But the thing that really blows me away is this: “Powa” is a song about love and sex that factors in insecurity about one’s body. When you think about how common it is for people to feel awkward about their bodies — if not outright disgusted by them — it is shocking to realize how rarely this comes up in songs about love and sex. Sex tends to be idealized and abstracted in music, in a way it’s not that different from Hollywood or pornography. “Powa” is astonishing not only because it presents the singer as a fully-formed person with body image issues and stress and real world problems, but because it expresses genuine love and gratitude for someone with whom she has true intimacy. Aside from Carole King’s wonderful “(You Make Me Feel Like A) Natural Woman,” I can’t think of many songs on this level of quality that articulate this sort of feeling. (Originally posted 1/4/2010 and 4/15/2011.) Buy it from Amazon.

Gauntlet Hair "My Christ"

It seems like we're only starting to come out of a phase of indie music dominated by excessive use of reverb, so it's actually surprising to hear a band play around with those tricks and come up with something that sounds fresh. "My Christ," one of the best and most tuneful tracks from Gauntlet Hair's debut album, essentially sounds like a late 80s sort of INXS/Tears for Fears type song that has been pushed to a severe extreme without losing its shape and basic appeal. The distortions here don't blur the composition – it's rather sharp and dynamic – but they do sharpen up the treble and exaggerate the impact of the drumming. I get the feeling that a lot of people are going to sleep on this record, which is unfortunate: These guys are figuring out some interesting new angles on late 80s arena rock. Buy it from Amazon.

Craig Wedren "I Know"

There is a lot to recommend to Craig Wedren's voice, but I've always been fond of the way he can affect this sorta sexy-brat tone. A little bitchy, a little flirty, a little silly. "I Know," a cut from his new solo record, is a showcase for this quirk as he admits that "it's fun to treat you badly" over this heavy, stomping groove that reminds me a bit of Basement Jaxx's "Cish Cash." He sells the message just right – his voice conveys a bit of regret and shame for his cruelty, but also a lot of genuine glee in being a total dick. Buy it from Amazon.

Slow Club "You, Earth or Ash"

The first few times I listened to this song it didn't register beyond the lovely harmony hook in the chorus, but as I've become more acquainted, it's revealed itself to be one of the most moving, gorgeous and well-constructed pop songs that I've encountered this year. Every sound and texture in this stark, minimal arrangement is careful and thoughtfully deployed, but it's not stuffy or overworked. It's organic and loose, with all the sounds framing Rebecca Taylor's vocal performance, which is so nuanced in its phrasing that tiny inflections convey volumes of emotional subtext. The text is gutting enough as it is – she's singing about knowing that her close connection to someone is going to end one way or another – but the mature musical decisions made at every moment in this piece result in something incredibly moving. Buy it from Amazon.

Kathryn Calder "Who Are You?"

I feel like every time I write about Kathryn Calder, I am compelled to describe her voice as "princessy." But that's how it sounds to me – not in the Taylor Swift sense, but in a regal, demure yet self-possessed sort of way. I was disappointed by Calder's first solo record from last year, but this number from her second album is much more of what I'd like to hear from her – crisp, clear and catchy like music she plays in the New Pornographers, but in a style that wouldn't quite fit in with that band's style. In this case, it's synth-pop. Calder's voice slips perfectly into that milieu, amping up her gentle humanity on the verses, and an ethereal School of Seven Bells quality on the chorus. Buy it from Amazon.