Archive for January, 2012

The 2 Bears “Warm and Easy”

“Warm and Easy” is almost overbearingly optimistic, with its two vocalists threatening to smother every bad vibe with grooves and mellow hooks. But it’s really charming, mainly because these guys get that you can always get away with utopian hippie stuff if you don’t seem as though you’re taking it too seriously and you’ve got a solid tune. The chorus bits by Hot Chip’s Joe Goddard are what make the song, especially in how he balances out the goofiness of the lyrics with just enough earnestness to make it clear that they’re not kidding about all the positivity.

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Porcelain Raft “Put Me To Sleep”

There’s a moment just after the first chorus of this song when the sound of the track sort of wobbles, as if the entire track has been momentarily thrown off register. I really like this – there’s a lot of good sonic details here, but I enjoy the way this deliberate interruption makes it so that the song’s otherwise static rhythm isn’t quite as lulling as it could be. After that point, you’re just sorta waiting for other curveballs, with subverts the hazy, insomniac tone of the piece. Hearing a guy plead for sleep is a lot more poignant when the music accurately conveys the sound of being exhausted but too alert to slip into a dream state.

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Lana Del Rey “Without You”

The funny thing about Lana Del Rey’s Born to Die is that after a while, it begins to sound like 15 rough drafts for a statement song in which she lays out all of her themes and tells you who she is. It’s rare to come across an artist so eager to explain herself, but given the way the world has responded to her thus far, there probably isn’t an artist alive who actually requires this much self-defense. But it gets very boring, and there are diminishing returns: I think that she is successful in setting up ideas and themes with genuine emotional resonance in “Born to Die,” “Video Games” and “Without You,” but for the most part, it’s a plodding, overlong and repetitive record that, on a lyrical level, tells rather than shows.

“Without You” sketches out the Lana Del Rey persona as well as the public’s reaction to it. The lyrics sound like a parody of sad glamour: “Everything I want I have / Money, notoriety, rivieras / I even think I found God In the flash bulbs of your pretty camera / Pretty cameras, pretty cameras / Am I glamourous? / Tell me, am I glamourous?” She complicates this by bringing a messy love affair into the equation, which is sort of conflated with the public’s desire to destroy its pretty celebrities. This is well-mined lyrical territory – Lady Gaga’s first two albums were mostly about this, but were way more fun and humorous – but beyond Del Rey’s own designs on attaining fame, there’s something to this fantasy that resonates with normal folks. “Lana Del Rey” is a familiar archetype, but this tension of striving to please others and construct a pleasing identity for others – to “have it all” – is familiar to many people, most especially women. And our culture loves to tear down women, whether they are famous or not.

Part of what makes Born to Die interesting – or problematic – is that the singer so fully inhabits the vapidity and passivity of the character that it’s hard to tell if the artist is also vapid and passive. I’m willing to give her the benefit of the doubt and assume that this is indeed a character, and that she is attempting to write a critique of a certain lifestyle and point of view. It seems obvious to me that this is the case, even if there is quite a lot that Lizzie Grant and “Lana Del Rey” have in common, especially as she grows more famous and spends all her time living out that role. I do think a lot of the intensely negative response to LDR is the result of her often simplistic and sloppy way of creating this character – it’s so easy to pick apart, so easy to assume the worst of it. As campy as this music can be, she doesn’t give the listeners many “yes, I am definitely being ironic” cues, so it’s easy to take it at face value and hear it as a deeply un-feminist record.

More than that, I think the thing that really rubs people the wrong way is in how the songs, the videos, the project overall, convey a terrible desperation. This is where it is most difficult to tell the difference between Lizzie Grant and Lana Del Rey: Just as much as these songs are about people who are truly desperate for affection, attention and validation, the singer herself comes across as someone very awkwardly attempting to ingratiate herself with her audience. The best moments on Born to Die are squirm-inducing because of this – her faux-naif inflection on “I heard you like the bad girls / honey, is that true?” is the record’s clear high water mark – but not everyone wants to squirm to their pop music. This is an uncomfortable record, but also one that is not entirely successful. It’s hard to know exactly how to judge it, but I think I’m more favorable toward its best songs because I’m willing to feel a bit of empathy for both the singer and the character. I don’t think this was an easy record to make, and I’m glad to see someone go this far out on a limb, even if it’s sorta cravenly commercial in some ways. There are just far too many records that get applauded for taking zero risks, you know?

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Perfume Genius “Hood”

“Hood” is an expression of a deep, consuming fear that one’s partner will leave them if they ever truly knew them. It’s a bit painful to hear because Mike Hadreas’ lyrics and performance are so raw and direct, but it’s beautiful mainly because you can hear him resisting this anxiety, and struggling to have faith in the notion of unconditional love. Or, maybe, trying to come to terms with the possibility that his lover might not think there is anything wrong with him at all.

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Wire “Clay” (Black Session Version)

The original studio recording of “Clay” from last year’s Red Barked Tree was fine, but a bit pinched and stiff, with production that seemed a bit dated – too late 90s, maybe? I can’t exactly place it, but it’s the sound of bad computers. This live recording from the band’s Black Session LP is drastically superior. The tone of the song is just the same, but the performance benefits from a slightly more slack physicality. One could never describe Wire as a loose band, but unlike the studio recording, all the parts in this version sound like they come from the movements of human arms and legs. And yes, pretty much all music is the result of the human body in motion, but the best of it in some way communicates that to the listener. The attack of a chord, the hit of a drum, the seconds it takes to move from one chord to another. We’re listening to that abstraction of physicality to rhythm and melody; it’s part of how we connect to it. We’re always trying to find people on the other end of songs.

Not all of the live versions on Black Sessions are improvements upon the originals – Colin Newman has some trouble hitting his notes in the classic “Map Ref. 41ºN 93ºW,” and generally sounds less engaged when singing the older numbers – but it’s still an impressive document of a remarkably consistent band that has long since settled into a clearly defined aesthetic.

Buy it from Wire.

Chairlift @ Bowery Ballroom 1/23/2012

Sidewalk Safari / Le Flying Saucer Hat / Take It Out On Me / Wrong Opinion / Ghost Tonight / Cool As A Fire / Planet Health / Met Before / Frigid Spring / Guilty As Charged / I Belong In Your Arms // Evident Utensil / Amanaemonesia

I reviewed Chairlift’s wonderful new album Something for Pitchfork. Here are some thoughts on this performance.

Chairlift “I Belong In Your Arms”

1. Chairlift are clearly confident and bold enough to skip their most famous song in concert. I don’t think anyone was too upset about this. While I tend to think that artists should be generous in playing their best-known songs, they weren’t wrong to place the emphasis on their very, very strong new songs and to make a case that they don’t really need “Bruises” to play a good, engaging set. Audience response to songs like “Amanaemonesia,” “Met Before” and “I Belong In Your Arms” suggest those songs are going to end up being “hits” with their fans anyway.

2. The band’s sound is just as clean and precise in concert as it is on record. I’m a sucker for this sort of hyper-professionalism, particularly when a group projects a good, positive energy rather than rote recital. Olga Bell from Bell joined the band on keyboards and backing vocals – she nailed her parts, and served as a fine foil to Caroline Polachek, who was freed up to focus on her vocals and dancing. Polachek’s vocal performance was outstanding and she was charismatic enough that her talent for nuanced phrasing and vocal restraint was not lost in the less forgiving dynamics of a stage performance.

3. A strange young woman jumped on to the stage during “I Belong In Your Arms” and tried to dance up on Caroline. A female security guard tried to pull her away, but the girl resisted, and accidentally hit the singer in the face as she tried to perform. A second guard showed up, but the girl was still flailing around, refusing to get off stage. Caroline made it through the song, but was visibly startled and laughing at the absurdity of the situation. It was a really strange thing to see, and pretty unexpected at this sort of pop show.

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Imperial Teen “No Matter What You Say”

Imperial Teen come and go, turning up every six years or so to deliver a new set of lovely indie pop tunes that don’t quite fit in with anything else out at the time. Their identity is very consistent, but the character of each record is a bit different — in the case of Feel the Sound, their latest, they are mostly favoring keyboards over guitars. As a result, the sound is lighter and brighter, which serves some songs better than others. I like the way the simple keyboard part in “No Matter What You Say” is gently insistent, so even before the harmonies and rhythm whoosh up a bit in the chorus, you have a sense that the music is starting to pick up a light breeze. It’s a great sentiment to pair with the feeling of the music too — defiant, but politely so.

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Sleigh Bells “Comeback Kid”

Sleigh Bells make such overwhelmingly physical music that the lyrics would seem to be besides the point of the overall sensation of texture, rhythm and melody, but it seems notable that so many of their songs are fixated on winning and losing. Notable, but not surprising: The music itself typically sounds like an expression of triumph. “Comeback Kid” is especially direct, with Alexis Krauss giving the listener a pep talk set to her most appealing melody yet. (It comes off as very Aaliyah to my ears.) Krauss’ voice was more of a texture on Treats here, but in this track, she’s on equal footing with Derek Miller’s wonderfully blunt guitar riff. The whole song sounds as if they’re willing the entire world into being a better, more exciting place. I can get behind that.

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The Shins “Simple Song”

James Mercer hasn’t changed his approach to melody much over the years – he mostly focuses on long phrases that curl into very pleasing shapes – but his approach to accompaniment has become more bold and brawny recently, as if he finally realized that adding a bit of weight and punch to his rhythms would not immediately shatter the delicacy of his tunes. “Simple Song” isn’t even particularly heavy, but the added force sells the conviction of the lyrics, which reflect on life-changing epiphanies. I’m especially fond of his parting lines, which would be thoughtful in any context, but come out sounding like hard-earned wisdom in this context: “Love’s such a delicate thing that we do / we’ve nothing to prove / which I never knew.”

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Lee Ranaldo “Off the Wall”

It’s sorta funny that the two guitarists in Sonic Youth spent years pushing at the limits of stylized noise in rock music, but both ended up embracing folk pop when left to their own devices. “Off the Wall,” the first track released from Lee Ranaldo’s first-ever solo songwriter album – something I have been waiting for since 1995 or so! – is gorgeous, jangly and unambiguously pop, and has a more striking resemblance to the music of, say, the Gin Blossoms, than pretty much anything in the Sonic Youth canon. Well, not quite: While the style and form of “Off the Wall” is more conventional than most SY music, Ranaldo’s guitar flourishes are very familiar, highlighting a tunefulness he’s been bringing to his main band’s music for three decades.

Pre-order it from Matador Records.

Field Music “A New Town”

The Brewis brothers of Field Music are masters of stoic, tightly composed formalist rock. Their melodic sensibility is clearly derived from Paul McCartney (and his various musical progeny), but they replace McCartney’s loose ease with OCD rigidity. This could be a recipe for musical disaster, but they own it – it always sounds like a very honest expression of a particular sensibility. “A New Town,” from their forthcoming album Plumb, breaks little ground for the band – well, unless you want to focus on the inclusion of odd bubble sound effects – but it’s an example of the band at their best, when their precise, meticulous execution of layered rhythms and melodies serves to illustrate the mindset of the lyrics, which approach the dissolution of a relationship with an almost ridiculous degree of forced rationality in a highly emotional situation.

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Sleeper Agent “Proper Taste”

Sleeper Agent aren’t exactly ground-breakers, but they’re exceptionally good with dynamics, so their straightforward rockers have a charm and charge that’s lacking in a shocking number of their peers. This is especially true with regards to the chemistry and interplay between co-vocalists Alex Kandel and Tony Smith, who key into different but complementary styles of being a rock badass. While Smith navigates the aesthetic ground between Jack White and Neil Hagerty, Kandel is more Joan Jett – a bit cool, aloof and biting, but outgoing and aggressive enough to avoid receding into the track. “Proper Taste” is one of their most thrilling numbers, with the two spitting lines at each other over breakneck pre-chorus before joining for a big sing-along that opens with “call me pumpkin, carve me out,” a line that I find incredibly appealing though I’m not really sure why.

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Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks “No One Is (As I Are Be)”

It’s not as if Stephen Malkmus has been spending his years writing a lot of songs that make perfect literal sense, but I find this one to be particularly slippery – I can key into the central emotion here but I can’t quite tell you what that emotion is, and the lines resonate with me in a major way, but when I really think about them, I am hard pressed to tell you why. And this may be part of why I love it so much, because it falls between the cracks of emotions and ideas in some distant corner of my mind. It’s obvious enough that it’s one of his songs about aging and maturity, but it flips the script from more recent Malkmus songs dealing with that subject matter, wherein he’s the grounded guy giving someone else advice. This is more like the sound of a guy settling into the idea of settling in – discovering that he’s happy to be out by the wood shed, pondering the depths of friendships, reflecting on the “never-ending nightlife that we shared.” In the end, he asks “What does it mean?” and the only answer he’s got is “I want to be there.” And maybe that’s the best summary of this song’s mood we can get: It’s the sound of wanting to be there.

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Hospitality “Eighth Avenue”

“Eighth Avenue” starts off sounding like something that could’ve been on If You’re Feeling Sinister or The Boy With the Arab Strap, but it veers slightly off that course into something a bit noisier. Not hard or heavy, but loud and abstract – there’s a burst of guitar midway through this that makes me think of the amber cast of light on city streets in the middle of the night. That dovetails nicely with the lyrics, which are nostalgic for a night life that the singer seems to have found at least somewhat disappointing in retrospect. There’s some interesting specifics suggested in Amber Papini’s words, but this resonates because it’s so easy to fill in your own early-20s dramas, or lack thereof, particularly if you’re the type of person to be listening to this sort of twee indie pop to begin with.

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Mr. Muthafuckin eXquire and Danny Brown “Killah Tofu”

Danny Brown and Mr. Muthafuckin eXquire have a chemistry on record that reminds me a lot of Ghostface Killah and Raekwon: A flamboyant, high-pitched guy serving as a foil to a gruff, growly dude with a more subtle rhyme style. As with the Ghost/Rae combo, it’s easy to get caught up in the more cartoonish guy’s raw charisma, but I’m very partial to eXquire and his talent for projecting hostile apathy. “Killah Tofu” showcases both men, and leaves no room for anything else — it’s just two verses and no chorus, a quick shot of two hungry emcees who complement each other perfectly.

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The Hood Internet “The Exquisite Party” (Beyoncé, Kanye West and Andre 3000 vs Of Montreal)

The best mash-ups find a connection between two seemingly unrelated pieces of music and change the character of both pieces of music by putting them together. This new remix by the Hood Internet sets the a cappella track of Beyoncé’s “Party” to an instrumental loop lifted from Of Montreal’s “St. Exquisite’s Confessions.” The Beyoncé song is not altered on a structural level, and its luxurious, lazy pace is intact, but tweaked with a touch of lascivious and vague melancholy suggested by Kevin Barnes’ repeated lead guitar part. I prefer this version of the song – Kanye West’s production on the original is fine, but a bit too clean and airtight. This mix stirs up a lot more emotions, and is more effective as a sexy slow jam.

Click here for the Hood Internet’s Soundcloud page.

Guided by Voices “The Unsinkable Fats Domino”

Let’s Go Eat the Factory is the first Guided by Voices album since 2004, but given the sheer number of records penned by Bob Pollard between then and now, it’s a rather arbitrary distinction. Pollard has reunited with his “classic lineup,” but since those players aren’t not especially distinctive, you only really notice the personnel shift in the inclusion of a few numbers written and sung by Tobin Sprout, who has resumed his role as Pollard’s foil. The GBV-ness of Factory mainly manifests itself in the band’s self-conscious bid to emulate the sound of their mid-90s output. (It really does sound like the natural follow-up to this lineup’s final record, Under the Bushes Under the Stars, which had a similar blend of lo-fi and mid-fi recordings.)

To some extent, Factory sounds like Pollard working very hard to reconnect with his past, and it’s successful and listenable in as much as even his least impressive songs tend to be pretty enjoyable and he’s largely playing to his aesthetic strengths. But aside from the delightful single “Unsinkable Fats Domino” and Sprout’s “God Loves Us,” there aren’t too many keepers in this batch. And really, that’s the best way to think of Pollard’s output — the records are all some degree of pretty good to pretty great, and sorta samey in their approach to sequencing, and some records have more keepers than others. Another new Guided by Voices album is coming later this year; maybe that one will be a little better. But it’s basically the same deal as with Pollard’s solo output or his work with Boston Spaceships. We just pay attention to this new GBV record simply because that is the brand we’ve been conditioned to favor.

Buy it from Amazon.

Skrillex “Bangarang”

Skrillex is among the most popular of a new breed of electronic music acts that, in many ways, gives audiences the sort of intense, uncomplicated physical release that today’s rock bands either avoid entirely or are to inept to provide. There is a lot of precedent for Skrillex’s high-energy maniac pop – you can definitely hear echoes of Fatboy Slim, Basement Jaxx, Nine Inch Nails, Daft Punk, Girls Aloud and Justice, among others – but its concentrated thrill power is enough to make even some truly great rock bands seem anemic in comparison.

As indie culture in particular has shifted away from this sort of release – with the exception of music derived from punk and hip-hop, which still has some coolness capital – there has been a concurrent rejection of anything that seems aimed at listeners with a more traditional sort of masculinity. I’ve had my theories about this for a while, and was starting to think I was drawing connections and ascribing biases where they might not really exist, but the way Skrillex et al has been written off as “bro-step” confirms a logo of my suspicions. This distinction has been made mainly to separate this music from the more cerebral, moody and far less populist strains of dubstep that are beloved by indie-centric music nerd culture. It’s very precious and protective, and horribly dismissive of valid music that aims to thrill its audience, like most great dance music through the decades.

Through Skrillex “rocks” pretty hard and has an audience that includes some “jock” types, the music itself isn’t particularly macho. It’s mostly just hyperstimulated, and in ways that ought to seem familiar by now. Skrillex isn’t reinventing a wheel, but is making them spin faster and harder.

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