Willis Earl Beal “Ghost Robot”

Lo-fi works best when the field-recording quality gives you a sense of space and setting, and forces your mind to fill in some context. With this recording, you really hear the room Beal is playing in, which is almost certainly his own bedroom or living room. The performance comes off like an act of creation brought on by compulsive behavior, like he just has to be in his room making this simple noise and spitting out these odd phrases. I think a lot of us do this sort of thing – I certainly have been singing weird little songs to myself when I’m alone for most of my life. I’m not always getting it on tape, and I think that’s what makes this a bit different, and a bit more compelling – I really like when people have the bravery to let people in on these solitary acts. This is like a line tossed to the outside world, and you can grab it and reel yourself in to Beal if you’re into it. I’m down, at least for this song, which has a wonderful urgency and tunefulness.

Buy it from Amazon.

Cadence Weapon “Loft Party”

Rollie Pemberton is a very strong storyteller, and he excels when he sketches out social scenes in urban Canada that are, to American listeners at least, familiar but just a bit off from usual expectations. The second verse of “Loft Party” is exceptional, starting with rather mundane details before taking a turn into explaining a convoluted sting operation by vice cops hoping to break up illegal parties. At first I thought the chorus of this song was a little uninspired and a bit of a drag on the track, but then I realized that Pemberton’s sort of flat, vaguely defeated tone is perfectly on message for a song about the sort of hassles you often have to go through to create some cheap nightlife on your own terms.

Visit the Cadence Weapon website.

Sylver Tongue “Hook You Up”

Don’t be fooled by the name – Sylver Tongue is not some new artist, but actually long term Fluxblog favorite Charlotte Hatherley. It was probably a good idea for her to rebrand – it’s incredibly hard to sell solo artists who don’t use some kind of stage name, and even harder when you’ve got three solo albums to your name that could be charitably described as “marginally successful.” (But absolutely brilliant!) The name change is pragmatic, I’m sure, but it’s also something that marks a significant change in direction, as – at least in this debut single – Hatherley has set aside her guitar in favor of layered, twinkling keyboard parts.

“Hook You Up” isn’t too far off from the glossy art pop of Hatherley’s second album, The Deep Blue, but the lack of guitar lends the music a floatier, less physical quality. It actually reminds me a lot of Prefab Sprout’s lovely “Wild Horses,” which has a similar vibe and melody on the verses. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if Hatherley was a Prefab Sprout fan, so I wonder if this new project will end up leaning more sophistipop than synthpop. I’m rooting for the former.

Visit the Sylver Tongue website.

Beach House “Myth”

“Myth” sounds so much like what you’d expect to hear from Beach House that my first impression was “Did they just forget to put this on Teen Dream?” But then, if you’re going to be in a creative holding pattern, you may as well have it at your peak. Everything appealing about Teen Dream‘s best cuts is replicated here, but the song seems to be in slightly sharper focus – their hazy aesthetic has cleared just a bit, and it’s just a little more dynamic. The melodies have the same languid, luxurious tone, but the arrangement is less static – I’d go so far to say that this chorus pops out at you.

Visit Beach House’s website.

The Magnetic Fields “God Wants Us to Wait”

Stephin Merritt recently told me that the original version of this song, penned 28 years ago, was a 13 minute poly-rhythmic krautrock epic. Listening to this version, just over 2 minutes in length, has since become a thing of me straining to hear traces of that previous draft. It’s certainly there. That harsh Germanic pulse could definitely keep going on indefinitely, and there are echoes of Can in the rhythm, melody and general tonality. The lyrics don’t go back so far, but suit the mood very well – Shirley Simms’ delivery of buzzkill lyrics about wanting to wait until marriage for sex despite being naked on the floor with her date make perfect sense when paired with this rhythm that is sexy yet stern and aloof.

Buy it from Amazon.

The Mynabirds “Generals”

“Generals” isn’t too far off from the up tempo numbers on the Mynabirds’ excellent debut album, but there is a noticeable shift in attitude that alters the character and immediate impression of the band. Whereas the older songs were often pensive meditations on trauma and heartbreak, “Generals” finds songwriter Laura Burhenn stepping up as a brash, assertive force. Her arrangement echoes the Black Keys and the Kills’ modern gloss on blues rock, but the composition is a bit less by-the-book, with her blunt rhythm kicking along a tune that moves on unexpected yet intuitive tangents.

Visit the Mynabirds’ official site.

Julia Holter “Goddess Eyes II”

The arrangement for “Goddess Eyes II” unfolds patiently, with each shift in structure and instrumentation coming across like thought in motion. The refrain “I can see you but my eyes are not allowed to cry” repeats through the majority of the song, but the gradual changes in the sound and delivery signals to the listener that the phrase means something just a bit different each time, as if Holter is considering every angle and meaning before settling on a single perspective on the sentiment that seems totally true. There is never a conclusion, really, but as some strands begin to align in the end, there’s a sense of peaceful resolution.

Buy it from Amazon.

Fun. “Why Am I the One?”

I grew up listening to Lite FM radio in my parents’ cars, so there are particular strains of 70s pop that are seared into my mind, and coded into my taste. Despite this, my frame of reference is a bit weird – there are so many songs I grew up hearing all the time, and I either still don’t know exactly who sang what, or I didn’t know until well into adulthood. I’ve been trying to find the exact frame of reference for the chorus of Fun.’s “Why Am I the One?” since I first heard it – is it Chicago? Air Supply? Electric Light Orchestra? Crosby, Stills and Nash’s “Our House”? Really, it’s all of this and more. And oh man, I am such a mark for this, especially when the band show evidence of more recent influences throughout the record – Kanye-like use of AutoTune, John Darnielle-esque inflections, Phoenix-ish dynamics. I love that this band is reviving this aesthetic with zero irony – they know it’s uncool, but realize that this is a type of sound where if you don’t fully commit, it just won’t work.

Buy it from Amazon.

The celebration of the 10th anniversary of this site continues on with this collection of the best and most notable music of 2003. As I’ve said before, I think 2003 ranks among the very best years for popular music, and is almost certainly the best year for music of the past decade. The sheer number of all-time classic songs from across a variety of genres is astounding, and if you look over the track listing, you’ll note that a majority of the finest artists of the 00s either came on the scene or reached some kind of artistic peak at this time. The first few years of the decade yielded some great music, but this is when the character of the 00s really kicks in.

DOWNLOAD DISC 1

The Knife “Heartbeats” / Kylie Minogue “Sweet Music” / The New Pornographers “The Laws Have Changed” / R. Kelly “Ignition (Remix)” / Britney Spears “Toxic” / Fox N Wolf “Youth Alcoholic” / Ce’cile “Hot Like We” / Panjabi MC featuring Jay-Z “Beware of the Boys” / McLusky “There Ain’t No Fool in Ferguson” / Andrew W.K. “Free Jumps” / The Exploding Hearts “Throwaway Style” / Rachel Stevens “Sweet Dreams My L.A. Ex” / Scissor Sisters “Backwoods Discotheque Part 1” / Alicia Keys “If I Ain’t Got You” / Cat Power “He War” / Electrelane “Enter Laughing” / Belle & Sebastian “I’m A Cuckoo” / The Twilight Singers “Teenage Wristband” / Rufus Wainwright “Go Or Go Ahead”

DOWNLOAD DISC 2

Beyoncé featuring Jay-Z “Crazy In Love” / Outkast (Big Boi) “The Rooster” / Justice Vs. Simian “Never Be Alone” / Girls Aloud “Jump” / Metric “Wet Blanket” / Chicks On Speed “We Don’t Play Guitar” / LCD Soundsystem “Yeah” / Dizzee Rascal “Fix Up, Look Sharp” / Kanye West “Through the Wire” / Electric Six “Danger! High Voltage” / Yellow Note Vs. Pukka “Naked, Drunk and Horny” / Pleasure featuring Justine Frischmann “Don’t Look the Other Way” / Radiohead “Backdrifts” / The Dandy Warhols “We Used to Be Friends” / The Books “The Future, Wouldn’t That Be Nice” / Lumidee “Never Leave You (Uh Ooh, Uh Oooh!)” / Birdman aka Baby featuring Clipse “What Happened to That Boy” / Animal Collective “Slippi”

DOWNLOAD DISC 3

The White Stripes “Seven Nation Army” / The Fall “Theme From Sparta FC” / Ted Leo and the Pharmacists “Where Have All the Rude Boys Gone?” / M.I.A. “Galang” / Kelis “Milkshake” / Lil Jon and the East Side Boyz “Get Low” / Raekwon “Ice Cream Part 2” / Missy Elliott “Pass That Dutch” / TV on the Radio “Young Liars” / The Aislers Set “Emotional Levy” / Cass McCombs “AIDS in Africa” / Broken Social Scene “Cause = Time” / The Blood Brothers “Fucking’s Greatest Hits” / The Mars Volta “This Apparatus Must Be Unearthed” / Deftones “Minerva” / Death Cab for Cutie “Transatlanticism”

DOWNLOAD DISC 4

The Fiery Furnaces “South Is Only A Home” / Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks “(Do Not Feed the) Oyster” / Outkast (Andre 3000) “Hey Ya!” / Killer Mike and Big Boi “A.D.I.D.A.S.” / 50 Cent “In Da Club” / Nivea featuring R. Kelly “Laundromat” / Enon “Daughter in the House of Fools” / Dog Ruff “Jon E Storm” / Junior Senior “Chicks and Dicks” / Fountains of Wayne “Stacy’s Mom” / Liz Phair “Rock Me” / R.E.M. “Bad Day” / No Doubt “It’s My Life” / Jamelia “Superstar” / Wayne Wonder “No Letting Go” / Pharrell featuring Jay-Z “Frontin'” / The Diplomats “Dipset Anthem” / Memphis Bleek featuring Freeway “Just Blaze, Blee and Free” / Cee Lo Green “I’ll Be Around” / Matthew Shipp “Cohesion”

DOWNLOAD DISC 5

The Silures “21 Ghosts” / Basement Jaxx “Cish Cash” / Relaxed Muscle “Sexualized” / Ludacris “P-Poppin'” / Freeform Five “Electromagnetic” / Marit Bergman “Adios Amigos” / Zwan “Baby, Let’s Rock!” / Peaches “Shake Yer Dix” / Bubba Sparxxx “Jimmy Mathis” / Three 6 Mafia “Ridin’ Spinners” / Sophie Ellis-Bextor “Mixed Up World” / Mu “Let’s Get Sick” / The Raveonettes “The Great Love Sound” / M83 “Run Into Flowers” / Black Dice “Cone Toaster” / Sufjan Stevens “They Also Mourn Who Do Not Wear Black”

DOWNLOAD DISC 6

Jay-Z “99 Problems” / The Rapture “I Need Your Love” / Liars “There’s Always Room on the Broom” / The Postal Service “We Will Become Silhouettes” / Black Box Record “The School Song” / The Concretes “You Can’t Hurry Love” / Guided By Voices “The Best of Jill Hives” / The Wrens “This Boy Is Exhausted” / The Kills “Kissy Kissy” / The Constantines “Shine A Light” / David Banner “Cadillacs on 22s” / Lil Wayne “Dat Boy Weezy” / Lil Kim “The Jump Off” / Spiritualized “She Kissed Me (It Felt Like A Hit)” / Blink 182 “I Miss You” / The Unicorns “I Was Born (A Unicorn)” / Ellen Allien “Trash Scapes” / Alan Braxe and Fred Falke “Love Lost”

DOWNLOAD DISC 7

Broadcast “Colour Me In” / Prefuse 73 “Why I Love You” / The Notwist “One With the Freaks” / Boris “Ibitsu” / The Fever “Bridge & Tunnel” / The Strokes “12:51” / Richard X featuring Jarvis Cocker “Into U” / Nelly featuring Diddy and Murphy Lee “Shake Ya Tailfeather” / Jaylib “The Red” / Freeway featuring Jay-Z and Beanie Sigel “What We Do” / Viktor Vaughan “Saliva” / Heiko Voss “Think About You” / The Darkness “I Believe In A Thing Called Love” / The Libertines “Don’t Look Back Into the Sun” / Arcade Fire “No Cars Go” / My Morning Jacket “I Will Sing You Songs” / The Hidden Cameras “Boys of Melody”

DOWNLOAD DISC 8

Yeah Yeah Yeahs “Maps” / Goldfrapp “Strict Machine” / Blur “Me White Noise (Albarn Version) / Stereolab “…Sudden Stars” / Four Tet “As Serious As Your Life” / The Gossip “Lessons Learned” / Manitoba “Hendrix with Ko” / Dexy’s Midnight Runners “Manhood” / The Shins “So Says I” / Beulah “Landslide Baby” / The Decemberists “Los Angeles, I’m Yours” / Azure Ray “These White Lights Will Bend to Make Blue” / Lucinda Williams “Real Live Bleeding Fingers and Broken Guitar Strings” / Michael Mayer “Unter Null” / Explosions in the Sky “Your Hand In Mine” / Beth Gibbons and Rustin Man “Candy Says”

Young Jeezy featuring Jay-Z, Drake and Andre 3000 “I Do (Remix)”

I realize there is a version of this track that exists without Drake, but I guess I’m just a masochist. Drake’s verse isn’t a total mess, but it’s amateurish and charmless in comparison to the three other rappers on the track. It’s not just that Drake is a terrible lyricist and has a totally uninspired flow – this is pretty much a given – but that he’s just incapable of the warmth and depth of character that comes so naturally to the other guys here. Jeezy, not even a particularly great rapper himself, is very compelling here, particularly as he barks out “I’d do anything to leave here with you tonight, Sherri.” I love the specificity of the name; there’s a touch of vulnerability that comes through in how he says it, like he’s just too weak in the knees to maintain his bravado in that moment. Jay-Z’s verse is intended to sounds like it’s about marriage but is actually about drug dealing, but he’s not fooling anyone – it’s easy to tell where his heart is here.

Andre 3000 is typically excellent in his exquisitely crafted closing verse, which lays out a realistic fantasy about meeting a smart, cool, devout woman and raising a smart, cool, devout daughter. Every syllable of his verse overflows with a humanity and respect for women that Drake entirely lacks – he and Andre both have lines about wanting a woman who will grow old gracefully, but you can tell everything about the difference between the two men by noting that while 3000 wants that woman to do so on her own terms, Drake just wants this for his own shallow benefit. “I just want a woman that looks 30 when she’s 81,” he says, sounding like a total tool. Shut up, Drake.

Gorillaz featuring James Murphy and Andre 3000 “DoYaThing (Full Version)”

It’s a waste of your time to listen to the 4 minute edit of this thing; in the grand scheme of the song, it’s just an elaborate warmup for the spectacle of Andre 3000 freaking out over an extended James Murphy punk-funk vamp. Three Stacks tosses out the meticulous structure of his regular verses to go totally unhinged here, and in the process reconnects with the rock spirit of songs like “Gasoline Dreams” and “Hey Ya.” It sounds like it had to have been a very physical performance – it’s hard to imagine him not acting out and flailing around for this, even if he was confined to a recording booth. I wouldn’t be shocked if he came out of this session a bit bloodied and bruised. Murphy too, for that matter.

Mouse on Mars “They Know Your Name”

Mouse on Mars have a gift for making their electronic sounds come across like tangible, physical objects that are moving, bouncing, bending and colliding on the track. It’s like pop music rendered in 3D, with all the implied planes blown out to extremes, and the dynamics pushed to the point of seeming disorienting and surreal. They are particularly playful when they integrate vocals on tracks like “They Know Your Name.” They force you to strain to hear words made unintelligible by a seeming Doppler effect, which makes the words that do come out clearly, like the title phrase, take on an ambiguous quality. As the song bops around, the words ping-pong between meanings, going from innocuous fact to paranoid dread and back again.

Buy it from Amazon.

Azealia Banks “Need Sum Luv”

There are a great many songs sung from the perspective of the other woman (or the other man), and you can split them into two basic categories: Songs like the Long Blondes’ “You Could Have Both” or Pulp’s “Pencil Skirt,” in which the singer and the lyricist know that the character is delusional, selfish and self-destructive, and songs like Whitney Houston’s “Saving All My Love For You” or this new track by Azealia Banks, in which the protagonist is straight-up expressing what they are feeling and thinking without any implied irony. While Whitney invests her song with a heartbreaking sweetness at odds with her homewrecking agenda, Banks’ character is diabolical and desperate to get her way. Half the lyrics are rationalizations, but it doesn’t sound like the character knows that, so lines like “you ain’t in love with her, but she still is in your heart / but you be in my apartment tearing me apart” land with a bitter pathos. The character isn’t afraid of hurting these other people, but most of all, she’s not afraid of hurting herself.

Frankie Rose “Gospel/Grace”

Jayson Greene hears the Cure, Laurie Anderson and M83 in Frankie Rose’s second album, and I suppose that’s all there, but the best tracks sound more like a restrained, Yo La Tengo-ish gloss on Fleetwood Mac to me. Not all Fleetwood Mac, but the hazy harmonies and melancholy tone of hits like “Dreams” and “Hold Me.” (Two of the best rainy day songs ever recorded, by the way!) Rose’s voice is somewhere in the space between Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie’s respective affects, and though she doesn’t match their skill as songwriters and she certainly doesn’t have a genius like Lindsey Buckingham arranging her material, she is nevertheless quite good at building simple strands of melody to a gorgeous climax, particularly in “Gospel/Grace.” There’s not much gospel in this song, but there’s certainly a peaceful grace in its steady beat and gentle washes of sound.

Buy it from Amazon.

Grimes “Eight”

“Eight” is generous in how it provides a series of instantly likeable hooks, but sort of sadistic in how those melodies and rhythms are delivered in tones that are deliberately grating or uncomfortable. The contrast of the pitched-up lead vocal and the mechanical pitched-down loop is fascinating, and Grimes pushes the ugliness to a point that it sort of becomes beautiful on its own terms. It’s certainly one of her most successful compositions – I like that it resolves itself very quickly, and it lacks a regressive, childish tone that I find a bit off-putting in some of her other songs.

Buy it from Amazon.

Black Bananas “TV Trouble”

Black Bananas, the new band featuring Jennifer Herrema of Royal Trux, opened up for Sleigh Bells last Friday night. I was pretty excited to see her perform – I have loved Trux for a long time but never saw them in concert, and I quite like this Black Bananas album, much more so than the music she was putting out as RTX. Unfortunately, the performance was a total mess. The songs, so catchy and urgent on record, were pretty much unintelligible on stage. Herrema was charming in a stoned sort of way, but got progressively more loopy and mush-mouthed as the show continued. Sad.

Like a lot of the best Trux material, the songs on Black Bananas’ debut album Bad Times Express IV fall into an appealing midpoint between straight-up classic rock grooves and warped surrealism. “TV Trouble” is essentially a pretty straight forward song, but Herrema’s character and the sound of the recording push it all to a cartoonish extreme. It’s goofy, weird and fun, and very disorienting. It’s like Herrema is just trying to show us all what it’s like in her version of the world. It’s a cool place to visit, for sure.

Buy it from Amazon.

Sleigh Bells @ Terminal 5 2/17/2012

True Shred Guitar / Born to Lose / Riot Rhythm / A/B Machines / Kids / End of the Line / Comeback Kid / Tell ‘Em / Leader of the Pack / Straight A’s / Treats / Infinity Guitars // Rill Rill / Demons / Crown on the Ground

I reviewed Sleigh Bells’ excellent new album Reign of Terror for Pitchfork. This concert was broadcast online, so you probably know what it was like. It was awesome. Let’s talk about “Demons.”

Sleigh Bells “Demons”

If you go into Reign of Terror expecting it to be a party like Treats, you’re going to be let down. That record was all energy and extroverted nonsense, and if you read the New York Times profile on the band that ran over the weekend, you know that it was essential Derek Miller’s way of escaping from very depressing things going on in his family life at the time it was made and released. Reign takes the template of Treats and fleshes it out with dark, complicated emotions. It’s not a downer – it rocks, it’s fun, they still provide these endorphin-rush hooks. It’s cathartic, especially on songs like “Demons,” which expertly channel the aggression and physicality of metal without a lot of metal culture baggage. Miller has said that this song in particular was inspired by Def Leppard, and I totally get it – both bands are great at drawing on the most elemental appeal of metal while staying firmly in the realm of simple, catchy pop music. I’ve never been a metal guy, but I find so much music in the genre to be tuneless and overly complicated – I want this rock power, but I need it to be connected to melodies and rhythms that are just as overwhelming as the sound. “Demons” is one of the most thrilling pieces of music I’ve encountered in a while, and I would love for there to be more stuff coming out now that pushes in this direction.

Buy it from Amazon.

Ceremony “Adult”

The guitar chords in “Adult” stab at you like long sharp knives, but it’s the words that really slice you up. Ross Farrar attacks the listener with the cold reality of maturity, bluntly reminding us that “we have to give up on things we love,” repeating the phrase a few times over before amending it with a “sometimes” that makes the message only slightly easier to stomach. But in one way or another it’s true, and one of the worst things about growing up, whether it’s distancing yourself from a dream or having to cut off a relationship that has gone toxic. A lot of punk rock culture is built on trying to reject this notion, so it comes out sounding like a challenge to that audience, but also a strong-willed fight against compromise.

Pre-order it from Amazon.

Sharon Van Etten “Kevin’s”

“Kevin’s” conveys a lot of warmth and empathy, but there’s a touch of tough love to it, particularly as Van Etten sings the line “buried in masculine pain all the time.” When she puts it that way, his experience seems alien – something that she wants to understand, probably, but also something that obviously frightens her. It sounds like she’s trying to help someone out of their own traps, but doesn’t quite understand how the traps got there. The music sounds like a lifeline, but her vocal performance indicates that she’s pulling him up, but isn’t quite on solid ground herself.

Buy it from Amazon.

Himanshu “Womyn”

Heems is very good at sneaking clever, complicated ideas into essentially dumb music. In this song he makes a lot of silly jokes – mostly at his expense – about how much he likes ladies, and while it basically sounds like any number of goofy hip-hop songs about chicks, the real message slowly sinks in: This is a song about genuinely appreciating women and recognizing them as people who have lives, thoughts and opinions. Which is very “no duh,” but in the context of rap, it’s a weirdly radical thought. So one hand, the song is pleasant, light-hearted and sweet, and on the other, it’s a bit confrontational, forcing the listener to wonder why it’s generally rare to find positive, healthy, respectful attitudes toward women in hip-hop. It’s very impressive that Heems can get that across without seeming even a little bit heavy or sanctimonious.

Download the mixtape for free from Seva NY.

The Kills @ Terminal 5 2/11/2012

No Wow / Future Starts Slow / Heart Is A Beating Drum / Kissy Kissy / URA Fever / DNA / Satellite / Last Day of Magic / Crazy [Patsy Cline cover] / At the Back of the Shell / Black Balloon / Baby Says / You Don’t Own the Road / Tape Song / Cheap and Cheerful / Pots and Pans // The Last Goodbye / Nail in My Coffin / Sour Cherry / Fuck the People / Monkey 23

I reviewed this show for Rolling Stone and you can read about it there.

The Kills “Pots and Pans”

“Pots and Pans” is a sleeper song; it certainly took a while to reveal itself as one of the Kills’ finest compositions. The first half of the piece plays on a feeling of suspense – musically and emotionally, you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop. Alison Mosshart’s lyrics and vocals convey affection but some degree of ill-defined discomfort – with herself, with the object of her affection, something. Then that other shoe does drop, and the perspective of the song pulls back dramatically in scope. The coda is something else – romance and nostalgia on a grand scale. The failings of the present eventually fall away in hindsight, and these moments that are so fraught with tension because the days that we will never forget.

Buy it from Amazon.