Author Archive

2nd Grade “Poet In Residence”

The riff in “Poet In Residence” is so familiar but I can’t quite place it, it nags at me a little while I listen to it. But I don’t really want to know what it is because I think part of the magic here is that it sounds like 2nd Grade is just barely getting away with stealing something famous for a tiny lo-fi song. It adds a meta level of stakes to the piece, and the laid back swagger of the riff makes the person being sung about seem a little cooler. But not that much cooler – I wouldn’t say this is a joke song, but the joke of the song is that this is an ode to someone who is a very ordinary sort of cool, and a very mild sort of fun. This isn’t a song set in a glamorous world, but rather one that’s mundane and drab and this person is what qualifies as the poetic rock star in this context.

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Pixies “Get Stimulated”

There are now four post-reunion Pixies albums and it still feels weird. It’s no secret that these records are a matter of practicality – Black Francis is a prolific songwriter and obviously his records will sell better if they’re called Pixies, and if he’s always playing with the Pixies anyway why not just record with them and use the name? It’s all very logical, the math checks out. Black Francis still sounds like Black Francis, the music is full of their signature moves, and Paz Lenchantin does as good a job as anyone could hope to filling in on Kim Deal’s role in the band. Time is the enemy in this situation – too much time since they wrote the original body of work and were tapped into something truly inspired and original; too much time with Black Francis piling up solo records that gave us a sense of what he’s like without the Pixies. These are records that would be considered above-average Black Francis solo albums, but the baggage of the Pixies name makes them feel disappointing, ill-advised, or even sacrilegious.

At this point the most fair way to approach these records is considering them a separate body of work by a different band. Kim Deal was an essential and defining part of Pixies and she’s not on these records, that’s enough of a shift in the basic dynamics to look at this as something else entirely. So what is this band? Well, it’s Black Francis doing the fully matured version of his aesthetic and working with a drummer and lead guitarist he has proven chemistry with, and Paz Lenchantin bringing a similar but slightly different feminine energy to the mix. She’s more ethereal than girl-next-door, her bass playing simultaneously more blunt and more refined. She doesn’t have a level of charisma that competes with Black Francis, and that changes the feel of the songs – “Get Stimulated” is a good example of how well his voice meshes and contrasts with a softer feminine vocal, but you do get the sense that if Kim was the one singing your ear would focus on her presence. But it’s also a good example of something that feels uniquely Pixies with or without Deal, and the song is strong enough that it feels silly to not open up to it because of a concern like “oh no what about your legacy?” If you just let this version of the band be its own thing, it’s easy to just enjoy it for what it is without high stakes.

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Elkka “I Just Want To Love You”

The lyrical content of this song is limited to pretty much the title phrase repeated like a mantra, the rest of the music seeming to circle it as if to get every possible perspective on the emotion. Elkka’s arrangement borrows a bit of John Martyn’s “Small Hours” for ambience, his odd guitar tone adding a touch of tenderness and sadness that fits comfortably alongside the more straight forward ecstatic house elements of the track. The overall feeling is that of excitement, generosity, and an open-hearted willingness to be vulnerable. The song says exactly what it means, but then really lets you feel everything that words would fail.

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Fievel Is Glauque “Save the Phenomenon”

“Save the Phenomenon” is an odd bit of indie jazz pop that finds an intriguing common ground between Gaucho-era Steely Dan, Stereolab, and Tom Jobim. The melody is gorgeous and the chords are lovely; it would all sound very relaxed if not for the tempo of the vocals, which speed up against the changes just enough to add some nervous energy to the song. It’s not odd enough to disrupt the more traditional charms of the composition, but it’s just weird enough to come off as lightly playful and vaguely punkish. I get the sense that Fievel Is Glauque is aiming for subversion of their own style, but more in the spirit of bringing a Zappa-like novelty, unpredictability, and mystery to the music rather than undermining their own skills as players.

Buy it from Math Interactive.

Alvvays “After the Earthquake”

The guitarists in Alvvays play “After the Earthquake” as if they’re in a competition to prove who loves Peter Buck more, with harmonic tangles of jangle ringing out through a very dynamic composition that sounds like it is sprinting away, except for the one part where it sounds like it’s stopping to catch its breath. Molly Rankin’s lyrics contrast literal and metaphoric sudden upheaval, focusing in on banal details to emphasize the way normal surroundings can look surreal in the wake of disaster. The more personal and emotional breakup side of this song reveals itself gradually, and the line that cuts most deeply is nearly buried as it trails off into a dynamic shift – “if you wake up will you remember the awful things I said at the edge of the bed?” This image is grounded by another detail about hearing Murder She Wrote playing in the background and noise in the hallway, trivial distractions burned into sense memory by association with a traumatic event. The anxiety in the song comes through in that frenetic pace, but I think it’s meaningful that it still sounds bright and light overall. Even if she’s wondering “why would I ever love again?,” she’s moving on and casting off some weight.

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Tori Amos “She’s Your Cocaine”

“She’s Your Cocaine” is a very late ‘90s sort of love triangle song in which Tori Amos sings from the perspective of a woman totally exasperated by her ex going off with some seemingly toxic woman who’s pushing him towards what she interprets as tacky self-destruction but to me just sounds like a cool androgynous goth vibe. The song revels in her pettiness without any apologies, the point isn’t that we’re supposed to side with her in this but rather that most anyone can relate to feeling like this burning “oh fuck them” resentment. This is an atypically heavy song for Amos, one that churns with an industrial glam aesthetic not too far off from what The Smashing Pumpkins and Marilyn Manson were up to around this time. She throws herself into the sound, playing up the spite of its relatively normie POV character while embodying the sexy menace of this other woman she finds so threatening. By the end of the song she shifts to just roasting this dude – “you sign ‘Prince of Darkness’ / try ’Squire of Dimness’” – and that seems like a healthy place to leave it. He’s fully removed from the pedestal she put him on, and he’s just something she can laugh at now.

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PJ Harvey “Angelene”

Polly Jean Harvey excels at writing character sketch songs but tends to shy away from implying a full narrative. “Angelene” in particular feels more like an informal portrait, like the musical equivalent of a raw candid Nan Goldin photograph. The lyrics are written in blunt, direct language from Angelene’s perspective – she’s a sex worker, she’s jaded, she imagines escape in the broad abstraction of a place two thousand miles away. The vagueness of her idea of a better life adds a lot of pathos to a song with a lot already built in, she seems so worn down by her low expectations and unsatisfying experiences that it’s dulled her imagination and limited her hopes. The music sounds grey and desolate, Harvey sings the verses with a weathered tone and the choruses like wind blowing on a cold beach. The song cycles back to the opening line at the end and trails off, ending ambiguously but also giving you some reason to believe poor Angelene is never getting two thousand miles away.

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Liz Phair “Perfect World”

“Perfect World” is a song about low-grade envy, a “grass is always greener on the other side” sort of feeling that makes you feel like there’s always something better than what you have and who you are. And like, there is? There’s no “having it all” so there’s always something someone else has that you just can’t have. Liz Phair embodies that feeling in this song, but then puts a twist on it at the end of the chorus – I’d like to be this and that, but even if I changed everything I’d still want to be with you. The “you” of it doesn’t even seem like a factor through a lot of this, it’s like she’s carried away in the thought but get pulled back to reality by a real life love. Even in the bridge when she imagines the women in his world – “just sitting next to a mortal makes their skin crawl” – there’s still the sense that those women don’t matter as much to him as she does, and she’s loved for exactly who she is. (And surely those women have entered the thought of being cool and talented like her.) Phair’s melodies and harmony parts in this song are gorgeous, particularly on that bridge, but it’s a low key sort of loveliness. The song is beautiful but doesn’t strain to be pretty, there’s little bits of darkness and unsanded edges to it. She wishes to be cool, tall, vulnerable, and luscious in the hook, and I think she attains three of the four in the song.

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Cat Power “American Flag”

Chan Marshall spends most of her time in “American Flag” singing about drummers, marveling at some magic power they have – playing rhythm, sure, but it seems more like she’s amazed by people who can be so steady and locked into objective time. They’re held up as a standard by which she falls short, and so she trails off at the end of verses: “If I could stand to be less difficult…” Marshall’s phrasing – in both senses of the word – cuts deep in this recording, you can extrapolate so much complicated history and self-torment from how she utters “be less difficult.” She sings it with a mixture of shame and resignation and resentment, like it’s something she’s been told too many times and it got under her skin enough for it to become internalized. The song seems to begin and end with ellipses, like she’s just trapped in this feeling and that makes a lot of sense since it’s basically a song about recognizing you’re trapped in a narrative and haven’t figured out a way to write yourself out of it.

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СОЮЗ featuring Kate NV “I Knew It (Я так и знал)”

A lot of the time when I write about songs in languages I do not speak I try to find the lyrics online and run them through translation to English if just to get a rough idea of the sentiment. In the case of this song the full lyrics are presented in English on Bandcamp despite it being sung entirely in Russian, which is definitely helpful but also a little odd. But the lyrics are in fact pretty key to getting what СОЮЗ and Kate NV are going for here, and only hearing this as a lovely slightly jazzy kinda Brazilian 70s lite FM sort of song strips it of pathos and irony. The lyrics set up some imminent doomsday scenario but digress into a lament on the futility of documenting the past and creating art with the idea of preserving something of yourself through time when everything can be wiped out so easily. Some things may remain, but when they are found will they even be understood? The light and breezy tone of the music seems a bit at odds with the heaviness of the lyrics, but then again so much of the sentiment comes down to trying to shrug and let go of any attempts at immortality and just live in the moment.

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Courting “Famous”

The members of Courting are very young men and “Famous” is very much a song from the point of view of someone who’s only just starting to realize they’ve aged into adulthood. I remember this being a confusing thing – wait, people I know are doing x, y, and z now? I’m expected to make actual decisions? Some of it is time flying, some of it is feeling confused why anyone would trust someone your age to do anything at all. The bittersweet current that runs through “Famous” is Sean Murphy-O’Neill feeling like he’s losing his grasp on social connections that have been meaningful to him. His vocal is kinda like a young English version of James Murphy and he approaches “All My Friends” sentiment from a very different angle, already nostalgic and wanting to pull everyone he knows back together again not long after they’ve left.

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The Orielles “The Room”

I’ve been covering The Orielles here and there on this site since their earliest releases and while there was definitely growth apparent along the way nothing they’ve done before set me up to expect anything like their two most recent singles “Beam/s” and “The Room.” There’s some musical continuity with their past work but the sharp aesthetics of these new songs and the increased scale of their ambitions make them sound like a new band. They say they wanted the new music to reflect their interest in cinema and I absolutely hear it in the dynamic shifts that hit like cuts between shots, and in a palette that somehow sounds the way a high contrast black and white film looks. The vocals keep shifting along with the beats, bass, keys, and fake strings – sometimes it’s a casually confident recitation of poetic lines, sometimes it’s more of a whisper, sometimes it’s clearly sung with a touch of English R&B in the inflection. They’re pulling from a lot of inspirations but landing on something that feels very distinct, like they might have really figured out exactly who they are as a band this time around.

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Suki Waterhouse “Moves”

“Moves” is a song with a sentiment that should seem entirely self-absorbed – I want something very badly and must separate myself from you to pursue it – but it’s expressed in a way that feels very generous to the person it’s being addressed to. Suki Waterhouse sings it as a big power ballad love song, something that sounds more like the beginning than the end of something. Maybe it’s more like putting something on hold in the hope of eventually having both? But the affection is unmistakable in her vocal, and the attitude of the song is focused on fighting for what she wants to the point that the melancholy in it is pushed beneath the layers of sound in the chorus.

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Oliver Sim “Sensitive Child”

Oliver Sim approaches a lot of bad memories and lingering resentments in “Sensitive Child” but doesn’t get too specific, opting to keep the lyrics focused on evocative images and abstracted details that bring him back to sense memories. It’s like the lyrics are just prompts for him to remember feelings and emote, and that emoting is the actual communication. I recognize this kind of tension, I am familiar with this kind of anger that gets stuffed around the corners of memories. Jamie XX’s arrangement moves around a central Del Shannon vocal sample but mostly responds to Sim’s emotional state and pushes into ugly, distorted territory that feels unusual for both himself and Sim. Moving into relatively unfamiliar musical terrain suits this song well conceptually – if Sim is going to get out of a comfort zone and confront very personal things, he may as well do the same with the tonal palette and rhythmic style.

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Warpaint “Send Nudes”

If you asked me what a song called “Send Nudes” by a band of women would be like I would have guessed something kinda darkly funny about some kind of awful relationship, but that’s not at all where Warpaint went with this. The title is used with some humorous irony around the silliness of the title phrase but it’s actually pretty earnest – this is a song about an intense and growing love, and even if it’s silly the request “send a couple nudes, baby” is not a joke. Warpaint play this song with jazzy nuance and a minimalism that makes your ear focus in on the details in the bass line and the percussion. The music feels as intimate and romantic as the lyrics, they really nail a spooning/whispering in ears sensation through the whole thing.

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Angel Olsen “All the Good Times”

“All the Good Times” has a soft and cozy texture to it – the gentle hum of the organ, the warmth of the bass, the light touch on the drums – that complements Angel Olsen’s sweet but sleepy vocal, making it all sound like she’s just woke up from a dream and reality is coming back into focus. That’s basically what’s going on in the lyrics, with her coming out of a relationship and it’s a little too soon to get an accurate sense of what was going on. Was it always a mess? When did they stop caring? How long did they just go along with it because it was the path of least resistance? This definitely could be performed as an angry song but it’s not at all, Olsen plays it with a lot of lingering affection that makes it easier to get how it all happened and why it hasn’t been easy to break away from. And getting that context just makes it more sad.

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Jessie Reyez “Only One”

Jessie Reyez’s lyrics in “Only One” could be read as needy, but I think it’s more that she’s being vulnerable enough to ask for what she really wants of a partner and isn’t afraid if that makes her seem insecure or demanding. Like a lot of classic R&B songs before it this is about negotiating for what you need out of a relationship and advocating for one’s desires, and she’s not asking for anything crazy here – monogamy, being someone’s priority, someone who’s open to exploring her cultural interests. She’s speaking it into the world to draw it to her, manifesting it in either the person she’s addressing or someone else entirely. The song has a strong mid to late ‘90s R&B energy – a loud and kinda cold processed beat contrasted with warm bass and emotive vocals, a go-to combination for evoking a hard exterior and soft interior.

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Of Montreal “Ofrenda-Flanger-Ego-à Gogo”

One of the pleasures of following Kevin Barnes’ career in real time is that each Of Montreal record truly feels like checking in with them, each record like a scene report on their inner life. In recent years Barnes has cycled through a sort of psychosexual rebirth, new love, paranoia about politics, and embracing/accepting chaos as part of life. This time around on Freewave Lucifer fck Barnes is responding to pandemic-era uncertainty with escapism and dissociation, diving deep into subconscious modes as a response to being cut off from the world. The results are stylistically scattered and a little uneven, but “Ofrenda-Flanger-Ego-à Gogo” stands out as one of their best songs in a psychedelic folk mode. Barnes’ is no stranger to free-association lyrics but the words slip out in this one like each new phrase reveals something about the previous line. It’s not really a narrative, but it’s a feeling given more context. Broadly speaking, this is like Barnes moving to some astral plane and witnessing depressive disconnection at a grand level, like something making its way through a large system.

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Ari Lennox “POF”

“FOH” opens Ari Lennox’s second album like a thesis statement that she explores in every subsequent track, and while those facets get very interesting I find this song in which she just lays out all her questions the most compelling. Why does she keep getting involved with lackluster men? Why does she feel pressured to get into a serious romantic relationship as she enters her 30s, and why does that feel necessary if she’s happy with her current success as a musician? She doesn’t spell that out exactly, but her lyrics are plain enough that I’m only lightly paraphrasing her words. I hear a lot of Erykah Badu circa Mama’s Gun in Lennox’s phrasing and arrangement here, which is in and of itself high praise and reason to recommend this song, but there’s a bit more open hostility in her tone. A lot of this song is just understandable frustration and bile as she questions why both her expectations and realities have let her down. She finds some strength in this, but the beauty of this song is in the ambiguity of where she might go from this point where she recognizes the problem but hasn’t yet thought of a viable solution.

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Carlos Truly “Why Suffer??”

“Why Suffer??” is an odd mutant R&B song that nevertheless moves with a lot of grace, slinking and gliding and floating around and giving Carlos Truly a lot of space to exude sensativity and sensuality. The music is cozy and sexy, but…what the hell is this guy singing about? As far as I can parse this it sounds like he’s encountered some woman he’s attracted to after a minor car accident, learns she has a husband, and then he’s just like “this guy seems gross, why suffer the indignity of being with him when you could be with me?” The song positions it all like maybe there’s some abuse going on but all you really get in the lyrics about the husband is that he’s naked and sweaty at some point. Songs don’t really need to tell complete stories to work and this one certainly gets by just fine on purely musical charms, but there’s so many missing or vague details in this one that it’s hard to even tell where this song is coming from. Is this a song about a guy with a crush who develops an unreasonable grudge on this lady’s husband, and he’s meant to be an unreliable narrator? Or is this more like a song about a guy we’re meant to understand as a hero and his judgment of this husband is meant to carry more weight? I like it better if it’s the former.

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