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6/7/22

A Dream Retrieved From A Common Spring

Wilco “Mystery Binds”

Wilco’s Cruel Country is a gift to long-suffering Wilco fans who desperately wanted Jeff Tweedy to get back to making warm country rock records like AM and Being There again. I like but don’t love those records so of course I zero in on the outlier – “Mystery Binds,” a moody and more electric number more in line with the stark and aloof vibes of more recent Wilco records. The song moves like it’s trying to sneak out of a house, a soft chug that leads up to an elegant and vaguely familiar lead guitar hook played by Nels Cline. Tweedy’s lyrics seem to approach misery as a shared experience, like some kind of Jungian collective unconscious, but love as a more solitary thing. It seems true in as much as the person telling you this seems to pass on his sorrows freely, but clings jealously to love like he can’t risk sharing it and thus can’t receive new love. This music feels a bit cursed, but it’s rather lovely.

Buy it from Bandcamp.

6/3/22

A Time When Everything Rhymed

Kurt Vile “Like Exploding Stones”

Kurt Vile’s music always sounds like something made to please himself when left to his own devices, but he’s fine with you listening in. It’s all the languid and indulgent stuff that other artists might tighten up in later drafts, and the kind of slightly goofy lyrics that you might make up on the spot as a stopgap to get the melody down. It’s not as though he’s just recording random jams, though – he is refining everything, especially these days, but the key is preserving the essence of himself at his most relaxed and instinctive. “Like Exploding Stones” leans towards the more produced end of his output, a mellow groove filled out with synths that sound like grey clouds and a sax part that drifts into the mix with a surreal tone similar to that of Destroyer’s Kaputt album. He narrates these moves in real time – “Moog making noise now, guitar’s feeding back now” – and it’s funny in a deadpan way, but then he states that it’s all just at attempt to soothe his own pain and it’s suddenly quite poignant.

Buy it from Amazon.

6/1/22

A Good Look Around

Jean-Luc Swift “B Like U”

The arrangement of “B Like U” is fussy with little details but still overwhelmingly airy and light, bringing to mind a statement of relaxation with lingering trace amounts of tension and worry. I find this song to be a “come for the loose part, stay for the tight part” proposition as I particularly love the sections in which the music seems to compress around a vocal sample that reminds me a lot of the bit in Spice Girls’ “Wannabe” where they repeat “I wanna, I wanna, I wanna.” This part also includes a bit of turntable scratching that really sells a specific late ‘90s vibe, a musical sensation that hits like an unexpected and disorienting wave of nostalgia in the midst of a song with a very different feel to it. It’s a little too cerebral and grounded to qualify as spacey and stoned, but it’s almost there.

Buy it from Amazon.

5/31/22

Seeing Different Numbers

KH “Looking At Your Pager”

Every time I write about Kieron Hebden’s music I end up focusing on his masterful use of vocal sampling, which tends to obscure lyrics in favor of pure vocal sound and melodic inflection. “Looking At Your Pager” goes in another direction – he flips the entire opening verse from 3LW’s relatively obscure early 2000s hit “No More” into a totally different piece of music. The words are the same but the melody is pushed into another shape, and processed just enough that unless you’re paying close attention it doesn’t totally register as being sung in English. The track has a pulse that’s familiar with other Four Tet tracks but the addition of wubs and dubs makes the music pop a bit more in an direct way, like he’s pandering to the floor much more than usual but in the best possible way. On paper this is as obvious and accessible as Hebden gets but the music still retains his essential abstraction, an unmistakable blurry bliss that’s particular to his sensibility.

Buy it from Bandcamp.

5/31/22

My Immediate Action Is Required

Madelline “Participation Trophies”

“Participation Trophies” is written in the plain spoken first person “relatable” voice that has been dominant in young pop for a while now but veers off model in a significant way – instead of being written from the perspective of some annoyed and wronged person, it’s an incredibly self-deprecating song about being a total loser. Send this song 30 years back in time and it’s an indie slacker song, though people might be lost on what “airpods” are. Madelline’s vocal delivery is deadpan even in the more uplifting bits of the song which nudge the sentiment towards shrugging self-acceptance. The production style is clean and glossy enough to make it all sound like a sunny day, but the structure of the song gently rebels against its own drive towards anthemic rock. It gets there, but everything seems to resolve in some form of “oh well, whatever, never mind.”

Buy it from Amazon.

5/20/22

In My Prayer I Don’t Speak

Mallrat “Teeth”

I read a line from Grace Shaw of Mallrat about this song where she says she thinks of this song as something that could’ve been on The OC soundtrack if it existed in 2004, and maybe that’s true, but being a little older that seems odd to me as this music is far more aligned with mid-90s alt-rock aesthetics than the corporate gloss “indie” of The OC era, though there’s obviously a fair amount of aesthetic crossover. I certainly would consider sounding like mid 90s alt-rock to be the more flattering comparison, but I would, wouldn’t I? The main reason I hear “Teeth” as part of that lineage is that it’s built around a very Kim Deal-ish bass line that throbs in a way that somehow conveys both a relaxed looseness and a vaguely sexual menace. There’s a grit and desperation to this music, a sense that you’re dealing with someone under a lot of pressure who’s not afraid to snap. Shaw deliberately conflates sex, religion, and violence in the tradition of PJ Harvey and Tori Amos, and delights in the blur of it all as if to say “why not all three?”

Buy it from Amazon.

5/18/22

Dancing For Pennies

The Smile “Pana-Vision”

A lot of people talk about how they want to feel “seen,” particularly by those who love them. And not just to simply be perceived, but fully understood in that gaze. “Pana-Vision” is a song that makes that concept seem awful and terrifying, with Thom Yorke giving voice to a character who is rattled by his apparent partner’s mysterious, cosmic, and inescapable surveillance. The music is led by Yorke’s piano, which moves between a circular melodic motif and his oddly distinctive way of playing rhythmic chords. Tom Skinner plays jazzy around the piano while Jonny Greenwood goes overtly cinematic in orchestration, making the music fall somewhere in an odd space between eerie horror and regal grandeur. That tone is just right for Yorke’s lyrical conceit – you can’t quite tell whether he’s more frightened or awed through most of it, and by the end he seems to be willfully succumbing to her power.

Buy it from Bandcamp.

5/17/22

When I Decided To Wage Holy War

Florence + The Machine “Girls Against God”

The lyrics of “Girls Against God” were written mid-lockdown, the musings of a woman gone a bit stir-crazy and resenting God for putting her in circumstances where all she could do is dwell on the past without being able to move towards the future. Florence Welch is a singer with a powerful voice that can make anything sound heavy and important, so it’s interesting to hear her sing about feeling pathetic and powerless here. The song opens with her admitting that she never feels comfortable being loved because it makes her feel trapped, and then she’s singing about feeling trapped in her home, and then flashing back to a Tom Vek basement show when she was too young to act on her feelings whether they were positive or negative. The song builds to a declaration of war on God, a symbolic rejection of impotence and passivity, but a lot of what makes the song poignant is her knowing this is just another way of doing nothing in the face of something that feels impossible. It’s just coming from the perspective of someone who knows enough that you have to find a way to claim power, even if it’s all just in the mind.

Buy it from Amazon.

5/17/22

Flame Down Pacific Highway

Interpol “Toni”

Interpol is a band that has stayed within rather narrow aesthetic boundaries for two decades so “Toni,” a song that prominently features piano, can hit as a bold new direction even if everything else about it sounds like an Interpol song. Daniel Kessler’s piano part here isn’t that different from what he’d play on a guitar but it changes the temperature of the music like a gust of cold wind blowing through the room. The delicate tonality of the piano brings out a wounded quality in Paul Banks’ voice on the verses, and then a more majestic feel once the drums pick up and the vocal harmonies kick in. Interpol have always specialized in austerity and stateliness, but this song pushes beyond that towards a refined elegance. Banks’ lyrics, as enigmatic as ever, suggest the point of view of a worn down person who’s feeling an unexpected optimism, though it seems to be tempered by self-interest. The character comes across as complicated, but the music makes the glimmer of hope in the song feel profound and hard-won.

Buy it from Bandcamp.

5/13/22

To Avoid Potential Heartbreak

Sabrina Claudio “Protect Her”

Sabrina Claudio is singing from the perspective of a very exhausted woman in “Protect Her,” a song that’s basically about deciding it’s best not to go out in case she meets someone and falls in love again, which could only end poorly. This song comes at the end of a record that gets into a lot of romantic turmoil, so it makes a lot of thematic sense to close out on an expression of “you know what, I give up.” But as with pretty much everything else on Based On A Feeling, this is a song that sounds extremely romantic and seductive. That central irony is what makes it all click, though – even when she knows better, the pulls towards love and lust is just too strong. The first line of the chorus rings very true – “I fall in love too quickly” – but the concluding line – “girl, just stay home tonight” – just sounds like, at best, a temporary solution. There’s just no protecting a heart that wants connection this much.

Buy it from Amazon.

5/12/22

It’s The State Of Mind

HAAi featuring Jon Hopkins “Baby, We’re Ascending”

“Baby, We’re Ascending” sounds like a rave in a wind tunnel, implying a submission to powerful outside forces in two different but complementary ways. The music feels urgent but Haai’s vocal is very peaceful and grounded, describing an epiphany that makes her feel as though she’s moving towards grace and the sublime. The lyrics are vague enough to mean whatever you need, but it seems to me that she’s talking specifically about music here. She’s experiencing a moment of transcendental beauty through someone else’s music and realizing she has the power to commune with it, or make her own – “I could be the whole symphony.”

Buy it from Bandcamp.

5/12/22

If This Is Working, It Makes My Play Null And Void

Hot Chip “Down”

Alexis Taylor has a nice voice, but it runs a bit cold – a little distant, a little introverted for a guy fronting a dance band. That unlikely fit is a big part of what makes Hot Chip interesting, they’ve certainly cornered the market on making dance music by and for sensitive nerds rather than the sort of sexy extroverted people that a lot of dance music is implicitly for. “Down” contrasts Taylor’s voice with a much bolder vocal sample from an obscure Universal Togetherness Band funk track that was reissued by the Numero Group a while back. That vocal is hot and passionate – “you sure know how to break it all down!” – and it provides a hook and something for Taylor to react against. He’s basically taking the common trope of “working it” and pushing it to a self-aware extreme, of being willfully run ragged by a demanding partner. But it’s no complaint. This is a very subby song, and he’s absolutely loving it.

Buy it from Amazon.

5/10/22

All The Brightest Sunbeams

Belle & Sebastian “Working Boy in New York City”

I’ve been fascinated with how Stuart Murdoch integrates Christianity into his lyrics for a long time now, particularly as he’s become emboldened to do this quite overtly as his career progresses. Murdoch’s version of Christianity focuses on the most kind-hearted and optimistic elements of the faith and jettisons pretty much everything else, mostly just extrapolating the good ideas into the praxis of being a decent and empathetic person in the world. “Working Boy in New York City” is a great example of this. This is a light and groovy number in which Murdoch addresses a gay guy who hasn’t been open about his sexuality with some people and basically offers generous words of support and affirmation. It’s a sweet little pep talk of a song with a chorus that zooms out from this particular person’s issues to speak to a wider audience – “everybody gets an even shot at making heaven, wide is the gate.” It’s such a sweet sentiment for a song, and all the more so given that it’s set to one of Murdoch’s prettiest melodies in years.

Buy it from Bandcamp.

5/6/22

Gotta Disconnect Myself

Cuco “Caution”

Most of Cuco’s vocal parts in “Caution” are very sing-song in that very ambiguous genre-agnostic Gen Z way where there’s some familiar elements of rap, R&B, indie rock, and latin pop but it’s not really any of those things. Those parts of the song express exactly the sort of sentiments you’d expect of this sort of thing – he’s neurotic about a relationship and battling his issues, and just trying to play it cool. The song would be very good if it just stuck to this part, but then it goes sublime with this gorgeous wordless harmonized vocal refrain that’s punctuated by blunt rhythmic utterances of “hold up” and “stop.” That last bit adds a bit of friction but doesn’t really get in the way of the raw beauty of that vocal part, which brings a blissful grace to a song that would otherwise be lost in an angsty spiral.

Buy it from Amazon.

5/5/22

The Only Pair Of Hands

Sorry “There’s So Many People That Want To Be Loved”

This sweet little song is a bit of curveball from Sorry, a band that up to this point has been on the icy and unsentimental side. But that inclination is part of what makes this vulnerable and open-hearted song about wanting to love and be loved so poignant. Asha Lorenz sounds reluctant to be saying any of this, and in the first verse she’s grounding the sentiment in a situation where she’s annoyed with the person she’s addressing. Once the song gets going she focuses her attention on what matters – a genuine empathy for all the lonely people in the world, but especially for the ones who are truly open to love. She feels like she is, but you get the sense she knows she can be self-sabotaging and is trying to stop herself from being that way. The core feeling here isn’t love, it’s frustration – in getting in your own way, of how difficult it can be to find something so simple and good, and in knowing that so many of these people who want to be loved are not going to get what they want or what they need.

Buy it from Bandcamp.

5/3/22

You Can Still Be A Star

Miranda Lambert featuring The B-52’s “Music City Queen”

Miranda Lambert is a genius and force for good in this world because she wrote this song, had the somewhat improbable but totally correct thought “this could use some Fred Schneider,” and then actually got The B-52’s in the studio to make it happen. “Music City Queen” is a sunny, campy country rock tune in tribute to “flashy and trashy” nobodies living it up in spite of not making it in proper show biz. Lambert, an arena-filling star for nearly two decades, isn’t condescending here though she is funny – if anything she sounds jealous of all the no-frills fun and absolute shamelessness. The song doesn’t sound like The B-52’s but the band’s three vocalists are so perfectly suited to the sentiment and feel of it. Cindy Wilson and Kate Pierson add their signature sugary harmonies spiked with a little attitude, while Schneider does some ad-libs and call-and-response with Lambert that makes him seem like a beloved eccentric bar regular in the context of the song. Can they get John Waters to make a video for this and really complete the bit?

Buy it from Amazon.

4/30/22

Shrimp City Beach 1993

Viagra Boys “Ain’t No Thief”

The lyrical conceit of “Ain’t No Thief” is that Sebastian Murphy is a guy getting accused of stealing someone’s stuff, but it’s just a coincidence of owning the same things. But Murphy plays it as comedy by making the supposedly stolen items extremely specific and his explanations totally absurd, so he ends up sounding like a flagrant liar. But given the sheer force of the music, Murphy’s raw charisma, and the boldness of his claims, you end up siding with him. It’s just like, if this guy is this clever and shameless, maybe he earned this weird commemorative lighter? It’s like the fun version of gaslighting.

Buy it from Viagra Boys.

4/29/22

At Every Single Possible Angle

Faye Webster “Kind Of (Type of Way)”

The previous two released arrangements of “Kind Of” play the song as a low key country song, but this orchestral version has a melodramatic old Hollywood sensibility that is well suited to the delicately fluttering melody in the bridge and chorus. Faye Webster keeps her vocal phrasing mostly the same rather than going big, keeping to her sweet spot of casual, somewhat self-effacing vulnerability. This particular song really demands that approach to – she’s singing about falling in love with someone and having that stir up anxieties and emotional impulses that make you feel like someone else. There’s an unrestrained neediness in this song, a powerful tug towards codependence that she’s reasonably wary of, but she’s also not afraid of giving in to it.

Buy it from Bandcamp.

4/28/22

Backwards And Forward With You

Blunt Chunks “BWFW”

You can feel the big fuzz alt-rock chorus coming in the first verse of “BWFW,” and not just in terms of genre convention expectations. The song starts pretty clean, like it could definitely go in some other musical direction, but there’s just this menacing thing looming in the background that finally makes its way to the foreground to crush everything in sight. Caitlin Woelfle-O’Brien is singing about having a bad time with someone she’s barely even in a relationship with, and while the lyrics are addressed to someone else it’s pretty clear that they’re not listening and wouldn’t care. That tension really works for the song, where it seems like the real point is her realizing she’s stuck in a dead end.

Buy it from Bandcamp.

4/28/22

Astral Thoughts

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard “Kepler-22b”

Michael Cavanagh drums on “Kepler-22b” like a man extremely eager to get sampled. He’s dialed into tight pocket groove but he sounds relaxed, so the beat never feels stiff and the fills just tumble out with ease. You’ve definitely heard versions of this beat before and the familiarity is part of the charm here – there’s something so satisfying about the way Cavanagh hits the marks, like an itch getting scratch. It’s possible that the rest of the music was written before the drums were worked but it sounds very much like the King Gizzard crew are following the rhythm’s lead into jazz/R&B territory. It’s still in their spacey comfort zone and that’s actually literal when it comes to the lyrics, in which Stu Mackenzie sings about a kid obsessed with a distant planet that’s theoretically capable of sustaining human life.

Buy it from Bandcamp.

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