Author Archive

Spoon “The Hardest Cut”

“The Hardest Cut” has the aesthetics you’d expect from Spoon – the tight rhythms, the stylized but controlled chaos, Britt Daniel’s distinctive rasp – but it’s at the service of a brawnier type of rock than they usually play, a little closer to something like Queens of the Stone Age or The Black Keys. The synthesis works out well, particularly as it’s ultimately just a different type of blunt minimalism to run through the filters of their style and taste. The bluesy central riff is so taut it sounds like it could be used as a garrote, and Alex Fischel’s parts on the refrains are all blunt force rendered in the mix to sound like the distorted chords are punching out through the speakers. This is probably the most commercial and straight forward rock song they’ve done but the relative normalcy of the composition is a perfect vehicle for proving out their aesthetic concerns – this sort of song is usually produced with a certain flatness, but in their hands it’s so consistently dynamic that the studio image feels like 3D.

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St. Panther “Problems”

Daniela Bojorges-Giraldo is responsible for making and engineering every sound on this recording so it’s hard to single out what to praise her for – the low-key loveliness of her melodies, the warmth and presence she captures in her engineering, the elegant restraint of how she plays bass, the crispness of her drumming, the sweet rasp of her voice? “Problems” is a sophisticated song with a clear and direct feeling that’s more urgent than the formal elements that make it go down so smooth. Bojorges-Giraldo sounds incredibly frustrated here, almost resentful of having a love that she can’t bring herself to honor with clear communication. She can’t quite articulate what’s going on to herself or the other person, but it’s clear enough it’s all self-destructive.

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Crystal Murray “Too Much to Taste”

“Too Much to Taste” is so exuberantly horny that Crystal Murray actually just sings the phrase “I’m horny” mid-song because hey, why bother being coy about it? There’s no shame in this music, just huge flirty vibes and ecstatic R&B melodies grafted on to sleek electro pop. There’s no friction to the groove, but there is some tension in the lyrics and Murray’s vocal in the form of a mild angst about being so overcome with lust that you’re giving over too much of yourself. The thrill of the song is that it’s not too hung up on that thought – if anything, it sounds like Murray is just daring herself to take this even further.

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Animal Collective “Prester John”

The most striking sound in “Prester John” is the element of it that sounds the least like Animal Collective as we’ve known them for the past 20 years – a central keyboard riff that’s crisp, clean, and traditionally groovy. It’s one of the most normal sounds I can remember showing up on any of their records but it ends up feeling like the weirdest part of a song that’s otherwise working with very classic Animal Collective approaches to musical textures, ambiance, and vocal harmonies. The vocal parts – mainly sung by Panda Bear – are lovely in a way that feels very casual and lived-in, which I suppose is a result of this song having been mutating through various live incarnations over the past few years. Revision through live iteration has been a big part of the group’s process all along but at this stage where the final studio rendition can feel confident and organic rather than tight and overworked, which I think happened on a lot of their last two proper Animal Collective albums. With this they’ve circled back to the earnest loveliness of the Merriweather Post Pavilion era but with far less reliance on the haziness of heavily processed sounds and extreme reverb.

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Lana Del Rey featuring Miles Kane “Dealer”

The surprising thing about “Dealer” isn’t so much that it’s groovy bass and warm organ drones are a musical outlier in the context of Lana Del Rey’s new record Blue Bannisters or that guest vocalist Miles Kane takes up so much space in the song that it seems like she’s the featured singer on the track and not vice versa. The “wait, what?” moment comes when she sings the line “I can’t liiiiiiiiiiive” in a bold, unrestrained voice that’s far removed from the aloof chanteuse shtick she’s been working for over a decade. The line and its delivery is a homage to Harry Nilsson’s “Without You,” but it’s more of a referential gesture than a full interpolation – she inhabits that naked need for just a few seconds before shaking it off and getting back to chewing out a junkie boyfriend who’s wasted her affections and betrayed her one too many times. She reverts to coy form after this moment, but that little glimpse of a more full-voiced and emotive Del Rey changes how everything else lands, including Kane’s performance. Even with a touch of irony in that big emotional moment it establishes different stakes – anger often gets diffused in self-loathing in Del Rey’s music but here’s it’s very clearly directed outwards.

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Bonobo “Rosewood”

The first two thirds of “Rosewood” are grounded in warm Fender Rhodes chords that repeat a simple lulling groove before shifting gears into a very chill sort of acid house finale. The intensity picks up and catharsis is provided but Bonobo never really moves the song out of a deliberately vague melancholy. The vocal samples convey regret and heartbreak but it’s all loosely sketched out, evoking a limbo state of being not quite outside the emotional blast radius of something that’s rattled you to the core. The trajectory of the song suggests a move towards momentary escape or moving on completely, but the arc is just not bending towards a full recovery.

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Guided by Voices “Dance of Gurus”

“Dance of Gurus” almost tricks you into thinking it’s a straight ahead rock song in the style of The Cars for the first 30 seconds or so before veering off into a more eccentric path that disrupts the expectations of pop structure while amping up the drama. Condensing the dynamic shifts of prog down into the tight minimalism of punk and new wave is a classic Bob Pollard move but it’s particularly effective here in that his lyrics about an epiphany brought on by a chance encounter with an unusually chipper homeless man click into the song so that his big ideas hit when the music suddenly accelerates. He’s playing around with ideas of societal expectations but when it comes down to it he’s essentially delivering a message of solidarity – winners, sinners, all arm in arm and collapsed in laughter.

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The Beatles “I’ve Got A Feeling” (Take 10)

The outtakes featured on the new “super deluxe” version of Let It Be are wonderfully loose and relaxed, a document of four dudes who’ve been playing together for years and know each other well enough to intuitively anticipate moves and effortlessly click together. They’re also close enough for that familiarity to breed a contempt that would end the band within a year, but you don’t really hear that on these tapes. These are just unadorned recordings of The Beatles performing with a casual confidence and playfulness that reminds me a lot of my favorite Pavement live recordings.

The most intriguing moments captured in these tapes are when they launch into impromptu rehearsals of songs like “Oh Darling” and “Something” that would be fleshed out into classics within a few months in the Abbey Road sessions. These are helpful glimpses into songwriting process and subtle band dynamics, but the more fun thing is hearing more tossed-off performances of Let It Be cuts like “Dig A Pony,” “Get Back,” and “I’ve Got A Feeling.” The latter is a total joy, particularly as the contrasting vocal parts by Paul McCartney and John Lennon give both men space to be a little silly with it. It’s just so nice to hear them have fun together, especially since this is the last time they’d do anything like a duet in their lives.

I’ve always been fond of their approximation of southern rock on “I’ve Got A Feeling” and I feel like it sounds a little better in this take with a slightly slower tempo and a bit more slack in the rhythm. The decision to tighten it up a bit for the final take makes sense but I think the spirit of the song is to be more off the cuff and informal. It’s not hard to imagine an alternate timeline in which this version of The Beatles hit the road and closed out sets with this one, extending it out into more of a jam.

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Common Saints “Fastlane”

The Eagles’ “Life in the Fast Lane” presents its characters as vapid horny assholes without any regard for anything besides satisfying their base urges, a lot of what makes the song work is that Don Henley sounds equally repulsed and impressed by them. Whereas that song examines this life from the outside, Common Saints’ “Fastlane” approaches it by getting into the mind of a self-destructive rogue and finding conflict and confusion where Henley would presume to find nothing but a void. “Fastlane” works within the template of Tame Impala-esque modern psychedelia but dials up the drama level so the whole song sounds like a car speeding through a cosmic tunnel towards some unseen but inevitable brick wall. And as the song zooms forwards, the lyrics pull deeper inward – down through despair, seeking an escape through zen self-acceptance.

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Sundur “My Dear”

“My Dear” opens Sundur’s excellent debut album full of music that exists largely in the spectrum of trip-hop with a jazzy, lightly psychedelic lullaby that sounds like Sarah Vaughan by way of Broadcast. The more conventional trip-hop and stoned R&B numbers on the record are quite good but this more delicate and jazz-oriented music is where Sundur thrive – producer DJ Platurn gets to use a more distinctive palette, and singer Savannah Lancaster can show off her range as well as her restraint. Her performance here is precise and controlled but also nakedly emotional as she sings about embracing apathy in a voice that makes it clear that she’s just too passionate and engaged to allow herself any kind of ignorant bliss. The music certainly does its best to lull you into a relaxed state though, particularly that lovely repeating keyboard motif that sounds like it’s made of moonlight.

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Silas Short “Drawing”

“Drawing” feels rich and luxurious as well as light and minimal, a trick pulled off largely because Silas Short has excellent instincts for handling negative space. I imagine the core arrangement – bass, guitar, drums, keyboards so sparingly used they’re nearly subliminal – as a loose circular frame around his voice and all the empty air around it. There’s a lot going on in the song but it all just sort of floats by, with parts coming into crisper focus here and there but never distracting from the overall feel and composition. Short sounds like he’s internalized a lot of D’Angelo’s best elements as a musician without necessarily trying to sound like him as a singer, so you get something that feels both very familiar and distinctive as his high and delicate voice moves towards melodic and rhythmic turns that owe more to the cadences of modern rappers like Lil Uzi Vert and Playboi Carti.

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Melkbelly “Prehistoric Worm”

“Prehistoric Worm” plays on the familiar dynamics of commercial ‘90s alt-rock but Melkbelly twist and tilt everything just enough to make the rumbling bass and feedback hums feel a bit queasy and imbalanced. Miranda Winters’ vocal melody – which she seems to sing through a grin like Kim Deal – is the most immediate pleasing element of the song but her words are vaguely sinister: “A vast expanse of land demands that we become more depressed.” Her lyrics on the chorus are just as enigmatic, and the sense that it’s hard to parse context or perspective here feels somewhat upsetting, like she’s seeing and understanding something we can’t and her hidden knowledge isn’t pleasant.

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Alessia Cara “Somebody Else”

It took me a little while to realize that “Somebody Else” sounded weirdly familiar because what I was recognizing was elements from an unexpected source – the melodies, chords, and stylishly immaculate production style is all very Phoenix. Whether this was intentional or not the aesthetic suits Alessia Cara’s voice well, flattering the clarity of her tone and allowing space for more nuanced phrasing to register without dropping the direct and assertive tone of a pop track. The crispness of the music is also an effective contrast with Cara’s ambivalent tone through the song as she ponders how someone she once loved could become such a stranger to her. There’s no clear cut feelings here, just a woman trying to make sense of dulled pains, vague regrets, and uncertainty of how much it really matters that something has been lost.

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Lauren O’Connell “Game of Pricks”

The raw material of “Game of Pricks” is so exquisite that only a truly inept musician could fuck it up. It’s a song that will make a mediocre artist sound better than they are, and while Robert Pollard’s core melody could be applied in many ways, there’s something elemental about it that makes it difficult to embellish. Lauren O’Connell, a singer-songwriter who has devoted a large chunk of her time to recording her interpretations of other artists’ songs on Bandcamp, manages to make “Game of Pricks” her own while being entirely faithful to the musicality of the original. O’Connell’s phrasing is crisp and simple, focused mainly on articulating the melody in a lovely tone while communicating a touch of shyness and vulnerability in her tone. Her arrangement replaces Guided by Voices’ garage rock aesthetics with a tidy minimalism – the guitar is hushed, there’s some light piano tinkling for atmosphere, and sparse electronic percussion moves along the dynamics but largely stays out of the way. The song is presented as this perfect immutable thing but O’Connell changes the feel and the gravity of it completely. This has the effect of shifting the perspective of the song – Pollard’s version is callous and caddish, but O’Connell zeroes in on the loneliness and self-destructive impulses at the heart of the song.

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Bnny “Promises”

“Promises” clocks in just under two minutes, which is exactly as much time as the song needs to shimmy and shake and project both a sexy atmosphere and a twitchy anxiety. Jess Viscius’ lyrics come from a place of uncertainty and ambivalence as she announces her disillusionment with a man in one breath and in the next admits to feeling seduced by him. Her vocal is breathy and sultry but also a little tough, conveying traces of anger and disappointment. As the song goes along that seems to be directed more inward though – she’s letting herself down, but as she sings “I haven’t been happy in years / so what’s a few more tears?”

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Muni Long “Just Beginning”

“Just Beginning” is a song about feeling betrayed and heartbroken because you’ve deduced through Instagram that your boyfriend is cheating on you and just introduced you to his sidechick thinking you’re none the wiser. It wouldn’t take much for this song to be extremely petty, but Muni Long’s vocal performance keeps the emphasis squarely on her disappointment and frustration. She’s just theatrical enough to make to make the more banal elements of this seem very dramatic in context, but there’s a rawness in her voice that sounds genuinely wounded and betrayed. The arrangement maintains a similar balance – the main piano part has the feel of an impromptu club performance, but the synth washes signal melodrama without getting too saccharine.

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Hatchie “This Enchanted”

I wish I could send this song back to around 1992 or so because I’d love to know what UK-oriented indie fans would make of this song that’s essentially merging girly chart pop, Madchester keyboard style, and shoegaze guitar. Would this seem like a bizarre and impossible future, or an artistic inevitability? I tend to think it’s the latter, that there’s no logical reason for these vibes to not click together and the way influence and flattened histories go it’s just natural that Hatchie and her collaborators would arrive at this simply by going with what they think sounds cool and fun.

And boy does it ever sound cool and fun – the particular aesthetic combination results in a boppy and hyper-romantic song that’s somewhat at odds with the more fraught relationship dynamics described by the verses. But the point of the song is the chorus – regardless of the messiness, she’s just overwhelmed by the more ecstatic emotions and raw attraction.

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Zilo & Austin Marc “Cherry Blossom”

“Cherry Blossom” is a rather pure expression of gratitude, with Zilo singing to someone whose love and support has changed her life for the better. The lyrics are direct and effusive in their praise, but the music and vocal performance are fairly low key. This sort of sentiment is very often paired with jubilant music, and there’s a logic in getting matchy-matchy with a euphoric tone. Zilo and producer Austin Marc dial it down and keep the emotional emphasis on warmth and intimacy, making the song feel like something sweet, gentle, and private. This has a nice effect of making Zilo’s more over-the-moon statements feel grounded and sincere, and not just some hyperbole.

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Anaiis “Ultraviolet, Counts”

The music in “Ultraviolet, Counts” seems to move gracefully through some resistance, like a trained swimmer moving against a tide. This suits the lyrical theme perfectly as Anaiis attempts to talk someone, anyone out of suicidal ideation by appealing to rational thought – you don’t know everything, positive outcomes are as possible as negative outcomes, rebirth comes along with “research.” Her phrasing conveys equal measures of empathy and tough love, a little judgmental (“martyrdom is for cowards”) but mostly compassionate and respectful of this person’s intelligence. The arrangement contrasts a staccato organ part with more subtle and fluid counterpoints in vocal harmony, bass, and horns that seem to ripple out and around the blunt impact of the beat. Everything in the song backs up the central feeling: direct and firm, but thoughtful and flexible.

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Vanishing Twin “Big Moonlight (Ookii Gekkou)”

There’s a lot of overlap in the aesthetics of Vanishing Twin and the late, great Broadcast – a certain 20th century futuristic style, a polite vocal style that signals intellectualism and introversion – but there’s a totally different sense of gravity to the music. “Big Moonlight” feels so light that parts of the arrangement seem to be floating away from the central bass line and jazzy beat. Every element in the song is crisp and clear but arranged in the stereo image in a way that feels a little uncanny, particularly when an organ part seems to teleport into the song about halfway through, a counterpart to the more distant chanted backup vocals. It’s not a jarring shift but it’s an unexpected texture that changes the atmosphere while keeping the song rooted in a dreamy sort of jazz.

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