Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Kate Bollinger “A Couple Things”

The music of “A Couple Things” is so loose, smooth, and assured that it’s a little surprising the lyrics are so anxious and obsessed with making mistakes. Kate Bollinger’s voice conveys some vulnerability, but even that seems measured, like she’s answering the concerns of her past self with a display of casual “let it be” chill. It’s not a “nothing matters” sort of chill – there is a noticeable melancholy to her guitar parts – but more a relaxation that comes with perspective on how much anything matters when you’re not focused on the dread and insecurity that goes along with uncertainty and inexperience.

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Knxwledge “amansloveislife_keepon”

Knxwledge has an incredible ear for small moments in songs that can stand up to repetition, and take on a very different character when shaped into an indefinite loop. This cut is essentially a remix of the Patrice Rushen song “Remind Me” that zeroes in on its core keyboard riff and jettisons its traditional song structure in favor of an extended vamp that feels weightless as most of the percussion is emptied out. The bits of beat that remain imply a groove more than they form one, especially with the snare hit that feels more like an accent at the end of the chord sequence rather than like something keeping time. Rushen’s voice is still there, but chopped up so it sounds like she’s just expressing a gratitude for this incredibly smooth groove.

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Bec Plexus “Busy Making Steps”

“Busy Making Steps” seems to convulse in harsh, jagged zigzag motions, like the music is having an allergic response to the song’s candid and angst-ridden lyrics. Bec Plexus’ vocal performance is the most straight forward part of the song – theatrical and arch, but within the boundaries of mainstream pop. She drops key words from her lyrics, in many cases removing the word “I” where the word is implied by context, which is a fairly subtle way of establishing a fractured perspective and alienation from the self. But the song isn’t about gazing into the abyss so much as trying to pull oneself out, and the middle section of the piece in particular comes across like a self-directed pep talk. There’s no suggestion of steady ground in this music, and even the most direct, emphatic, and seemingly triumphant line in the song – “I wanna make a statement but don’t know what kind of statement!” – is an expression of indecision and uncertainty.

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Cleo Sol “When I’m In Your Arms”

Cleo Sol made her new record with the producer Inflo, who also produced the two Sault albums from last year. There’s a very similar aesthetic to this music – classic soul rendered with warm, foregrounded bass and ample negative space that highlights the precision of all other instruments in the mix. “When I’m In Your Arms” is gorgeous stuff – that lead part that sounds like backmasked guitar, the tastefully deployed harp, the gentle percussion accents, that swelling string arrangement that seems to drop out entirely like there’s an on/off switch for the orchestra. Sol’s vocal performance is sultry but understated like classic Sade, and delivers lyrics about a tormented relationship with thoughtful nuance. Every aspect of this recording is done with so much care, and it’s all in the service of highlighting the emotional complexity of the dynamic between these two people.

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Alexandra Savior “Bad Disease”

Alexandra Savior belongs to a long tradition of torch singers, but the sound and lyrical concerns of “Bad Disease” place her in the overlap of a Venn diagram of Portishead and Lana Del Rey. I know it can read like a backhanded compliment to say an artist sounds like two others, but in this case I think you’d agree that it’s both accurate and high praise. Savior’s composition hinges on a slowly crawling bass line that’s both sexy and spooky, and filled out with an understated but potent level of atmosphere on the treble end – just enough to feel cinematic, but not melodramatic. Her vocal pulls off a similar balancing act, with enough pathos in her phrasing so the campiness of her affect doesn’t fully overtake the song. But oh, the camp of it all really is a selling point, particularly as her lyrics describe a sexy but poisonous man in details that make him sound like Nosferatu with a neck tattoo and a leather jacket.

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Orion Sun “Lightning”

“Lightning” is built around a one chord drone that blinks on and off in slow motion so it feels like falling into a meditative trance but then snapping out of it when you become aware of the trance. Tiffany Majette sings with emotive, soulful inflections but keeps with the drowsy and dreamy tone of the music enough that her lyrics come across like the thoughts of someone who’s half asleep and drawing deep connections between memories, imagination, and emotions. My favorite line here is the aside near the start where she reflects on how the house she used to live in is now “just a property building winning tenants.” The wistfulness and low-key resentment in that line grounds everything else she sings, which moves more towards broader feelings about a disappointing relationship, so even a line as common as “I thought that love lasts forever” feels much more specific.

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Pokus “Pokus Two”

The best way I can describe Pokus aesthetic is that it’s like if the rhythm section of Fugazi was playing with a keyboard player who sometimes sounded a bit like Sun Ra when he was messing around synthesizers and overdriven electric organs in the late ’70s and other times was more along the lines of late ’90s IDM-aligned electronic music. It’s an extremely cool sound, and the band does enough with it to hold attention through a six track suite. The recording has a good live feel to it – there’s a firm structure to the bass, but it sounds like the keyboard parts are at least somewhat improvised in the moment and you can feel the chemistry between the three players.

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Theophilus London “Marchin'”

Theophilus London’s new record is filled with impressive guest spots – two tracks with Tame Impala, features from Raekwon, Dev Hynes, Lil Yachty, and Ariel Pink – and on each of those collaborations the singer adopts their distinctive aesthetics and essentially sounds like he’s the guest. “Marchin’,” one of the few songs on the album that has no features is also the best by far, and allows London to be fully at the center of a joyful calypso/dancehall number about love and devotion. It’s a bit like when an actor is cast well but slightly against as a romantic lead – everything sweet and warm and likable about them is centered, and their little peculiarities ground the fantasy they’re providing of idealized romance.

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Fiona Apple “Ladies”

The big frustrating thing about loving Fiona Apple’s music is that she takes so long between records, but the immediately apparent thing about her new album Fetch the Bolt Cutters is that these particular songs simply couldn’t exist as they do without all that time for reflection and emotional processing. Whereas most of her old songs seemed like documents of raw emotions in the moment, the new songs are written with the perspective of memoir. But this isn’t self-mythologizing – she’s writing about her life with a critical eye, and in reflecting on the past she allows herself to shake off some of the burden of its weight on her psyche. The title phrase is her metaphor for cutting your way out of a trap you’ve made for yourself, and she’s singing this all as a woman who’s already made it out.

I love the way the record is sequenced in thematic clusters, and how an idea set up in one song is expanded on from another angle in the one right after it. My favorite example of this is in the “Newspaper”/”Ladies” diptych at the center of the album, in which Apple considers the social obstacles placed between women who’ve been romantically involved with the same men. “Newspaper” approaches this with suspicion and anger – “I wonder what lies he’s telling you about me to make sure that we’ll never be friends” – as well as an admission of envy and obsession. Like a lot of the songs on the album, it’s in some way her noting in retrospect how she fell into a trap and making a note of it for future use, as though she’s an emotional cartographer letting us all know where to expect treacherous terrain. That song is fraught and tense, but it’s resolved somewhat by “Ladies,” which considers this dilemma with a looser sound, a more relaxed state of mind, and a lyrical emphasis on empathy and generosity. She still finds herself cut off from these seemingly great women she wishes she could know firsthand, but she at least has shed the angst and jealousy.

There’s a lot of levity in the verses of “Ladies,” and lots of vivid images and details that she sings with delightfully off-kilter rhythms and cadences. Apple, as always, is a genius of phrasing with a very distinctive style, and as deliberate as she is in writing these meticulous lyrics and melodies, it all rolls out so fluidly that it feels more intuitive and improvisational. The refrain in which she calls herself a “fruit bat” in a sweet melody at the top of her vocal range is an unexpected contrast that further lightens the mood of the song, but that moves straight into a more solemn bridge where she arrives the song’s magnanimous conclusion: “Nobody can replace anybody else, so it would be a shame to make it a competition / And no love is like any other love, so it would be insane to make a comparison with you.” It’s basically the moral of the story, and she makes a point of singing it plainly and with direct language. But as much as she believes this very reasonable thought, the song doesn’t stop at this realization and honors the feeling rather than just “solving” it. The ending circles back to the premise of both “Newspaper” and this song, as she simply repeats the phrase “yet another woman to whom I won’t get through” with a steadily deepening degree of disappointment.

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Car Seat Headrest “Hollywood”

“Hollywood” is blunt and bratty in a way Car Seat Headrest haven’t been before, it’s like Sum 41/Blink-182 energy filtered through Will Toledo’s usual dry deadpan tone and indie rock aesthetics. The song is a duet with drummer Andrew Katz, who delivers his parts with a borderline obnoxious punk shout that is in deliberate sharp contrast with Toledo’s low-key cool guy monotone. The lyrics of the song play off this contrast in different directions – in some cases, Toledo is the chill introverted guy forced to respond to the attention-seeking extrovert Katz, and in others Toledo plays the cold, detached realist puncturing Katz’s delusional dreams of fame and success. It’s the id/ego dynamic of classic Sleater-Kinney blasted out to an extreme, and it comes out feeling like two guys suffering different forms of poisoning from the same source.

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Twice “Sweet Talker”

When I write about songs sung in languages I cannot understand I generally try to find an English translation. This is helpful in getting the idea of the song, but it can do a weird thing in my brain where my understanding of the song is at a remove from my experience of it – in this case, it’s also in knowing the translation has some really interesting phrases but not being sure if it’s accurate. “They say I’ve been tricked because I’m stupidly good-hearted” naturally goes along with the title, which is sung in English, but I like the implication that being “good-hearted” is linked with stupidity, and how that makes the overwhelming sugary tone of the song seem a bit hectoring. Later in the song she sings something to the effect of “I feel like I’m the protagonist in a movie,” and I like the way that reinforces the notion that the “Sweet Talker” is a straight-up villain. There’s a real teen emotional logic to this song, where a relatively minor drama is blown out in scale, and results in an extreme shift from naiveté to cynicism.

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Hamilton Leithauser “The Garbage Men”

“The Garbage Men” has a sort of shabby grandeur to it, particularly in the contrast of the unrestrained clattering percussion and a sampled horn loop that’s like a very rough approximation of a sentimental string arrangement from an old Hollywood film. It sounds like a guy stumbling around drunk through a big melodramatic moment, and maybe it’s only melodramatic in his own mind. Hamilton Leithauser’s voice is perfect for this vibe, especially when he really leans into his yowl, and his lyrics sketch out the perspective of a guy who’s down on his luck but wisely sticks to evocative details over laying out a specific plot. The main thing here is just understanding his feeling – unwilling to surrender too much pride, resentful of the haves, and fearing he’s on the edge of fully becoming a have-not.

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The Strokes “The Adults Are Talking”

The Strokes is the type of act where the aesthetic premise is always the same – electronic music but played with rock instruments as rock songs – but the approach and execution changes. The interesting thing about their new record The New Abnormal is how that high concept, which was fairly subtle at the start of their career, has become foregrounded to the point where some of the songs just sound like techno without rock and roll obfuscation. “The Adults Are Talking” doesn’t go quite that far, but the precise click of the percussion and clacking of the trebly guitar notes is exaggeratedly robotic, even for them. The more notable shift in this song is in Julian Casablancas’ vocal, which sound remarkably relaxed and smooth for a guy who sounds somewhat distressed most of the time. The more subtle and seductive tone suits him well, particularly in a song that simmers rather than burns.

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Laura Marling “Strange Girl”

Laura Marling sings with tone that suggests total clarity of mind, as though it would be a waste of her time to write from a perspective of uncertainty. “Strange Girl” is a character sketch of a young woman struggling to get by in a harsh economy that’s rigged against her, and while Marling conveys a lot of warmth and affection for her, she avoids romanticizing her or indulging her vanities. “Please don’t bullshit me,” she sings at the end of the third verse, her voice shifting from soft to blunt to emphasize the “shit” syllable. She’s not trying to call her out, but rather just get across that she doesn’t need to work so hard to get her empathy. The song is easy going and loose, and subtle in its graces – the structure is pretty straight forward and doesn’t offer much flair until near the end where she offers two different lovely bridges in a row before falling back into the chorus.

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Hayley Williams “Roses/Lotus/Violet/Iris”

The first time I heard this song I had no idea who it was by, and was legitimately shocked to discover it was the singer of Paramore, a band I’ve never had any affection for in either their emo phase or their pivot to boppy pop a few years ago. Whereas the songs Williams recorded with that band tended towards sledgehammer dynamics and guitar/keyboard tones I can only describe as “overwhelmingly corporate,” this new single has a more delicate feel and a very “120 Minutes” atmosphere. I hear traces of Siouxsie, Throwing Muses, The Cure, and early Björk in this, but also a lot of Radiohead circa In Rainbows. The shift in aesthetic suits Williams well, and the more pensive tone and loose groove give space for greater lyrical nuance and subtle harmonies with the members of Boygenius, who guest on the track. I’m particularly fond of the way all four singers hit the fourth utterance of “roses” or “lotus” in the chorus, with the unusual emphasis making the melody pop out more than it would otherwise.

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Kamilita “Can U”

The last time I wrote about this artist she was a mysterious and extremely prolific Bandcamp artist called Zizi Raimondi, but sometime recently she eliminated all her Bandcamp presence and rebranded as Kamilita. She’s still prolific, has put a lot of energy into her visual aesthetic on Instagram and YouTube, and is somehow even more mysterious now. “Can U” is one of her best experiments with dance music to date – she gives you a good thumping beat, but surrounds it with a dizzying array of vocal and keyboard harmonies that seem to spin out of it in circles around the downbeat like a spider web. The lyrics take a sort of banal phrase – “can you get into the zone?” – and nudges it towards a philosophical abstraction. Like, what IS the zone, man? How can you truly get IN it? Why is she in the zone, but I am not? When her voice shifts towards angelic high notes similar to peak Alison Goldfrapp, it’s just far too pretty and graceful not to feel sort of profound.

Follow Kamilita on YouTube and Instagram.

Locate S,1 “After the Final Rose”

The first time I heard this song was the first time I saw Christina Schneider and Locate S,1 perform live last year, when they were opening for Of Montreal at the Bell House. I was immediately blown away by the verse melody – “women in love, women in airplanes first class” – and went back through Schneider’s catalog desperate to find the song. When she started releasing singles for her new record Personalia, I was frustrated because as fantastic as those songs were, they were not this one. But finally, here it is: “After the Final Rose.”

The melodic part that stuck with me for months is still the highlight of the song for me, but I’m fascinated by how it fits into the overall composition. “After the Final Rose” feels woozy and off-kilter, and as she does in a lot of her songs, Schneider’s melodies connect at odd tangents and flow in unusual, seemingly asymmetrical meters. It’s still basically a pop song with pleasing melodies, but it’s deliberately disorienting. Her voice is calm and vaguely authoritative as she sings lyrics that satirize the reality sow The Bachelor what she’s called “corporate feminism and its lethal effects on romance.” Her vocal tone is perfect for this level of irony – she sounds distant and unemotional, but there’s just enough camp in her phrasing to convey her intent and low-key contempt for the show’s perversion of things she holds dear.

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Jeremiah Lloyd Harmon “Sweet June Nectar”

“Sweet June Nectar” has an an arrangement that offers a steady drip of pleasant surprises, from when it shifts from a blue-eyed soul piano ballad into a more Burt Bacharach-ish space, or when it moves from cinematic strings to an extended scorcher of a guitar solo by Jeff Parker over the extended outro. It’s remarkable how seamlessly this song moves between a casual intimate feel and a more dramatic and epic sense of scale, and how this happens without losing the thread of gentle soulfulness in the vocal performance. I hear a lot of Jeff Buckley in Jeremiah Lloyd Harmon’s voice, in both his tone and phrasing. The white boy soul thing comes very naturally to him, but he doesn’t overdo it. As with everything in this song, the dynamics are perfectly modulated.

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Dua Lipa “Pretty Please”

When I listen to Dua Lipa’s new record I think about how many people are out there are hanging on to this joyful, bass-heavy disco pop record as a lifeline in a very bleak time. I imagine all the people dancing to this album by themselves, fantasizing about dancing to the songs with other people at parties and clubs and live performances. Then I think about what it’s going to be like when people finally get that opportunity, and the way delayed gratification can heighten experiences. Imagining this catharsis feels sort of cathartic in and of itself, because it forces you to feel optimistic and look forward to something in the future rather than dreading it all.

“Pretty Please” is produced by Ian Kirkpatrick, who previously worked with Lipa on her smash hits “New Rules” and “Don’t Start Now,” plus career highlights by Selena Gomez, Jason Derulo, and frequent co-writer Julia Michaels. Kirkpatrick and Michaels co-wrote this one with Lipa and Caroline Ailin, and it’s a perfect synthesis of their respective aesthetics – sleek, bass-forward, a brisk but vaguely nervous beat, and Michael’s distinctive style of lightly syncopated topline melody. As with Michaels and Kirkpatrick’s previous collaboration on Gomez’s brilliant 2016 single “Bad Liar,” the music sets up a horny/anxious tone that the lyrics follow through on. Lipa’s singing about her inability to play it cool with someone she’s started dating that she’s extremely into, and deciding “fuck it, may as well just be transparent.” The clever move here is that the song doesn’t quite land on that resolution – it starts its story in medias res, and keeps you fully in the moment of her epiphany.

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Sorry “Right Round the Clock”

Sorry have a similar vocal and musical dynamic as The XX, but whereas that band always conveys an aching romanticism in their crisp minimalism, this group communicates raw feelings bent out of shape by cynicism and complications in their jagged, deliberately clunky minimalism. (I hear echoes of Tom Waits and Micachu in their more broken-sounding arrangements.) “Right Round the Clock” sounds like what would normally be a sexy, strutting song tilted at a strange angle, and the vocal interplay between Asha Lorenz and Louis O’Bryen is deadpan but not so much so that it comes off as a joke. They’re singing about celebrity with a mix of lust and self-loathing – one falls in love with the idea of a mysterious beautiful woman, the other fantasizes about living out her reality. They know it’s hollow and fake, but they can’t help but be seduced by the notion. The best part of the song comes when they swap out the first chorus for another that interpolates Tears for Fears’ maudlin classic “Mad World” with ironic new lyrics: “The dreams in which we’re famous are the best I’ve ever had.”

Buy it from Bandcamp.