Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Gerard Way “Getting Down the Germs”

Back when My Chemical Romance was a big deal in the mid-00s, I wouldn’t have thought that Gerard Way and I grew up on a lot of the same stuff. For example, he loved Grant Morrison’s Doom Patrol so much that he went on to revive the series as a writer at DC Comics, and he clearly was into the weirder end of mainstream alt-rock enough that he’s moved away from melodramatic emo to embrace that aesthetic in his solo material. He could be out there raking in MCR reunion cash, but instead he’s out there doing his best to bring back ‘90s weirdo vibes. “Getting Down the Germs” is a highly tuneful single with an extremely ‘90s chord progression contrasted with a flute solo that seems to come in out of nowhere but manages to feel just right. His voice is very laid back on this song compared to his often hysterical MCR performances, but I definitely prefer him in this surreal, vaguely sinister mode.

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Ari Lennox “No One”

“No One” addresses a very particular 21st century form of loneliness – looking at your phone and wondering why out of 251 contacts, not one of them wants to reach out to you. From the perspective of a depressed extrovert, that can seem like 251 people collectively deciding to reject you when you’re in need. But this isn’t really about 251 people, it’s about just one of them. Ari Lennox sings around that point – she’s trying to distract herself, to vent her frustrations to friends who don’t seem to care, but no matter what she does her thoughts circle back to the one person whose attention she craves the most. Near the end of the song she tries to talk herself into moving on from this fixation, but I don’t believe her. The sound of her voice lacks conviction, and it’s the same bitter melancholy in her tone throughout the song never goes away. If anything, it just gets more intense.

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Mariah Carey “A No No”

Mariah Carey’s new record is stronger and more focused than anything she’s done in a while, largely because she seems like she’s lost interest in chasing trends and just wants to do Mariah Carey Things. “A No No” is the most fun she’s been in ages – energetic, sassy, and utterly ruthless in the way she drags her former manager for the crime of being dumb enough to cross Mariah fucking Carey. She sounds absolutely delighted to spend an entire song being extremely petty, and really chews on catty lines like “Ed Scissorhands, AKA, I cut you off” and “Parlez-vous Francais? I said non / let me translate it, I said NO.” The winding curve of the melody and syncopated beat flatters Carey’s vocal phrasing without having to show off her fading but still highly impressive voice. Even the seemingly random insertion of an old Biggie hook from a Lil Kim song works here – it’s a bit like something she might have had on a “Favorite Disses” vision board and just decided to throw into the song.

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Vince Staples “Don’t Get Chipped”

Vince Staples has spent a lot of his career to date being very fashion-forward and adventurous in his selection of beats and production, but his new record narrows his focus to a contemporary spin on classic Los Angeles rap sounds – Dr. Dre aesthetics filtered through trap, basically. I prefer his more up-tempo EDM-ish work for the most part, but it works very well on FM, particularly in that the lyrics are so rooted in Long Beach that the music serves as a necessary backdrop. It sounds familiar and strange, like visiting a place you used to know that’s changed a lot since you’ve been gone. A feeling of alienation permeates this music, from Staples’ bugged-out tone on down the to jittery drum programming.

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Boygenius “Salt in the Wound”

There’s three singers in Boygenius, and all three are fairly successful singer-songwriters on their own, but the one who intrigues me the most is Lucy Dacus. She’s exceptionally good at conveying the disappointed feelings of a pessimist, and in writing lyrics that sound like the sort of carefully edited complaints of someone who has been having an argument with someone in their head so many times over that it’s been pared their words down to something refined and incredibly sharp. Something in her voice evokes the bright headache-inducing bright grey of overcast skies. “Salt in the Wound,” a breakup song that starts off uncertain but builds to a loud, overtly emotional climax, is a perfect vehicle for her voice. Even still, the presence of Phoebe Bridgers and Julien Baker is crucial – they enter as the song progresses, and seem like they’ve arrived to show Dacus support while she’s down. That solidarity makes the song feel all the more cathartic – they’re helping her through a mess, and they’re all stronger for it in the end.

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Action Bronson “Prince Charming”

It always feels like damning Action Bronson with faint praise when you point out the obvious thing – that he sounds amazingly similar to Ghostface Killah – but like, let’s be real, sounding like Ghostface Killah is an INCREDIBLE ACHIEVEMENT. And given that Ghostface is much less prolific these days, a song like “Prince Charming” feels like a welcome taste of a flavor that’s largely missing from rap now. Bronson’s Ghostface style extends to his choice of beats, and this Knxledge production has that perfect warm, woozy soul haze vibe that Ghost favored circa The Pretty Toney Album and Fishscale. Anyway, if you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with who sounds like the one you love.

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Pistol Annies “Got My Name Changed Back”

Miranda Lambert has always been at her best when she’s salty and spiteful, so it’s hardly a shock that she shines very bright on a bitter divorce song like this. She sings about the formalities of going back to her maiden name with a dark sort of glee – clearly very excited about moving on, but also quite aggrieved that she’s had to move on from anything at all. But still, if there’s even a trace of love in this song, I can’t discern it. This is a song for someone who’s truly come to despise someone they used to want to spend their life with, and while it’s all very fun, it’s a mean sort of fun meant to blunt out the pain.

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H.E.R. “Can’t Help Me”

Gabi Wilson sings “Can’t Help Me” with a cautious tone, delivering lines addressed to a partner in a fracturing relationship with the knowledge that her feelings have to be filtered through careful diplomacy. The music, mostly just a thin line of melody plucked out on an acoustic guitar, feels just as gentle and careful. The song is technically sort of chill, but that’s just the surface – you don’t even need to listen too closely to feel the tension in the background of it all. This sort of song could easily be much angrier, or more defensive, or just flat-out mopey, but Wilson opts for a refreshing maturity. She’s obviously too full of love here to get petty.

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Deerhunter “Death In Midsummer”

“Death In Midsummer” has an unusually crisp sound for Deerhunter, a band more accustomed to an artful soft-focus aesthetic. A lot of this comes down to the way the verses are guided by a taut rhythm and the clean, trebly tone of the harpsichord. The song moves along for nearly three minutes before shifting into a cathartic guitar solo section that sounds like Bradford Cox doing what he can to channel the sci-fi tones of Robert Fripp. It’s a very graceful and confident piece of music, and it moves the band into a more elegant aesthetic while retaining all of the most essential elements of their sound going back to the harsher, more goth tones of Cryptograms and Microcastle. The pace of Cox’s work has slowed down drastically over the years – this new album comes four years after the last one, and this is a guy who put out five full-length albums and an EP in the space of 2008 and 2009 – but if his art is becoming more carefully composed and refined, that’s a fair trade off.

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Ian Sweet “Question It”

It’s hard to get a sense of what the feeling of “Question It” is, exactly, but I think that’s probably the point. Jilian Medford’s voice seems a bit timid and uncertain, and while the structure is a straight-ahead verse/chorus/verse, her guitar parts seem to slink around and coil up in a way that makes the song feel a lot more windy and meandering than it actually is. Medford’s lyrics follow a similar path, laying out a pensive and self-conscious scenario at the start, but shifting into a chorus that sounds like a kinder, more rational part of her talking herself out of anxiety and shame. It’s quite sweet: “Every pair of scissors cuts a different shape.”

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PC Worship “Shell Shower”

“Shell Shower” is a direct descendant of Neu!’s “Hallogallo,” the blueprint for all arty rock music that seems to be steadily zooming towards some unknown horizon. Justin Frye isn’t breaking much ground here, but that’s not a big concern since it’s really just about the ride. Frye’s buzzy guitar tones add some friction and texture to the groove, and I like the way the blaring loudness feels a bit like turning the music up a bit too high in the car to compensate for the sound of the air rushing into the windows. It’s a very recognizable sensation.

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Julia Holter “Whether”

“Whether” feels unstable and frantic from the start, with a staccato organ that could pass for a clock alarm, and a beat that feels like it’s always tumbling apart. But within that, Julia Holter sounds remarkably peaceful and focused. Her lyrics are observational, almost journalistic in tone, as though she’s just singing from notes jotted down in a diary while traveling. Her vocal is oddly clipped, as though her vocal take is buffering from a bad connection. It’s a very strange mood to sustain for three minutes, but it definitely sounds cool.

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Thom Yorke “Has Ended”

“Has Ended” is about as optimistic as Them Yorke gets – a fantasy about the Western world suddenly snapping out of its drive towards fascism set to music that sounds like a gradually fading hangover. He imagines exploding phones, the forgiveness of the planet itself, and most unrealistically, the fascists feeling any sort of shame. It’s a nice thought, but it says a lot that Yorke can only express it in music that still sounds so bleak and downtrodden. But this is when you have these ideas, right? When you’re so broken the only thing you can do is to imagine being miraculously repaired.

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Matthew Dear “Echo”

Matthew Dear’s voice has always had a strange allure – dead-eyed, deadpan, and dead serious all at once. On previous records his voice was like an odd bit of flavor layered over his dark, lurid productions but with Bunny, it’s become the focal point of the music. In “Echo,” he tells a grim story about a young boy speeding from childhood into adulthood not by maturing, but by doing a lot of stuff that’s just not for kids. Dear leans on vocal fry to a comic degree here, digitally nudging it into a grotesque sizzle as his keyboards and clipped drum clicks create an odd unsettling feeling that evokes a druggy drowsiness and the gradual tightening of a mechanical vice.

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Kurt Vile “Bassackwards”

“Bassackwards” sounds like someone wandering around searching for something but forgetting what they were looking for almost immediately. Even for a Kurt Vile song this is exceptionally stoned and meandering, but it’s also quite lovely in the way it creates a sense of pleasant stasis. Vile seems caught between feelings here – not quite upset, not quite lonely, not quite happy. Everything just is. “This is life and it’s flat,” as Stephen Malkmus once sang. But it’s not bleak – he appreciates friends, he appreciates moments of beauty. And while the music doesn’t go anywhere in particular, it feels good. It feels alive, in the most low key way.

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Cat Power “In Your Face”

“In Your Face” is a quietly confrontational song in which Chan Marshall sings directly to Americans who are so comfortable and privileged they can’t seriously confront injustice and cruelty, and can only see things in terms of petty grievances. Maybe you’ve heard of these people? Marshall’s voice is sober but obviously heartbroken, and there’s a frustration in her tone – an awareness that her words won’t be heard or heeded by anyone who really needs to pay attention. There’s a feeling of tension through the whole song, mainly in the way a vaguely eerie piano melody circles her voice, but also a bit of patience in the gentle swing of the guitar. Marshall is quite angry, but she expresses it with a meditative grace.

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St. Vincent “Hang On Me” (MassEducation Version)

There is a couplet in an old Loud Family song called “Screwed Over By Stylish Introverts” that I think about a lot. It goes:

“You let me know that calling just because I’m lonely is completely rude
You could work this into a lecture to the starving not to beg for food”

This comes to mind any time I feel lonely and miserable and desperate to communicate with someone else. I can think of very few times in my life when I would have felt this way about someone reaching out to me, but it’s what I worry about someone else thinking. Sometimes it’s irrational, but other times it’s not – you can be an imposition, a burden, a drain on empathy, and too dependent on other people’s emotional labor. You can just be a drag.

“Hang On Me,” the opening song on St. Vincent’s Masseducation and the closing song on its stripped-down counterpart MassEducation, is about reaching out to someone in a time of desperation. Annie Clark’s protagonist has some fear about disrupting the person she’s calling or asking for too much, but she’s not about to stop herself – she’s starving, and not too proud to beg for food. The MassEducation arrangement, just piano and vocal, is more effective in getting across the sentiment of the song. Clark’s voice sounds more fragile here, and there’s something in the ambiance of the track that reminds me of the way your eyes start to sting after you’ve been crying for a while. She sings “oh please don’t hang up yet,” and you feel that raw need for connection. Just under the surface of this song there’s a powerful dread – if I need you this much right now, what would I do without you? And if I’m too vulnerable now, will it turn you off to me? Making the call is a calculated risk.

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Electric Six “(It Gets) (A Little) Jumpy”

It seemed to me that Electric Six had been in a bit of a creative rut for their past few records, an understandable result of their intense self-imposed album-and-tour-every-year grind. But their new one, Bride of the Devil, brings them back to a peppier, bolder sound more like their mid-‘00s peak. (Yes, you read that right – I Shall Exterminate Everything Around Me That Restricts Me From Being the Master and Flashy are their best LPs as far as I’m concerned.)

“Jumpy” is the one that sounds like a hit, or at least a hit in a world in which there was a lot of money behind this band. There’s some superficial similarity to the Pixies in the hard/soft dynamics and the contrast of acoustic guitar and a vaguely Latin lead line, but the chorus soars in a way that’s very particular to Dick Valentine in faux arena rock mode. The lyrics, as ever, are a treat – it’s mostly about a guard dog that’s been trained to kill, and there’s a terrific goof on both Boy George and Radiohead that’s only just a lead up to a very literal “karma is a bitch” punchline.

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Molly Burch “Wild”

“Wild” is an expression of low-key envy, with Molly Burch observing another woman and wishing that she could be anywhere near as confident and uninhibited as she appears to be. Burch declares that it’s her “nature to be guarded,” and that may be true, but she sings the song with a theatricality that suggests she’s not nearly the wallflower she thinks she is. Or maybe this is just her mimicking the behavior – a little more vampy and a bit more campy than she might usually be. The song itself sounds light and sensual, and betrays very little of the neuroses on display in the lyrics. The looseness and easygoing loveliness of the tune feels more like it represents the vibe of the woman being observed than the feelings described in Burch’s words.

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Public Memory “The Line”

“The Line” will sound immediately familiar to anyone who spent a lot of time listening to the groovy nightmare music coming out of the U.K. at the end of the 1990s – UNKLE, Tricky, Primal Scream, Radiohead, Portishead, etc. It’s the hip-hop beat reconfigured as a death march; the electronic tones that sound like security alarms; the grinding terror and pervasive pre-millennium tension. Robert Toher, the writer and producer of this track, is also the vocalist, and somehow he manages to sound like Portishead’s Beth Gibbons singing through a speaker phone in a conference room. The music is very dystopian, but there’s a feeling through it that things are about to get much worse. Though this evokes music from 20+ years ago, you certainly can’t say that this is retro – this is what the world is like all the time lately, all those Brits just saw the future clearly. Toher is just capturing the mood rather than predicting it.

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