Sleigh Bells “Bitter Rivals”

I love the way so many Sleigh Bells songs have this strange tonal clash between this aggressive optimistic force and a strong current of depressive self-loathing. It’s like two sides of a mind at war with each other, but the positive, assertive side always wins. “Bitter Rivals” sounds like Derek and Alexis blasting out the lingering bad vibes from the Reign of Terror era through sheer force of will. The song is very forceful, but it’s not nearly as LOUD as their older songs. But the vocals are much higher up in the mix, and I think that’s thematically important: The main thing you get out of this song is the two of them shouting down defeatist feelings – “BE NOT AFRAID, BE NOT AFRAID, BE NOT!” The chorus is like an uneasy truce between the positive and negative sides of the mind: “You are my bitter rival, but I need you for survival.”

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Goldfrapp “Alvar”

Goldfrapp have gone back and forth between sleek electro glam pop and quiet, sad, folky music for over a decade now. The pendulum has swung back to the dark, slow side of things on Tales of Us, but the tone is different – whereas 7th Tree felt airy and pastoral, this record is almost relentlessly dark and portentous. There’s a cinematic quality to the sound, which makes sense since much of it was intended to be paired with films by Alison’s partner Lisa Gunning. But regardless, it’s hard to listen to a song like “Alvar” without feeling like you’re somewhere in the middle of a bleak, terrifying movie. It’s tense without feeling claustrophobic, but the wide open negative space and general absence of percussion makes the music feel creepy in different ways. You know that cliche, “it’s quiet…almost too quiet?” It’s like that.

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King Krule @ Bowery Ballroom 9/9/2013
Has This Hit? / Ceiling / Bleak Bake / Ocean Bed / Grey Scale / A Lizard State / Krokodile / The Noose of Jah City / Baby Blue / Out Getting Ribs / Easy Easy // Rock Bottom

King Krule “Easy Easy” (Radio 1 Session)

In all the images I’d seen of Archy Marshall before I saw King Krule for the first time last night, he seemed sorta gawky and awkward. It seemed amazing and odd that a voice so adult and weathered was coming from a kid like that. But in person, at least last night, it was not incongruous at all. He was a stylish, graceful presence, and almost frighteningly intense. He sings with an urgency and investment that’s hard to fake – it’s one of those things where you can just tell that he’s tapping into something raw and painful. He’s like Fiona Apple in this way. She’s rooted in jazz and early R&B too, and an approach to singing that is all about varying phrasing with their feeling in the moment. His band is similar. They’re incredibly sharp but very loose, gliding around Marshall’s songs getting in his way. It’s all very fluid, and the raw sound of it is just gorgeous.

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Ariana Grande “Honeymoon Avenue”

Wow, this is just an exquisitely crafted pop song. The raw songwriting is fantastic – I love the way it cycles through three discrete hooks as the chorus escalates – but the arrangement really puts it over the top. It’s one of those songs where there’s always something new to catch your ear or change the dynamic, but it’s restrained enough so that it’s not overwhelming or obnoxious. It’s also not especially weird – there are some very interesting and unusual structural choices, but the producers knew exactly where the song ought to be direct and conventional. Ariana Grande’s performance is excellent too – she sings like a baby Mariah in the best possible way, with a voice that can effortlessly hit ecstatic heights, but is nuanced enough to get across a lot of emotional shading in phrasing lines that would otherwise be sort of banal.

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Janelle Monaé “Dance Apocalyptic”

I can see how Janelle Monaé’s commitment to her sci-fi android mythology could wear thin for a lot of people, but it’s a very malleable metaphorical construct for her, and it’s always pretty easy to glean the meaning and spirit of her songs without having to really buy into it. “Dance Apocalyptic” is a perfect example – it’s a joyful song about needing a fun, cathartic release, and you can really just take it at face value and have an amazing time with it. But the android stuff adds a touch of darkness to the song, and sets up this idea that the character is this simulation of a person who doesn’t even know they are a robot, and that’s why nothing tastes right, nothing feels right. You’re not uptight; you’re just a robot. But robots can be reprogrammed!

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The Last Hurrah “Lonely Whistle Call”

The Last Hurrah are one of the best folk acts in the world right now, but they’re sort of willfully obscure – as far as I can tell, the band does not perform live, and they insist on releasing their albums as one long track, with each song melting together as a continuous suite. “Lonely Whistle Call” is the first proper song on The Beauty of Fake, their second album, and a relatively mellow cut in a suite that becomes more elaborate and strange as its characters make their way around the world, through to Europe to India to Japan to Hawaii. The music shifts in character to suit the locales, but HP Gunderson’s tangle arpeggios and Heidi Goodbye’s cheerful, bemused voice tie it all together. I actually feel a little bad pulling this song out of context – really, a lot of the fun of The Last Hurrah’s music is just getting swept up in the momentum of the music and going along for the ride.

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Bat for Lashes @ Webster Hall 8/30/2013
Lilies / What’s A Girl To Do? / Glass / Traveling Woman / Oh Yeah / All Your Gold / Marilyn / Horse & I / Siren Song / Sleep Alone / Rest Your Head / A Wall / The Haunted Man / Laura // Winter Fields / Daniel

Bat for Lashes “Marilyn”

Natasha Khan is a very theatrical performer who has clearly given a lot of thought to the way she moves on stage. She is not overly mannered, but she has a lot of deliberate moves, and has loosely choreographed all the major setpieces of her show for maximum drama. This is saying a lot, since Bat for Lashes songs tend to be extremely dramatic to begin with – every song is basically some kind of romantic epic. She’s hyper feminine on stage, but also has this sort of mystical affect that is sometimes vaguely androgynous. It’s all very beautiful but not overtly sexual – she is focused so much on emotion and drama that the sexuality of her music is strongly implied more than it is displayed.

“Marilyn” was one of the high points of the set, and a moment where Khan’s stage craft crossed over with her subject matter. The song is about a relationship so intense and dramatic that it feels unreal, like something out of a classic film, and it makes her feel as though she’s become an archetype – “a Marilyn.” Khan has written other songs about becoming another person through love, but this one is less dark than her exploration of her character Pearl on Two Suns. This isn’t about negating yourself, but more like feeling enhanced by romance. In this way, it’s like the ultimate Bat for Lashes song.

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The Julie Ruin “Cookie Road”

I’ve been telling people for a few weeks that the new record by The Julie Ruin is the best top-to-bottom album of Kathleen Hanna’s career, and I stand by that. It’s very consistent in quality, and the songs take all the strengths of Hanna’s old bands and merge them into something that is both familiar and fresh. It’s also extremely fun – like, party rock B-52’s fun. Not that fun would be a new thing for her: Hanna is famous for being a politically active feminist, but her songs over the past two decades have mostly avoided strident didacticism in favor of up-tempo music that makes being a smart, empathetic, socially engaged person seem like a good time, and that you’re invited to the party. It’s all implicitly inclusive, and it fosters a sense that by coming together, we can overcome a lot of horrible things. Social change requires social interaction, you know?

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Julia Holter “Maxim’s II”

Julia Holter’s songs “Maxim’s I” and “Maxim’s II” are inspired by this scene from the 1958 film musical Gigi in which the title character enters a popular restaurant with a famous man and immediately begin to gossip about her.

You don’t really need to see this or know about this to enjoy either song, but I think “Maxim’s II” is improved by having this context in mind. Holter turns the scene inside-out both emotionally and musically, emphasizing the woman’s sense of the scene, and flipping the jovial, bombastic arrangement into this blaring, disorienting haze of horns and percussive clatter. She makes you feel as overwhelmed and excited as the character without altering the scene and making her very aware of how the people around her are responding to her. But you do get the feeling that she’s concerned that all these people are thinking exactly what they’re thinking.

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King Krule “Neptune Estate”

“Neptune Estate” has a distinct feeling, and maybe you recognize it – lonely in the middle of the night, desperate for connection, lost in your head. It’s sexy too, and the lyrics about wanting to feel sexually used intensify that a bit, but also deepen the song’s melancholy feeling. There’s no separation of sex and self-loathing, and trauma just becomes some kind of turn-on. Which makes some sense, because for a lot of people true intimacy is letting someone else know exactly how messed up you are without being afraid.

The sexual and romantic side of “Neptune Estate” seems like a distraction; the main topic of the song is really depression, and living in fear of a totally numb emotional state in which “the brain lives on but the vibes are dead.” He just wants to feel something, to be intimate, to feel a little alive. That’s why he’s pleading with someone to stay with him one more night, that’s why he’s dwelling on things he know will make him miserable, that’s why he sounds so cynical when he asks “Can we lose our emotions and still live well?” The feelings may be too intense to handle, but it’s better than literally nothing.

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Rose Elinor Dougall “Strange Warnings”

It’s funny now for me to look back on Rose Elinor Dougall’s time in the Pipettes because that perky, hyper-assertive music is so far from where she’s gone as a solo artist. As she’s moved along, Dougall’s aesthetic has become increasingly dreamy and ethereal – not to the point of shoegazer-ish abstraction, but with this single she’s at least approaching the spacey formalism of late period Stereolab. “Strange Warnings” doesn’t have that sort of antiseptic, aloof quality though – Dougall puts a lot of heart into her vocals, even if in context she comes off as very shy and the music seems extraordinarily introverted.

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Unmade Bed “Go the Whole Way”

Unmade Bed is the new band featuring Dorian Cox, the guitarist and lyricist of The Long Blondes, one of the most underrated bands of the past decade. The new group is a natural progression from that body of work – he’s still obsessed with sex and glamor and seediness – but he’s dropped the punk and indie elements almost entirely in favor of fully embracing the dance and disco elements that he was playing with a bit on The Long Blonde’s final album “Couples”. To some extent, he’s responding to his new singer, and casting her in a role appropriate for her style and voice – whereas he typically played Kate Jackson as a bitter, unfaithful femme fatale, Hannah is presented as more of a sexually aggressive vamp type. In both cases, Cox humanizes his archetypes, and puts a lot of emphasis on the insecurities and fears that drive his characters without necessarily judging them. That last part is really crucial – he’s not asking anyone to pity or shame these characters, but to respect their realities and recognize yourself in them.

Visit the Unmade Bed page on Soundcloud.

Neko Case “Night Still Comes”

I can’t listen to this song without feeling convinced that Neko Case is singing about clinical depression. The hopelessness, the self-recrimination, the inertia, the alienation. The lyrics are the things you think and say to justify it all, because it feels like the only thing that is possible. Case’s voice keeps the song from tipping into grey, blank misery. There’s just something in her voice that always sounds strong and stubborn and authoritative, and there’s a suggestion in the way she delivers her lyrics – and the ambiguous, possibly optimistic chorus – that she has some distance on these feelings. “You never held it at the right angle”: Is that what you say to yourself to push yourself away from the negative thoughts, or what you tell someone else to convince them that your negative thoughts are the truth?

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Basement Jaxx featuring Sam Brookes “What A Difference Your Love Makes”

This is the kind of pop song that sounds like it was made specifically to be a jingle for the very concept of romantic love. It’s bold, catchy, and ecstatic – well, duh, it’s Basement Jaxx – but the feeling is almost a bit too pushy in terms of selling love as a miracle cure for depression. But that’s kinda how it is sometimes: It’s like a light switch flicking on in your head, and everything suddenly seems wonderful and vibrant. Sam Brookes’ vocal performance has a sort of zealotry to it – he’s testifying, he’s telling you how his whole world turned around, and he makes you feel envious. But he also makes it seem possible.

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Nine Inch Nails “Copy of a”

Trent Reznor has spent the past several years exploring ambient instrumentals and dense, sometimes lushly arranged pop, so it’s interesting to hear him swing in another direction with the first few songs that have surfaced from Hesitation Marks. In a sense, he’s circled back to where he began on Pretty Hate Machine – very electronic, very immediately catchy, relatively minimal in sound if deceptively nuanced in terms of programming. But at the same time, a song like “Copy of A” is a million miles away from all that – the aggression is there but more muted, there’s far more negative space and implied tension, and though he’s still thinking about control and conformity, he seems more resigned than raging. I guess this is what aging is like, basically – you only become more like yourself with time, but your perspective keeps shifting.

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Franz Ferdinand “Right Action”

I feel a little bad for Franz Ferdinand in that they’ve been a very consistent band over the past decade, but they’re at this sort of awkward phase of their career where they’re taken for granted and tied to a moment for which people aren’t particularly nostalgic right now. But we should not be ungrateful for a song as bouncy and clever as “Right Action” – this is expert-level groovy rock, pitched halfway between The Kinks and Duran Duran. The lyrics are fantastic too, sung from the perspective of a man who keeps getting drawn back to someone who may or may not be his ex because he’s sticking to the positive thinking mantra “right thoughts, right words, right action” in the hope that good intentions will somehow make everything work out, despite evidence to the contrary.

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Eric Copeland “Rokzi”

Eric Copeland has a great skill for building tracks that give off a strong sleazy vibe without being tremendously obvious about it. He doesn’t go for stock musical signifiers, but creates a sweaty, furtive atmosphere. “Rokzi” is a perfect example: As you move through it, there’s this unshakeable feeling that something is not quite right. It’s like entering a place you know you shouldn’t, but then getting lost in it, and then trying to figure out how to get out of there.

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No Age “An Impression”

I’ve had trouble connecting with No Age’s records in the past because I’ve always perceived a strange diffidence at the center of their music and it undermined the energy and physicality of their punky songs. It seems obvious to me that their more ambient side was a more accurate representation of who they are – more introverted, less confrontational. Their third album, An Object, fully embraces this side of their music while also upping their game as songwriters, expanding their textural palette, and pushing the vocals up to the surface of the music. It’s a far more confident work, and a lot more emotionally rich. “An Impression,” a pretty but dead-eyed ballad, owes a lot to both Brian Eno and Wire: Delicate and emotionally fragile, but also icy and remote. I’m always fascinated by these kinds of songs — it’s the sound of a very stoic man allowing himself to feel something, but not too much.

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Grant Lee Buffalo “Drag” (Live in 2012)

I have been thinking a lot lately about how much I envy singers and poets, because they have the license to say things with great emotional resonance that don’t have to make sense. I spend all of my time now writing things that are meant to be understood easily – I write about specific things, I write for a general audience, my job is focused on creating things that people might share. I like making things for other people, and at least in the sort of writing I mainly do, I strongly believe it should be made for other people’s benefit rather than just being entirely indulgent. Communication is the most important thing, but I feel more and more like there’s just a lot I don’t say, and now I don’t quite know what to do with it. I was listening to this song over and over yesterday, and thought a lot about how Grant-Lee Phillips words sketched out a feeling, some kind of situation, but it’s really all about the musicality. The dynamics creates the meaning. The sound of his voice creates the meaning. This is one of my favorite things about music – if you read enough of my writing, that should be clear – and right now it just leaves me with this envious feeling. I want that freedom, in some form. I want to get away from having to make sense all the time.

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The Make Up “Joy of Sound”

I have used this song to open dozens of mix tapes and CDs over the years, mainly for musical reasons – the audience fade-in and ecstatic energy of it just feel like the beginning of something very exciting – but also thematic, as the lyrics openly delight in the glory of music. As with most songs sung by Ian Svenonius, there’s a thin line separating the hyperbolic humor and irony of his over-the-top performance and a dead serious belief in the core of what he’s saying. “Joy of Sound” isn’t merely an expression of “hey, I like music.” That is a boring and lame thing to say. He’s really talking about social codes, and asking if you’re willing to fully throw yourself into this music. He’s inviting you to truly experience this music with other people, and to let it push toward a greater connection, maybe a greater good. It’s intensely idealistic, so you’re going to have to be honest: Do you swear to tell the whole truth, and nothing but, so help you God? Would you put your hand on the book and take that vow right now?

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