November 8th, 2012 1:13pm
Clinic’s new album Free Reign contains some of the longest songs of their career, and generally has the vibe of a band stretching out and exploring their grooves. The funny thing is, the best example of them doing that on the album is not even three minutes long. “Cosmic Radiation” has all the feeling of a long jam, but it’s remarkably concise, providing the best twists and turns of an epic without any of the bits where your attention may wander. I wouldn’t mind if it meandered a bit more, actually, but it’s just so much more impressive to see a band so in control of a vibe that they can evoke it perfectly and move on without getting indulgent. There are definitely a lot of bands who could learn a lot from this approach.
November 7th, 2012 1:53pm
Michael Mayer is very out of step with trends in all corners of electronic and dance music right now, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Mantasy, his first album in eight years, sticks to his strengths as a composer – clean sounds, tight structures, vamps, vamps, vamps, vamps. Each track has a distinct character and tone, like a meditation on a memory of a classic groove. Sometimes it’s obvious, and a song riffs on a classic like “Billie Jean.” “Rudi Is A Punk” comes off like a stylish film soundtrack, like some slick, metronomic gloss on James Bond or Mission: Impossible. As with the best Mayer material, the clinical precision of the track is complemented by hooks that are very straightforward and eager to please. That’s the funny thing about Mayer and Kompakt – it all seems so Euro and aloof, but pretty much all of their output can be enjoyed as pop music.
November 6th, 2012 12:57pm
It is amazing to me that this song is as gorgeous and graceful as it is despite its rhythm coming mainly from a very flimsy preset pattern. Though it’s consistent through the piece, it’s mostly obscured behind very elegant and deliberate sounds – a very precise and evocative guitar tone, a lovely keyboard drone, Victoria Legrand’s soothing voice. The arrangement is like thick incense haze, when the drum machine is foreground it’s as if the smoke clouds have cleared for a moment. This trick works on a thematic level too: Legrand is singing about a teen taking risks and being “wild” as an escape from the more grim aspects of their family life, but when the sound shifts, it’s like snapping out of the dreamy fantasy and remembering that you’re just some nervous inexperienced kid at heart.
November 5th, 2012 1:00am
Six out of the nine living members of the Wu-Tang Clan rap on this track, and aside from Ghostface and GZA, it’s the least famous members of the crew. Here’s the thing, though: As the years go by, it’s actually more thrilling to those guys, because where else are you going to get amazing, densely packed verses from an underrated genius like Inspectah Deck? And though Masta Killa and U-God haven’t proven themselves to deliver as album artists, they’ve really come into their own as they’ve aged. Masta Killa in particular has matured a lot over the years – he was just a kid when he dropped a verse on Enter the Wu-Tang, and didn’t truly find his voice until The W. They all shine on this track, though the most fascinating verse comes from the GZA, who dials his energy waaaaay down for a carefully composed allegory about his early days as a rapper.
November 1st, 2012 12:57pm
It’s become a cliché in the internet era to make slow, sad acoustic versions of pop hits for the sake of novelty. Generally speaking, I am not a fan of this, and resent the implication in many cases that the song has been rendered more powerful and substantial by remaking it with tired indie tropes. Kylie Minogue’s Abbey Road Sessions, a new collection of her old hits remade with new arrangements and live instrumentation, could easily fall into this trap but does not. Yes, some of the arrangements are softer and slower, but they don’t compromise the love and joy that is at the heart of her best songs. Instead, Minogue recasts the sentiment, dialing back some elements of what she’s expressing while highlighting others. This version of “Come Into My World” is just as intense and crushed-out as the original dance-pop recording, but she’s conveying a different sort of anticipation. It’s not as overwhelming, but the delicate sound brings out a very compelling, understated desperation in her phrasing.
October 31st, 2012 1:00am
I wouldn’t have guessed that Taylor Swift would be better at writing late-period U2 songs than the actual U2, but here we are. The only track on No Line on the Horizon that touches “State of Grace” is the title track, and this is probably a little better. I don’t think Swift should be in any hurry to rush into musical “maturity” – aside from this cut, the best songs on Red embrace her youth – but I’d love to see her continue with songs in this vein in the future because the whole U2 vibe is good for projecting youthful earnestness and yearning with a sense of clear-eyed, adult perspective. Swift’s lyrics are well-matched to this tone, too – she’s basically singing about a feeling of overwhelming clarity upon meeting someone so amazing that she’s automatically knocked out of a complacent understanding of her life.
October 30th, 2012 1:00am
It is an awful thing to feel stuck and uninspired, as if your inner life has all gone blank. You feel the absence in your mind, but you don’t know how to fill it. “Oh Yeah” is sung from the perspective of a woman who feels this lack, and she’s desperately hoping for a quick fix. “I’m looking for a lover to climb inside,” Natasha Khan sings, her voice rising up with an optimistic yearning. “Waiting like a flower to open wide, I’m in bloom!” From the first verse, she sings about feeling alive, echoing the climax of “Lilies,” a song with more or less the same narrative at the start of the record. But “Oh Yeah!” is more sexual and less ambiguous. She’s unlocked something in her mind and body, and the song communicates her desire to act on this personal breakthrough.
October 29th, 2012 11:40am
There are a lot of songs about “haters” out there, probably way too many, and most of them are expressions of clueless bullshit narcissism and flagrant insecurity. “Bitch, Dant Kill My Vibe” is an outlier, though, a song from the perspective of a sensitive creative person who seems legitimately afraid that jealous and unimaginative people may prevent him from making his art on his own terms. There are some threatening lines in the verses, but the tone of the track is subdued and melancholy. You can pick up on the introverted tone from the first chords, and he makes it explicit early on: “Sometimes I need to be alone.” Even one of the most aggressive parts of the song – “hide your feelings, hide your feelings” – comes off as self-directed before you get to the next line about threatening to steal a dude’s woman. It’s an emotionally complicated song, you can feel Lamar cycle through moments of doubt and cynicism as he struggles to hold on to his belief in his talent and vision.
October 16th, 2012 1:00am
I feel like a horrible butcher for bringing this down to just a five minute excerpt, but I can’t justify giving away a 20 minute piece of music that is nearly one half of an album. If you like what you hear, please buy this record and listen to the composition in its entirety.
I never liked that Godspeed relied on using bits of speech on their older records. In some cases it was a nice bit of texture, but it too often felt like the band was forcing contextual parameters on music that was otherwise abstract. They’ve almost entirely tossed that out on their new record, and the compositions are better for it. You don’t need any sort of nudging to get sucked into the world of this music, it’s obvious from the start that they’re evoking a desolate landscape. From there, it’s up to interpretation. It makes sense to hear this as a representation of a world after every system fails us, or perhaps as an escape from a spoiled, crumbling society. What I get out of this, particularly in the valleys of “Worried Fire,” is the feeling of being alone in a vast empty space. And it’s a bit of freedom, yes, but for me, it’s even more a sense of loneliness and vulnerability. As if the cosmos is bearing down upon me, like a boot about to come down to carelessly crush a bug on the ground.
October 15th, 2012 1:00am
Field Music’s approach to covering this wonderful old Syd Barrett solo song is to essentially toss out most of the elements that made it very Barrett and remodel it as a late period Beatles pastiche. And hey, it worked! I love the dazed-out quality of Barrett’s recording, but the sharp dynamics of the Brewis brothers’ arrangement brings out the best of the song’s melody. You lose some things, sure – “I really love you, and I mean you” comes off better from a man who sounds totally disconnected from reality – but you gain others, like the crisp rhythmic turns and that harmonized middle eight. This is the best kind of cover: The essential appeal is there, but having the song go through another artists’ aesthetic brings out something fresh in the material.
October 12th, 2012 7:18am
I appreciate that while Mr. Muthfuckin eXquire seems to be going as Mr. MFN eXquire in legit circles these days, he is still inclined to release a single called “Telephuck.” He’s not the type of guy to make a lot of compromises, and he’s at his best when he’s just flagrantly lewd and trashy. His voice and style reminds me of both Method Man and Raekwon, but his personality is far more churlish and hedonistic. The Wu guys always have a touch of seriousness and mystical pretension, but eXquire comes off like a guy who doesn’t want to believe in anything. (I mean, his most famous verse to date peaks when he’s just listing off a bunch of things he doesn’t give a fuck about, all of which pertain to career ambition.) His IDGAF attitude is at home in El-P’s production on this track, which sounds very mechanical and dilapidated even by his usual standards. The music kinda warps the tone of the lyrics – eXquire and Gucci Mane are mainly saying creepy things about sex and women, but the track is so unsexy that it mostly just frames the empty contempt in their voices.
October 10th, 2012 1:00am
Daughters of Cloud is a collection of rarities and outtakes, but the first half of it is as tonally and thematically consistent as most of Kevin Barnes’ deliberately composed albums. The opening run of tracks are some of his busiest funk tunes; they’re all just a bit too much for any of the past few OM records, but they fit together nicely as a sustained bass-heavy freakout. He was clearly experimenting with persona and perspective in a lot of these cuts, and this just amps up the schizoid quality of the sequencing. It’s a nice complement to Paralytic Stalks from earlier this year – while that record drags the listener through some of the lowest depths of a bipolar mind and the most spiteful moments of a dissolving relationship, Daughters is like a super-fun version of dissociation.
“Sails, Hermaphroditic” is a False Priest outtake, which is kinda obvious in its concision and pinched tonality. (For whatever reason, everything on that record feels a bit too vibrant, like the sonic equivalent of saturated colors that sting your eyes.) Like a lot of songs from that period, it’s very sour and bitchy – I mean, the hook is Barnes saying that if he could change the world, the first thing he’d do is “change the shit out of you.” I’ve been feeling conflicted about this strain of his songwriting – it can be kinda thrilling, but the ugliness of it can get to me. Maybe I recognize too much of that anger and pettiness from my own worst moments?
October 9th, 2012 1:00am
Shut Down the Streets didn’t connect with me until I heard it in autumn weather, and then it clicked. I suspect it would click even more if I was up in the Hudson Valley. That’s where Newman resides now, and as a person who grew up there, I can sense the rhythms and resonances of that region in the sound of the record. That’s especially true of “Do Your Own Time,” probably the best track on the album, and a rather atypical composition for him. The vocal melody is in his wheelhouse, but the music falls into a meditative groove that’s far off from his usual power pop rockers and wistful balladry. The flourishes are a bit unexpected too, most especially the guitar solo at the end. It’s odd enough to hear a solo like that on a Newman song, even more surprising for it to have a cool, slick, vaguely jazzy tone.
October 8th, 2012 1:00am
Can you imagine how much it must suck to have to live in the shadow of Beyoncé? Solange can never escape this context, but to her credit, she is not stifled by it. If anything, she’s found a way to flip to her advantage as an artist. Her creative risks are casual, and she can follow her muse without fear of losing her audience or compromising her public persona. She can also express smaller feelings. Whereas everything her sister does ends up being bombastic and intense, Solange is great with nuance and ambiguity. This comes in handy on “Losing You,” in which she nails the feeling of not knowing whether or not she’s upset about her relationship falling apart. You can feel her tip one way or another from line to line and beat to beat, but from a distance, it’s a compelling emotional blur.
October 5th, 2012 6:42am
Contemporary R&B abounds with some of the goofiest wordplay in all of pop music, and that’s no bad thing. Miguel’s conceit of asking a girl “do you like drugs?” among other questions before flipping the song – both musically and lyrically – to tell her “I’m gonna do you like drugs tonight” is clever but could easily be a mess. He pulls it off mainly because while the lyrics aren’t subtle, the music is, and the dynamic shifts are bold but not jarring. But it’s also a success because of his voice. He makes his intentions very clear from note to note, so you can hear exactly where he knows he’s being silly, and feel when he’s being sincere and open-hearted.
October 3rd, 2012 1:00am
This song is about Amy Winehouse as an archetype, but not so much about her specifically. It’s for the Amys of the world, who for whatever reason can’t resist the lure of self-destructive behavior. John Darnielle sings it like a prayer, wishing the Amys well while knowing that things probably won’t work out for them. There is no condescension in this song. If anything, the Amys are valorized for their bravery, and Darnielle gently suggests that what most of us might consider a sensible, responsible way of living is just a form of cowardice. It’s refreshing to hear this much empathy for a type of person who is typically insulted, or celebrated for the wrong reasons.
October 2nd, 2012 1:00am
“Phantasm” comes near the end of Until the Quiet Comes, and it essentially serves as a climax to the song cycle – if everything leading up to that track suggests a ghostly presences, this cut is the big reveal. Its opening hum evokes the sensation of sleeping eyes adjusting to a sudden flash of white light; the rest of it sort of hovers in place, utterly serene yet menacingly alien. Unlike most of the vocalists on the album, Laura Darlington actually sings words, and though some are quite clear, they seem to dissipate before you process their meaning. Her presence on the track seems unreal, like some illusion at the center of the composition.
October 1st, 2012 6:47am
Jack White @ Radio City Music Hall 10/1/2012
Missing Pieces / Weep Themselves to Sleep / Love Interruption / Hotel Yorba / Top Yourself – Penny’s Farm / Cannon – John the Revelator / Screwdriver / Rock Island Line / Blue Blood Blues / Trash Tongue Talker – Papa Was A Rascal / Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground / I’m Slowly Turning Into You / We’re Going to be Friends / Hip (Eponymous) Poor Boy / Hypocritical Kiss / Ball and Biscuit // Freedom at 21 / Sixteen Saltines / Seven Nation Army / Goodnight Irene
Jack White infuriated fans at his show at Radio City the night before by playing for about 45 minutes and refusing to do an encore. Going into this show I expected him to be contrite, or address the issue in some way, but no – he never said a single word of banter through this show, and channeled some very obvious and genuine agitation into a set that rocked with such viciousness and velocity that it often felt violent. He bumped up the tempo on pretty much every song, sometimes quite dramatically. I loved it, particularly in the encore, where already-spiteful numbers like “Freedom at 21” and “Sixteen Saltines” came out sounding like a loud tantrum. It was an incredibly compelling show; he and the band were alive in every moment, and you just had no idea what to expect from moment to moment, particularly as he was tossing in verses from old songs. (The most telling was when, at the end of “Trash Tongue Talker,” he repeated “If my daddy was a rascal, why can’t I be one too?”)
I was hoping to hear “I’m Slowly Turning Into You,” and I was pleased that he did it. Even better, the song’s nastiness was far more intense in this performance. The organ riff whipped at you; each line was dripping with a toxic, bitter bile. He sang the title line with true horror; as if he’d betrayed himself with some terrible compromise from which he’ll never get back to some old state of purity. It’s a song of ridiculous, petty arrogance, but it seemed to come from a very honest place.
September 27th, 2012 9:09pm
Melody Prochet’s voice bears a strong resemblance to that of the late Broadcast singer Trish Keenan, and her music often sounds like a more rocking version of Broadcast circa the early 00s. So, naturally, I’m a mark for her first record as Melody’s Echo Chamber. But as much as it’s easy for me to peg this project as Broadcast-meets-Deerhunter, the substance of it is more slippery, and I find myself uncertain when trying to make sense of its emotional tone. At its best, it suggests a wide open chasm in the space between the singer’s reality and her desires, even when what she seems to want is kinda small and reasonable. You feel an absence on each track, but it’s that thing where you can’t figure out what you feel you’re missing.
September 26th, 2012 6:46am
This song hurts more if you think of it as the sad conclusion to a story that begins with “Rest Of Our Lives,” the achingly sweet and earnest ballad from the Dum Dum Girls’ debut album. While that was a song about hoping a good relationship could last forever, this is about a love fizzling out despite the best of intentions. But despite that reversal, the songs come from the same place: a pure-hearted conviction that romance is powerful and true. Dee Dee writes and sings with an idealism that is heart-melting, even if you’re wallowing in cynicism. In every line, in every note, you can really feel exactly how devastated she is that this love hasn’t worked out, and how the idea of “moving on” is more like a grand defeat than some kind of liberation.