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.
September 25th, 2012 1:00am
I wasn’t very impressed by the first How to Dress Well record – it was evocative, sure, but I didn’t have much use for an album that sounded like the ghost of an R&B singer haunting a locker room. The second record is a lot better, and not just because there’s more obvious structure and physicality. Tom Krell still over-indulges in atmosphere, but he’s composed at least a few well-structured songs that are harmonically interesting and emotionally engaging. “& It Was You” is the best and most sophisticated piece of music he’s ever released. The song calls back to Prince’s experiments with minimal funk in the mid-80s without aping anything in particular, and suggests that Krell may eventually be much better with rhythm and harmony than spacey vibes.
September 24th, 2012 1:00am
This is a light, lovely, swooning sort of song, so the bluntness of its refrain catches you off guard: “The life we shared is gone and it’s hard without you.” There’s no room for interpretation and no attempt at embellishment; Becky Stark is telling you exactly how it is and the “you” in question just has to deal with it. And her, too – the music is pretty and poised, but it’s hard to tell whether it is an expression of grace, or the sound of a shell-shocked person trying to hold it together and keep the most agonizing feelings from showing up on the surface.
September 21st, 2012 1:00am
Like a lot of people – most people? – I tend to think of Bob Dylan’s voice mainly in terms of its strangeness and limitations. So, in a small way, paying attention to his new album brought a minor epiphany: As much as his voice has deteriorated, he has remarkable phrasing. (This is where long term Dylan fans, particularly the older ones, can groan or LOL or whatever they have to do.) I’m very fond of his playful performance on this track; it’s both nuanced and ridiculously hammy – in this way, it’s kinda like Brando, or maybe more like Joaquin Phoenix doing his often unhinged Brando riff in The Master. He clearly loves to play this old timey rogue, and he sounds so totally alive in each line that the dynamics of his performance distracts from the extremely repetitive music.
September 19th, 2012 1:00am
Grizzly Bear, even in their blandest moments, excel in composing interlocking guitar parts that weave rhythmic elements from folk with the textures of art rock. That’s Sonic Youth’s trick too, at least from Daydream Nation onward, but Grizzly Bear are far more invested in the aesthetics of folk, and entirely avoid any trace of punk or glam. Shields isn’t quite on par with the band’s previous album – Veckatimest has better, more elegant melodic hooks – but it has a better structure as an LP, and an evocative atmosphere that’s hard to pin down but essentially sounds like someone feeling very pensive in the autumn. It’s a ridiculously autumnal album, and I can see why they chose to release it just as school season kicks in again – can’t you just imagine all the skinny white kids listening to this on headphones as they walk to their classes? “Speak In Rounds” is my favorite, and the track that comes closest to the introverted melodrama of “Fine For Now” or “While You Wait For the Others.” It’s about some kind of codependent entanglement, but given the sound of it, how could that be a surprise?
September 18th, 2012 1:00am
You would think that there wouldn’t be a lot of difference between Ben Folds and Ben Folds Five; that it’d just be the same songwriter writing the same sort of songs no matter what, and on some level, you’d be right. But in terms of execution, it’s a huge difference. Left on his own, Folds settles too comfortably into his quirks and excesses, and his solo catalog is clogged with songs that are either too sappy or too self-consciously dorky. The other two guys in BFF – drummer Darren Jesse and bassist Robert Sledge – give his songs weight and dynamics. The first BFF album in particular thrives on Folds’ realization that it was necessary to temper his clever quasi-show tune piano shtick with a major jolt of rock and roll. At the time, this was something of a survival mechanism – they were playing to often hostile mid-90s alt-rock fans – but it made them a better band. They needed that tension and energy; it elevated Folds’ craft and improved on songs that could’ve been fine if played entirely straight.
The first Ben Folds Five record since 1999 isn’t on the same level of quality as the three that preceded it in the 90s, but it’s a big improvement over what Folds has been up to in the meantime. The songs make a compromise of Folds’ present inclination with the familiar dynamics of the old band, and it mostly ends up sounding like a pumped-up version of Folds in Bacharach mode. “Michael Prayor, Five Years Later” is the best of these songs; they pull off a fine balance of elegance and urgency. The lyrics are good too, with a riff on running into a dude every few years into something that can be taken as a meta-commentary on periodically reuniting with these two musicians.
September 17th, 2012 7:09am
Whether by accident or design, Carly Rae Jepsen’s new album Kisspositions her as a new Canadian version of Kylie Minogue, and it’s wonderful. Jepsen, like Minogue, wouldn’t make sense as a pop “bad girl,” her voice and look is appealing because she seems genuinely perky, optimistic and sweet. Following Kylie’s example is brilliant because, despite what people might have expected from her, she found a way to make her youthful style age very well. The trick? Focus on conveying feelings of intense infatuation, because that experience remains fresh and powerful through life, even if just as a nostalgic memory for those in long term relationships.
Another similarity to Minogue is that she sounds best in elegantly composed pop songs with a touch of classiness in the arrangement. She wouldn’t sound right in something that felt “edgy,” or particularly indebted to hip-hop or R&B production, but she is right at home in clean, precise dance pop with a bit of strings. “Tiny Little Bows,” a song primarily written and produced by Dallas Austin, makes the most of her “Call Me Maybe” strengths while nudging in a more adult direction. It’s another euphoric song about a crush, but there’s more complication and angst, which is at least partly expressed with a sped-up sample from Sam Cooke’s “Cupid.”
The most interesting connection between “Tiny Little Bows” and “Call Me Maybe” is that its writers seem to recognize that part of what made the latter song connect with people wasn’t just its gloriously catchy hooks, but in the way the melody lodged the words in your head. There’s just something really compelling about the way “I just met you and this is crazy” unfolds, as if every time you hear it, some simple part of your brain is hanging on the sentence as it forms and you don’t know where it will go. “Tiny Little Bows” is a bit more abstract. I am not quite certain what she’s getting at with “how do you think it goes with those tiny little bows,” but it’s a vivid image and the close internal rhyme scheme of goes/those/bows makes my brain light up. A lot of the magic in pop is delighting in combinations of words that don’t mean much at face value but come out sounding like pure genius when paired with the just the right melodies and beats.
September 13th, 2012 6:43am
It didn’t occur to me until I paid closer attention that this song is being sung to an audience, and not to some romantic partner. But it works both ways – there are performative aspects to personal relationships, and romantic aspects to one’s connection to an audience, or lack thereof. “Faster Horses” is about frustration with someone else’s desires and expectations, and a fear that you’re not going to find the audience – or partner – you actually want, because they’re caught up in wish for “faster horses.” Despite this, the song sounds strong and confident – MNDR sings it with a tone of “you don’t judge me, I judge you,” and makes the whole situation seem like a challenge rather than a defeat.
