Joanna Newsom “Esme”

Joanna Newsom is a wordy type, and although she writes with great precision, you can often pull out a line or two that gets to the heart of what she is singing so that all the rest is just detail and elaboration. In the case of “Esme,” it’s just two words: “Kindness prevails!” That declaration comes nearly five minutes into the composition, a moment of climactic epiphany in its gorgeous, slowly unfolding hymn-like melody. Newsom is singing to a young girl, marveling at her beauty and recalling the joy and generosity that met her arrival to this world. It’s an optimistic song in the face of great hardship, a piece of music that reminds both the subject and the listener that humanity is capable of incredible innate kindness and love. The tune is fragile and elegant, arranged only for Newsom’s voice and her harp, and it perfectly conveys its sentiment of thoughtful, intense sweetness. In lesser hands, “Esme” would be a sugary, simplistic Hallmark card; Newsom’s song is like a carefully considered, highly poetic long form letter.

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Robyn @ Webster Hall 8/5/2010

Fembot / Cry When You Get Older / Cobra Style / Dancing On My Own / Who’s That Girl? / Dancehall Queen / The Girl And The Robot / Don’t Fucking Tell Me What To Do / Be Mine! // Dream On / With Every Heartbeat

Robyn “Dancing On My Own”

I saw Robyn perform a few weeks ago at the Pitchfork festival in Chicago, and it was nice. But it was nothing like this. This show was intense, the response to the music was exactly what you’d hope for when you imagine a Robyn concert in your mind. Aside from one show being a festival gig and the other being a club show, the major difference is that the audience at Webster Hall was about 80% gay men. Gay men are pretty much the best audience ever — passionate, devoted, eager to dance, sing along, and show the artist love. You might think I am overrating this, but if you’re thinking that you probably haven’t seen a show under similar conditions. Anyway, the emotional and physical energy hit its peak with “Dancing On My Own.” Feelings of insecurity and sorrow for unrequited love were channeled into this beautiful, absolutely perfect dance pop song, making a lie of the title phrase — we may all have been in our heads, but we definitely weren’t dancing on our own.

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Kelis @ Webster Hall 8/5/2010

Emancipate / Scream / Trick Me / Holiday – Milkshake / 4th Of July / Lil Star / Brave / 22nd Century / Millionaire / Get Along With You / Acapella

Kelis “Acapella”

I want to like Kelis’ dance diva make-over more than I do. “Acapella” is amazing and undeniable, but the rest of her new album is just shy of her mark. A lot of it comes down to the hooks — they are there, but aside from the best bits of “Acapella,” they’re sorta vague and overly repetitive, and don’t have quite enough emotional resonance. Kelis is trying hard though, and I give her a lot of credit, even if it seems like a pretty blatant grab for a gay audience now that she doesn’t have much of a place in R&B or mainstream pop. She’s a good performer, or at least a flashy one — she looked kinda like a black version of Dazzler from the X-Men — and older songs like “Millionaire” and a mash-up of Madonna’s “Holiday” and her hit “Milkshake” came off well. She’s not totally there just yet, but I can see her growing into this new act over time.

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Arcade Fire @ Madison Square Garden 8/4/2010

Ready To Start / Laika / No Cars Go / Haiti / No Celebration / Rococo / The Suburbs / Crown Of Love / Intervention / We Used To Wait / Power Out / Rebellion (Lies) / Month Of May / Tunnels // Keep The Car Running / Mountains Beyond Mountains / Wake Up

As can be expected, the Arcade Fire did great at their first Madison Square Garden show. I mean, duh, right? They’ve always been an arena band, and playing this show was basically them living out their destiny. I’m not really sure where they could go from here, actually, other than decline. They’re probably not going to get any bigger, and if you look at the albums, Win Butler has basically gone through his story arc in reverse: grew up in the suburbs, got alienated and decided that he doesn’t wanna live in America anymore, moved to Montreal and had meaningful experiences in the city. Unless he wants to go further back the next time around — Arcade Fire’s The Babies? — they’re going to have to dream it all up again. Or not! This show made it perfectly clear that they can dine out on Funeral for the rest of their lives.

The strange thing about this concert is that whenever the band played oldies, particularly the tracks from Funeral, the non-Win members would all be super energetic and animated. You know, they’d be doing their Arcade Fire thing, jumping around and banging on things and everyone singing and playing and moving at once. This plays very well in an arena, and that energy is reflected by the audience. However, with the exception of “Month of May,” whenever they would do songs from their new album, they all just kinda played their parts and didn’t put on much of a show. I’m not sure why they did this. Maybe they’re not confident enough in playing the new songs to indulge in theater while performing them? Maybe they don’t like those songs as much as Win does? I have no idea. I get the feeling that they’re misdirecting their energies, though — the audience doesn’t need to get more amped up for the Funeral hits, they respond to those with an intensely passionate fervor. They do, however, need to get led on the new songs, and aside from Win, the group doesn’t seem invested in doing that.

Arcade Fire “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)”

I’ve read some very harsh criticism of the new Arcade Fire album that basically makes it out to be this big blinking sign reading SUBURBS BAD, CITY GOOD. I feel like that misses the point somewhat. There’s not a lot of ambiguity on the album, but it’s not quite as reductive as that. “Mountains Beyond Mountains,” the album’s best and most aesthetically surprising song, essentially summarizes the entire record, and it’s basically the same song we’ve heard hundreds of times in rock music: “I’m bored with my life! I want to express myself! I want escape! I want excitement! I want salvation!” When I was a teenager living in the suburbs, this song was “Silent Kid,” it was “1979,” it was “Rock ‘n’ Roll Star.” This is just an essential part of rock and pop music; it’s a major part of the human condition. Does the record overstate the promise of the artsy city life? Yes, of course. Does it over-romanticize the purity of youth, and state a distrust for the institutions of adult life? Sure. But this is rock music, and that’s par for the course.

“Mountains Beyond Mountains” is beautiful and effective in part because it is fairly nuanced — you get the desire to leave, the dissatisfaction with the sprawl and the malls and the endless nothing-much that characterizes so much of the space in North America, but more than anything, you hear this excitement for possibility and change. The album starts out in an idyllic rut, but it ends with this song which looks off to the future, hoping for something better. The singer is still stuck in the same old place, but she’s got a destination in mind, and suddenly the world just has more of a sparkle to it.

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Spoon @ Madison Square Garden 8/4/2010

Me And The Bean (Britt solo) / Nobody Gets Me But You / The Underdog / Stay Don’t Go / Trouble Comes Running / The Ghost Of You Lingers / Written In Reverse / Don’t You Evah / I Turn My Camera On / Don’t Make Me A Target / I Summon You / Jonathon Fisk / You Got Yr Cherry Bomb / Got Nuffin / Black Like Me

Spoon “Nobody Gets Me But You”

I wasn’t sure how Spoon would translate in an arena, but I think that they did pretty great. This is mostly thanks to the presence of Britt Daniel, whose swagger and charisma comes across very well without having to do anything in the way of Bono-ish antics. A horn section added oomph to a few of the songs, but they didn’t really need it — in fact, the songs that relied the most on groove were the ones that went over the best. They are ultimately more of a club and large theater band, but they play with enough style and authority that I think they could do well in most any venue. When this set ended, I was totally satisfied, and the imminent Arcade Fire set was like a bonus round.

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Owen Pallett @ Madison Square Garden 8/4/2010

This Lamb Sells Condos / This Is The Dream Of Win & Regine / Midnight Directives / Lewis Takes Action / The Butcher / The Great Elsewhere / Lewis Takes Off His Shirt

Owen Pallett “Lewis Takes Off His Shirt”

Owen Pallett is a one-man string ensemble with a pretty, delicate voice and arty. Needless to say, his music is not exactly built for arenas. Nevertheless, I think he came off well, especially given that he was playing in the “people slowly trickle into the room” time slot. I think his singing is more impressive live than on record — there’s a reedy quality to his voice that has a more appealing resonance in a big room than transmitting through small speakers. He was very charming too, which helped a lot. I find it easy to get on this guy’s side.

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Teengirl Fantasy “Cheaters”

“Cheaters” is built around the a cappella track of the Love Committee’s “Cheaters Never Win” to such an extent that it’s probably more accurately considered to be a remix than an entirely new song. Teengirl Fantasy use pretty much the entire vocal, but they completely alter the tone of the piece, stripping away the cheeriness of the original tune and placing a far greater emphasis on the drama of the lyrics. Contrasted with a steady, emotionally neutral house track, the vocals take on a hysterical, frenzied quality. It’s a simple hot/cold dynamic, but it has a poetic quality, as though you’re slowly fading out of a numb state and coming back to an intense reality that seems a bit too absurd to be true.

Buy it from True Panther Sounds.

St. Vincent @ Central Park Summerstage 8/1/2010

The Strangers / Save Me From What I Want / Actor Out Of Work / Jesus Saves, I Spend / Just The Same But Brand New / The Neighbors / Laughing With A Mouth Of Blood / The Bed / Black Rainbow / Marrow / Your Lips Are Red // The Party

St. Vincent “Black Rainbow”

Ahhh, the ruthless perfection of St. Vincent. This was a remarkable set — technically astonishing, yet with enough deviations from recorded arrangements and small moments of improvisation to keep things fresh and in the moment. This was a special show. In addition to her usual quintet, she added a three man horn section and a five-piece mini-orchestra, all without ever bogging down the sound. I was most excited for “The Neighbors,” a seldom-performed favorite of mine, but “Black Rainbow” may have been the highlight as the additional players added richness and detail to the sound without doing anything to compromise Clark’s light, delicate melodies.

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Tune-Yards @ Central Park Summerstage 8/31/2010

Do You Wanna Live? / What’s That About? / Powa / My Hood / Fiya / Real Live Flesh / Sunlight / Hatari / Don’t Take My Life Away

Tune-Yards “Real Live Flesh”

The second Tune-Yards album can’t come quickly enough. The existing recordings are very good, but don’t do enough to showcase exactly how jaw-dropping Merrill Garbus has become as a live performer. I would go so far to say that she may be one of the greatest singers in the world today. The raw quality of her voice is phenomenal, but the originality of her style is what gets you — very controlled, but raw, playful, sexy, commanding, masculine, feminine. About half the songs were performed as usual, as either a duo or Garbus by herself, but the rest included a seven-piece band assembled for the occasion. This was incredible, and I can only hope that she does more of this in the future. Maybe she doesn’t need the extra percussion or the guitarist, but oh man, the horn section? Brilliant, perfect, wonderful. If you are on the fence about this band, you need to see them live and you will become a very big fan. It’s that simple.

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Basia Bulat “Run”

Basia Bulat is adorable. She can seem a bit solemn on record — her voice somewhat resembles that of the wholesome, dour Natalie Merchant — but in person, she is very friendly and smiley, which helps put over her performance. It’s just nice to see someone have fun up there, you know? Her set was low-key but dynamic, with several shifts in arrangement — acoustic guitar, mandolin, autoharp — that kept the sound lively and fresh. Her songs are small, gentle things with subtle charms that can flattened a bit in the studio, but in concert they open up and breathe. Loose and casual is the way to go with this music.

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Sonic Youth @ Prospect Park Bandshell 7/31/2010

Candle / Brother James / Catholic Block / Stereo Sanctity / Hey Joni / The Sprawl / Cross The Breeze / The Wonder / Hyperstation / White Cross / Mote / Shaking Hell // Shadow Of A Doubt / Silver Rocket / Expressway To Yr Skull

Sonic Youth “Stereo Sanctity”

Mark Ibold was not available for this performance, and so the band performed a set in which the most recent song was released in 1990. This was very cool, but also sort of odd, in that I feel somewhat uncomfortable with them totally ignoring twenty years of their career in choosing what to play. Granted, songs from A Thousand Leaves on through Sonic Nurse have been cut from the live repertoire for some time now and pretty much everything from NYC Ghosts and Flowers onward is arranged for a quintet, but still. This was a fine show, but it was bogged down a bit by the simple fact that I am still burned out on much of the Daydream Nation material and would’ve much preferred that they played more from Evol and Sister — how about “Schizophrenia,” “Cotton Crown,” and “Tom Violence” instead of “The Wonder”, “Hyperstation”, and “Silver Rocket”? — but that’s my own problem I guess. I’ve seen Sonic Youth so many times now that I’m afraid I take this stuff for granted. It was awesome to finally get to see them do “Stereo Sanctity” though. That was totally awesome. Also, there is no way that I will ever be bored with “Candle,” “Brother James,” “White Cross,” “Shadow of a Doubt” or “Expressway To Yr Skull.”

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Candy Claws “Sunbeam Show”

Candy Claws are a duo from Colorado who make music to evoke the power and mystery of nature. Their previous album attempted to mimic the sound of the ocean floor; their latest is inspired by a 1970 book titled The Secret Life of the Forest. If you only just listen casually, you may not get exactly what they’re going for — it mostly just sounds like an extremely ethereal take on Brian Wilson, and the lyrics are almost entirely obscure by the softness of their voices — but in the context of their stated project, it’s easy to imagine this as an abstracted impression of the forest. Sometimes it feels like we’re zooming in on a detail, other parts express a widescreen grandeur. Beyond the soft-focus surface, the arrangements are surprisingly nuanced, full of interesting textures, subtle melodies, and unexpected rhythms. The quality of the album is similar to that of its subject matter — pretty but matter-of-fact at first, but intriguing upon closer investigation.

Buy it from Amazon. I recommend holding out for a physical copy, though, as the packaging of this album is lovely and highly informative.

Mirah “Gone Are All The Days (Disco Mix)”

Mirah’s first few versions of “Gone Are All The Days” were stark and simple, with her voice and rhythm suggesting something bigger and deeper without filling in much space. There’s a charm to that sort of minimalism, but I feel like in the case of this song, the full-on punk-disco approach is far more effective. Even still, as much as the song has been filled-out, it’s still tight and spare, with a clear aesthetic debt to the Gossip in their tense-yet-danceable mode. They could go further — I could definitely hear this with disco strings and a bit of piano for color — but that would lighten it up, and I think the sweetness and smoothness of Mirah’s voice is flattered by the contrast of this rigid yet pulsing arrangement.

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Magic Kids “Phone Song”

Magic Kids aren’t the type of band to reinvent the wheel of sunshine pop. Think of them more like artisans invested in crafting very fine wheels of sunshine pop. They’re a deliberate and welcome anachronism; if this was food you’d probably find them at a nice farmer’s market or upscale specialty grocery. “Phone Song” is immediately familiar, and there are probably dozens of oldies that sound almost the same, but there’s a charm in their adaptation of an old timey songwriting recipe, and a quality in how they put it all together. It’s cute and lovely, and though that’s not always enough, it’s fine enough here.

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Curren$y “Audio Dope II”

Curren$y has one of those voices that seems as though it could’ve been genetically engineered for the purposes of rap — he need not even work too hard on rhymes to make his words come out sounding smooth, seductive, and musical. You can hear echoes of Snoop Dogg and Pusha T in his delivery, but he’s certainly his own man. I quite like the way his verses have this sticky quality, as though every line coats the beat like a slow drip of honey. The music for “Audio Dope II” suits this quality perfectly — the resonance of his voice seems to slick up this rhythmic loop that grinds like gears, and the bright tonality complements his dark, nearly monochromatic cadences.

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Deerhunter “Revival”

There’s been a long tradition in Christian pop of songs with lyrics that could just as easily be about God/Jesus or some wonderful boyfriend. Bradford Cox seems to be toying with that ambiguity in “Revival,” a brief, tightly composed yet gentle tune about being saved that mostly conveys a sense of hard-earned relief. As usual, Cox plays the passive character — he’s been through some horrible times, but he’s found someone who sets him at ease. At the end, Cox sings “darkness always, it doesn’t make much sense,” and that’s the point really. It doesn’t matter how he found his way out, only that he knows enough to let go of his misery and loneliness.

Visit the website for Deerhunter’s Halcyon Digest.

Earth, Wind & Fire “September”

“September” is the kind of song that I had known pretty much my entire life but could never place. It wasn’t identified for me until just recently, and even that didn’t really stick with me. Oh, that’s Earth, Wind & Fire? Okay. It’s actually called “September”? Huh. Now it’s stuck in my head forever. There are two reasons: Most obviously, this is one of the most ridiculously catchy songs ever penned. Every moment of it is a glee-inducing earworm; each part of the composition has a legitimate claim for being the best bit. (My favorite could be the horn fanfare that punctuates the chorus. But please, don’t make me choose.) More personally, I’m just not ever going to forget Vicky’s face as this song — one of her favorites ever, more or less her personal anthem, the thing she blasts to counter the noise of her “DJ” neighbor — played on a jukebox, a total surprise to her. She looked so totally happy that her expression was cartoonish in its cheeriness. Dancing in her seat, smiling and mouthing the words, completely within the song. I’ve seen this sort of thing before, with her and others, but there’s just something so profound to me about witnessing someone love a piece of art so intensely, so purely, so fully. It’s one of the most beautiful things I can think of, and now it’s what I picture when I hear this song: Perfect adorable totally unselfconscious ecstasy.

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Pavement @ Pitchfork Music Festival, 7/18/2010

Cut Your Hair / In The Mouth A Desert / Silent Kid / Kennel District / Shady Lane / Frontwards / Unfair / Grounded / Debris Slide / Spit On A Stranger / Range Life / Perfume-V / Trigger Cut / Fin / Stereo / Two States / Gold Soundz / Conduit For Sale! / Stop Breathin’ / Here / The Hexx

Pavement “Unfair”

I don’t know how to write about seeing my favorite band for the first time in over a decade in any sort of critical way. Any critical part of my brain was shut off during this set, it was all just a blur of glee, love, fandom, and an emotional bond with all of this music that goes beyond reason. I was freaking out through most of this show. I’d be embarrassed to see footage of myself, especially during “Unfair.” But it was like…a religious experience, maybe? Like what it could be to go be a devout person finally going to a holy land, or maybe it’s more like saying your prayers in the company of the very people who penned them. Maybe I’m overstating it, maybe I’m not. I think that more than any other music, this is the music that is the most a part of the fabric of who I am, and this was a hugely enjoyable and possibly profound thing for me. That’s about as close as I can get to explaining this.

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Owen Pallett “Midnight Directives”

This is a brilliant composition, the sort of piece that is urgent in tone, yet reveals itself upon repeated listening. The melody swoops and soars, but its a rather chilly sort of bombast — it’s a drama of intense thought, not physicality. I find myself often rewinding and going back over that final climax in the vocal section, just before the instrumental resolution: “For a man can be bought, and a man can be sold / and the price of a hundred thousand unwatered souls…” In context, that bit sounds defiant, thrilling, and terrifying all at once.

Owen Pallett “Midnight Directives” (Max Tundra remix)

Max Tundra’s arrangement of “Midnight Directives” brings in standard Tundra elements — a frenetic pace, extremely bright synth tones, a nerdy sort of funk — but does little to alter the main vocal part, which carries the essence of the tune. In this way, it’s a matter of dressing up the song in a new outfit. This is a more relaxed “Midnight Directives,” a version that tosses out the drama that makes the original so compelling, but focuses on flattering the song’s truly exceptional melody.

Buy Heartland from Amazon. Get the “Lewis Takes Off His Shirt” EP for free from Domino Records.

R.E.M. “Life and How to Live It”

1. The opening guitar figure of “Life and How To Live It” is like a lit fuse in slow motion. The fire gradually consumes the wire, and when the song kicks in all at once at the 30 second mark — KA-BOOM.

2. The opening line is “burn bright through the night,” which may help to explain why I can only imagine this song visually in terms of hot light contrasted with total darkness. In addition to the fuse imagery, I have long associated “Life and How To Live It” with a county fair or amusement park at night. I have no idea how this ever got in my head — some of you may recall that I have a similar though somewhat more literal interpretation of “Carnival Of Sorts” — but it’s in there, and it’s probably never going away.

3. The first time I saw R.E.M. perform this song was at Madison Square Garden in 2003. It was the first song in the encore. I remember the lights going out, then some flicker of strobe light as Peter Buck began the song. I’m not sure if that’s actually accurate, but it’s what I remember in my mind’s eye. When I think of this moment, I see it in black and white. I didn’t realize what Peter was playing right away, and it had never occurred to me that it would be in the setlist. I was stunned.

4. “Life and How To Live It” reveals itself in concert. It gets wilder, faster, and more cathartic. The moments of the composition that feel euphoric on the studio recording sound absolutely unhinged in live performance. Whereas the version of the song on Fables of the Reconstruction capably simulates the manic state of the song’s deranged protagonist, its live incarnation finds the entire band taking a method approach, and fully inhabiting his ecstatic madness.

5. “Life and How To Live It” is based on the true story of Brev Mekis, a schizophrenic man from Athens who split his home into two sides, each with a totally different set of furniture, books, clothing, pets, etc. He would live on one side for a while, and then switch to the other, and back again. After he passed away, it was discovered that he had a few hundred copies of a book he had written outlining his philosophy published by a vanity press hidden away on one side of his house. The book was titled Life: How To Live.

6. The majority of the songs on Fables of the Reconstruction are concerned with older, unknowable men who in some way retreat from the world around them. Whereas the other tracks describe a man’s actions from the outside looking in, “Life and How To Live It” is written from the perspective of its subject. I doubt that this was a deliberate decision, but it would make sense that Michael would relate to Mekis’ radical compartmentalization of his life. Most obviously, Mekis’ lifestyle is roughly analogous to that of a touring musician — time is split between two distinct ways of living, each accentuating a different state of mind. Ultimately, both sides feed into the other, arguably giving the person a more varied and rich life experience. (There is certainly an interesting argument to be made that the song reflects Michael’s sexual confusion as a young man, and the intentionally separated home represent life in and out of the closet.)

7. It helps to think of the song’s arrangement in the context of its lyrics: Michael is singing about a man running around and hollering as a structure is being built. Bill Berry lays the foundation of the building, and holds the piece together as Peter’s parts give it substance, color, and shape. Mike Mills’ bass part is the most dynamic element — it darts, climbs, and leaps around and through the form of the song, as if to represent Mekis’ frenzied state as his vision of an ideal life takes shape before his eyes. Mills’ bass lines in the song are crucial to the success of the composition, and are essential to its feeling of constant frenetic movement and elation.

8. All four members of the band get at least one moment in the song when their respective contribution seems to pop outside the bounds of the composition. (For one example, consider the way Peter’s guitar part seems to bounce up dramatically in the chorus.) This is brilliant, not simply because it makes for a ridiculously exciting piece of music, but because it allows each of the musicians an opportunity to channel the character’s joyous lunacy. For a song about a bizarre loner, there is not even a trace of alienation or condemnation in “Life and How To Live It.” Truly, every aspect of the song respects its subject’s skewed vision, and throws itself headlong into his creativity, pleasure, and unwavering faith.

Buy it from Amazon. Originally posted 7/22/2008 on Pop Songs. My review of the new Fables of the Reconstruction reissue is here on Pitchfork.

Britta Persson “Meet A Bear”

The melody of the first single from Britta Persson’s forthcoming third album seems to roll out, like a string unfurling from a ball of yarn. It’s not totally graceful, but it comes out soft and smooth, so much that you might miss the non sequitur that gives the song its title. She starts off the chorus by stating that she would like to “meet a bear before I die,” but then goes on about wanting to help a teenage girl break up with some guy who made her feel more adult. It’s rare that I find a song where I wish I could ask the singer, mid-song, to go back and elaborate on something. I’m so curious, though! Meet a bear? Like, an actual bear, not gay slang? A bear in the woods, a bear in a zoo? A cartoon bear wearing human clothing? A bear that might talk to you? Because it’s “meet a bear”, as in socially engage with a bear, not just see one in passing. A grizzly bear? A panda bear? There is so much vivid, precise language in this song about girls in Tokyo playing rock music and the behavior of children in a school building, but man, I’d love just one more detail about the bear thing.

Pre-order it from Britta Persson.

Wolf Parade “Little Golden Age”

Dan Boeckner has one of the best rock and roll voices of his generation. He always sound serious, passionate, and intense, but not so much so that he seems dour and humorless. At his very best, he’s like Springsteen filtered through punk rock — the Boomer sentimentality is stripped away, and all the grandiosity is traded away for a bare bones minimalism with equivalent levels of bombast. “Little Golden Age” is an ideal vehicle for the Springsteen-not-Springsteen quality of his voice. The arrangement implies some deep, burning emotion, but it’s mostly just a song expressing a reticence to indulge in self-mythology. You could call it nostalgic, maybe, but is it actually nostalgia if you’d never want to go back to it?

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Dirty Projectors & Björk “On And Ever Onward”

I do not know whether or not David Longstreth wrote this song specifically for Björk to sing, but either way, this greatly flatters a particular quality in her voice that is at once wild and mature. She sings this song with dignity, authority, and warmth, each word comes out sounding like true wisdom. The rest of the Dirty Projectors girls sing around her, their parts constructing much of the arrangement, leaving the instrumentation to add a few rhythmic and textural suggestions, like a thinly drawn outline to contain the color of these voices. The piece is lovely and gentle despite some slightly shrill tones, conveying a powerful optimism and humility in the face of nature.

Buy it from the band. All of the profits go to the National Geographic Society Oceans Project.

Shapes & Sizes “Too Late For Dancing”

Shapes & Sizes have a searching, curious sound — their best songs tend to wander, or excitedly push at their own boundaries. Caila Thompson-Hannant, the group’s better and most prominent vocalist, has a brave quality in her voice that often makes the music seem like an adventure expedition into the unknown. Their third album, Candle To Your Eyes, is their best and most surprising yet. They’ve somehow found a way to merge their expansive art rock sensibility with a sort of ersatz sultry funk. “Too Late For Dancing,” the record’s most impressive track, is overtly sexy and surprisingly fluid in form, slinking its way through an ever-shifting, but always wide-open negative space. Thompson-Hannant sounds amazing here — quirky and bold as ever, but now also very soulful and seductive. They’ve discovered something rather distinct and brilliant here, a zone not unlike the xx’s subdued sex pop, but far more detailed in texture, and far more airy in tone than claustrophobic.

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Big Boi “General Patton”

I’ve got to assume that Big Boi — a.k.a. Antwan Patton — has been sitting on that “General Patton” title for years, and was just waiting around for a track with the appropriate militaristic, operatic grandeur to serve the conceit. He made the right call. “General Patton” is a terrific balance of gravitas and strut, strength and swing. Big Boi leans into the beat hard enough for some lines to land like punches, but his cadence is rather bouncey, allowing for as much aggression as levity. That’s the upside of this song, anyway. The downside? The track carries on for too long after Big Boi has finished rapping, and — this is the really bad thing — it’s followed by a brief, deeply unfunny skit. I wish that a guy this brilliant knew enough to edit that stuff out.

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The-Dream “Sex Intelligent”

The-Dream mostly boasts and flirts his way through his songs, but what makes him so interesting is the way he laces all of that bravado with neuroses and complicated, often totally confused intentions. Much like Beyoncé, he sings about sexuality as a bargaining process, inextricably knotted up with material possession and social status. The latter is key to The-Dream, whose sexual prowess is framed as a competitive drive rather than a mode of affection, a way of proving himself superior to other men. When he declares himself to be “sex intelligent,” he chops and screws his voice, bringing his high, expressive voice down to a slow, dumb monotone. I hear self-loathing in this move, especially in the way it contrasts with his more dramatic, emotive singing throughout the track. He’s turning it all off, making himself an animal or a machine, distancing himself from all these conflicts and contradictions, and forcing out every thought but whatever insecurity is driving him to make his sexual rivals “irrelevant.” His fear is transparent — he’s terrified of not being good enough, and not measuring up to arbitrary standards of masculinity. It could be that, deeper down, he realizes that no amount of orgasms can make up for how cold and emotionally unavailable he’s made himself as a result of this ruthless, soulless pursuit for primacy.

Buy it from Amazon.