The Mynabirds @ Bell House 6/3/2010

Lemon Tree / LA Rain / Wash It Out / Give It Time / Ways Of Looking / What We Gained In The Flood / Numbers Don’t Lie / Right Place / Let The Record Go / Good Heart

The Mynabirds are exceptional as a live act, balancing out a sharp professionalism with sweetness and warmth. The live arrangements are tweaked slightly from what you hear on album — there’s no horn section, for example — but the group fills in the space with rich backing vocals and a greater emphasis on the rhythm section. It helps that the Bell House has exceptional sound. I love the room sound of the studio recordings, but the crisp, precise mix at this show was gorgeous in its own right.

The Mynabirds “Ways Of Looking”

“Ways Of Looking” is about dealing with disappointment, or more precisely, admiring the way another person processes setbacks and bad news. The song is gentle and languid, with Laura Burhenn sounding wounded yet calm over guitar chords that evoke overcast skies and recall the Velvet Underground. It’s nearly serene in tone, so it can be easy to miss that it’s also a love song. There’s no drama or turmoil here, only respect for someone’s strength and gratitude for their support. Amidst all the risk and uncertainty, “Ways Of Looking” finds comfort in the moment, and a healthy perspective on the past, present, and future.

Buy it from Saddle Creek.

Vampire Weekend “White Sky”

“White Sky” is a stroll through uptown Manhattan, taking in the art and architecture that is available to everyone while quietly pondering the barriers between the public domain and the private property of the powerful and wealthy. The tension is faint, but it’s there: You walk through this area, always dimly aware of the immense luxury just out of view, and all the places where you don’t belong that share a border with the common culture. The boundaries are at once glaringly obvious and weirdly invisible; security guards and doormen are merely a second line of defense after the sheer banality of class stratification.

Resentment is usually mitigated by aspiration — you can get a contact high off the big money and high culture; you can dream of ways of insinuating yourself into this world. In the final verse of the song, Ezra Koenig’s protagonist pictures herself in this context:

look up at the buildings

imagine who might live there

imagining your Wolfords in a ball upon the sink there

I love that last line; it’s so specific and loaded with implication. You can read this a few ways, but it makes the most sense to me if she’s only just a visitor, her access granted by personal connection and sexual availability. It sounds cynical, but it doesn’t have to be. There are certainly worse ways of attaining social mobility.

Buy it from Amazon.

Tame Impala “It Is Not Meant To Be”

Tame Impala’s songs sound as though they have a destination, if not a clear direction. “It Is Not Meant To Be” seems to burrow down through layers of psychedelic sound, searching for some kind of center. It’s dizzying stuff but it doesn’t feel lost or confused, so it’s easy to have faith in their instincts. The bass is especially beautiful in this track — it’s the most driving and forceful element in the arrangement, but it has a soft, comfy tone. It’s the kind of bass line you could lie down on and take a nap.

Buy it from iTunes.

Roach Gigz “Magic Gas”

Roach Gigz is a stoned charmer with a slurred, high-pitched voice that’s exaggerated enough to seem cartoonish, but has just enough grit in it to keep him from sounding entirely goofy. Not that goofy is a big problem for him — the broadness of his character is what draws you in, and his rhymes play to that strength, erring on the side of playful, teasing verses that fall somewhere between the gleeful mischievousness of Eminem and the puckish absurdity of Lil’ Wayne. (Or how about this: The charisma and tone of Boots Riley, but without the dogma.) His debut mixtape is consistent and fun, confident enough to come across as bold, but relaxed enough that it doesn’t sound like he’s working too hard to impress anyone. It’s refreshing stuff.

Get it for free from Roach Gigz.

!!! “AM/FM”

The atmosphere to this is thick and humid, the sort of summer weather that makes you feel almost too aware of your body. There some moments where the song seems to pop like a bubble, and you get this feeling along the lines of getting a quick blast of AC, or the minute just after the humidity breaks and it starts to rain. !!! are great at this sort of evocative funk.

Visit the !!! MySpace page.

Holy Ghost! “Static On The Wire”

This one seems like it was built specifically for roller disco, and so it’s a shame almost no one does that anymore. Maybe it’s more about the idea, though — you don’t necessarily have to be doing the act itself to enjoy that feeling of dancing and gliding. You just do it through imagined space rather than physical space.

Buy it from Amazon.

Mz Streamz “Go Go Girls”

This track isn’t profound, but I like the way that Mz Streamz wraps her words around it. It’s tight, but just loose enough that she complements the bounce of the beat, and she has room to show off her charm. She sounds like she’s smiling while rapping, which is always a good thing when the song is meant to be fun.

Visit the Mz Streamz MySpace page.

James Blake “CMYK”

“CMYK” is haunted by R&B ghosts. Vocal samples drift through the track, distorted and abstracted, but left just familiar enough that we can catch some of the words and identify the source material. You could rely on cultural memory to fill in the gaps — Blake is sampling Kelis and Aaliyah — but it’s not necessary, you can pick up on the tension just by listening. He’s contrasting perspectives, giving us the voice of the angry woman who has been cheated on and the voice of the Other Woman, not in conversation or conflict, but just floating along in the same continuum, as if to put us in the place of the man who is playing them both. It’s all just faint echoes of some emotional mess.

Buy it from Amazon.

Beach House “Walk In The Park”

“Walk in the Park” is about as pensive and leisurely paced as its title implies, with each part of its arrangement progressing in time like thoughts slowly forming into an epiphany. It sounds so patient, yet purposeful in its gently insistent rhythm — the song knows where it has to go, but isn’t about to rush its way to something important. It operates on the awareness that the big moment is about to arrive and then quickly slip away, so the lead-up is extended. It’s like trying to hold on to something you don’t even have yet.

Buy it from Amazon.

Lauryn Hill “Every Ghetto, Every City”

“Every Ghetto, Every City” is a song of proud, unapologetic nostalgia. It’s specifically about Lauryn Hill’s youth in the northern New Jersey of the 1980s, and it gets into enough vivid concrete details to make a very particular experience seem universal. You don’t need to have adolescent memories of beef patties and coco bread, doing the wop, or the fireworks at Martin Stadium to plug into the sentiment of this song, which is as more about our need to build a mythology out of our memories than it is about one woman’s life. You recognize the moments, and you fill in your own references to all the little things that made up your childhood, and served as the foundation for your experience as an adult. We all have our origin stories, so they may as well be iconic, at least in our own mind.

Buy it from Amazon.

Rose Elinor Dougall “Find Me Out”

Though the sound of “Find Me Out” is poised and calm, its lyrics are paranoid and insecure, sung from the perspective of a woman totally convinced that her partner will eventually shift his attention from her best qualities to her worst flaws. Dougall sings with a cool, composed tone, underplaying the anxiety and self-loathing in the lyrics while playing up the feeling of quiet dread. It’s all muted fear, extended into this seemingly never-ending lull as she waits and waits for her worst case scenario to come true. It probably won’t, of course. It’s always a bit mystifying when someone loves you when you don’t fully love yourself, but just because you don’t get it, it doesn’t mean they’re wrong.

Buy it from Amazon.

Unknown Mortal Orchestra “Ffunny Ffrends”

“Ffunny Ffrends” is hypnotic and woozy, shuffling about as the vocal and guitar parts double a melodic part that is essentially loose and easy-going, but becomes insistent with repetition. There’s a nice, hazy quality to this song, and it’s not necessarily to do with the lo-fi recording of the track. The space would feel open either way, though I do like the way the mix has a “soft focus” effect on the composition. It sounds a bit old and weathered, particularly when the piece shifts into an inspired, seemingly off-the-cuff guitar solo.

Buy it from BandCamp.

Spoon “Is Love Forever?”

The first half of Transference sounds drunk and dizzy, and Britt Daniel’s lyrical sentiments match the tone, spilling out expressions of fear, desire, and confusion without the benefit of sober self-consciousness. “Is Love Forever?” is about the same as listening to a drunk friend tell you about their bad luck with relationships, but far more tuneful, interesting, and resonant. Musically, this is about as close as Spoon gets to a type of Robert Pollard song only familiar to dedicated fans — it’s in the rhythm and the structure, the way it bops along like pop but resolves itself without retracing many steps. A lot of the charm comes through in Daniel’s lyrics, which in only a handful of lines sets up contradicting anxieties, clever metaphors, and vivid imagery. (I’m a sucker for “some ex-girlfriend, call her Heather, whispers to me ‘Is love forever?'”) I didn’t even notice the bit of lyrics that really get me now until I saw them printed out on the album sleeve just recently. As Britt sings “Are you quite certain, love?” with increasing emphasis, a second Britt sings another verse buried beneath it: “When I’m older, start to wonder – was that love or instinct working? Have I even felt it ever? What’s the object? Is love forever?” Questions, questions, questions, and no certainty whatsoever.

Buy it from Amazon.

Janelle Monáe “Wondaland”

Janelle Monáe is incredibly ambitious and gleefully eccentric, but her talent is much deeper than just coming up with a fabulous shtick. The ArchAndroid is eclectic to the point of being a bit show-offy, but the material is consistently great no matter how far she gets from what would seem to be her comfort zone of zippy space-age R&B. Think of it this way — it’s like Andre 3000’s The Love Below in terms of stylistic reach and vision, but without any of the dud tracks that cluttered up that album. It’s also surprising how little you need to invest in her sci-fi concepts to plug into her larger themes, or simply enjoy her tunes. “Wondaland”, a highlight from the album’s second half, is part of an ongoing storyline involving androids and super powers, but that’s really just something that adds to the essential thrill of its shimmering melodies and floating grooves. Monáe has style for miles and miles, but it’s not wasted on gorgeous moments such as the middle eight of this song, which is astounding enough to totally transcend narrative or affectation.

Buy it from Amazon.

Club 8 “Dancing With The Mentally Ill”

Club 8 have embraced Western African and Latin rhythms on their latest album, mostly resulting in wispy Scandinavian pop with a festive, busy beat. “Dancing With The Mentally Ill” is the best track on the record, but also something of an exception to the general tone, going dark and lean where the rest shoot for sweet and perky. There’s a great sense of space in this track, and the shift into the chorus is far more dramatic than one could normally expect from this band, who typically err on the side of softness and subtlety. As it turns out, sexy and spooky suits them. Maybe it’s time for them to go a bit goth.

Buy it from Amazon.

Tracey Thorn “Oh, The Divorces!”

“Oh, The Divorces!” is written from the perspective of an outsider looking in on other people’s lives, sorting through all the second hand news of heartbreak and divorces, and trying to figure out what it all means, if anything at all. The subtext is what makes this song so poignant: If this is what happens to everyone, isn’t this just going to happen to me? When is it our turn? Tracey Thorn invests her song with a great deal of empathy for her subjects, but there’s no shaking that unspoken dread at the core of it, that nagging fear that most every partnership is subject to entropy. She sounds resigned to all the predictable dramas, but she wouldn’t be singing this if she didn’t hold out some hope that these things can work out, and that love can endure.

Buy it from Amazon.

Sleigh Bells @ Ridgewood Masonic Temple 5/11/2010

(Metal Intro) / Tell ‘Em / Infinity Guitars / A/B Machines / Kids / Riot Rhythm / Treats / Straight A’s / Holly / Crown On The Ground // Rill Rill

Sleigh Bells “Infinity Guitars”

1. Sleigh Bells are not fucking around. They show up ready to fully commit and entertain, and stalk the stage with the intensity of boxers in the ring. Like the music itself, the show is elemental and assertive, simple enough to be obvious, though novel enough to make you wonder why no one has ever really done it quite like this before.

2. The Ridgewood Masonic Temple, though roughly the size of the Bowery Ballroom, is not a proper music venue, and so the PA left something to be desired in terms of loudness. Ideally, you want this music to be overwhelmingly loud. You want that crunk low-end to really demolish you, you know? On the up side, Alexis Krauss’ vocals were clear and loud in the mix, more so than on the studio recordings.

3. Krauss is an incredibly charismatic performer, and she is as potent in a live context as Derek Miller’s tracks are on the album. A lot of the thrill in watching her is just seeing someone have such a blast on stage. She is totally aware of how awesome it is to sing over these beats and riffs, and in a way, she’s as much a lead singer as a hype person for the music in general.

4. Yeah, people were going bonkers. There were a lot of cameras and a lot of guest list action going on, but people came to rock. “A/B Machines”, “Kids,” “Crown On The Ground”? Total bangers.

5. At the start of “Tell ‘Em”, someone up in the balcony tossed out a bunch of beach balls and a large inflatable shark. At some point in “Infinity Guitars”, Alexis caught the shark and threw it back at the the crowd while shouting. I think that might be a metaphor for the band’s style.

6. Let’s stop for a moment to reflect on the finale of “Infinity Guitars.” You know, the part where it comes back even louder than before, and the BASS OF ULTIMATE DESTRUCTION kicks in? That is so so so so so awesome.

7. I expected this show to be fun, but I was still surprised by how much they seem to be ready for big venues and large crowds. They really go for it, and they’re really appreciating their moment. If you’re inclined to see them live, you should do so as soon as you can.

8. Especially if you are a teenager. I kept thinking on the way home about how this band would be such an amazing first rock show for a teenager.

Buy it from iTunes.

Flying Lotus “Do The Astral Plane”

Flying Lotus’ new album Cosmogramma moves with a sort of musical dream logic — half-remembered sounds from a variety of genres are skewed and warped into surreal shapes, and float along on illogical yet intuitive tangents from one sequence to the next. “Do The Astral Plane” comes in on the final third of the record, and bounces around on an assertive groove before reaching a glorious melodic crest of synthetic string textures and clattering electronic percussion. It’s a very careful composition, but it’s more fluid than fussy. It flows out with effortless grace, as if it’s just spilling out from the artist’s unconscious mind directly on to the track.

Buy it from Amazon.

CocoRosie “The Moon Asked The Crow”

CocoRosie’s music has always been slippery and strange, typically resulting in uncomfortable collisions of jarring, deeply uncool affectations. Their latest album Grey Oceans is their best work to date, mostly because they have a better handle on how to make their juxtapositions resonate on a level deeper than willfully grotesque critic-baiting. There’s an intense sadness at the core of Grey Oceans, but it’s often rendered inexplicable and incomprehensible by the duo’s oddness and absurdity. The melancholy mainly comes through in the piano, but you can sense it in their voices — most obviously in the sister with the jazzy voices, less blatantly but more poignantly in the one who sounds like some sort of gremlin. “The Moon Asked The Crow” is a showcase for the latter sister, who raps her way through it like a distaff Tricky. Her words are nothing but mystical nonsense and the music is like mid-’90s R&B shot through the prism of fantasy fiction, but somehow I find this very moving. I like that this record makes me question what I’m feeling and wonder why these particular aesthetics and inflections trigger particular feelings. I’m not sure exactly where these women are coming from, but I suspect on some level they want us to think about emotion and sentimentality as being at least somewhat arbitrary.

Buy it from Amazon.

The Fall “Y.F.O.C./Slippy Floor”

It can seem like Mark E. Smith has the best gig in all of rock music. He hires musicians, pushes them to come up with suitably sinister grooves, he shows up to rant and growl. When he gets bored of the musicians, he fires them and brings on a new set of players. Over and over and over again, for decades on end. Unlike most rock singers, his shtick is not diminished by age. In fact, he’s only just becoming the angry, inscrutable old man he’s always been. He’s got a great thing going, but it is entirely because he created the perfect vehicle for his distinct voice and highly specific talent. No one else could just turn up on a track like this and utter nonsense and be anywhere near as compelling. Who else could make complaining about a SLIPPY FLOOR-ah! sound so brilliant over some violent punk thrashing? He’s a treasure. If only we could all find a way to ideally package our most extreme eccentricities.

Buy it from Amazon.

Zola Jesus “I Can’t Stand”

I always wish there were more songs conveying true empathy. There’s a lot, but it’s never as much as we need. I guess that’s the case for most anything having to do with empathy, right? “I Can’t Stand” is addressed to a lonely and despondent friend. The tone is grim yet slightly uplifting, and Zola Jesus’ words and phrasing acknowledge the great difficulties of finding love and staving off depression and self-loathing , but offers hope and unconditional support. The darky, gothy feeling of the piece anchors the sentiment to a harsh reality, and the refusal to bullshit with her friend makes it all the more poignant. Her faith seems more genuine.

Buy it from Amazon.

Wild Moccasins “Late Night Television”

“Late Night Television” has a dynamic, epic sound. If it was a movie rather than a rock song, it’d be an action-adventure. So it’s a bit ironic that, despite all that, it’s basically a song about laziness, and the guilt and disappointment of spending so much time doing nothing at all. Zahira Gutierrez and Cody Swann sing together and to one another, equally troubled by their malaise but coming to slightly different conclusions re: whether or not their sloth is sending them on a fast track to hell. But it kinda depends on what you’d call hell, right?

Visit the Wild Moccasins MySpace page.