The Big Pink “Dominos”

So here’s the question: Is this song a jerk, or is the singer a jerk? I don’t know a lot about Robbie Furze, so I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he’s written a song about a creep who is just a little too into stringing girls along and callously breaking their hearts. He wouldn’t be the first person to write a song about this sort of thing, and certainly not the first to do it in a bragging sort of way, but there’s something about the phrasing in the lyrics that make this guy seem especially sinister. This seems rather deliberate, especially in the context of an arrangement that sounds like someone thinking that they are the most awesome person that has ever lived. The chorus rises and explodes like fireworks celebrating this guy’s heartless ego, and as much as this can be read as a fantasy, the over-the-top nature of it all points in the direction of bitter irony. Either way, “Dominos” has a killer hook. It’s up to you to decide whether or not that is enough to embrace a rather goony lyrical sentiment.

Buy it from Amazon.

HEALTH “Die Slow”

The big problem with My Bloody Valentine as a standard musical influence is that it’s pretty obvious that a lot of musicians don’t really have any idea what made Loveless so effective and evocative. Reducing Kevin Shields’ music to blaring rhythm guitar and murmured vocals cuts out the dynamics and omits the sexuality, resulting in an expression of passive-aggression and shyness rather than blissful sensuality. “Die Slow” is one of the few songs I’ve ever heard that sounds like a best-case scenario of where My Bloody Valentine could have gone if Shields et al had ever bothered to finish another record. The song has a solid groove like “Soon,” but it is a denser and busier piece of music, accented by bursts of concentrated noise that form genuine hooks. The arrangement feels tense and violent, but the vocal performance is pure sweetness, which is turn makes the entire song feel less dangerous and more defensive.

Buy it from Amazon.

Charlotte Gainsbourg “Looking Glass Blues”

Charlotte Gainsbourg is not exactly lacking in personality, but I’m not sure what her personality actually is. She’s an odd presence, a weird question mark in the middle of groovy, atmospheric pop songs. Her new album is a collaboration with Beck, an enigma in his own right, and I think a lot of the reason why it works is because he on some level acknowledges this odd not-quite-there quality in her voice and knows how to make it an asset. As on his most recent albums, he builds warm riffs and busy rhythms around Gainsbourg’s cool and aloof singing voice. It’s not so much about a jarring contrast as it is about highlighting the character and expression that’s already there in her performance, and drawing her out of her shell. “Looking Glass Blues” is especially successful in heating things up without melting the iciness that makes her alluring in the first place. As it turns out, psychedelia suits her rather well. There’s a nice coziness to the sound of the guitar and bass, and the subject matter allows her to slip into a role that is simultaneously authoritative and slightly silly.

Buy it from Amazon.

James Rabbit “A Closer Look”

There is good anxiety, and there is bad anxiety. Tyler Martin has a way of making the latter sound like the former, and somehow turns every nagging question mark in his head into buoyant songs that come across like rows of exclamation points in a large bold font. Even the calm moments in “A Closer Look” feel manic and over-excited, but the music is not spazzy or unfocused. Just the opposite, really — the song bursts with enthusiasm and inspiration, but it’s a controlled, deliberate portrait of a mind overflowing with thoughts, concepts, neuroses, and urges. As in many of his songs, Martin sings about what he wants from his art and what he’s trying to express, but that doesn’t get in the way of actually saying something of value. He’s a guy who lives in his head, but desperately wants to connect with other people, and this music perfectly captures the nervous thrill of just nearly making that sort of meaningful connection, one way or another.

Buy it from Insound.

Beak “Backwell”

The first three minutes of “Backwell” is all drone and subtle throb, sloooowly building up a tension that breaks suddenly into an intense, panicky groove. From there on out, a busy synthesizer riff takes the lead, as a crisp beat keeps the piece moving toward an endless horizon familiar to anyone that’s heard a bit of Krautrock. Beak is a side project for Portishead’s Geoff Barrow, and it’s already had a direct impact on the work of his main band, yielding the impossibly brilliant charity single “Chase The Tear.” The Beak material doesn’t quite hit that high standard — Beth Gibbons’ presence lends a certain magic, obviously — but it’s excellent work on its own terms, and an intriguing peak into Barrow’s process as he toys with new methods of working and gets some Kraut-y pastiche out of his system before coming up with something more fresh and distinctive with his regular collaborators.

Buy it from Amazon.

The Fiery Furnaces @ Bowery Ballroom 12/12/2009

Rub Alcohol Blues / Charmaine Champagne / Duplexes of the Dead – Automatic Husband – Ex-Guru / Chris Michaels / The End Is Near / Keep Me In The Dark / Up In The North / Staring At The Steeple / Drive To Dallas / Evergreen / Crystal Clear / Cut The Cake / Ray Bouvier / Worry Worry / Wolf Notes // I’m In No Mood – Candy Maker’s Knife In My Handbag / Two Fat Feet / Asthma Attack / Single Again / Chief Inspector Blancheflower (first part) – Japanese Slippers / Even In The Rain / Here Comes The Summer

I wonder if the Fiery Furnaces are going to stick with performing crowd-pleasing rock shows for the foreseeable future, or if they’re just dying to go off on another strange tangent as soon as they get a chance. The simple, straight-forward approach is obviously well-suited to the relatively straightforward material from I’m Going Away, but there are still enough traces of Matthew Friedberger’s perversity in the live arrangements — I’m thinking about the bizarre rhythm and time shifts dropped into “Drive To Dallas” in particular — that the show feels as though it can go wonky at any moment. For the most part, though, this was a lean and tight performance with a loose and groovy vibe, especially as the band breezed through several numbers on the fly during a generously long encore. This was the Fiery Furnaces at their best — dynamic and fun, with an emphasis on the quality of their songs rather than their sui generis style or contrarian impulses. A lot of the oldies were rearranged, but pretty much always in a way that flattered the melody and revealed a side to the song, as with the ballad version of “Single Again” or the quasi-arena rock take on “Here Comes The Summer.”

The Fiery Furnaces “Keep Me In The Dark”

It would be interesting for the Fiery Furnaces to further mine the territory established on “Keep Me In The Dark.” They’ve done some groovy, danceable bits in the past, but it’s never been a focus, especially as Matthew seems like the sort of guy to either lose interest midway or flip your expectations once he’s got you moving. The verses are fine, but the chorus is top-notch, vaguely echoing Motown in both form and substance without veering into pastiche. The lyrics kill me, by the way. The verses are typical high concept Furnaces fare, but when Eleanor sings “please don’t tell me nothing, keep me in the dark with the opposite of anything,” it’s clear that she’s talking about something far more emotionally potent than antiques, receipts, and per diems.

Buy it from Amazon.

BOAT “Lately”

Near the start of this song, David Crane says that New Jersey is a “state without a hero,” which strikes me as a rather weird thing to say, since I can’t think of a state in the country without a greater desire for a pantheon of its own homegrown cultural heroes. For one thing, Bruce Springsteen’s career is at least partially based on being a hero for New Jersey’s working class. That’s the most obvious one. But what about Jon Bon Jovi, the Springsteen of the shore? Frank Sinatra? Jon Stewart? On a smaller but no less potent level, what about Tom Scharpling and Ted Leo? (And what of Brock Peuchk?)

Anyway. I came to BOAT because people were telling me that they sounded like Pavement. BOAT doesn’t actually sound like Pavement though, but they do sound like the indie rock of the ’90s. And you know, Pavement is synonymous with that. I don’t need or want anyone to be like Stephen Malkmus, but I am glad that the pendulum of indie fashion is swinging back to his sort of merry, melodic looseness. Still, I want to be careful in the coming years. I don’t want to just like things because it triggers Pavlovian responses in me, because it reminds me of the music I listened to when I was a teenager. I also don’t want to be too hard on artists for not living up to actually being Pavement or Pollard or Sonic Youth or whatever. BOAT is charming, BOAT has some terrific songs. Their identity needs to evolve beyond “I love the ’90s” if they’re ever going to graduate from good to great, but you know what? I love the ’90s too. I can live with this.

Buy it from Magic Marker Records.

Class Actress “Someone Real”

“You just need someone real to love.” There are a lot of ways could use that line and have it come off as either stinging or empathetic. Elizabeth Harper goes right down the middle, insisting that the woman the object of her affections has put on a pedestal is not herself, and softly but sternly suggesting that he needs someone real to love, i.e., the person she actually is. Harper’s voice is sweet but slightly aloof, and she slips perfectly into a sleek track that is perhaps just a little too chilly, graceful, and reserved to be considered bouncy, but manages to get a nice bump going nonetheless.

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R. Kelly “Echo”

A lot of people seem to be fixated on the fact that R. Kelly yodels in this song, and though I grant that is a fairly unusual and novel thing, the part of “Echo” that strikes me as weird is his odd monotone “sex in the morning, sex all day” refrain in the verses. Everything else in the piece is passionate and pretty, yet that’s the sentiment delivered with an affect of apparent indifference? It could be that he’s just pacing himself for a busy day, or it could be a strictly musical contrast and the words fit the meter and theme. Either way, it’s the sort of strange detail that adds tension to R. Kelly’s music — is he kidding, is this for real, why did he make that decision, why did he choose those words? The basic themes and modes in R. Kelly’s music can get quite banal, but he’s brilliant in the way he does all these little things to knock you off guard with a bit of weirdness, make you laugh, and keep things playful without sacrificing smoothness and beauty.

Buy it from Amazon.

Gigi “I’m Not Coming Out Tonight”

Gigi is a project that exists almost entirely because songwriter Nick Krgovich and producer Colin Stewart acquired vintage plate reverb units, a central component of Phil Spector’s classic recordings from the early ’60s. Though in some ways it is disappointing that those two men and their various collaborators chose to emulate those old records rather than attempt to make something totally new with the same technology, who can blame them when that sound is so specific and seductive? I’m sure in the future we’ll have people rediscovering vintage autotune software and making their own T-Pain music. The album is basically like a costume drama, with various singers slipping into the aural equivalent of period clothing and delivering studied approximations of mid-20th century pop mannerisms.

It’s not all so self-conscious, though. “I’m Not Going Out Tonight,” a song recorded with Syndey Vermont and Marissa Johnson, is so stunning in its composition and emotionally affecting in its execution that the plate reverb falls back to being a supporting player rather than the star of the show. This is how it ought to be, obviously. That sound may be a beautiful thing, but the primary reason it has so much cultural resonance is because it was applied to expertly crafted songs that conveyed earnest desire. This is why so many artists cop this sound or lift the “Be My Baby” beat — it is cultural shorthand for the work of artists who found a way to perfectly express innocent, starry-eyed passion. “I’m Not Going Out Tonight” is successful because it’s less about context and nostalgia, and more focused on conveying a powerful longing in its melody, lyrics, and vocal performance. This is heart-melting stuff, especially as the girls sing “I love you so much I can’t stand it” with a lovely angelic cadence as the music reaches its crest. Whereas the other tracks are decent compositions written for the plate reverb, this is a piece of music that truly earns the effect.

Buy it from Amazon.

Sloan @ Bell House 12/4/2009

Take It Upon Yourself / At The Edge Of The Scene / Believe In Me / Autobiography / It Is Never / Don’t You Believe A Word / Keep On Thinkin’ / Money City Maniacs / The NS / new unreleased Andrew song / The Great Wall / Where Are You Now? / Midnight Mass / Oh Dear Diary / Friendship / Witch’s Wand / Fading Into Obscurity / Everything You’ve Done Wrong / Who Taught You To Live Like That? // The Other Man / C’mon C’mon / Chester The Molester / The Good In Everyone

Sloan “Take It Upon Yourself”

Sloan are very good at things that tend to get taken for granted: Writing large quantities of catchy songs; playing fun no-frills rock shows; somehow having the collective temperament to balance out the egos of four distinctly talented songwriters. As they continue to ease into their elder statesmen role, their unpretentious, craft-driven approach to rock and roll becomes more of a narrative thread, but really, when it comes to these guys the only hooks that matter are the ones in the songs. They’re currently touring in support of Hit & Run, an EP of slick, compact tunes in the vein of their two most recent albums, but the focus of the show is on back catalog, mixing surefire sing-along starters like “Money City Maniacs” and “Everything You’ve Done Wrong” with deep cuts like “The Great Wall” and the Between The Bridges b-side “At The Edge Of The Scene.” I was particularly thrilled that they dusted off “Keep On Thinkin’,” a personal favorite and one of the finest early Beatles pastiches I’ve ever heard. It’s hard to say this without worrying that it will come off as reductive or condescending, but this was a very enjoyable rock show from a super-consistent band of hard-working veterans. Good times.

Buy it directly from Sloan.

Washed Out “New Theory”

In a way, I get the sense that by naming his project Washed Out and his EP Life of Leisure, Ernest Greene is trying to beat writers to the punch in how they describe his music. So yes, Washed Out sounds washed out, and the music is rather relaxing. What else is there? Well, for one thing, there’s a soft core of sadness in all of his songs, and the woozy nostalgia in his arrangements is only the scratchable surface of the deep feelings of loss and regret in songs like “New Theory” and “Feel It All Around.” There’s not a lot of concrete detail in this music, and that’s fine, it’s not necessary. In fact, it’s kinda the point. This is more about a hazy impression of the past, and a maddeningly vague notion that you can’t return to something you didn’t appreciate enough in the moment. It’s not about what was real; it’s about what you imagine things could have been.

Buy it from Amazon.

High Places “I Was Born”

Well, I think High Places figured it out. Their first two records were pretty good, but mostly for how they showcased the duo’s promise. Interesting ideas in sketch form, but nothing close to fully realized. This new single is a clear creative leap — new instrumentation in the mix, much more confident vocals, less reliance on drone, more defined structure, bolder dynamics. This is a very focused piece of work, and as it turns out, discipline suits them better than free-floating ambiance. This is not to say they have forsaken atmosphere, though. If anything, that element of their sound is more potent when contrasted with tighter beats and a bolder lead vocal, and the composition conveys a sense of lateral movement rather than a static vibe. More like this, please.

Buy it from Thrill Jockey.

Idiot Glee “It”

Harmony vocals usually imply the presence of others, but the wordless moans and spare keyboard accompaniment in this song just make the lead singer sound so incredibly lonely and isolated as he sings about processing a painful unrequited love. He’s trying hard to hold it together, to accept that what he wants so badly is just never going to happen, but his stoicism barely contains his raw agony, bitter disappointment, and bruised ego.

Visit the Idiot Glee page on MySpace.

Animal Collective “What Would I Want? Sky”

The first three minutes of “What Would I Want? Sky” is a clattering big-beat reverie that simulates the feeling of drifting off into thought while the world is a busy mess all around you. The second half of the song reckons with that state, with Avey Tare questioning his emotions and attempting to snap himself out of a melancholy haze. It’s not a song about sadness, though — it’s about attention and awareness, and a desire for focused thought in a head full of distractions. The shift from one section to the next doesn’t usher in a sense of clarity, but the song takes on a firmer shape while retaining an ethereal density. The vocal arrangement mirrors the lyrical content nicely, as Avey’s confident, straightforward performance cuts through a Grateful Dead sample that seems to scroll through the track on a horizontal line and a harmony part from Panda Bear that gently floats upward on vertical trajectory. The unlikely harmony seems to be part of the point: It’s extremely difficult to get our minds to be entirely focused, but we can at least try to keep our thoughts balanced, and to have them work together rather than dissolve into a distracting cacophony of emotions, concepts, and digressions.

Buy it from Amazon.

Alphabeat “Chess”

Alphabeat have changed significantly on a superficial level, jettisoning all traces of rock from their sound and diving deep into glossy ’90s pop, but the core of their project remains the same. Alphabeat are nostalgists, and whether they are lifting from Kenny Loggins or channeling Ace of Base, they draw on the power of songs that present a glamorous fantasy version of ordinary life. As they made clear on “Fascination,” their debut single that now more than ever reads like the Alphabeat manifesto, they care deeply about escapism, and in our power to invest our lives with the magic and excitement of fiction.

To some extent, their work suggests that our experience as adults are shaped by the narratives of the pop music of our youth. Think of it this way: What was your first exposure to people openly discussing love, sex, and romance, both the good and bad of it? In most cases, you probably gleaned this stuff from what you heard on the radio, mostly intuiting the emotional meaning of the music without totally connecting with the context or subtext. We internalize the narratives, and then on some level expect the patterns to emerge in our lives and/or actively attempt to live it out. This is the basis for Lady GaGa’s “Bad Romance,” though she’s deliberately focused on the glamor of self-destructive behavior, whereas Alphabeat aim for something far more wholesome, though equally dramatic.

“Chess” is about a complicated emotional scenario, but as much as the lyrics express frustration and anxious anticipation, the music is nothing but pleasure. The band streamline difficult situations to the most exciting elements, rendering it all as desirable soap opera drama. There’s an implication of the stakes being high, but that’s just to keep it fun — the real appeal is in the safety of feeling like these romantic entanglements don’t actually matter at all, and that there’s nothing messy in life that can’t be cleaned up and turned into an enjoyable storyline.

Buy it from CD Wow.

Lady GaGa “Teeth”

You may have noticed that vampires and werewolves are very popular these days. This is not lost on Lady GaGa, whose apparent mission in life seems to be synthesizing themes from hyper-mainstream culture into hilariously campy works of bizarre, grotesque beauty. “Teeth” bypasses the flimsy metaphors and gets straight to the subtext: It’s a song about wanting to be submissive to a powerful, threatening man while maintaining a pose of toughness and agency. Unlike Twilight, this isn’t a fantasy of being a chaste good girl swept up by a very well-behaved bad boy. This is another version of GaGa’s notion of “Bad Romance” — she’s fucked up, and she wants the drama of someone even more fucked up or it’s just not exciting. This is about a desire for something primal and totally uncivilized, and these supernatural conceits just get in the way of the point, which is that a great many people want to escape the polite, neurotic aspects of themselves and indulge in something that feels wild and pure. GaGa’s song is ultimately just another fantasy, but it’s sharp and self-aware, and has the benefit of coming in the form of a skewed pop tune that manages to make the steady pounding of a tambourine sound exquisitely sleazy.

Buy it from Amazon.

Lacrosse “I See A Brightness”

The verses of “I See A Brightness” are less like a conversation and more like a split-screen. The girl is the optimist, hoping for a resolution to her conflict with the guy, who is far more hurt and insists that their relationship is over. There’s no back story provided, but it’s pretty clear that if someone has caused this rift, it’s probably her — she certainly sounds like someone who wants to force someone else to compromise while having everything work out in a way that is totally convenient to her wishes. Even still, the guy is being petty and unreasonable as he attempts to shut off an intense emotional bond. The chorus is where the communication comes in. He’s not totally on board with her desire to mend what’s broken, but he’s coming around. The brightness she is promising could just be a brief flash of joy and forgiveness before falling back in the same old negative patterns, but it’s probably worth a shot.

Buy it from Amazon.

Yo La Tengo “If It’s True”

One of the tricks Yo La Tengo have mastered over the years is placing their quiet, unassuming personalities in the context of familiar song styles that are typically characterized by more glamorous vocalists. They’re not the first people to ever do this, and they’re hardly not the only band to deliberately undersell emotional lyrics with a flat vocal affect, but they don’t just stop at irony and call it a day. Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley have learned to give nuanced performances in their narrow range, and when they sing about the complications and struggles of stable long-term relationships, it’s always pitched with just the right balance of honesty and self-effacing wit. They know that they aren’t the most exciting people and that their relationship may not be the most dramatic thing, but they know exactly how to draw you in and make you relate to where they’re coming from even if you’ve never been so lucky to have what they’ve got.

Buy it from Amazon.

tUnE-yArDs @ Bowery Ballroom 11/18/2009

Intro / Powa / “What’s That About?” / “Move To My Hood” / Fiya / Real Live Flesh / Hatari / “Do You Want To Live?”

tUnE-yArDs “Hatari”

As Mike Barthel wrote last night, tUnE-yArDs’ debut album is impressive not just for its unique style and the high quality of its songs, but for the way Merrill Garbus’ deliberate, distinct recording aesthetic makes us pay attention to the subtext in her music. I’ve heard so many albums in my life, but I’ve never encountered anything that blends studio-as-instrument technique with raw, live performance as seamlessly and as inventively as bIrD-bRaInS. All of this sets up an intriguing challenge for her live show — stripped of the framing and textures of her album, can her music be as engaging when she’s just there playing in a room?

The answer: Merrill Garbus is even better when she’s just there playing in a room, accompanied only by a skilled bass player. She’s definitely not hobbled by her reliance on loop pedals — if anything, she turns that potential weakness into a major strength, drawing drama and a “wow” factor out of her virtuoso live looping skills. Just as her recording techniques focus our attention on the construction of the music, watching her build her samples in person invites the audience to observe a portion of her creative process. Her voice, undoubtedly the most arresting aspect of her songs, is the center of her live performance, and she easily ranks among the best vocalists I have ever witnessed. Her technique is excellent, but that’s secondary to the raw emotive power of her voice, and the supreme confidence in how she wields it. She’s absolutely fierce at many points through the set, but also versatile, never leaning too hard on the same tricks.

Nearly all of the songs in her show last night were brand new, and she sold them with such authority the audience responded as if they were all beloved hits. There is no doubt in my mind that her second record is going to be incredible. Do yourself a favor: Go see her play live. Do whatever it takes. If you like this music even a little bit, you’re going to leave the show loving her a lot.

Buy it from Amazon.

Dirty Projectors @ Bowery Ballroom 11/18/2009

No Intention / Remade Horizon / Ascending Melody / Fluorescent Half-Dome / Fucked For Life / Gimme Gimme Gimme / Two Doves / Spray Paint / The Bride / Cannibal Resource / Temecula Sunrise / Stillness Is The Move / Useful Chamber // When The World Comes To An End

Dirty Projectors “No Intention”

tUnE-yArDs was a very tough act to follow, and though Dirty Projectors put on an extremely impressive show, my enjoyment of it was dampened somewhat by my astonishment at what Garbus had done less than an hour previous. There are a lot of ways in which Dirty Projectors and tUnE-yArDs are very similar — they’re both playful with rhythm and melody, they lift a lot from various strains of black music, both boast extraordinary vocalists — but contrasting the two in this way highlights some of the areas where Dirty Projectors are lacking. The most obvious thing is that while Garbus’ music is overflowing with passion, David Longstreth’s compositions are far more reserved in their feeling and even when the songs allow for bursts of ecstatic vocalization, it’s just as mannered as his subtly complicated guitar parts and the girls’ intricate hockets. This isn’t a comment on the quality of Longstreth’s music or its emotional quality, but rather how the extreme discipline of it all can lead to somewhat rote performances. It’s easy to just sit there totally in awe of their craft, but if you’re kinda over that aspect of what they do, the less engaging songs in the set can get a bit dull. That said, the best songs are basically unfuckwithable, and the sheer pleasure of hearing these people nail melodies as brilliant and life-affirming as those in “Cannibal Resource,” “No Intention,” “Remade Horizon,” and “Stillness Is The Move” feels something like a miracle.

Buy it from Amazon.

Tegan & Sara “Arrow”

A lot of people can’t handle criticism of any kind, and conflate it with conflict and cruelty. That doesn’t have to be the case. The singer in this song is requesting constructive criticism and “tough love,” and though it seems to be part of a desire to change for the better, what comes through in the language and in her voice is a hunger for intimacy and acceptance. She wants to know what the other person is thinking, she wants to get inside their head and figure out how to be what they want her to be. She doesn’t want to be torn apart, just brought closer to the person she loves. The music is on edge in the verses when she’s soliciting a critique, but when the song shifts to the chorus, it eases up as she acknowledges some kind of progress. It’s a tense song about high expectations, but there’s a sweetness and sincerity here that opens it up. It would feel so smothering any other way.

Buy it from Amazon.