Volcano Choir “Seeplymouth”

We can easily identify the big emotions, the primary colors of feeling. But just as we mostly see the world in impure shades and hues, we mostly experience emotion as odd hybrid syndromes of thoughts, feelings, and motivations. We’re often overcome by mixtures of sensations that are incredibly difficult to catalog and process, and I think to a large extent, this is why we make and appreciate art, particularly music — it’s perhaps our best way of articulating and understanding so many of the emotional experiences that go beyond our regular vocabulary. In the case of this Volcano Choir song, I would be very hard pressed to tell you exactly what this mood is, or what it means, but I hear it and recognize it, and can go to that place by hearing it. Not even a specific feeling, but the movement from one state to another, and knowing that sequence but not exactly the context for it. This is wonderfully articulate music, but at the same time, totally inscrutable and undefined. If a lot of music can be taken as stylized representation, this seems more like an abstracted realism where we are so close up that we can hardly suss out the subject of representation.

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Le Loup “Beach Town”

When I listen to Le Loup’s new album, which is stylistically quite different from their far bleepier debut, I have little doubt that the Animal Collective — and specifically the Person Pitch album — have had a large impact on how these artists are approaching their music. It’s not a rip-off, and there are plenty of ideas to their own credit, but the sensibility with regards to rhythm, tone, texture, harmony, and mood is unmistakably of a piece with the Avey Tare and Panda Bear aesthetic. This is by no means a complaint or a slight on Le Loup — these are good ideas to run with, and they take them in different, usually more conventional places. The group have become much better with melody, and even better at placing lovely, semi-familiar tunes in misty, lightly kinetic arrangements that evoke a light-headed state of mind somewhere between inscrutable, unquestioned happiness and inexplicable, ineffable melancholy. “Beach Town” skews closer to the latter extreme, but the general tone of the record is evident: Feeling overcome by emotions you can hardly comprehend, and trying to process them without thinking your way out of the sensation.

Buy it from Hardly Art.

R.E.M. “Hope”

1. If you’ve never been very ill or known someone who has struggled with a serious illness or injury, it can seem a bit facile when you hear people say that someone going through something like that is very brave. It sounds like a cheap platitude — and sometimes it is — and from a distance, their “struggle” looks a lot like passivity. The thing is, the bravery isn’t in taking medication, or going through physical therapy or whatever treatment is being prescribed, but rather in being forced to reckon with your mortality, and seriously consider your faith in science and religion. It’s in coping, and finding the strength to fight, or the courage to give up. That’s what “Hope” is about.

Michael Stipe sings most of the song in the second person, but nearly every line describes what he understands to be going on inside his friend’s mind, which is not necessarily the same thing as that person’s interior monologue. The only time when he speaks for himself is when he admits to feeling powerless and confused — every other moment finds Stipe marveling at the bravery of his friend. I don’t think there’s another character in the entire R.E.M. songbook that Michael sounds more in awe of than the person he’s singing about in “Hope.”

2. Sometimes I wonder how much better things would’ve been if “Hope” was less of an experiment for R.E.M., and was instead the template of their post-Bill Berry sound. Sure, other songs on Up nudge in a similar quasi-electronic direction — “Falls To Climb,” “Airportman,” and “Parakeet” come to mind — but “Hope” is the most elaborate and sophisticated by far. The arrangement is a carefully composed array of rhythms, melodies, and textures that swirl around Michael’s steady vocal performance, an interpolation of Leonard Cohen’s “Suzanne.” The constant movement is necessary in keeping the track from feeling too repetitive and samey, but also in achieving the song’s sense of calm in the midst of uncertainty. “Hope” has a certain boldness to its sound, but its beauty comes in the subtle touches — a stray piano line, a buried acoustic guitar strum, a turn of phrase, the stunned empathy in Michael’s voice. It’s one of the most impressive compositions of the band’s career, and perhaps the single best argument in favor of the group carrying on as a trio following the departure of Berry.

3. I’m not going to front: I still get a little bit excited when I hear Michael sing my name in this song. (”They did the same to Matthew / and he bled ’til Sunday night.”) I can’t remember too many specifics, but I think it may have actually been a key influence in terms of my decision to phase out calling myself “Matt” in favor of my full given name. (Well, that and the fact that “Matt” doesn’t exactly suit me.)

Buy it from Amazon. This review was originally posted on Pop Songs on December 13th 2007.

Bear In Heaven “Lovesick Teenagers”

The keyboard plunges downward, pulling you in like a gravitational force, but the voice resists, pushing against the grim, unrelenting tone until it rises up on the chorus. I imagine this as a conflict, or a struggle against this encroaching doom and gloom, but in the context of the lyrics, it’s probably more of a meditation on our susceptibility to dark emotions. We may think that we’re better than the “lovesick teenagers,” that we have outgrown an overblown adolescent despair, but those impulses are still within us as we age. The trick is basically just learning how to maintain perspective and avoid submitting to a sort of misery that can be as pleasurable as it is self-defeating.

Visit the Bear In Heaven website.

A Sunny Day In Glasgow “Passionate Introverts (Dinosaurs)”

A week back I was playing this game of coming up with song titles which could essentially sum up the major theme of an artist’s body of work, and I think that A Sunny Day In Glasgow ranks among the artists who have already done that for themselves. (See also: Andrew W.K. with “Party Hard,” Daft Punk with “Robot Rock” and/or “Digital Love,” and Sonic Youth with the album title Experimental Jet Set Trash and No Star.) If you ignore the “(Dinosaurs)” part of the title — it’s hard, I know! — “Passionate Introverts” perfectly communicates the aesthetic of Ben Daniels’ music better than any genre description could. Basically, this is the sound of deep, fiery nearly incoherent emotion hidden behind a thick, nearly impenetrable wall of shyness and largely blissful solitude. I love that Ben has taken this music further away from indie rock and further into ambient and dance music — on one hand, it separates them more from garden variety shoegazers, but it also serves to highlight the chilliness and subdued glee central to their appeal.

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Raekwon and Ghostface Killah “Penitentiary”

The rapid repetition of that one treble note freaks me the fuck out. In context, it puts you the hyper-alert, paranoid state of mind of Rae and Ghost’s characters in the story. It gives you the feeling that something awful and violet could happen at any moment, whether you’re the victim or the one inflicting the pain. The sound is an adrenaline trigger, but there’s no adrenaline rush in the positive sense. If anything, you feel a bit sick. It makes the rappers sound more desperate, and less like admirable tough guys. The entire point of the Cuban Linx records is to romanticize crime, but this is so grim that it comes across more like some kind of “scared straight” narrative.

Buy it from Amazon.

The Elephants “Turtle Struggles”

Let’s jump straight to the ending: Yes, there’s nothing wrong with your mp3, it’s supposed to end abruptly like that. This is not a case of a song continuing on into the next track, it is intended to build up to a thrilling climax and cut out. It’s an interesting choice. The rest of the song seems very eager to please — the shuffling beat, the light harmonies, the cozy keyboard tones, the sweet guitar hooks — but that decision to deny a fully satisfying resolution retroactively changes the tone of the entire piece, shifting it from amiable indie pop to something more discursive and elliptical. The character of the song changes noticeably around the four minute mark, shifting out of its brisk indie mode toward a more dramatic guitar build akin to Sonic Youth or …Trail of the Dead circa Source Tags And Codes. To a certain extent I would have enjoyed another minute or two of that sound, but I’ve become rather fond of the drop out, if just because it gives the impression of being interrupted in the middle of a good thought.

Buy it from Tapete Records.

The xx “Basic Space”

When I first encountered The xx, my impression was something along the lines of “Wait, why did we need a less sexy and catchy version of The Kills?” But that wasn’t fair, mainly because despite some superficial similarities, The xx are going for a different type of sexiness and are talented at crafting subtle hooks from their minimal grooves and atmospheric guitar parts. The male/female vocal dynamic is different too. Jamie Hince knows enough to allow Alison Mosshart dominate their songs, but Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim are on equal ground in nearly every track, trading off parts more often than overlapping. There’s a lot of tension in this, but some of it is unintentional: Madley Croft’s voice is dramatically superior to that of Sim, and whereas he has a passable, drowsy tone, the songs light up when she starts singing. They are simply in different leagues, and I find it hard to shake this “Is she really going out with him?” notion when I hear them together because it’s so much like meeting some gorgeous, immensely interesting woman and her shockingly drab boyfriend. Sim is an acquired taste, and I’m getting more acclimated to his charms. At their best, the two approximate a much less creepy version of the dynamic Tricky and Martina Topley-Bird achieved on Maxinquaye and Pre-Millenium Tension. They could take this further, but where they are is just fine — it probably wouldn’t be a good idea for Sim to develop a more sinister affect, and throughout the record and particularly on “Basic Space,” the band are wise enough to employ Madley Croft’s voice like a special effect when they need to push the dynamic of their music over the top.

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Felix “Death To Everyone But Us”

Lucinda Chua’s vocal performance on “Death To Everyone But Us” brings to mind the anxious cadences of Life Without Buildings singer Sue Tompkins, but she’s far less exuberant and much more taciturn, coming across rather like someone trying to spit out everything she needs to say as quickly as possible to keep herself from holding back or getting interrupted. I picture her eyes darting around the room, briefly fixing on every odd detail but never making eye contact. Even still, she’s trying to tell you something important — she’s mad at you, she loves you, she’s confused by you, she never wants to be without you. It can be so incredibly difficult to say these things, so nerve-wracking to upset the balance of a positive relationship by mentioning all the things you hate about that relationship. The vocals are all anxiety, but the arrangement is airy and graceful, hinting at self-assurance without necessarily signaling confidence and courage.

Buy it from Kranky.

Taken By Trees “Greyest Love Of All”

If you know what you want — and most likely, what you want is to be loved — it can be so hard to settle your mind and feel comfortable with what you have in the moment. I do not know what your life is like, but I can think of very few moments in my own in which I’ve been fully satisfied. It’s a horrible pattern, things never seem to line up for me. It is so deeply aggravating, it feels so completely unfair, and it warps my perceptions. “Greyest Love Of All” is about this feeling in some way, this discomfort with circumstances and inability to be pleased with the way things are in the present tense, even if there’s plenty of good in exactly what you have. It’s sung from the perspective of someone on the outside looking in, but I like to think of it almost like a prayer to one’s self.

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Golden Silvers “Please Venus”

Much like Spoon, the Golden Silvers pair classy, streamlined arrangements with raspy, handsome male vocals to great effect, resulting in elegantly tuneful songs best enjoyed in the wee hours of the night. “Please Venus” is not as danceable as previous singles “Arrows Of Eros” and “Magic Touch,” but it’s a lot smoother, particularly in the way its melody rises and falls with the steady gentleness of waves rolling in along the seashore. Yes, the song is a bit lovesick, but it’s mostly just sweet and groovy — I certainly find it difficult to listen to it without smiling and swooning.

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The Da Vincis “Standing In Line”

“Standing In Line” is not a shockingly weird song, but there are enough unexpected bits in it for it certainly qualify as an unlikely oddity, particularly when you bear in mind that the band is a trio of high school seniors from Mississippi. The track begins with a guy crooning “I took a shower / I went to a movie last night / a woman approached me / and we became bff’s that night / best friends forever, that’s what we became that night” like a teenage Morrissey with a stuffy nose, and then it only gets more peculiar from there, with its farfisa lounge groove shifting into a series of darker tangents. The novelty does not entirely wear off, but as it becomes more familiar upon repeated listening, the internal logic of the band’s aesthetic decisions is more apparent, and it starts to seem more sensible than strange.

Buy it from Olympic Records.

The Brunettes “Red Rollerskates”

I think this is meant to be a pleasant and perky song, but despite the happy subject matter and cheery synthpop flourishes, it comes out feeling rather antsy and melancholy. This isn’t a bad thing — if anything, it implies a perspective on the moment that adds a bit of depth to a lyric that would otherwise seem entirely cloying.

Visit the Brunettes MySpace page.

Blondes “Spanish Fly”

I’ll be very honest with you: It can be very difficult to write about this sort of ambient electronic music, even when it has melodies and rhythmic shifts. Part of the appeal is that it lets my mind rest, and it sounds best when my thoughts are thin and clear. I will say, though, that for whatever reason, this track makes me want to dine at a very nice restaurant. I’m not even sure why, but it makes me want to eat very clever food. Someone showed me a menu yesterday that included gazpacho served with a dijon mustard ice cream. That would be just lovely paired with these tones.

Visit the Blondes MySpace page.

Canadian Wildlife “Winter’s Moon”

It may be odd to be listening to this very autumnal/wintry song in late summer, or it could just be wishful thinking on my part as I’m pretty ready to move on to the next season, or fast forward straight to the dead of winter. That’s where this song is — you can nearly feel the bite of frigid January air on your skin in the negative space between Jennifer Mecija’s spectral piano chords, the bright notes evoking white and yellow lights illuminating the blue-black cast of the early evening. The melody is rather sad, but Mecija’s small, girlish voice sounds calm and hopeful, particularly as she harmonizes with herself on the chorus.

Buy it from Friends In Bellwoods.

Electric Six @ The Temptress 8/20/2009

Formula 409 / Feed My Fuckin’ Habit / Be My Dark Angel / Down At McDonnellzzz / She’s White / Randy’s Hot Tonight / Watching Evil Empires Fall Apart / Improper Dancing – Never Tear Us Apart / Danger! High Voltage / The Future Is In The Future / Your Heat Is Rising / Dance Epidemic / Gay Bar / I Buy The Drugs / We Were Witchy Witchy White Women // Gay Bar Part II / Germans In Mexico

This was the third summer in a row that the Electric Six have played aboard a small cruise ship in the Hudson River, and well…I don’t need to get into it too much. Just like the two previous years, it was a very wild and rowdy gig, the band rocked hard, and Dick Valentine was hilarious. If you’re into the band already and were not there, you should be jealous. If you don’t care about the band at all, I’m getting tired of trying to convert you. But if you’re curious, you can always check this out.

Wild Beasts “Hooting & Howling”

As per usual, the most fascinating and alluring thing about this Wild Beasts song is the vocal tone and mannerisms of Hayden Thorpe. The man sings like a street tramp affecting the style and grace of an opera diva, resulting in songs that are at once disarmingly beautiful and disorienting in their outright weirdness. As the band have progressed, they’ve gravitated toward a spare, romantic guitar style that makes them sound like something an alternate universe version of ’80s U2 in which The Edge is forced to reckon with serving the aesthetics of a silly, foppish oddball rather than the world-beating earnestness of Bono.

Buy it from Amazon.

Washed Out “Feel It All Around”

I’m not sure whether or not the background hum in “Feel It All Around” is actually a sustained sample from 10cc’s “I’m Not In Love,” but either way, the sound effectively places this song in the same emotional spectrum while carving out its own niche of muted, shell-shocked melancholy. The genius in this music, however, is in the way this lovelorn state is presented with a cool, dispassionate front of someone who has either become deliberately numb, or is in very deep denial about their pain.

Visit the Washed Out MySpace page.

Grooms “Dreamsucker”

The guitars here trade off between mellow arpeggios and blasts of distortion, and so we’re in well-trod and comfortable territory, particularly if you’re into Sonic Youth and more guitar-centric post-rock bands like Gastr Del Sol and Dianogah. The thing that makes this track really pop, though, is in the way the percussion and vocals build up this fidgety, wired feeling, like you’re literally shaking from too much caffeine, but you’re still a bit sleepy and/or lost in some sort of mental fog.

Visit the Grooms’ MySpace page.

YACHT “The Afterlife”

I’m not sure what Jona Bechtolt and Claire Evans know about life after death, but I’m reasonably certain it can’t be all that much more than what you and I understand or believe. Nevertheless, Evans delivers her pronouncements with a dry authority that is just pushy enough to make you at least consider her notion of existence beyond the flesh as being something akin to a spiritual encore or a celestial after-party. Other danceable songs with a similar theme may try to oversell the message with a more joyous and reassuring sound, but YACHT instead go with a comfortable, groovy emotional neutrality that just sorta says “Hey, take our word for it and cool out, okay?” Okay.

Buy it from Amazon.

Animal Collective @ Prospect Park 8/14/2009

What Would I Want Sky / My Girls / Who Could Win A Rabbit / Summertime Clothes / Slippi / Chores / Daily Routine / Bleed / Fireworks / Brother Sport // Lion In A Coma / Guys Eyes / Leaf House

Animal Collective “Brother Sport”

I am not sure what I thought this show would be like, but I definitely did not expect it to be anywhere near as fun as it was. I believe that a lot of my enjoyment was a direct result of being up in the front, surrounded by people in their very early 20s who were so cute, silly, and guilelessly enthusiastic about the band and their music that it was impossible not to throw yourself into the experience with an equivalent level of joy and excitement. I had previously harbored the suspicion that AnCo fans were among the most obnoxious people in the world, but now I just want to see everything with these kids.

The Animal Collective come off badly when filmed. The songs seem sloppy, sometimes outright butchered, and it’s hard to get a feel for what the guys are doing, or what they are even shooting for in terms of aesthetics. It makes perfect sense in person, though. It’s part hippie singalong jamboree, part “experimental” happening, and occasionally something akin to straight-up electronic dance music. They mainly play electronic instruments, but they avoid and/or rebel against sterile programming, doing as much as they can to feel loose and unpredictable despite the nature of their instruments. They’re not the first band to attempt this sort of thing — their opening act Black Dice was essentially a dire worst-case scenario — but they may well be the best, and by far, the most melodic. This music connects because the band have a gift for writing tunes that shines even when they’re doing their best to obscure it. Unsurprisingly, the audience responds best to the songs with the boldest tunes — the straight-up synthpop of “Summertime Clothes,” the overwhelmingly lovely harmonies of “My Girls” and “Guys Eyes,” the playful dizziness of “Leaf House,” and the life-affirming euphoria of “Brother Sport.”

Even when the band are very inscrutable and perverse, the music conveys a very genuine love and empathy, and a total lack of cynicism. This may sound horribly corny to some of you, but just hearing some of these songs is like getting a big hug when you desperately need it, and in the context of a concert with a dancing, singing audience, that feeling is even more intense. Halfway through this show, I got some very bad news. I couldn’t have been in a better place for that moment. Yes, I was kinda lost through “Daily Routine” and a bit dazed for “Fireworks,” but “Brother Sport” was precisely what I needed, and in paying attention to the lyrics now, shockingly literal in its relationship with what I am actually experiencing.

Buy it from Amazon.

As of right now all of the t-shirts have been mailed out. Depending on where you are in the world, you should have yours by the end of next week. If you do not have yours by then, contact me asap. Most of you should have it by now. Sorry that it took so long to get this all together — I’m only one man, and I ran into a lot of problems along the way.

If you missed your chance to order a shirt the first time around, I have some extra stock available now — S, M, and L in the cartoon design, and S, M, L, and very few XL in blue. It would not be a bad idea to email me to check to see if your size is still available before making a purchase, to avoid problems if I’m all out. If you live in the US or Canada, you can order one here, and if you live anywhere else, PLEASE use this page. I lost about $100 in profit shipping to non-North America customers who didn’t pay for international shipping. It kinda sucked, I won’t lie to you. But yes, Fluxblog t-shirts are still available for a limited time. Please consider buying one.

Bat For Lashes @ Webster Hall 8/12/2009

Glass / Sleep Alone / Horse & I / Tahiti / Siren Song / The Wizard / Two Planets / Sad Eyes / Traveling Woman / What’s A Girl To Do? / Pearl’s Dream / Prescilla // Good Love / Moon & Moon / Trophy / Daniel

Natasha Khan is so naturally gifted as a singer that her technical skill seems entirely effortless, leaving you to focus on how fully she commits to throwing herself into the emotion of her songs, and the visual aspects of her performance. Truly, this is the sort of artist who works up to a standard that makes a vast majority of her peers seem like unimaginative slackers, or just outright untalented. I can understand why this music is not for everyone, but when artists working on this level of craft exist, it’s hard to grasp why so many would prefer amateurism, as is so often the case in the indie world.

Bat For Lashes “Siren Song” (Live at Shepherd’s Bush Empire, 2009)

There are two ways to be emotionally devastated by this song: You can either relate to the character singing the song, and identify with the self-loathing that comes out of the conflict of wanting true love and affection despite a restlessness that makes it impossible to commit for long, or you could see yourself as this woman’s victim, and imagine this horrible bait-and-switch scenario as a bleak romantic inevitability for yourself. For me, it is the latter, and the thing that guts me most is that this isn’t some manipulative, creepy, sociopath thing — she feels sincere, sweet, genuine love for this man, but cannot stop herself from being selfish or self-destructive. To a certain extent, this is self-fulfilling prophecy, perhaps on both sides — one person convinced that they can’t control their impulses no matter how unhappy it makes them, and the other no doubt feeling as though they’re just not good enough and unwilling to fully buy into this whole “it’s not you, it’s me” line, no matter how many times she swears that she is evil.

Buy it from Amazon.