The Field “Everday” – Contrary to what you may have read elsewhere, the Field’s creative process may be the least interesting thing about his music, unless you’re the sort of person who would rather watch a tedious documentary about special effects than an actual movie. The lesser tracks on From Here We Go Sublime foreground the artist and his tools, but the ones that are actually, y’know, sublime, evoke a vague, context-free experience. “Everday” is all beauty and nondescript pleasure, its sound signifying an overwhelming abundance of stimulation and absolutely nothing at all, like being bathed in light while keeping your eyes closed tight. You feel the warmth, and the light penetrates the cells of your eyelids, but you’re purposefully holding yourself back from the full sensation. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Elsewhere: Because I am a ridiculous man, I recently began work on another blog called Pop Songs 07. The premise of the site is very simple — I am going to write an entry about every song on every R.E.M. album, plus a handful of notable non-album tracks. (“The Great Beyond,” “Romance,” “Revolution,” “It’s A Free World, Baby,” you get the idea.) As of this writing, I’ve already written an entry about one track from each record except for Murmur and Lifes Rich Pageant. I’m going to be covering the songs in arbitrary order based on whatever ideas hit me first, and the site will not be on a strict schedule — ie, some weeks I might do eight or nine entries, and in others I might only do one, or none. It’s basically a side-project and a formal challenge for myself, and I have no idea how long it might take me to get through all the tracks, though I promise that I’ll eventually get to all of them.

Also: Alanis Morrissette is actually a very funny lady!

GOMM “Don’t Take A Chance” – “Don’t Take A Chance” vamps along steadily for a few minutes, cycling through a twitchy post-punk phase and a droney jam section before settling into a brilliant final third that bounces restlessly as two voices attempt to talk each other out of pleasures, commitments, emotional connections, or anything else that could be considered a risk. The music sounds like a constant threat of danger, and though the male voice puts up a bit of a fight, the woman seems sorta eager to jump into the fire. (Click here to buy it from Bleep.)

Gudrun Gut (with Uta Heller and Matt Elliott) “Rock Bottom Riser” – Covering a Smog song is certainly not the easiest way to my heart, but Gudrun Gut and her partners pull it off, mainly by creating a track that sounds very little like anything Bill Callahan has ever recorded. Their take on “Rock Bottom Riser” is chilly, spare, and rhythmic, with three asymmetrical vocal lines that all fall on a scale that ranges from entirely dispassionate to hesitantly soulful, with opposite extremes overlapping at several crucial moments. Much like the original, they approach the drama of the lyrics with great caution, but Gut’s version is more evocative and musically descriptive, and best of all, it lacks Callahan’s hideous deadpan vocal inflections. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Last night Marc Hogan and I went to see Field Music and Menomena play a show at the Bowery Ballroom. This morning, we had a little chat about the gig.

Field Music @ Bowery Ballroom, March 28 2007
Give It Lose It Take It / Sit Tight / Tones of Town / A House Is Not A Home / You Can Decide / Working To Work / If Only The Moon Were Up / Pieces / Shorter Shorter / Tell Me Keep Me

Field Music “Working To Work”

Matthew Perpetua: So what did you think of Field Music’s set?

Marc Hogan: Their record is so tidy and polite, and yet they managed to get that across almost seamlessly live. Very precise. Very English. It was a bit of a short set, with a few great songs left out, but they’re so bashfully charming. And yet it’s hard to see a huge mass of Americans clamoring to hear this type of thing.

MP: I was really struck by how much those guys looked and acted exactly as I had imagined them. Really thin and clean-cut, with neat, well-fit and uncluttered clothing. Polite and friendly, but a bit aloof too. They obviously live out their immaculate, uptight aesthetic on every level. The tightness and precision reminded me a lot of Spoon, but they don’t have this kinda macho, sexy frontman. They are so reserved and make no attempt to be “rock and roll;” they seem happy to just make this Music For Stylish Introverts. I thought they were really charming whenever they would chat with the crowd.

MH: True, they had that embarrassed (but completely in control) Hugh Grant factor.

MP: Not hilarious, but rather unpretentious, well-adjusted, and good-humored.

MH: As for their differences from Spoon, I think you’re right. They’re comfortable with making rock that reflects who they are. They’re comfortable with being uptight and uncomfortable!

MP: I’m not sure if they ever seem uncomfortable — a lot of what I like about Tones of Town is that it feels very relaxed and peaceful. It makes me think of really pleasant spring days.

MH: I always hear a nervousness in their music. Maybe “uncomfortable” was the wrong word. On stage, though, there was nothing nervous about them — they’ve got this stuff down. How do you think the crowd reacted to Field Music, though?

MP: I’m not sure if the crowd responded to them at all. The audience was clearly there for Menomena, and I guess I was too focused on staring at them with their instruments to scan around. Did you notice anything?

MH: I didn’t really notice anything, either. It would be fun to see them in a smaller venue where people had to come see them.

MP: I think even if Field Music was headlining, the response would have been fairly muted because their music is pleasurable, but not exactly fun. It’s hard not to just be passive with their songs.

MH: That was my take on their first album. Really, really pretty — but how do you convince somebody to get excited about “pretty” when other bands are trying to be “beautiful”?

MP: Also, their emotional content is really measured and focused on details and vague, in-between feelings, so you’re never going to be too moved by it. That’s one of the things I respond to in the songs, but I think most young people want something a bit more extreme and volatile.

MH: Field Music just owns the whole pleasant/pretty aspect. And good for them. They’re not looking to wow anyone — exactly, they’re not going to extremes.A lot of the songs are about work, honestly, and how exciting is that? But it’s part of our lives.

Menomena “Muscle’n Flo”

MP: They are very formal in their artistic concerns, but so was Menomena, but they went about things completely differently, and the audience seemed to really connect with them.

MH: Yes! That’s the common thread — both bands are definitely focused on form first, but each has its own personality.

MP: It’s funny because Menomena’s formal concerns are more in radically reworking the dynamics of a pop song, whereas Field Music is all about working within this paradigm we all know and understand, but Menomena’s stuff is so much warmer and emotionally direct, and so they get the fans that really flip out for them. Personally, I find it hard to connect with some of Menomena’s stuff, especially the ones where it seems like there would simply not be a song without the drummer.

MH: There’s an anthemic, sing-along quality to Menomena’s music. Field Music don’t seem as interested in that type of communal aspect. Maybe it’s a Portland vs. Sunderland, England thing. Oh, but that drummer! I could not stop watching him.

MP: Yeah, he really needs a raise. The other guys are fine musicians, but he carries that band. If he quit or died, they’d have to break up.

MH: He was probably the best singer, too. But the reason a song like “Rotten Hell” works so well is exactly because it doesn’t rely only on flashy drums. It has a great, swirling melody and words to which people can relate and sing along. As opposed to the more formal work, the songs you mention that feel more like exercises and only work because of the drums. “Rotten Hell” is a political song, but not in an overbearing or self-important way. It doesn’t scream, “Look at us, we’re being political now.”

MP: I had no idea what to expect of them, so I was happy to see how engaging they were as performers. Very funny guys, easy to like. Handsome, mildly theatrical. Theatrical in the sense of “Oooh, and now he’s got a tuba!”

MH: They definitely made more sense to me in concert than on the albums. And I already liked the albums quite a bit.

MP: I wouldn’t be surprised if they just kept getting bigger. They clearly inspire fandom, but it also seems like they are just getting the knack of writing accessible pop songs. I can imagine them pulling a Modest Mouse in a few years. “Wet and Rusting,” “Muscle’n Flo,” “Rotten Hell” — that seems to be the start of something.

MH: Where the cult just keeps getting bigger, yeah. Not every band gets a “Float On,” but it’ll be exciting to watch these guys develop their pop sense, and move away from their songwriting gimmick. What do they do with computers again?

MP: Wikipedia explains:

The band uses a computer program called the Digital Looping Recorder, or Deeler for short, in the song writing process – it was programmed by band member Brent Knopf. Drummer Danny Seim explains the process, “First, we set the tempo of the click, which is played through a pair of headphones. We then take turns passing a single mic a

round the room. One of us will hold the mic in front of an instrument, while another one of us will lay down a short improvised riff over the click track. We usually start with the drums. Once the drums begin looping, we throw on some bass, piano, guitar, bells, sax, or whatever other sort of noisemaker happens to be in the room. Deeler keeps the process democratic, which is the only way we can operate”

MH: “We usually start with the drums.”

MP: No kidding!

(Click here to buy Field Music’s Tones of Town from Insound and here to buy Menomena’s Friend and Foe from Barsuk.)

Elsewhere: My new Hit Refresh column is up on the ASAP site with mp3s from Tujiko Noriko, Elk City, and A Sunny Day In Glasgow.

Mark Ronson “Stop Me” – Mark Ronson is more than a producer; he’s a musical philanthropist who uses his considerable resources and connections to realize crazy pop dreams. He’s turned Radiohead’s “Just” into a funk number, Britney’s “Toxic” into a drag queen vamp featuring Ol’ Dirty Bastard, and the Jam’s “Pretty Green” into a rowdy Ze Records throwback. Ronson has an uncanny knack for emphasizing the subliminal roots of pop songs, and executing his high concepts with grace and style. “Stop Me” transforms The Smiths’ “Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before” into a slick R&B number with his signature horn bleats, crisp beats, and electro flourishes. The vocal starts out sounding a little bit like Damon Albarn, but once it gets going, it shifts into a rather impressive simulation of Prince in his “When Doves Cry” mode. As the song hits its peak, it mutates into a cover of the Supremes’ “You Keep Me Hanging On.” The transition is clever, fluid, and intuitive, and stands out as one of the more stunning pop moments of the year thus far. (Click here to buy it via Mark Ronson’s official site.)

In Flagranti featuring G. Rizo “Intergalactic Bubblegum” – Since it is pretty clear that I’m not allowed to talk about songs on this site without getting into every goddamn pedantic detail, I’ll just tell you straight away that this song contains a sample of “Knock On Wood.” It’s really not the most important thing about track — I’d like to think that its imperious sexuality, rhythmic vocal hook, and variety of sci-fi whooosh effects are more exciting and essential to its appeal, but hey, sometimes it’s more important to assert your trainspotter authority by highlighting trivia rather than, y’know, appreciating the spirit of a recording. (Click here to buy it from Juno.)

Yelle “Je Veux Te Voir” – What do you even call this music? It moves restlessly between identifiable sounds — punky French rapping, heavy electro, Baile funk/booty bass, twee synth pop, intense rock guitar moves transposed to keyboards — but it’s like everything and nothing else. It’s as though they just figured out what 2007 was supposed to sound like and ran with it, making every moment more amped up and ridiculously exciting than the last.

I found the lyrics and ran them through Google’s translation tool, and it just gets crazier. She seems to be objectifying this dude, but the lusty bits get mixed up with obscure details about sleepwear, fried potatoes, and lacking a driver’s license. Here’s the best bit from the translation: “Your posters of Lil’ Jon cover those with Magic Johnson / Your body is too crunk to ensure the dunks.” It’s funny and cute, but also wonderfully precise and well-observed. I get a very specific image of this guy and his life, but more than that, an idea of how smitten she is — after all, when you have a crush like this, you tend to focus on this sort of silly, endearing trivia.

I don’t think that I could ever hear this song loud enough. I want to blast it at such a high volume that it reduces me to atoms. (Click here to buy it via the official Yelle site.)

Elsewhere: Eric Harvey on Alfred Hitchcock’s use of music to present a notion of mass-culture passivity in Rear Window.

Let’s Have A Contest!!!: As I mentioned last week, Of Montreal are playing a special live-band karaoke show at Studio B in Brooklyn on April 14th. Basically, they are going to have a list of other people’s songs, and they’ll play them behind whoever is brave enough to get on stage and give it a shot. (I have no idea what songs will be available, but they’ve been playing selections by Gnarls Barkley, Prince, the Fiery Furnaces, Neil Young, and David Bowie in the past two years.) In addition to all that, they’ll play a regular Of Montreal set, which is awesome in and of itself. Obviously, this is a pretty unique and fabulous event, and as such, it sold out in less than a day.

You might be thinking something along the lines of “Why the hell is he telling us this? Is he just trying to make us feel bad about missing this show? Why is the Fluxblog guy such an irredeemable prick?” I honestly don’t know the answer to that last question, but I promise you that I’m not trying to make you feel lame about not getting tickets. In fact, I’m actually going to hook some of you up. Well, two pair of you, anyway.

Here’s the deal: If you want to get in the running, you have to get creative. I want you to make something that shows off your karaoke skills and/or expresses your personal karaoke philosophy. It can be an mp3, a youtube clip, a set of photographs accompanied with text, whatever. Go wild with it! I don’t know what I’m looking for, but the two raddest entries will win the tickets (thanks to New York Magazine, btw), and a few of the runners-up might get something too. The top entries will all appear on the site when the winners are announced.

Please send all contest entries to: ofmontrealkaraoke @ gmail.com by April 10th, 2007. Please do not enter if you can’t be in Brooklyn on the day of the show, and/or if you know me personally. (I mean, if we met once super-briefly, fine.)

Kylie Minogue “Love At First Sight (Live in Sydney)” – Can anyone listen to this song without getting this amazing physical sensation; this lightness in the chest; this overwhelming feeling of WOW WOW WOW? I can’t fathom any other reaction. The music feels exactly like what its words are describing! The lyrics may seem trite to some people, but there isn’t room in this song for cleverness or obfuscation of emotion; this is just a pure burst of joy and revelation. It’s an Occam’s razor sort of thing — this wouldn’t feel nearly as true if it were not so bold and direct. It’s about owning these feelings, and not feeling ashamed or talking yourself out of them because they seem tacky or ridiculous.

Kylie Minogue “White Diamond (Live in Sydney)” – Scissor Sisters + Kylie, round two! It’s not as sublime and gorgeous as “I Believe In You,” but it definitely sounds more like Kylie doing a Scissor Sisters song, which is certainly no bad thing. It’s easy to imagine Jake Shears singing this song, but it’s clearly built to show off that wonderful, shimmering quality in Kylie’s voice. It’s sort of interesting that the Scissor Sisters have written two diffuse, ethereal ballads for her — it says a lot about how they perceive her, and how they interpret their respective strengths as writers and performers. Are Shears and Babydaddy writing these songs based on their idea of who Kylie is, or is this what they want her to be? (Click here to buy it from Amazon UK.)

R.E.M. “Let Me In” (Live in Mountain View, California 10/21/2001) – This is for Chris, who turned 25 today. Like myself, Chris has a deep and totally unapologetic love for R.E.M.’s Monster, though our favorite songs on the album are a bit different. For me, “Let Me In” has always been the painful (emotionally, not aesthetically) dirge that I flick past in order to get from the creepy “I Took Your Name” to the creepier “Circus Envy,” but for him, it’s the high point of the entire record. As he puts it:

Elsewhere: Tickets for Of Montreal’s special New York Magazine karaoke show at Studio B in Brooklyn just went on sale. If you get shut out, I might be able to help you out next week. Stay tuned.

And: In outer space, no one will judge Batman and Superman’s love.

The Human League “Mirror Man” – After years of loving this song, I still can’t figure out its angle on this “mirror man,” or, given the way it’s sung in the first person but then switches to an ambiguous chorus announcing the arrival of the “mirror man,” whether or not the singer is the “mirror man.” It seems that the singer is disassociating himself from the part of his mind that is eager to change, and he’s afraid that this makes him a bit of a sociopath, or that being so adaptable wipes out his sense of identity. Still, even though the character is chilly and aloof, the song signals some kind of remorse, hinting that maybe he does have some very good reason to feel guilty. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Elsewhere: My new Hit Refresh column is up on the ASAP site with mp3s from Antibalas, RJD2, and Santa Maria.

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists “The Unwanted Things” – Some people might roll their eyes at the token reggae song on Ted Leo’s new album, but as far as I’m concerned, “The Unwanted Things” showcases everything that I love about his music — effortless warmth and humanity, an easygoing sense of melody, and his thin yet extraordinarily endearing falsetto. “The Unwanted Things” overflows with gentle empathy, and though it strays from his typical style, it still seems like a defining work for the Nicest Guy in Indie Rock. (Click here to buy it from Insound.)

Ted Leo “Rock and Roll Dreams’ll Come Through” – At the start of this clip from last week’s special marathon episode of the Best Show On WFMU, Ted Leo mentions that he got a request for the Gorch’s “Chain Fight Tonight.” I was the guy who requested it from the phone room, but honestly, hearing Ted nail Barry Dworkin’s classic “Rock and Roll Dreams’ll Come Through” instead was much, much better and pretty much a fahntasy come true for this, or any, Best Show fanboy. (Click here to buy the full “Gas Station Dogs” bit on Scharpling and Wurster’s New Hope For the Ape-Eared double-disc set from Stereolaffs.)

Elsewhere: The next batch of 33 1/3 books has been announced. I’m pleased to say that some of my friends have made the cut — Bryan Charles (Pavement), Chris Weingarten (Public Enemy), and Jessica Saurez (Weezer) — and some guy I don’t know at all managed to land a book on one of my five or six favorite albums ever, Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers). Let’s hope he doesn’t eff that one up, okay? One thing I can guarantee is that Bryan Charles is going to do an amazing job with Wowee Zowee. There really is no one else I’d rather have writing the book on my favorite album (and favorite band) of all time.

Also: Tom Breihan’s interview with James Murphy is pretty crucial. If you only click on one blog link today…

Shapes & Sizes “Alone/Alive” – There’s no nice way to say this, so I’ll just be blunt: The dude in Shapes & Sizes needs to let this woman sing every one of their songs. The difference between their tracks on their new album isn’t as drastic as on the first, and his voice isn’t as painful to hear either, but if you’ve got this compelling, assertive, supremely expressive vocalist in the band, why clog up the record with songs sung by a guy who sounds like yet another limp, nondescript indie rocker? Why drag down the average when every song could be an A+?

Caila Thompson-Hannant’s songs tend to condense epic adventures into compositions that rarely crack the five minute mark, implying moments of excitement, danger, despair, aimlessness, and romance along every twist and turn without seeming disjointed or cumbersome. Her words drop hints, but the sound of her voice is far more articulate, slipping from high pitched squeals to brassy shouts, gradually fleshing out a rich character that is alternately authoritative and deeply confused. (Click here to pre-order it from Asthmatic Kitty.)

Elsewhere: I’m not 100% sure how I feel about this essay that I wrote for Artistdirect. I like it for the most part, but I definitely think I’m biting off more than I can chew at the beginning and the end, and I worry that the general tone is overly peevish.

Also: Glenn Coolfer has some very good ideas about SXSW, Dan Kois is totally OTM about the “inarticulate narrator,” Mark Pytlik somehow made me like Sound of Silver more than I already did, and Pageblank quietly defends North American Scum hipsters, or at least the ones that he knows in Canada.

Squeeze “If I Didn’t Love You” – The full line is “If I didn’t love you, I’d hate you,” and the more I hear this song, the more I realize that ultimately the singer is erring on the side of the latter. The woman being addressed is a total cipher — an object, an objective, a source of unending sexual frustration. He fumbles through these forced, cliched romantic scenarios — all of which seem distinctly early 80s to me; I’ve always imagined this being played out by Sam Malone and Diane Chambers — but for a song about trying to get laid, it seems rather short on lust. Glenn Tilbrook normally sounds warm and friendly, but here he’s chilly and aloof, especially when he stutters like a broken robot on the hook. (Click here to get it for cheap on a greatest hits record, or here to spend a lot more money and get the original Argybargy album.)

David Bowie “What In The World (Live)” – Halfway through this live recording from the Stage tour, Bowie and his band cycle back to the beginning of the song, but kick up the tempo to the point that its extreme romantic angst becomes an overwhelming physical sensation. The song seems as though it could derail at any moment, which speaks to the emotional truth of its words while also turning the key line “I’m just a little bit afraid of you” into a hilarious understatement. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Fountains of Wayne “Yolanda Hayes” – Some artists are so good at what they do that they can make tricky, labored craftwork seem easy, and others are merely just good enough that they can turn out strong material without actually trying very hard. Fountains of Wayne are erring on the side of the latter on their new album Traffic and Weather, and though it doesn’t make a song like “Yolanda Hayes” any less enjoyable, it’s hard for me not to dwell on how the band seems totally unwilling to challenge themselves or their fans. Like a lot of other acts in the power pop genre, they’ve got this all down to a scientific formula, to the point that the group’s primary songwriter Adam Schlesinger has built a lucrative career penning pop pastiches for Hollywood productions. He aims for comfort and familiarity and generally hits the mark, but now that Fountains of Wayne’s central gimmick — humorous yet sympathetic lyrics about the mundane details of suburban life — apparently comes as easily to them as the chord changes, the entire endeavor seems forced and insincere, as though they are just pumping out more product to keep the brand alive. In fairness, that description applies to a lot of different artists, and that sort of competence and strength of identity can yield pretty amazing work, but Fountains of Wayne’s stubborn refusal to alter their approach in any way is beginning to seem stale and unimaginative. “Yolanda Hayes” is a delightful little song that works on its own terms, and that goes for a lot of other songs on the new album, but there’s a nagging sense that it could be a lot better if only they’d deviated from their recipe a little bit. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

LCD Soundsystem “Someone Great” – Honestly, I didn’t really care for that thing James Murphy made for Nike. It was pretty good fodder for think-piece riffing, but as an actual composition, it’s just kinda alright, and the only part of it that was totally astonishing was essentially an instrumental trailer for this song. And this song…well, wow, if you want to hear the difference between “good” and “mind-meltingly awesome,” just play it immediately following that Nike mix.

Granted, the instrumental track for “Someone Great” is distinct, gorgeous, and emotionally complex, but it is stuck in middle of an otherwise uninspiring longform composition, and it’s lacking the added dimension of Murphy’s shell-shocked vocal performance. He sounds utterly lost within himself and unsure of his every feeling as he attempts to process a major emotional trauma. The lyrics are tricky with tense agreements and never allow us to understand exactly how much time has passed — sometimes it seems as though the horrible event is far behind him, and at others, the hindsight seems like an artificial perspective and a coping mechanism. The melancholy tone of the song is ultimately a by-product of the way Murphy so expertly simulates the sensation of hollow, confused grief. “Someone Great” is not about sadness; it’s about having absolutely no idea of how to deal with loss, and trying desperately to respond with maturity and grace when you can’t even understand how you feel about this sudden void in your life. (Click here to buy it from Insound.)

Macy Gray “Treat Me Like Your Money” – As much as I appreciate Will.I.Am’s track for this song — it’s very well composed and flatters Macy Gray’s nice very nicely — I just want to punch him in the face for jumping in for an exceptionally hacky rapped cameo towards the end. It’s not enough to wreck the song, but following Gray’s own somewhat puzzling quotation of Dead Or Alive’s “You Spin Me Round (Like a Record),” it nearly derails an otherwise fantastic tune. When the chorus comes back around it’s good enough to forgive their momentary lapse of good taste, but every time I hear the song again, that bit seems like a new betrayal. (Click here to pre-order it from Amazon.)

Elsewhere: My new Hit Refresh column is up on the ASAP site with mp3s from Blonde Redhead, the Victorian English Gentlemens’ Club, and Joan As Police Woman.

Wu-Tang Clan “Wu-Tang Clan Ain’t Nuthin’ To Fuck With” (Bird Peterson Remix) – Bird Peterson’s remix of the Wu-Tang classic is all blunt force, bludgeoning the listener with quick, violent bursts of words from the RZA’s verse and a dynamic, heavy beat that comes closer to the Jock Jams aesthetic than anything from Enter The Wu-Tang. Peterson essentially throws all subtlety out the window and turns the song into four straight minutes of intense, super-concentrated belligerence and deranged swagger. (Click here for Bird Peterson’s MySpace page.)

Jackson Jones “I Feel Good” (Pilooski Edit) – It’s hard to feel entirely present when listening to this track. Nearly every element in the arrangement seems designed to zone you out and make you feel as though you’re just wandering through some half-conscious haze. Psychedelia, vintage electro, disco, funk, dub — it’s all in this mix, but just as in a dream, their characteristics are blurred and somewhat illogical. (Click here to buy it from D*I*R*T*Y*)

Elsewhere: Rob Mitchum on “the new brand of drug song.”

Also: As you can see from the banner on the top of this site, the annual WFMU fund raising marathon is currently in progress. I strongly encourage you to donate whatever you can afford to the station — they are 100% listener supported, and do not accept any money from the government or advertisers of any kind. Simply put, there are no other radio stations as progressive as WFMU on the planet. It’s important to support the station as a whole even if you only like a few shows here and there, if just because there really is no other home for a majority of the programming. I strongly encourage you to donate during tonight’s Best Show On WFMU, which airs between 8 and 11 PM EST, and will feature special guest stars Ted Leo and Laura Cantrell. Tom Scharpling, Jon Wurster, and Andrew Earles pour a lot of heart and soul into that show, and if you’re a fan, you really ought to let the station know that you appreciate what they’ve been doing. You don’t need to donate a lot — just $10 would be perfectly fine — but if you pony up $75, you’ll get a nice gift set including a new WFMU t-shirt and an exclusive cd of new material recorded by Scharpling and Wurster featuring Philly Boy Roy and Zachary Brimstead.

And: Tracy Morgan visits Texas, El Paso.

Of Montreal @ Irving Plaza 3/9/2007
Suffer For Fashion / Sink The Seine / Cato As A Pun / Heimdalsgate Like A Promethean Curse / Labyrinthian Pomp / She’s A Rejecter / We Were Born The Mutants Again With Leafling / October Is Eternal / I Was A Landscape In Your Dream / Vegan In Furs / Du Og Meg / Climb The Ladder / Tropical Iceland (with a bit of And She Was) / Forecast Fascist Future / I Was Never Young / Rapture Rapes The Muses / Gronlandic Edit / A Sentence Of Sorts In Kongsvinger / The Party’s Crashing Us // Bunny Ain’t No Kind Of Rider / Faberge Falls For Shuggie / Moonage Daydream / Requiem For OMM2

Of Montreal “Bunny Ain’t No Kind Of Rider” (Live @ Irving Plaza 3/9/2007) – Of Montreal’s current live show is essentially a low-budget surrealist potluck cabaret. It comes together as a delightfully incoherent mess of glam styles, performance art signifiers and mythological references, and part of the reason it works is because there is absolutely no pretense of theme or narrative. Instead, it all just comes off like a bunch of very smart people gleefully dressing up in outlandish costumes and indulging in artsy silliness without ever seeming smug, or letting the irony taint the emotional and intellectual content of the show. There was a strong sense that everyone on stage felt liberated by their whole-hearted embrace of an absurd camp aesthetic, and that they all were very excited about whatever they were bringing to the show. “Oooh, I’ll wear my fishnets and for one song dress up like an enormous wizard, like Peter Gabriel would have done if he only ever wore costumes made out of stuff from his dad’s garage!” “Hey, I’ll wear my angel wings!” “Cool, I’ll be the guy who slinks around in a skintight white body suit, and you can drop bananas down into my crotch during the encore!”

Of Montreal “Tropical Iceland” (Live @ Irving Plaza 3/9/2007) – I’m reasonably certain that Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? is my favorite album since 2003 — or to be specific, since the Fiery Furnaces released Gallowsbird’s Bark. That said, I probably don’t need to explain why it was so exciting for me to see Of Montreal perform one of the best songs from that record, or why it made me so glad that Kevin Barnes loves their work and recognizes the Friedberger siblings as being his “contemporaries.” (Let’s be very honest: neither he nor they have many true peers in this era.) “Tropical Iceland” is an inspired cover, in part because the single version sounds so much like something Barnes might have written himself, but also because its melody flatters his slippery voice and fake British accent. Is there any chance that we can get the Furnaces to have a go at “Wraith Pinned To The Mist (And Other Games)”?

(Big thanks to Dan Lynch.)

Elsewhere: Pageblank on unrequited love.

Marnie Stern “Logical Volume” – Marnie Stern’s busy arrangements are like a highly stylized representation of a world of infinite distractions. Whenever her tiny but enthusiastic voice breaks out of the din it seems like a minor triumph, as though she is defeating insurmountable odds by cutting through the collective noise of humanity and asserting her will. Her songs mostly blast the listener with rapid bursts of treble which require concentration on her part, but eradicate every coherent stream of thought in its path. There’s some peace at the center of each song, but you can only feel it if you can tune out the clutter. “Logical Volume” is actually one of the most focused numbers on her debut album, and unsurprisingly, it’s also the most overt statement of identity and ego. Stern indulges in building up her own myth, proclaiming that she’s “off the radar way too long” and announcing that this (the song? the album?) is her “Thunder Road” and “Marquee Moon.” It’s a refreshing show of confidence, even if the tone is slightly jocular. (Click here to buy it from Buy Olympia/Kill Rock Stars.)

Gameboy/Gamegirl “Sweaty Wet/Dirty Damp” – There’s a temptation to rebel against these sort of deliberate fun machines, especially if your idea of a great time isn’t so extremely lewd and extroverted, but there’s so much cutesy mischief and barely-contained glee to be found in this track that it’s hard not to at least smile along. Gameboy/Gamegirl are approximating the sound of booty bass and Funk Carioca, but something has been twisted in their adaptation of the formula, resulting in a track that filters those sensibilities through the fluorescent funk common to the music of fellow Melbourne dance acts such as Muscles, the Avalanches, and Cut Copy. (Click here for the Gameboy/Gamegirl MySpace page.)

Squimaoto “Rich In Vitamins” – The beat and arpeggios are not especially weird, but Squimaoto’s song still feels as though it has been folded inside-out. Not to imply that it sounds awkward — it moves along with this stealthy ninja grace, even when it launches into a noisy fit towards the end. (Click here to buy it from Brothersister Records.)

Elsewhere: My new Hit Refresh column is up on the ASAP site with mp3s from Luke Slater, Sylvie Marks & HAL9000, and Aesop Rock.

Also: Mike Barthel on cynicism, Stephen Colbert, blogs, and pop music.

Spank Rock – Excerpt from Fabriclive 33 including: CSS “Let’s Make Love and Listen To Death From Above (Spank Rock Remix),” Chicks on Speed “Wordy Rappinghood (Playgroup Mix),” Mr. Oizo “Nazis (Justice Mix),” and Dominatrix “The Dominatrix Sleeps Tonight” – The album-length mixes in the Fabric series are very hit or miss, and the quality largely depends on the character and genre affiliations of the DJ on any given disc. A good number of them do their job well, but feel anonymous and aesthetically flat, and though I appreciate them in a distanced sort of way and a strong argument can be made that I simply lack a nuanced taste for certain dance subgenres, I just can’t connect with a record that never strays from a limited palette of textures and one monotonous beat for 80 minutes. Spank Rock’s mix is characteristically restless, rowdy, and fun as it cycles through bits of recent crowd-pleasers, electro cuts, and tweaked oldies. The mix is fluid and intuitive, but not overworked, lending the set a loose feeling that implies that they are whimsically skipping around through their record bins.

I’m not sure why, but I’d never really paid much attention to Spank Rock’s remix of CSS’ “Let’s Make Love and Listen to Death From Above” before acquiring this Fabric mix. Interestingly, Spank Rock’s version modifies the arrangement so that it is easier to mix seamlessly into one of their sets, but the by-product of that pragmatism is that the mood darkens considerably and it contrasts with the raunchy cheer common to the rest of the mix. The lyrics are foregrounded by the newly spare arrangement, and the alternate vocal take by Lovefoxxx emphasizes the sadness just barely obscured by her “live for the moment” optimism as she tries to make the most of her time with a long distance love that she’s finally just met in person. The excitement and open-hearted lust is still there, but her doubt, frustration, and nervousness isn’t nearly as well concealed as it is on the original recording. The shift isn’t all that drastic, but it’s enough to to reinforce my estimation that its words fall into the highest percentile of quality pop lyrics from the past ten years, and make the song sound fresh to me all over again after having heard it soooooooo many times throughout 2006.

Edit:

I’d like to address this comment left in the box below, which more or less echoes what I was railing against the last time I wrote about CSS at length:

I’m sure Lovefoxxx is not emoting that much. She’s in a dance band for crying out loud and not a very good one. – Anon

To a certain extent this (obviously quite brave!) anonymous poster is entitled to their opinion, and since it is apparent that they haven’t given this a great deal of thought, it’s not really worth arguing with them, at least not in the interest of trying to change their mind. But honestly, there’s no way I can read this sort of comment without assuming some pretty harsh things — mainly, that they seem to have extremely rigid and unimaginative ideas about what signifies intelligent and emotionally moving art.

I think that a lot of the problem that some people run into with CSS is that their record is very much a product of the present tense, and though I believe that accounts for a great deal of its beauty, art that is so tied into a moment that will inevitably pass tends to freak out a certain type of insecure fan who demands permanence and timelessness, often because they are terrified of ever having to admit that they enjoyed something that has since become dated. If you want to cling to the notion of having an imagined aesthetic upper hand, you will most likely become allergic to this sort of music, and find refuge in safe bets. If you’ve conditioned yourself to think of contemporary culture (especially internet culture) as being an endless stream of vulgar novelty — a notion that is not entirely inaccurate, by the way — you’ve most likely blinded yourself to any art that speaks to the humanity and emotional truth of experiences within that culture.

This particular CSS song is about an increasingly common experience that was quite rare less than a decade ago, and there are very few songs that explore it, especially not in a way that so articulately expresses the mixed emotions, expectations, and awkwardness of the situation without getting all emo about it. Like the rest of their album, “Let’s Make Love and Listen to Death From Above” is dealing with both the positive and negative aspects of living in a world that seems small on the internet, but is still quite vast — physically and culturally. They do this while being playful, while sounding fun, and without making grand pronouncements or diving into the deep end of angst. I can’t see how that isn’t a totally remarkable achievement. (Click here to pre-order it from Fabric.)

Elsewhere: Chris Conroy on false authority and the nature of the modern backlash.

Deerhunter “Wash Off” – The stakes always seem very high in Deerhunter’s best songs, and even though it’s not always clear what’s happening in them on a literal level, there’s certainly a sense that no emotion, idea, or fictional construct is going to emerge from them unchanged or entirely intact. “Wash Off” consciously steals its central motif from krautrock, but it’s in the interest of pragmatism rather than pastiche. Like the most memorable Neu! songs, the music feels as though it is accelerating toward some endless horizon, but unlike that band’s rather serene compositions, Deerhunter seem to be in a hurry to achieve some form of transcendence, periodically kicking at their effects pedals for moments of inspired rocking. When they rock out, they sound as though they’ve let their spirits run free from their bodies. Joyous isn’t quite the right word given their solemn tone, but it’s halfway there. (Click here to buy it from Kranky.)

James Brown “Call Me Superbad (Cornelius Rework)” – James Brown would’ve fined Cornelius into the poor house if he was actually a member of his band. The first minute of his reworked track seems like a handful of false starts, but it eventually settles into a groove that seems to move diagonally away from Brown’s vocal performance. It all comes together by the time the horns kick in, but it always feels as though it’s about to tip over and fall apart, as though Cornelius is playing a thrilling game of musical Jenga with Brown’s song. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Elsewhere: Peter Birkenhead on the problem with Oprah and “The Secret.”

Pleasure “Out Of Love” – You know that point in some songs (most especially new wave tunes) when the sentiment of the lyric overcomes the singer and they reflexively close their eyes for a moment and swoon as they hit a higher note? It’s a glorious thing, and most good songs about new infatuation tend to do this at least once, if not a few times over. This new single by Pleasure sounds as though it was engineered to maximize the impact of these swooning moments, and so when they come, the rush is exhilarating and sorta exhausting. “Out Of Love” is a sublime mix of gleeful synthpop bounce and sad-eyed melancholy, and though there are some echoes of Blondie’s “Heart Of Glass,” it tosses out that song’s cynicism and wounded pride in favor of an entirely earnest sweetness. (Click here for the Pleasure MySpace page.)

Dan Deacon “Okie Dokie” – Dan Deacon’s absurd, cartoonish electro-punk is like being assaulted by a street gang of Pokemon characters. It rocks out and hits you hard and fast, but it never stops seeming cute and silly even when the track accelerates so much that the electronic snare hits begin to sound more like rapid gun fire than any kind of musical instrument. (Click here for the Dan Deacon website.)

Elsewhere: Eric Harvey on why going to see Girl Talk play a live gig may not be a very good idea.