Fluxblog
January 12th, 2016 1:19pm

Removed In Time


30/70 “Local Knowledge”

30/70’s new album Cold Radish Coma is similar in tone and style to beloved classics by Erykah Badu, D’Angelo, and Lauryn Hill, but the execution is stranger and more abstracted than anything they’ve put out. On a structural level it’s closer to what someone like Flying Lotus does, with fragments and songs blurring together into a single extended jazzy stoner suite. “Local Knowledge” can stand on its own, but even outside the context, it’s like a microcosm of the larger piece in the way the proper pop song structure is buffered on both sides by more elliptical passages. The main chorus hook of “Local Knowledge” is just glorious – it hits you with this feeling of great relief, like this trigger that can make your body immediately go loose and relax. This is the centerpiece of the record, and you can feel the mood shift carry over into the tone of the album’s second half.

Buy it from Bandcamp.



January 11th, 2016 1:28pm

Solid State Solid Skin


Rozi Plain “Actually”

The tones in this song remind of cold metal pressed to your hand, and the odd not-quite taste of frigid air on your tongue. I imagine this woman standing on a hill, and wind is whipping about but not enough to seem particularly dramatic. And she’s just thinking about all the little things, and is surprised by what her own brain decides is important in that moment. Him? That? What? The whole song feels like a clear sober thought coming into focus, and ends on a vague epiphany: “Don’t get over it / this is actually it.” And I think “this” is just the state of just being, and breathing, and touching cold things and feeling the wind and thinking little thoughts.

Buy it from Amazon.



January 8th, 2016 1:34pm

когда мы вместе


Eerie Summer “тогда было все по-другому”

As you can maybe tell by the title of this song, Eerie Summer are a band from St. Petersburg, Russia. A majority of their songs are sung in English, but this one is not. This is good old fashioned lovelorn indie-pop, and even if the words are not in English, the translated lyrics conform to the conventions of the genre. I’m not sure why I’m even vaguely surprised by that – if you’re attracted to this particular vibe, you’ve almost certainly bought into the sentiment as well as the sound. Going on the translation I have, this is song is basically a girl trying to figure out where she stands with someone she’s been hooking up with – “I thought that you can save me / this is stupid, mmmm sorry / I like everything we do when we are together.” I’m not sure whether something is being lost in translation, but I like the way those ideas flow together, and how the bashful apology goes straight into a more forthright statement about enjoying their company. It’s such a relatable sentiment for a song, but you just wanna be like “hey, chill out, it’ll be fiiiiiine.”

Buy it from Bandcamp.



January 7th, 2016 1:26pm

C’mon Hey Hey Hey


DJ Paypal “Slim Trak”

DJ Paypal’s music comes out of the Chicago footwork tradition, which is another way of saying it’s so fast and frenetic that it’s hard to imagine anyone but the most athletic people dancing to it. A lot of that stuff can be difficult to hear out of context, and I say that as a person who strongly favors fast tempos – there’s often just a sonic whiplash effect, and an obnoxiousness factor that isn’t far removed from a lot of musically similar drum n bass and dubstep. DJ Paypal’s stuff goes down smoother without sacrificing the key elements of the style, and I think a lot of that comes down to avoiding cheap edit effects and having a solid sense of musicality and harmony. “Slim Trak” is ultimately a frenzied samba, and it comes out sounding like a weird dream version of Brazilian music where it’s all slightly wrong and surreal in your memory. It also requires little to no context – it works as pop music on its own terms, and having any awareness of footwork or any sort of Brazilian music is just a bonus to anyone’s experience with it.

Buy it from Amazon.



January 6th, 2016 1:06pm

This Is All I Ever Meant


David Bowie “I Can’t Give Everything Away”

It seems reductive to say that Blackstar is a record about aging and mortality – there’s a lot more going on both thematically and musically – but I think the most powerful moments on the album address these ideas from a vaguely unsettling perspective. He’s morbid, but not particularly welcoming of his inevitable fate. There’s a sense of clarity setting in, and in wrapping up loose ends, but a refusal to be maudlin or willing to let go of anything so easily. “I Can’t Give Everything Away,” the melancholy but serene finale, has Bowie singing about the necessity for boundaries and his right to be opaque about private matters. You can read this song a few different ways, but I think it’s really a statement about his entire life and body of work – it’s always him, but it’s not. Bowie was a pioneer of bringing an actor’s concept of performance to rock music, and even if there’s a distance to that, it’s just as draining as a more “confessional” approach. You give a lot to your audience, but you draw a line somewhere. Maybe this is his way of apologizing for that distance, or just explaining it. Perhaps the idea of holding on to the things he can’t give away is, for him, a way to keep being alive.

Buy it from Amazon.



January 5th, 2016 1:17pm

Too Scared To Leave


Thao and the Get Down Stay Down “Nobody Dies”

The rhythms in “Nobody Dies” are steady and strong but feel a bit loose and rickety all the same, like it’s just a bunch of scaffolding keeping Thao Nguyen’s voice aloft in a place where it probably shouldn’t be. And that suits the theme of the song rather well – she’s singing about the bravery that comes from not even thinking about impending disaster, and how that is both exciting and foolish. And selfish too, because risk often involves other people too. I love the instrumental bridge near the end – the solo is all shaky treble that doesn’t quite flow. That section is like a tightrope walk, and those high frequencies feel like nerves. It’s the most thrilling part of the song, but it’s over very quickly.

Buy it from iTunes.



December 31st, 2015 4:06pm

Darker Every Time We Try


No Joy “Burial In Twos”

One of the best things about No Joy’s extraordinary and sadly underrated More Faithful is the way the band implies a sense of depth in their music. They exaggerate dynamics to the point where the music will have this 3-D movie effect, with sounds seeming to surge out from the speakers. The loud, heavy guitar parts on most shoegaze records come off fairly flat, with most of the dynamic sacrificed as the tone is pushed into the red, but in a song like “Burial in Twos,” that sound has a dimension to it that suggests a far greater scale. But the vocals that go with it are very delicate and intimate, so the contrast implies something even more resonant – a huge burning emotion that’s building up inside you that feels like it’s going to rip you apart, but you can’t let it out. You get a similar effect on a lot of the greatest My Bloody Valentine songs, but I think while that band is about being lost in sensuous feeling and transcendental lust, No Joy is more about the cathartic release of repressed desires. It’s like some silent war in a shy person’s mind.

Buy it from Amazon.



December 30th, 2015 3:34pm

Here We Are Instead


Field Music “The Noisy Days Are Over”

The Brewis brothers of Field Music have focused an incredible amount of their creative energy over the past decade on writing music on the topic of aging and maturity, and trying to live an acceptable “normal” life. Those themes suit their music, which has this neat, orderly sound to it, and a fairly anxious and uptight sense of rhythm. It’s neurotic but not overtly so; it’s music that conveys a very British “stiff upper lip” sensibility. But as much as the songs explore a desire to be normal and mature, there’s always a tension and wit that challenges this, and either highlights the absurdity of this sort of repression or questions whether or not this is any sort of path to happiness. “The Noisy Days Are Over” is written like breaking bad news to yourself – sorry, you’re too old for that now, it’s time to be an adult, it’s time for things to be dull and predictable and safe. It’s giving voice to societal pressures, and calling out the idea that you ought to be special, some exception to the order of society. That you should keep having fun and feeling alive when so many other people have moved on from all that. I think you’re meant to take all of this with a grain of salt, but it’s very easy to listen to this and decide that, yes, you’re the immature and selfish one, and time’s running out for you.

Buy it from Amazon.



December 29th, 2015 2:16pm

Fate Takes Time


Fleetwood Mac “Walk A Thin Line” (4/6/79 Version)

Fleetwood Mac’s first two albums with Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham are so extraordinarily popular that it can be hard to feel like you have an intimate relationship with them – songs like “Dreams” or “Say You Love Me” may move you, but they belong to everyone. The relative commercial failure of Tusk, however, allows the audience to have a different connection with that music, and you can indulge yourself in the fantasy that you have access to amazing Fleetwood Mac music no one else knows about. The most recent deluxe reissue of Tusk really encourages that feeling, and gives us at least one alternate version of every song on the record, so you have the option of being the person whose favorite Fleetwood Mac tune is, like, the alternate take of a song from the 3rd side of the weird album after Rumours.

“Walk A Thin Line” is my favorite Fleetwood Mac song, and though I ultimately favor the original official studio version from Tusk, I am immensely grateful that I can hear the song in slightly different variations. The main difference between the recordings – there’s two alternate takes on this reissue, and there’s another arrangement without Buckingham on Mick Fleetwood’s solo album Visitor – comes down to tempo, the prominence of the wordless vocal hook, and how the instrumental bridge near the end is executed. The structure of the song never changes, and even the glossiest versions keep things very simple and focused on the simple, lovely elegance of Buckingham’s melody. This version, from “The Alternate Tusk” disc, sounds a bit sadder to me than the others. There’s something in Lindsey’s voice here that is just a bit more melancholy and defeated, and I like the way that brings out the lingering doubts in this song about going against everyone else and trusting your instincts. I love the mix of pride and paranoia in his voice, and despite everything, the way he conveys this unshakable faith in himself without seeming arrogant or foolish.

Buy it from Amazon.



December 28th, 2015 1:58pm

Futures Tricked By The Past


Radiohead “Spectre”

Radiohead have a rather small number of covers in their repertoire, but one of them is Carly Simon’s “Nobody Does It Better,” a Bond theme. The aesthetic suits them – grim yet elegant, bombastic but refined, sexy in a way that seems a bit sordid and sad. Radiohead’s “Spectre” was passed over in favor of a rather weak song by Sam Smith, which I think we all have to assume was a matter of the studio going with the more commercially successful artist. It’s a shame, as “Spectre” is the finest song made for a Bond film since…what, the ‘70s?…and it’s the best thing anyone in Radiohead has put out in quite some time. The aesthetics of the prime movers in the band are lined up here – Yorke’s feminine and understated vocal, Jonny Greenwood’s stormy orchestration, the rhythm section’s reiteration of that lagging, quasi-jazzy “Pyramid Song” beat. It’s beautiful without pandering even a bit, and straightforwardly melodic without them seeming to apologize for it. It bodes well for the new album they’re likely to release sometime in the coming year.

Visit Radiohead’s Soundcloud page.



December 21st, 2015 1:12pm

Fluxblog 2015 Survey Mix


2015survey

Here’s the 2015 survey, featuring 183 songs from across several genres from the past year. A thing I realized in making this survey is that while I strive towards making the ‘80s surveys an “accurate” representation of a year, these present-day surveys sorta nod towards that conceit while mainly representing my lived experience of the year in music. Which is still quite varied, but it’s a lot more personal, and I have more invested in sticking up for the smaller artists I enjoy than acquiescing to include every hit or random artist other critics decide are worthwhile for the moment.

2015 has been an interesting year for this site, in that everything’s sorta gone full circle and it’s the first time in a while where pretty much all of my music writing goes here rather than on BuzzFeed, Rolling Stone, or Pitchfork. Writing the site now reminds me a lot of how it felt in the early days, where it was my only outlet and my methods reflected a philosophical difference with how most other music writing was being done. Back when I started this site, there was very little room in music writing either in print or on the web focused on writing about songs. All the focus was on macro topics and trends and identity politics –– and here we are again! I don’t mean to denigrate or dismiss that stuff, but while I may enjoy reading that sort of thing, it’s not what I do. I think Fluxblog is also back in a position of offering an alternative to the values of other critical institutions, and repping for artists who maybe aren’t “cool” enough to gain any sort of consensus of approval at Pitchfork, Noisey, Stereogum, or Fader.

If you’ve been following this site, I thank you. I don’t pay attention to numbers for Fluxblog, and would be doing exactly the same thing whether the audience was tiny or huge. This is a personal endeavor and a part of my life I would never give up. That said, if you like this site, tell people about it. If you like a thing I wrote, share it. There’s not many paths open to new readers now, and I’d like for people to still find the site somehow. And, of course, there’s the weekly newsletter version of the site for people who don’t want to keep coming back to a website all the time.

Anyway, enjoy the survey.

DOWNLOAD DISC 1

Hot Chip “Huarache Lights” / Grimes “Artangels” / White Hinterland “Chill and Natural” / Kendrick Lamar “Alright” / The Internet “Just Sayin’/I Tried” / Joanna Newsom “Sapokanikan” / Donnie Trumpet and the Social Experiment featuring Chance the Rapper “Sunday Candy” / Kamasi Washington “Leroy and Lanisha” / Beach House “One Thing” / Colleen Green “Deeper Than Love” / Sexwitch “Helelyos” / Wolf Alice “You’re A Germ” / Veruca Salt “Eyes on You” / No Joy “Moon In My Mouth” / Leon Bridges “Lisa Sawyer” / Vince Staples “Summertime”

DOWNLOAD DISC 2

Chvrches “Clearest Blue” / CL “Hello Bitches” / Disclosure featuring Lorde “Magnets” / Swim Good x Merival “Since U Asked” / Prince “X’s Face” / Peaches “Dumb Fuck” / !!! “Lucy Mongoosey” / Belle & Sebastian “Play for Today” / Jeremih “Oui” / Archy Marshall featuring Jamie Isaac “Ammi Ammi” / Lana Del Rey “Terrence Loves You” / Action Bronson “Terry” / Isaiah Rashad “Nelly” / Pusha T “Untouchable” / Deerhunter “All the Same” / Thee Oh Sees “Web” / Lower Dens “Non Grata” / Unknown Mortal Orchestra “Ur Life One Night” / Charly Bliss “Urge to Purge” / Courtney Barnett “Small Poppies”

DOWNLOAD DISC 3

Shamir “Vegas” / FKA Twigs “Figure 8” / Dr. Dre featuring Kendrick Lamar, Marsha Ambrosius and Candice Pillay “Genocide” / The Weeknd “Tell Your Friends” / Drake “Hotline Bling” / Jamie xx featuring Romy “Loud Places” / Erykah Badu featuring Andre 3000 “Hello” / Tame Impala “Cause I’m A Man” / Gardens & Villa “Fixations” / Hinds “Chili Town” / Bad Bad Hats “Say Nothing” / Teen Girl Scientist Monthly “Games” / The Mountain Goats “Werewolf Gimmick” / Electric Six “Two Dollar Two” / Eric Church “Chattanooga Lucy” / Logic “Like Woah” / Selena Gomez featuring A$AP Rocky “Good for You” / Justin Bieber “Sorry” / Christine and the Queens “Tilted” / Demi Lovato “Stone Cold” / Wet “Deadwater”

DOWNLOAD DISC 4

One Direction “Hey Angel” / Of Montreal “Like Ashoka’s Inferno of Memory” / PWR BTTM “Dairy Queen” / Born Ruffians “Stupid Dream” / Kelly Clarkson “Take You High” / Carly Rae Jepsen “All That” / Rae Sremmurd “Unlock the Swag” / Father “BET Uncut” / Micachu and the Shapes “Crushed” / Björk “Lion Song” / THEESatisfaction “Fetch/Catch” / A$AP Rocky “Excuse Me” / Swindle “London to L.A.” / Jimmy Whispers “I Get Lost in You in the Summertime” / Kurt Vile “Lost My Head There” / Florence + The Machine “How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful” / Father John Misty “The Night Josh Tillman Came To Our Apartment” / Aphex Twin “disk hat ALL prepared1mixed 13”

DOWNLOAD DISC 5

The Mynabirds “All My Heart” / Major Lazer & DJ Snake “Lean On” / Maroon 5 featuring Nicki Minaj “Sugar (Remix)” / Passion Pit “Where the Sky Hangs” / Jason Derulo “Want to Want Me” / Panda Bear “Boys Latin” / Missy Elliott featuring Pharrell “WTF” / Janelle Monáe “Hell You Talmbout” / Lil Mama “Sausage” / Damaged Bug “The Frog” / Titus Andronicus “Lonely Boy” / Melkbelly “Bathroom at the Beach” / Wilco “Random Name Generator” / Ratboys “MCMXIV” / Adele “Send My Love (To Your New Lover)” / Waterbed “Do2Me” / Chris Lee (Li Yuchun) “混蛋,我想你 (Only You)” / Rap Monster “Do You” / YG “Twist My Fingaz” / School of Seven Bells “Open Your Eyes” / Majical Cloudz “Disappeared”

DOWNLOAD DISC 6

Sophie “Just Like We Never Said Goodbye” / Madeon “You’re On” / Hudson Mohawke “Ryderz” / Neon Indian “Dear Skorpio Magazine” / Girls’ Generation “Party” / Fight Like Apes “Pop Itch” / Lunchmoney Lewis “Bills” / Young Thug “Constantly Hating” / Miley Cyrus “Space Boots” / Julia Holter “Sea Calls Me Home” / Aurora “Half the World Away” / Destroyer “Times Square” / Eleanor Friedberger “False Alphabet City” / Car Seat Headrest “Times to Die” / Diet Cig “Breathless” / Chastity Belt “Cool Slut” / Ashley Monroe “On to Something Good” / Mark Ronson featuring Kevin Parker “Leaving Los Feliz” / Big Sean “Outro” / Earl Sweatshirt “Quest/Power” / Cakes Da Killa “Serve It Up” / Georgia “Kombine” / Oneohtrix Point Never “No Good”

DOWNLOAD DISC 7

Alabama Shakes “Sound & Color” / Speedy Ortiz “Raising the Skate” / Sleater-Kinney “Surface Envy” / Holly Herndon “Morning Sun” / Keith Ape featuring JayAllDay, Loota, Okasian & Kohh “잊지마 (It G Ma)” / Nocturnal Sunshine featuring Catnapp “Down By the River” / Moon King “Secret Life” / Jenny Hval “That Battle Is Over” / Blur “Ong Ong” / The Last Hurrah!! “Can’t Wait No More” / Built to Spill “Never Be the Same” / Modest Mouse “The Best Room” / Toro y Moi “Empty Nesters” / Bixiga 70 “100% 13” / Joey Bada$$ “O.C.B.” / Oddisee “That’s Love” / She’s So Rad “Sewn Up Sunshine” / Bed Rugs “Drift” / Boots “Only” / Arcade Fire “Soft Power”

DOWNLOAD DISC 8

Future Punx “Post-Wave” / Ought “Celebration” / Torres “Cowboy Guilt” / Doldrums “Blow Away” / Laura Marling “False Hope” / Thundercat “Them Changes” / Janet Jackson “Gon’ B Alright” / Robyn & La Bagatelle Magique “Set Me Free” / Bilal “Open Up the Door” / Kanye West “All Day” / Extraordinaire featuring Killer Mike “What You Said” / Erase Errata “Watch Your Language” / Beck “Dreams” / Deradoorian “Violet Minded” / Woke featuring George Clinton “The Lavishments of Light Looking” / Astronauts, etc “No Justice” / Jim O’Rourke “Half Life Crisis” / Godspeed You! Black Emperor “Peasantry Or ‘Light! Inside Of Light!’” / Soak “Sea Creatures”

DOWNLOAD DISC 9

Coldplay “A Head Full of Dreams” / Battles “Summer Simmer” / Tobias Jesso Jr. “Can’t Stop Thinking About You” / Matthew E. White “Rock & Roll Is Cold” / Wire “Blogging” / Madonna featuring Nicki Minaj “Bitch, I’m Madonna” / Charli XCX featuring Rita Ora “Doing It (A.G. Cook Remix)” / Rihanna “Dancing in the Dark” / Yacht “I Wanna Fuck You Til I’m Dead” / BigBang “우리 사랑하지 말아요 (Let’s Not Fall In Love)” / Leikeli47 “Two Times A Charm” / Young Fathers “Shame” / Rich Homie Quan “Flex” / Jazmine Sullivan featuring Meek Mill “Dumb” / Kalela “Rewind” / Makeshift Shelters “This Song Is Definitely Not About A Boy” / No Ditching “Song for Shelley” / Bully “I Remember” / Princess Reason “Your Divorce” / Yo La Tengo “Friday I’m In Love” / Maribou State featuring Holly Walker “Steal” / Moresounds featuring Fracture “Dead and Bury” / Arca “Vanity” / Jessica Pratt “Wrong Hand” / Sufjan Stevens “Carrie & Lowell”



December 18th, 2015 4:35am

Hello Kitty Getting Hella Old


CL “Hello Bitches”

You might remember CL as a rapper in the K-Pop group 2NE1, who I’ve featured here a few times, and from her feature on one of the best tracks on Skrillex’s last album. She started out mainly rapping in Korean but is transitioning into a bid for worldwide/American success, and this new single is mostly rapped in English. In either language, she’s an impressive and forceful rapper, even if a lot of her moves can seem like the work of a person who’s carefully studied Lil Kim and Nicki Minaj records for years. On a musical level, “Hello Bitches” sounds very American, but even if they’re in English CL’s lyrics are unapologetically South Korean – she’s seamlessly dropping local slang into traditional rap structures, and about half the lines address Asian stereotypes – dismissing the more hateful shit, but having fun with other aspects of it and generally repping for Asian girls all over the place. It’ll be fun to see where she goes with this in 2016. I’d love to see her actually cross over here, because she’s so fun and there’s disturbingly few Asian pop stars in American culture.

Buy it from iTunes.



December 17th, 2015 12:26pm

Where There Are Miracles At Work


Coldplay “A Head Full of Dreams”

Coldplay’s new album is so self-consciously joyful that it’s kinda creepy, because even if a guy like Chris Martin has plenty of reasons to be extremely happy, his insistence on telling you how happy he is over and over and over just comes across like overcompensation and/or self-delusion. Coldplay records often feel like performances of emotions, like the things you’d do to show people that, yes, you’re totally a human being and nothing is wrong with me, ha ha, no, look away. But this new one pushes that all to an extreme, and it’s fascinating to hear funky, upbeat, relentlessly optimistic music that perhaps unintentionally signals so much doubt and emptiness. “A Head Full of Dreams” draws on Martin’s career-long obsession with transcendental experiences but has this quasi-EDM throb to it that suits his music surprisingly well, maybe because that music is always angling for transcendence too. The vague sadness at the core of it makes the desire to be happy and feel good about the universe seem urgent, maybe even desperate. It sounds less like a musical comb-over for an aging band and more like someone who’s just fighting for his survival.

Buy it from Amazon.



December 16th, 2015 1:42pm

We Can Be The Jam


Isaiah Rashad “Nelly”

Isaiah Rashad’s voice has some of the same grain and accent as Lil Wayne’s, but whereas Wayne often has this sort of manic energy, Rashad has this odd drag to it. He sounds tired and weary, and that’s amplified by the minor-key organ part that’s mixed so far into the background of this track that it’s like a musical rack focus with Rashad’s voice in the foreground and the keyboard notes as a blurry backdrop. “Nelly” has a strong chorus, and I like the way it implies a slight boost in energy while the sound of the music and Rashad’s voice are still rather sedate. The song’s about trying to escape difficult circumstances, and when the chorus kicks in it’s like entertaining an optimistic idea while feeling very skeptical about it.

Buy it from Amazon.



December 15th, 2015 2:23pm

Only Together Do We Break The Rules


Sleater-Kinney @ Kings Theater 12/12/2015
Price Tag / Far Away / Fangless / Jumpers / Light Rail Coyote / What’s Mine Is Yours / No Cities to Love / All Hands on the Bad One / Words + Guitar / Wilderness / Surface Envy / A New Wave / Was It A Lie? / Bury Our Friends / One Beat / I Wanna Be Yr Joey Ramone / Turn It On / Entertain // Merry Xmas (I Don’t Wanna Fight) / Oh! / Dig Me Out / Modern Girl

Sleater-Kinney @ Irving Plaza 12/14/2015
Price Tag / Fangless / Jumpers / Get Up / Surface Envy / What’s Mine Is Yours / Ironclad / Start Together / Was It A Lie? / A New Wave / Bury Our Friends / All Hands on the Bad One / No Cities to Love / One Beat / The Fox / Words + Guitar / Turn It On / Entertain // Modern Girl / Rock Lobster (with Fred Armisen) / Dig Me Out

Sleater-Kinney “Surface Envy”

Before these two shows, I hadn’t seen Sleater-Kinney since August of 2006, when they played their final gig in New York, about three shows before they disbanded for nearly a decade. During their original run, I saw them many times over – maybe 15 times between 1997 and 2006? Something like that. S-K were a very big deal to me, and their shows were always very emotional for me, particularly during the Hot Rock era. I am happy to report that the Sleater-Kinney of 2015 is just as vital and powerful as the version I saw many years ago, and if anything, they’ve become a stronger live band as their technical skills have evolved and their occasional reluctance about being rock stars has almost completely disappeared. This is most notable when Carrie Brownstein performs “Entertain” at the end of the set, and her theatricality and showmanship is slightly at odds with a song in which she’s telling you “we’re not here cos we want to entertain.”

Corin Tucker’s voice is still astonishing, both in how well she controls its intensity and volume, and in how it can convey particular emotions and depths of feeling that I don’t think anyone else is capable of approaching. The sound of it triggers something that I can’t explain, but hearing her sing is very cathartic. Everyone leaves an S-K show with this sort of “what just happened to me, I need to recuperate” feeling.

These two shows were in very different venues. Kings Theater is a large and fancy theater; a converted movie palace that’s roughly equivalent to Radio City Music Hall. Irving Plaza is a small club, and was THE place for well-known indie acts to play from the mid ‘90s on through the very early ‘00s. (It never went away, but Bowery Presents have basically pushed every cool act towards Bowery Ballroom, Music Hall of Williamsburg, and Webster Hall in the past decade or so, and Irving Plaza is only back in rotation lately as a result of what I’m told is a beef between Bowery Presents and Webster Hall.) Sleater-Kinney is much better in a room like Irving Plaza, where the audience can be in close proximity to the band, and the audience can be a bit more physical in their reaction to the music. The enthusiasm of an audience in a seated venue tends to get dispersed, but all the most enthusiastic people gravitate to each other on a floor, and it changes the temperature of everything. The intensity in the room last night was what I remember best from seeing them in the old days. Seeing how other people connect in an immediate and visceral way to songs like “Get Up,” “Start Together,” “The Fox,” “Words + Guitar,” “Turn It On,” and “Dig Me Out” amplifies that feeling in a way that’s almost entirely overwhelming.

A word about Fred Armisen’s appearance in the encore at Irving Plaza: Their version of The B-52’s “Rock Lobster” was INCREDIBLY faithful, right on down to wheeling out a vintage Farfisa for the exact right organ sound. Armisen is famous for being a gifted impressionist, but his Fred Schneider is so complete and accurate that it was easy to just pretend you were there watching the B-52’s of the late ‘70s. (I saw the real B-52’s play this song a few years ago, and it wasn’t quite as good, but hey, they’re all in their 60s now and it’s fine.) It was very fun, and one of the most committed covers I’ve ever seen, particularly as The B-52’s have one of the most specific sounds in the history of rock music. But hey, that’s true of Sleater-Kinney too.

Buy it from Amazon.



December 14th, 2015 1:32pm

My Message Is Massive


Chance the Rapper featuring Jeremih and R. Kelly “Somewhere In Paradise”

Did you see Chance on Saturday Night Live this weekend? If not, please go do that now. I’ve seen a majority of episodes of SNL in the show’s history, and I can confidently say that his appearance on the show ranks in the top 5% of all SNL musical performances. A lot of SNL performances, even by some of the best artists you can name, are just sorta perfunctory and professional – people playing their current hits and just hoping they don’t fuck anything up on live television. Chance’s performance felt truly live – rehearsed quite a bit, I’m sure, but very clearly alive in a moment and aware of the space where it was taking place. This guy is a hugely charismatic performer, and he’s very aware of what kind of gestures come off well on tv, and how to create a sense of intimacy in a medium that resists it.

Chance is a one-of-a-kind guy, but he’s not alone in the history of hip-hop. The most obvious precedent is Andre 3000, who I think is largely responsible for creating the specific template of rhythm and melody in Chance’s flow. And yeah, there’s also a bit of early Kanye in the vibe of his music. But in the context of popular rap from the past several years, Chance may as well have beamed down from another planet. Rap has been dominated by Drake and Drake-alikes in the past few years, and Chance is very much the radical opposite of Drake. Drake is all about presenting selfish fuckboy feelings over music that implies that he’s otherwise dead inside. It’s empty and soulless, and can be compelling and powerful sometimes for that reason. But Chance is very much alive inside, and the music comes from a place of compassion and generosity that is unusual in contemporary pop. Chance’s music radiates joy and warmth; it’s life-affirming music coming out of rather dire circumstances in Chicago. This feels fresh and different, and it’s a thing I think a lot of people want and need after so many years of cold, cruel-hearted music. Watching Chance on SNL was like watching a new zeitgeist click into place – 2015 may have been a major year for apex fuckboys like Drake, Weeknd, and Bieber, but it’s beginning to look like 2016 will belong to Chance.

Get it from iTunes.



December 10th, 2015 1:34pm

The Damage Of How I Live My Life


Archy Marshall featuring Jamie Isaac “Ammi Ammi”

Archy Marshall’s identity is a moving target, switching from Zoo Kid to King Krule to Edgar the Beatmaker and his given name on a whim from record to record. And maybe he feels like that in a literal way, like he’s shifting around to much to stick to one name. But on a musical level, I can think of few young musicians with an aesthetic as fully formed as him – sure, this new record is more electronic in nature than the last King Krule album, but that vibe of sleepy nihilism and depressive sexiness is unmistakable. “Ammi Ammi” feels like a cousin to “Neptune Estate,” with Marshall meditating on some complicated, possibly toxic relationship over a track that feels like it’s gradually drifting away from you even as the beat seems to jog in place.

Buy it from Amazon.



December 9th, 2015 1:30pm

It’s Either On Or Off


Erykah Badu featuring Andre 3000 “Hello”

Andre 3000 performances are so rare now that even something inconsequential or phoned-in can seem precious, but this duet with his ex Erykah Badu is lovely and clever and emotionally nuanced and really, one of the best tracks of his career. This song, a version of The Isley Brothers’ version of a Todd Rundgren tune, has them both reckoning with what their relationship has been and what it is today, and cherishing the deep connection they have without forgetting a lot of their complicated history. It’s a very adult song, and something uniquely suited to Andre’s deft blend of wit and unguarded emotion. The humor is really crucial to getting across the deeper feelings here, and so is the use of in-jokes and pet names. This is a song about communication between two very close people; we’re just listening in.

Get it from Apple Music.



December 8th, 2015 1:57pm

The Nullifying, Defeating, Negating, Repeating Joy Of Life


Joanna Newsom @ Kings Theater 12/7/2015
Bridges & Balloons / Anecdotes / Soft as Chalk / Divers / Emily / Waltz of the 101st Lightborne / Have One on Me / Peach, Plum, Pear / Goose Eggs / Sapokanikan / Leaving the City / Cosmia / Time, As A Symptom // Sawdust & Diamonds / Baby Birch

Joanna Newsom “Time, As A Symptom”

I had put off writing about this song for weeks, and then figured I’d wait longer, because I knew I’d be seeing Joanna Newsom play this show. And I still feel oddly under qualified to write about it. The main thing I got from seeing Newsom live is how casual she appears on stage – not just in how she plays her instruments as though they’re purely an extension of gesture and reflex, but in her relaxed demeanor, and how the seriousness of her words don’t overtake the performance of the music. “Time, As A Symptom” is a very heavy song; I would go so far as to say it’s profound in the way it thinks about love and life and time and death. I imagine the chorus like a ladder, and she’s climbing up through the pain and struggle and tedium of life to arrive at the top, and seeing everything with a clear perspective from on high, and what she sees from there is nothing but joy and love. This wrecks me. It is a thought and musical moment so beautiful to me that it’s hard to listen to. I’m not always ready for it, and I think the only reason I didn’t cry when she performed it last night was because I’d been acclimated to the feeling of her music for over an hour at that point. If that climax came any sooner in the night, I just don’t know.

Buy it from Amazon.



December 7th, 2015 1:36pm

Yes, It’s Very Extraordinary


Logic “Like Woah”

I wonder about the rappers who write songs about being extremely successful while being only modestly successful, or maybe just possibly eventually successful. Logic is definitely doing well, but I’d put him squarely in the “modestly successful” category. At one point in this song he says he’s “platinum up in this bitch,” which is…untrue. Not that this really matters or negates the feeling of a song about being excited about doing well and having some money, but it is notable. The general mood of this song, from the beat on up, is more about gratitude than showing off, and I’d be lying to you if I told you I don’t feel a bit envious when I hear it.

Buy it from Amazon.

Jeremih “Oui”

I love the way this track frames Jeremih’s silky voice with these bright staccato chords – if the attack was different it’d feel a bit agitated, but the approach is softer, and it makes the whole track feel breezy and light. Jeremih not really doing anything out of the ordinary here, but he sounds genuinely affectionate and kind as he’s singing about wanting to make this girl happy. Maybe that’s faint praise, but I think it means a lot. Also, major points for coming up with a line based on a homonym as clever as “there’s no we without you and I.”

Buy it from Amazon.




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