September 15th, 2015 12:41pm
There’s a brief breakdown near the end of this song in which Michael Lerner clears away the treble and sings “you forget the feeling of magic / you forget feeling emphatic” over a simple beat and a chugging bass line. I know this feel, Michael! It’s surprisingly easy to go long stretches of time without feeling many strong emotions as an adult – sometimes it’s a matter of falling into a depression that blanks everything out, and more often it’s a steady OK feeling that turns into extended complacency. The former is awful and soul-deadening, the latter is fine but totally unrewarding. “Courtesy Phone” lies on the periphery of this emotional dead zone, with Lerner fighting against the impulse to stay in that plateau, and pushing himself to risk dealing with the lows in order to get some highs. You can hear that tension in the music itself – the beat is stiff and robotic, but the structure of the music pushes against that to build a thrilling momentum.
September 14th, 2015 12:09pm
I’m not sure why Martin Courtney decided to make Many Moons a solo record when it basically sounds like the fourth Real Estate album. I’m sure he has his reasons, but as a listening experience, it is pretty much identical to Real Estate, except that the arrangements are maybe 25% more lush and there’s a touch of ‘70s AM radio vibes about it. I suppose the reality is that Courtney is so loyal to his chill melancholy muse that he can’t help but write nothing but gentle, wistful tunes in any context. This would only be a problem if he wasn’t a master of this form. “Vestiges” is one of the best songs he’s ever written, and approaches his recurring theme of nostalgia from the perspective of someone who can’t escape the detritus of his past. The song doesn’t get too heavy, but you can sense the vague dread of mortality as time seems to slip away, and a nagging fear that life is passing this guy by as old friends move on and he’s stuck living amongst the stuff that everyone else left behind. I think this song is about trying to make peace with those feelings, and looking at the coming and going of things like a tide that ebbs and flows. But I don’t know if anyone is really convinced by that, let along the character in the song.
September 11th, 2015 12:32pm
I have a real weakness for songs like this, which have a recognizable structure and feeling, but are otherwise totally abstracted and incoherent. “The Company” sounds like it ought to be this romantic ballad, something people could slow dance to, but the vocals are so warped by pitch and echo that it’s all just some vague indication of sentiment without any specificity. I’m reasonably sure most of this is sung in English, but it feels more like listening to pop performed in a language where you can only understand a few words here and there. Maybe that is frustrating for some people, but I really like that abstraction and disconnection.
September 10th, 2015 12:50pm
The two previous Battles albums had some vocals that could become the center of songs like in traditional rock music, but on their third record, they’ve moved away from that entirely and essentially have placed Ian Williams’ miscellaneous guitars, keyboards, and mysterious electronic sounds as the focal point of their compositions. “Summer Simmer” follows a pattern that holds through most of La Di Da Di – John Stanier and Dave Konopka lay down a complex, ever-shifting rhythm, and Williams cycles through various instruments and equipment, adding melodic and textural parts in reaction to the beat. Williams’ parts are incredibly expressive, particularly this plaintive keyboard (?) lead that comes in about two minutes into the track, but gets replaced around the three minute mark by a brighter and more cheerful-sounding guitar hook. They’ve packed a lot into this track, but the pacing is just right, and the emotional and rhythmic shifts feel totally natural, not jarring.
September 9th, 2015 12:19pm
Most of this Perth band’s material is focused on guitar, so this piano-centric tune is an outlier. But maybe that shouldn’t be the case going forward, as there’s something about the way these melodies circle the beat that is both gorgeous and sort of unnerving. The vocals are girlish and ghostly, and so high pitched and breathy that the lyrics are almost entirely unintelligible. But despite that, it’s pretty easy to understand the feeling of the song, and this feeling that if you connect yourself to this other person, you won’t feel so totally adrift and confused. I love the way it’s implied that the circular melodies are like this maze, and they’re just trying to get out of it.
September 8th, 2015 12:29pm
Prince’s new record – for now only available on the streaming service Tidal – is the most consistently excellent album he’s put out in some time. I know that something like every fourth Prince release gets hype like that, but HitNRun Phase One is sexy and strange in a way that he’s mostly avoided over the past decade or two. A lot of this is owed to the fact that this is a very rare record in which Prince is in full collaboration with a producer, Joshua A. M. Welton, who gets co-producer and co-songwriting credits. Prince sticks to vocals, guitar, and bass on this album, and allows Welton to go wild with contemporary synths and beats. It’s interesting to hear Prince concede keyboard and beat programming, two elements of his sound that he’s completely mastered, to a younger musician. There’s not a lot that Welton does that would seem out of place on a Prince record, but he reconnects Prince with a synth-based edginess that was once at the center of his sound. Welton pushes Prince away from fussiness and towards an off-kilter funk that perfectly suits the more playful and seductive aspects of his voice. That really comes through in “X’s Face,” which plays his falsetto against a lurching, nearly abrasive bass synth part. I think it would’ve fit in pretty well with the funky digital minimalism of the Sign O the Times era.
September 4th, 2015 12:11pm
I felt compelled to mention this when I wrote about Diet Cig, and I feel like I have to reiterate it here in writing about PWR BTTM: It is amazing to me that I have been writing this site since 2002 and I can probably (still) count on one hand the times I’ve featured bands from the Hudson Valley, which is where I’m from. It’s crazy that all of a sudden there’s a music scene forming in the area where I grew up – where the hell was all this when I was a kid?? – but also totally logical in that it’s a place very close to New York City where young musicians can live a lot cheaper and have a lot more practice space and generally have this sort of suburban-bohemian lifestyle. More bands should move there.
PWR BTTM are a joyful and openly queer rock band, but carry themselves in this very ‘90s casual indie boy sort of way. It’s an interesting balance, for sure. “Dairy Queen” is a very suburban rock song, both in vibe – that clinky metallic riff just feels like being in a shitty car driving to nowhere in particular to me – and in sentiment, which is mostly about fantasizing about doing super cool things and settling for making your own fun. It ma be a song about living with compromises and practical concerns, but it’s not hung up on that stuff. It’s more about really throwing yourself into the sorts of fun you get to have, and that’s usually a lot more satisfying.
September 3rd, 2015 12:44pm
It was a good idea for Animal Collective to release an official document of their 2013 tour, if just to show off what a good live band they had become at that point in time. This was the first time in their career where they really figured out how to blend live and pre-recorded/electronic elements seamlessly into their performances, and how to present their best-known songs in a way that was satisfyingly faithful to the original recordings without entirely sacrificing the semi-improvisational elements that had been key to their live shows up to this point. I think this came out of a new professionalism that came in the wake of the success of Merriweather Post Pavilion, but also just an increasing confidence in their technical skills and a desire to show off the more disciplined structures of their more recent songwriting. You really get the best of all that in this version of “What Would I Want? Sky,” as it follows the same pattern as the studio version from dramatic ambience to tightly composed pop song, but there’s a wild energy to the performance that brings out the life in both sections.
September 2nd, 2015 12:13pm
Miley Cyrus’ new record is a long slog, but it’s at least an interesting slog. And given that she made it with The Flaming Lips and Mike Will Made It, two contrasting creative forces I think would be rather overpowering in most cases, it’s remarkable that Cyrus pushed them both towards a very specific unifying aesthetic focused on thin, hazy synth drones and crisply snapping beats. I think Stephen Thomas Erlewine’s take on the record is pretty right on – this album is the musical equivalent of watching someone else trip balls rather that something that takes you on a psychedelic journey, and there are stretches of the record where it does “feel like you’re the designated driver at an endless party that you can never leave.” But it’s kinda worth it for the tracks that really come together, like “I Forgive Yiew,” “Fweaky,” and “Space Boots.” The latter is just a really lovely ballad, and its stoned quality enhances its sentiment, and her eagerness to be aggressively WEIIIIRD roots it in very peculiar specifics. If the record is full of songs where you feel like you’re just indulging a self-absorbed friend, a song like “Space Boots” is the kind of thing that reminds you why you’re friends in the first place.
September 1st, 2015 12:26pm
The past few waves of “lo-fi” music left me cold because it was mostly just a bunch of shitty bands using bad sound to mask their considerable deficiencies and have some sort of hook for lazy music writers. This track is a very different thing, and closer to where Lou Barlow was in the mid-‘90s with Folk Implosion – the sound isn’t bad, but the looseness of the recording highlights a feeling of “let’s just get this on to tape right away.” Jimmy Whispers really makes you feel as though you’re in a little room with him, where he’s bitching about wanting to “change the fucking feeling,” and then plays a sad little song on the organ for you, and maybe he’s making up half the words on the spot. That “in-the-moment” quality suits this particular song very well; that organ drone and sad melody end up feeling like a present tense that seems to extend deep into the horizon. No wonder he’s so anxious to change the feeling.
August 31st, 2015 12:11pm
This is a very adult sort of pop song, and it calls back to an era in which adult contemporary pop was also mainstream pop, and not totally synonymous with sentimental bombast. “What Part of Me” reminds me specifically of the more mellow and restrained Phil Collins/Genesis hits, which framed very warm melodies in cold synths and tense electronic percussion, and were generally about people in long term relationships trying to solve emotional conflicts with honest communication. Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker sing the song in parallel harmony but rarely fully overlap, which is perfect for a song in which they’re kinda looking just past each other and wondering “what part of me don’t you know?” and trying to figure out what it’d take to realign perfectly. The arrangement hits just the right balance of airiness and rhythmic tension, indicating conflict but nothing particularly intense. My favorite detail here is the low feedback buzz that almost subliminally lingers in the background of parts of the track, like some strange feeling that’s not fully formed enough to articulate or understand.
August 28th, 2015 1:14am
“Friday I’m In Love” is so familiar that it’s actually sort of surprising that Yo La Tengo selected it for their new album of acoustic covers and reworked oldies. But that easy familiarity really works for this rendition, which dials down the manic enthusiasm of The Cure’s original recording, but stays true to its romantic heart and impeccable structure. This is a smaller, cozier version of the song, and Georgia Hubley sings it with a bashful sweetness that’s more like a nervous blush than Robert Smith’s delirious gush. I love how casual this sounds, as if Yo La Tengo made this knowing that it’d be the perfect thing for an introvert’s crush playlist. It’s like a little gift for you.
This track is built around D.J. Rogers’ “Watch Out for the Riders” to such an extent that it really ought to be labeled as a remix. But what a remix this is! Hudson Mohawke is basically doing the old mid-00s rap trick of speeding up an old soul sample til it takes on a odd, sparkly quality, and then making it bump with digital beats. There’s nothing particularly original about this, but the execution is dazzling and joyous.
August 26th, 2015 12:53pm
It’s sort of amazing that Angel Deradoorian has spent most of the first decade of her career as a supporting player in other bands when it’s always been so obvious that she has a very particular musical style and vision. And OK, maybe that style has been shaped by proximity to Dave Longstreth, Avey Tare, and Rostam Batmanglij, but she’s still the type of singer whose timbre and affect is immediately identifiable. Her first proper solo record feels like a culmination of her work to date, with elements of Dirty Projectors and Slasher Flicks and her previous solo EP infused into these gently winding psychedelic rock songs. “Violet Minded” is the track that bears the closest resemblance to her work with Dirty Projectors, with an ascending, spiraling vocal hook that would’ve fit in perfectly with the songs on Bitte Orca. Deradoorian’s tracks have a much different feeling, though – whereas Longstreth’s music can’t help but be a bit cold and stiff, her songs convey warmth and generosity.
August 25th, 2015 4:23pm
I’ve had trouble connecting with The Weeknd in the past, in part because I don’t feel like I have a lot of room in my life for his whole “debauched misery in a brand-new luxury hotel” vibe, but mostly because I find his voice to be fairly anonymous and a lot of his songs rather flimsy. He’s getting around the latter problem by working with top writers and producers these days, and making a virtue of his lack of character by becoming the kind of R&B singer you can just plug into songs. That’s more or less what he’s doing in “Tell Your Friends,” which was mostly produced by Kanye West. This is a very Kanye sort of track, and sounds like it could’ve been a leftover from the My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy era. Weeknd is definitely being himself, in as much as his lyrics are so on-brand that they seem self-conscious, but he’s mostly just lounging around in the middle of an exceptionally well-made track. To his credit, he inhabits the song very well – it’s sorta like he’s a model, and he’s making some gorgeous designer clothes look really good. You put the same thing on some random person, and it’s just not the same.
August 20th, 2015 2:33pm
“Times Square” appears three times on Poison Season – this is the version with the fairly typical life-rock Destroyer arrangement, the other two are quiet, vaguely mournful orchestral arrangements that bookend the record. I prefer the rock version, but of course I would – it’s much easier to listen to, and it’s just a lot more pleasing as a pop song with a beat. But I think it’s very valuable that Dan Bejar is presenting this song from a few perspectives, and in context, the rock version feels like a flashback to a more earnest and uncomplicated feeling. The words are about as oblique as you’d expect from Bejar, but there’s a very clear optimism to this song – about love, about New York, about music, about the possibility of salvation or redemption. The bleak string versions imply a sense of doubt about this, or at least look back on the feeling with a touch of bemusement. I don’t think Bejar is writing anything off, but I do think he’s thinking a lot about the romance of optimism.
August 19th, 2015 12:56pm
“Snakeskin” is the first Deerhunter song I could describe as funky, though it doesn’t completely work as a straight funk track. The guitar groove and the beat are definitely lifted from ‘60s and ‘70s R&B, but the bass is oddly still in the arrangement. This results in a song that sounds like someone who is trying to affect a confident strut, but is not loose and relaxed enough for it to actually signal confidence. That subtext carries over to Bradford Cox’s lyrics, which riff on the feeling of being born all wrong, and living with a conviction that you’re homely and sickly and weird, and that’s the just the natural state of things. So, basically, this is the sound of trying to feel good in your body and maybe getting about halfway to the thing you assume other people feel all the time, or landing on something else entirely.
August 18th, 2015 3:37am
A lot of the best and most aggressive punk is, on a melodic level, total candy. “Bathroom at the Beach” is a great example – the core of it is catchy and bouncy enough to be a jingle, and the main vocal melody is sung with a singsong lilt that’s close to what you’d get in children’s music. But the sound of it is so gloriously abrasive, and the abrupt burst into noise on the chorus is one of the most thrilling bits of any record I’ve heard recently. It’s so easy to imagine a room full of people losing their shit at that exact moment; it’s like this band is going out of their way to make the most mosh-inducing song possible. I thank them for that.
August 17th, 2015 2:44am
“Figure 8” sounds like it’s constantly on the brink of collapse, with FKA Twigs’ voice balanced preciously between skittering, barely cohesive beats and waves of wobbling, distorted synth tones. A lot of Twigs tracks have this dynamic, but don’t quite gel – often, the vocal melody seems arbitrarily dropped into a track. In this, the arrangement is always punctuating the vocal part, and that sense of imminent crash is central to the emotion of the piece. That uncertain feeling extends to the lyrics, which obliquely deal with public scrutiny while seeking out creative experiences that feel more authentic and exciting. She sounds like she’s doing her best to assert herself, but the music is there to show us how hard that can be.
August 13th, 2015 3:52am
How do I know this guy’s voice so well? The particular inflections and cadences, the specific sound of the creak in his voice when he reaches for high notes beyond his range. I swear I’ve heard some version of this guy sing in dozens of bands going back 20 years, but I can’t remember the names of any of them. Also, I’m pretty sure he’s just some guy, the way those other guys were just some guy. This is the music that some guy makes, and the music lots of some guys listen to. I’m some guy too, obviously.
I don’t mean to diminish what a good and interesting little song this is. I love the way this band pushes themselves to just beyond their skill level in playing it, and the irregular contours of its structure. The music finds grace in shabbiness, and so do the lyrics – he nails a lot of very vivid concrete details, and he writes around a messy, secretive affair before ending the song by singing “I can’t wait for you to leave New York / I can’t wait for you to get divorced” in a tone that’s cheerful and glib in a way where you know this guy is setting himself up for some huge disappointments.
August 12th, 2015 12:53pm
Beach House is the sort of band that is so committed to a specific aesthetic that they never seem to change, but are in fact constantly shifting around the formal elements of their music. On the surface, “Sparks” is another hazy, organ-centric drone, but it’s also a sudden left turn from the past couple Beach House records, which emphasized crisp, clean sounds and a melodramatic romanticism. In comparison to tracks like “Myth” and “Wild,” “Sparks” is all scuffed up and knocked slightly off register, with Victoria Legrand’s sullen voice buried in the mix rather than at the center of the music. The guitar tone on the intro is significantly more aggressive than what typically ends up on Beach House records, and it overlaps with the over-driven keyboard drone in a way that suggests aggravated frustration giving way to outright depression. The lyrics are vague, but seem to be about a junkie searching for their next high, but each high is weaker and briefer than the last. It doesn’t really need to be about drugs – the “spark” could be anything that offers a momentary reprieve from pain and boredom – but either way, that theme suits the despairing tone of the record.
