Fluxblog
May 6th, 2015 12:59pm

Tweet Like A Pope


Wire “Blogging”

It’d be so easy for this to be a cranky song about the internet written by a guy in his 50s, but that’s not quite what this is. Colin Newman sings words like “Google Maps” and “Amazon wishlist” in a way that highlights their strangeness – just odd product names for things that didn’t exist too long ago – but puts them in the context of Christianity, something just as contrived that has existed for much longer. In “Blogging,” they go hand in hand as man-made devices for understanding the world. The two things sound ridiculous when smashed together – “blogging like Jesus,” “I’m YouTubing hope” – but Newman’s point seems to be that both are artificial, but are both are so essential to society that it’s hard to imagine life without them. There’s almost no hope in this song. It’s cold and sterile and harsh, just an expression of nihilism and vague contempt for the very idea of trying to make sense of world, or attempting to create order out of chaos.

Buy it from Amazon.



May 5th, 2015 12:00pm

Lost In The Moment For The Second Time


Tame Impala “‘Cause I’m A Man”

It’s very hard for me to listen to the chorus of this song without hearing “‘cause I’m a man, woman / don’t mistake me for a dude.” It’s like the “Starbucks lovers” of 2015. And really, that’s kind of a great lyric because there really is a gap between being a “man” and being a “dude,” and if we’re being real, most young guys are just dudes. It’s aspirational. But that’s not really what’s going on in this song. This is a song in which Kevin Parker wallows in guilt and self-pity for saying something dumb to his girlfriend, and he’s trying to explain himself: He’s a good person, but he often speaks carelessly. He has a conscience, but it’s “prone to being overruled.” He’s not proud of himself, but he’s OK with being a flawed human. It’s strange to hear a song that’s so lovely and kinda sexy – I mean, this is basically a slow jam – be mainly about a guy struggling with a shame spiral. But that gentle, sensual sound is a great way of conveying both his genuine vulnerability and his actual affection for this lady, which – to him – is far stronger than a moment of thoughtless cruelty.

Buy it from Amazon.



May 4th, 2015 11:32am

Bleary Expectation


Torres “Cowboy Guilt”

Torres’ music mostly sounds like anxious, angry, confusing emotions being buried beneath the surface, but then busting out when it’s too much to repress. The moments of catharsis in her songs are great, but I’m more interested in how she conveys the feeling of holding in nervous energy while trying to keep up a steady front. The guitar and keyboard lines in “Cowboy Guilt” sets up a vibe that’s somehow relaxed and cautious at the same time – it sounds like being in a situation that’s familiar, but you’re still not quite sure what to expect. The song becomes a lot more simple when she shifts into loud chords, which makes a lot of sense, since that’s the point in the song where she’s judging someone and there’s some kind of clarity.

Buy it from Amazon.



April 30th, 2015 11:03am

Work Work Work Every Day


LunchMoney Lewis “Bills”

“Bills” sounds like it was designed in a lab to be both immensely appealing and highly relatable – a song that could be played at any wedding reception, and fit easily into TV shows and movies that need a shorthand for “this character is broke and frustrated, but we’re still having fun!” I’m sure on some level this was something on LunchMoney Lewis’ mind when he was writing this song, but the song isn’t crushed by cynicism. Instead, it’s lifted up by it, and its eagerness to please actually results in a song so joyful and energetic that it’s very hard to deny. It’s also a bit weird and unique, in that it’s essentially a gospel/R&B hybrid with a production style that sounds directly inspired by Fatboy Slim’s “Praise You,” and a chorus that hits in a way that feels just like Chumbawumba’s “Tubthumping.”

Buy it from Amazon.



April 29th, 2015 12:16pm

Listen Up, I’m Saving You


Shamir “Call It Off”

I know LCD Soundsystem was itself largely a conglomeration of sounds and hooks pulled from pre-existing music, but wow – this track sounds remarkably similar to LCD Soundsystem. I don’t think that’s easy. But it doesn’t feel like a knock-off, it just feels like a custom frame for Shamir’s voice, which is just as charming and versatile as it was on last year’s single “On the Regular.” “Call It Off” doesn’t feel as much like a novelty – it goes to a darker place, with Shamir shaking off a bad relationship with someone who was apparently spending a lot of time gaslighting him. When he snaps back to being cute and assertive on the rapped bridge near the end, it’s like he’s fully himself again.

Buy it from Amazon.



April 28th, 2015 12:23pm

Caught Up In Your Heartstrings


Passion Pit “Where the Sky Hangs”

Michael Angelakos’ voice is always pushing a bit higher than it probably should, and I feel a vicarious strain if I hear too many Passion Pit songs in a row. The style works well in small doses though. “Where the Sky Hangs” is an elegantly crafted pop song that’s so crisp and clean that it practically demands an earnest, angelic vocal. Angelakos is singing about a love so overwhelming that it doesn’t seem entirely grounded in reality, and as much as he’s enjoying it and totally devoted to this person, he’s a bit concerned that it might all get away from him. There’s definitely some desperation in this song, particularly as it reaches its climax, but more than anything, it feels like an expression of confidence and faith that this will hold together if he just hangs tight.

Buy it from Amazon.



April 27th, 2015 11:49am

The Slow Boat That Lands On A Misty Sea


Blur “Ong Ong”

When I first heard that Blur was returning with a new album after a long reunion tour phase (which never came to New York and I am still very bitter about that), I was a bit too cautious to feel excited. My fear was that despite working with the members of Blur, who have a very distinct chemistry, Damon Albarn would just have them play the sort of dour and dreary music that has dominated most of his projects over the past several years. Though Blur have recorded many ballads, and some of those rank among their best songs, I think it’s fair to say that the core musical identity of Blur is rather bright and up-tempo, sometimes to the point of feeling rather manic. This is the thing I wanted; this is the thing that’s been missing.

The good news is that a little over half of The Magic Whip sounds like classic Blur while also feeling a bit fresh and different. Graham Coxon’s guitar style on this record is generally in the same zone as where he was on Blur and 13, but it’s not quite the same – he occasionally shifts into a cleaner tone, and there’s some vaguely Asian motifs sprinkled throughout the record. The remainder of the record is the sad sack Albarn you’d expect these days, but even those tracks don’t just feel like they could’ve been on some other Albarn project, and really take advantage of Coxon’s loose-yet-precise style, as well as that of Dave Rowntree and Alex James. Albarn has played with a very wide range of musicians in his career, but this just feels natural. It just sounds like he’s at home on this record.

“Ong Ong” is the best of the new songs. I hear a lot of Kinks in it, and it’s been quite some time since that influence has been obvious in Albarn’s work. What really gets me about this song is how generous it feels – it sounds so loving, so grateful, so earnest. A great deal of Albarn’s work over the years has been rather depressive or world weary, and I think that’s definitely there in the subtext of the song, but what you’re actually hearing here is the sort of joy and yearning that comes from finding someone or something to love in a world that’s always letting you down.

Buy it from Amazon.



April 24th, 2015 12:25pm

What A Disgusting Feeling


Car Seat Headrest “Kimochi Warui (When? When? When? When? When? When? When?)”

Please don’t be put off by the title of this song. It is a such a good song, and the lyrics are so good. Trust me on this. The strange thing about this is that while the title is very cryptic and precious, Will Toledo’s words in the actual song aren’t that way at all. In a voice that’s both drowsy and endearingly romantic, he’s singing quite directly about angst and existential dread. The subject matter is as melodramatic as it gets, but his delivery and phrasing is all very matter of fact. This is how it can be when you’re depressed – every emotion blurs into blah grey nothingness. Toledo’s music is fairly low-fi and the instruments sound cheap, but it really works for this song in the way it grounds everything in a drab, mundane setting. His arrangement is great, though – it’s always moving in some interesting way, and pushes him towards moments of shabby grace as the song reaches its climax.

Buy it from Bandcamp.



April 23rd, 2015 12:51pm

Safe In Moonlight And Fear The Sun


Moon King “Secret Life”

“Secret Life” seems to conflate a secretive, probably closeted romance with the idea of a child having an imaginary friend. It’s sung from the perspective of feeling exhausted by having to keep up appearances, and to hide a profound connection – actively burying the part of you that feels most open and alive. The sound of the track really plays up the melancholy and anxiety at the core of the lyrics and vocal performance – it’s slow, brittle, and has a vaguely mysterious atmosphere, but then the pace will suddenly pick up like your heart race when you’re forced into a lie.

Buy it from Amazon.



April 22nd, 2015 12:19pm

Stomping On Your Lungs


Leikeli47 “Two Times A Charm”

It is baffling to me that Leikeli47 is not the most hyped thing in music right now. Maybe that’s by design – this is an artist known for performing in a mask – but just on musical merit, her first mini-album is worth freaking out about. The easiest artist to compare her to is M.I.A., since they share a very feminine type of aggression and ferocity, and perform with the energy of people on the outside of hip-hop and are hell bent on being heard in that genre. But where M.I.A. draws on music from the Third World, Leikeli47 is more firmly rooted in hip-hop’s recent past. This is very much a post-Yeezus record – it’s there in the abrasive textures and the urgency of the tempos, and in the unambiguously confrontational nature of her performance. But it’s not all rage and fire. One of the most interesting things about her music is the way it will swing suddenly in the opposite direction, like when “Two Times A Charm” shifts briefly into straight R&B and she reveals a very sensual and empathetic side that is no less fierce.

Buy it from Amazon.



April 21st, 2015 12:05pm

There’s Nothing Else


Built to Spill “Never Be the Same”

Doug Martsch has spent so much time working on big lumbering epics hat it’s a really nice change of pace for him to put out a relatively simple, jangly folk rock song like this. All of his songs are very tightly written, even when they seem to jam out a bit, but this one feels especially compact – it wouldn’t surprise me at all if this was revised several times until it was nothing but hooks. The lyrics seem straightforward but are just as deceptively clever as the music itself, with Martsch flipping the perspective on his subject’s wanderlust and relationship with time and change every few lines. I particularly enjoy the idea of zooming in on someone’s motivation to keep doing new things and zooming out on a world that only changes at a glacial pace. This isn’t a new theme for him, though. His best song ever ends on essentially the same thought: “This history lesson doesn’t make any sense in any less than ten thousand year increments.”

Buy it from Amazon.



April 20th, 2015 1:52pm

Beat The Devil By A Landslide


Donnie Trumpet featuring Chance the Rapper and Jamila Woods “Sunday Candy”

It seems like Chance is settling into a niche – he’s the rapper who specializes in soulful, optimistic, uplifting music. It’s not a particularly crowded niche at the moment. I can’t imagine a better use of his voice, though – his rhymes are always so melodic, and when he half-sings his parts he sounds very Stax to me. The music of “Sunday Candy” is rooted in gospel, and Chance runs with that by turning the entire song into a tribute to his devoutly religious grandmother. This is an exceptionally warm and affectionate song, to the point that the kindness and love at the core of it can feel a overwhelming. But that’s how gratitude works – when you consider how much someone like a parent or guardian has given to you, it can really knock you over.

Get it from DJ Booth.



April 16th, 2015 12:43pm

This Life Ain’t Like A Book


Alabama Shakes “Sound & Color”

Man, this song just sounds like it’s begging to be sampled and turned into a rap track, doesn’t it? I’d bet the band actually was influenced by sample-based rap in arranging this – it’s drawing on a lot of ’60s and ‘70s soul music, but the way the elements click together feels very post-turntablism to me. It’s in the negative space, and the way the guitar part kinda lingers half-formed in the background like a looped artifact, and how the string parts near the end feel like they’re being imported from some other song entirely. It’s a gorgeous piece of music, and Brittany Howard’s vocal performance is pitched just right – a little understated compared to a lot of her stuff, but sorta wounded and emphatic right when it matters most.

Buy it from Amazon.



April 15th, 2015 12:34pm

A Million Moons


The-Dream “Fruition”

I suppose the new EP by The-Dream isn’t quirky enough for some people, but I can’t say I’m bothered by that. I’m not particularly invested in him as some maverick artist and am fine with him doing pretty straightforward R&B music. The-Dream is a perfectly fine singer, but the real draw of his music is in the songwriting and production, and the way he laces strong compositions with melodic, rhythmic, and tonal elements that stand out without getting in the way of the vocal melody. You get that in each of the songs on Crown, and in the case of “Fruition,” you find it in that lead guitar loop that seems to slowly spin around at the center of the track. It’s a slight bit of tension in the middle of a song that otherwise feels extremely comfortable and sort of weightless. He’s singing about being in love with a wonderful person he had to work hard to find, so maybe that element is there to represent a lingering fear about messing it all up.

Buy it from iTunes.



April 14th, 2015 1:02pm

Life’s Ironic And It’s Simple


Action Bronson “Terry”

The Alchemist’s production on this track is straight-up gorgeous, and in a way that is very specific to sample-based rap. The sounds are cobbled from a variety of sources, but the main thing is that lovely, melancholy guitar sample pulled from Asha Puthli’s “Let Me In Your Life.” It’s chopped up a bit, but Alchemist makes it all feel organic, like it could actually be a live band playing in a room. But like the best sample-based music, it’s not entirely seamless, and you can sense the artifacts and the fabrication. It’s part of why a lot of this music has a sad, nostalgic feeling to it – you can’t help but hear the quotation marks around the music, and the way it all seems like a fading memory. Action Bronson does a good job on this track, but of course he would – his voice and style is so similar to Ghostface, and Ghostface figured out a long time ago that this aesthetic suited him better than anything else. It’s something about the plaintive timbre of their voices, maybe.

Buy it from Amazon.



April 13th, 2015 1:04pm

So Far From Sane


Charly Bliss “Urge to Purge”

It’s such a thrill to see a rock band arrive seemingly fully formed. I saw Charly Bliss open up for Colleen Green and Unrest at Shea Stadium in Brooklyn on Friday night, and I’m glad I arrived early, because they were a far better live act than either. (Green is excellent on record, but not quite as much when she’s only got a guitar and a drum machine.) Charly Bliss are a straight-up ‘90s alt-rock band, and you can easily just listen to their stuff and trainspot all their influences – that melody is The Breeders, that bass line is Pixies, that bit sounds like that one Bush song, that hook is Letters to Cleo, a whole bunch of it is Veruca Salt. There was even one song that somehow made the leap from Built to Spill to No Doubt in the space of a few measures. They’ve got the sound down, and I won’t lie – this isn’t just nostalgia for me, it’s full-on Pavlonian. I am a sucker for this very specific type of rock music. But there’s been a few bands aiming for this over the past few years, and none of them have connected with the sound and the spirit of alt-rock as much as this band. It’s not just in the shape of the music, it’s in the way they move on stage, and the way they play and sing and interact. Great alt-rock music always moves between slack and tension, a shrug and a shout. Despite all the angst, there’s a lot of joy in alt-rock – it’s very physical music, and it’s all about taking great pleasure in dynamic shifts. Charly Bliss gets it, and they do it. I’m excited for what they’re going to do next.

Buy it from Bandcamp.



April 9th, 2015 11:59am

Holographic Jesus, Come To Me In My Sleep


Doldrums “Blow Away”

Airick Woodhead spends the majority of The Air Conditioned Nightmare, his second album under the name Doldrums, wondering why he feels so ill at ease in situations that are designed to be comfortable. It’s not so much an attack on modernity as it is a meditation on anxiety and distrust of the mundane. “Blow Away,” a song that seems like an obvious radio single to me but is for some reason not being promoted at all, provides the thematic center of the record. It’s essentially a song about feeling weirded out by comforts, whether they’re sexual, material, or mindless. I don’t totally agree with the point of view in the song, but I understand it. It’s paranoia, really – this constant feeling that anything that feels good must be some sort of trap. But what really makes this song work on a thematic level is that while Woodhead is yearning for some sort of authentic experience, he seems to have no idea what that experience could be like. And maybe that’s a trap too?

Buy it from Amazon.



April 8th, 2015 3:40am

A Storm Hits The City


Laura Marling “False Hope”

Laura Marling’s music is so rooted in pastoral English folk that it’s mildly disconcerting to hear her do a straight-up rock song like this. But then, the jagged rhythm and tense mood of this song suits the lyrics’ urban setting, or at least a non-city person’s experience of time spent hidden away in an apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It’s interesting to hear Marling’s guitar playing reduced to something so blunt – her strength on previous records and throughout Short Movie is in gorgeous finger-picked parts that convey melody just as much as the tactile aspects of fingers hitting and plucking strings. That physical quality is definitely there in this song, but unlike most of her songs, which are recorded in a way that feels alarmingly intimate, there’s a bit of distance and atmosphere. Again, it makes sense – this is really a song about feeling like you’re just outside the experience of living your life. Of course this is the song where things are just a bit off.

Buy it from Amazon.



April 7th, 2015 12:23pm

I Thought You Disappeared


Madeon featuring Kyan “You’re On”

Madeon’s bright, hyperactive pop reminds me of two very specific things – the sound of Daft Punk’s classic Discovery, which they abandoned in favor of lush overly literal ’70s pastiche, and the sort of post-EDM pop that is licensed to death in ads and tv bumpers. I’m sure “You’re On” has already been used in this way, and maybe I haven’t encountered it yet or have but don’t quite remember. But that sort of ubiquity isn’t a damning thing – if anything, it guarantees that in time, this is the sound people will reference when they want to immediately remind you of the early 2010s. “You’re On” is an exceptionally well made song, and a fine example of its sub-genre. The track would work very well as an instrumental, and the chopped vocal samples are enough of a hook to make a great song before you even factor in the pop song layered over top of it. Kyan’s vocals may feel a bit anonymous, but he meshes with the tonality of the track very well, so all these hooks and melodies merge into one big joyful burst of treble.

Buy it from Amazon.



April 6th, 2015 11:48am

Your Candle In The Dark


Carly Rae Jepsen “All That”

The first few times I heard “All That,” including Carly Rae Jepsen’s performance of it on Saturday Night Live, I didn’t realize that the song was co-written by Dev Hynes and Ariel Rechtshaid, so I mostly just interpreted it as a surprisingly accurate simulation of late ‘80s teen pop balladry. (Which is saying something – most contemporary pop that is meant to evoke “the ‘80s” doesn’t specifically sound like anything from that time, and mostly just sounds like right now, which is no bad thing.) But now that I know that it’s Hynes and Rechtshaid, it’s all I hear in the song. Rechtshaid’s influence is a bit more subtle, but if you’ve heard enough of his work you can sense his presence by the atmosphere, and the particular tonality of the instruments. But you can’t unhear the Hynes in this – that dude has an extremely limited melodic palette, and the chorus is basically a slightly altered version of the same hook he’s written for Solange and Sky Ferreira. The melody definitely works here and Jepsen sells the demure vulnerability of the song very well, but it really makes me wonder if Hynes is capable of switching it up even a little bit.

Buy it from Amazon.




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