May 27th, 2015 12:53pm
The most interesting tension in A$AP Rocky’s body of work is the push and pull between his stoner aesthetics and obsession with elegance. Those aren’t opposite things, but they do contrast in interesting ways – so much of both of Rocky’s albums is like this impeccably crafted haze, and he just sorta struts through it with casual grace. He has exceptional taste in sound – maybe a lot of that came from Yams, but I’m inclined to think he’s internalized that influence by now – and I think he’s got a better and more adventurous sense of how to frame his voice than any rapper of his generation aside from Kendrick Lamar. “Excuse Me,” mainly produced by Jim Jonsin, is flat-out gorgeous and flips a sample from a Platters Christmas album into a composition that’s both stately and haunting. I love the way Rocky sounds with the backdrop of droning, sustained tones from an extended sample. He’s done this before, namely on “LVL” from his debut, and it really complements the subtle melancholy in his voice.
Smurphy’s music is low-key bewildering – it’s very odd and disarming, but also so ambient and comfortable that you can just kinda shrug off the parts that straight-up sound like frogs croaking in a swamp. “Aquarius Risinn” is about as songy as she gets, with a breakbeat coming in midway that feels a little like something that could’ve been on a mid-90s DJ Shadow or Tricky record. But the vibe is different, trading the smokiness and grime of that era for something that feels brighter and more…watery? I suppose that’s it, maybe? This is all so wonderfully abstract that any attempt to put this into words is kinda futile.
May 26th, 2015 2:18am
I remember feeling very disappointed when I first heard dubstep music because the name of the subgenre implied that it’d be like dub reggae. And like, for the most part, nope. But this track is kinda what I would’ve imagined – a French producer doing his own version of classic dub with modern DJ equipment and elements pulled from miscellaneous electronic subgenres that have popped up over the past decade or so. “Dead and Bury” mostly lingers in that pleasantly stoned, head-nodding space you’d expect from a dub track, but there’s a tonal shift with a pitched-up vocal part that comes in about a minute and a half in that moves the song into a far more emotional place. It’s a really beautiful moment, and unexpected in the best way.
May 25th, 2015 1:51pm
It sounds as though Maya Jane Coles made the main keyboard part in this song to be a deliberate anxiety trigger. I certainly can’t hear it without feeling some kind of fight-or-flight instinct kicking in, or feeling trapped in some difficult situation. Catnipp’s vocals on this track taps into that vibe, and pushes into into a scenario in which sexiness and danger blur together, and the threat of violence is both terrifying and truly exciting. This is extremely bleak music, but it’s hard to deny its sexiness and strange gravity.
May 21st, 2015 12:54pm
“Shame” is a rock song, I suppose, but it sounds like it was built out of spare parts from a junk heap than any typical rock instrumentation. This isn’t a new idea, but it’s really well executed in this track, and does a lot to create a sense of desperation and anxiety that carries over to the lyrics. Everything seems broken, everything seems like it could just collapse at any moment. And that sensation is exacerbated by the velocity of the beat – you end up feeling like you’re being chased by someone or something, and this is the worst possible time to be so vulnerable.
May 20th, 2015 1:06pm
Courtney Barnett @ Bowery Ballroom 5/19/2015
Canned Tomatoes (Whole) / Elevator Operator / Lance Jr. / An Illustration of Loneliness (Sleepless in New York) / Small Poppies / Dead Fox / Depreston / Debbie Downer / Nobody Really Cares If You Don’t Go to the Party / Avant Gardener / Kim’s Caravan / Cannonball / Pedestrian at Best // Being Around / Pickles from the Jar / History Eraser
Courtney Barnett and her band have a different energy live than on record – the arrangements are streamlined for a trio, the bass is chunky and heavy, and Barnett’s delivery is looser and more playful. I really appreciate the relative precision in the studio – the songs are too good to not be presented as well as possible – but the looser, more playful approach is closer to the spirit of the songs, and who she is as a person. She’s one of the rare musicians who actually reminds me a lot of Stephen Malkmus, and has a similar sort of effortless swagger and clever way with words, and a guitar style that’s oddly refined for someone who seems to swing her instrument around like a cool toy. She has excellent chemistry with her bass player and drummer, and they have a great way of balancing the more tossed-off bits with the sections where they really lean in and rock the fuck out of a song. The only odd thing is that they’ve got a few songs in the set that feel like excellent set-closers and finales – “Small Poppies,” “Canned Tomatoes,” “Kim’s Caravan” – and yet the song she goes out on, “History Eraser,” is a song that just kinda comes and goes. Maybe she’d rather not be so dramatic, but like, there she is, being quite dramatic in the show! But that’s a pretty minor complaint.
Chastity Belt also played on this bill, and as it turns out, their music sounds a bit different live. The structure, style, and spirit is the same as what you get on record, but there’s a lot more space in the sound. The studio recordings place a lot of emphasis on Julia Shapiro’s rhythm guitar, but on stage it’s very apparent how graceful and nimble the bass and lead guitar parts are, and how well the band performs as an ensemble. They come across like a very well-rehearsed band, not in the sense that their performance feels stiff in rote, but in that they seem to really understand each other as musicians and have an obvious rapport. The style they’re developing is very interesting, especially in the contrast between Shapiro’s blunt phrasing and Lydia Lund’s lovely, ringing lead parts. That comes together well on “Cool Slut,” which is provocative and defiant, but also rather pretty and chill. It’s basically a song in which Shapiro is giving people permission to be on the same cool vibe as her band, and it seems foolish to turn her down or get in their way.
May 19th, 2015 11:47am
If you listen through John Dwyer’s catalog, there’s a clear arc in which he’s writing and writing and playing and playing and recording and recording, and there’s a point somewhere around Thee Oh Sees’ Putrifiers II came out in 2012 where it sounds like it got easy for him. Not easy in the sense that it became boring or rote, but easy in that his music seems like the result of pure instinct for rhythm and melody. The best Dwyer songs sound like he’s surrendering to a groove and trusting himself to respond fully in the moment. A lot of Thee Oh Sees songs sound as though they could’ve been fully improvised even when that’s not the case, and that’s part of Dwyer just being so present in the performances, and seeming totally thrilled by dynamic shifts. His frequent “whooooo!” exclamations seem like a vocal tic at first, but it’s clear over time that it’s the most honest expression in his music. A song like “Web” is just this cool roller coaster he built for himself to ride.
May 18th, 2015 1:28am
Fight Like Apes have been missing for some time now, long enough that I think I just assumed they had broken up. Well, close enough – the rhythm section quit, and though the one guy who did a lot of backup vocals is still around, he’s barely singing at all now. As a result, the band’s third album, Fight Like Apes, feels more like a MayKay solo album. That’s not a bad thing, though – she’s charismatic and great with melody, and though she’s toned down the band’s more abrasive characteristics this time around, she has not abandoned their peculiar sense of humor. One of the best things about MayKay is how she fills her songs with odd jokes and weird images, but then hits you with something very raw and sincerely emotional. It always seems to come out of nowhere, and sometimes fully overlaps with the strangest lines. “Pop Itch” sounds like a sideways version of Talking Heads “This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody),” and channels some of that song’s mix of absurdity and poignancy. But as always, MayKay is self-effacing and perhaps a bit self-sabotaging – the most memorable bit of the song is a non sequitur that has her repeating the name “Jabba the Hutt” for comedic effect.
May 14th, 2015 12:32pm
Unknown Mortal Orchestra started out as a band no one knew anything about, and that lack of information only made their music feel more strange and misplaced in time. But now that UMO has a third album, all that has changed. Ruban Nielson, who essentially IS the band, was so open in this interview with Pitchfork that he’s on the opposite end of the spectrum from where he started. A lot of the interview, which feels far more like a segment on This American Life or a Modern Love column than a profile of a rock musician, is about he and his wife exploring a polyamorous relationship with a much younger woman from Japan. This experiment and the resulting emotional fallout is the basis for pretty much everything on his new album Multi-Love. (Funny how a title that seemed ambiguous at first now looks so totally literal.) I’ve had an advance copy of the record for a little while and, as with the previous UMO records, enjoyed it greatly on a purely musical level. Nielson is so great with melodic, rhythm, texture, and ambient vibe that it’s easy to just kinda gloss over lyrical content. But going back over the record with this context in mind is a revelation – the songs are all stuck in a weird space between bliss and anxiety. “Ur Life One Night” in particular shifted a lot in my mind, with my brain focusing in on all the question marks in the lyrics. This is about what I’d expect this unusual emotional situation to be like: Exciting and sorta simple on the face of it, but complicated and confusing in execution. This music just sounds like trying to feel relaxed and groovy and happy while constantly negotiating and dealing with neuroses.
May 13th, 2015 12:51pm
I sometimes wonder what it’d be like if The New Pornographers made an album in which Neko Case and Kathryn Calder contributed songs along with Carl Newman and Dan Bejar. It’s a bit hard to imagine with Neko – her solo aesthetic is a lot earthier and more depressive than New Pornos, and I’m not sure if her inclinations as a songwriter are well suited to maximalism in arrangement. Calder’s solo music also tends to be a lot more melancholy and intimate, but I think she could do it. “Take A Little Time” wouldn’t need to change much to fit in on a New Pornos record, though I think it’s probably better off in this more ethereal form. I like the way she balances the urgency of the tempo with a hazy psychedelic arrangement and a chilly vocal timbre that feels like being lost in thought in some busy, hectic environment. Calder thrives when she can convey delicacy and interiority – this as true in the New Pornographers, where she can signal fragility in a way the three other vocalists cannot, and even more so when she’s on her own and that introverted character is at the center of the music.
May 12th, 2015 12:06pm
I didn’t like the mix of this song at first because everything was blaring to the point of obscuring the lyrics, and I interpreted it as this very contrary indie/punk move to put the vocals lower in the mix. But having heard it in the context of The Most Lamentable Tragedy, it’s clear that this is intentional, and crucial to the theme of the song – you just don’t do a punk song about feeling like only the loudest things make you feel anything at all and not dramatize that sensation. “Dimed Out” is a fun and often funny song, but it’s also a very accurate expression of the manic stage of manic depression. All the thoughts are sharp and urgent, but warped by a sort of false intensity. You lose all sense of emotional dynamic, and only the extremes seem true. In this song, that feeling is exciting and empowering, because that’s often how it feels in the moment. The burnout comes later on, but for the duration of “Dimed Out,” it’s all adrenaline and catharsis.
May 11th, 2015 12:43pm
I imagine a lot of people will check out Kasami Washington’s The Epic based on the hype around it and not fully grasp why people are freaking out over it and declaring it the start of this bold new era of jazz when to the layperson’s ear it just sounds like…well, three CDs worth of jazz. Washington’s music isn’t some bold, obvious break from the past – it’s drawing on a rich history of jazz and jazz fusion, and the musical vocabulary in use is pretty traditional. It stands out from the recent history of jazz in ways that are more about spirit and context. Washington and his large band comprised of astounding players from his Los Angeles scene don’t seem beaten down by the public’s indifference to jazz, or jazz culture’s tendency towards becoming a museum of itself, or striving for relevance by adapting sounds from hip-hop and electronic music. Washington’s not trying to reinvent anything – his boldness is in writing and conducting jazz music that insists that the music is as vital and exciting now as it was in the mid-20th century. Instead of being defensive about jazz, Washington spends about three hours showing you all the things he can do with it, and giving the listener the kind of thrills that can only be had in this genre.
Washington’s music is accessible too, mainly because he’s an excellent songwriter with a great ear for melody and rhythmic hooks. There’s nothing intimidating about compositions like “Leroy and Lanisha” or “The Next Step,” and the more ornate, epic tracks are more about dazzling you with a sense of near-cosmic scale rather than empty gestures of ambition. Best of all, Washington isn’t afraid to give us a few vocal tracks featuring Patrice Quinn that work as straight-up pop music, albeit with the extended structure of jazz. “Cherokee” is full-on 70s jazz-funk, a sunny ballad that seems like it was designed to be played at cocktail parties and lounges. “Cherokee” bears a strong resemblance to “Am I the Same Girl” a.k.a. “Soulful Strut,” and wears that on its sleeve with a horn chart that lightly paraphrases a hook from that song. Like the majority of tracks on The Epic, it just overwhelms you with pleasure and good vibes, and manages to evoke the best elements of the past without feeling like a soulless pastiche or a work of musical academia.
May 8th, 2015 1:13pm
I realize that “going to websites” is not a very cool thing to do these days, and if I’m going to put in the effort of continuing to write this site 4-5 days every week, I should also try to make it easier for some people to keep up with it, or even pay attention to it at all. So, as of this week, you now have the option to read this site as a weekly email newsletter. Every Friday, I will send out an email that includes this week’s posts, plus some other links and bonus stuff, and links to other music-related stuff I have published in that time. I might include some stuff from the archives as well. I’m also going to be working on some new Fluxblog surveys, and when I’m doing that, I can put out a call for feedback and all you’d need to do is reply like a regular email.
If you are interested, you can sign up here.
May 7th, 2015 12:33pm
A lot of current pop artists will tell you they are aiming for an ’80s pop sound, but most of the time the result is more of a vague gesture, or grasping for an abstract ’80s-ness that’s kinda warped by not having first-hand experience of living in that era. But this song by Jason Derulo genuinely sounds like something that would’ve been a big hit in the late ‘80s, from the specific attack on the keyboard parts to way you have this soulful but sorta hemmed in R&B vocal at the center of a song with dynamics and structure that reads more rock. A lot of what makes ‘80s pop interesting, exciting, and enduring is that most of it is pulling from a lot of genres at once, and there’s this fascinating collision of different eras of pop songwriting construction, new technologies putting fresh spins on old forms, and an often seamless merging of influences from white and black corners of culture. A lot of this happened for less-than-great social reasons, but the results still feel sorta utopian, especially when you’re looking at the work of Prince, Madonna, Whitney Houston, and Michael Jackson. “Want to Want Me” isn’t quite on their level, but it’s a joyful song that really doesn’t quite fit into any genre, but is so direct and well-made that it seems like you’d have to fight hard to resist it.
May 6th, 2015 12:59pm
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.
May 5th, 2015 12:00pm
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.
May 4th, 2015 11:32am
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.
April 30th, 2015 11:03am
“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.”
April 29th, 2015 12:16pm
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.
April 28th, 2015 12:23pm
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.
April 27th, 2015 11:49am
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.
