Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Mannequin Pussy - "Sometimes"

A liminal punk paradox: a passionate expression of ambivalence. I set myself ablaze / sometimes. I love the twilit gliding rush of this song, open strumming that circles and paces but never manages to resolve, and feels like it reconfigures itself on the fly. I am a sucker for a type of song I reductively mentally file as "New Order rip-offs" and while this is not one, there is a trace of that here, and maybe this is the closest Mannequin Pussy gets.  Clean chiming verses like a dream of running in slow motion through the city at dusk, and then (kicked off by a truly magnificent Marisa Dabice scream) the crushing bridge arrives like the sleepwalker jolted wide awake and sprinting through traffic, horns blaring, buses and delivery trucks bearing down. And finally, fully one-third devoted to the coda, where the song is allowed to gently disintegrate, and the spirit ascends. 


Immediately satisfying and subtle, "Sometimes" is a grower. It was one of my favorite songs of last year, and I like it even more now. 

 

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Thom Yorke - FeelingPulledApartByHorses




Just posted a micro-review of Yorke's new single (listen to each song here and here) on eMusic, thought it turned out well:

"The first track menaces (but not in a particularly great way): rough-edged eerieness by way of lo-fi percussion and a misanthropic bassline. Kinda builds to a swirling kinda-climax, but is strongest when content to simply swagger.

The second track meanders (but not in a particularly bad way): crisp, understated, carried by a disconcertingly plain and affecting vocal melody that alternates with more of Yorke's spooky shenanigans. Do I hear a trace of reggaeton in that two-stepping kickdrum, Thom?"


I like working within these length constraints, Christgau-style. Maybe I'll do more.

Saturday, April 4, 2009

The Beast and Dragon, Adored [Spoon Feeder: Vol. 5]





This title of this song has always appealed to me: evocative, esoteric and apocalyptic, it is one of the more baroque examples in the Spoon catalog. The song itself, though, I've always felt is somewhat middle-of-the-pack, interesting for the way it steadily builds an atmosphere of dread, but ultimately just somewhat lacking in vitality.

"Beast" establishes Gimme Fiction's repetition-fetish immediately: for most of the song, Spoon stretches out a simple, ominous minor-key chromatic piano progression into a half-speed dirge. Major-key choruses attempt to deliver a release sufficient to match the verses' continuous tension-build (amplified by Britt's strangled guitar salvos, like miniature car collisions), and the second chorus succeeds a bit with its little extension/variation on the initial chord progression. However, the slightly oppressive lethargy of the song is never fully counterbalanced by Britt's vocal performance, and the song has conspicuously few enlivening melodic flourishes by the band. Is it horrible? Not by any means. The end result just comes off as just the slightest bit... well, dull.

At the very least, though, "Beast" does serve as an interesting and relatively effective album opener: an unsettling call-to-arms ('when you don't feel it, it shows, they tear out your soul; and when you believe they call it rock-and-roll') that also functions as a sort of overture and scene-setter for the album (this theatrical, song-as-album-prelude/overture notion is reinforced by the song's lyrics, which reference two later songs, "I Summon You" and "Never Got You").

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

I Turn My Camera On [Spoon Feeder: Vol. 4]





Kill the Moonlight was a breakthrough album for Spoon, and part of that success can be attributed to "The Way We Get By", arguably the first song by the band to gain traction beyond their fan base as a "hit" single, at least in the limited sense that a song released on Merge Records can be a "hit". Earlier songs might have had the potential to make this broader mark ("Car Radio", for example, released on a major label itself, ironically), but predated the song-centric age of the mp3-internet and the burgeoning expansion of Indie to the point where it had its own sort of pseudo-mainstream centralization (as a side note/tangent, you could argue that England, a more culturally and geographically compact country, had this structure long before us, but that it took the Internet to create the same sort of phenomenon in the sprawling American continent).

Each Spoon album since then has had at least one single of obvious and immediate appeal; on Gimme Fiction, "I Turn My Camera On" fits this bill, and it's easy to see why. This is a song built for immediacy: with its limber octave-hopping, tick-tock tension bounce and Britt's pure falsetto coo lead vocal spinning mundane nonsense into catchy, spunky nonsense (as many great pop songs do), it is Spoon's most obvious attempt to adapt crowd-pleasing dancefloor tropes to their sparse idiom, all played at three-quarters speed for extra sonic separation, Kill the Moonlight-style. Speaking of which...

Stylistic novelty aside, the song is also interesting for how it neatly provides a bridge of sorts from Moonlight, maintaining the airy, negative space and immediacy of that album, but also displaying the structural simplicity and groove-focus so characteristic of Fiction, an album which has less of the tidy, rapid shifts between ingenious melodic parts and rhythmic sections that characterized its predecessors. Instead, Fiction finds Spoon often exploring prolonged insistence on a single rhythmic or melodic motif, building ominous tension to points of controlled release (see "The Beast and Dragon, Adored", "My Mathematical Mind", "Never Got You"), or developing percussive chants of zen-like focus ("Was It You?", "Camera", "Merchants of Soul"). Fiction's reliance on repetition is probably one reason why, for many, it remains less accessible and immediate than its nearest siblings.

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Decora [Spoon Feeder: Vol. 3]





A cover song can be a redundant nonentity, rock stars playing dress up as other rock stars, churning out a sloppy, blurred carbon copy; kudos to Spoon then for approaching others' compositions with the same enlivening creativity and minimalist rigor that they do their own.

Yo La Tengo's "Decora" evokes a hazy sort of slacker grandeur: narcoleptic vocals, slurred lead guitar slashing, simple bass quarter notes and a steady, simple drum thump. It's an endearing (if aloof) little song that ambles its way on-stage, taking its time getting where its going.

Spoon's cover extracts the nugget of tasty melody at the heart of the original and moves it to the forefront. Where the original plays hide the ball, burying its charms under a smoke screen of distortion and ambient guitar effects, Spoon lays all its cards on the table from the get go: Spoon's "Decora" begins with that distinctive (and entirely of their own creation) guitar-bass call and response riff, soon joined by an equally distinctive double tap-hiccuping drum beat. As on their other prominent cover, "Don't You Evah", Spoon seems here to have used the original song as a theoretical starting point, and put faithfulness secondary to tunefulness (as all good covers should); notice inspired details like the guitar and bass synchronizing after the first chorus.

Eventually the song edges closer to the original territory at the wordless, swirling choruses, but notice how within the first ten seconds the entire basic skeleton for Spoon's version of the song is introduced and defined: a spry, punchy, rhythmically engaging and witty translation; in otherwards, a Spoon song.


Tuesday, February 24, 2009

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - "Contender"




I remember reading or hearing somewhere (chances are it was in a Borges essay) that a nineteenth century intellectual was tormented by the fear that the realm of possible musical compositions was finite and would eventually be exhausted, that one day there would simply be no new music left to write. This vision of musical apocalypse fascinated me, and I am reminded of it, and of its fallacy, whenever I encounter quality, original music formed from familiar ingredients. After all, what chance is there of depletion when delving into even intensely well-mined territory can produce music of novel, thrilling vitality? Is This It, anyone?

Consider then, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart. A more cynical listener might balk at the many venerable strains of Indie commingling in the Brooklyn band's debut self-titled album: the buzzing guitar-scramble rush of early My Bloody Valentine, the melancholy jangle of 80's British bands like the Smiths, and the weightless, sighing vocal melodicism of twee-pop and the fey-er side of indie pop. I like the album best when the band puts muscle behind its mumble ("Come Saturday", "Hey Paul", the ascendant chorus of "Stay Alive", the cavernous "Gentle Sons"), but standout opening track "Contender" is the exception that proves the rule, a simple concoction of fuzzy bass, guitar and tambourine, all anchored to a continuous note of bell-like feedback. "Contender" particularly evokes Belle and Sebastian via its exceedingly effective, lighter-than-air vocal melody, which, like vintage Belle and Sebastian, is so carefully, wittily crafted and delicately delivered with just the right touch that it sounds effortless.

Also, speaking of mining well-worn territory, this song is just about the one-billionth successful reiteration of the 1-4 back-and-forth chord progression (to hear the 1-4 interval, think the first two notes of "Amazing Grace"); LCD Soundsystem's "All My Friends", The Strokes' "Modern Age", the immortal New Order duo of "Ceremony" and "Age of Consent", about three or four really solid songs from Clap Your Hands' first album, U2's "Bad", B&S's own "If You Are Feeling Sinister"... the list goes on and on. (thanks to Chen for some of these examples)

Sunday, February 22, 2009

A Handful of Favorites from 2008



I listened to far too little 2008-music in 2008 to make a decent judgment about the year as a whole, or to even pretend to be able to construct a numerical rank. Nevertheless, here is a little selection of the year's bits and pieces that brought me lasting joy:

Hercules and Love Affair - S/T

Inventive, emotive, urbane dance music: a marvel of a modern disco-pop album, bathed in warm, organic retro textures ("Hercules Theme", "Athene", "Raise Me Up"). The album is at times playful, at times dew-eyed and reserved (compare the wounded croon of opener "Time Will" to mischievous, kitchen-sink closer "True False/Fake Real"). Some songs even deftly split the difference (the undeniable yet vulnerable strut of "Raise Me Up"). But what gives this album lasting life is the sharp melodic sense at work in each precision horn burst, each delicate keyboard twinkle, each taut, octave-hopping bassline. Album highlight "Hercules Theme" is particularly packed with these details; "Iris" with its lovely, looping thumb piano-like keyboard melody and distant background flute-like harmonies is the album's emotional core. Perhaps the album I gave the most time to in 2008.



Air France - No Way Down EP

Irrepressibly wistful, exuberant breeze-pop. Like the Avalanches, they assemble patchwork sonic landscapes from pop detritus, but Air France's music seems more compositionally focused, and more honed for maximum emotional impact. This is wide-open, unabashed, open-hearted pop music, unafraid to make broad gestures; but despite the liberal use of sweeping orchestration and super-stuffed feel, the album remains approachable and intimate because each arrangement feels definitively handcrafted, like a homemade scrapbook of memory and joy. The sepia-toned album cover, a boy, his kite, sunlight bleeding through and over all, could not be more apropos: these are miniature anthems and arias of childlike yearning and rhapsodic bliss.


Osborne - "16th Stage"
Over the course of eight serene minutes, Osborne methodically unspools layer after layer of gossamer melody: that endearingly jumbled keyboard riff; that mumbling vocal sample pulsing along to the heart-like backbeat; that fluttering butterfly-synth line dancing over it all... A plaintive bedroom-dance beauty so unassuming, I didn't notice it shuffle shyly into my heart and steal it away.

Women - "Black Rice"
I wrote about this song in an earlier post; an undeniable vocal melody skips and leaps over murky, lumbering-zombie sort of psychedelic funeral dirge. Hypnotic and pleasantly off-kilter, like a dream of sitting down to a wonderful meal with old friends whose faces you simply cannot place.

Vampire Weekend - "Walcott"
The reverb-heavy pound of the piano, the softly glowing guitar line, the shimmering cymbal hits combine to serendipitous effect: "Walcott" surges like a series of frozen waterfalls thawing in the sunlight, a cascade of icy shards and glittering, frosty mist, all building to one last climactic, breathtaking plunge.

M83 - "Kim and Jessie"
Tears for Fears' "Head Over Heels" re-imagined as theme music for sentimental French superheroes. That massive, massive, majestic earthquake of a chorus, all megaton drums and jetstream synths and guitar peals arcing across the sky obliterates all thought, leaving only shimmering rapture in its wake.