Rarely do I get excited about indie folk. Nor do I usually expect cohesively crafted albums from the genre. Love's Crushing Diamond is stunning and beautiful start to finish. Just seven tracks, coming in just over a half hour, the album maintains a balanced restraint throughout. At times impressionistic (hear the sun rise in the opening moments?) and borrowing tricks from dream-pop, the songs seem bigger than indie folk, though the banjo part makes sure it knows its roots. Built around the symbol of the river and all of it's possible meanings, it's an album about transitoriness, about the demand placed on our mortal souls to swim upstream; the river is strong, but, as we see in the final track, "Strong River", we are up to the challenge - the opening lyrics repeated as the closing lyrics: have we gone full-circle? Have we been swimming in place? All we know, for our efforts, is all the river knows: "The river only knows to carry on..."
Ideal listening conditions: the closing hours of a long road trip; the sun is down, the passengers asleep, and this comes on, referring you both backward to the road covered, and ahead, to home, and, hints, restlessly, at to the next journey.
7th Floor, Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band, from Take Me To The Land Of Hell, 2013
7th Floor incorporates some really interesting sounds. From the groovy percussion (nice bongos/congas), which has a Talking Heads quality to it, to the funky guitars, which are perfectly layered with varying degrees of distortion. The synths and B3 organ fill in the spaces excitedly. My favorite part of this song is the ascending riff behind the vocals right before the chorus. Ono’s spoken word approach to the vocals enhances the surreal content of the lyrics which have a nightmare-like quality to them.
“So I slowly stepped outside
And stood over the body
Maybe it was not me after all
It was only a shadow”
Her screams and throaty vocalizations at the end are quiet intriguing too. Her voice is mixed very well throughout, with well timed delays emphasizing certain words like “shadow”. Ono sounds inspired and confident with the power of her wailing words.
Other cool tracks to check out on Take Me To The Land Of Hell:
Take Me To The Land Of Hell
Bad Dancer
There’s No Goodbye Between Us
Cheshire Cat Cry
Isolation, John Lennon, from Plastic Ono Band, 1970
“You’re just a human...a victim of the insane”
What can I say about Isolation? It’s one of my all time favorite Lennon songs. The moving, yet soulful piano, the simple drums (sans hi hat) and meandering bass lines, and quaint lyrics just resonate with me. Plus, the bridge is phenomenal the way it breaks down to just kick drum, piano, and Lennon’s aching doubled voice panned hard left and right. After a rather condemning description of the world and our place in it, Lennon absolves humanity by wittingly pleading insanity in one long sustained cry, at which point his doubled voice pans to the center of the spectrum and merges into one (each voice no longer isolated from one another).
In honor of John Lennon (Oct. 9th 1940 - Dec. 8th 1980)
We Carry on, Portishead, from, Third, 2008
Opening dramatically with an alarm tone, a gong, and then a rather tribal beat on the toms and hi-hat, We Carry on quickly reaches cruising speed. The most up-tempo track on Third - and maybe on any of their previous albums - We Carry on easily stands out (compare preceding and following tracks, e.g.). The near relentless drum rhythm and synth-riff, the two-tone alarm (evoking the 'locked-in' signal of a fighter jet), and the harried vocals all give the impression of very urgent anxiety, and of pursuit. The effect of the trance-like drum beat is that of an adrenaline fueled, entranced flight - during the verses the focus is very narrow, and tight; this opens up with the 'bridge' part - "Oh can't you see...I bleed the taste of life" - at the very point the lyrics address us and the martial snare enters. Instrumentally, the song almost seems to be an extended war cry - lyrically, however, the song is about surrender: 'can't' seems to be the most frequent word; the song is about ineffability, indecision, doubt, and, above all, begrudgingly 'going on'.
This track, like everyone on this masterful album, demands close listening, in a way that their early work didn't. There are some interesting details amidst the other wise rather monotonous song. Of course, the drum beat during the chorus breaks the spell; notice too the recurrence of the 'alarm' tone during the chorus ("On....and On...) and grating, cloying guitar; the backing vocals during what I've here called the bridge, haunting, and not giving the impression of company (indeed it is Gibbons herself) but just more solitude; also notice the stunted bass part that comes out from under the drum beat in the bridge; finally, notice the slight, almost wryly humorous pitch-bend in the main synth-riff just before it fades out completely. Even this fade out just adds to this feeling of the burdensome nature of going on in the face of something like an eternal recurrence of the same: it says, to quote Beckett, I can't go on. I'll go on.
Afterburner, Panda Bear, from Tomboy, 2011
Speaking of flight, Panda Bear's Afterburner seemed an obvious choice for juxtaposition. It is built around a similar driving one-and-two-and beat, gaining early and retaining this momentum throughout, and developing through the addition of layers. The lyrical content is also similar, expressing an anxiety about attaining, about slipping up, of weariness and skepticism. Especially interesting sonically, I found, are the strummed electric guitar, which enters soon, and the engine-like noise that opens the track and reappears several times. Like in the Portishead, one seems to get a breath of fresh air periodically, here with the vocal heights reached by "I don't buy, I don't buy it". Many of the lyrics are stuttered, and though he is constantly talking, he actually utters few complete thoughts. After the vocals exit, we come upon a nice expanse of Reich-like shifting rhythmic layers (there's at least one xylophone in there!). Both of these tracks - the Portishead and the Panda Bear - create what is commonly the effect of rhythmic layering - the impression of a sonic space, a landscape. What they also do in these cases is create the impression that we are traveling through them. Despite the reluctance these songs express to the pace that drives them, despite the fact that it is not we who initiated this ceaseless motion but rather we were thrown into existence, still, "it moves forwards"; "We carry on."
Games People Play, The Alan Parsons Project, from The Definitive Collection, 1997
The Alan Parsons Project is music I never throughly explored (maybe similar to your experience with Exile On Mainstreet). Sifting through their definitive collection is somewhat overwhelming due to the spectrum of their sound, but I spent a few quality hours introducing myself to what I can imagine will be a long and fruitful relationship. Games People Play stood out in the initial listening phase by provoking a gut level appreciation for rock n’ roll. It has incredible drive (most notably sustained by the synth arpeggio and cowbell) until being swept out over an ocean of ethereal pads and liquid jungle noises in a quintessential breakdown leading up to a three section climactic guitar solo (love the screams in the background). This sound is in sharp contrast to that of Modest Mouse. In fact, this might be one example in which a real polished approach can work. There’s a deep space in the music and all the instruments spread out over vast terrains, while simultaneously leading each other in a primordial dance.
This live performance in Madrid in 2004 has a different guitar solo which pays a cool homage to Jimi Hendrix by adding a couple licks form All Along The Watchtower at the end. Very tasty. Nice to see old guys rocking out that hard.
End Of The Day, Beck, from Sea Change, 2002
The mellowness of the guitars on this song is refreshing. They slip slide around your head carving a pocket for Beck’s pensive vocals. The chorus is quiet incredible how the incremental melody stair-steps down. Listen for what sounds like a distorted Fender Rhodes in the pre-chorus and chorus playing sustained low notes. The lyrics “It’s nothing I haven’t seen before, but it still kills me like it did before,” remind me a little of The National in how personal they sound while maintaining a poetic interpretability.
Plastic Palace People, Scott Walker, from Scott 2, 1968
Scott Walker's early music is a strange blend: it takes the form of an easy-listening, 60s, lounge crooner but its content deals with death, disillusionment, and inauthenticity in a highly literate way. By the time of his second album (1968) he is already beginning to deconstruct this lounge act; you need only compare Montague Terrace (In Blue), from his debut Scott with Plastic Palace People: both are ostensibly about day dream and fantasy; while in the former the orchestra amplifies the sentimentality and provides an expansive, dreamy, spaciousness within which its subjects can be willfully naively romantic, in the latter, the orchestra serves to disorient us, making dizzying loops, hemming us in its circling - the effect of the squealing strings in the chorus is one of claustrophobia, and indeed, their sour, flat and cloying tone serve to deflate the romanticism of the now self-deluded subjects of the song.
The most remarkable moment in the song is the stark transition from the verse - about Billy floating above the town - to the chorus - about the emptiness of the denizens of the plastic palace. While the former is a wistfully dreamy (and tragic) narrative, the latter takes on the self-assurance (due to the entry of the bass and horns as well as the less breathy vocals) of the shimmering lounge act, which now feels as smug and insincere as the plastic people themselves, until it finally breaks down: the instruments anarchistic, Walker's voice frightened and reverberated: "Like gods they bark replies." A horrifying notion. Then back to Billy.
Beyond the various complex emotions the strange instrumental composition evokes, the lyrics themselves challenge us: asking us at first to take them literally (in particular in the narrative about Billy) but then abandoning us to increasingly obscure referents ("She steals her cards tomorrow" "buzzing eyes" "submarine air") as well as syntactic disturbances (Not till I've seen the sky's not lit up//In tears, child try and understand). This intensification of abstraction will characterize the rest of Walkers's musical career - listen, for example, to Farmer in the City, off of 1995's Tilt, or, well, anything off 2005's The Drift. By this point the menace hinted at by the crooning balladeer Walker has become fully manifested. Most notable about Scott's later work is his complete disregard for familiar vocal melodies - he doesn't even sound like he's singing anymore - or, rather, his singing seems to mimic the actual melodic intonations of speech, and, in particular, the speech of suffering. His vision is pretty uncompromising, even if you don't really want to listen.
Silver Trembling Hands, The Flaming Lips, from Embryonic, 2009
The immediate similarity between Silver Trembling Hands and Plastic Palace People is the use of a big, sweeping, lounge act sound for the chorus, which stands as a rather abrupt break from the verses. This similarity is more than just in the instrumental composition - these 'self-assured' choruses both serve to underline the theme of escapism - to the plastic palace, to getting high. And like the Walker, the Flaming Lips' track suggest menacing forces from which one flees: the blindfold, the secret society, the jaguar (which reminds me of the Leopard Dante encounters in the dark woods prior to his descent into the Inferno), night, fight: tomorrow. It suggests a duel, a fight to the death. But it is just suggestive - what exactly "The" fear is is left shrouded - and this adds to the sense of menace, it allows us to imagine the worst, at least until we too are swept away with the organs and horns and bells and harp of the chorus. But the driving, pursuing rhythm of the verse returns, and we feel, once again, hunted, as prey to something - the fear is certainly animalistic: this is enforced not just by the jaguars and "the animals and trees and insects" of the second verse, but by the simian "oooh - oooooh" and the cries that open the song, and indeed persist throughout. "Is it wrong not to believe//nature makes us all compete?" This simple musing refers us to the fact that there just isn't enough matter for all the would be life forms. That the individual survives by assimilating the living world around it.
Another remarkable feature of the song is the repetition of this "She" - the very anonymity of which gives her a universal symbolic power, and also repeats the technique of suggesting while shrouding, thus heightening the song's suspense. Finally, I want to point out the breathless transition with which "daggers", presumably part of the pre-chorus, is tacked on to the end of the last line of the verse, another technique that adds to the urgency and violence of this song. It tempts us to flee with its chorus, from what we know comes tomorrow - fight, and, inevitably, night.
Third Planet, Modest Mouse, The Moon & Antarctica, 2000
I was a latecomer to Modest Mouse, but a song like this has, I think, something of a timeless appeal, at least so far as this is possible for indie rock to attain. No doubt the immediate appeal to me is the sentimental, semi-philosophical lyrics - the somewhat ad hoc beginning lyrics hit there frenetic stride with "Your heart felt good...it was dripping pitch and made of wood" and resolve with "and that's how the world will end". To me the progression of the chorus evokes a literary epiphany: an awakening that moves from a sensuous exhilaration - feeling the heart, the cold wet grass, the light of the moon - to a collected, profound insight - how the world began, how it will end. This having the whole of the world - the 'third planet' - in one's grasp is repeated once achieved (the universe is shaped exactly like the earth...) and by the end renounced: the return to the individual with all his failed attempts to cope with life: "Everything that keeps me together is falling apart...". The song comes full circle - from self-critical resignation to that moment of clarity during a moment of love-making back to the resignation: if you go straight long enough you'll end up where you were. These lyrics are ambitious - they span the abstract ("When it occurred to me that the animals are swimming around in the water in the oceans in our bodies and another had been found another ocean on the planet given that our blood is just like the Atlantic) to the concrete ("outside, naked..."), from the (suspiciously) sacred ("When they get to the promised land...") to the profane ("Baby cum angels..."), from the impersonal whole (the universe is shaped...") to the 'dear self' ("everything that keeps me together...). As such, it has a ambitious totality to it; as such, it can evoke our sentiments about the big picture.
But beyond the lyrical power of the song, it is also an achievement of dynamic composition and instrumentation. The variety of guitar parts adds to the ability of the song to move us emotionally. Sonically the song pulls us in different directions - it has a grandness to it (the alternation between the subdued verses/bridge parts and the raucous, built-up chorus, the reverberated vocals, the humming bass, and is that a woodwind instrument I hear?) and yet has a 'garage rock' quality to it too: particularly - the production on the drums and the chorus guitar part. I think that the former quality lends to its ability to be emotionally effective, while the latter adds to its perceived sincerity - a too polished song might have to fight against its own self-assurance.
Dry the Rain, The Beta Band, The Three E.P.'s, 1998
I think the great virtue of this song lies in the transition made mid-song - from it's slacker beginning, it sort of comes alive, with busier instrumentation (especially the addition of the horns), a catchier, livelier, vocal melody, the entrance of vocal harmony, a punchier bass, and even a rarely used increase in volume. I'd say it transforms from rather lazy to an energized: lyrically, we begin lying in bed, choking on a vitamin, eyes of gloom; this evolves to speaking out loud, to the singer's being light. Listen to the stumbling, clunking bass become lower, groovier. This song definitely works through this contrast - much like the Modest Mouse track. And like the Modest Mouse, it doesn't suffer from being too polished (take the warm, static noise that underlays the track) and retains the sincerity of a track that, we might believe, could be produced rather faithfully live.
Commentary:
Comment on 3rd Planet
I especially like the lyrics in this song too. I think the timbre of Issac Brock's voice (his vocal chords plus any filtering effects used on the recording) is the distinct element that draws us into the song (in the same way the fence that breaks the picture plane of Max Ernst's Two Children Are Threatened by a Nightingale effectively invites us into the surreal scene.)
Brock's lyrics are bizzare, but believable, unlike Dan Wilson's in Breathless, that have a tinge of insincerity (you hit the nail on the head by comparing them to a "teenagers first stab at poetry.")
The one line of Brock's that keeps catching my ear, that I don't understand, is "I've got this thing that I consider my only art of fucking people over." To me the profanity seems arbitrary and unnecessary (but that's partly because I don't know what he means.) I find it interesting how he repeatedly incorporates the idea of three ("we used to be three and not just two" as well as "a third had just been made") and references conception ("didn't know then was it a son was it a daughter.") I also like the way the beginningsounds like an indie rock lullaby until the drums burst in with that raw garage ambience and the heavier guitars rocket-ship into head banging orbit.
Further listening: Out The Window, Violent Femmes, from Add It Up (1981-1993)
Wandering Star,Poliça, from Give You The Ghost, 2011
This track definitely benefits from headphone listening. What makes Poliça so special is their truly unique blend. Not only does Channy Leaneagh’s vocals sound like an occult prophet’s seductive chant, but of the four members two of them are drummers. You might not know it if uninitiated, but listen closely to some of the longer fills or the instrumental section before the second chorus (continuing through the chorus) where one drummer starts rolling on the snare while the other plays a syncopated hi hat part, and you’ll hear there’s eight limbs at work. The vocals have a beautiful stereo effect (accentuated by headphones). It sounds like two separate voices singing the same melody part panned hard left and right, each with a severe eighth note delay and possibly other sound sweetening effects. There is also at least one lower voice (I’m guessing Mike Noyce, who is featured on the song) underneath with a supporting harmony. Leaneagh’s executes a variety of vocal accents that quiver the soul, but the most memorable for me is in the chorus line, “It was full and I fell in love with thee.” The little tail she warbles on “thee” is perfection.
Other elements to consider: the somber string patch, the delay on the snare, the repetition of lyrics, the modulated pizzicato strings that come in for the instrumental section and again during the outro behind the chilling vocal oohs, as well as the punchy bass tone. Actually, the bass cuts out completely for the second verse which almost makes your ear do a double take because it’s rather unexpected for the foundation to crumble so rapidly. The big drum fill makes the reentrance of the bass more dramatic and relieves the tension quite well. They use this effect again in the third chorus (a more typical spot in the arrangement) and I think it enhances the second iteration because the listener as been subconsciously conditioned at the start of the song.
Part of the reason I chose this Poliça track as opposed to a couple others I was considering (Tiff and Warrior Lords from Shulamith) is because of the music video. It definitely warrants a discussion of its own, but I’ll save that for the commentary.
Breathless, Dan Wilson, from Free Life, 2007
I had a harder time choosing a second song this week, but settled on this track from Dan Wilson. The intensity of Breathless just keeps building and each new sound introduced is a beautiful timbre and incredibly musical. The subject matter seemed well aligned with Poliça’s Wandering Star. The feeling Dan Wilson describes by singing, “and when you go you’ll leave me breathless and alone," could be imagined to be the same emotion expressed in Channy Leaneagh’s words, “I sit alone in my lonely bed and I think about the day we had and it makes me sad cause you’re gone.” Wilson’s sentiment is more of unrequited love and has a larger variety of instrumentation. His progression is a similarly expected four chords, but it really comes to life at 3:00 minutes when the chorus closes after the instrumental solo, swirling, singing “when you close the door it feels just like you took the air out of the room with you.” Something in the bass does this amazing slide up and a sweet distorted guitar comes in the left ear. Plus, there’s never enough tambourine. Commentary: Comment on Wandering Star Good choice on the Poliça track - it stood out most to me on the album. This band caught my notice because of its 'trip-hop' sound - a genre whose heyday is long past, but which I always thought did a good job of being equally rhythm and melody driven, as well as effecting a chill and sometimes chilling mood. I pictured the female vocalists singing in some kind of post-apocalyptic jazz lounge. There isn't much to add to your appraisal of the song. The principle instrumental parts each seems equally well planned and executed - like good trip-hop, it hovers between mood-setting background groove and close listening, interesting melodies. Certainly the most distinctive feature of Poliça's music is the the treatment of the vocals - the delay, the hard panning, Leaneagh's merging and diverging vocal parts - it all gives a slightly, dizzy, vertiginous feeling. The entire album reminds me of that moment in intoxication, after the intial excitement of the buzz, when one first realizes that one is flagging, and indeed, the drink has gotten the better of one, when such a one looks forward to the long night ahead.
The video was interesting - perhaps because it is not clear how it relates to the content of the song. Still I think the very formalized dancing evokes the pull between the groovy rhythm and the expressive vocal melody.
Further listening: Wandering Star, Portishead, Dummy (Too easy??) Comment on Breathless I tried listening to this track several times but could not find anything really interesting about it. To condemn it with faint praise, it's not bad.
The instrumental interlude is by far the (too brief!) highlight of the song. I think this song would have more depth and impact if it weren't for the vocal part. The repetition of "breathless" made the song seem amateur, the tritely romanticist lyrics in the verses rang false to me "Hunting shadows in the dark in steaming jungles of the world", "lifting wishes to the stars", sounding like maybe a teenager's first stab at poetry. At the very least, I will say that I don't feel like Mr. Wilson actually wrote this song in the suffocating room of unrequited love, nor does it feel like there is someone out there who is the subject of this song. Lyrically it is so impersonal and forced that it sounds like he decided he wanted to write a song about unrequited love. The chorus, "But you were always pretty reckless with your love..." at least drops the faux-poetry and resorts to a more sincere sounding colloquial, conversational tone. But either way, I just can't get over my inability to believe a word he's saying. I can't get past my feeling that Mr. Wilson didn't make any interesting decisions in writing and recording this. I think this is probably the kind of music that is good to see live on a Saturday night, but I think when it has to compete with all the digital concerts available at the tap of a finger it falls a bit flat.
I had a hard time finding a similar song in my repetoire - I have almost nothing of the singer/songwriter-at-a- clean-piano sound. So I threw something up in a similar spirit, I think, and, I do believe, MPLS locals.
Further listening: Doves & Stones, Mark Olson & Gary Louris, Ready for the Flood
This track has slowly been becoming my favorite Smith's song, coming to overshadow what was probably my former favorite, it's predecessor on the debut album tracklist, This Charming Man. I have a hard time explaining why this song has come to represent the Smith's at their best to me - why I enjoy it so much, and this is partly because it was for so long one of those ancillary tracks that filled the gaps between the proper singles of the album.
Much of the songs impact comes from the transition between the muted guitar intro and the beginning of the first verse. The former builds a certain tension with rhythm: the drums already at full stride (the reverberated fade inof the drums almost gives one the impression of a drum roll, itself a easy way to build suspense) with a muted and effectively pitchless and trainlike chugging on the strings. All of this would be rather unremarkable as such (indeed, the intro is quite mediocre - almost the kind of thing you might expect a unpolished band to use to count off the start of a song to cue everyone up: "one, two, three, four!) but this restraint is imposed so to accentuate what was held back - the entry of the guitar riffs, the bass lick, and Morrisey's vocals.
The elaborate play of these three elements I think are what make this song stand out to me. They strike an interesting balance - each time I listen I find myself following a different one on its course. In a way each is doing it's own thing - though all three have a shimmering yet punchy texture and a rollicking, jumping melody - but come together in a way that comes alive - they do not come to a perfect balance, but maintain a vibrant, driving tension.
While these parts enter suddenly and urgently, the track's title should not go unmentioned, for while the entire track does have a feverish tone to it, so too the lyrics have a certain delirium about them. From the opening "decree" (which I might seem a bit ludicrous of an opening line) through the end of the Chorus's questions, we flit from topic to topic - state of the nation ("I decree..), the mind/body problem ("Does the body rule the mind...), a disillusioned resignation (But we cannot cling...), back to the mind/body, then back to love affair ("Under the iron bridge we kissed), and finally, the question, "Am I still ill?" None of which seems to have any reference to what came before or what follows. The only addition later is the beautifully conversational:
"And if you must go to work tomorrow,
Well if I were you I wouldn't bother,
For there are brighter sides to life,
And I should know, because I've seen them,
but not very often"
The way the verse begins with something of a rhyme, and then discards this, the way it begins with these elongated long vowels (must, work, tomorrow, I, you, bother, brighter, life, know, seen) which contrast sharply with the short, staccato last line (but not very often) formally underlines the plaintive futility contained in the content of the lyrics, and is yet another example of the instability, the 'illness' of the melodic parts, while the strong heart of the song, namely, the drums, beats on as fit as a fiddle, pardon the expression.
Baby Missiles, The War on Drugs, from Slave Ambient, 2011
I think this track has been placed next to Still Ill for obvious reasons - the stilted, tension building intro, the fast, driving dance-punk beat, the vocal wails, but above all, for being a pulsing three minutes of catchy poppy, rock. These are not introspective, headphone-space tracks, but tracks to play to augment the excitement of moving: driving, biking, or, as I would imagine, riding on the roof of a train car.
The vocal "Whoo hooos" certainly add to the latter impressionistic image; and this hint at a train whistle is accompanied with the organ part and finally with a harmonica solo: the song reaches something of a climax when all three come together - all three (whistle/vocals, organ, harmonica) instruments whose sonic effect emphasizes the passage of air through hollows: it's steam, it's wind, it's locomotion. The song doesn't ask us to come closer, to concentrate our listening harder, but to come to life - the word "alive" being one of the only intelligible lyrics in the song, (which sound like a heavily reverberated Bob Dylan mixed with Jello-Biafra) and this very blurriness adds to the impression of speed, of being swept along by a fast but benevolent current.
While evocative in form and content of travel through space, I think this song does the same with time, spanning certain recognizable music eras: the "retro" organs, the post-punk drums, the modern production. I think much of its appeal lies in its juxtaposition of these familiar signs of the musical times; but I also think it is a simply song that was written with pop sensibility for pop sensibility. Would you believe it is only about ten seconds longer than Still Ill? I suppose that illusory length is a result of those illusory distances traveled.
Commentary:
Comment on Still Ill:
Still Ill just works. The energetic interplay of the bass and guitar creates an unexpected marriage, especially when considering how Morrissey’s vocals are overlaid. I find myself listening intently to one instrument (like you suggested) with the hope of cracking the code, only to be coaxed by some other element until realizing this music is so much greater then the sum of it’s parts. The line that gets me every time is, “Does the body rule the mind, or does the mind rule the body, I don’t know.” Not only do the lyrics ring true (Morrissey reflects on a philosophical problem, casually exclaiming ignorance), but the space after “I don’t know” shows the power of constraint. It would have been easy to fit another sentence in that gap, but instead we get the treat of hearing Johnny Marr’s tantalizing string work shine for a moment. Morrissey’s true power seems to be his ability to conjure unique musical phrases. The elongating and shortening of certain words, as you described, and pauses after certain ideas (like after “but not very often”) all work to strengthen our interest in what Morrissey has to say lyrically. The vamping sections with the reverse verb drums at the beginning (and again at the end) act in a way like bookends, distinctly separate enough from the meat of the song in order to provide a strong juxtaposition between the straightforward and complex.
What Difference Does It Make is currently my favorite Smiths song. The guitar is intoxicatingly bouncy. Here they are on MTV back in the day. What the hell is attached to the back of Morrissey's pants? Is that a bouquet of flowers? Also, notice the laughing and screaming children in the background at 2:12 on the album version (it's in the music video too, which alludes to the possibility they performed to a prerecorded track). What a strange sound bite to have added. Another cool detail, check out the trails of reflected light from Morrissey's eyes (glasses) at 2:40 on the video. It's subtle and over in an instant, but it gives him the air of a musical sorcerer.
Further listening: What Difference Does It Make, The Smiths, from The Smiths, 1984 Unsatisfied, The Replacements, from Let It Be, 1984
Comment on Baby Missiles:
I especially like how the vocals are treated in this song. The short delay and filtering, as well as the cadence of the singing, help to blend the vocals with the other instrumentation, the effect being a singular wall of driving sound. We hear when the vocals come in and out, but we're less concerned with what is said then how they energize the mood sonically. To compliment the retro organs that play long notes, the sporadic 80's toms, and what sounds like a single strum on an autoharp, appear to turn the progression around and emphasize the downbeat. Like flying upward on a swing with your stomach in your throat, the apex marks the point when you stop going up and start coming back down to begin the cycle over again. For striking similar "Whoos" listen to The Witch by the Walkmen. The beat is slower overall, but there's still a train-like feel to the track.
Further listening: The Witch, The Walkmens, from Heaven, 2012
For this week’s post I decided to compare instrumental tracks. DJ Shadow’s Fixed Income is a familiar piece that I remember listening to a lot while working at IPR. The groove is entrancing. Part of what makes it stand out is the single note synth sound... wah wah...wah wah wah...wah wah...woh woh...that opens the song and is the nucleus around which all other sounds orbit. The break beat drum groove reinforces the catchy single note phrase and gives it more creditability. It sounds like there’s a short delay on the hi hat or maybe the entire drum track because the initial beat spreads across the stereo spectrum as erie harmonics are plucked out on a effected guitar. Other drum beats and fills enter throughout creating more rhythmic texture. At 1:41 the track breaks down into a sub section where a distorted guitar bends out a manic riff and filtered white noise fades in (cliche DJ?). After the release, the track is rejuvenated and a sub synth sound slides down in pitch to great effect. The song breathes out. A new tangent is explored when the jangles of a tweaked out harpsichord enter the picture and a short vocal sample exclaims, “It is dark, the doors are locked”, transitioning us into a darker surf sounding lead guitar, concluded with piano and a well placed saxophone. Although the track doesn’t necessarily warrant extended listening over long periods of time, Shadow’s choice of timbres and his ability to blend them using sets of complex rhythms makes for some good ear candy albeit sometimes sounding too polished.
Algol, Dawn of Midi, Dysnomia, 2013
Dysnomia, Dawn of Midi, Dysnomia, 2013
In Dysnomia, Dawn of Midi are pioneering new sounds and rhythms using the traditional instrumentation of a jazz trio. With machine-like precision they execute synchronized rhythm patterns that evolve into interfering syncopations, leaving a pleasant feeling of uneasiness, which quickly dissolves into pure delight. On the other hand, the graceful dynamics of each note of the piano and the occasional meandering bass walk is a trace that this music was performed by human beings. Otherwise, we might mistake what we hear for a computer algorithm transmitting morse code messages.
I chose to suggest two songs, Algol and Dysnomia (the final two tracks), because they almost can’t be separated and considered in isolation. In fact, the entire Dysnomia is a single piece of music. According to a review of the album on Pitchfork by Jeremy D. Larson, “...Dawn of Midi meticulously scripted and scored Dysnomia. For 46 continuous minutes, the trio inverts free jazz into bound jazz, torturing their instruments by playing as few notes as humanly possible.”
The end of Dysnomia is elegantly sparse. The bass plays an incredible line to complement the consistent notes clocked by the muted piano. The brilliance of the bass stems from the very intentional syncopated note behind the beat of the piano which more or less indicates the beginning of each phrase. Then the two instruments synchronize, playing the same notes at the same time before the bass plays another syncopated note prior to the piano. Then the bass drops down to a lower pitch, which is plucked three times before moving back up to the original syncopated note to start the process over again. In entropic fashion, the album winds down to a meager pulse and putters out into a black dwarf of silence. Sublime.
Commentary:
Comment on Fixed Income:
Nice track. The variety of instruments that come and go make it seem 'busy', but as you pointed out, the synth bass line that grounds most of the song gives it a simplicity. Some of the choices were questionable to me (e.g., the harpsichord) but the 'surf guitar' (both the strummed and the picked) as you called it was perfectly placed, and the sax too. Melodically it had a retro psychedelic feel, while the rhythm section was familiarly modern. In particular I like how much can be done with the bass line, with a single note - how many other variables the bass line brings too the song, and what effects they can have. In this case, that entrancing bass line gives the song a slow but steady forward propulsion - listeners identify with it's familiarity, which contrasts with the variety and strangeness of the various instrumental solos; as such, it gives the impression of a late night, solitary drive through a city, a leisure tour of it's various districts. I think the idea of circle and tangent is a particularly apt image. It strikes me as 'background music' - which I do not consider a slight - but it does hold up to closer listening.
For further listening: Etoh, The Avalanches, from Since I Left You.
Comment on Algol, Dysnomia:
Algol: n., a binary star in the constellation Perseus whose larger member orbits and eclipses the smaller brighter star causing periodic variation in brightness.
Dysnomia: n, Greek god of lawlessness.
I think the first thing that strikes me, as a fan of repetitive, minimalistic music, is how abrasive are the sounds used in these tracks. The snap of the snare and the rattle of the base do not just strike my ear, they strike my nerves. The droning background (produced by I know not what) makes me feel a bit vertiginous. The entire effect, to me, is one of claustrophobia and disorientation. I feel like each note is hammered, as if in an attempt to be an entirely discrete sound, as if trying to stand out from it's near identical kin, which precede and follow.
One meaning of Algol would come from the effect caused by its namesake star: periodic variations in brightness. And Dysnomia, one can read a ready meaning from the word itself: Dis+nomos (law): anarchy. I think that these track illustrate well that precision, simplicity, repetition and regularity do not get us all the way to order - on the contrary.
Listening to Dysnomia, from the outset I noticed a hollow sounding, higher pitched, electric organ-like sound that follows the bass punch almost like an after-image. It rhythmically emerges in the empty spaces and it sounds rather like crickets. On further listening I discovered that it was simply a high-key being struck on the piano - but it was unitelligible at first because of the way the surrounding notes and rhythms competed for, let's say, sonic ownership; that is, it is not always clear what part a given sound-instant belongs to. Around 1:50 into the song, if you listen closely, there is a faint nearly imperceptible sound that resembles an electric organ sustaining a single, eerie note; or it might be some kind of reverberation from the other instruments, or even the interaction between the piano and the droning bass. Or it just might be your ears ringing in protest. Either way, the negative space is not without its effect, despite the aggressive, non-stop attacks of the bass, piano and drums. And in much the way a word repeated ad nauseum will be uprooted from the context of utterance and begin to sound like a strange meaningless noise, so too the sounds we hear on these tracks do their best, in the same way, to uproot themselves and be sui-generis sounds: not bass, piano and drums, but plucked and hammered strings and drumheads - or even just snaps, pops and other onomatopoeic attempts to avoid representative concepts and just let the sound speak for itself. This music is no doubt very interesting, but I don't think I would return to listen to it very often. I put a favorite of 'acoustic minimalism' as a interesting contrast.
For further listening: Music In Twelve Parts: Part 1, Philip Glass, performed by The Philip Glass Ensemble
This song has grown on me in a haunting way. The simple vocal melody floating on top of a rather complex acoustic guitar lick makes for a perfect pairing. The words immediately resonate a sympathy for the subjective experience and beckons the individual to decide "which will you dance for", "which will you love the best".
Fairweather Friends, Queens Of The Stone Age, from ...Like Clockwork, 2013
The unusual arrangement of this song takes you on an epic rock roller coaster. The subtle use of piano and the wailing guitar riff leading up to the chorus, builds excitedly to the anticipated vocal line, "what's it going to take to get you back in bed". The lyrics are borderline too simplistic, but are well integrated into the music rhythmically. The short choral intro is a nice touch...
Nearly any track on this album could be up here. Each track manages to be spacious, dreamy, emotionally engaging, and dramatic, while utilizing a very simple rubric of progressive layering (electronic drum track, then picked electric guitar, then bass, vocals, keyboard) each element building in complexity, each track eventually 'blooming', all with what i consider to be a very minimal palette - a great economy of resources and effects.
What has always stood out to me about the Hours is the simple guitar riff that appears almost immediately - it is the 'decadent' tone (it's wailing, but quite self-satisfied), it's the rhythm, or meter, the first two notes separated only by a bend, which is then repeated and augmented with two notes - again, the effect is a sort of dreamy, undulating motion, but it is accomplished with a few distinct, well spaced notes. Not to be ignored is the unsyncopated rhythm guitar behind it - the first sound that grabs our attention after the "something, something" whispered false start. The effect, between these two very bold (ie, easily distinguishable) but very simple guitars is something like the effect of chamber music - it is easy to foreground either voice, still they don't compete for attention but remain at a balance. Most importantly, with so few voices, and such simple voices at that (contrast the unsycopated rhythm guitar with a droning guitar or a rapidly strummed folk guitar) the 'negative space' or silence between the sounds stands out too and attains a balance with the sound. (This is what i mean when I say that the tracks exhibit a certain spaciousness - one doesn't feel cramped, as, for instance, I feel when I listen to most typical alternative music - such music is always breathing in but never out.) Finally, there are the vocals themselves, whose 'smoky' quality certainly lend to the dreamy atmosphere; but this dreaminess is amplified by another of the 'minimalist' choices of the band: the vocabulary is extremely rudimentary, dealing with buildings, eyes, changing minds, feelings:
"can i wait the hours til they find me climb up to the tower so that you could see
violence in the flowers where they found you Can i wait the hours would it be untrue...
frightened eyes looking back at me Change your mind don't care about me/leave without me."
I think this pared down vocabulary mirrors the pared down vocabulary of dreams - feelings (violence, frightened eyes) are hinted at but their reason, source or object is left hauntingly in the dark; the concrete objects of the song are Towers and Flowers and Eyes - all of which have immediate, pre-theoretical, emotional impact with us - and again, like the emotion, their being referenced but not contextualized adds to the dream quality of the song. Masterfully.
Other strong tracks from bloom: Myth (which wears its connection to dreams/unconscious meaning already in its title) Wild (the Chorus is enviable) Wishes (Again, the guitar-voice) Irene (a track to be experienced - to have gone through!)
The last is the most experimental in form, and it ends with a repeated refrain, "It's a strange paradise", after resolving from a lengthy, repetitive, somewhat cacophonous breakdown. By the time you realize the song has recomposed itself and the euphoric refrain you've been hearing is declaring "it's a strange paradise" while the lead guitar reaches ecstatic heights, still not deviating from the repetitive pattern it has followed the whole album. This track was written to close an album (unfortunately, there is a hidden track, which is buried quite deep after Irene, but it is clearly an older song, and doesn't fit in thematically with the album, but is more of a rather humorous afterthought - as I suppose an hidden track should be.)
Monoliths, Lotus Plaza, from Spooky Action at a Distance, 2012
I wish I had as much to say about Monoliths - much less the band or the album - but it's been in my collection about a week. Still, the track that warranted buying the CD was Monoliths, and I've listened to it enough times to know why I think it works - which shares a common denominator with the Bloom tracks - the simple, wailing, lead guitar riffs, the laid-back, dreamy quality to it (even though the drums are quite active!) and of course there's the repeated, chanted, refrain: One of these days, I'll come around - which, like it's great grandfather in Hey Jude, gives the refrain an anthemic feel: an anthem for those who are sort of hopelessly adrift. Again, the common theme is a non-densely, or spaciously, layered vocal/guitar/rhythm texture.
These are the kind of tracks I want to hear, and write. I especially would like to experiment with the 'refrain ending' as exemplified in "Monoliths" and "Irene" - especially how the former actually substitutes this closing refrain for a chorus: the structure is verse, verse, outro refrain. I think this format packs a different punch from your typical verse chorus verse bridge etc. form, and would like to find a way to employ it, eventually.
A final comment - speaking of spaciousness (rather than the object in space), compare the atmospheric feel of the album covers from my chosen tracks versus the more sculptural images displayed on yours. Food for thought. Telling perhaps.
