Music As Cultural Artifact vs Music As the Thing Itself

    I had the pleasure of getting my hands on the latest (or almost the latest) copy of WIRE.  This is always a good thing.  I remember tooling around high school in Borders or B&N with some friends (where else are precocious and culturally hungry young people in South Bend s'posed to go?) and browsing through music mags trying to absorb as much news and information as possible.  I tried to get a mental snapshot of the music world at the time, who were the big names in England, up and comers in New York, cool labels, cool festivals, cool hitherto unknown albums from the past and present.  Copies of WIRE always loomed conspicuously, and I would poke my nose into for 30 seconds before lifting my head up totally confused.  There was always an interview with someone I'd heard of, but most of it covered artists and genres I'd never even tangentially heard of.  It was as if there was no clear entry point for me, a young man from the plains who just wanted to stay culturally relevant.  Fast forward three years, I'm working at Borders on the north side during my Junior year.  I work in the cafe which is gracefully located all of fifteen feet from the magazine racks.  I could take home the unsold copies, their covers ripped off but so what, and again stay as current as anyone I knew.  I ventured into reading WIRE as a conscious challenge to my laziness.  And besides, I was already wading into an interest in experimental compositions, sound art, improv and noise.  Every once in a while, I'd even read the damn thing cover to cover, reading in depth interviews with artists I'd never heard of.  It's mostly incredibly intelligent writing on intelligent and serious artists. 
    While reading the most recent copy, I felt like I could finally tell what really set the magazine apart, that WIRE considers music as a thing unto itself.  Not that each work is hermetically sealed, every piece they review was taken within the context of the history and current climate of music, and more broadly, within the context of the Art.  It's that in WIRE, music and sound art are always judged  by the appropriate standards, that is primarily against the goals of the work itself.  When praising say, Disintegration Loops by William Bansky, I can't imagine the review would pull an aside and say, "Well, it's not party music."  Because of course it's fucking not.  What an inane thing to say about a massive experimental loop based work about the impermanence of material record and in intractable nature of time.  Their reveiws don't trade heavily in irony.  I imagine that if they set out to review a dense and difficult work, that most writers there would take it as their duty to give that piece their utmost attention and thorough examination before weighing in on its merits. 
    This is not how music criticism works in my world.  For me, music criticism exists along an continuum between two schools of though: consumer reviews vs criticism as discrete artistic exercise.  Most of the magazines that I used to compile my cultural snapshots featured reviews that were poorly masked consumer guides.  This is the British school of music rags: they exist to give their readers a who's who, what's hot-or-not guide to the mercurial youth culture zeitgeist.  On the other side was criticism in the vein of early Rolling Stone, Creem, and in some ways early Pitchfork.  Long form reviews that were frequently entertaining and thought provoking reads, that may only tangentially relate to the piece of music or artist at hand.  Frequently, reviewing an album is just a springboard for broader cultural critique, if not just a technical exercise of the author's talents as a writer.  This is very obviously the school of thought that has influenced me most.  Not only has it influenced the way I talk and write about music, but also how I listen to music, find music, weigh the importance of music in my life, even at times affecting my worldview.  And so here's a review in WIRE, stoically, carefully examining a piece of music, making insights, providing useful comparisons, and never being lazy enough to confuse personal anecdote with profound insight. 
    Now, let's be clear.  WIRE is not for everyone, and it is at times, a little dry, maybe almost boring, or actually just boring.  It's an expensive and content filled missive for people who take music seriously and who are probably very type B and maybe even a little cantankerous.  That is, WIRE is written for Jim O'Rourke, and as much as I like Jimmy O, I'm not sure I'd want to grab a beer with him.  But I have to wonder, are they right?  Am I wrong?  Not wrong because I actually do love Kid A even if it is derivative, or that I do care (begrudgingly) about Brooklyn's finest poor little rich boys, [fill in your guess here].  I wonder if the way I talk about music, the shifting standards by which I try to judge everything, are just completely off target.  Under further examination, is it that all my pretensions of intellect, taste, and cultural fluency, I'm just talking up my own ass most of the time?  Aren't most of us?
    This feeling is compounded by the culture shock I've experienced while working at Thrill Jockey.  If your not familiar with the label, TJ trades in mostly serious, often unflashy, experimental artists such as Tortoise, The Sea and Cake, High Places, and Pit er Pat, music WIRE would write about.  Although I love Tortoise and The Sea and Cake, I can't say that Thrill Jockey's catalog is really up my alley.  It's growing on me for sure, but the looming lack of  CULTURAL RELEVANCE (imagine this phrase hangs in big block letters like a judgmental specter over everything I say or do) just puts a little sour note on my enjoyment.  Two examples come to mind.  First was Pitchfork's mild review of Tortoises new album, Beacons of Ancestorship, an amazing album by any metric and a huge step for the band.  The review admitted that the album was solid, exciting, made my masterful musicians.  But the album lost points for being too "hermetically sealed" which in this instance I'm almost certain means "not referencing or reacting to or hanging out with any hot new bands."  Then just the other night the Sea and Cake came on on someone's stereo, and I let out one of those auto-exhalations like "I looove this band" to a small chorus of eye rolls.  As if I'd professed a love for Garden State in a film studies program.  I know that these bands aren't for everyone, but I gotta wonder how much these two reactions have to do with those floating block letters that seem to hang over everything if you let them.
    Obvs, this is touching on a larger topic, and I'd appreciate the irony of writing a free form rumination on identity and personal taste in what started as praise for simple and direct music criticism.  Maybe later.  For now I'm happy to read a copy of WIRE, even if it's a little stodgy.  It's like reading the New Yorker after only having read the Red Eye for weeks straight.  It may not be as fun or frustrating, but it restores your faith in the world.

New Wavves Lineup Surprisingly Awesome

Chicago Hipsters Vote No on Girls

According to Chicagoist, the Empty Bottle shows were a sorta bust. See here:
http://chicagoist.com/2009/11/18/give_girls_a_chance.php

Also, the New York Times was not impressed:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/09/arts/music/09girls.html

2009: Year of the instant Best New Music Curse.  Also, if I'm not mistaken, the band is touring with brand new members, and no one seems to mention that in their middling live reviews.  Hm.

The Sad and Beautiful World of The Clientele

The Clientele - Bonfires on the Heath

   I should start by admitting that I am of those in the camp that adores The Clientele's music. I'm not what you would call a dedicated fan. Before this record came out I'd only listened to Strange Geometry and some scattered tracks. I don't know that much about the band's history or personality. I know that they're English, very English, which is to say sad, ironic, dry and pessimistic, but with a soft spot for romanticism and the occasional sunny day. What I do know is that their music affects my soul in a powerful and mysterious way. I've never put on a Clientele song that didn't alter my perception of the world around me. Like the hero in "Losing Haringey," everything around me becomes so imbued with memory and personal meaning, that a small ray of sun pouring into your kitchen is enough to make you misty. It took a while to get into Strange Geometry, but I kept coming back to those sad, beautiful, perfect songs. I'm not really into examining or exclaiming my love for them. I'm perfectly happy having a quiet and unrequited love for this little band that could.
   That was until Alasdair MacLean started his talk about packing it in for good if this album didn't make them big. Apparently the Clientele is not enough of a money making enterprise to keep four adults afloat, so if their luck doesn't change after this album, they'll have to cut their losses. This shocks me, not because the band isn't making much money (sad, but believable) but because their music, although delicate, sounded so self assured and honed. Despite MacLean's dark and often hopeless lyrics, the band's sound is an unwavering constant, like the unconditional love of a man for his art. Which is to say, money or no money, chicks or no chicks, dude's always hot his guitar right? Apparently this little love affair isn't stern enough stuff for a whole life. And I'm now much more engaged in the real world of the Clientele, and it's made their music even more heartbreaking. That warm and deeply satisfying feeling their music gives me, the one I took for granted, now seems threatened by this cold and unforgiving world, like the Nothing that slowly devours Fantastica in The Never Ending Story. Fitting then that Bonfires on the Heath is both a concerted effort to expand their sound while simultaneously being a fitting swan song. This may not be THE definitive document of the band, but I would not hesitate to recommend this album to anyone even vaguely interested in the band. And I argue, it's just as easy to fall in love with as Strange Geometry.
   The first track, "I Wonder Who We Are" bursts out of the gate with horns, jangly riffs, and stacatto 'bah be dahs' that make me wonder if the Clientele could actually have a shot at the pop charts, or at least a spot on the next hit romcom soundtrack. I mean no slight, the song is perfect pop with just a little hint of MacLean's dour style while he sings about his "littered face in the street." But this party is quickly crashed by the aching hallucinatory nostalgia of the title track. This song was apparently written after taking acid in the woods with some friends, who I'm almost sure must have included young Thom Yorke and Johnny Greenwood, considering it's similarity to "Letdown." Again, no slight. This is not your typical acid song, there are no freak outs or psychedelic imagery, just an elliptical riff and a nervy sense of impending dread. "Harvest Time" slips right into place, continuing to lilt you to sleep or your death, a feeling that is equally comforting and disquieting. And as you feel the record is descending in to Autumnal darkness and despair, "Never Anyone but You" and "Sketch" breathe a summery breath of life and romance into the record, the former being a song that equally captures the feelings of new love and love remembered.
   I know, I'm on my way to an album narrative, something I've avoided since trying to write Kid A: The Movie. I attribute this to the strength of this album, the willingness to focus solely on the music of a band you initially felt was a little boring, for thirty odd minutes in a row. But damnit, it's a satisfying listen if I've ever heard one. Even if somber anglocentric music isn't your bag, you have to appreciate a band at the peak of their abilities.
   If this is the end of the line for The Clientele, I will be a sad man. I still have several Clientele albums to search out, and if this is the last album they release, I look forward to digging into their back catalog as slowly as I can, pretending the band is still releasing work. All that being said, I hope Alasdair and his crew will either become wildly successful, or at least have a Jay Z length retirement.

The Thing About Girls

Girls - Album

   First, you will inevitably have to get past the fact the haven't fucking heard of them, even though you think so (you're thinking of either Women or the Vivian Girls though). It's usually not the worst thing in the world to be blindsided by a new critical darling whose debut just dropped like a V2 rocket into your unsuspecting life. It happened with the Arcade Fire, it seems to happen so regularly these days. But there's something excruciating about it this time and you can't say why. Maybe it's that the big names act as if they've seen these guys coming for months now. Maybe they have, that is their job and all, but you can't help but feel cheated, that despite your best efforts, you're hopelessly out of touch and getting more out of touch each second.
   This will be compounded by the the second obstacle: no one you know likes this album, or really wants to give it a fair shot. In fact, in some cases they don't even want to listen to it. You'll go to the record store and hold a copy of it in your hand and ask the clerk in all earnestness (not something you do often), "Should I buy this?" And you'll watch him struggle to be equivocal while you can tell what he wants to say is no fucking way man. This will influence your initial reaction to hearing the first ten seconds of the first four songs on your laptop speakers as you declare this to be the lamest thing you've heard this year.
   Then comes obstacle number three: both Cokemachineglow and Pitchfork love the record. Each site alone is not to be trusted, Pitchfork for its breathless sense of importance, the Glow for breathless dedication to being contrary. Yet in the rare moments when they agree, they've been safe bets (Meriweather, Veckatimest, Embryonic). Intrigued, you watch their live video on Pitchfork (which was so obviously filmed months before their hit record dropped, is this some fucking conspiracy?) and despite yourself you think, these guys are pretty good.
   You watch their music videos (pre the XXX nonsense) and read the interviews, and although there's enough to roll your eyes at, there's not enough to outright hate about them either. You are inevitably charmed by this secret insomnia fueled obsession with the band you declared unwavering hatred for just 36 hours ago. You will torrent Album and listen to it on your way to work for a week straight. It takes all of those days until you finally drunkenly declare that you love Girls, you pound the table spilling your beer and point your finger right in the face of a close friend and shout "Goddamnit, I want to be zeitgeisty!"
   After this, you'll recoil in shame. You won't listen to Album for weeks. You will again feel cheated, feel that your love for this record was ill begotten and lame, more revealing of your own desperate desire to be relevant than your musical tastes. You come just as close to pounding another bar table at another bar and drunkenly declare yourself a sham, but decide against.
   But then, the song "Summertime" will come on random on a freak warm November day, and you'll be lovestruck again. But for whatever reason, you won't listen to the rest of the album.

   I've been meaning to write something on Girls for a long time now. And only now that enough html has been spilled on the subject do I finally feel like putting my two cents in. For what it's worth, Album contains some of the most likable and affecting songs this year. It also contains just as many charming but forgettable numbers. The record does sustain a mood of sunkissed (sunsoaked, sundrenched, sunbaked, sundried, take your goddamn pick) heartbreak, and yes, has a hazy, dare I say narcotic sound to it. But, about that, hm, ah, meh. Christopher Owen's talent for writing pop songs is strong but not nearly perfect. The band's strengths aren't in the woozy nightime songs, like "God Damned" and "Headache" or nor in the tongue-in-cheek brattiness of "Big Bad Mean Motherfucker". Girls is at their best when letting it all out, on "Lust for Life," "Laura," "Hellhole Ratrace," "Summertime," and "Morning Light."
   When they're on, it's a great listen. And the hit or miss quality of Album is endearing, although a little disheartening. Disheartening because I worry about Owens being pegged as some sort of fucked up rock and roll savant. Not many reviews ever say anything about technique or musical ability, just about this broken soul and his triumph over pain. And although that makes good copy, it ignores a glaring fact that these guys are actually really talented and (for the most part) tasteful musicians. Ignoring their chops would be a shame because Girls absolutely nail a wide range of styles, all without losing coherence as an album. And, I'll admit begrudgingly, that Owen's vocal talent is unmistakable, especially during a year of mostly forgettable new voices (Longstreth and Vile aside).
   It will be interesting to give this another spin next year and see how it holds up. It's unfortunate that instead of just being excited about these guys, I have to dole out my appreciation in measured amounts. But if it's good now, it will be good later, no?

No Respect: Evergreen

Evergreen - S/T

   It could be a stretch to say this album doesn't get any respect. Most people who've listened to it have been impressed, and it'd be a fruitless search to find a bad review of this album. Evergreen wasn't missing appreciation, but wide attention. Call it a case of right place, wrong time. Evergreen was formed in the fruitful Louisville scene of the 90's, a scene that produced both Slint and Will Oldham's many guises. But the album was released in the mid 90's by a small Chicago label during a time when arty post rock was reaching full steam. Also during a time when Chicago noise rock and Wicker Park as the new Seattle weren't punch lines. Although Evergreen played garage rock not too distant from the sound of grimy Chicago at the time (Shellac, Urge Overkill, Jesus Lizard, etc.) and featured Slint's Brit Walford on drums (while the music world was beginning to appreciate Spiderland) Evergreen didn't last past one album. I wasn't around at the time, so I can't begin to speak to how or why. But when I listen to this album in the context of the rest of the 90's midwest underground (a diverse scene and arguably an apex, at least in Chicago) this album doesn't sit well with its peers, even though it bears enough similarities.

   It's also worth mentioning that this album was recorded by James Murphy and Nicolas Vernhes at the Rare Book Room. James Murphy's career need no introduction after the early aughts and Nicholas Vernes has since produced masterpieces with the Silver Jews, Animal Collective, and Deerhunter and his studio is arguably one of the most revered in independent music.

   I mention Murphy because he's arguably why this album was re-released a couple of years ago. Either that or Slint's newfound cultural significance at the time. This is how I heard of Evergreen, through a promotional MP3 of "Plastic Bag," which I should mention, is not a particularly strong track. I knew nothing about this band at the time, just a weird song that creeped along with a bizarre Fall style chorus. It was hard to find more of their stuff on the illegal internet, but I eventually tracked down "New York City" and "Whip Cream Bottle" which were stronger and even stranger. I couldn't place what it was that had me hooked, but once I found out that Walford was the drummer, it was enough track down a physical copy.

   I want to say it was near summer when I finally got the CD. I'd also like think the first time I listened to it the whole way through was driving back to South Bend alone, but this seems implausible. I can say that it's perfect driving music, especially if your driving through a place that's not entirely beautiful. The music is dark, muscular, muddy, and inebriated, some of my favorite qualities in music by far. It's also a bit obtuse and diffused, which is a strange thing to say about a garage band. Some of this is thanks to Murphy and Vernhes production, which here owes a lot to Steve Albini, maybe turned down a little. Every sound lives in physical space, nothing is in the red or right in your face, a risky proposition for such a powerful band. It works, especially when turned up really loud and the band sounds like it's actually in your room, or your car is a small music venue.

   The band has some simple goals here, get drunk, get loud, get weird, rock out. By all accounts they succeed. In the process they also created an album that could be mistaken for the debut of a much greater band. Despite the fuck-all attitude and disinterest in saying anything coherent, Evergreen made a well paced album that has more than enough golden moments, the kind of moments that push a pretty good album into the realm of great albums. It's a stretch to call this a lost great album let alone a forgotten masterpiece. Yet, there are enough signs that this band took it's music seriously, and it's those moments that keep me coming back to this record. One of these moments falls right after the breakdown in "Klark Kent." After a pound your door down beginning, the band falls into tight mid-tempo stomp, guitars wobbling around like they're out of breath and then Sean McLoughlin slurs "We were suckled in the swamplands... Raised on revolution..." This moment of accidental brilliance is like dancing your ass off at a party then bullshitting with your friends until three in the morning, and right as the conversation is winding down, as everyone reaches the end of their raucous laughter, your buddy suddenly says something cryptic and strangely poignant. Half of your friends look at each other like WTF while you wonder drunkenly whether or not you just heard some strange confession or prophecy. It's not elegant or even very poetic, but within the context it's a beautiful moment, a moment where words and music push you back into your messy unconscious where everything is profound and strange.

   From the what-the-fuck-is-that cover art to the plodding synth lines of the instrumental "New York City" Evergreen is perfectly at home confounding any expectation, even to a fault. I suppose they wouldn't have any of this mystique had I been around Kentucky in 1995. But then again, maybe I would have been proud to have such a singular rock act hail from my hometown. Either way, I'm happy to let this album make me believe I'm there: drunk in someones basement deep in the hilly woods of suburban Louisville, listening to the best band no one's ever heard of.

See if it works for you here

An Open Letter:

Dear Yeasayer,

   I think I want to love you. Your sound is so globalized, post-history, whatever up-to-the-second virtue/expectation we modern folk would like to ascribe to young Americans making music. Your cultural appropriation is so well curated, and the sounds you assimilate are scattered so microscopically throughout your music, it's hard to nail you for actually robbing any one thing from any one place. You have a dense sound but also an airy sound. You're ultra modern yet organic and tribal. Your musical ability and tastes are airtight, and you're obviously a hard working unit.
   And I am sitting here, listening to your new single (apparently you at your most accessible) and I am on the verge of a yawn. It's the kind of quiet and muffled yawn I would let out when I listen to people pass the thirty minute mark in a discussion about Madmen. I'm a little ashamed of this desire to yawn, because I didn't actually want to express my boredom. I'm not trying to force my cynicism onto an adored cultural artifact that is much larger than myself or my opinions. But there it is, my body involuntarily trying to let the world know that as far as I'm concerned, it's nap time now.
   I should let you know, this disconnection between mind and body, my body's inability to submit to my own will is something I don't suffer very often. Throughout the years my body has taken the abuse of my superego like a champ, rarely complaining and usually warning me ahead of time when it's reaching a breaking point. I've also suffered some boring people and events in my life all while keeping a glossy eyed appearance of rapt interest. So this desire to yawn is taking me off guard. The only warning I had was the twitch in my eyes (so desperately wanting to roll, me not letting them) right before the little unsatisfied expulsion of air came rushing to my mouth, threatening to totally embarrass me and make the point all too clear, that this music is boring me on a very basic physical level.
   But why, when there are all these beats? They sure are beating alright, beating like some UN charter on the fundamental right of all humanity to hit objects (any object) rhythmically as an expression of self and culture. Your beats are the Esperanto of beats. And yet, there isn't a single moment where any of these rhythms even comes close to compelling any part of my body to move, except for said eyes, mouth and lungs.
   Ah, but listen guys, don't worry, I hear the echoes of genius! There's David Byrne, Brian Eno, IDM, XTC, Afropop, Sampledelia, um, Whitney Houston.

   And hey, this song's got hooks too. Well, I'd say that it has something that reminds me of a hook. Melodic, familiar, delivered with passion, it repeats itself. Sure, gotta be a hook. Forget that it doesn't hook anything, least of all my sustained interest, attention, surprise, or desire to enjoy a piece of music. But all the parts are there, so this must be catchy and accessible. It's got a saxophone and R&B style falsettos. Wasn't I drooling over the Dirty Projectors for similar reasons? Why do I find this boring? Yeasayer, why aren't you delivering when you did everything right? What's wrong with me?
   As I listen to this track for the fifth time straight, trying to free my mind and by extension my ass, I realize I'm totally incapable of being a music critic. I cannot for the life of me find your misstep. I can't articulate why this song is flying right through my skull without stirring so much as a grin. Time for me to pack it in and accept myself as a total fraud, a philistine with a hard heart and a half baked intellect. Good job Yeasayer, I cannot muster any real ire towards you and I wish you well. Don't worry, the New York Times is gonna love it! But if you could excuse me just a second...

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWN

Friends' Bands

Some great stuff from young people I've had the pleasure to meet around town

Pool Holograph [Full Download]
http://www.mediafire.com/?d1mnydo2mky

Thin Hymns
http://www.myspace.com/thinhymns

The Clams
http://www.myspace.com/theclamsjam

Check it out

New Favorite Song

Love it.