Pictures and Talk
And then there are times that we need only a quiet reassurance. Perhaps a pat on the back, some small affirmation that we are on the right track. Or maybe not even that. If Japandroids are a firm step into the past, a regression when the future just looks far too bleak, then M Ward’s “Clean Slate”, the leadoff track to his stunning new A Wasteland Companion, is a tentative dip of the big toe into the dark pool of the future. It needn’t be daring - musically it’s as comfortable as “The House that Heaven Built” (though decidedly less raucous).
Ward doesn’t promise us any great success. He promises no golden sunsets. He only offers that “the pain and defeat” will fall away. An Easter of sorts - that the darkest thing cannot and will not be the last thing. What fills in the clean slate that pain leaves behind is up for debate. Sometimes that’s enough.
(Source: championofwhatever)
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I generally hate nostalgia. It’s a sign of weakness, an admission that things aren’t getting better.
But sometimes, things fucking aren’t getting any better, and you want to go back.
To a time when it was 70 degrees every day and you actually had a chance to enjoy it. To a time when you saw your friends every day and you never ever doubted that you meant as much to them as they did and do to you. To a time when you believed in what you were doing. To a time when what you were doing mattered to the people you were doing it for. To a time when you were just falling in love with the person you love now.
To a time when you couldn’t foresee that things wouldn’t continue to get better and better unto eternity. When there was no reason to feel nostalgia. When you felt strong.
Japandroids mine that feeling, digging until they reach pure sparkling crystalline images of younger us. And in the fleeting five minutes of fist-pumping glory, you honestly believe that if “anything [tries] to slow you down, [you can] tell them all to go to hell.”
I want to share a video with you, I have several different ways I want to do it. Consider this to be my own decidedly less advanced version of Cortázar’s Hopscotch. You can read these in any order. You can skip some or all if you’d like. The video at the end will still make sense.
- This year is off to a great start as far as new music goes, but I’m afraid that as excited and overwhelmed as I am by the four or five new albums that I have purchased or will be purchasing, in internet blog terms, that’s really very little. You’ll have to forgive me if that means repeatedly posting about the same artists. Sharon Van Etten is one of those artists that I can’t say enough good things about.
- I am a huge fan of well-constructed albums. Born to Run is my favorite record not only because of its spectacular songs but because of how those songs are sequenced. The four-corners approach, opening and closing each side with your strongest tracks is something that has been all but lost in the CD and especially the mp3 eras. Closing tracks have a special appeal to me, and I always enjoy when an artist takes the time to end an album with their strongest work, with a mission statement of sorts. It says “I believe enough in this record that I know you will listen to it all the way through.” Singles are nearly always tracks 2 and 3, and Sharon Van Etten’s new Tramp puts its two best pop songs in those slots, but the closing one-two punch of “I’m Wrong” and “Joke or a Lie” is what really brings the album home in more ways than one. The fact that she keeps the songs together live is a sign that Van Etten is very much aware of what she has created.
- I have always rejoiced when artists I love find success. There are drawbacks, of course. Shows sell-out or are populated with less passionate fans who talk through the deep cuts, but ultimately its worth it. In fact, I often spend more time worrying about the longevity of the bands I love who aren’t breaking through than I do wringing my hands over bands whose fan bases are growing. Of course, we can’t make this too specific since I don’t want to turn this into a hipper-than-thou post about how “I saw them before…” I just wish that I had been quicker about pulling the trigger on buying tickets to Sharon Van Etten tonight. I will be able to see her when she swings back by in a few months, and I am ecstatic about the attention that her new record, Tramp, is getting, but when I see videos like this one, I wish I didn’t have to wait until April.
Now, without further ado, Sharon Van Etten performing “I’m Wrong” and “Joke or a Lie” live.
I spend a lot of time thinking about music, and I like writing about it, but that doesn’t make me a good critic. Once I decide I like an artist, I am reasonably willing to get on board with any sonic changes they may make. I very much enjoy the Get Up Kids’ later records, thank you very much, especially the criminally underrated Guilt Show. In hindsight, I don’t think Los Campesinos! put forth their best record with Romance is Boring, but approaching it for the first time two years ago from the perspective of an unabashed fan, it was easy to find things to love about the record. Who cares if it bares only a passing resemblance to their giddy debut?
Being a fan of Spencer Krug offers a lot of opportunities follow or diverge with Krug as he explores labyrinthine worlds of sounds. Wolf Parade got more polished and less tautly-wound as their discography expanded. Sunset Rubdown grew from four-track recordings to an anthemic rock band. Now, Krug’s main gig is the ethereal Moonface, and it’s easy to see where fans of Krug’s other work might be less willing to follow him down the rabbit hole on this one. A debut EP that was just one 20-minute-long track consisting entirely of marimba and drum machines. A full length with only 5 tracks of music composed entirely on the organ. I followed blindly, as I do, and was rewarded with songs that, despite their ponderous intentions and wispy executions, offered many of the same charms we associate with Krug: dream poetry that seems to be oddly poignant and off-kilter hooks that have no difficulty digging into the deepest wells of memory.
For the next Moonface record, Krug has partnered with Finnish krautrock band Siinai, and I’m happy to be along for the ride. The chunky power chords and lock-step rhythm section serve to anchor that which nearly floated away on Organ Music. The less than three-minute run time gives the track immediacy that Krug has increasingly distanced himself from of late. In many ways, the motorik sounds are a good fit for Krug’s unspoken mantra - “always keep moving.” Perhaps I’m not sufficiently discerning, but as long as I stay this way I won’t get left behind.
There is no debate about the fact that the internet has changed the way we concentrate and process information. When I consume new music, I often use the internet to go on binges, lining up unheard song after unheard song. It now takes far less time to find and read about a new song than it does to finish listening to one. As such, I frequently find myself listening to one song but anxiously thinking about listening to another.
Last night, I found myself in this very situation with respect to a video of Neil Young & Paul McCartney performing “A Day in the Life” together. After the obvious initial reaction, I found myself worried. What if this is one of those cases where something looks really good on paper but the actualization is disappointing? After all, “A Day in the Life” is such a bouncy, upbeat song in its iconic original version, that giving it the full-on Shakey treatment might not serve the song well. Or worse still, these are two aging hippies, both found guilty of being self-indulgent before. What if this is the worst possible manifestation of that: two grey heads bopping around on stage being self-satisfied?
If you find yourself worried about any of these things, give yourself a little shake, get over your damned hang-ups already. There’s no debate about this either.
Every other day there is a new article on some major pop culture site about how Zooey Deschanel is so annoying, always singing her feelings and being twee. I never saw (500) Days of Summer, but I was very much put off by the trailer which features a Song of the South-esque animated sing-along sequence. I am similarly repulsed by musicals. At the same time, I overheard someone singing to themselves, horribly off-key, while walking on campus today and it warmed my heart. I frequently do the same thing, singing whatever is in my head outright, even though my voice is fucking horrible.
Chairlift’s “I Belong in Your Arms” is straight out of the M83 I-wish-I-had-been-alive-to-score-John-Hughes-films handbook. It’s a song for suckers who want something to sing while they get themselves all dolled up to go out into the sunlit world. It’s a song that wears its charms openly on its sleeve, and it honestly won’t have a lot of staying power. But fuck it. It’s 70 degrees on the first day of February. Nothing gold can stay.
A lot of words have been put to print on the curse of consistency in music, but at the end of the day it’s all bullshit. There are artists who don’t make a lot of major changes from record to record where you say, “I’ve got the last one, I don’t need this one.” I was talking to a friend about how I generally feel that way about Bonnie “Prince” Billy, but yet I can spend entire days listening to Mountain Goats albums in succession. There’s not really any rhyme or reason to it.
M Ward is nothing if not consistent. Listen to one M Ward song, any M Ward song, and you have a pretty good idea of what you’re in for with his whole discography. A classic sounding melody and a classic sounding voice. More often than not an echoing, warmly strummed acoustic guitar. The new single from Ward’s sixth record, A Wasteland Companion, doesn’t stray far from that formula. And people will buy the record for the same reason that they buy new hooded sweatshirts. Sometimes you want to be comfortably wrapped in something old. Sometimes you want to be comfortably wrapped in something new.
A lot of people know Baltimore by reputation. The problem of course is that Baltimore has no one reputation. There are other cities that are easier to reduce. Everyone has more or less the same hypothesis about Pittsburgh, true or false. Your preconceptions of Baltimore depend more squarely on your own point of view. Sports fans know Charm City by the “Camden Yards is the best stadium in Major League Baseball” reputation. Of course, there’s the “yeah, I watched The Wire” reputation. Fans of Animal Collective, Dan Deacon, Ponytail, or even recent transplants Future Islands may think Baltimore’s music scene has a reputation for being over-the-top and technicolor. Fans of Wye Oak and Secret Mountains may be of the mind that Baltimore’s reputation is for slowcore and folk rock.
Jana Hunter, too, has a reputation. Hunter first found her way into the public eye some years ago for her association with Devendra Banhart and her Austin-based freak folk. Since relocating to Baltimore and forming Lower Dens, however, Hunter has turned that reputation inside out. Lower Dens’ 2010 debut, Twin-Hand Movement, fell just on the edge of the aforementioned Baltimore slowcore movement, and found Hunter writing streamlined songs that had little to do with freaks, despite a number of dick-related song titles. Instead, Hunter seemed to be challenging herself to work within the confines of a four piece guitar-bass-drum setup. The results were at once straightforward and unexpectedly interesting.
“Brains”, the first single from Lower Dens’ sophomore album, Nootropics, finds the band pushing outward on their sound. The motorik beats that popped-up throughout Twin-Hand Movement are fully embraced, and pulsing sythesizers add a dash of light to the otherwise grey throb of the rhythm. Hunter’s vocals are as restrained as the rhythm section, but amongst the otherwise chant-like voices, she sings “don’t be afraid, everything will change while you’re asleep.” It’s a pretty good synopsis of the song’s charms; once they have you hypnotized, Lower Dens move around all of the furniture, rearranging to make something more striking than they have before.
The hook. I vividly remember being taught this concept in my eighth grade English class. That and how to write a proper thesis are two things that I believe I took away from that class. For better or for worse, I don’t think that I’ve learned all that much about writing since then. Hooks frequently have a different meaning in music, but to music publicists, writing a hook is very much the same exercise as it is for a middle schooler writing a paper.
For a music fan, it can sometimes be a dicey proposition to be led along by the hook. Take Sharon van Etten as a case study. She has an interesting origin story, but her new record Tramp is being sold on its associations. The hook is that van Etten is beloved by the musicians you, indie rocker, adore: The Walkmen, The National, Beiruit. In fact, they love her so much, that they agreed to help her with this new record (that you should buy)!
Aaron Dessner of The National recorded Tramp in his garage studio and The Walkmen’s Matt Barrick dropped in to play drums. Wye Oak’s Jenn Wasner and Beiruit’s Zach Condon lent their voices. All of these famous friends threaten to overshadow van Etten on paper, and at first glance, they leave fingerprints all over Tramp’s first single, “Serpents.” Barrick’s propulsive drumming is unmistakable; it sounds like he dropped by the studio to practice “Little House of Savages” and Dessner just hit record. Dessner, for his part, seems to be playing some of the discarded guitar parts from the grueling High Violet sessions. Wasner’s voice isn’t all that far removed from van Etten’s own; both are powerful singers who thrive in their lower ranges, who delight in wrapping their songs in an air of mystery.
Then there’s a line on “Serpents” that makes you feel guilty for being this reductive, trying to give credit to van Etten’s collaborators: “I had a thought that you would take me seriously and listen.” Then, upon reevaluation, you realize that van Etten had a vision for this song. It’s right there in the title, the song needed to be knotty and powerful. There are moments when the echoing guitar positively slithers. Barrick’s drums are the backbone that van Etten herself gains about halfway through the track. So here’s how the hook should read: The famous friends are here because they want to get on van Etten’s coattails, not because she needs them to raise her up. This is a mission statement from an artist who is coming into her own. Here’s hoping that the rest of the album supports that thesis.
The Jealous Sound. A Gentle Reminder. Release date: January 24, 2012.
It’s fitting that The Jealous Sound’s long-delayed sophomore album, A Gentle Reminder, is being released on a label that calls itself “Music is Subjective.” It is impossible to separate an album from its context, much as we may try to listen without preconceptions. Some albums are more indebted to their creation myths than others: Bon Iver’s For Emma, Forever Ago; Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours. For long time fans, A Gentle Reminder will hold a similar allure.
For those of you just getting on board, The Jealous Sound, an unsupergroup then consisting of ex-Knapsack singer Blair Shehan, ex-Sunday’s Best guitarist Pedro Benito, ex-Neither Trumpets Nor Drums bassist John McGinnis, and ex-Pulley drummer Tony Palermo, made their full length debut in 2003 with Kill Them With Kindness. That album was a polished slab of post-millennial indie pop, and was itself delayed thanks to an unproductive visit to major label land. The band toured heavily following the release of their debut, then headed back into the studio, only to disappear. An EP of three songs from the aborted sessions surfaced in 2008, and the band formally reunited in 2009 for a tour with Sunny Day Real Estate.
This much we know for sure: in the meantime, Shehan moved to Las Vegas, got married, held down a steady job, and totally eschewed making music. Benito and long-time friend and Foo Fighters/Sunny Day Real Estate bassist Nate Mendel held down the fort in Los Angeles, hoping that the band would get back together. When Shehan’s marriage dissolved, Shehan and Benito, with Mendel on board to replace McGinnis and Bob Penn behind the kit, entered Dave Grohl’s home studio in LA. A Gentle Reminder is their stunning reintroduction to the world.
Every track on A Gentle Reminder seems posited as a grand statement: “Here we are, stronger than before.” Like its predecessor, the album is an embarrassment of sonic riches. Producer John Lousteau gives each instrument space to breathe while maintaining a sense that there is real meat to each guitar and drum. A Gentle Reminder is a very familiar sounding record. Nothing leaps off the page as a great work of originality, but at the same time it is hard to think of another band that does sweeping meat & potatoes pop rock as well as The Jealous Sound. In fact, the only other band that A Gentle Reminder calls directly to mind is one that bares few immediate aural similarities other than a love of delay pedals: Explosions in the Sky. While The Jealous Sound hews closely to standard pop song structures, like Explosions, the songs absolutely overflow with instrumentation that is best described as billowing. Like Explosions, The Jealous Sound takes aim at the most obvious route to your heart and marches down that path with gusto.
In less adroit hands, some of the clichéd lyrics on A Gentle Reminder might come off as clunkers and certainly would transcribed here, but Shehan delivers them with such absolute conviction that he never misses the mark. It doesn’t hurt that Shehan’s voice has never sounded better. Old fans will delight in filling in the blanks of the past nine years with the many references to casual drug use, dissolving relationships, starting over, and finding forgiveness. New listeners will find the constant strand of hopefulness that runs throughout the record comforting.
On the closer, “Waiting For Your Arrival,” Shehan asks for your hand as he watches the world end. Drums thunder, guitars swell, and the bass rumbles discontentedly, and Shehan invites us to watch stars crash to earth as if we’ll happily witness an all-encompassing fireworks display. If that’s the scene, The Jealous Sound have set it to one hell of a soundtrack.
