And you can be sure that people will be listening to it A LOT on the trains to work, but won't admit it. However, the telltale sign that someone is listening to it will be the characteristic smushing-of-face-against-the-window-with-a-drooly-open-mouthed-grin posture. That'll be me too, most likely, also enjoying when springtime finally wakes the fuck up in Brooklyn. (YOU HEAR ME SPRING? WAKE THE FUCK UP!)
The new album is called Tomboy and will be out on April 12. In the meantime, Panda Bear has been releasing a series of vinyl-only singles featuring songs from the new album.
Where much of 2007's Person Pitch sounded like being at a house party with a Beach Boys record playing in two rooms away, the singles--particularly "Last Night at the Jetty" and title track "Tomboy"--hint that Tomboy will be at the same party, but one room closer to the record player, and the record is probably not the Beach Boys but still might be, and sometimes the noise coming from the aquarium in the background is also getting louder. Other times, it's kinda like the noise emitted from a radio jammed on a public address station overlaid with Noah Lennox's vocals overlaid with Noah Lennox's vocals.
Maybe you heard that "Born This Way," the title track and lead single of Gaga's upcoming album, came out today. Maybe you care. I do; if you don't that's okay too.
After listening to it I thought Hmm...not so good. Sure, the message is nice enough, but like many "message" songs it has little or no actual emotional content. The lyrics are too busy sloganeering to actually express anything. It has none of the dark edge that make "Bad Romance" and "Paparazzi" such a sick thrill to listen to. And the production is WAY too busy. And what is that weird cello sample at the beginning? Is it from Tron: Legacy? Whatever it is, it doesn't work. Worst of all, the song isn't even that catchy! The tune just kind of goes through the motions all the way through without ever really firming up into a decent hook. All in all: not horrible, but definitely Gaga's weakest song since her songs started to get good, maybe her weakest single yet.
Then I listened to it again, and this time I thought about all the drama geeks and chubby gay kids and weirdos in all the high schools in America all pogoing ecstatically to it at their respective junior proms, and I thought Hmm...who gives a shit about my opinion? Nobody, and especially not them. Fact is, this song is not meant as music. It is meant as a rallying cry for the outcasts, and in that I'm sure it will succeed splendidly. And for the rest of us listening at home on our headphones, I'm sure her next single will be plenty better.
Also: "God makes no mistakes" is not such a bad theological argument against homophobia.
PS As happy as I'm sure she is for the Egyptian people, I'll bet Gaga is a little pissed that Mubarak chose today to leave office. After six months of buildup, her new single is still only the second biggest news item of the day.
In the beginning, The Strokes were vastly overrated. Is This It wasn't the era-defining savior of rock and roll, as some of its most rabid supporters suggested - it was just a solid collection of rock tunes heavy on the nostalgia and appealingly light in its manner. And, of course, the backlash came, and for a time, it was good. And then, as backlashes have a habit of doing, it went too far and people started dismissing The Strokes entirely - look, maybe Is This It wasn't exactly the era-defining savior of rock and roll, but it was still a really solid collection of nostalgia-heavy light-mannered rock tunes! But the damage was done, and people were subsequently unable to admit that Room on Fire was a pretty worthy sophomore effort, and that First Impressions of Earth had some pretty great moments (Julian Casablancas' solo album is better than people gave it credit for, too). Now, finally, the dipshits of Rolling Stone have declared the new Strokes single to be a return to form, finding hills and valleys in a career that is mostly plateau.
My point with all this: I like the new Strokes single! Not that it's super great! But it's pretty good, again largely in part because it reminds you of other stuff that was great. The way the two lead guitar lines sort of squeal and fight against each other kind of reminds me of the end of "Layla"! That riff that comes in under the verses is pretty Thin Lizzy! The title is basically the same as "Undercover of the Night" by the Rolling Stones! I can't pin down a referent for the tempo change during the solo, but that's pretty wicked, too. So it's really pretty satisfying work - but just chill about it, everybody, before you start the stupid cycle above going again.
Tangent: do you guys remember The Hives? And, like, The Vines? Weren't they hilarious?
So chillwave has come up as a source of some contention in this space before. I hopped on that bandwagon real hard back in the summer of 2009, but with the full realization that it was likely little more than a fad that would end quickly. Indeed, after a time Neon Indian began to chafe the ears, even if I did roll out to a Washed Out show in Philly with fellow BZNZman TK. All along, Toro Y Moi was probably the cream of the chillwave crop, with tracks like "Blessa" making the Muddog Millionaire's top tracks of 2011.
Toro Y Moi is back with another LP, the well-crafted and multi-dimensional Underneath The Pine, giving surprising longevity to a fad subgenre. The oddly charismatic Chazwick Bundick is the man behind these tunes, a dude from Columbia, South Carolina. For this second LP, Toro Y Moi restrains some of the crazy synths and super echoed vocals on archetypal chillwave tracks like "Low Shoulder", in favor of more straightforward songwriting and lyricism, with a much more "natural" sound, for lack of a better description.
At times Chaz's falsetto starts to nearly evoke The Beach Boys, and at others, some sort of alternate world lounge jams. "Still Sound" is just a great track, with a funky bassline, great keyboard lines, and just enough echoey vocals without getting carried away. "New Beat" as well would be at home on any disco dancefloor, a true rump shaker. The instrumental "Divina" has a proggy sound that almost sounds like a distant cousin of a track off Dark Side of the Moon. The (gasp) acoustic guitars on "Before I'm Done" make for a smooth little track, indeed.
In this interview with At The Sinema, in which Chaz mentions his influences include Weezer (wtf?) he had this to say about the almost accidental evolution of chillwave:
"I’ve kinda gotten past that sound. All that stuff is really good music, like Ernest Green (Washed Out) and Neon Indian. I’m a big fan of all of that, but I think that was just a small little period where we all were, coincidentally."
With Underneath The Pine, has the term chillwave outlasted it's utility? Not sure. Maybe as Chaz branches out with his house and Italo disco side project Les Sins and gets past the chillwave stigma, we can see where this shit is goin', but for now Underneath the Pine is a pleasant album, with sounds of spring just around the corner.
Above is a picture of me jumping rope in Inner Mongolia. Yesterday was my birthday, and I'd like to share a nice mix with everyone as a token of gratitude for the birthday wishes I received. Below is a 23-song mix for my 23 years of life! No theme, just tuneskies again. I'm in love with all of you! The tracklisting is below, because I'm still not quite sure how to upload a playlist and maintain the order when you compress it and whatnot. Bear with me, I'm bad with technology. But if you just want to randomize it yourself that's fine too.
1. Just Once – Bardo Pond 2. Quadrichromie – Jazz Hip Trio 3. Inorganizm – DJ Krush 4. Radar 1941 – Sun City Girls 5. You’ve Got A Reputation – The Byrds 6. Even Later – Bobby Hutcherson 7. La Femme – Alain Gorageur 8. Love In Outer Space – Sun Ra 9. ‘Round Midnight – Joe Pass 10. Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere – Neil Young & Crazy Horse 11. Just To See You Smile (Instrumental) – Spacemen 3 12. The Right To Remain Silent – Silver Jews 13. Scapula – Sean McCann 14. Any Way The Wind Blows – Frank Zappa 15. Embers – Tubby Hayes 16. Sweetaromat – Dakim 17. Fun Dink Death – Eric Copeland 18. One More Try – Excepter 19. Green Tea Power – FLYamSAM 20. Kingdom Come – Mean Wind 21. Black Sun – Kode9 22. Battles – Celebration 23. Palava Puolukka – Kemialliset Ystävät
So we've featured Lunice before, and turns out there's a short documentary on him! That concert footage looks crazy fun. The Stacker Upper EP is also awesome, listen to that shit.
In Ghost Colours, the 2008 album from Cut Copy, is to New Order as Zonoscope, the latest album from Cut Copy, is to, like, Duran Duran. This is more or less intended as a compliment! Where the last album trafficked in the lockstep dance precision of the artists formerly known as Joy Division, Zonoscope dives hard into glorious pop cheese. It's a much more goofy, unself-conscious affair - it's not a stretch to imagine that dudes toked and pretended to sing like Billy Idol for a while (really - see "Blink and You'll Miss a Revolution") then listened to the tapes later and decided it didn't sound half bad. And it doesn't! I'm not going to say exactly that the band is better off for their more shaggy-dog approach to the record, but the album has more than a few points where it's damn near irresistible - songs like "Hanging Onto Every Heartbeat" and "Need You Now" are John-Cusack-with-a-boombox-outside/The-Human-League level corny, but it feels churlish to resist them given how fun they are.
The album does deviate from my opening analogy at a few key points, in detours that do and don't work. The best left turn is "Where I'm Going", where the band decides to ditch synthesizers completely and write a straightforward guitar pop song, which ends up sounding like a superlative unearthed British Invasion b-side. Then there's the last two songs on the album, "Corner of the Sky", and the 15-minute long "Sun God", which aim at a more straightforward 4/4 homage to 90s house (I think? All you house-heads would know better than me). "Corner of the Sky" is brief and appealing, and "Sun God" isn't exactly objectionable, but it seems clear that these guys are more fun as pop maestros than as extended dance-vamp DJs. Outsize ambition doesn't particularly suit these guys* - they're never been about much more than refining nostalgic sounds until they come up with pop diamonds. That's no small feat, of course - and it's great to see a band mining the past with as much care and skill as this Australian duo.
*I seem to remember Andy having a pretty great theory about "Hearts on Fire", the first single of In Ghost Colours, as some kind of meta-commentary on the history of dance music, although the details of his interpretation escape me. Andy?
Martin Scorsese once said that "Cinema is a matter of what's in the frame and what's out." The latest music video from director Patrick Daughters delightfully does away with the second half of that dictum, as Daughters wields the edges of his frame like razor blades and wrecking balls. Daughters is one of the true visionaries working in the music video form (best known for his one-take Feist videos, but truly great because of his Depeche Mode and Department of Eagles videos), in part because he likes to merge thought-provoking cinema-theory gimmicks with a truly gleeful spirit of filmmaking. The "Fever Dreaming" video revels in its carnage, and it also comes up with the best macabre joke/jolt of an ending since Roman Polanski's The Ghost Writer. All that said - No Age guitarist Randy Randall needs to get over his thing about climbing on top of things to play guitar on them, which he has done at every single live show of his I've been to (which, for various circumstances, has been far more shows than I actually wanted to see) and is now dragging into his videos. It's a little played out, bro!
