It's apparently been seven years since I wrote about music at length, so let's get right into it to make up for lost time.
The way I've listened to music in the past five or six years has obviously been changed by Spotify, as I'm sure your own music habits have been shaped by streaming platforms. I have almost every piece of music at my fingertips. The frequency with which I've listened to music has changed as well, and this greatly altered my listening habits and preferences.
To explain a bit: I'm not the kind of person that wears headphones everywhere and shuts the world out to hear my music. I go to the gym and I listen to whatever they have playing (it's not usually good or happy, but I feel like it adds to the obligatory nature of going to the gym). I drive and I listen to the radio if I don't have a particular album or playlist I want to hear. I clean up around the house and I'm just as likely to put on a podcast while I do it. And, at work, I have at least one headphone in all the time to shut out the noise of the office. It's this latter time that I use most effectively to listen to new music.
My musical discovery process basically comes down to this, and much of it probably isn't that different from yours: I check my Discover Weekly. I check my Release Radar. Anything I really like from there gets saved to my master playlist. Most crucially, I read Pitchfork on a daily basis and pick out albums I think I'd like. Given my listening habits (i.e., doing most of it at work), I cue up a few album reviews and then go listen to those EPs and LPs myself. If I really like them, they get added as playlists so I can come back to them easily in my library.
Since I find reading and writing to be easiest when listening to instrumental music, that's meant a lot of those types of albums making up my library, ranging from modern orchestral arrangements to lo-fi hip-hop to pensive house to glitchy electro. Most generally, I'm a big fan of IDM (intelligent dance music - excuse the pretentious name), because it's just engaging enough that you notice the beats, but it's not so overwhelming that I lose focus of my work. Overall, as long as it's not too dark or too out there, I add it. Then, after all that is done, I'll put on the weekly Fresh Finds playlist, which covers about five different genres, and rip through that in an afternoon.
(I also pay for Hype Machine and listen once or twice a month, but more because I support the owners, and it's compensation for all those years in university I listened for free and really expanded my musical tastes thanks to them.)
So, with all that context in place, I thought I'd organize some of my favourite music into a few fun little categories (Spotify links in the album titles). Below this list, I've compiled some of my favourite individual tracks from 2019 as well.
Full Albums
Biggest Surprise: MUNA - Saves The World
Oddly enough, the inspiration for my return to blogging. I was lying down on NYE to get some rest, put in my earbuds, and scrolled for an album I knew I'd like. I chose this one, and through the year, it was pretty much my go-to. I used to blog about what was new and different and anti-pop, as much as I thought I knew what all those things were. This music though? It's as pop as it gets, with big hooks and earworms and ballads and a bit of a story threaded through the songs. I wake up a couple times a week with one of these songs' choruses stuck in my head, and unlike Top 40 right now, that's nothing I'm complaining about.
Rock Fun: Sheer Mag - A Distant Call
Just straightforward scuzzy rock jams. This isn't the first (and I hope not the last) album I've loved from Sheer Mag, and they seem to have a knack for writing big songs that take up small bits of time, with snippet-y killer guitar solos to boot. Their lead singer is a powerhouse and she has a great range.
Weird Fun: Club Night - What Life
Here's where I might start to lose some of you. Not 10 seconds into the album, the lead singer's androgynous (I'm still not clear whether it's a man or woman, and honestly, it doesn't matter and I don't care enough to look it up!) but whiny voice comes straight at you. The music overall is juvenile-feeling but fun, and it sits somewhere in that enjoyable area between emo, punk, and indie rock. If you listen and like it, probably keep it to yourself: this isn't one you'll want to put on when you have guests over.
Mood Setter: Kornél Kovács - Stockholm Marathon
...but here's one you would! I had no idea who this guy was when I read the album review, but one listen and I was hooked. This is fantastic house music, and it goes over real easy if you have some friends over for drinks and need something to put on in the background. It's also great driving music, writing music, whatever music - it's versatile, it's effortlessly cool, and it's one of my favourite discoveries this year.
Previously Unknown Pleasure: Cassius - Dreems
Speaking of which, another unknown this year for me was Cassius. If I remember correctly, half of this long-running duo (which got their start in 1988 apparently) sadly passed away around the time this record came out. However, as a legacy, this album is fantastic. It's another splash of colourful house music, in the same vein as Stockholm Marathon, but with the French electronic flair you'd be more used to on a Daft Punk release. Top to bottom, a great album when you need a pick-me-up.
Dark Focus: Earth - Full Upon Her Burning Lips
Okay, full disclosure: I made these categories up before I started writing these snippets. It's only now that I'm filling them in that I realize the order I thought of them makes for pretty good segues. As such, the opposite of a pick-me-up would be this album here. Again, I don't listen to anything that dark: that means no screaming (usually), no overtly terrorizing themes, and no music that makes me feel too down. However, this album by Earth (another long-running project) has all the dark chords of slow-burn metal, in long-running cuts (two songs clock in at 11 and 12 minutes respectively), but building in a way that makes the music perfect for focusing on a task like paper-writing.
A Little Bit For Everyone: Kindness - Something Like A War
Whoooo, where to start! I get so jazzed when I listen to parts of this album. It's another artist I knew nothing about coming into the year. Think of this album as a compilation centering mostly around indie-pop and R&B. The release as a whole however is such a mish-mash that the weaker cuts are vastly outshined by the standout tracks (one of which is in my list below). My favourite part: Robyn makes a couple unheralded cameos.
Beats On Beats: Clams Casino - Moon Trip Radio
One of the two artists on this list I've been on to for a long time. Clams Casino is a hip-hop producer who I probably owe part of my Masters degree to, what with all the help he gave me writing paper after paper to his lo-fi beats. Moon Trip Radio doesn't have the wall-to-wall quality his other albums do, but it's a solid LP that I like to put on when I'm not sure what else to listen to. The man has some bangers though.
WTF: TNGHT - II
If you're still with me, I'll get ready to lose you again. TNGHT is another duo, and another group I've been on to for years. If I want to put something that'll try to blow the bass out of my car speakers, I put on their earlier work. The drops don't come as hard or as often on this album, but it's got some great beats and unexpected twists and turns, and it shows the creativity these guys have (Kanye's "Blood On The Leaves" is even backed by a throwaway song of theirs).
Second Chances: Local Natives - Violet Street
Here's a group I gave a fair shake to over the decade and they just didn't stick with me for one reason or another. The harmonies and everything were just so precious and I couldn't get behind it. So this new album came along and I was surprised to find that I loved it. The same kinds of harmonies just click for me now, the songs touch on the relatable ("When Am I Gonna Lose You," about the married life) and the not-so-relatable ("Megaton Mile," about nuclear apocalypse), but the mood shifts all work so well and the voices are all so beautiful and just, ugh, I loved this album.
Individual Songs:
So here I have three categories: two special mentions, two gems in otherwise instrumental albums, and all the other songs I liked this year. I left out some of the ones you might've heard on the radio that I liked nevertheless, but we're talking discovery here, so I hope most of these come as new finds to you. My lists below aren't ranked, though "Gone" was easily my favourite song of the year regardless. YouTube links in the song names.
Special Mentions:
Collections of Colonies of Bees ft. Sylvan Esso - "Funeral Singers"
LCD Soundsystem - "Seconds"
For those who may not know, my wife and I lost our beautiful son at 5.5 months old, just before the start of 2019. I've written before about the music I enjoyed with him during his short but amazing life (Young Galaxy's "Pretty Boy" being foremost among them) - these songs are more about life after losing him. "Funeral Singers" is music with a dark theme but a folksy-electro pulse that keeps your head above water. "Seconds" is propulsive but actually does touch on loss ("it took seconds of your time to take his life/it took seconds").
I didn't experience death much before losing our son, and I didn't know how I would react to it and everything around it. I found it's not the things you think that will make you sad or upset - not the hospitals, not the circumstances related to the person's passing, not the little triggers friends and family try to avoid around you. Which is to say, a dark song with "funeral" right in the title was not one of the hardest things for me to get through in 2019. Nor was the monotonous refrain in "Seconds."
Instead, it was the thought that our bright son won't be around anymore; it was the video of him telling my wife, beyond any capability a 3.5 month-old child should have, "I love you"; it was the days home, alone, thinking about how empty the house was without his warmth and presence. No song could ever begin to replace any those things, but I learned that music is more likely to make me feel better than it is to drag me down, no matter the title or the music.
Electronic Category:
Jubilee - "Liquid Liner"
Floating Points - "Bias"
Amidst the easy-listening electronic I heard over the last year, these two hard-charging tracks really stood out. "Bias" is a slow-building gem on an absolute masterpiece of an album (Crush). "Liquid Liner" goes hard from the start and is the kind of song you'd soundtrack an anxiety-ridden late-night chase through a neon city's back alleys to.
Everything Else:
Charli XCX ft. Christine & The Queens - "Gone"
I could not play this song enough this year (much to the chagrin of my wife, who hates it, for reasons unknown). "I feel so unstable/fucking hate these people" is a refrain so venomous, but also the best-delivered line of 2019. The enjoyably bilingual song flows like a Jell-O-filled river through spikes of bass, guided by two fantastic voices, over and through a frantic breakdown near the back end, and punctuated under the surface by Christine's "ne me chercher pas/je ne suis plus la, baby" a clever French mirror to Charli's "don't search me in here/I'm already gone, baby."
Emotional Oranges - "Unless You're Drowning"
What an awful name. What a great song.
Great Grandpa - "Bloom"
The first time it comes on, it feels like you've already heard it before.
The New Pornographers - "Colossus of Rhodes"
The best song you'll hear about break-ins (at least this year).
MUNA - "Number One Fan"
This hook is in my mind forever.
Kindness - "Dreams Fall"
Just an old-fashioned groooove.
Bon Iver - "Naeem"
I'm a sucker any time Justin Vernon bears his fantastic voice and strains it all the way; no AutoTune, no distortion, nothing but his pure, uncut talent.
Sir Babygirl - "Pink Lite"
The best description I heard of this song was that it would've been a smash if it came out in the 90s.
Thursday, January 2, 2020
Monday, February 25, 2013
The Top 50 Songs of 2012
I had some stuff written for this originally, but reviewing each song was getting a bit tiresome for me (probably because I started at No. 50 and worked my way down), so here, for your viewing pleasure and without commentary (but with YouTube links!), is my list of what I thought were the 50 best songs of 2012.
50 | Passion Pit | "Take A Walk"
49 | Purity Ring | "Loftcries"
48 | Major Lazer ft. Amber Coffman | "Get Free"
47 | Purity Ring | "Ungirthed"
46 | Dinosuar, Jr. | "Watch The Corners"
45 | Plants and Animals | "Control Me"
44 | Twin Shadow | "Five Seconds"
43 | PS I Love You | "First Contact"
42 | Gramercy Riffs | "Call Me"
41 | Cold Specks | "When The City Lights Dim"
40 | Tennis | "Origins"
39 | Father John Misty | "Only Son of the Ladies' Man"
38 | Death Grips | "I've Seen Footage"
37 | the xx | "Tides"
36 | The Shins | "Simple Song"
35 | Santigold | "Disparate Youth"
34 | Icona Pop | "I Love It"
33 | Wintersleep | "Rapture"
32 | Purity Ring | "Fineshrine"
31 | Jessie Ware | "Sweet Talk"
30 | Rah Rah | "Little Poems"
29 | Dum Dum Girls | "Lord Knows"
28 | Plants and Animals | "The End of That"
27 | Trust | "Sulk"
26 | Beach House | "Lazuli"
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
Top 50 Songs of 2012 | Honourable Mentions
well that went off without a hitch, huh?
Simply enough, these are the 10 songs that didn't make it on to my Top 50 of 2012, but which I thought deserved to be highlighted anyways. And if you don't like them, I can only promise that, logically, the actual Top 50 will be better. Presented in no particular order, here they are:
“Time To Kill” | Gold & Youth | Time To Kill 7”
Maaan this song is just stellar, in such a hauntingly simple way. Guy-girl vocals, a thumping bass line, a few guitar strums, and then some mellow percussion thrown in. Everything works so darned fine here that it’s hard to find fault with it. Which makes you think: what’s a really great song? Is it one that does things particular well? Or is it one that doesn’t do anything badly? I’m not going to start this list with a rumination about how good this piece of music is, but with a thought: what is it that makes music good for you? Is it something you enjoy listening to before you go out? Is it something you can relax to at home on a weekday evening? Is it good study music? Is it something that gets you excited when it comes on the radio or your iPod? And to bring it all back, is it something that excels at a particular aspect – or many aspects – or is it something that really just isn’t bad? That last part is especially important. Pop music in general is manufactured to be perfect and listenable. Isn’t a Flo Rida track listenable? Then why does it end up being catchy, but you know that it’s really just shit? Think about that while going through this list, as well as my Top 50 for the year. These songs aren’t perfect. But they evoke something, they make you feel something - good or bad – and they strive to achieve something musically, each in their own way.
“My Love Is Real” | Divine Fits | A Thing Called Divine Fits
“Lots” | Dan Deacon | America
As you may know, I’m a huge sucker for Dan Deacon’s work and aural aesthetic (can sound have an aesthetic? pretty sure it can). He released America this year, and while I haven’t listened to the full album yet (it’s sitting in a folder on my desktop), “Lots” is a great track I’ve had the pleasure of spinning a few times this year. It has Deacon’s patented synths, insanely frenetic pace, and crushing build, with some pretty unintelligible lyrics (with some allusion made to past songs?) thrown in by the man himself. “Lots” starts like a laptop booting up, then descends into some kind of daytime rave that collapses in on itself. Sounds about right for a song from the Baltimore DIY madman.
“Spectrum” | Florence Welch + Calvin Harris | Ceremonials
That + just looks right, doesn’t it? Few other duos did such a great job together this year, as another one of their tracks makes an appearance on the Top 50 later this week. Florence is an immensely talented vocalist, as I experienced first-hand this summer at the Osheaga Festival in Montreal. Calvin Harris on the other hand has an uncanny knack for cranking out danceable – yet palatable – tracks with a stunning consistency. He doesn’t make bad music. I don’t think he’s capable of it. There’s just enough pacing with the piano, the kicks are subtle instead of overpowering, and he utilizes Florence’s voice as the central aspect of the song, building around it and letting the instrumentals fall at her feet when she takes to her whisper-singing. Calvin Harris made it a fun year to dance. Florence Welch made it a fun year to sing. Together, they made it a fun year to listen to music.
“Circumambient” | Grimes | Visions
The first thing to point out about this song is that “circumambient” is somehow actually a word according to spellcheck. That’s pretty cool. Secondly: this has to be the most overlooked track on Grimes’ excellent album Visions. It starts inauspiciously enough, with 30 seconds of a jets-soaring sound floating around, a steady, bass-y drumbeat, and then some synth coming in, followed by the bad-ass kick-drum that blows this track away. Claire Boucher’s lyrics are uncommonly easy to make out for the first bit, then the ‘chorus’ comes in and it’s all spliced “baby”s and “aiii”s, with that kick-drum providing the propulsion for the whole thing. Another verse, with Grimes pleading to her “baby” about having a “problem” and not knowing how to stop it. After that: a solid minute of “woooo”s and slow-building mayhem. The drums, the hymnal synths, and on top of all of it, layers and layers of Grimes’ Mariah Carey-defying falsetto. It’s hard not to break out dancing listening to this tune.
“Fall In” | Cloud Nothings | Attack On Memory
Fall in love? Fall in a puddle? Who cares, someone’s falling, and it sounds fucking awesome. Punk goes super-charged pop with Cloud Nothings, and this track is the perfect example. I know you read that and thought “pop goes punk? forget it”, but Cloud Nothings succeed in a way that defies genre labels or mash-ups or anything. Their singles simply evoke youth and carelessness and pain and joy, but set to music. The jangly guitar, the Weezer-evoking “fall innnn, fall innnn, fall innnn”s, and the total exuberance this band plays the song with makes you feel like life is going at 200km/h, one verse at a time.
“The Kids Were Wrong” | Memoryhouse | The Slideshow Effect
The album overall was underwhelming for me, but this track in particular was Memoryhouse at their upbeat best. The drumming provides the real drive, but the sing-songy vocals evoke a hazy sense of place, while the lyrics allude to a forgotten kind of childhood. There’s a sense of loss inherent in this song – loss of sense of self, loss of innocence, loss of home, I’m not sure – but the music is too happy to keep you dwelling on that feeling. Unfortunately, not keeping the other songs perky enough to accomplish the same brought down the rest of the album, but this song remains a highlight.
“Born To Lose” | Sleigh Bells | Reign Of Terror
This song starts off with the usual gusto of a Sleigh Bells tune – crashing cymbals, nearly-out-of-tune huge guitars, and stadium-echo vocals. Sleigh Bells definitely rub a lot of people the wrong way, seeing as they’re capital-L loud and ear-drum busting with their music. They still possess a sense of balance though, as the vocals here are measured, and the instruments try to drown each other out, but don’t. There’s still the yelling and the brashness, but also an odd sense of sullenness to “Born To Lose”. Not vintage Sleigh Bells in every sense of their style, but we’ll take it.
“Teary Eyes And Bloody Lips” | Moonface | With Sinai: Heartbreaking Bravery
I stopped trying to make sense of Moonface’s main actor Spencer Krug years ago. Between being the odder-voiced vocalist in Wolf Parade and his indulgences in (occasionally-maddening) side projects like Sunset Rubdown, the man has made a career of boundary-pushing – mainly, with my ability to stomach most of his music. When he succeeds in aligning himself to some sort of listenable content though, you get a great song like this. Lyrics aside – “Teary eyes and bloody lips/Make you look like Stevie Nix/We never knew that being cruel/Was such a cool thing to do” – or maybe because of them, this song has a great build for its short 2:47 length, featuring swirling synth and guitars. There’s something about the keyboard in this track that makes you think “pirates doing choral singing for someone about to be walked off the plank”, and the literary rambling at the end is thought-provoking if not capable of making sense, but this is still good music, in one way or another.
“Feels Like We Only Go Backwards” | Tame Impala | Lonerism
This is almost more the story of a band than of an individual song. I had Tame Impala’s debut album, and I’ve come to so thoroughly despise it for some reason that I haven’t even bothered to listen to it for comparison’s sake. I think I deleted it off my iTunes anyways. I don’t even care enough to check. But, all that being said, their new stuff follow the same style of stoner-rock, but just…better? I don’t even know how to explain it. I think it has to come down to different production, or maybe the drums come through better in these songs, or maybe the first batch of tunes you had to be high to enjoy, and these are fine if you still have all your wits about you. I don’t care to find out what the difference is to be honest, because I’m just going to enjoy “Feels Like We Only Go Backwards” for what it is: a good song. No context, nothing – just a singular occurrence of pretty good music. There.
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Album Review | the xx | Coexist
I'm sensing a theme here
Full disclosure: the xx can do no wrong in my eyes. I've been waiting for this album for years, and the day I finally picked it up was like Christmas in September. I'm probably the worst person to provide an unbiased review of their beautiful sonicscapes, so don't read this expecting to find me harping about how the band should grow instead of regressing and peeling back their sound. Is this album different than their debut xx (reviewed by me here!)? Sure is. Does it make it any worse? Hell no. I'm going to try and answer whether or not they made it as good, or possibly even better.
How am I going to do that you ask? Well, with words of course, but also my (newly patented - don't steal this shit) xx-rating system. Was it good? Cool, we'll give it one x. Was it stellar? We'll give it a full two x's. Could they probably have left it off the album and it wouldn't have mattered? No x's for you! A somewhat limited system, yes, but here's why it works: the xx don't make bad music. It's not grating, it's not particularly challenging, and it's not annoying. If anything, you might fault the group for taking a turn to the boring with this album, but it depends on your tastes. This trio doesn't half-ass anything though; you can hear the work they put into each song, and the meticulous care veritable bandleader Jamie xx takes with each track. Read on:
1 | "Angels" | 
When I unwrapped the CD and threw it on in my car, I swear this song ran chills through my body. I'd been compulsively listening to this track since it was released in the summer, but it was wholly different playing in my car than it was on my phone or laptop; the plucking guitar, the deep, deep bass drum, and Romy Madley-Croft's tender voice made this a can't-miss single either way. That guitar? Damn if it doesn't evoke some kind of happy melancholy (I know that's not really possible). It nimbly flips back and forth between notes, setting up Romy's sad, sad vocals.
So where does that sense of happiness come in? It's that really weird, deep, spiritual feeling you get when you encounter the holy or divine in the most depressing of circumstances. The same way you believe a loved one is in a better place after they die. The same way you take the bad things in life with a grain of salt, because you know someone up there has better plans waiting. "And the end comes too soon/like dreaming of angels/and leaving without them/being as in love with you as I am" is as powerful as it gets on this album. It's about loving, but still being able to let go. In that spiritual sense, it's about letting the afterlife embrace that loved one ("they will be as in love with you as I am") the same way you did.
I could go on for days breaking down the amazing lines from this opening song, and it's only just a shade under three minutes long. "Light reflects from your shadow" can be interpreted as the warm afterglow of someone's departure. "And the end isn't known/but I think I'm ready/as long as you're with me" can speak figuratively to a higher power, or literally to knowing that someone you love is going to be right there with you along the way. I'll never get tired of this song. I'll never stop feeling the deep emotions it evokes. I'll probably never stop getting the chills when those first few notes are strummed.
2 | "Chained" |
Now it's Oliver Sim's turn on vocals, though Romy jumps in a few beats later to help out with one of the many duets on this album. That's one thing: this album makes stunning use of the interplay of the two distinct voices. It's not new territory - xx mined it well some years ago - but it's an area whose genius is oft overlooked in indie music. When it is broached, the results are usually memorable: Alphabeat's Scandanavian pop gems, Peter, Bjorn, and John on "Young Folks", Tegan & Sara's everything...there are so many examples of two voices being better than one; the xx are simply continuing that art.
"Angels" and "Chained" were the two singles this summer, released a few weeks apart, but serving as tantalizing bait for the new album. "Chained" is even shorter than the other track, with one of my favorite comments on the YouTube video for the song being "2:48...worst part" (that's the endtime of the song, folks). This made it mind-numbingly replayable [spellcheck tells me both of those aren't words], but for a reason I was eventually able to place my finger on: there's such consistency throughout the song, such un-noticed repetition, that you could play it five times over without realizing you've been listening to the same song over and over and over again. Aside from the initial cymbal-rattling, it's basically one beautiful drone of Burial-inspired, off-kilter machine drums, and Romy and Oliver's call-and-response.
The other very strange, very weird-for-music part of "Chained"? It goes somewhat with the point above about repetition, but try and follow here: 1.) if you think this is a good song, you will like it, 2.) if you like it, you will find it too short, 3.) if you find it too short, you will keep playing it over and over, 4.) if you keep playing it over and over, you realize its sameness makes it hard to realize where exactly in the song you are, unless it's the start, end, or seconds-long break right before the end, 5.) at a certain point, you hear the "bom-ba-dun" and expect the song to end as soon as it started.
Did you follow that? Alright, let me take it one step further. That constant fear of the song ending? That's what being in a relationship is like. "Did I hold you too tight/did I not let enough light in"? That's you being left wondering what you did wrong when it suddenly ends. I'm getting so meta right now that you'll forgive me if I'm not making sense, but the xx accomplish something on this track that goes beyond lyrics and music. They burrow so deep into your brain that the sadness you feel for the song ending is the same sadness they're trying to convey through the lyrics themselves. I'll stop now before the sphere turns back into itself.
3 | "Fiction" | --
There's propulsiveness behind this track, but nothing that's really doing it for me. The drums aren't too bad, but nothing exciting kicks in until a minute on, and then it's the same steel-drum-y guitar that's featured in "Angels". It's dark, and it fits the mood, and when the guitar gets going again around 1:30 in, it's not the worst song, but given its wind-down and overall blandness: coulda done without it.
4 | "Try" |
This isn't the worst song, but it's not the best either. It's more sparse even than "Fiction", which actually works to its advantage. The whining synth in the background makes it slightly annoying to listen to, but the duet is back in force here, and carries the track when it needs it. Most of the xx's songs sound like you're trapped in a cave, but when there are two talented singers sharing that cave with you, it makes that darkness a bit more bearable. Romy delivers a particularly good vocal performance here, with the instrumentation dialed down around her, letting such great vocal chops shine through. It helps that the whining synth disappears around then too...only to reappear with 30 seconds left. But on the whole, not a bad tune.
5 | "Reunion" |
If you want to talk about one-two punches (and I have), Coexist has to be one of the few great albums I've heard with two such distinctly great pairings on the same LP. Now, this is all relative. A great album can be great on the whole, but there can still be pairs (or trios, or whatever) of better-than-the-rest songs on an album. "Angels" and "Chained" are one such pairing, "Reunion" and "Sunset" are the other.
It's the first track that offers a glimpse of all the side-work Jamie xx did in his time off from the group between albums, incorporating his skillful use of Carribean-style steel drums with art-school indie (yes, the xx come from the same British music school Hot Chip did - they're not your average high school band formed in your parents' garage). The tune is interesting enough until about the 2:00 mark, when I initially thought the whole thing just kind of faded off and ended. It actually comes right back at you with a whole new vibe, Romy singing wistfully about "did I/see you/see me/in a new light?", Oliver joining her for a bar or two, then some downtempo, trance-y beats taking over the whole thing from there. Solid tune, great drumbeat transition...
6 | "Sunset" |
...to this track, which is probably the most meaningful to me. I was still in the process of getting over a relationship when I heard this song. I still remember, I was driving across the bridge the morning after I got the album, and I paid close attention to the words that were hitting so close to home. Earlier in the summer, I had a talk with a good friend about how strange it is that people who are so close and intimate can simply stop talking like nothing had ever happened between them; like those times were with other people, or that it was in another life. "I always thought it was sad/that we act like strangers/after all that we had/we act like we had never met". That fucks you up.
Maybe music doesn't mean the same thing to you now as it did when you were younger. I hope that it doesn't. I've written on here before about how club and dance music is more appealing to you as you get older, because you know what it's like to go out and drink and dance. That applies to other arenas of life as well: break-up songs mean more at 23 than 13, and maybe even gangsta rap means more if you're dealing cocaine on the corner at 25 instead of hearing it glamorized in a Young Jeezy song at 15. I'm going to refract this back on indie music though.
When I was first delving into the world of alternative, I read about how it was more emotional, literate music; stuff that was too tender or revealing for the mainstream, and was a turn-off to some. Taylor Swift? Yeah, she's popular, but how many people have truly felt the things she feels? Those kiss-offs she pumps out? I'm not a girl, so maybe they go through that and feel that way, but it's not relatable to me. Drake rapping about his money and all the women he's been with; I can't relate to that. Nickelback...they sing about relatable feelings, but not in any way I want to listen to. There's a certain art to conveying feeling without making it obvious that's what you're doing. The xx accomplish that beautifully on "Sunset".
The most surprising part? It's one of the more danceable songs on the album! The momentum comes from the guitar and drums, until an arching synth comes in, stopping the noise and draping the whole affair in deep, throbbing bass, before dropping the beat again. It's all got the feeling of dancing in a room that's adjacent to an actual club; you can hear the strains of dance music, but it's the faint warble of drum and bass, not outright aggression and sound. The nimbleness and understated rhythms of the xx are uniquely rewarding in that way.
7 | "Missing" |
The common complaint I hear about Coexist is the sameness of the album. I'll give people that - it's almost hard to figure out what song you're listening to from track to track, which is why I almost have to give each song about a minute to realize if it's one I like or not. Some get there, some don't. "Missing" does a weird job of straddling that fine line. Oliver's voice is downright whiny and annoying at points in this track; when he stretches his voice out, it doesn't have nearly the same impact or beauty to it that Romy's voice does (total and complete digression here: you know who has a wicked voice when they really let go? Mo Kenney. That girl can sing. Just putting that out there. Saw her last week; my friend and I both agreed on that point.)
So the issue here is sticking with it. If the song was like everything after the first two minutes of "Missing", then it would get two x's. Unfortunately, the first part is only saved by Romy cooing "how did I/how did I/how did I" in the background. Actually, the lesson is, don't let Oliver try to sing that much. After two minutes though? Wow, that guy can get his soul-brother on. He takes over Romy's cooing part, they throw in some organ-sounding synth, and the whole thing sounds like the most gothic gospel church choir you could find on a Sunday. Call it a saving grace.
8 | "Tides" |
Heck if I don't start bobbing my head unsafely around in the driver's seat when this one comes on. The drum hits are so expertly executed in "Tides" that it's hard to stay still. When the guitar comes in, it's the instrumental equivalent of Romy and Oliver trading lyrics. Again, the song starts a capella, so you're left wondering "what's going on here?" before anything kicks in (and that anything is appropriately an electronic kick-drum, if I'm not mistaken). Once it does though, there's the kind of momentum that is sorely lacking on a couple other tracks here.
It's funny - the whole album is generally mid- to downtempo, but some songs feel the brunt of that more than others, barely inching along, while tunes like "Tides" and "Sunset" get the danceable treatment. I don't know if a more consistent vibe over the whole album (in terms of pacing, not sonics) would have made it better or just made each track even more indistinguishable from the others, but it would be neat to hear.
9 | "Unfold" |
Another song that starts off slow and boring. 0:58. Mark that down. That's when Romy breaks in with an "ohh-ohhh" and it truly begins. It's also weird that they chose these two particular titles for these tracks; track 8 actually 'unfolds' much more than 9 does, and 9 has the undulating quality to its guitar you'd expect from waves lapping against the shore with the 'tides'.
Whatever; this is still a really solid slow song, which is something lacking from this album. Where Coexist belabours with "Fiction" and "Try" near the beginning, "Unfold" kills it, in the best way. The solemnity is ever-present, but the band does a much better job of presenting it, keeping the song moving even when it feels like it might collapse under its own depressing weight. Never have "ohhs" sounded be-- wait, yeah, they have, but they work really well on, like, this album and stuff...
10 | "Swept Away" |
Whoaaa now, a song that's five minutes long and with two words in the title? This is craziness by the xx's standards (nothing else actually goes longer than 3:57...or has more than seven letters.........I'm OCD). But that's not the only place this track diverges: if "Tides" offered a faint echo of what it would be like to hit the floor to an xx tune, they make it a reality with the beat-tastic drums in this tune. It's still not in your face, and it's not hitting anyone over the head with sheer I-can't-stay-off-the-dancefloor-ness, but it sure does a great job at trying for it.
It's like everyone decided "meh, the album's almost done, you guys wanna muck around and try and do something vaguely upbeat?" Jamie xx must have obliged, because there are few words in "Swept Away", most of the song focusing on the multiple (which in this case is like, four, maybe) layers of sound, all working in conjunction to keep things interesting before the album closes out.
11 | "Our Song" |
...then just as soon as that veritable dancing fever/fervor comes, it's gone, as the trio slows it down for the final track. There's still beauty in the slowly-marching warbles of drum and synth, but "Our Song" almost serves as fodder for those who attack Coexist as a let-down of a companion to debut xx, where the group has done this kind of tempo, but with better execution. That much is true of tracks like this, with there being more flourish and impact on the group's previous effort.
However, it doesn't take away from the fact that Oliver Sim, Romy Madley-Croft, and Jamie xx have put together another stellar album that makes astounding use of space and sound, pulling together disparate influences like breakbeat and Carribean rhythms in unconscionable ways. There's a depth to it, a relatable meaning, that's absent in a lot of other music right now. The xx have always been so great at bringing something to the table by taking something off of it, and they've done it again on Coexist.
Monday, October 22, 2012
Halifax Pop Explosion 2012...in Haikus
Purity Ring on Thursday @ The Marquee (pic courtesy of @usualsuspectguy)
HALIFAX
POP EXPLOSION! I can’t say enough about this awesome event every year, so I’ll
try to keep it short here, and do what I did last year with haikus for each act
I saw. One thing I feel compelled to do however is add a little snippet
underneath where I have to say more about the show. Discipline is the hardest discipline, right?
Tuesday @ The
Seahorse
Camp Radio
Were
a cool Ontario bunch
Only
knew one song of theirs
Kinda
meh, whatevs
The Dudes
Really
fun songs and vibe there
Had
to leave early
Tuesday @ Gus’
Pub
HUMANS
Oh
man, what a show
Eminently
danceable
We
loved them so much
Okay,
I could go on forever about these guys, so I’m stealing some of the words I
left out for the above shows. Gus’ is nice and small, so the acoustics are
great, and the stage is only a foot or two higher than the floor. HUMANS are
just two dudes from Vancouver with a table of electronics, two microphones, and
possibly a guitar. I don’t even remember. All I know is that they killed it, in
the kind of quietly powerful way that ends up sticking with you for years.
I
could compare the show to SBTRKT, who I saw at Osheaga this summer. Same deal
there, just two guys and their electronics. Both guys have a mid-tempo sound,
but where SBTRKT left you kind of head-bobbing, HUMANS were more body-moving.
Each song built up perfectly, from the sparse backbeat, to the added layers, to
the chanting vocals that would kick in like halfway through. Heck, everyone was
so into it we even started adding our own vocals, which I have to say I’ve
never experienced before.
That
was the other thing. I haven’t seen a crowd embrace an artist so
whole-heartedly as we did that night. Their first song was basically a
15-minute dance affair, at a volume so bearably pleasant that you could have a
chat (and I did) with the people right beside you. Once that introductory tune
was over, we applauded them. Maaan, did we give them a hand. This was the first
song! You could see the sheepish smiles on their face for such a reception, and
it was a genuinely great thing to see at a concert. HUMANS wasn’t just a show,
it was an experience.
They
kicked into their next tune and had us dancing anew. I only knew two of their
songs that night, but hell if that mattered. I just remember dancing for what
felt like two hours (it was only one), and the guys didn’t let up. Once they
played what they said was their last song, we cheered hard and long for an
encore, to which they obliged, with this warning: “Okay guys, we can play one
more song. But that’s it – we literally don’t have any more after this!”
Earlier, after the second or third song break, the feedback from the crowd was
so amazing that the duo spontaneously yelled “Halifax is the the greatest
fucking city ever!” That’s obviously not true, but the sentiment was nice, and
maybe to them, that night, we were.
Wednesday @ The
Seahorse
Kuato
Imagine
your life
Set
to an epic soundtrack
That
was these guys’ sound
I’ve
basically been explaining this group (one drummer, four guitarists,
instrumental rock) that if you set every great and uplifting moment of your
life to music, it would be these guys’.
Wednesday @
Reflections
The Elwins
Not
that into it
Kinda
old-fashioned group
Left
to go get food
The Dudes
(again!)
Secret
guest that night!
Brought
up free-styling MC’s
Was
such a fun show
This
was awesome if only for the fact that we got to see a full Dudes show after we
missed about half of it the night before. They were announced as the secret
guest at Reflections that night, and I was pretty excited to see them without
the pressure of having to leave early to catch another show.
They
rocked the hell out, and then – in something they apparently do at every show –
invited up any local freestylers to have a go at it during their final song. No
less than three people – in varying states of sobriety – took the stage,
ranging from somewhat painful (but eventually redeeming) to refreshingly
laid-back, to professionally-prepared (there’s no way the last guy didn’t write
what he said before the show; it was that good).
Born Ruffians
Quite
interesting
His
voice is unlike others
Steadily
improved
Thursday @
Olympic Hall
Elliott Brood
We
barely got in
Quite
dapperly-dressed fellows
Sound
was very bad
Wintersleep
Sound
still was not good
Slightly
disappointing show
Left
it early too
The
only thing about both shows: not sure if it was just the venue (a
high-ceilinged hall with a second level that might have been sucking the sound
up to the underage kids banished there), but the sound was consistently bad. As
soon as any guitar was strummed, the whole thing turned into a shoegaze-fest:
just one layer of sound blending into another, which didn’t suit either of
these bands. Both bands’ lead singers have very distinct voices, but they were
largely lost in the shuffle of bad sound.
Thursday @ The
Marquee
Purity Ring
Just
kidding, I’m sad
Couldn’t
get into this one
Still
upset today
FUCK.
Got there an hour early for the show and still didn’t get in. They had to tell
us three times that “there’s absolutely no way you guys are getting in without
a ticket” (we had wristbands) before we ended up leaving. That’s how badly I
wanted to see this duo. Fuck everyone who went to this and said it was great.
I’ve seen the pictures. I’ve heard the stories. I hate you all, forever. Fuck.
Friday @ Gus’
Pub
Lantern
Was
a 1am show
Napped
and almost slept through it
Really
riffy rock
Saturday @ The
Palace
Tasseomancy
Got
there too early
Had
to see their creepy show
Felt
a little bad
Zola Jesus
“Wow”
is my sole word
Such
a stunning vocalist
Performed
with bare feet?
Zola
Jesus is from the Midwest. Zola Jesus has a Russian-sounding real name. Zola
Jesus is 4’11”, 90 lbs. Zola Jesus has the voice of a seven-foot opera singer.
Zola Jesus would probably be a hundred times more popular if she had a
different name. Zola Jesus was the second-best show I saw after HUMANS.
Zola Jesus, please come back to Halifax soon.
Saturday @ The
Company House
Mo Kenney
Went
to school with her
Blown
away by her great voice
Great
rapport twixt songs
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