The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - "Contender"

I remember reading or hearing somewhere (chances are it was in a Borges essay) that a nineteenth century intellectual was tormented by the fear that the realm of possible musical compositions was finite and would eventually be exhausted, that one day there would simply be no new music left to write. This vision of musical apocalypse fascinated me, and I am reminded of it, and of its fallacy, whenever I encounter quality, original music formed from familiar ingredients. After all, what chance is there of depletion when delving into even intensely well-mined territory can produce music of novel, thrilling vitality? Is This It, anyone?

Consider then, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart. A more cynical listener might balk at the many venerable strains of Indie commingling in the Brooklyn band's debut self-titled album: the buzzing guitar-scramble rush of early My Bloody Valentine, the melancholy jangle of 80's British bands like the Smiths, and the weightless, sighing vocal melodicism of twee-pop and the fey-er side of indie pop. I like the album best when the band puts muscle behind its mumble ("Come Saturday", "Hey Paul", the ascendant chorus of "Stay Alive", the cavernous "Gentle Sons"), but standout opening track "Contender" is the exception that proves the rule, a simple concoction of fuzzy bass, guitar and tambourine, all anchored to a continuous note of bell-like feedback. "Contender" particularly evokes Belle and Sebastian via its exceedingly effective, lighter-than-air vocal melody, which, like vintage Belle and Sebastian, is so carefully, wittily crafted and delicately delivered with just the right touch that it sounds effortless.

Also, speaking of mining well-worn territory, this song is just about the one-billionth successful reiteration of the 1-4 back-and-forth chord progression (to hear the 1-4 interval, think the first two notes of "Amazing Grace"); LCD Soundsystem's "All My Friends", The Strokes' "Modern Age", the immortal New Order duo of "Ceremony" and "Age of Consent", about three or four really solid songs from Clap Your Hands' first album, U2's "Bad", B&S's own "If You Are Feeling Sinister"... the list goes on and on. (thanks to Chen for some of these examples)

A Handful of Favorites from 2008

I listened to far too little 2008-music in 2008 to make a decent judgment about the year as a whole, or to even pretend to be able to construct a numerical rank. Nevertheless, here is a little selection of the year's bits and pieces that brought me lasting joy:

Hercules and Love Affair - S/T

Inventive, emotive, urbane dance music: a marvel of a modern disco-pop album, bathed in warm, organic retro textures ("Hercules Theme", "Athene", "Raise Me Up"). The album is at times playful, at times dew-eyed and reserved (compare the wounded croon of opener "Time Will" to mischievous, kitchen-sink closer "True False/Fake Real"). Some songs even deftly split the difference (the undeniable yet vulnerable strut of "Raise Me Up"). But what gives this album lasting life is the sharp melodic sense at work in each precision horn burst, each delicate keyboard twinkle, each taut, octave-hopping bassline. Album highlight "Hercules Theme" is particularly packed with these details; "Iris" with its lovely, looping thumb piano-like keyboard melody and distant background flute-like harmonies is the album's emotional core. Perhaps the album I gave the most time to in 2008.



Air France - No Way Down EP

Irrepressibly wistful, exuberant breeze-pop. Like the Avalanches, they assemble patchwork sonic landscapes from pop detritus, but Air France's music seems more compositionally focused, and more honed for maximum emotional impact. This is wide-open, unabashed, open-hearted pop music, unafraid to make broad gestures; but despite the liberal use of sweeping orchestration and super-stuffed feel, the album remains approachable and intimate because each arrangement feels definitively handcrafted, like a homemade scrapbook of memory and joy. The sepia-toned album cover, a boy, his kite, sunlight bleeding through and over all, could not be more apropos: these are miniature anthems and arias of childlike yearning and rhapsodic bliss.


Osborne - "16th Stage"
Over the course of eight serene minutes, Osborne methodically unspools layer after layer of gossamer melody: that endearingly jumbled keyboard riff; that mumbling vocal sample pulsing along to the heart-like backbeat; that fluttering butterfly-synth line dancing over it all... A plaintive bedroom-dance beauty so unassuming, I didn't notice it shuffle shyly into my heart and steal it away.

Women - "Black Rice"
I wrote about this song in an earlier post; an undeniable vocal melody skips and leaps over murky, lumbering-zombie sort of psychedelic funeral dirge. Hypnotic and pleasantly off-kilter, like a dream of sitting down to a wonderful meal with old friends whose faces you simply cannot place.

Vampire Weekend - "Walcott"
The reverb-heavy pound of the piano, the softly glowing guitar line, the shimmering cymbal hits combine to serendipitous effect: "Walcott" surges like a series of frozen waterfalls thawing in the sunlight, a cascade of icy shards and glittering, frosty mist, all building to one last climactic, breathtaking plunge.

M83 - "Kim and Jessie"
Tears for Fears' "Head Over Heels" re-imagined as theme music for sentimental French superheroes. That massive, massive, majestic earthquake of a chorus, all megaton drums and jetstream synths and guitar peals arcing across the sky obliterates all thought, leaving only shimmering rapture in its wake.

Library of Borges: Vol. 9

A Jew's profile in the subway is perhaps that of Christ; the hands giving us our change at a ticket window perhaps repeat those that one day were nailed to the cross by some soldiers.

Perhaps some feature of that crucified countenance lurks in every mirror; perhaps the face died, was obliterated, so that God could be all of us.

Who knows whether tonight we shall not see it in the labyrinths of our dreams and not even know it tomorrow.

from "Paradiso, XXXI, 108"
in Labyrinths

Loss Leaders [Spoon Feeder: Vol. 2]

This is the second installment of "Spoon Feeder", a [hopefully] regular feature wherein I examine, dissect and reflect on selections from the vast and spectacular Spoon catalog.





1997's Soft Effects EP was released only eight months or so after Spoon's debut LP, Telephono, and it is a striking document of the rapidity of the band's maturity. Telephono was a spiky, abrasive, confrontational record; the polished pop tastefulness that Spoon is now synonymous with peeked out here and there amidst the buzz and crash, but for the most part it was still somewhat buried under post-Pixies squall and post-Pavement squalor. That roughness did not disappear on Soft Effects (and indeed remains part of the band's arsenal), but the elevation in songwriting consistency is still remarkable, and the textural and stylistic diversity of the wide-ranging EP must have at the time suggested that there few limits to Spoon's ability to manipulate indie rock forms into fresh and exciting shapes: we have the majestic crash of pocket-epic "Mountain to Sound", the jaunty pop of "Waiting for the Kid to Come Out", the low-key drone-pop of "I Could See the Dude", and the dark, sinister, sensual fuzz-rock churn of "Get Out the State".

And then there is "Loss Leaders". One of the last Spoon songs I discovered in my time spent trawling back through their catalog, the EP-ender is still a sentimental favorite. "Loss Leaders" is a bright, fresh-faced, unabashed pop song, bursting with the sparkling jangle of Daniel's guitar (Rachel noted the superficial resemblance the song bears to 90's alterna-rock, a la Gin Blossoms; in this vein see also: "Sister Jack"). As an early instance of particularly excellent work, you can hear in it the blueprint for future successes, the Spoon road map to pop-domination. To wit:

1. For a band who operates with such high standards of craft, Spoon has always done a great job adding little bits of in-studio dialog, or snatches of pseudo-improvised guitar strums or drum hits etc., as if surreptitiously captured in studio sessions as the tapes rolled. The little guitar fumbling on the intro to this song is a lovely example. All these thoughtful little details infuse Spoon songs with an approachability and an tangibility, make them feel more organic, more human, less like hermetically-sealed pieces of artifice.

2. Britt Daniel has a very distinctive approach to guitar-work; I remember reading somewhere that he basically thinks he is a poor guitar player, but he sells himself short: he plays like a true songwriter. His guitar playing is extremely compositionally-driven, with a strong melodic sense, and his playing is always rhythmically dynamic and interesting (in fact you could say he expertly straddles the line between rhythm and lead guitar playing), no matter that his parts would pose little challenge to a guitarist of even moderate skill. His signature style is showcased on "Loss Leaders": note the brash open-strumming chords of the verses, ever-fluid with their continuous little hammer-ons; note the echo-y chirping guitar stab-and-slides that balance against solemn single downward strums in the pre-chorus; note the highly melodic and utterly simple guitar picking in the muted instrumental chorus; note the dramatic palm-muted strums that lead us back from that pensive section back into the wide-open glory of the verse again; note the lyrical pseudo-solo that issues forth during the last instrumental chorus/outro. The three minutes and thirty seconds of "Loss Leaders" pass quickly. It can be easy to miss Britt Daniel's guitar pouring out all these volumes of musical wit.

3. Perhaps Spoon's core asset is Britt Daniel's voice and delivery; he is a master at coming up with muscular vocal hooks, and is particularly good at keeping his cadences and vocal rhythms dynamic and punchy; notice how in "Loss Leaders" he chops up his syllables in a percussive staccato manner in the first section of the song, then stretches out his notes into a scratchy-throated croon for maximum effect in the next. Also, as the lovely wordless refrain of "Sha-no-my" (roughly) displays, he is adept at creating catchy little non-word vocalizations in the grand pop tradition of shoo-be-doo's and koo-koo-ka-choo's. As seen in his guitarwork, his melodic sense, his taste for what works, is incredibly consistent.

4. Also, the intonation and delivery of Daniel's vocals tend to do the lion's share of the emotional work in Spoon's songs, as his lyrics can sometimes be obscure, indiscernible, or mundane. This is true of "Loss Leaders": although the first line is classic Spoon meta-lyricism, an ode to the sheer joy of making music ("I get up and all I got on my mind is thinking up brand new chords"), what follows is apparently about the murder of Chicago-area Black Panthers leader Fred Hampton in 1969 (?!?). Definitely noConveniently, Britt Daniel's impassioned slurring can, as here, often increase the impact of his vocals by reducing their clarity; in their ambiguity, the emotional undercurrent of the backing music and vocal delivery are heightened.

5. Though their contributions are usually less obvious than Britt Daniel's, drummer Jim Eno and bassist (until 2007) Joshua Zarbo, provide solid rhythmic support, steady and emphatic, and contributing a few little unobtrusive but engaging musical flourishes that great rock rhythm sections utilize to maximize the listenability of the song (for an example of a rhythm section that takes this technique to a near-absurd extreme, dangling at the edge of excess and yet still manages to still sound fantastic, see Carlos D and Sam Fogarino of Interpol). Some flourishes of note: the little off-time bass riff at each second iteration of the pre-chorus "Sha-No-My"; Jim Eno's tight little stuttering fill at 0:56.

But what helps make this song a personal favorite is not just its mastery of pop form and structure: after all that criteria would sweep in a great many Spoon songs. No, what deepens my affection for the song is its undercurrent of longing, detectable to a small degree from those very first plaintive, false-improv intro guitar notes. The boisterous verse manages to shade over a great deal of that sentiment (though once aware of the emotion's existence, the contrast arguably enhances the effect), but something in the particular vector of the verse vocal melody nevertheless bears it through, until we reach the achingly melancholy prechorus and chorus, and it rises to the forefront again. "Loss Leaders" is thus a peculiar alchemy of revelry and regret, somewhat like looking through old photo albums filled with smiling young faces, and being touched by that old joy, yet simultaneously recalling loneliness between those moments that went uncaptured by any camera. The evocation of this blissful, nostalgic ache is what gives "Loss Leaders" its powerful appeal, and secures it pride of place as a standout in the stellar Spoon catalog.

Imaginary Genre: Transit Pop

You know this is a truly imaginary genre when I can only suggest three exemplary songs. But despite the dearth of stimuli, the idea behind this genre springs vibrant from my mind: transit pop is music that, first and foremost, evokes forward momentum, the rush of the subway train along elevated tracks. It is the sound of the city in motion, and of all the glamor and grit that entails. In its more emotional manifestations, it evokes the myriad human stories, aspirations and failings, loves and losses that travel inside every packed subway-car, bus and taxicab as they shuttle forth in the intricate ballet of mass transit. In its less sentimental representations, it at least conveys a sense of mechanical energy and velocity, pounding pistons and industrial exhaust, the precision engineering of interlocking musical pieces traveling forward in unity.

"The City" - The Dismemberment Plan
Joe Easley's wonderful-as-always drumming, a skittering forward-stumble and bounce is this lovely song's transit pop core, but note also the recurring bass-synth line and chime of the guitar that amplifies the effect, and, of course, the song title, and the lyrical focus on commuting and city details. The Dismemberment Plan always were angular pop songwriters, taking odd routes to their hooks and embracing obtuse rhythms and sometimes grating textures: in this case their indirect, paradoxical approach is wildly successful, producing a soaring, melancholy anthem of urban isolation and regret.

"Meantime" - The Futureheads
Transit pop more for the verse than anything else, again with its insistent four on the floor drum beat, and sharp, interlocking, interweaving, staccato guitar parts.

"One More Time" - The French Kicks
I know that it is the reality of millennial, internet-age Indie that music fans are presented with an overwhelming swarm of competent bands making perfectly competent sounds, an vast undifferentiated mass of chiming guitars and yelped and/or mumbled vocals; and I know little about the French Kicks, but I know they are by no means a critic's darling: a workmanlike band who have produced workmanlike Indie over the course of four or five albums or so, as far as I can tell the consensus is that they are also-rans, representative residents of that sea of competence. I would dispute whether such a backhanded encapsulation, or any such similar assessment of the life's work of a person or group of people is justifiable, but sidestepping wholesale evaluations of their catalog, I humbly submit "One More Time" for your consideration. It is a song that probably slipped through the cracks for most, but one which has carved out its own lasting niche in my music-loving heart.

Pulsating with a restless energy, "One More Time" is precisely what I think of when I think of this phantom notion of transit pop. It has, first and foremost a propulsive sense of forward momentum, in those doubled-snare hits, in the relentless chug of that keyboard that enters at about 0:27, and undergirds the song. Then there is that single synth-string melody descending softly like a plane through the sky, or like the outline of the city skyline receding in the distance. And over this entire lovely backdrop, the yearning, supple croon of vocalist Nick Stumpf soars and dives, the organic warmth and languid emotion of his drawn-out voice sprawling across the song, contrasting beautifully with the taut stutter and snap of the backing music. Add to that the drama-doubling build-up bridge which cascades back into a gush of guitar and the inspired sudden cut-off ending, and we are left with a sublime and lasting piece of Indie songcraft, one which brings warmly to life the pale ghost of this imaginary genre.

P.S. If you have more suggestions for songs that fit the transit pop bill, by all means post them in the comments and let us substantiate the genre with their addition.

Everything Hits at Once [Spoon Feeder: Vol. 1]

This is the first installment of "Spoon Feeder", a [hopefully] regular feature wherein I examine, dissect and reflect on songs from the vast and spectacular Spoon catalog.

In 2001, Spoon was coming off the hangover of a major-label sign-and-drop debacle with Elektra Records. Picked up by the label as they were on the rise, they released the magnificent A Series of Sneaks to commercial ambivalence. Agreements and promises apparently went breached and unfulfilled and Spoon was dropped from the label (a tumultuous time out of which emerged the excellent Agony of Laffitte EP, their musical kiss-off to Elektra, and Elektra A&R man Ronn Laffitte in particular). Older, and we can perhaps speculate, somewhat wiser from the experience, they released Girls Can Tell.

Girls Can Tell marked a new phase for Spoon. Its predecessor, 1998's A Series of Sneaks was an incredibly lean and muscular collection of tightly-wound indie rock. The album has a dry, even dusty sort of sparseness to it; even at its most anthemic ("Car Radio", "Utilitarian", the sublime "Advance Cassette") it sounds shambling, skeletal. Furthermore, despite its innovative, extra-terse songcraft, it had a fairly direct sound and instrumentation that placed it directly in the 90's mainstream American Indie lineage of the Pixies, Pavement, etc.

Girls Can Tell finds Spoon fully embracing an older vein of rock tradition: the supple grooves of 60's R&B, Motown and Blue-Eyed Soul (a vein they first explored on 2000's extremely strong Love Ways EP). From the very first bars of "Everything Hits at Once", Girls Can Tell's opening track, Spoon's broadened musical arsenal is on display.

"Everything Hits at Once" exemplifies a particular type of smoky, minor-key Spoon song that can aptly be called noir-pop. It doesn't forgo the compositional brilliance displayed on A Series of Sneaks; it maintains an uncanny sense of song architecture, the deft deployment of melody around a dynamic rhythmic core, but in its deeper, echoing production and expanded instrumentation, all chiming keys and fluttering mellotron, the song exemplifies its album's cooler tonal palette. Girls Can Tell is, on balance, a rather nocturnal album, and "Everything Hits at Once" is the album's overture: it captures the sound of coasting through the city at night, riding the insistent pulse of a sleepwalking metropolis in a dream-like haze, wandering to escape some regret, or nurse some deep, lingering wound. A persistent undercurrent of gentle longing emerges from every corner of this song, but perhaps most brilliantly from the four-note mirrored sighing piano and guitar lines that ascend repeatedly over the chorus; ah, but then there's the lovely bridge as well, with its see-sawing call and response mellotron bursts; ah, but also the lovely, ethereal fade out, haunted by Britt Daniel's ghost-like coo...

In the end, as with many of Spoon's best songs, there are many "best" moments, and it is hard not to underline nearly every detail of "Everything Hits at Once" for the high degree of its craft and the class evinced in its execution.

Library of Borges: Vol. 8

The truth is that we live our lives putting off all that can be put off; perhaps we all know deep down that we are immortal and that sooner or later all men will do and know all things.

from "Funes the Memorious"
in Labyrinths

Library of Borges: Vol. 7

Deeds which populate the dimensions of space and which reach their end when someone dies may cause us wonderment, but one thing, or an infinite number of things, dies in every final agony, unless there is a universal memory as the theosophists have conjectured. In time there was a day that extinguished the last eyes to see Christ; the battle of Junin and the love of Helen died with the death of a man. What will die with me when I die, what pathetic or fragile form will the world lose? The voice of Macedonio Fernandez, the image of a red horse in the vacant lot at Serrano and Charcas, a bar of sulphur in the drawer of a mahogany desk?

from "The Witness"
in Labyrinths

Library of Borges: Vol. 6

Why does it disturb us that the map be included in the map and the thousand and one nights in the book of the Thousand and One Nights? Why does it disturb us that Don Quixote be a reader of the Quixote and Hamlet a spectator of Hamlet? I believe I have found the reason: these inversions suggest that if the characters of a fictional work can be readers or spectators, we, its readers or spectators, can be fictitious. In 1833, Carlyle observed that the history of the universe is an infinite sacred book that all men write and read and try to understand, and in which they are also written.

from "Partial Magic in the Quixote"
in Labyrinths

Library of Borges: Vol. 5

Time is the substance I am made of. Time is a river that sweeps me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger which destroys me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire which consumes me, but I am the fire. The world, unfortunately, is real; I, unfortunately, am Borges.

from "A New Refutation of Time"
in Labyrinths

Mastodon-ticipation: [Exhibit A for Awesome]

"There is a paraplegic and the only way that he can go anywhere is if he astral travels. He goes out of his body, into outer space and a bit like Icarus, he goes too close to the sun, burning off the golden umbilical cord that is attached to his solar plexus. So he is in outer space and he is lost, he gets sucked into a wormhole, he ends up in the spirit realm and he talks to spirits telling them that he is not really dead. So they send him to the Russian cult, they use him in a divination and they find out his problem. They decide they are going to help him. They put his soul inside Rasputin's body. Rasputin goes to usurp the czar and he is murdered. The two souls fly out of Rasputin's body through the crack in the sky(e) and Rasputin is the wise man that is trying to lead the child home to his body because his parents have discovered him by now and think that he is dead. Rasputin needs to get him back into his body before it's too late. But they end up running into the Devil along the way and the Devil tries to steal their souls and bring them down…there are some obstacles along the way."

Mastodon drummer Brann Dailor describing the geeky-awesome concept behind their upcoming album, sure-to-be-prog-metal-opus, Crack the Skye

Library of Borges: Vol. 4

A man sets himself the task of depicting the world. Year after year, he fills a space with images of provinces, kingdoms, mountains, bays, ships, islands, fishes, rooms, instruments, stars, horses, and people. Just before he dies, he discovers that out of this patient labyrinth of lines emerge the features of his own face.

From "Afterword"
in The Maker