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Reviews: #31: Fiona Apple, When the Pawn... #32: Fiona Apple, Extraordinary Machine #33: The Arcade Fire, Funeral #33a: The Arcade Fire, Black Mirror #34: luigi archetti & bo wiget, low tide digitals #35: Louis Armstrong, Jeepers Creepers #36: Autechre, Amber #37: Autechre, tri repetae++ #38: Autechre, Chiastic Slide #39: Autechre, ep7 #40: Autechre, confield #31:
Fiona Apple, "When the Pawn..." 1) On the Bound It's hard to say exactly why When the Pawn...[1] is such a marked improvement over Tidal. Every facet of her music seems to have gotten just a bit better, enriching the whole. There's definitely an element of trip-hop, adding a compelling swagger to her sense of rhythm; and she's done a bit more with shifting quickly from one tempo to another. Her harmonies continue to be really quite cool and sophisticated, and she's able to use her voice to better advantage, highlighting her strengths as a singer. Her songs feature more variation in tempo and arrangement. Even her lyrics seem tighter and more complex, and her music is bit less prone to pretending that her clichés are profound, as occasionally happened on Tidal. The highlights of the album are "A Mistake", with a strutting rhythm accompanying a song that seems to modulate relentlessly, and "Fast As You Can", whose constant metric modulation and polyrhythms are lots of fun, nearly exhilirating. "On the Bound" is a great start to the CD, a muscular, pounding song, and "Limp" features a simple piano refrain that's pleasingly harmonically disorienting. It's not perfect; after "Fast As You
Can", the last three songs sound somewhat ordinary. But When the Pawn...[1] is a damn sight
better than her already decent debut, with across-the-board improvement
in every aspect of her game. Even so, it feels like there's even
farther that she can take her music, and really going all the way with
her experiments in harmony and rhythm. (1) When The Pawn Hits The Conflicts He Thinks Like A King What He Knows Throws The Blows When He Goes To The Fight And He'll Win The Whole Thing Fore He Enters The Ring There's No Body To Batter When Your Mind is Your Might So When You Go Solo. You Hold Your Own Hand And Remember That Depth Is The Greatest Of Heights And If You Know Where You Stand. Then You'll Know Where To Land And If You Fall It Won't Matter, Cuz You Know That You're Right. #32:
Fiona Apple, "extraordinary machine" 1) extraordinary machine It's hard to say exactly why extraordinary machine is such a disappointment after When the Pawn...[1/previous post]. But somehow, everything on the album seems to work at cross-purposes, the aural equivalent of trying to force the north poles of two magnets together. My understanding is that the album had a tumultuous birth, with a great deal of infighting between Apple, her producers, and Sony BMG -- and it seems to show in an album that never icoheres, seeming disjointed both within and between songs, that isn't at all sure what it wants to accomplish. Apple regresses to writing vocal parts that expose her weaknesses rather than its strengths. She tries to experiment further with lots of chromaticism in her music but doesn't have enough command to make it work -- so instead of sounding cool and profound as only highly chromatic music can, it ends up sounding isolated and solipsistic as only highly chromatic music can. The album isn't a total loss; "get him
back" is a great, relentless song that makes excellent and powerful use
of constant dissonance. And "extraordinary machine" is a cute and fun
throwback to '40s- and '50s-era musicals. But that's about it, sadly.[1] (1) Incidentally, there's an interesting progression of abstraction and emotional distance in her CD art; Tidal shows a close-up of her face, When the Pawn... has another closeup that's obscured by text and a red paper filter, and extraordinary machine's cover shows an entirely abstract image that wouldn't look out of place on an album of organic electronica. #33:
The Arcade Fire, "Funeral" 1) Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels) The Arcade Fire is a six-person band whose sound is based strongly on late '50s/early '60s rock 'n' roll, though that doesn't define them; their songs are far richer in their harmonies and arrangements -- and they sometimes remind me of New Order circa 1983-6, though I can't articulate exactly why. Funeral is their debut album, and it's absolutely gorgeous. Though their music seems relatively straightforward and clear on the surface, there's a great deal of craft to even the simplest guitar hook. One of their most appealing traits that their sophistication never becomes pretentious; their sound has a depth and grandness without being turgid or weighty. Funeral seems to be about remembering and reliving what it was like to be a teenager: the joy and heartbreak of growing up, love/hate relationships with friends and family, the excitement and pain of becoming an adult. The best songs soar with bittersweet remembrance of the optimism and struggle of youth and...somehow...a sense of kindness and love for the people we were, as well along a touch of the self-deprecating humor with which we sometimes look back on our younger selves. My favorites are the first four, and "Rebellion (Lies)"; those in between are good, but those in particular are just plain transcendent. I adore this CD. I can't wait for their
next release, which should be out in a month or two. (1) If you think I'm being pedantic now as regards non-English lettering, just you wait until I hit the Scandinavians in my collection. The Alt-key codes will fly fast and furious. #33:
The Arcade Fire, "Black Mirror" #34:
luigi archetti & bo wiget, "low tide digitals" 1) stück 1 luigi archetti and bo wiget are laptop artists who also play guitar and viola. low tide digitals is an album of dark, somber landscapes, built out of the sounds of their instruments (natural and processed) and what I believe are purely electronically generated noises. I define "landscape piece" as a slow, pensive work in which there is a constant but barely audible rumble or drone, out of which musical gestures emerge and then fade away. These are often (or might as well be called) atonal, intended as a kind of succession of "nows" and isolated moments rather than a self-similar whole. Such pieces can be very effective at inspiring a kind of simultaneous sense of meditation and wonder. However, because this kind of work deliberately lacks a clearly audible structure, it can easily sound like aimless wankery, a really abstract cannabis-rock jam. archetti and wiget, unfortunately, are not successful. The tracks on this album seem intended to be haunting, hypnotic pieces, with the occasional burst of surprise and wonder sprinkled into each track, but they instead just sound slow, formless, and random. Why do I still own this album? Because the only worthwhile track, "stück 5", is absolutely stunning. A bouncy but melancholy ostinato figure on the viola emerges out of a windy landscape, and provides the foundation for some lovely, simple guitar melodies; within these two instruments are interspersed the occasional electronic noises which sound just perfect, somehow. I imagine driving through the desert at night during a full moon, ticking off the dashed lines of the divider, and noticing the occasional shadow pass by, with only a vague idea of what it was. #35:
Louis Armstrong, "Jeepers Creepers" 1) When The Saints Go Marching In I've always been vaguely embarrassed by the fact that I've never been able to really get into jazz[1] -- like being a fantasy writer who's never read The Lord of the Rings. I have a few CDs of this and that, but in general it's never strongly appealed to me. Granted, there are many different kinds, so it would be unfair to dismiss the genre as a whole...but for the most part the examples I have experienced haven't really grabbed me. That's not entirely true. I've seen some really compelling live sets, and it's an incredibly exciting thing to know that in large part, the music is being made up on the spot -- the danger of improvisation is incredibly important, I think, to the energy and pull of jazz. And so recorded performances, which lack that cachet, are perhaps not the best medium for experiencing it. I suppose the question I need to answer first is how I would define "jazz". Unfortunately, I don't think I can -- even with my limited knowledge I realize that it's a large enough category that any attempt at definition will be beset by a wealth of counterexamples. The only statement I feel I can confidently make is that improvisation with and as part of a group of musicians is the sine qua non of jazz, communication through music; everything else is negotiable. The thing is, not all improvisation is "jazz". I guess the only thing I can say is that I know it when I see it. Not very satisfying. After having said all this, I note that I don't mentally classify these Louis Armstrong songs as jazz, but as pop that happens to be from the '30s and '40s. They lack what I find (and perhaps am imagining as) some of the less appealing attitudes of jazz culture: a sense of self-aware coolness and a standoffish sophistication, like a fancy party you're not invited to[2]. Instead, the songs on Jeepers Creepers sound like a bunch of guys who love making music, and there's something infectious about that joy. Anyway, I can't imagine you don't at least have some idea of who Louis Armstrong is. A jazz trumpeter and singer, his most distinctive characteristic for most is his friendly, gravelly voice, which from my perspective I kind of think of as a cherubic Tom Waits[3]. I really like listening to Armstrong sing; his voice just makes me happy. I realize that his contribution to jazz is much greater than that, but I have no understanding of the impact of his horn playing, or the other aspects of his musicianship and writing[4]. Jeepers Creepers is a collection of recordings culled from live performances, and it's actually kind of weird. There are tracks that are seem cut off arbitrarily and awkwardly, as if the editors of the CD thought to themselves, "Well, we have to put a performance of 'Jeepers Creepers' on this album. Let's splice out 2 minutes from this other recording we happen to have." In the end, though, it's hard to say
much specific about this album. I enjoy listening to it, but it's not
something I go back to often. But it certainly does make me happy to
hear, which is plenty. (1) Though jazz harmony is a big influence on my own musical language. (2) This is someting that begins to be part of jazz in the '60s, I think. (3) Perhaps one can think of Tom Waits's singing as what would happen if you dragged Louis Armstrong's voice through a grain thresher. (4) Perhaps this is tied in with the fact that authorship seems to be a very nebulous concept in the jazz world, and proper attribution is kind of tricky. Enough liberties are taken with tunes that it's difficult to say who "wrote" the music being "performed" -- and the ambiguity of that is something I'm not often willing to deal with. #36:
Autechre, "Amber" 1) Foil I like to make a distinction between techno and electronica, though the border between them is pretty fuzzy. I'd probably define electronica as loop-based music that develops and creates interest by altering those loops in a way that seems to come from the perspective of digital manipulation; for example, adding or subtracting bits of them, or shifting how different "cells" relate to each other temporally and dynamically. In contrast, techno tends to be more static, designed more to be danced to that listened to, heavily electronically generated, and featuring a constant, unmistakable, unavoidable 4/4 beat. Note that my definition of "electronica" can include music made by acoustic instruments. I first encountered Autechre by way of their later albums, which are dense and thorny, often abrasive, and usually rhythmically discombobulating. Amber, however, is from earlier in their career. In contrast to the music of theirs I'm more familiar with, Amber is very chill and mellow music, and closely related to what I know of Aphex Twin's ambient music; and it sits right on the edge of techno and electronica. The sounds they use are generally very soothing string pads, long drones held over electronic percussion. Sometimes said percussion is pretty normal drum machine stuff, but sometimes it's a bit more interesting and surprising, more industrial and mechanical than most techno beats. In general, Amber is nice but nondescript. It's unobtrusive and has a good sense of rhythm, but most of the tracks get pretty boring if you're focusing your attention on them. The standout track is "Glitch", which features a constant, bouncy, cute loop that doesn't quite line up with the 4/4 beat. Even though the core material never changes, its relationship to its environment around it is constantly changing, altering your perception of it; how it relates to the 4/4 beat is always shifting...and once we're used to the loop, Autechre adds a repeating sequence of harmonies that also doesn't exactly fit. It's a great track in how it builds and builds nearly imperceptibly. A few of the other tracks are really nice -- "Piezo", for example -- in how they start out with grinding, relentless percussion and end transcendently, with a quiet string sound (for example). Their later CDs, however, I find much more interesting. #37:
Autechre, "tri repetae++" Disc 1 Disc 2 garbage While listening to tri repetae++, I realized that one of my favorite things about Autechre is their barely comprehensible insectile beats, the contrast they create between the heavy thumps of a strutting (digitized) bass drum and twitchy, skittering rhythms that are just on this side of white noise -- their ability to treat rhythm like a digital fluid. I also really like how they take the stuttering motives and melodic fragments they use and explode them. Their music challenges to listener to appreciate it in a way that I find appealing. However, this album was produced before those elements really became fully incorporated into their music. I find the first disc of tri repetae++ really boring. It strikes me as flat and uninspired techno with failed aspirations at being something more interesting. Part of that may be perspective; the sounds and methods they use were probably revolutionary and groundbreaking when this album was released. But they aren't any more, and these days tri repetae++ proper comes off as pretty dull. The second disc, however, is much more compelling. Something about the tracks seems much more abstract and less beholden to formulas, and it seems like they're starting to develop the signature techniques I find myself so fond of. It's still very hit-or-miss, but "second bad vilbel"[1] and "second scepe" in particular are really cool and energetic. So we're getting somewhere, but we're
still not really anywhere, like with The Beatles' first couple of LPs.
This is music with promise, but with goals it's not quite ready to
reach for yet. Booth and Brown haven't yet broken enough rules and
boundaries to be really special -- there's still something unformed and
tentative waiting to coalesce in their compositions[2]. (1) Which I first encountered accompanied by a really cool video by Chris Cunningham on this collection. (2) Which I can say thanks to hindsight. #38:
Autechre, "Chiastic Slide" 1) Cipater A criticism often (and justly) leveled at Autechre and their colleagues is that their music sounds joyless and clinical, exercises in electronic composition. But there are times when I really need to hear something menacingly dispassionate, when I want to listen to music whose beauty partly lies in its mechanical, cold nature. And I do think their music is beautiful...though by no means is it pretty. It's an icy, distant beauty to be sure -- but there's an exquisite craft and a singularity to their compositions. Chiastic Slide is the first album of Autechre that I really enjoy. They've figured out how to set up isoryhthmic kaleidoscopes in a way that's hypnotic instead of boring. And their music is much more consistently rhythmically interesting -- there's always something just out of reach, a pattern that I can almost but not quite understand, like being caught in a storm of data[1]. I also find their use of distortion and static really compelling, and the fuzziness of their sounds helps to offset the precise nature of their mobiles. My favorite tracks are "Cipater", in which an anxious 4/4 track morphs into a relaxed, cheeky 12/8 song, and I can never quite figure out how the transition works; and "Cichli" and "Recury", which expand on "Glitch", the track I liked so much on Amber -- in both a bouncy, jagged melody repeats endlessly, but seems to transform as the environment around it slowly changes. The other tracks are more hypnotic, though all have strong, badass beats that make them worth leaving on; and they develop often enough to keep you interested. The only track I regularly skip past is "Hub", which just feels as if there's something missing, a focal point lacking. Chiastic
Slide perfectly fits a mood I don't have it very often. It's
nearly always just unpredictable enough to keep you engaged but
guessing; and there's a meditative aspect to it as well, as the
leisurely rate of change allows you to really examine and internalize
each "cell" even as it evolves, like watching two or three warped grids
slowly slide past each other. (1)It may be worth noting that I tend to enjoy art of all kinds that I feel is just past the limit of my understanding. #39:
Autechre, "ep7" EP7.1 1) Rpeg EP7.2 6) Dropp It's taken me a surprisingly long time to realize that Autechre very interested in transmutation[1]; in presenting us with one thing, and morphing it into another as subtly as possible in such a way that it's nearly impossible to pinpoint exactly when the process of change begins. They don't always succeed; sometimes the change is so subtle as to be basically nonexistent...and sometimes the transformation is just plain uninteresting. But it when it works, it's a very compelling technique, like substituting one musical meaning for another. A variant of this is juxtaposing multiple elements that are fairly different in character, and then "developing" a track by highlighting one of those elements, switching to highlighting another, etc. Again, their results vary widely; sometimes it creates a really interesting sense of flow, and sometimes it feels static and boring. Which happens is probably as much dependent on the listener's mood as the track in question. Much of ep7 is like listening to a computer with Tourette's Syndrome think -- there's an alien quality to it, as if it makes complete and total sense to a being with an entirely different sense of consciousness[2][3]. As I've said before, their music is made of dense electronic textures full of stuttering almost-melodies and twitchy, angular beats, but constructed with obsessive attention to detail. And despite the chaotic nature of their tracks, there's almost always a strong and funky sense of rhythm to hold on to.[4] ep7 is extremely hit-or-miss. There are tracks I absolutely and completely dig: "Rpeg", "Squeller", "Dropp", "Liccflii", "Pir"; some that start out great but get boring (or vice versa): "Left Blank", "Outpt", "Maphive 6.1"; and others that get tiresome real fast: "Ccec", "Zeiss Contarex", "Netlon Sentinel". My favorites: the opener, "Rpeg"[6],
which lays a really cool randomized arpeggio figure over a great beat;
and "Pir", which is particularly striking as the only track to be
actively pretty, with a lovely, delicate melody and understandable
harmonies; in the context of the heavy, challenging music which
precedes it, it feels ethereal. (1) Or at least, what interested me most about their music. (2) This is reinforced by their song titles and cover art, both of which I adore. (3) It may be worth noting that I really enjoy art that's just past confusing, on the edge of comprehensibility. (4) Incidentally, apparently some releases of ep7 had a hidden track that you could only access by rewinding[5] from 0:00 on the CD. I think that's pretty cool. Unfortunately, I hear it wasn't all that interesting. (5) Now that most media are no longer stored on magnetic tape, is the term "rewinding" still accurate and in common parlance? Will the term soon be an anachronism only some people understand the origin of, like the click-shutter sound on digital cameras? (6) For some reason, the opening tracks of Autechre albums tend to be my favorites. #40:
Autechre, "confield" 1) VI scose poise It's hard to pinpoint exactly why confield just doesn't work. Autechre's music generally walks (with varying degrees of success and failure) the line between tiresome digital wankery and arresting hypnotic complexity; this album falls squarely into the former camp. Booth and Brown's technical wizardry is always apparent in their music, but this time around it feels like the only thing carrying confield, and as a consequence the album sounds like all skeleton, no meat -- a color-by-numbers waiting to be filled in. Oddly, perhaps one of the reasons why confield is less interesting is its austerity (relative to other Autechre albums); there are fewer elements interacting in each song, and that means often the only thing to listen to is Autechre showing off its skills at manipulating rhythmic textures, which, feh. One of my favorite techniques of theirs is their juxtaposition of a thorny, epileptic rhythm against other, more serene ideas. confield has its moments; "parhelic triangle" is almost good, as dense beats part to reveal a fuzzy, shimmering sequence of chords in a way that's compelling at least for a while, and "eidetic casein" is actually pretty cool, featuring a neat cascading melody that sounds like it's made by a giant, detuned hammered dulcimer. I do love the song titles on this album. They sound like metaphysical diseases. |
