I did same new music gambling recently and hit the jackpot a
few times. Here are a few of the big winners:
Rangers – Pan Am Stories
One of my favorite hipster bloggers wrote that this
sprawling double LP “evokes something one would expect to hear if Stephen
Malkmus led Pink Floyd, fetishized Chic instead of The Fall, and invited Curt
Kirkwood to tag along on tour.” Honestly, I can’t hear a preponderance of any
of those referenced artists on this album, but that doesn’t mean the blogger
wasn’t correct. Pan Am Stories sounds
oddly familiar throughout, eerily similar to dozens of different musicians and
genres that I can’t quite put my finger on, and, as a result, it’s unlike
anything I’ve ever heard. The vocals are somewhat low and flat, like a
posturing new wave band from the early 80s (think: “Don’t you want me baby.
Don’t you want me, ohhh-oh”) that’s been souped-up with a healthy dose of
echoes. Comprised entirely of drums, bass, electric guitar, a bit of low-end
synth and an array of effects pedals, the rangy songs here are simultaneously
melodic and droning, stimulating and trance-inducing, spritely and dark, bright
and brooding, punk and hippy. Which is utterly contradictory and absurd, I
know, but it’s true, and on this album it works. I’ll describe it this way: I
like to play it late in the evening after I’ve dimmed all the lights except for
the one I bought in Mexico that is made out of a gourd with tiny holes drilled
into it in the shapes of flowers through which light streams and casts glowing
flower shapes on the wall that seem to breathe and shift colors in my
increasing mellowed-outedness, like homemade nebulous orbs at the edge of my
universe. It’s that kind of record.
Quilt – Quilt
The full-length debut from this Boston band has an
undeniable “be sure to wear some flowers in your hair” 60s vibe, due mainly to
the boy-girl vocal harmonies that soar through all ten songs, calling to mind
the Mamas and Papas or It’s A Beautiful Day or Jesus Christ Superstar, with a few turns here and there into more
artsy East Coast territory a la Nico
or Pearls Before Swine. The tunes have a lot of that 60s folk-pop structure,
too—upbeat melodies woven with jangly strands of lightly amplified guitars and
a bit of tambourine thrown in here and there. But it’s also unmistakably new.
Despite all the peace and love cheeriness, there’s a brooding, droning quality
that lurks just below the surface and exposes Quilt as a product of the
contemporary underground, especially on side two, where the song structures
start to mutate into more unusual configurations. Some of the songs are slowed
and stretched nearly to the point of being ambient or gothic, while others are
quicker and shorter, fast and edgy enough to make a crowd black-clad
Brooklynites start bobbing their heads. What I love about this album, though,
is all the weird little psychedelic interludes they mix into the tunes. A song
will be bopping right a long when a spaceship sound will come swooping in to
subsume the melody and deliver the song to the chorus, or the song will break
down all together into clouds of spacey-ness. Very groovy.
Wet Hair – In Vogue Spirit
Remember the Dieter character Mike Myers played on Saturday Night Live? Dieter was a
disaffected German artist talk show host who would tell his guests “"your
story has become tiresome," exclaim "liebe mein
affe-monkey!" and jump up and
dance to spazzed out synth music. I think Dieter would love Wet Hair. Their
music is very synth heavy and artsy almost to the point of pretentiousness. The
vocals are similarly European sounding and extremely weird, kind of a cross
between a flat 80s new wave voice and punk and an Eastern European psychopath.
Honestly, I wasn’t sure at first whether I even liked this album because the
“singing” seemed so bad on the first few listens, and the overlapping patterns
of synth sound seemed so overdone and, like I said, pretentious. But the music
is continually shifting into new territories, seamlessly switching from one
song to the next, so just when I would think I couldn’t stand it any more it
would become borderline good or, at very least, interesting, so I’d stick with
it. I’d get distracted and start surfing around on my laptop or flipping
through a book when the music would suddenly swell into a cacophony of
mesmerizing freakiness that completely commanded my attention. Then the record
would end I’d be wondering what the fuck just happened, and I’d put it on again
to see what I missed. By and by, the album opened up to me, to the point where
it’s now a strong contender for my album of the year. For one, it’s unlike any
album I’ve ever heard in my life. Second, once you crack its code, so to speak,
it transports you to an exquisitely otherworldly place, which is, in my way of
looking at things, the ultimate goal of psychedelic music. And lastly, the
vocals aren’t really that bad after you’ve listened a few dozen times and kind
of get used to them. You have to put on your punk ears. If you come at the
singing from that angle, the vocals actually sound quite lovely, and for the
right weird-music-minded person, it’ll became one of those records you keep
coming back to and hearing something new.
1 comment:
The sound from the video reminds me of a happier joy division.
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