It’s
2005: the Internet is skyrocketing, New Orleans is underwater, and the War On
Terror is in full swing. America the Cultured is in a cultural ditch: Destiny’s
Child is breaking up, Flavor Of Love is in pre-production, and in his
first televised bed-shitting, Kanye alleges that the POTUS is a racist. On the
other side of the pop spectrum, Rock’n’Roll has gone full-on Sad-Boi™ and seems
to have completely sold itself to corporate media. Fall Out Boy and Panic! At
The Disco are being crammed down the throat of nearly every emotional pre-teen and
baggy-eyed Clear Channel jockey out there, driving them both to suicide. Between looming threats of another 9/11 and
another forced serving of “I CHIME IN,” it was a scary time to be a
young American – yet this national state of paranoia could never be enough to faze socially awkward
college kids with dial-up connections. A smart, college-educated Brooklyn
hipster like Alec Ounsworth, for example, is far too busy playing and promoting
his band’s debut, chock full of weird guitar songs about young love and “…Young
Blood” to Manhattan crowds that are growing larger and more prestigious by the
night. (Imagine singing, “You look like David Bowie”, directly to the David Bowie....)
Originally
released in June 2005, the self-titled debut from Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
sounds as chameleonic as it does disciplined, and its distinctly “indie” lore
remains intact to this day. Following exceptionally positive online buzz and
culminating with a glowing review from an increasingly influential webzine
called Pitchfork Media, demand for the album became so large that the
band had to reprint and reissue the disc altogether, selling over 40,000 copies
on their own by the end of September. They signed a deal with UK indie
Wichita Records in October only as a means to get the physical disc across the
pond. What started as a way for Ounsworth to channel his love of quirky
70’s/80’s new wave and 90’s alternative morphed into one of the Internet’s
first overwhelming musical sensations – something reveled by both no-name
bloggers and heavy-hitting industry titans (like Bowie and David Byrne who were
both spotted at the band’s Manhattan shows).
In
other words, freedom from the influence of label heads and industry execs
allowed CYHSY total creative freedom, and this quality is immediately evident
to the listener. The album’s off-kilter, unorthodox feel can be heard straight
away in the eponymous opening track. On “Clap Your Hands!” a carnival Wurlitzer
lays the red-paisley carpet for Ounsworth, the madcap master of ceremonies
whose lyrics throughout the album are as nonsensical ("betray white water,
delay dark forms") as they are woke ("Should
I trust all the rust that's on TV/I
guess with some distaste I disagree").
The record’s lyrical pinnacle is born on the powerful, Dylan-esque “Details
Of The War”; here Ounsworth’s warbled “mezzo-tenor” croons “Nakedness, a flying lesson/Tattered dress, sunburned
chest/You will pay for your excessive charm.”
After a point,
it becomes futile to trace the sonic influence of CYHSY, as any two
record connoisseurs will ultimately come up with different sources. While
Ounsworth’s vocals do draw obvious comparisons to Byrne, and nods to Berlin-era
Bowie are scattered throughout the otherwise sparse arrangements, the record
also qualifies as an indie/alternative funhouse. Perhaps the most agreeable
influence is that of Frank Black, whose Pixie-dust is sprinkled on the heavier,
guitar-oriented tracks (“Let The Cool Goddess Rust Away,” “In This Home On
Ice”), although another listener could easily make an argument for Pavement, or
even Yo La Tengo at their loudest. The sonic sources become more ambiguous as
the group channels everything from Stereolab (the euphoric “Is This Love”) to
the Cure (the goth-pop of “Over And Over Again”), and utilized everything from
toy pianos (“Sunshine And Clouds”) to digital Theremins (“Heavy Metal”). The
album’s most ear-catching sound is the 8-bit synth patch heard on its only
single, “By The Skin Of My Yellow Country Teeth,” which sounds like the
soundtrack to your favorite old Game Boy game.
In
this day and age, where every self-righteous “gifted” millennial is pirating
Ableton on uTorrent and publicly claiming they’re about to produce the next channel ORANGE, the grassroots creation
of CYHSY seems almost too good to be
true. Although M.I.A. had blown up MySpace in the year prior, and the Go! Team
had received serious praise from mp3 blogs, there had yet to be an unsigned act that tapped into musical
virality. Even Merge, a renowned indie, was driving the seismic impact of the
Arcade Fire. To that effect, CYHSY is one of the first and most lasting
testaments to the power of post-millennium DIY culture; its recording and
release chronicle a young band’s journey from virtually unknown local favorites
to international sensation in the matter of weeks. It’s not quite Beatlemania,
but the thing that hooked people onto CYHSY – what set them apart from the pack
– was their status as a totally organic, bare-bones guitar band that built their sound, image, and
promotional material all on their own apart from any major external force. Additionally,
the one force that did catapult this
group into the spotlight from obscurity was an exponentially budding music
blogosphere that had not yet been swayed by money and corporate interests.
The
main lyrical theme of the album – the disillusionment of intelligent youth,
poor and heartbroken, in a superficially materialistic Western society that
lives in constant fear of mass destruction – is something that is transcendent
in the best of all Western pop music, yet Ounsworth’s freewheeling energy and
epileptic delivery make these age-old themes seem urgent and uniquely
contemporary. Still drunk off the mercurial splash that was Funeral, journalists
and A&R men everywhere were desperately looking for an answer to the Arcade
Fire, and (if you asked Bowie/Byrne) Clap Your Hands Say Yeah were it. In sound,
structure, and style, this is as indie as it gets.
- Ethan Griggs
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