Fluxblog #264: Trip Hop Mood Map | Charli XCX | Magnetic Fields | Faye Webster | Tame Impala
I launched a new playlist this week that maps out trip hop aesthetics through all the major classics by Tricky, Portishead, Massive Attack, et al, but also trip hop experiments by artists not commonly associated with the genre, recent music that ought to be categorized as trip hop, and songs that fit the mood but mostly predate the genre. I don't include much on the more DJ-oriented Mo Wax ends of things – to me that's sort of a different thing that doesn't work with the vibe of this playlist.
May 18th, 2020
Just Like Clementines
Charli XCX “Claws”
Charli XCX’s new record, which she wrote and recorded within the past two months of quarantine, is the first album in her career that sounds fully like her doing exactly what she wants to do and playing to her strengths, and not absolutely drenched in record industry flop sweat. Without weak attempts at crossover hits or the transparent trend-chasing of the absurd number of features on her previous record, she’s free to get laser focused on her distinctive brand of sing-song melodies and taste for harsh electronic tones and yields a bunch of songs that sound like they could be actual hits rather than merely notional ones.
“Claws,” which XCX made in collaboration with the producer Dylan Brady, realizes the promise of the early PC Music phase in which accessible melodies were layered into fully digital tracks pushed to cartoonish extremes. It’s contemporary pop technique pushed to the point of abstraction, or maybe just a logical conclusion. There’s a campiness to this song, but XCX’s vocal is sweet and sincere in projecting infatuation to the point of guilelessness. The song conveys purity while sounding like a corrupted file.
Buy it from Amazon.
May 19th, 2020
Breeding Them For Clones
The Magnetic Fields “The Biggest Tits in History”
The core joke of this song is a bit of a groaner – the tits in question are birds, haha – but Stephin Merritt knows that and so the actual humor of the lyrics comes from the strange details he has to write in to reverse engineer a character’s life from the very thin premise. The craft is strong, starting with ambiguous language but by the third verse tossing in details about cloning birds for the government and intercepting drones. The song is sung by longtime Merritt foil Shirley Simms, who delivers the lines with a rock sneer that hits all the marks in getting across Merritt’s droll tone without overtly signaling “this is a joke song,” so it’s easy to imagine someone just half-listening to it and not noticing that it’s not about some extremely busty lady.
Buy it from Amazon.
May 20th, 2020
Until I Looked Out
Faye Webster “In A Good Way”
Faye Webster is good at conveying an elegant sort of melancholy romanticism in which her voice projects raw vulnerability but the music is very clean and composed. “In A Good Way” sounds low-key glamorous, like a movie star emoting convincingly while retaining all their style and dignity. As with all of Webster’s songs, the lyrics are direct and specific, with her expressing her gratitude to a partner who’s made her feel open to love and joy after feeling cold and cynical about the prospect. Of course, this happiness is overwhelming, and bleeds over into sadness – “you make wanna cry…in a good way.” The chorus is gentle and sweet, and hits the perfect mark between surprise and appreciation.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
May 22nd, 2020
One Day On A Whim
Tame Impala “One More Year”
“One More Year” has a deep resonance with me, so deep that it makes me realize that it’s actually sort of rare that I fully identify with the words of songs in a way that reflects my actual lived experience. Kevin Parker is essentially singing in this song about the cost of committing oneself to a project that becomes a vocation that becomes the center of your existence. He sings the song with some ambivalence about throwing himself so fully into his life’s work, noting that it’s all he’s ever wanted but acknowledging that it hasn’t given him space to experience much else. He’s noticing how many possibilities are being closed off, and while he’s not yearning for anything in particular he still feels some nagging sense of FOMO. “I know we promised we’d be doing this until we die,” he sings, “and now I fear we might.”
But despite the anxieties expressed in the lyrics, “One More Year” feels quite relaxed and soothing in its steady groove and layers of wavy synths. It sounds like it’s coming from outside of time somehow, with Parker looking at his feelings from a perspective that takes them seriously but understands how little it all matters as time continues to pass. The big cathartic epiphany of the song is just Parker deciding to let the worry rest and give himself another year. Another year to procrastinate, another year to do the work, another year to avoid confronting his fears, another year to experience life and see where it all goes. When it comes down to it, “one more year” is the best we can hope for. Just being alive can be enough.
This song feels so right for this year, in which everything feels uncertain and possibilities are closed off and time seems to move differently. There’s one particular line – “we’re on a roller coaster stuck on its loop-de-loop” – that feels like a pretty good metaphor for how the world feels in the spring of 2020. It’s like we’re all just dangling in suspense indefinitely, and everyone trapped in this precarious situation interprets with varying levels of panic and boredom depending on their mindset. Some people, and by “some people” I mean me a little bit, might even feel a thrill at the novelty of it all and the challenge of figuring out how to make the best of it.
Buy it from Amazon.