Fluxblog #284: Recent Indie Rock Playlist | Prince • Logic1000 • Thanya Iyer • Oceanator
This week's playlist is I Can Be This Sad With Anyone: Indie Rock 2015-2019, an anthology of indie from the recent past, which happens to be overwhelmingly dominated by bands with female or nonbinary singers. Here's the Spotify version and here's the Apple version.
As a bonus, I made a playlist with two songs each from every album on Rolling Stone's new 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list that is available on streaming services. I voted in the polling for this list, mainly just trying to push 80s/90s Gen X artists ahead a bit, and to some extent that seemed to help though as I predicted the tastes of Boomers and Millennials really crowd that cohort out. Here's the Spotify version and here's the Apple version.
September 29th, 2020 1:10pm
Juggling Hearts In A Three Ring Circus
Prince “Forever In My Life” (Live in Utrecht, 1987)
The version of “Forever In My Life” we’ve known for decades is one of Prince’s greatest minimalist productions – a gorgeous soul ballad of devotion and vulnerability backed mainly by the crisp, electronic clatter of a drum machine. There’s vocal overdubs, but it’s all his voice responding to himself, emphasizing the sense that he’s totally lost in his thoughts while contemplating his love for someone else. There’s a bit of acoustic guitar at the end, which is a tonal shift that suggests arriving at a peaceful emotional grounding. It’s a brilliant and evocative arrangement, and now with the alternate versions of the song featured on the new expanded reissue of Sign O the Times, we know it’s the work of thoughtful revision.
The studio outtake version included on the fifth disc has a drastically different character with its emphasis on a strummed acoustic guitar groove and a generally warmer tone falling somewhere between country rock and classic soul. It’s a far more straightforward piece of music and works very well on its terms – it’s not hard to imagine this one becoming a minor hit if it had been released in this form instead as it’s a very radio-friendly mix. But knowing where he went with it, it’s easy to hear what he thought was missing: It’s a little too normal, and not really getting close to the raw and candid emotional place he got through revision and cutting out so much clutter. This version is gorgeous and says the same thing, but it doesn’t quite look you in the eyes like the eventual album mix.
The more stunning alternate version was recorded live on stage after the album was released. The Utrecht recording splits the difference between the two extremes, centering the song on the mechanical beat but playing the groove on an acoustic guitar with a bluesy flair. Prince reorients the song towards blues and gospel, integrating groups of male and female backup singers but calling out through the performance when to silence parts of the band like he’s leading a band the way he’d move sliders and twist knobs on a mixing board. The live version is long but very dynamic and engaging, particularly as it moves along and he starts working the audience as part of the arrangement. The recording is actually too crystal clear in capturing the musicians on stage to include much audience noise, but it’s just enough to get a sense of what’s happening.
Buy it from Amazon.
September 30th, 2020
We Can’t Stand One Another
Logic1000 “Perfume”
“Perfume” is essentially a radical dance remix of an R&B song from 20 years ago – “Separated,” a Top 40 hit for Avant from his debut album My Thoughts. Logic1000 kept Avant’s vocal track intact but otherwise removed every trace of the song’s ultra-sleek late ’90s/early ’90s R&B aesthetics, trading that track’s sweet sentimentality for a more minimalist and up-tempo track that feels far more raw and urgent. There’s a real magic to the pacing here, particularly as the verses lock into a tense rhythmic holding pattern before layering in fast beats for the chorus and bridges. This mix provides a catharsis that simply doesn’t come in the original version of the song, which just sort of drifts along in a melancholy haze without resolution. The melody and feeling of this song feels unlocked in this form – it goes deeper into its sadness, but also gets the chance to reach some ecstatic heights.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
October 1st, 2020
So I Let It Go
Thanya Iyer “Bring Back That Which Is Kind to You”
Thanya Iyer’s music is gentle and introspective, navigating difficult emotions and complicated relationships with a generous and forgiving spirit. “Bring Back That Which is Kind to You,” the jazzy centerpiece of her album Kind, is an extremely soothing piece of music that allows for sounds that indicate tension and anxiety to exist in harmony with musical elements that convey serenity and warmth. This is most apparent in the melodic parts that float into the arrangement after she finishes singing the first verse – I think it’s woodwinds and piano, but the pitch is bent and distorted just enough to make them feel a bit alien. The tonality is a little bit annoying and a little bit magical, and I think the way your ear gets used to it and starts to hear it as a fully beautiful sound is part of the point of this song. It’s letting go of a sense of order and expectation, and finding beauty and grace where it’s not entirely obvious.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
October 2nd, 2020 2:33pm
Digging Around Between The Lines
Oceanator “Goodbye, Goodnight”
“Goodbye, Goodnight” opens with a plodding, heavy riff straight out of the grunge era but as the song slides into its chorus it finds a bit more grace. I like the way this form works with the lyrics – Elise Okusami’s verses are flustered in dealing with someone reading too much into her behavior, but when she shifts gears she’s casually dismissing them with the title phrase. You feel the weight lift off her back, and even if the conventions of pop songwriting dictate that she retrace the verse and chorus a second time the backsliding feels natural and the instrumental at the end hits like the proper catharsis.
Buy it from Bandcamp.