Fluxblog #305: Aerial East • Steady Sun • Of Montreal • Sibille Attar
Plus a playlist celebrating 19 years of Fluxblog and a look back on the indie music of 2011
This week’s episode of Fluxpod features AV Club writer Tatiana Tenreyro. We talk about all the songs on a playlist of indie songs from 2011 that she made, including artists such as M83, Fleet Foxes, Florence and the Machine, Girls, The Black Keys, The Arctic Monkeys, Lana Del Rey, Vivian Girls, Cold War Kids, Panda Bear and The Horrors. You can find this stroll down indie memory lane on all the podcast platforms and the Fluxblog Patreon.
This week marks the 19th anniversary of Fluxblog, so this week’s playlist Lost ‘00s: Fluxblog Deep Cuts 2008-2010, a flashback to mostly quite obscure songs from the middle of the run. This is an interesting one for me to listen to – I love all the songs, but they remind me of a period of my life I don’t particularly like to remember.
[Spotify / Apple Music]
I’ve been posting a lot to my Instagram project 20thCenturyRocks over the past week, a direct result of acquiring a lot of music magazines from the mid ‘80s through the early ‘90s. Here’s a little taste of what I’ve put up recently…
Here’s this week’s regular posts…
February 16th, 2021
Like You Did
Aerial East “Angry Man”
The lyrics of “Angry Man” lay out an emotional dilemma in plain, direct language – knowing you have to move on from a relationship with a negative and angry person who doesn’t treat you well, but wishing you didn’t have to because you do love them and you’re not ready to put in the time and energy necessarily for someone else to truly know you well. Aerial East sings all of this as though she’s addressing her ex but it comes across like a letter never sent, things she has to say in the clearest words possible in order to process these complicated feelings. Her voice is sweet but raw as she sings these words to a melody so gorgeous that it hardly matters she doesn’t break away from it for a chorus or bridge. The song just builds on the theme with a simple beat that has the ambiance of classic Mazzy Star, some lovely understated lead guitar and piano flourishes, and backing vocals that seem to reinforce her as she finds the strength to commit to the decision to move on.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
February 16th, 2021
Whistle For Free
Steady Sun “Truth Is A Needle”
“Truth Is A Needle” feels slow, and not just in a musical sense. It sounds like experiencing time in slow motion and being only half-aware of it, but extremely attuned to the details that would ordinarily fly by. It’s a very stoned piece of music, psychedelic in the most literal way. The vocal melody is the most immediately appealing aspect of the song but the coolest part is the way the drums seem to drop you off to new levels through the piece. It feels like a drop, but not quite a descent – if anything, the gravitational pull seems to get weaker as you move through it.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
February 18th, 2021
A Freak Of Sophistication
Of Montreal “Fingerless Gloves”
“Fingerless Gloves” sounds restless and chaotic, with Kevin Barnes cycling through three different aesthetics – warped hyperpop bounce, macho riff rock, classic fey Of Montreal synthpop – within just the first 30 seconds. It holds together through sheer force of will and a gleeful “fuck it” playfulness, and it makes you feel like you’ve been zapped into the brain of someone who thinks and feels much faster than you do. In terms of the Of Montreal catalog it’s pretty similar to the bonkers energy of Skeletal Lamping, but there’s a different charge to it – less frazzled, more at peace with an identity full of apparent contradictions. There are songs in which ping-ponging through genres and tones is an expression of an unstable state of mind but “Fingerless Gloves” sounds more settled in a sense of identity, and like a statement of pride in being fractured and strange. I mean, check out how triumphant Barnes sounds at the climax, screaming “I FEEL SO SAFE WITH YOU TRASH!!!!” over super-charged video game thrash metal. That’s some maniac joy right there.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
February 19th, 2021
Another Manic Defense
Sibille Attar “Hurt Me”
“Hurt Me” is built on the sort of pop breakbeat that’s very hard to come by these days – a sound very rooted in the 90s that as far as I can tell doesn’t seem to get fetishized as much as other aesthetics from the era. The drums evoke a gigantic scale and a vaguely triumphant mood that carries over to the lyrics, in which Sibille Attar declares that someone’s outbursts and passive-aggression can’t hurt her anymore. The use of strings as a counterpoint to the breakbeat – not to mention the lyrical tone – remind me a lot of ‘90s Björk but Attar leans more psychedelic in her aesthetics. Her vocal instincts seem more rooted in rock, particularly the way she seems to push against the groove on the verses.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
LINKS LINKS LINKS LINKS
• Here’s a tour of veteran music journalist Lisa Robinson’s apartment, which is full of little stories from her long career.
• Shallow Rewards has been reissuing their excellent series of podcast episodes going deep into the context of each of The Cure’s early records. If you’re even slightly curious about The Cure, I promise these will be interesting and rewarding.
• Suckin’ on a chili dog, suckin’ on a chili dog.