Fluxblog #339: Sleigh Bells | Melkbelly • Silas Short • Sundur • Common Saints
Plus a playlist of slick high-tech rock of the early 80s
This week’s playlist is Push Radio Full Treble, a selection of slick high-tech mainstream rock from the early to mid 1980s featuring songs from ZZ Top, Van Halen, David Bowie, Stevie Nicks, The Cars, Dire Straits, Duran Duran, and more. This is a very cocaine Camaro type of energy. [Spotify | Apple Music]
The regular free Fluxpod show is back this week with a nice long interview with Derek Miller of Sleigh Bells. Derek and I talk about the early connection between Sleigh Bells and Fluxblog, the excellent new album Texis, surfing, INXS, Korn, Radiohead, Tyler the Creator, his collaboration with M.I.A., the benefits of moving from Brooklyn to the Hudson Valley, and a lot more. You can find the episode on all of the podcast platforms, and smash that follow button because next week’s episode features Clinic.
Also, over on the Fluxpod Patreon the POPTOBER miniseries continues this weekend with an episode in which Chris Conroy and I go deep on the first six songs on U2’s maligned and misunderstood 1997 album Pop.
A Vast Expanse Of Land
Melkbelly “Prehistoric Worm”
“Prehistoric Worm” plays on the familiar dynamics of commercial ‘90s alt-rock but Melkbelly twist and tilt everything just enough to make the rumbling bass and feedback hums feel a bit queasy and imbalanced. Miranda Winters’ vocal melody – which she seems to sing through a grin like Kim Deal – is the most immediate pleasing element of the song but her words are vaguely sinister: “A vast expanse of land demands that we become more depressed.” Her lyrics on the chorus are just as enigmatic, and the sense that it’s hard to parse context or perspective here feels somewhat upsetting, like she’s seeing and understanding something we can’t and her hidden knowledge isn’t pleasant.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
Color Code Prescription
Silas Short “Drawing”
“Drawing” feels rich and luxurious as well as light and minimal, a trick pulled off largely because Silas Short has excellent instincts for handling negative space. I imagine the core arrangement – bass, guitar, drums, keyboards so sparingly used they’re nearly subliminal – as a loose circular frame around his voice and all the empty air around it. There’s a lot going on in the song but it all just sort of floats by, with parts coming into crisper focus here and there but never distracting from the overall feel and composition. Short sounds like he’s internalized a lot of D’Angelo’s best elements as a musician without necessarily trying to sound like him as a singer, so you get something that feels both very familiar and distinctive as his high and delicate voice moves towards melodic and rhythmic turns that owe more to the cadences of modern rappers like Lil Uzi Vert and Playboi Carti.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
None Of It Matters Anyway
Sundur “My Dear”
“My Dear” opens Sundur’s excellent debut album full of music that exists largely in the spectrum of trip-hop with a jazzy, lightly psychedelic lullaby that sounds like Sarah Vaughan by way of Broadcast. The more conventional trip-hop and stoned R&B numbers on the record are quite good but this more delicate and jazz-oriented music is where Sundur thrive – producer DJ Platurn gets to use a more distinctive palette, and singer Savannah Lancaster can show off her range as well as her restraint. Her performance here is precise and controlled but also nakedly emotional as she sings about embracing apathy in a voice that makes it clear that she’s just too passionate and engaged to allow herself any kind of ignorant bliss. The music certainly does its best to lull you into a relaxed state though, particularly that lovely repeating keyboard motif that sounds like it’s made of moonlight.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
Play With Your Pretty Mind
Common Saints “Fastlane”
The Eagles’ “Life in the Fast Lane” presents its characters as vapid horny assholes without any regard for anything besides satisfying their base urges, a lot of what makes the song work is that Don Henley sounds equally repulsed and impressed by them. Whereas that song examines this life from the outside, Common Saints’ “Fastlane” approaches it by getting into the mind of a self-destructive rogue and finding conflict and confusion where Henley would presume to find nothing but a void. “Fastlane” works within the template of Tame Impala-esque modern psychedelia but dials up the drama level so the whole song sounds like a car speeding through a cosmic tunnel towards some unseen but inevitable brick wall. And as the song zooms forwards, the lyrics pull deeper inward – down through despair, seeking an escape through zen self-acceptance.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
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• Blackbird Spyplane has a delightful interview with Michael Stipe this week in which the former R.E.M. singer talks all about his love of designer clothes and Bernie Sanders, getting hit on by Andy Warhol, and his old Walkman.
• Emily Yahr wrote about the past year as a crossroads moment in the culture of mainstream country music for the Washington Post.
• I enjoyed reading this in-depth article about the making of The Rolling Stones’ “Start Me Up” from Sound On Sound all the way back in 2004.
I liked what Stipe said but...oh my god the self-satisfied hipster-speak of the interview was fucking unbearable.