Fluxblog #343: Steely Dan | Aimee Mann • Pecas • Beach House • Duendita
Plus a playlist of the bright, shiny period of 21st century pop music just before 9/11
This week’s playlist is LIFE WAS MORE RAD BEFORE 9/11, a look back on the pop, rock, and rap music from the bright and shiny period just before everything changed. It’s likely to be a major nostalgia trip if you’re a Millennial! [Spotify | Apple Music]
Jesse Hawken of Junk Filter is back on this week’s Fluxpod for another episode of our sporadic Steely Dan series DANPILLED. This time around we talk about the two new live albums, and get into “Dirty Work,” “Razor Boy,” “Night by Night,” “Your Gold Teeth II,” “Everything You Did,” “Aja,” “Time Out of Mind,” “The Second Arrangement,” and “The Goodbye Look.” You can find the episode on all podcast platforms and the Fluxblog Patreon.
The Universe’s Delicate Skin
Aimee Mann “You Fall”
Aimee Mann’s new album Queens of the Summer Hotel is a set of songs written for a stage musical adaptation of Susanna Kaysen’s memoir Girl, Interrupted, a project that’s fallen into limbo in the wake of the pandemic. It makes a lot of sense why Mann would be asked to do such a thing – through her career she’s always had a keen insight into fragile and volatile emotional states, and approaching characters at their lowest lows with respect and empathy. In terms of substance the material on this record could just as well be another Aimee Mann record, so the main difference here is in style – strings and horns that evoke a very 20th Century sort of stuffy melodrama, but played without a trace of sappiness. “You Fall” is particularly stunning in its starkness, opening in medias res on a woman who’s trying to hold it together and present as a normal person but on the precipice of succumbing to despair. Mann’s lyrics are cooly observational but her voice conveys a calm compassion. This song is coming from a place of being keenly aware, likely through personal experience, of how easy it is to fall apart – she’s not about to judge this woman or anyone else.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
You Of All People
Pecas “Talking to Myself”
“Talking to Myself” feels very relaxed and sensual, a song where most everything in the vocal performance and the arrangement is signaling a pleasant mixture of stoned and sultry. The lyrics run contrary to all that as Sandy Davis sings about feeling foolish for an emotional investment in someone who doesn’t value her affection or compassion. She feels so shut out that she feels like airing these grievances is just talking to herself. Listening to the song with a more clear idea of what’s being expressed shifts the tone a bit – the melancholy undercurrents are more exposed, and the more breathy parts of her vocal read more as sighs of exasperation rather than anything to do with pleasure.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
The Velveteen Tree Line
Beach House “Once Twice Melody”
It continues to be impressive how much Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally can do within the seemingly narrow aesthetic confines of Beach House. The general feel and core palette of their music has been essentially the same for eight records in a row, the variety and artistic growth is mainly in the textures, details, and tonal balances. It’s a bit like musical Fabergé eggs – the format and aesthetic is consistent but the ornamentation is unique every time. “Once Twice Melody,” the title track of their eighth record, is one of the more striking variations. It sounds like a pastoral English folk song blurred out by a dense fog of their familiar keyboard drones. The brighter keyboard tones seem to sparkle through it, lending the track a vaguely mystical aura. Lagrand’s vocal performance is as sedate as ever but her phrasing feels a bit stiff and formal, making her sound like some sort of prim but gentle authority figure as she sings lyrics that allude to mid 20th century erotic works Belle du Jour and Histoire de Melody Nelson. It’s not sexy, per se, but it does add a light lasciviousness to the music.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
Curls Spun Like Wool
Duendita “Open Eyes”
The musical elements of “Open Eyes” are always shifting but there’s still a sense of stillness to it, as though no movement could disrupt its equilibrium for more than a few seconds. As the song progresses it moves towards a powerful feeling of peacefulness, not necessarily in a lack of tension but in conveying patience and acceptance. Duendita sings with a voice that acknowledges turmoil and traumas, but she sounds as though she’s filtering out the dark feelings in an effort to get to a more pure state of grace. At the end of the song when her voice starts getting digitally warped it’s almost as though she’s singing in tongues, though I think it feels more psychedelic.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
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• I liked this essay by Jessica Crets on The Bulwark about the uncomfortable thing of watching MCU stans reject the auteurist and visionary art of Jack Kirby and embrace the cold corporate movies derived from his work.
• This interview with Paul Thomas Anderson in Variety about his new film Licorice Pizza is so good – it’s pushed my excitement about that movie over 9000, and it’s just nice to hear this guy who you’d kinda expect to be pompous to be totally chill and open-minded.
• Simon Vozick-Levinson at Rolling Stone talked to Interpol about their weird pandemic year and their forthcoming album, which sounds like it should be an interesting twist on classic Interpol vibes.