Fluxblog 426: what was Krautrock?
Plus new songs from PJ Harvey, Faye Webster, and Pangaea
This week’s playlist is WHAT WAS KRAUTROCK?: GERMAN PROGRESSIVE MUSIC 1968-1977, an introduction to a perennially cool era of groundbreaking experimental music made by artists including Can, NEU!, Kraftwerk, Faust, Harmonia, Cluster, Amon Duul II, Guru Guru, and more. If you have stoner-ish taste and don’t really know any of this you are in for a very good time. [Spotify | Apple | YouTube]
Beat Together
Pangaea “Installation”
A lot of the chopped up vocal samples in dance music tend to be airy and ethereal, like Four Tet flipping bits of singing into pure sensation – essentially ambient and abstract, but obviously warm and human. Pangaea’s “Installation” goes another way, emphasizing the force and cadence of the vocalist but slicing out syllables so words never form. The result is a dance banger where the vocal exaggerates the impact of the beats, and the song has an aggressive attitude without a trace of context. It’s post-language pop, music that’s about pure feeling and physical sensation that provides a major cathartic rush but doesn’t tell you what that catharsis should be about.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
We’re Meant To Be But Not Yet
Faye Webster “But Not Kiss”
“But Not Kiss” fakes you out within 14 seconds, shifting from angsty lo-fi indie intimacy to grand melodramatic romance as the piano and rhythm kick in. The song is musically and lyrically about that contradiction, the push and pull of wanting someone badly but retreating into a comfort zone of solitude and inaction. Webster spends a lot of the song rationalizing it all away – they’re meant to be but not yet, she doesn’t want to regret anything, she doesn’t want to mess with them if they’re in a good place, on and on. She never sounds like she’s lying to herself, every neurotic thought is deeply felt and her desire not to screw things up is just as strong as her yearning for this other person. It’s all very fraught but extremely lovely, particularly when pedal steel enters the arrangement and seems to glide between the extremes. It’s a very graceful and relaxing sound, and I think in context it feels like the solution to her inner conflict: Let it all go, and just trust the feeling that feels the best.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
Waxing Night And Dwindling Day
PJ Harvey “A Child’s Question, August”
In the context of Polly Jean Harvey’s incredible body of work “A Child’s Question, August” falls into an intriguing aesthetic space between the relentless grey atmosphere of Is This Desire? and the ghostly sound of White Chalk. The arrangement is creeky and plodding, as though a series of unrelated mechanical and naturally occuring sounds have magically clicked together into music. Harvey sings near the top of her register on the verses, adapting poetry written in Dorset dialect from Orlam, her recent novel-in-verse. I have not read the book so the greater context is mostly lost on me, but the song is very effective in conveying a mournful tone and a sense that we’re listening to a broken person who’s resigned themselves to a very small life of bleak fatalism. The one flicker of hope in the song is in Harvey and Ben Whishaw invoking Elvis Presley on the chorus, referencing “Love Me Tender,” but approaching the concept of tender love with skepticism. It doesn’t quite crack the cynicism and despair, but it registers just enough to suggest a way out.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
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• Rob Sheffield and Grace Robins-Somerville both wrote thoughtful essays about the 30th anniversary of Liz Phair’s Exile in Guyville.
• Nabil Ayers wrote about how Robert Smith of The Cure going out of his way to bring prices for tickets and merchandise way down should be a model of behavior for other successful artists. I saw The Cure this week and basically got a 2.5 hour show, a t-shirt, and a tote bag for $100 in total, and this is after getting most of my Ticketmaster fees refunded at his insistence. The dude is a saint!
• Michael Barthel wrote an intriguing blog post about Radiohead and “Creep.” I’ve known Mike for a long time now and saw him frequently through the 00s and for some reason never realized he had backed away from In Rainbows at the time!