Fluxblog Weekly #122: Mynabirds, El Ten Eleven, Hercules & Love Affair, A Giant Dog, Mr. MFN Exquire
August 21st, 2017
The Best Things Keep Disappearing
The Mynabirds “Golden Age”
Even now, when musicians have the power to immediately release a new song to a variety of digital platforms, there’s usually a lag between a song being recorded and it being available to the public. This is part of why we haven’t had a lot of music responding to the election of Trump just yet, though –- I dunno, maybe it’s time to get that rage and grief out there into the world? I find myself having to go back to music from the ‘90s to find suitably angry and topical songs to listen to in 2017.
“Golden Age,” from the Mynabirds’ new album out this week, sounds like it had to have been written sometime around late January/early February, just after the inauguration. The line that dates it most obviously is when Laura Burhenn sings “I think even I could punch a Nazi in the face” in reference to the viral clip of Richard Spencer getting a knuckle sandwich, though that could just as well have been from last week. The song is a pensive ballad that perhaps deliberately evokes the feeling of John Lennon’s “Imagine,” and borrows some of that song’s approach to rhetoric. This is a song inspired by anger and distress at what is happening in the world, but that’s not the tone of the lyrics or music. Burhenn is being calm and reasonable, and making a case for regular activism and holding on to the best of humanity while pushing back on the worst of it. She gets sentimental in moments, but her message is practical and optimistic in its belief that we can get through this. But only if we do it together.
Buy it from Amazon.
August 22nd, 2017
The Basement Of Your Heart
El Ten Eleven featuring Emile Mosseri “I’m Right Here”
“I’m Right Here” is a song about being stuck in an emotional limbo, with Emile Mosseri singing about a relationship that just doesn’t quite take off because these two people are never quite on the same page. He seems to be the one who wants more than what he’s getting, but he’s also the guy singing “I don’t feel it half as much as you do,” so go figure. These things get complicated, and his vocal performance and El Ten Eleven’s atmosphere of claustrophobia and melancholy suggest a lot of confused yet agonizing feelings. It crushes me when he sings the title phrase – despite everything, he’s holding on to a bit of hope and faith, and it’s incredibly beautiful and possibly tragic.
Buy it from Amazon.
August 23rd, 2017
Can You Help From Beyond
Hercules & Love Affair featuring Sharon Van Etten “Omnion”
Sharon Van Etten’s voice has a much colder tone on “Omnion” than anything I’ve ever heard her do on her own, but somehow that just amplifies the heart of this song. She sounds incredibly serene as she sings lyrics that are essentially a prayer to some greater power for strength and grace in the face of adversity. The arrangement for the piece sounds like a dance track that’s been hollowed out and converted into a chapel – there’s a holy hum to the keyboards that makes it all sound like a hymn. The line that crushes me comes early on – “If I am your child, why have you put so much in my life to fight?” Van Etten doesn’t sing the line with rage or frustration, though it’d be totally justified. She sounds like she already knows there’s no good answer to the question, and moves on to requests for more reasonable things: love, deliverance from fear, working to be a better person. She’s asking for help, but sings with a clarity of mind that suggests she’s on the right track without it.
Buy it from Amazon.
August 24th, 2017
Compensated For My Charm
A Giant Dog “Fake Plastic Trees”
This isn’t a Radiohead cover. This is an original song that in no way references the famous Radiohead song “Fake Plastic Trees,” or even uses any of those three words in the lyrics. It’s hilarious to me that a band would do this, but hey, it’s not as if Radiohead’s the only band with a song called “Creep,” and Stone Temple Pilots beat them to that title by a year!
A Giant Dog’s “Fake Plastic Trees” is glammy garage rock song about being a cool loser. It starts off with Sabrina Ellis and Andrew Cashen asking for a ride somewhere – “it’s on the way, it’s on the way!” – and digresses into verses about being bored and depressed, eating at Whataburger, smoking weed and eating tangerines, and their favorite scene in Terminator. I love the way the song doesn’t focus its attention on anything for long, and in doing so sketches out a detailed portrait of a troubled but fun protagonist. There’s a few musical curveballs to go with the lyrical twists too – the strings come out of nowhere on the bridge and give a fairly bratty song a few moments of grandeur and elegance.
Buy it from Amazon.
August 25th, 2017
Live Colossal
Mr. Muthafuckin’ Exquire featuring Meyhem Lauren “Bebop & Rocksteady”
It’s a good thing Mr. Muthafuckin’ Exquire is a bold, forceful and charismatic rapper because I think a lot of rappers – especially a lot of current emcees who mumble and mutter their way through simplistic chant raps – would get bulldozed by this track. The piano chords seem like a pretty basic loop at first, but as the track proceeds the lead notes spiral out into the verses a long longer that you’d expect, and at intervals that sound instinctive and improvised. The melody is very pleasing on its own terms, but I love the way it punctuates Exquire and Meyhem Lauren’s voices. It’s a very dynamic track, and at some moments it feels like the rappers are nimbly dodging or skipping over the piano lines.
Buy it from Amazon.