Fluxblog Weekly #126: Game Theory, Suzi Wu, Chloé, Godspeed You Black Emperor
September 18th, 2017
Emotionally Ranged
Game Theory “An Overview of Item Response Theory”
The name of the final Game Theory record is Supercalifragile, which is definitely the best album title to come along this year, and a perfect example of Scott Miller’s wit as a lyricist – a mawkish bit of Disney nostalgia broken in half to reveal a vulnerability that was always right there in front of us. I can imagine his delight upon first thinking of the joke, and then a moment of reflection and self-identification: “Yup, that’s me, super Cali fragile.”
Scott Miller was a clever and funny guy. I listened to his music – primarily his Loud Family work, though his Game Theory discography is what made him an indie hero – for a very long time before noticing how much of it is about depression. That didn’t become obvious to me until after he killed himself in 2013, and then it became very hard to not hear it on every record. Anxiety and misery was present in an alarming number of his songs going back to the beginning, and sometimes it was not even a subtextual thing. This is a guy who wrote a song called “Slit My Wrists” with a chorus that goes “what I need is not ways to go on / what I need is to slit my wrists and be gone.” That song came out 20 years before he actually killed himself. He was living with this for a very long time, and even when he stated it plainly everyone just nodded and thought “Scott Miller is a clever and funny guy.” Maybe it was a literary reference or something.
Miller was working on Supercalifragile before he died. It was his idea to revive the Game Theory name – to bring things full circle, I suppose, but also because the name would draw a little bit more attention than making it another Loud Family release. Maybe he wasn’t happy with how it was coming together. Maybe he felt stuck. I have no idea why he didn’t finish it before ending his life, but I figure there were many other factors in making that decision that weren’t directly related to the music he was writing. The record was completed by his friends and fans – Aimee Mann, Ted Leo, Ken Stringfellow, Mitch Easter, Peter Buck, Will Sheff, Doug Gillard, Matt LeMay, Spiral Stairs, and Nina Gordon among others. The songs were in various states of completion at the time of Miller’s death, and a few of them are sung by someone other than him. I find it harder to deal with those. All I hear is his absence.
Supercalifragile doesn’t sound like a cry for help. It mostly sounds perky and melodic but a bit skewed, like almost all of Miller’s music. Reading through the lyrics doesn’t yield much in the way of “oh, now I get it,” but there is a certain calm and distance to his perspective in most of the songs, and a sense that he’s taking stock and tying off some lose ends. He reckons with his sideline careers as a programmer and a music critic, he visits a sick friend in the hospital, he writes a love song for his widow that is absolutely crushing to hear in the context of how he died. “An Overview of Item Response Theory,” an up-tempo psychedelic jangle rocker with a typically obtuse title, is where he flat-out says what he must’ve been wondering at the end: “Is your life worthwhile?” It’s there, clear in the mix, hiding in plain sight like so many other bleak lines throughout his career. I hope that despite how he decided to end things he realized that it was worthwhile. It really was, and the music always will be.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
September 19th, 2017
An Evil Skipping Rhyme
Suzi Wu “Teenage Witch”
“Teenage Witch” opens with a lo-fi benediction: “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, the guys are fuckboys, the girls are sluts.” It’s very provocative and sets the tone lyrically, but doesn’t tip off the ambition of the music. The song is definitely pop, but in a very aggressive mid-‘90s way in which the hooks come at you with a sort of fuck-you violence and an off-kilter funk. Honestly, it’s refreshing to hear a very young artist tap into this sort of energy – I’ve found it troubling how much music in 2017 has been chill or sedate. I realize that there’s a lag to when and how songs get released, but regardless of when Wu recorded this, “Teenage Witch” has a nervy, abrasive, and defiant edge that feels necessary right now. And that chorus feels right too: “I’m too scared to live / too stoned to die.”
Buy it from Bandcamp.
September 21st, 2017
Suffer The Daily Life
Chloé featuring Ben Shemie “Recall”
Ben Shemie’s vocals on this track are slurred and only somewhat coherent, like a guy muttering in a state halfway between sleep and consciousness. The words that come out clearly are evocative, but lyrics aren’t really the point here – it’s more about how Shemie’s voice moves over and under Chloé’s arrangement. I like the way the music seems to shape itself around the vocals and vice versa, as if in conversation. The voice, beat, and keyboard parts gradually fall more into synch as the track progresses. It’s lovely, but always sort of tentative in feel, as though this connection could break at any moment. As you get closer to the ending it sounds like you’re just hanging on to something precious just a bit longer.
Buy it from Amazon.
September 22nd, 2017
More Of Us Than Them, Amen
Godspeed You Black Emperor “Bosses Hang, Part II”
Godspeed You Black Emperor saw the future coming. Their music has always had an apocalyptic quality to it, but pegged to leftist messaging and activism that made it clear this wasn’t some dark fantasy. The music on Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend!, their 2012 comeback record, was particularly bleak – the centerpiece tracks “Mladic” and “We Drift Like Worried Fire” sounded like the complete and utter triumph of evil, and not in some cool metal way. They are both extraordinary pieces of music, but difficult to reckon with. It’s hard to confront music that crushes hope. It’s even more difficult now, when it feels so real.
This is why the hopeful sound of Godspeed’s new record, Luciferian Towers, is so startling. You expect Godspeed to be dark and pessimistic, especially now. But the sound of the record, particularly the “Bosses Hang” trilogy, is defiant and uplifting. It is not cheerful or even particularly positive, but it does communicate righteous indignation and solidarity. It sounds like it is meant, on some level, to inspire the listener to fight back. I hope this is another example of Godspeed seeing the future coming clearly before the rest of us.
Buy it from Amazon.