Fluxblog Weekly #129: Wolf Alice, Uffe, Thanks for Coming, King Krule, Leithauser/Olsen
Before we get into the week's posts I just want to make sure you know I was recently a guest on my friends Molly and Chris' podcast And Introducing, a generally comedic show in which they read and discuss the memoirs of musicians. My episode is about Taboo from the Black Eyed Peas, who I chose mainly because I knew virtually nothing about the guy, not even what he does in the Black Eyed Peas. We learned a lot, and laughed. I hope you enjoy it.
October 9th, 2017
Totally Self-Destructive Constantly Consuming
Wolf Alice “Yuk Foo”
I’ve seen Ellie Rowsell perform “Yuk Foo” live, and I know she can bring the appropriate level of ferocious intensity to it on stage, but I still wonder if she went a bit “method” when she recorded the vocal take on the studio version. She sounds so present in the rage and spite, so fully committed to hurting the person the song is addressed to. There are breakup songs that are like trying to win an argument, or examine a problem. This is not that. This is someone fighting back at slut-shaming by screaming “I want to FUCK all the people I meet” with a guttural bark. This is unhinged, in-the-red fury directed at someone who clearly deserves it, and it is entirely unapologetic. That’s what makes the song so compelling – she sounds like she’s having fun in embracing this nasty, horny, aggressive, messy part of herself. She sounds totally thrilled to be letting go, and in standing up to some controlling, passive-aggressive creep.
I hope the right people find this song.
Buy it from Amazon.
October 10th, 2017
Love In Us All
Uffe “Love Is Everywhere”
I realized recently that one of the things I find off-putting about a lot of popular music from the recent past is there is often no natural reverb in the music at all. This is to be expected with electronic music – there’s often no microphones used except for recording voices, and live instrumentation is either highly processed or directly inputted to the board. I love a lot of music made this way, but too much of it is exhausting to my ears. Whether by nature or nurture, my ears favor a more natural sound – I want to hear impact and movement and physical space. I love recordings that give you a sense of the room, and the physicality of the players. There’s very little of this to be found in modern pop, and it’s part of why so much of it feels so flat and cold. Songs are relying entirely on the singer to project humanity, and those performances are often just as “corrected” and devoid of presence as the instrumentation. This isn’t always bad, and it makes sense for purely digital distribution, but the sameness grates on me. I’m at a point where all I hear is what is missing.
Uffe’s recording of Pharaoh Sanders’ composition “Love Is Everywhere” is the polar opposite end of the spectrum. The bulk of the music sounds like a field recording, like there’s just one microphone in a room picking up the piano and the vocals. It’s manipulated and layered with electronic percussion as it moves along, but the focus is always on Uffe’s piano playing, which is loose and lovely but often imprecise. Uffe is no Joe Bonner, but he’s obviously fine with it – the point of this interpretation of the song is in channeling some of the peace and optimism of Sanders’ original recording. When the other voices join in, you feel their relative proximity. They’re in the same place, singing the same thing, dreaming of the same thing, achieving the same thing. This recording is in some way about that human connection, and the belief that beautiful things happen when people come together.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
October 11th, 2017
Looking For My Memories
Thanks for Coming “Zoning Out”
“Zoning Out” is the sound of someone being a bit too hard on themselves. It begins with Rachel Brown explaining why she didn’t accomplish the things on her weekend to-do list in a way that’s maybe 30% apology and 70% self-criticism, and moving on to a catchy chorus of “I will be the worst because that’s what I deserve” that’s about 60% self-deprecating humor and 40% self-loathing. The tune is bold and direct, and the hook is instantly engaging – this may be a young songwriter on Bandcamp, but the songwriting chops are well developed. I could see this shaping into a very strong pop-rock song with a band and good production, but I’m rather fond of this as an acoustic solo performance if just because this is a very pure expression of being all alone in your head and wanting to get out of there.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
October 12th, 2017
Sink Lower
King Krule “Biscuit Town”
I’ve spent a lot of time trying to adequately describe Archy Marshall’s voice and it’s quite difficult. There’s so much raw humanity in the tone of it, his phrasing, the cadence, and way it shifts and splashes on the microphone. He’s clearly put a lot of thought into how he uses his voice but the performances always sound entirely instinctive, as if he’s just making up the tune and words on the spot. But at the core of all of this is two things – deep loneliness and the vulnerability of a broken young man. He always sounds desperate for connection, and like he’s trying to cut through the bullshit of social niceties to get to something more real.
It’s no coincidence that he obsesses on urban space in his songs. Big dense cities are the best place to be if you feel a powerful need to be around other people but also want to be entirely alone. “Biscuit Town” opens The Ooz with a dreary rainy weekday night atmosphere. The mood is so precise that I can’t hear the resonance of the chords in the mix without picturing puddles on concrete lit by neon bar lights. “I seem to sink lower,” he sings at the start, and by the end of the record he sounds like he’s sunk entirely. But the album ends on such a delicate and graceful note that maybe the point is that sinking isn’t actually such a bad thing.
Buy it from Amazon.
October 12th, 2017
My Heart Was Always Open
Hamilton Leithauser & Angel Olsen “Heartstruck (Wild Hunger)”
Hamilton Leithauser voices has always conveyed a lot of romance so it’s nice to hear him go full-on ’50s pop ballad with “Heartstruck.” The sentiment of this tune is overwhelming – they’re really laying the twinkling starlight melodrama on thick in the arrangement, it sounds like it’s meant to be the happy ending of a Hollywood tearjerker. Leithauser’s performance is business as usual for him – ragged and vulnerable, with the emoting dialed up a few notches above what most normal singers would do. Angel Olsen goes a bit further, pushing her voice into an over-the-top trill that sounds more periodic-specific, like she’s just trying to make sure this powerful feeling comes across on a transistor radio.
Buy it from Amazon.