Fluxblog Weekly #16: FKA Twigs, Melkbelly, Deerhunter, Destroyer
August 17th, 2015
Teach Me How To Live Life Like I’m Not A Singer
FKA Twigs “Figure 8”
“Figure 8” sounds like it’s constantly on the brink of collapse, with FKA Twigs’ voice balanced preciously between skittering, barely cohesive beats and waves of wobbling, distorted synth tones. A lot of Twigs tracks have this dynamic, but don’t quite gel – often, the vocal melody seems arbitrarily dropped into a track. In this, the arrangement is always punctuating the vocal part, and that sense of imminent crash is central to the emotion of the piece. That uncertain feeling extends to the lyrics, which obliquely deal with public scrutiny while seeking out creative experiences that feel more authentic and exciting. She sounds like she’s doing her best to assert herself, but the music is there to show us how hard that can be.
Buy it from Amazon.
August 18th, 2015
Did I Stutter
Melkbelly “Bathroom at the Beach”
A lot of the best and most aggressive punk is, on a melodic level, total candy. “Bathroom at the Beach” is a great example – the core of it is catchy and bouncy enough to be a jingle, and the main vocal melody is sung with a singsong lilt that’s close to what you’d get in children’s music. But the sound of it is so gloriously abrasive, and the abrupt burst into noise on the chorus is one of the most thrilling bits of any record I’ve heard recently. It’s so easy to imagine a room full of people losing their shit at that exact moment; it’s like this band is going out of their way to make the most mosh-inducing song possible. I thank them for that.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
August 19th, 2015
Born Already Nailed To The Cross
Deerhunter “Snakeskin”
“Snakeskin” is the first Deerhunter song I could describe as funky, though it doesn’t completely work as a straight funk track. The guitar groove and the beat are definitely lifted from ‘60s and ‘70s R&B, but the bass is oddly still in the arrangement. This results in a song that sounds like someone who is trying to affect a confident strut, but is not loose and relaxed enough for it to actually signal confidence. That subtext carries over to Bradford Cox’s lyrics, which riff on the feeling of being born all wrong, and living with a conviction that you’re homely and sickly and weird, and that’s the just the natural state of things. So, basically, this is the sound of trying to feel good in your body and maybe getting about halfway to the thing you assume other people feel all the time, or landing on something else entirely.
Pre-order it from iTunes.
August 20th, 2015
The Writing On The Wall
Destroyer “Times Square”
“Times Square” appears three times on Poison Season – this is the version with the fairly typical life-rock Destroyer arrangement, the other two are quiet, vaguely mournful orchestral arrangements that bookend the record. I prefer the rock version, but of course I would – it’s much easier to listen to, and it’s just a lot more pleasing as a pop song with a beat. But I think it’s very valuable that Dan Bejar is presenting this song from a few perspectives, and in context, the rock version feels like a flashback to a more earnest and uncomplicated feeling. The words are about as oblique as you’d expect from Bejar, but there’s a very clear optimism to this song – about love, about New York, about music, about the possibility of salvation or redemption. The bleak string versions imply a sense of doubt about this, or at least look back on the feeling with a touch of bemusement. I don’t think Bejar is writing anything off, but I do think he’s thinking a lot about the romance of optimism.
Buy it from Amazon.