Fluxblog Weekly #182: St. Vincent, Cat Power, Kurt Vile, Matthew Dear
October 13th, 2018
The Void Is Back And Unblinking
St. Vincent “Hang On Me” (MassEducation Version)
There is a couplet in an old Loud Family song called “Screwed Over By Stylish Introverts” that I think about a lot. It goes:
“You let me know that calling just because I’m lonely is completely rude
You could work this into a lecture to the starving not to beg for food”
This comes to mind any time I feel lonely and miserable and desperate to communicate with someone else. I can think of very few times in my life when I would have felt this way about someone reaching out to me, but it’s what I worry about someone else thinking. Sometimes it’s irrational, but other times it’s not – you can be an imposition, a burden, a drain on empathy, and too dependent on other people’s emotional labor. You can just be a drag.
“Hang On Me,” the opening song on St. Vincent’s Masseducation and the closing song on its stripped-down counterpart MassEducation, is about reaching out to someone in a time of desperation. Annie Clark’s protagonist has some fear about disrupting the person she’s calling or asking for too much, but she’s not about to stop herself – she’s starving, and not too proud to beg for food. The MassEducation arrangement, just piano and vocal, is more effective in getting across the sentiment of the song. Clark’s voice sounds more fragile here, and there’s something in the ambiance of the track that reminds me of the way your eyes start to sting after you’ve been crying for a while. She sings “oh please don’t hang up yet,” and you feel that raw need for connection. Just under the surface of this song there’s a powerful dread – if I need you this much right now, what would I do without you? And if I’m too vulnerable now, will it turn you off to me? Making the call is a calculated risk.
Buy it from Amazon.
October 14th, 2018
Your Color Blue Is Grey
Cat Power “In Your Face”
“In Your Face” is a quietly confrontational song in which Chan Marshall sings directly to Americans who are so comfortable and privileged they can’t seriously confront injustice and cruelty, and can only see things in terms of petty grievances. Maybe you’ve heard of these people? Marshall’s voice is sober but obviously heartbroken, and there’s a frustration in her tone – an awareness that her words won’t be heard or heeded by anyone who really needs to pay attention. There’s a feeling of tension through the whole song, mainly in the way a vaguely eerie piano melody circles her voice, but also a bit of patience in the gentle swing of the guitar. Marshall is quite angry, but she expresses it with a meditative grace.
Buy it from Amazon.
October 16th, 2018
To The Utmost Degree
Kurt Vile “Bassackwards”
“Bassackwards” sounds like someone wandering around searching for something but forgetting what they were looking for almost immediately. Even for a Kurt Vile song this is exceptionally stoned and meandering, but it’s also quite lovely in the way it creates a sense of pleasant stasis. Vile seems caught between feelings here – not quite upset, not quite lonely, not quite happy. Everything just is. “This is life and it’s flat,” as Stephen Malkmus once sang. But it’s not bleak – he appreciates friends, he appreciates moments of beauty. And while the music doesn’t go anywhere in particular, it feels good. It feels alive, in the most low key way.
Buy it from Amazon.
October 19th, 2018
Kids Grow Up Too Fast
Matthew Dear “Echo”
Matthew Dear’s voice has always had a strange allure – dead-eyed, deadpan, and dead serious all at once. On previous records his voice was like an odd bit of flavor layered over his dark, lurid productions but with Bunny, it’s become the focal point of the music. In “Echo,” he tells a grim story about a young boy speeding from childhood into adulthood not by maturing, but by doing a lot of stuff that’s just not for kids. Dear leans on vocal fry to a comic degree here, digitally nudging it into a grotesque sizzle as his keyboards and clipped drum clicks create an odd unsettling feeling that evokes a druggy drowsiness and the gradual tightening of a mechanical vice.
Buy it from Amazon.