Fluxblog Weekly #19: Prince, Dianas, Battles, Hands In
September 8th, 2015
A Long Time Ago or Maybe Yesterday
Prince “X’s Face”
Prince’s new record – for now only available on the streaming service Tidal – is the most consistently excellent album he’s put out in some time. I know that something like every fourth Prince release gets hype like that, but HitNRun Phase One is sexy and strange in a way that he’s mostly avoided over the past decade or two. A lot of this is owed to the fact that this is a very rare record in which Prince is in full collaboration with a producer, Joshua A. M. Welton, who gets co-producer and co-songwriting credits. Prince sticks to vocals, guitar, and bass on this album, and allows Welton to go wild with contemporary synths and beats. It’s interesting to hear Prince concede keyboard and beat programming, two elements of his sound that he’s completely mastered, to a younger musician. There’s not a lot that Welton does that would seem out of place on a Prince record, but he reconnects Prince with a synth-based edginess that was once at the center of his sound. Welton pushes Prince away from fussiness and towards an off-kilter funk that perfectly suits the more playful and seductive aspects of his voice. That really comes through in “X’s Face,” which plays his falsetto against a lurching, nearly abrasive bass synth part. I think it would’ve fit in pretty well with the funky digital minimalism of the Sign O the Times era.
Get it from Tidal.
September 9th, 2015
Tell Me That You’ll Stick Around
Dianas “I’m With You”
Most of this Perth band’s material is focused on guitar, so this piano-centric tune is an outlier. But maybe that shouldn’t be the case going forward, as there’s something about the way these melodies circle the beat that is both gorgeous and sort of unnerving. The vocals are girlish and ghostly, and so high pitched and breathy that the lyrics are almost entirely unintelligible. But despite that, it’s pretty easy to understand the feeling of the song, and this feeling that if you connect yourself to this other person, you won’t feel so totally adrift and confused. I love the way it’s implied that the circular melodies are like this maze, and they’re just trying to get out of it.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
September 10th, 2015
When The Livin’ Is Easy
Battles “Summer Simmer”
The two previous Battles albums had some vocals that could become the center of songs like in traditional rock music, but on their third record, they’ve moved away from that entirely and essentially have placed Ian Williams’ miscellaneous guitars, keyboards, and mysterious electronic sounds as the focal point of their compositions. “Summer Simmer” follows a pattern that holds through most of La Di Da Di – John Stanier and Dave Konopka lay down a complex, ever-shifting rhythm, and Williams cycles through various instruments and equipment, adding melodic and textural parts in reaction to the beat. Williams’ parts are incredibly expressive, particularly this plaintive keyboard (?) lead that comes in about two minutes into the track, but gets replaced around the three minute mark by a brighter and more cheerful-sounding guitar hook. They’ve packed a lot into this track, but the pacing is just right, and the emotional and rhythmic shifts feel totally natural, not jarring.
Buy it from Amazon.
September 11th, 2015
I Don’t Hear What You Say Anymore
Hands In “The Company”
I have a real weakness for songs like this, which have a recognizable structure and feeling, but are otherwise totally abstracted and incoherent. “The Company” sounds like it ought to be this romantic ballad, something people could slow dance to, but the vocals are so warped by pitch and echo that it’s all just some vague indication of sentiment without any specificity. I’m reasonably sure most of this is sung in English, but it feels more like listening to pop performed in a language where you can only understand a few words here and there. Maybe that is frustrating for some people, but I really like that abstraction and disconnection.
Buy it from Bandcamp.