Fluxblog Weekly #205: Bibio, Alaskalaska, Pixies, Rose of the West
April 2nd, 2019
Try To Kiss And Make Up
Bibio “Old Graffiti”
Stephen Wilkinson’s music as Bibio is commonly slotted in with electronic acts despite how often his songs are built around guitar and other live instruments. His most striking and beautiful compositions are rather pastoral and folky, even when he’s working in a more overtly ambient mode. “Old Graffiti,” from his forthcoming record, retains some of this aesthetic even as the rhythmic center of it signals an urban atmosphere. The central groove sounds extremely similar to me – it’s drawing specifically from Afro-Brazilian music, so I figure it must be something I already sort of know one way or another. (Or maybe it’s a Fela thing? Or a particular Studio One groove?) Regardless, the familiarity is a boon to the song, and Wilkinson’s psychedelic folkiness nudges the groove into unexpected tonal and emotional spaces.
Buy it from Amazon.
April 3rd, 2019
With All The Space In Space
Alaskalaska “Moon”
“Moon” is rooted in dance pop from start to finish, but the density of the rhythm and tone of the arrangement are always in flux. The moods are never in obvious fixed positions – the feelings blend and blur together into complicated, confusing, or contradictory vibes of criss-crossing keyboards and saxophone solos. Lucinda Duarte-Holman’s voice has a mostly chipper tone, which lightens the mood a little in the most tense bits, and adds a touch of self-aware humor. The off-kilter moodiness of the piece is the point of the song – according to Duarte-Holman herself, she’s singing about PMS, and feeling as the mercy of the moon and tides.
Buy it from Amazon.
April 4th, 2019
Gonna Sweat When She Dig
Pixies “No. 13 Baby”
If the Pixies came out today, the critical narrative would be all about how they’re “problematic.” The girl sings about a black guy with a huge dick; the guy mangles the Spanish language and flagrantly objectifies Latin women. There’s a troubling tension in the way he sings about women in general – lusty, angry, bitter, self-loathing. Maybe today we’d label it “incel rock,” and then make fun of the male singer’s pudgy body without ever thinking about how it’s crucial to the context. No one would ever consider that the musicians knew what they were doing, or were deliberate about what they were saying, or whether the tensions in their music spoke to something about their lived experience or vivid inner life. The historical and cultural allusions wouldn’t be taken seriously. It would all be flattened: This is fucked up and uncomfortable, therefore it is at best a guilty pleasure. The urgency and physicality of the music wouldn’t matter, nor would the melodies or raw charisma of the singers. It’d be “What Pixies Get Wrong About _____” or “The Pixies’ _____ Problem.”
Art is messy because humans are messy, and the Pixies reveled in that filth. But that mess could also be strangely wholesome! “No. 13 Baby” is a song about lust from the perspective of a young boy observing a woman who lives next doo. She awakens something in him. She’s an intriguing other to him – six feet tall, Mexican, strong, tattooed. He’s attracted to her in part because she’s an outlier – not white, not demure, not a normie. But it’s also just raw and physical. He’s obsessed with her tits, and the fact that she’s topless in public. It’s likely this is the first time he’s ever seen naked breasts in real life, albeit through his bedroom window or over the fence separating their yards. In the chorus, he’s praising her boobs in awkward Spanish while swearing off boring white girls. “Don’t want no blue eyes! I WANT BROWN EYES!!!” The song knows this is the declaration of a silly teenage boy. The song also knows his arousal is not a joke. Black Francis sells the horniness and the humor in equal measures, often in the same shriek.
Buy it from Amazon.
April 5th, 2019
Fragile Hearts Will Break
Rose of the West “Roads”
“Roads” sounds immediately familiar – the palette is ’80s British goth-adjacent indie, the production is every band since 2000 who’ve wanted to make their own late ‘80s Cure or 4AD album. It sounds like the 121st minute. It sounds like a dream you’ve had before. If Rose of the West were aiming for a pleasant deja vu sensation, they succeeded. But it’s not all aesthetic. “Roads” works in large part because Gina Barrington’s vocal tone has a cold neutrality that feels like whatever you need to hear. She sounds vaguely sad, vaguely scared, vaguely in love, vaguely concerned. The coolness sounds like a cover, but for what exactly? Something is wrong, and maybe this deep grey ambiguity is the root of it.
Buy it from Amazon.