Fluxblog Weekly #232: Niall Horan, Danny Brown, Kim Gordon, Pom Pom Squad, Caribou
October 7th, 2019
Every Time I Turn Around
Niall Horan “Nice to Meet Ya”
“Nice to Meet Ya” is a remarkable facsimile of the slickest end of British rock at the end of the 20th century, a song that was made this year but sounds exactly like it could be track 14 on a CD packaged along with a copy of Q or Select somewhere between 1997 and 2000. The vocal melody sounds extremely Noel Gallagher to me, and there’s traces of Primal Scream, Mansun, Blur, Garbage, Fatboy Slim, and The Chemical Brothers in the arrangement. It doesn’t pull from any particular reference point, it just feels very particular to around 20 years ago. And this makes sense given that Niall Horan was born in Ireland in the early 90s and almost certainly grew up hearing a lot of music like this. He’s very good at channeling this energy. Horan is aiming for “bad boy” here and the calculation is obvious, but the laddish swagger suits his voice well.
This also sets him apart from his former bandmates in One Direction, who’ve all gravitated to different musical aesthetics but all project an overbearing earnestness. It’s especially striking in contrast with Harry Styles, whose relentless focus on being Pop-Rock’s #1 Very Good Boy has kept him from making much in the way of actually compelling rock music. Whereas Styles’ most rocking moments – mostly just “Kiwi” – sound like a Broadway musical’s sanitized approximation of a very generic notion of ’70s rock, “Nice to Meet Ya” sounds like the work of a person with very specific taste who isn’t afraid to come off a bit sleazy, or even just like an actual human rather than an idealized image.
Buy it from Amazon.
October 7th, 2019
You Can Act Stupid If You Want To
Danny Brown “Theme Song”
“Theme Song” feels airy and loose – a sample loop that’s like a cloud of weed smoke, and verses from Danny Brown that sound composed, but still a bit off the cuff. And that’s certainly the vibe Q-Tip was going for, even if it turns out to be pretty far from the truth. According to Brown, Q-Tip is so meticulous and detail-oriented that he made him record his vocal “over 300 times.” That could be an exaggeration somewhat, but it’s basically like the rap version of Stanley Kubrick forcing Tom Cruise to walk through a doorway a hundred times over. I’m not sure what Q-Tip’s goal was here – finding one perfect take? cutting together multiple takes into a seamless composite? – but the resulting track is so smooth that I was genuinely shocked to discover it was made this way, but not necessarily surprised that either man would work like this. Q-Tip is known to be a perfectionist, and Brown…he just seems up for a challenge.
Buy it from Amazon.
October 8th, 2019
Stories Of What You’ve Got
Kim Gordon “Hungry Baby”
You never really know what to expect of the music made by the members of Sonic Youth outside the context of Sonic Youth. In a lot of cases, like with the most recent Thurston Moore release or Kim Gordon’s work as half of Body/Head, you get their most far-out experimental ideas and/or their most indulgent impulses. In the case of Lee Ranaldo’s Between the Times and the Tides and Last Night On Earth or Moore’s Psychic Hearts, you get fully-formed rock songs that convey the undiluted essence of their persona.
Kim Gordon’s first proper solo album, No Home Record, is in the latter category but still has a lot of experimental edginess to it. It’s artsy and abrasive, but that’s Kim’s nature – even her most “pop” songs have been pretty weird. Her new songs are heavy on noise and groove, and serve as compelling backdrops for her distinctive voice and the evocative story-sketches of her lyrics. The closest comparison, particularly on the vaguely rockabilly-ish “Hungry Baby,” is the dynamic of Mark E. Smith in The Fall. It’s an extremely charismatic but not inherently musical voice performing in a very confrontation style over music that’s very harsh and physical. But there’s also a lot of industrial aesthetics here too, and Gordon’s often distressed vocals sound particularly dramatic in the context of all these broken machine clangs and hums.
Buy it from Amazon.
October 9th, 2019
I Don’t Know What Kind Of Creature I Am Now
Pom Pom Squad “Again”
The main tension of “Again” is in how Mia Berrin moves between states of self-pity and anguish, with each moment of relatively subdued sadness seeming as if it could suddenly swing over to cathartic anger. It’s a break-up song from the perspective of someone in the most awful phase of adjusting to a disappointing new reality. She’s cycling through every flavor of grief, but mostly stuck on mourning what she can’t have anymore. The line that really stands out to me is “I start to envy an old version of me somehow,” which is painful in its nostalgia but also suggests guilt for not appreciating what she had in the moment because she assumed she was at the start of a story rather than somewhere in the middle of it.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
October 10th, 2019
Pick Up All The Pieces
Caribou “Home”
“Home” isn’t a huge stylistic shift for Caribou. The basic elements of groove, space, sampling, and Dan Snaith’s distinctive voice are all right there, but the tone is different. The songs on Our Love and Swim have an ambiguous feeling to them, but “Home” is all warmth and joy. The vocal sample, sourced from the Gloria Barnes R&B song of the same name, is more central and communicative rather than texture. It’s closer to the aesthetics of Kanye West, Ghostface Killah, or The Avalanches – soul vocals from the past presented like a portal into a happier past, or a more authentic emotional state. Snaith lets the Barnes loop carry the strongest feelings while his vocal is cooler in tone and more focused on sketching in details as he observes a woman escape a bad situation and get back to something solid and fundamental in her life. Musically and lyrically Snaith is at a distance from the emotion and the action of the song, he’s processing and learning by watching her make choices and move on. From him, presumably? If so, this is the happiest break up song I’ve ever heard.
Buy it from Bandcamp.