Fluxblog Weekly #3: Fight Like Apes, Thee Oh Sees, Courtney Barnett, Chastity Belt & Young Fathers
This was a very rock-heavy week at the ol' Fluxblog. It's just how things shake out sometimes. But I think this year may be the best year for rock music in a really, really long time.
May 18th, 2015
Just A Box For Jabba The Hutt
Fight Like Apes “Pop Itch”
Fight Like Apes have been missing for some time now, long enough that I think I just assumed they had broken up. Well, close enough – the rhythm section quit, and though the one guy who did a lot of backup vocals is still around, he’s barely singing at all now. As a result, the band’s third album,Fight Like Apes, feels more like a MayKay solo album. That’s not a bad thing, though – she’s charismatic and great with melody, and though she’s toned down the band’s more abrasive characteristics this time around, she has not abandoned their peculiar sense of humor. One of the best things about MayKay is how she fills her songs with odd jokes and weird images, but then hits you with something very raw and sincerely emotional. It always seems to come out of nowhere, and sometimes fully overlaps with the strangest lines. “Pop Itch” sounds like a sideways version of Talking Heads “This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody),” and channels some of that song’s mix of absurdity and poignancy. But as always, MayKay is self-effacing and perhaps a bit self-sabotaging – the most memorable bit of the song is a non sequitur that has her repeating the name “Jabba the Hutt” for comedic effect.
Buy it from Amazon.
May 19th, 2015
Underneath Your Human Skin
Thee Oh Sees “Web”
If you listen through John Dwyer’s catalog, there’s a clear arc in which he’s writing and writing and playing and playing and recording and recording, and there’s a point somewhere around Thee Oh Sees’ Putrifiers II came out in 2012 where it sounds like it got easy for him. Not easy in the sense that it became boring or rote, but easy in that his music seems like the result of pure instinct for rhythm and melody. The best Dwyer songs sound like he’s surrendering to a groove and trusting himself to respond fully in the moment. A lot of Thee Oh Sees songs sound as though they could’ve been fully improvised even when that’s not the case, and that’s part of Dwyer just being so present in the performances, and seeming totally thrilled by dynamic shifts. His frequent “whooooo!” exclamations seem like a vocal tic at first, but it’s clear over time that it’s the most honest expression in his music. A song like “Web” is just this cool roller coaster he built for himself to ride.
Buy it from Amazon.
May 20th, 2015
Idling Insignificantly
Courtney Barnett @ Bowery Ballroom 5/19/2015
Canned Tomatoes (Whole) / Elevator Operator / Lance Jr. / An Illustration of Loneliness (Sleepless in New York) / Small Poppies / Dead Fox / Depreston / Debbie Downer / Nobody Really Cares If You Don’t Go to the Party / Avant Gardener / Kim’s Caravan / Cannonball / Pedestrian at Best // Being Around / Pickles from the Jar / History Eraser
Courtney Barnett “Elevator Operator”
Courtney Barnett and her band have a different energy live than on record – the arrangements are streamlined for a trio, the bass is chunky and heavy, and Barnett’s delivery is looser and more playful. I really appreciate the relative precision in the studio – the songs are too good to not be presented as well as possible – but the looser, more playful approach is closer to the spirit of the songs, and who she is as a person. She’s one of the rare musicians who actually reminds me a lot of Stephen Malkmus, and has a similar sort of effortless swagger and clever way with words, and a guitar style that’s oddly refined for someone who seems to swing her instrument around like a cool toy. She has excellent chemistry with her bass player and drummer, and they have a great way of balancing the more tossed-off bits with the sections where they really lean in and rock the fuck out of a song. The only odd thing is that they’ve got a few songs in the set that feel like excellent set-closers and finales – “Small Poppies,” “Canned Tomatoes,” “Kim’s Caravan” – and yet the song she goes out on, “History Eraser,” is a song that just kinda comes and goes. Maybe she’d rather not be so dramatic, but like, there she is, being quite dramatic in the show! But that’s a pretty minor complaint.
Buy it from Amazon.
Chastity Belt “Cool Slut”
Chastity Belt also played on this bill, and as it turns out, their music sounds a bit different live. The structure, style, and spirit is the same as what you get on record, but there’s a lot more space in the sound. The studio recordings place a lot of emphasis on Julia Shapiro’s rhythm guitar, but on stage it’s very apparent how graceful and nimble the bass and lead guitar parts are, and how well the band performs as an ensemble. They come across like a very well-rehearsed band, not in the sense that their performance feels stiff in rote, but in that they seem to really understand each other as musicians and have an obvious rapport. The style they’re developing is very interesting, especially in the contrast between Shapiro’s blunt phrasing and Lydia Lund’s lovely, ringing lead parts. That comes together well on “Cool Slut,” which is provocative and defiant, but also rather pretty and chill. It’s basically a song in which Shapiro is giving people permission to be on the same cool vibe as her band, and it seems foolish to turn her down or get in their way.
Buy it from Amazon.
May 21st, 2015
All My Dodgy Dealings
Young Fathers “Shame”
“Shame” is a rock song, I suppose, but it sounds like it was built out of spare parts from a junk heap than any typical rock instrumentation. This isn’t a new idea, but it’s really well executed in this track, and does a lot to create a sense of desperation and anxiety that carries over to the lyrics. Everything seems broken, everything seems like it could just collapse at any moment. And that sensation is exacerbated by the velocity of the beat – you end up feeling like you’re being chased by someone or something, and this is the worst possible time to be so vulnerable.
Buy it from Amazon.