Fluxblog Weekly #36: David Bowie, Thao and the Get Down Stay Down, DJ Paypal, Eerie Summer
January 6th, 2016
This Is All I Ever Meant
David Bowie “I Can’t Give Everything Away”
It seems reductive to say that Blackstar is a record about aging and mortality – there’s a lot more going on both thematically and musically – but I think the most powerful moments on the album address these ideas from a vaguely unsettling perspective. He’s morbid, but not particularly welcoming of his inevitable fate. There’s a sense of clarity setting in, and in wrapping up loose ends, but a refusal to be maudlin or willing to let go of anything so easily. “I Can’t Give Everything Away,” the melancholy but serene finale, has Bowie singing about the necessity for boundaries and his right to be opaque about private matters. You can read this song a few different ways, but I think it’s really a statement about his entire life and body of work – it’s always him, but it’s not. Bowie was a pioneer of bringing an actor’s concept of performance to rock music, and even if there’s a distance to that, it’s just as draining as a more “confessional” approach. You give a lot to your audience, but you draw a line somewhere. Maybe this is his way of apologizing for that distance, or just explaining it. Perhaps the idea of holding on to the things he can’t give away is, for him, a way to keep being alive.
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January 5th, 2016
Too Scared To Leave
Thao and the Get Down Stay Down “Nobody Dies”
The rhythms in “Nobody Dies” are steady and strong but feel a bit loose and rickety all the same, like it’s just a bunch of scaffolding keeping Thao Nguyen’s voice aloft in a place where it probably shouldn’t be. And that suits the theme of the song rather well – she’s singing about the bravery that comes from not even thinking about impending disaster, and how that is both exciting and foolish. And selfish too, because risk often involves other people too. I love the instrumental bridge near the end – the solo is all shaky treble that doesn’t quite flow. That section is like a tightrope walk, and those high frequencies feel like nerves. It’s the most thrilling part of the song, but it’s over very quickly.
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January 7th, 2016
C’mon Hey Hey Hey
DJ Paypal “Slim Trak”
DJ Paypal’s music comes out of the Chicago footwork tradition, which is another way of saying it’s so fast and frenetic that it’s hard to imagine anyone but the most athletic people dancing to it. A lot of that stuff can be difficult to hear out of context, and I say that as a person who strongly favors fast tempos – there’s often just a sonic whiplash effect, and an obnoxiousness factor that isn’t far removed from a lot of musically similar drum n bass and dubstep. DJ Paypal’s stuff goes down smoother without sacrificing the key elements of the style, and I think a lot of that comes down to avoiding cheap edit effects and having a solid sense of musicality and harmony. “Slim Trak” is ultimately a frenzied samba, and it comes out sounding like a weird dream version of Brazilian music where it’s all slightly wrong and surreal in your memory. It also requires little to no context – it works as pop music on its own terms, and having any awareness of footwork or any sort of Brazilian music is just a bonus to anyone’s experience with it.
Buy it from Amazon.
January 8th, 2016
когда мы вместе
Eerie Summer “тогда было все по-другому”
As you can maybe tell by the title of this song, Eerie Summer are a band from St. Petersburg, Russia. A majority of their songs are sung in English, but this one is not. This is good old fashioned lovelorn indie-pop, and even if the words are not in English, the translated lyrics conform to the conventions of the genre. I’m not sure why I’m even vaguely surprised by that – if you’re attracted to this particular vibe, you’ve almost certainly bought into the sentiment as well as the sound. Going on the translation I have, this is song is basically a girl trying to figure out where she stands with someone she’s been hooking up with – “I thought that you can save me / this is stupid, mmmm sorry / I like everything we do when we are together.” I’m not sure whether something is being lost in translation, but I like the way those ideas flow together, and how the bashful apology goes straight into a more forthright statement about enjoying their company. It’s such a relatable sentiment for a song, but you just wanna be like “hey, chill out, it’ll be fiiiiiine.”
Buy it from Bandcamp.