Fluxblog Weekly #6: No Joy, Jenny Hval, Makeshift Shelters, No Ditching, Belle & Sebastian, "Fun Home," + Hot Chip
Hello! This is kind of a special week, at least in that I finally got around to writing about No Joy's More Faithful, which my favorite album of the past several months. I strongly encourage you to spend some time with that record. As a bonus, I've included a Hot Chip song that's easily one of my favorite songs of this year so far. I originally wrote about it when it was a single in March, but the album Why Make Sense? has been out for a few weeks now.
June 8th, 2015
Maybe Next Time Will Be The Last Time
No Joy “Moon In My Mouth”
A very overrated aspect of music culture, particularly online music culture, is chasing after baby bands and hyping them up. It’s the music culture equivalent of the people who rush to type “FIRST!” in a comments section, and it’s more about people trying to accumulate social capital than anything else. An underrated thing is waiting for one of those baby bands to make the jump from promising or pretty good to becoming actually great. No Joy have done this with their third album More Faithful, and it’s a thrill to hear a group of musicians step up and really find their voice.
The first two No Joy LPs were good but not particularly distinctive shoegaze records. This is fairly common in the indie world – shoegaze is a very seductive aesthetic, and you can make superficially beautiful and cool-sounding music in that genre without a lot of technical skill. It’s also a great genre for shy singers, since you can get away with burying your voice under all the noise.
More Faithful is a shoegaze record too, but it’s anything but lazy and bashful. This is an album made by musicians who understand that the best music in this genre – i.e., the work of My Bloody Valentine – is all about sensuality and subtle tonal contrasts applied to strong, melodic songwriting. The record is full of gorgeous sounds and interesting textures, and even better, there’s so much depth implied by the mix that sometimes it seems as though it’s coming at you in 3-D. (I’m particularly fond of the way the apply a severe slap echo on just the word “stop” in the chorus of “Chalk Snake.”) I’ve had a promo ofMore Faithful for a few months and it’s been in my regular rotation all of that time, and I’m still finding new nuances to love in it after dozens of listens.
“Moon In My Mouth” is the song on More Faithful that I’ve obsessed over for months. It’s a very well-written piece of music, but feels oddly amorphous. It’s performed in an unusual time signature, and though the melodic elements seem to orbit something, it’s not clear what that something actually is. It’s disorienting, but in a very lovely way. One of the best things about “Moon In My Mouth” is though the overall sensation of it is sort of vague, its component sounds are very specific and clean. The extreme clarity of the guitar parts remind me of how Peter Buck’s guitar was recorded and mixed on R.E.M.’sMurmur. There’s something so stunning and surreal about hearing something so crystal clear at the center of an arrangement that otherwise quite atmospheric. Jasamine White-Gluz’s vocal performance is wonderful too – breathy at some points, but very crisp and emphatic in the chorus. I’m so glad she didn’t hold back in singing the song, because that her passion doesn’t compromise the intimacy of this music. It amplifies it.
Buy it from Amazon.
June 9th, 2015
At The Edge Of History
Jenny Hval “That Battle Is Over”
“That Battle Is Over” seems to exist in a strange liminal space – between form and formlessness, between deliberate sexiness and a resistance of sexualization, between the personal and the political. Jenny Hval’s lyrics move through a series of provocative and interesting thoughts, but the connection between all of them is sorta loose and free form. It’s less like an essay and more like just getting lost in thought and letting one idea to lead to another. This makes her points seem all the more profound, particularly as her mind draws a line from media-induced paranoia and hypochondria to the way capitalism thrives on people’s dissatisfaction with themselves, and ultimately, how capitalism’s illusions of choice can make you think that “feminism is over” when patriarchal structures are still in place. The song is like one long epiphany set to a beat and organ drone that signals “erotic” to me, in part because of how commonly this aesthetic was used for intentionally sexy music in the late ‘80s and ‘90s. I love the tension between that vibe and Hval’s words, and the implication that a song dealing with persuasion and seduction on a cultural level should itself sound persuasive and seductive.
Buy it from Amazon.
June 10th, 2015
Those Drunk Texts Were Getting Pretty Lame
Makeshift Shelters “This Song Is Definitely Not About A Boy”
The title of this song is a lie. This is a full-on emo/pop-punk rant about an ex, but unlike the majority of the music in that genre, this is a woman tearing into some obnoxious dude in great detail. Everything in this song is so vivid, from the opening about this guy telling her not to hold his hand in front of his friends to the bit about him saying he’s an anarchist but holding on to his day job. This is basically a Fall Out Boy song in terms of style and structure, but it’s so refreshing to hear these genre conventions turned back on to suburban punk guys – always a far better target of scorn and mockery than the poor young girls who break their hearts after they get tired of being treated like shit.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
No Ditching “Song for Shelley”
The title of this song isn’t a lie, but it’s not quite what you probably expect. It’s a song about friendship, but specifically one that has become rather strained, largely because of some guy she’s dating who is a total creep. I love that the core emotion in this song is a feeling of want to protect a friend, but trying to be mindful of boundaries. So, instead of directly fighting with her boyfriend or lecturing her about him, she tells him to “fuck off” in her sleep.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
June 11th, 2015
Praying For A Friend Is Contagious
Belle & Sebastian @ Radio City Music Hall 6/10/2015
Nobody’s Empire / I’m A Cuckoo / The Party Line / The State I Am In / Dirty Dream Number Two / Perfect Couples / Piazza, New York Catcher / Allie / Cat with the Cream / If You’re Feeling Sinister / The Wrong Girl / Dear Catastrophe Waitress / If You Find Yourself Caught In Love / The Boy with the Arab Strap / I Didn’t See It Coming / Sleep the Clock Around // Lazy Line Painter Jane / Judy and the Dream of Horses
Belle & Sebastian “Cat with the Cream”
I’m pretty sure this was the biggest headlining, non-festival show of Belle & Sebastian’s career in the United States. They really went all-out for it – a huge video screen with full-produced videos matched up to some of the newer songs, dancers, a string section, and special guest Dee Dee Penny from the Dum Dum Girls showing up in the encore to sing “Lazy Line Painter Jane.” (I never thought I’d get to see them do that song, and I was beyond thrilled.) But as much as they endeavored to put on a big, lavish show there was a bit of the old B&S ramshackle charm on display – the dancers were definitely not pros, and you could sometimes see the cursor of the computer controlling the video screen appear on the screen itself.
The performance was impeccable, though. Belle & Sebastian became a very tight live band over a decade ago, and they’ve only become more confident. The main attraction of seeing this band live is just to hear Stuart Murdoch’s voice in person – it’s such a gorgeous, delicate thing, and it’s not a surprise that the songs that stripped out a lot of sound to focus on it, like “The State I Am In” and “Piazza, New York Catcher,” inspired the most passionate response from the audience. I was particularly moved by his performance on “Cat with the Cream,” one of the best cuts from the new album. The vocal melody is so simple and lovely, and I love how it contrasts with this trilling, vaguely menacing string section.
Buy it from Amazon.
June 12th, 2015 12:49pm
I’ll Work On Calming Down
Emily Skeggs “Changing My Major”
I remember thinking that it was very strange that Alison Bechdel’s comic book memoir Fun Home had been turned into a stage musical, and just assumed it would be extremely maudlin and dreary. The actual show is very emotional, but also very dynamic and entertaining, and highlights a dry wit that’s on Bechdel’s pages, but isn’t necessarily the most famous thing about her book. At least in terms of music, this is a fairly traditional Broadway musical, and as such a lot of it isn’t exactly subtle – it is mostly made up of people with bold, clear voices singing their feelings and actions. But I think overall, the show has a depth the book only suggests. Michael Cerveris’ just recently won a Tony for his performance as Bechdel’s closeted father Bruce, and thank god, because he brings out the subtleties of that character’s many layers of repression in a way that highlights the very best of what acting can be. Cerveris’ Bruce and the trio of actresses who play Alison – Beth Malone, Emily Skeggs, and Sydney Lucas – bring out the best in Bechdel’s source material and Lisa Kron and Jeanine Tesori’s book and score, and present highly specific, intricately detailed portrayals of their characters.
“Changing My Major,” sung by Emily Skeggs as the college-age Bechdel, is a particularly charming song, and stands on its own rather well. All you need to know is that this is sung from the perspective of Alison on the morning after she loses her virginity to a classmate named Joan, and it’s her excited and confused inner monologue about the conflict her intense infatuation and her unsure feelings about fully coming out as a lesbian. (“I’m changing my major to…Joan! / I’m changing my major to sex…with Joan!”) This is definitely specific to the circumstances of Alison’s sexuality, but the powerful feeling of experiencing “OH MY GOD MY LIFE IS CHANGED I LOVE THIS PERSON” for the first time is close to universal.
Buy it from Amazon.
March 5th, 2015
Every Day Of My Life
Hot Chip “Huarache Lights”
There are a lot of songs about technology and a lot of songs about feeling old, but it’s rare to find a song that’s about both and isn’t remotely hysterical about either. Most of the guys in Hot Chip are DJs when they’re not playing in the band, and this track clearly comes out of that experience, with Alexis Taylor having a very subdued existential crisis while realizing that he favors a more old school, tactile way of doing things, and how that means he’s a little out of step with how things are today. But he’s not really freaking out about it – as befitting a guy in an electronic band, he’s not bothered by technology, and he admits that maybe he’s bored with “youth.” This is a song about being OK with aging, and not necessarily looking at obsolescence as the worst thing that could happen to anyone or anything. There’s a beauty in a moment that passes, and some grace and dignity in belonging to your moment instead of forcing yourself into someone else’s thing.
The song also gets at what seems to be the core philosophy of the band: “Machines are great, but best when they come to life.” It’s all about investing these things with humanity. It’s not a mistake that the recurring hook “replace us with the things that do the job better” shifts from Taylor’s voice into a robot voice and back to Taylor at the end. Hot Chip just aren’t ever going to see the robot as a replacement for the flawed but soulful voice of a real person.
Buy it from Amazon.