Fluxblog Weekly #64: The Avalanches, Maxwell, Snoh Aalegra, Negative Gemini, Sampa the Great
July 11th, 2016
For All Of Y’all Who Didn’t Fail At School
The Avalanches “Harmony”
The Avalanches’ new record is a pretty joyful thing, but it bums me out in that it’s a reminder of how rare and precious thing dense, complex sample-based music has become in this era. You still get some here and there, mainly on records by big money artists like Kanye West and Beyoncé who can afford clearances without any problem. But money and legal issues have made this craft incredibly impractical and ridiculously time consuming, and fashion moved away from the aesthetics of your Prince Pauls, DJ Shadows, Automators, and Avalanches. A lot of Wildflower sounds like it’s been sitting on a shelf for over a decade, but more like a bottle of wine in a cellar than something that wasn’t worth releasing back in the day. “Harmony” weaves together scraps of sunshine pop into something that’s even sunnier than the source material. There’s a lovely weightlessness to the sound of it, as though you’re just strolling around town hearing the bits from the song pass by on the breeze and it’s somehow accidentally gelling into a composition. It’d sound magical in any case, but this sort of music being fairly rare these days only makes it seem more so.
Buy it from Amazon.
July 12th, 2016
Cupid Keeps Targeting Me
Maxwell “III”
The rhythm and chords of “III” set up a pattern of light tension and release that moves so quickly that your mind and body barely registers the tightness and only pays attention to the feeling of relief. It’s the perfect tone for a song that ties together feelings of lust and empathy, and addresses someone who is very familiar, but isn’t a romantic conquest just yet. As smooth as this song is, there’s a bit of gruff holler in Maxwell’s voice at points, and it steps up the passion without trampling over the delicate balance in the arrangement. He sounds like a man – a real adult man – and what you get in his vocal performance here is all the confidence that comes with experience, with just a touch of unashamed vulnerability.
Buy it from Amazon.
July 13th, 2016
In The Midst Of Time
Snoh Aalegra “In Your River”
Snoh Aalegra has a big brassy voice, but it’s only the second most striking thing in this track after the string arrangement, which trills and sweeps and swells like an old Hollywood score compressed into a tight three minutes. As epic as the vocal and strings get, there’s still a huge amount of space in this, similar to the balance of lonely nothingness and glamorous excess you’d find on ‘90s Portishead records. Aalegra’s vocal performance is stuck between here and there as well; she sings about romantic indecision with equal passion for both sides of her internal conflict.
Buy it from Amazon.
July 14th, 2016
The Way I’m Going
Negative Gemini “Don’t Worry ‘Bout the Fuck I’m Doing”
That title sets you up for something aggressive, right? I can’t say there’s no aggression in this song – that phrase is sung repeatedly, after all – but the anger and frustration is buried beneath a chill facade and a groove that’d be hypnotic if it weren’t quite so loud. It’s the sound of trying to seem like you’re perfectly fine when you’re definitely not, and embracing the idea “living well is the best revenge” when you’re not living well just yet. Negative Gemini sounds like she’s been put on the defense, and that tension suggests a messier and more complicated set of emotions than your average chillwave tune. I hear this and just wonder what the story behind it could be.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
July 15th, 2016
Evidence Of Happiness
Sampa the Great “2 4”
The phrase “I had evidence of happiness” keeps poking out of this song like an unexpected thorn. Most of what registers in the vocal is boilerplate rap/dancehall – 2, 4, get on the floor – but the few lines around it build a lot of tension and make everything else about the song feel more defiant than fun. I love the way the chords skip on the beat, and the slowed-down vocals pop in to this threadbare arrangement to add a bit of texture, but go against the grain of the music in this oddly pleasurable way. It’s like moving against a tide, but maybe that’s the idea of the whole song.
Buy it from Amazon.