Annie Clark, a.k.a. St. Vincent, will be releasing her sophomore album Actor, May 5 through 4AD records.
The opening track “The Strangers” comes dressed in a ghostly and enchanting disguise. Within St. Vincent’s darling melodies, hypnotizing lyrics and fairytale-like orchestrations, excited frustration penetrates down throughout the pound of metal drums and sharpened electric guitars only to bring her sound back up again, by gracefully exiting the room as if nothing ever happened at all.
“this is the sound of someone losing the plot, making out that they’re okay when they’re not; you’re gonna like it, but not a lot, and the chorus goes like this…”
Pulp handled success badly, which is surprising since, before Jarvis Cocker’s late-90′s breakdown, they strived towards pop. After the persistent press coverage that arose from Different Class and several televised performance of Common People, Jarvis had had enough. And the drug addiction and end of a long-term relationship didn’t help. The album This Is Hardcore is a glorious masterpiece of melancholia, starting with “The Fear” (promising ‘the sound of loneliness turned up to 10′) and following with eleven more dark, sinister songs. Dark, sinister songs that you can sing along with. Dark, sinister songs with choruses and quotable lyrics.
“Dishes” is a frail self-analysis of unwanted limitations, self-loathing, existentialism, but also features a comic line in which Jarvis beats Jonathan Coe in delivering: ”I am not Jesus, but I have the same initials.” Underneath the sadness, there is subtle humour, the same force that can drive you through life. After all, the darkest song is amusingly titled ”Seductive Barry”. One of the less likely singles, “Party Hard”, is anthemic without a proper chorus, but still infectious for the ear; the sound of someone reluctantly at a club or party, standing awkwardly to loud music, having a miserable time, but starting to enjoy the music. Never has depression made such easy listening.
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On April 9, Bat for Lashes performed inside the BBC Radio One Live Lounge and showcased a cover of Kings of Leon‘s “Use Somebody”. Delicate in all its detail, the sheer simplicity of an organ and tambourine so effortlessly challenge the meaning behind masculine lyrics, that blend into a feminine masquerade of pure dark yearning.
i’ve been roaming around, always looking down at all i see. painted faces fill the places i can’t reach. you know that i could use somebody, you know that i could use somebody, someone like you…
The last time I wondered “is what I’m doing here actually makes any difference?” was while I was first trying a new brand of mouthwash (and no, I don’t think it made much difference). But on occasion that question is being asked in somewhat grander circumstances, about our place in the universe, our relations with each other and a host of other topics, great and small. Whether life is filled with eddies and waves to be embraced or evaded, sometimes it may feel right to just go with the flow and bend a little before the storm.
In a rather autumn-filled atmosphere, Trieste, Italy’s Giulio Frausin, working under the moniker of the Sleeping Tree, contemplates such thoughts. Gently, in a stripped down folk singer-songwriter style classic, with a hint of a lovely Italian accent, still imbued with the innocence of youth, he makes you want to fly on the wind with the other falling leaves, towards the unknown.
Check out The Sleeping Tree on MySpace and last.fm for more tracks. His debut album, Leaves and Roots, is available here.
A few weeks back, I set my camera up over my drawing board, put on some headphones, played Mike Viola’s “Good Ideas Grow On Trees” on repeat and made a drawing.
If you’ve ever heard a Mike Viola album, you know that his ability to craft perfect pop is as good as it gets and his smartly economical production is the kind of thing that makes a person want to listen again and again. Viola is an artist, a pop scholar and a craftsman. His albums and his performances look forward and back at the same time, displaying a root system of influences and a constant growth in new directions. His most recent album, Lurch, is full of tuneful and breezy songs tinged with the subtly submerged melancholy that is the essential ingredient to all classic pop.
A little over a year ago, in February of 2008, Viola had a one month residency at Joe’s Pub, playing a late show every Friday night at 11:30. Live and in person, augmented by his recent collaborator Kelly Jones (whose astonishing album, SheBANG!, Mike co-wrote and co-produced) and their top-notch band, Viola delivers energetic versions of his songbook with the kind of amazing harmonies that rarely happen outside of a studio.
But what’s really special about a Mike Viola show is the sheer unpredictability of it. Viola likes to hijack his shows, take them over to the dangerous border between self-indulgent digression and sheer genius, and walk that line like a man balancing on a wire. At any moment, Viola and his band might change an arrangement or rip in to a cover of a song they don’t know if they can play until they’re playing it. At other times he’ll improvise a song from scratch, singing lyrics and calling out chord-changes as they occur to him. Sparked by a random comment from the band or a shout from someone in the crowd, Viola can deliver those perfect pop tunes out of thin air. His shows can sprawl, appear dangerously out of control, seem to have lost the thread and still send an audience home with the feeling that they had been part of the magic appearance of something singular and unique.
I’m the archival artist at Joe’s, which means that I draw a lot of the performers during their sets and soundchecks. I like to draw in ink, without any pencils and without any planning. I want my drawings to be live reactions to the moment; drawn improvisations, immediate responses. I don’t like to rip out pages and start again; I like to be surprised by where my mistakes and impulses lead me. I was introduced to Mike’s music last year, late to the party, but glad to have been invited, staying up and discovering a form of pop-perfection in a constant state of becoming that resonated with the way I like to draw.
All of which is to say that when Mike pulled out his acoustic guitar and I heard “Good Ideas Grow On Trees” for the first time at that first show, I knew I wanted to create a video for it. I am often asked how long it takes to do a drawing and my general response is that it is not about time. That said, it took me 45 minutes to make the drawing of this song, but it took me over a year before I actually sat down and did it. That is because, as Mike Viola–pop craftsman, under-appreciated genius, and legend in any other period of pop save the lifetime he landed in–sings, “Good ideas do not fall out of thin air: good ideas grow on trees.”
Mike Viola (with Kelly Jones) is appearing again at Joe’s Pub for a late night show, April 30.
Empire of the Sun is an Australian electronic music duo formed by Luke Steele of The Sleepy Jackson and Nick Littlemore of Pnau. Their debut album, Walking on a Dream, was released in October 2008 and the enigmatic title track quickly became the perfect catchy way to get ready and excited for summer.
living in a rhythm
where the minutes working overtime
In 2007, of Montreal released the psychedelic pop album Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? to critical acclaim for its intricate layers that hid melodies in unexpected corners. This makes album session outtake “Miss Blonde, Your Papa Is Failing” a surprise with its comparably stripped-back approach. Unlike the Georgie Fruit character who dictated the second-half of the album and Skeletal Lamping, the lyrics represent Kevin Barnes at his most earnest; he openly apologizes to his two-year-old daughter for separating with her mother, and thus also becomes agonizingly honest with the listener.
sweet friend, know i love you and i’ve been struggling so hard, so hard trying to keep the family together
“Miss Blonde, Your Papa Is Failing” is painful to listen to. So painful that it is the type of song that should only be heard in private through earphones in bed, head under the covers. Repeated listens gradually peel off layers unnoticeable at first; there are actually several vocal and guitar layers, as well as synths, piano and a drum machine in the chorus. The arrangement conjures up an intense sadness, and every note of each instrument feels like a therapeutic release of emotion.
sweet friend, was i born to give you a name and then be erased, all because i couldn’t keep it together
Keven Barnes plays every instrument on this multi-latered track, which makes every word deliberated, and thus even more personal and heartbreaking. The final line is a shattered plea: “Let’s stay together“, which plays for an extended note. That is until the guitar breakdown that truly does feel like a breakdown, but a controlled breakdown with lullaby qualities that reflect the aspiration of the lyrics. In the end, the arrangement and fragile lyrics place a solemn image in the listener’s head: Kevin Barnes, playing sad acoustic guitar, alone.
Hi, my name is Oded and I was fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to try and contribute a little bit to Music is Art (I usually blog on Laughing Evergreens). I must admit, it was hard for me to get the idea for this first post. I was at a loss at first.
So I took my iPod and went outside to sit in the sun for a few minutes, listening. And then it finally struck me – trying too hard has dulled my senses and feeling. I cranked up the volume and listened, really listened – and ended up finding my muse right where it all began, where it always begins for me – music (Note to self: when in doubt, trust in the music).
And I trust Amit Erez, a young indie singer-songwriter who follows the musical footsteps of Elliott Smith, and his music. Shy and introvert behind the scenes, he channels his soul in lyrics and melody on stage, remaining true to himself.
I wanted to insert a video of Amit Erez performing an instrumental version of a new song from his coming album (a beautiful piece that can stand on its own as a pseudo-classical work), but WordPress still baffles me. Perhaps another time. Till then, you can watch it here.
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