The Suburbs: Reviewsing, Intro

I think it's safe to say that Arcade Fire have moved out of a baroque pop idiom and into one of arena-rock. They're still big, still wildly awake onstage, and still subtle in their craft. They've expanded their sound, though, and added shitloads of bass and guitars, wrapping their still-lush instrumentation in the tradition of the Great Western Rock Group. And that's fine, y'know. But it made listening to The Suburbs a disorienting experience for me. The voices, the subject matter, the mythology, the strings were all there, but sprawlingly and disturbingly configured over 16 tracks...

I've come to see the record as a rock opera for our times. Its largeness (sonically, literally!) is the product of an ambitious goal: to create a very dense, contained, self-referential bushel of themes, and reorient them in as many ways as possible. The suburbs are their focus, and by building up a web of lyrical and musical material and wrapping it in a formal structure, they can try to pick apart the implications therein. You could say The Beatles did it with Revolver, and that The Who did it with Tommy. The last one I like, and I think it has the most comparisons; while Tommy is more clearly a narrative, at its core it tries to link turns of phrase, progressions, and musical-theatre-structural-devices to talk about the social implications of one weirdo situation, one thing to try and figure out. The suburbs is our blind/deaf/dumb messiah.

9/24: THOMAS + Owen Pallett Concert Review, Part 1

A blog is only worth the voice of its speaker; softspoken, hardtyping folk will suffer a hardsoftmind. Lots of my thoughts about this show will need to find another home than an outpouring over a setlist. This is true: the intimate environment, the genesis of a long tour, the retooling of much new material, and Thomas' greater role made the experience...something else, something else. Something new. SOMETHING FUCKING FANTASTIC.

THOMAS: 1) Betty Carter cover ("Music can come from nowhere...")
2) ??? ("...dusty Springfield...")
3) Gwen Stefani cover ("It's hard to remember how it felt before...")
4) ??? ("Jenny's gone home again...")
5) Justin Beiber cover ("Everybody's laughing in my life...")

Talking with Thomas is just a generally good idea. He's an open dude, and you get a lot of cool tidbits in conversation (invite-only record stores, preference for baritone guitar, status of his EP). Being asked to perform on the fly seemed to jar him, and so the transitions between the lovingly-daubed guitar chord cycles were unclear, cut off at the first verse, or just felt unfinished.

But the man rose to the occasion and did a beautiful job transmuting pop/alt-pop covers into new spaces of multifunctional chords and a soaring, tender voice. The way he crafts harmony and melody is a lot less clear than Owen's writing, and his use of motive is either non-existent or highly hidden, peeking out of the density of his movements.

Yet that density, and that attention to harmony and melody, are things that Owen embodies in his music as well. They're great patners in that light, and Thomas' inspired skills on bass, guitar, and percussion are an incredible and increasing asset. Also: Thomas' voice over his sound caves is incredibly vulnerable, often inaudible or only mouthed or whispered. Owen, in his turn, takes an incredible risk in the placement of his melodies within the structure of his tunes. He sings with it. In any case, these covers resembled "Love Is the Candle" most from Self Help, but the experience was much more expansive.

Interesting to filter it through a cover medium, too. Thom mentioned how it allowed him to place meaning into a song without being bound to it. It also allows someone to connect to the song in a new way, giving him the strong power to, as he did genre-wise in the weirdo pop of Self Help, redefine the terms of engagement for these pop songs, and pop at large.

In sum: Thomas' music seems to be about insertion into a structural void, in the way that chords don't necessarily follow from each other, but in recognizing the fact and consequence of their general out-of-place-ness, strive to give meaning and turn to a phrase. It's a timidly sort of constantly trying music, flitting beautifully around his vocals which somehow teeter on the edge of whispers and words. Ethereal isn't the right word, since there's so much purpose in it: so much melody! and some emergent harmonization! and so much...pop! What a perfect fucking compliment for Owen's music.

Owen Pallett
1) E is for Estranged
2) Don't Stop
3) This is the Dream of Win and Regine
4) Midnight Directives
5) Flare Gun
6) The Butcher

In the sketch of it, a pretty standard set. 3/4 "new" songs, and the typical strong songs from all of his records. Don't Stop in spot 2 was a great choice, I think; the energy of the quiet opener drew out over this dance tune, climaxed over Win and Regine, and balanced out with Midnight Directives, effectively setting a diverse and inclusive 4-song opening bit.

The set was almost entirely segued, except for necessary instrument changes; even then, Owen took an extra verse on Scandal to allow Thomas to finish tuning up. Maybe that's just Owen's tendency to rush, which could be corroborated by how quickly he's playing older tunes. It creates a string of performances whose effect is powerful, and whose segues were often perfectly executed, without grace cycles to correct mistakes or gain momentum/confidence.

That didn't mean that their weren't mistakes, including a "wrong button" moment here or there. I hastened to compare to the last show I saw them on, where they had just come off a break, embarking on a long tour, and the last song had some sort of huge breakdown which was really ok by the audience (then a performer error (?) on a This Lamb Sells Condos encore, and here some sort of broken sound device which cut out the polyphony on the climax of Lewis Takes Off His Shirt), in reasonably intimate venues. And yet this show had some sense of...comfort. Maybe it was the not-official scheduling, the acceptance inherent in a college show, the small and beautiful venue, the lack of pressure to open especially to a Rock Band's Set in a Rock Band's Venue with a Rock Band's Crowd. To be fair, Thomas was freakin' a bit from the sudden opener-ship himself, but Owen was so smooth, man. So smooth.

Smooth a lot like the new pop textures that treated the new songs, beginning with Don't Stop. What struck me most was the accompaniment: somewhat how comfortable, in this song and others, Owen is with killing tonality; but mostly how mature the harmonic textures were. The recorded version definitely added some new harmonic structure, and so it sorta stuck out by being "new." But...I feel Owen as a melodic composer, someone who could look at any texture and write a beautiful, expressive, complex melody over it. To go even further, I'd argue that his musical harmonic textures are often really, really basic; that's a good deal of what makes him a pop artist. But even these "poppy" cuts rejected from Heartland have wildly inventive harmony, and many of the songs tonight had new or just newer sounding harmonies (Estranged being one, and beyond the beautiful dynamics and harmonization I have little else to say on it).

Taking this harmony thread a little farther...Thomas' bass addition on This is the Dream of Win and Regine is just another way of giving the accompaniment more power, more flexibility in the hands of (a) a skilled guitarist, (b) an often harmonically ambiguous songwriter, and (c) a non-looped, highly adaptable musician. But what is melody to Owen? Is it...does it change from a simple expression of statement to a more complex yet brilliantly clear movement across textures? Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaat.

Just like the dynamics in Estranged or the climax of Dream, the fucking pizzicato on Midnight Directives was extraspectacular, drawing catcalls from all across the audience. Still don't like the sound-clutter that the organ introduces, but yeah. I paid far more attention to the bass and rhythm in this song. Thomas follows the Bass pattern very closely and sophisticatedly on the wood blocks, and helps to create a jerky sort of syncopation...or maybe just increasing density, another noble goal.

Flare Gun: Owen bows the riff like a hawk descending on whatever upon which hawks descend. The sonic/atonal/rhythmic density of the piece, which is characteristic of Heartland I guess, was a thread that I struggled with a lot during the concert but could never flesh out. What does it mean to have dense music? The effect was at least stunning, and major fucking hell yes on the basswork on that tune.

The Butcher: and all the ways he uses that bow, how he seems to have explored all the possibilities that one can explore in sounding a violin. Sonic experimentation is present everywhere in quiet ways around his music, in a way: looping itself, repatching certain taps on the violin to sound like snares, bowing on the bridge, glisses and pizz, hitting and smacking, shouting into the pickup...it at least betrays the curiosity of an ambitious musician, who strives constantly to bring new character to his music and live performance (ex: the throwaway mellotron-voice riff that he added to LTOHS in Boston, after not using the patch on LTA, seems to have stayed...why?). Thomas is such a great cushion for that, in following the cycles of the music, adding chords and picking Owen up. Or, being picked up. Hehe.

Concert Review: Arcade Fire + Young Galaxy (8/1)

Young Galaxy

I was distracted with my letters, but I liked this band. It takes balls to start off your set with an expansive rock ballad, and it is with balls that they hopped around their country, post-rock, punk, and country-influenced tunes. Rhythmically they were fantastic, with an ambitious but solid drummer meshing with a great bassist and one of the few people who realize its not easy to play tambourine, and do it well anyway. Their harmonies were sweet as well, although the sweetness almost took away from how hard they were, wrapping it in puffy thirds, fourths, and fifths. Regardless they were a great energy-boost for the evening, with some nice character on stage. Worth checking out in a few months.

Arcade Fire

Setlist:

1) Ready to Start

2) Month of May

3) Neighborhood #2 (Laika)

4) No Cars Go

5) Haiti

6) Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)

7) We Used to Wait

8) Intervention

9) Modern Man

10) The Suburbs

11) Deep Blue

12) Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)

13) Rebellion (Lies)

14) Half Light II (No Celebration)

15) Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)

---

16) Keep the Car Running

17) Wake Up

A quick inventory over that setlist reveals a lot. Almost all of their established live heavy hitters are played, taking up 9 songs; 4 of the songs were the pre-released singles, making, and what's left are three tracks that not enough people knew. It's perfect: be everything people remember or are used to in the band, walk onto sort-of-covered material to start and restart the set, and fill in with interesting material to look forward to on the record. Not many risks, but then Arcade Fire doesn't have to take many risks: the audience trusts them to come back, to tolerate even the new stuff: "sorry to confuse you with all these new songs," Win blurted at one point. I don't blame them, either. I'm not sure whether it was me and my memory of what an AF set should be circa 2007, or the audience's knowledge and enthusiasm for the material they knew, or the grooves that hadn't yet been worn into the new songs to make them their own, (or maybe the weight of a strict, vanilla, corporatized venue) but some electricity was lost during the middle part of that set. I wouldn't say there were any real quiet moments, but moments that were more "shuffle" or "tango" than "jump at a rock concert."

Wisely, Ready to Start was placed at the beginning. It rocks hard, has a strong synth melody on the high-end and a frantic and clear chorus. We all went nuts for it, and felt its guidance into the rest of the set, and we knew it, as we did Month of May. Or at least enough of us did to regenerate the electricity. Or maybe they felt better about it. Anyway, MoM balanced out the baroque arena rock with some baroque...punk, I guess. Just as RTS was accessible for its subject, MoM was accessible for that punk styling, for its repetitions and frantic syncopated lyrics.

But they knew what we wanted, and so they drew out the drums, and as the applause and excitement petered away the vague outlines of Neighborhood #2 (Laika) appeared, at which point shit hit the fan. I do think that the group does the old songs better, that they are spaces in which they know the contours and can vault boldly into the sky with all of their enthusiasm, as they did on the opening tunes but with less...comfort? Maybe what I'm critiquing is the new flavor of The Suburbs, that I see in these tunes, with their shufflesteps and slower builds and lack of catharsis (by the way, I lost my pitchfork bet :< ) in arcingly glistening statements in favor of the quiet and common modernity that forms a slow black choking inevitable tide over us. "The last kiss on the coffin of youth . . . the hard drink after a day's work" . . . and now the family, 10 years later, remembering their parents? The fact that The Suburbs takes the subject matter of Funeral from a different perspective freshened, I think, the approach to the old material. Anyway, it kicked ass and blew everyone's mind, cementing in us the expectation of a machine-gun heavy-hitter kind of night. Disco and all.

And so the culmination of the Arcade Fire style, the ultimate (and penultimate) cry of Neon Bible, the old song which was made new, with a bridge that contained one of the few rhythmless moments of the entire night, with two of the most powerful and extended crescendos in all of music, the one, the only, No Cars Go? Similarly, with the call of the horns, light flashes and fist pumps and abandoned shouting, we found trust. The group played it slightly downtempo but no less powerfully. It takes power to drag the thrill of an opening out for 4 songs, and they certainly managed.

Haiti was one of the top moments of the night. Cascading past a four-on-the-floor bass-drum, the rhythm and melody manage to hit every sixteenth note without sounding frantic, creating two levels of access: the melody's elegaic loss made only more compelling by Regine's impassioned stylings, and the rhythm's frantic, cycling need. The wordless and spoken parts seemed new and surprising, unexpected tunnels through the face of the song into new territory of improv and excitement. This band reps their care for Haiti a thousand times over, and it was a real gift to hear that in their music. Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains), which apparently does take after the Tracy Kidder book, had a similar wealth of spirit but was entirely new, entirely different. It grabbed less quickly than the other tunes, but it had a certain glisten to it, a fascinated transluscence which the simple scalar melodies and happy chord patterns only lended to. Subtle, definitely subtle. But Regine was screaming, so it was accessible. And, oh right, beautiful.

We Used to Wait was probably the lowest energy moment of the night, which was kind of a shock after the grab of the last two songs. It was a "tango" sort of song, with a brooding that didn't really take off. Shuffling around to it, though, you could feel the space they were crafting. In the background were shots of various papers and letters which, I assume, belonged to Alvino Rey, grandfather to Win and Will. Is his memory accessible to an audience, beyond the rarity of "My Buddy" and a vague link in the musical chain to AF? Maybe. As with this song and the others, the album as got to get known first.

Intervention was just lovely. The musicianship was a bit rough, notably on the marimba, but whatever. The spirit was everywhere. Also special to hear was not the LP-style full-force organ, or the demo-style acoustic guitar, but a strong mix of the two. With a better soundsystem that could absolutely destroy, but instead a certain sensitivity got lost in the sweep of the drums. Ah well. I wish I could say more about Modern Man, and later Deep Blue, and even later Half Light II (No Celebration), but I really don't remember.

However, The Suburbs shines brightly. One of the things I loved about the tune is how the darkness slowly chokes it, through layers that are added, rhythms that are changed, melodies which flare off, by degrees you enter a more anxious, even desperate space, but always quietly, always. Of course that effect is hard to replicate live, but even so, there was less punch last night, less sureness, less power into that downbeat stomp on the chorus and less soaring off into a new verse rife with more loss every word.

Which wasn't permanent, of course. Because there is only one other thing as exciting to me as the promise of the groove Neighborhood #3 (Power Out). A tune like that couldn't exist on The Suburbs; it's too simple in its statements, too complex in its weavings, too orange in hue (?), too young. Maybe the youngest song on Funeral in its supernova frantic pathos-laden punch. Or maybe not. But only one other thing can move my body like that, can hit so deeply the face of what this band has meant to me like that song. I can't say anything less personal about it.

And the other thing is a drumfreakout which morphs, little by little, into the realization that they're about to play Rebellion (Lies) and you should already moving. It fits the arena amazingly well, and while not as intimate as some of the earlier tracks, in its firey grandeur and towering irony (Lies! Lies! Lies! Lies! Lies!) it's immediately there for everyone. Shit continued to hit the fan. More fist-pumps per second seconds, more voice cracks per note on a wordless melody, more feet left the ground per song than anything else.

Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels), though...it was not arena rock. It had a dancing power that people went nuts with, and came in second on the voice cracks per note sung, yeah. It was infinitely personal, tender and young even after its composition 6? 7? 8? years ago. The Arcade Fire returns and manages, like no other song on the set, to pack in all of their many-layered pathos. A cosmic Sfogliatella. Their loss and their optimism in equal and magnetically charged parts drawing towards each other in their stage presence, their musicianship...I'm descending, but if you've seen them live, you get it. They just touch you and it's nice. And in LP3-era AF, they only get better at it.

I was pleasantly surprised with the choice of Keep the Car Running, and even more surprised with how they pushed at it, letting it breathe on the "when it's coming" parts, a brave move for an encore. The density just shot up on those choruses as the drums doubled the beat and the vocals shout, and that was done with such care. Goodness.

I'm tired, but Wake Up was Wake Up. It was the world and distant arena rock and shimmering sentiment. It was magnificently performed and also just had to happen. There is no way that this song, this set, this band is done budding over this tour. The later, the better.

Looking back, the show feels in part contrived, a deliberate attempt by the band to limit themselves and what they said on stage by planning it so carefully, fitting it with the necessities of an (shiver) arena band still kicking off their new-album tour. But what can you do at the Pavilion, on the second show of a long tour of a new disc? Personally it didn't matter at the time. Everybody, it seemed, felt welcomed enough to clap along when they felt like it, and not let the band decide. Me, I fucked up my elbow and my knee and my voice and the attitudes of a few haters behind me and it doesn't matter. That was, if I dare, the wildest, deepest show I've ever seen.

I Made A Demo

This was for my senior project, a 5-week endeavor marked mostly by the transition from classes to no classes, grades to no grades, work to a nearly guaranteed pass, and lots and lots of time we still had to spend going back to school to do fucking...whatever. So the work, while meant and conceived and lengthwise an album, is more of a fuckoff demo, with a bit of good shit goin' on. Part of me wants to do it again, but it's a stab, an attempt, with a few good things that I want to take elsewhere. But yeah, Owen Pallett covers only sound good live, Woody Guthrie America covers cannot be done under stress, and you need to plan your shit for 7 minute songs. Tracklisting, with my favorites bolded. Enjoy "Stabs." Heavy critique appreciated.

1) "Prelude (to Shitty Days)" by Alyssa
2) "He Poos Clouds" by Owen Pallett, arr. Matt Winkworth
3) "Martha My Dear" by Lennon/McCartney, arr. Alyssa
4) "Woody Guthrie's America" by Akron/Family, arr. Alyssa
5) "Accidents" by Arcade Fire, arr. Alyssa (better version here)

6) "Shampoo, Fresh Laundry, and Sweat (for Blu)" by Alyssa
7) "The Fragrance of Dark Coffee" by Noriyuki Iwadare, arr. Alyssa, feat. Bekah, Jack, and Mia
8) "Like Someone in Love" by Van Heusen, inspired by Bjork and Jerry Englebach, feat. LEFCS
9) "This Lamb Sells Condos" by Owen Pallett, arr. Owen Pallett
10) "The Tyrrany of Lists" by Alyssa
11) "We All Have to Save a Little Love For Ourselves (for Kevin)" by Alyssa

Link

Concert Review: Islands + Active Child + Steel Phantoms (6/28)

I almost didn't go to this show.

Steel Phantoms
The friend I went with had a very good point: these guys could be huge in 5 years. They've only been together for one year, and this was their second show on their first tour. Nuts. The drummer from post-RTTS and Arm's Way, Aaron Harris, was the "frontman," which is always cool to see for a drummer. He's really good, as he showed during the Islands set, but he picked beats that were simpler and did their job (to make a weird reference, the band sounded like Arm's Way Islands with the crap cut away). Their guitarist had a lot of enthusiasm, the bassist was tight, and the keyboardist played fine and sang ok (bit off-tune in parts that needed more oomph). On record these guys are a lot better, with music that turns the gas on and moves within and beyond it, but the show felt like we were getting our bearings, trying to build something, like a workshop. The results were exciting, and some of the best of the night.

Active Child
One bassist and one harpist/keyboardist and one macbook with synth wails and 80's-style-drum-machines in the back. It was a weird show. Cool stuff included the harp, especially, which could be both a percussion/swell instrument and a very sharp melodic one, and the beautiful tenor harmonies between the two. They were on different energy levels, though; the bassist would be drinking water while the keyboardist was frantically trying to wrap up a tune. Not a good recipe when you're walking the line of "live music" in the first place. Not the most articulated act, but they're probably great on record.

Islands
Setlist from memory:
1) Switched On
2) Creeper
3) Devout
4) Vapours
5) Heartbeats
6) New Song #1
7) Whalebone
8) Tender Torture
9) New Song #2
10) Rough Gem
11) Don't Call Me Whitney, Bobby
---
12) Swans

So Jamie fucked off again, this time not as nicely. He was at the Middle East gig I saw with them, back in the fall, and I had a few problems with that show: all the songs were downtempo, the musicianship seemed spotty, and people just weren't all that happy playing their instruments. But now the lineup is the Arm's Way crew, which would predispose the band to sound harder. Beyond that, though, they trusted this drummer to fill in the important spots, to follow the written and unwritten tides of the songs.

When the band first Switched On, Nick's vocals weren't coming through the mix. It seemed like the night was going to continue, as earlier: a bunch of people on stage trying stuff out, with only a tentative concept of a "band" between them. But when the mic worked, it was clear how much the songs relied not only on the words of his speech, but the tone and cadence; they wrapped up the tune nicely, and moved on to better things. Creeper was fucking steel, each "right from the start" feeling more frantic and more energetic. It was a perfect early song: give the drummer a song he knows and feels well, from an album filled with brazenly rough energy, and put it out in this new, tighter ensemble.

Their tightness and energy were clear, but with Devout they just radiated creativity. The song is filled with synth swells and drum machines that doesn't lend to a melodic synth and drummer and otherwise harder-rock (weird to say for synth-pop) instrumentation. They allowed the drummer to create these changes in intensity that turned one of the okay songs on Vapours into this near-anthemic automatic-ear-fucking machine. The riffs on Nick's guitar spun light all over the place.

A lot of the songs were unrecognizeable at first from their new treatment, or at least their feel, especially Heartbeats, a song about making electronic music, but the results were always positive. Whalebone was great. Tender Torture wasn't everything I wanted it to be, but it wasn't bad at all.

The two new songs were strange and fun. Unlike a lot of the songs that night, the first song didn't have the stops or cut-outs or clear changes in directions that others did; its main component was a distorted guitar riff, which chord changes on the chorus. It was also longer, and the lyrics were unintelligible, and of course we didn't know it! It worked, but not as well as the second, which sprung on and off its hard-rock with tightness and sensitivity, like a very small muscled dog.

Rough Gem, Whitney, and Swans were all fucking transcendent. Even though the crowd was small, enough of the diehards had come out for us to get excited at the thought of one of those earlier songs. Rough Gem wasn't introduced, so its starting swell gave the the chills. The bass and guitar took over the cello lines, the synth sounded even better, and that drummer just sent everything spilling over the top with both the irreverent joy of the video and the hard rock of the entire night. Because the song has so many distinct but related parts, the trip through it felt like an odyssey. It wasn't just that it sounded so much like the record; it sounded like everything the record had hoped for. Whitney was annouced as a crowd favorite, and the band really couldn't pull out the creepy looseness of the recording, so they tuned themselves down a bit and sent their energy out in other places: psychotically perfect fills, pregnant pauses, and a tendency to shove the rhythm of the vocals farther back in the measure, giving this playful anticipation to the crowd, who literally couldn't sing along with Nick until "open your eyes, look around you, fuck what you heard, you were lied to." Fun. Swans was played uber-down tempo and roughly at the Middle East, but...it was faster last night. The synth/piano did its job, with the player later switching into guitar for the hard rock portion. Just like Rough Gem this song felt like an odyssey, the parts impeccably played and tight (I was admiring the bass player the entire night, his devotion to the riffs was incredible). It felt good that a song about musical freedom from The Unicorns was done with a new drummer, with a new spirit. Words fail me on this one.

Album Playlist of the Half-Month 2 (6/15)

"Making Orange Things" by Venetian Snares + Speedrancher

Not as trial-by-fire-rage-transcendent as some people might tell you. The title track begins promising and turns into one of the worst beats Funk has ever let his hand touch in ownership. But the turns of invention come back strong: "Tushe Love"'s clarion call to pure sex dirty freakout beat insanity, "Unborn Baby"'s strong commentary and invention, "Cheatin'"'s strange dance of need, and the following need FUCKED with "Meta Abuse," the "Russell" tracks' hate and unpredictable rush, and my favorite: the mushed out washed out drugged up fucked over melodies of "Halfway" that would sound like classical if the style of the last 10 tracks hadn't forced this into this sad role. Wowie.

"Calla" by Calla

Crazy and wonderful noise/rock record, with pure creep and texture mixing with spot on drumwork and vocals. It's very deliberate music, and despite its many faces (the slow grasping clutch of Tarantula, the simple walking bliss of "Only Drowning Men"), it feels controlled, like, well, an album. A connected album of half-noise music that really does focus on its noise is a special thing, and it's well-done to boot.

"The Book of Heads" by John Zorn

Oh I dunno. It's avant-garde and I can enjoy it for that. I wouldn't say there's a progression, but I can enjoy it for its inventiveness and commentary.

"Blind Light" by Anton Fier

Hear the Bjork on "Blind Light," it's title track, feeling like the explosion of "Pluto," and a lot of other similarities are there: dance influences, out-there female focus, noise and swelling motives, and a not-insignificant amount of artistry. But the album feels distended in its own trip-hop self, straddling over tracks the line between ambient chillout triphop and...well, music. Bass work is fantastic.

"Bjork Gudmondsdottir" by Bjork

After I stopped freaking out from how little Bjork was once upon a time, I got to enjoy the ups and downs of this heavily mixed (true) Debut. "Musastaginn" is pure cleverness and genius; I hear both some Sugarcubes songs and "Venus as a Boy" in it. "Arabadrengurinn" is also good, with punchy harmonies and a lot of wonderful dance flow. It feels like both a regurgitation of its time and a quiet prelude to Bjork's later work, and that explanation makes it easy to blame the album's many flops and pointless gestures on its time. But no, she's figuring it out. Good on her. It's the question posed by "Alta Mira": can she ever write beautiful music that isn't trite? Yes. Yes yes yes.

"As the Eternal Cowboy" by Against Me!

For me, the album flips between the epic and the not bad but forgettable. T.S.R., Sink Florida Sink, Potatos Rice and Bread, and Cavalier Eternal definitely stick along for the ride, and none of the other songs are bad or memorable. The only song I get frustrated on is "Raised Fists" It's a belabored point without any reward to it.

"Moonglow" Venetian Snares

Both of the venetian snares albums were heavily out of alphabetical order, but I wanted to revisit them. The A-side of this caught me immediately with its flashy jazz-punk tone, but in a lot of ways that flash is so important: these two songs are Funk confining himself to a certain vocabulary and being as creative as possible within it. And it isn't even something really self-indulgent like songs of fucking his then girlfriend, it's these wildly mixing beats and swells that appeal to more than just the beatnik than me. This Bitter Earth, especially, has this near-symphonic quality as its descending themes and samples swirl inwardly around the drums, sax, and most importantly the negative space. Restraint, something that Funk usually doesn't deal in, or only when there's an assured freakout later, lives here. It's a magical shot.

Quick Thoughts on those Two New Arcade Fire Single

If that is starting Suburbs I will be so happy, but...I hate the double-tracked vocals and slow vocal phrasing right now. The bassline feels ugly, just going along on its own. It...this is arcade fire's new direction, I follow, but I'm not getting the same sense of invention that I did before. It feels like a radio bite. When the drums re-enter around 2:25 I feel them, but then I lose them again. The songs on Funeral took the entire track to reach their climax, but never lost their strong energy, which derived from simple parts mixing in complex and beautiful ways. On first listen this song lay down on the table, took its clothes off, and screamed at me for a bit, and then fell off.
On second listen the groove feels more like a baptism. I guess the simplicity of it is jarring me. The instrumentation is like a punk band with a synthesizer, that's part of what throws me off. Still, this feels too processed to me, it's swells and falls back on its noise, not the spirit that was so clear on the last two LPs. Black Mirror, by contrast, swelled in slowly and then hit you over the head with its power. I'm not sure this more...sideways, punky, radio-conscious, simple startup really speaks to me like I was hoping it to. This is the first time I've had any concerns about the new LP. I'm liking the song more as it goes on, especially that breakdown has a lot to it. I'm just...concerned.

This is also different, more punky and radio in its production, but this is more welcoming in its lyrics. There's more going on under its simple groove; the bassline doesn't feel flaccid or pudgy (...), with the other parts with it. The disco stuff seems weird at first, but that four-on-the-floor drumbeat was always present in their music. This makes a lot more sense to me as a sequel to the rest of their music: innovative, creative in its themes and entrances, and powerful. I still don't "get" the production style, which feels blown out in ways that even Neon Bible wasn't. This electropop vocabulary will take more getting used to. Regine's interjections bring me right back to Funeral, eeee. I just realized part of the problem is my bass-heavy speakers, but still that last buildup didn't have everything I expected it to.

Again, though, this I can give more of a chance than that first track. Also, this album seems to be able music a lot, so the level of commentary about music by enacting either what they're hoping for or fighting against is important.

Overall, I hope I'm able to change enough to appreciate this promise.

Some Things I'd Like to Try

Infinite Jam. An idea I had for a while. Get a space with a crapload of different instruments and tech, and have there be music constantly, all the time. Songs and jams spinning around a wildly varying roster. I'd imagine it'd require a group of 20 musicians subbing in and out, and needs money for rent and food for the performers. Rules: instruments must be playing at all times, although stop-time is fine in context; the constant repetition of a certain figure might help the band talk about the music while it goes on, but that shouldn't go on for too long; always 2 people at the setup at any given time. I just read an article about Victor Wooden's style of learning, and this seems like an embodiment of that: practice feeling, not strictly playing something sensible. Practice trusting and evolving with people. Moreover I like the feeling of gathering a bunch of people together in an insane and taxing project as this, and turning it into pure communication, or telepathy across sounds.

Word Album. Oh, I know it's been done, to make symphonies or sounds out of words spelled with the musical alphabet. Even when those words are shaped into poetry. But the concept still fascinates me, as just another screen through which creativity is distilled. I think it'd be best if the album wasn't explicitly said to have this characteristic, because it's not meant to be a gimmick that gets it published. It's just a method to experiment with.

A Pop Drummer's Companion to John Zorn's 'The Book of Heads'. I don't know a lot about the record, but John Zorn released this crazy album for a solo guitar with all sorts of effects and gimmicks across 35 etudes. Listening to it felt like a view askance at the history of pop and guitar music, trying to filter through its traditions with free improv and a touch of humor. Because of its commentary and the yawningly open use of space, it would be interesting to score a companion to it for rock drum kit, matching the guitar's free improv with snippets and stabs at grooves.

Live Performing. I'd love to try playing at venues, seriously. I can certainly play discrete songs, but my favorite thing to do for people is to string a lot of songs together in some sort of epic soundtrack art-rock thing, and end violently. A lot of the songs I'd like to cover (below) have those capabilities. Other ideas I've had included playing piano with a bass drum and hihat at my feet, or to try looped clarinet (Accidents and Halfway Up The Stairs of Mucus would really lend to that).

[Solo Piano] Gloomy Sunday by Rezső Seress, also known as the Hungarian Suicide Song (bullshit publicity ploy...). It was hard to find the sheet music until I searched the name in Hungarian and got a pretty hi-def scan of it (to be given to whomever wants it). I got into this through the Venetian Snares adaptation of the Billie Holiday cover, both of which are beautiful. It's haunting music, I'd like to play with the score a bit.

[Snippet] Take a Bow by Muse is something I've played with as an exercise. The chords could be good for something.

[Snippet] Hey Dad by Owen Pallett. Aarrrgggh, love those chords so much.

[Solo Piano] Flare Gun by Owen Pallett, arr. Matt Winkworth for Piano and voice. Matt over at the fanforums made this arrangement, which is really just an adaptation, since the things is goddamn impossible, but quite impressive. If I'm ever good enough to handle the jumps, it could be a powerhouse.

[Solo Piano] The Miner Becomes Forgetful by Owen Pallett. There's a bit of a piano score adaptation from the fan forums, but I really want to see if I can turn a solo piano piece out of it. The hardest part will be arranging the violin line in the chorus to intersect and move past the rhythm part...and those damn chords at the end.

[Solo Piano] Bucky Little Wing by Islands is my favorite party cover. Rollicking and simple. The version I play is slightly adapted to add some depth to the sound, filled on record by doowops and rain sounds. In some ways, not worth the time, but so much fun.

[Solo Piano] Sulk by Radiohead. I use this in worships a lot, my adaptation has morphing arpeggios in the left hand and octaves, occasionally spiked with a third or a sixth to deepen the sound. I could never fold in the chorus part, though, and so what I play now is usually just a vamp. I'd like to change that.

[Solo Piano] Paranoid Android by Radiohead is something I often segue into from another song I do, an original. I only ever do the middle section, never a verse or the descending bridge, but the bridge especially should turn into an arrangement.

[Solo Piano / Ensemble] Vito's Ordination Song by Sufjan Stevens. This song gets me on the simplicity of the chord structure, the genius of the parallel-fifths-unresolved-leading-tone-horn-line, and the parallel sixths of the vocal harmony ("rest in my arms"). I use both of these things for worship preludes, but I'd love to turn it into an actual arrangement.

[Solo Piano (2 clarinets?)] Flint by Sufjan Stevens fits into all the other cyclic Gm stuff that I do, and adds a really wonderful melody. Great for segues.

[Ensemble (bass, 2 clarinet, drums, voice)] Winter is Coming by Radicalface. I tried covering this for my senior project, but the result, for two clarinets, drums, voice, and bass, was just awful awful awful. Out of tune and without point or depth. I want to try a song with a melodic bass guitar pattern, but it requires a good amount of thought to balance out the sound. The finished product excites me.


[Ensemble (drums, piano...?)] Contrarian by Future of the Left. I want to do an ensemble cover to this strangely tender tune which caps off a punk/indie album.

[Ensemble (kit + 2x clarinet] All the Children Are Dead by Venetian Snares. My dream is to take the moaning bass, snare, and hihat as given, and condense the other effects into toms and things, and put it under two clarinets to scream out the melody.

[Ensemble (Clarinet Quartet] Halfway Up The Stairs of Mucus by Venetian Snares. The song has so much power in rising out of the muck of its own beats, and these really elegaic melodies spiral out of that. In some ways it'd be a crime to remove them without some noise, which is why if I scored it for clarinet quartet, I'd have some noise action going on one of the horns.

Suburbs/Month of May and Album Playlist of the Half-Month

I'll start with the small news:

Just like I've had the same playlist stuck on the "Now Playing" thing on my Zune , I like to switch it up every so often...like every half-month. So I'll pick a random point in the alphabet and harp on it, giving short thoughts or longer ones maybe baby.

This week:

Wilco: "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot"

My dad was the first one to get me into this group/album, so my first memories of it are from a few long car rides, and listening to orange-tan colored rock music tinged with something I couldn't recognize. Second was drumming on "Jesus, Etc." and not realizing it was from this album, and then I started getting into it again. For the last instrumental concert of the year I played drums on "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart" with 6 kids from the Jazz Band...it was hard, but really special. The entire album is easy to listen to but hard to pick apart, not only lyrically but in musical motifs beyond the trite "music/noise." What I feel in it, though is a hotel filled with resting anticipations and wishes, trying to free themselves and taking weirdly-lighted trips out into the "real world."

Wrecked Machines: "Worried World"

It's...good trance? I didn't give it too many listens but I felt like I was listening to something more artful than a lot of dance music can do for me.

Dosh: "Wolves and Wishes"

Probably the favorite stuff on the playlist. I first got suggested it asking around on /mu/ for music that used music boxes, and heard it again at a religious conference. Some of the rhythms and energy remind me of Akron/Family, or some of the hip but none of the hop of Avalanches, or none of the catharsis and all of the energy of Explosions in the Sky. Hooah. Beautiful rambling instrumental music, I could dance to this for ages.

Patrick Wolf: "Wind in the Wires"

I'm not a fan. I enjoyed it at first when I was able to follow the drama of it. And it's all about drama, the kind of suspension of disbelief that an album about Gypsy Kings and the Shadowsea and all sorts of fantasy characters to take place. But really, once you take all the sexy club-style bass out of "Libertine" (which I had to do, on the train), what I'm getting is a lyrically freewheeling musically dry set of stuff. Like, listen to Tristan with the bass low. That's what the album is for me, funky but dead. Then set the bass way up and rock out to it.

The Unicorns: "Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone?"

I think there are only two songs in the world that are perfect, fully perfect, that nothing could be done to them to make them better. "Tuff Ghost" is one of them ("Swans (Life After Death)" is the other, heheh). I either see this album as a half-assed concept album or a pretentiously thrown-together set of songs trying to be about death, but some of the songs just kill. What's weird about it is that even though I feel the album's concept teeters a lot, the songs are so strange in form (the abrupt ending of "I Don't Wanna Die" or the long unbalanced jam of "Child Star") that they lean on each other a lot to make sense, so there is a flow. I'm overharshing the concept, too, it's not that...argh....I guess just like Islands' first album, this is really about making music, musical death and creative death and life, and I should just feel the flow. And I do. Oh I do. You can't cause I'm already dead.

Lunar: "Wall of Sound"

Is it sad that I can say that this is one of those "classical/electronica bands who don't do much for publicity and release all their music online for free" and not be alone? A lot of their music feels tired, especially when the instrumentation strives to give the music a "classical feel" in an otherwise techno song. But in terms of soundscapes and crafting...pillars of sound...they do a nice job. Some of the songs have creative strokes of real weight, too. It does happen. Just...overproduced blagh.

OK OK OK BUT NOW even though the news has broken ARCADE FIRE'S NEW SINGLE TIME.

The first thing that identifies The Suburbs as an AF song is the rolling saloon-style piano chords over the bass and drums, with maybe a distant wail of strings, in an airy sort of production style that you can't mistake from Neon Bible. More archetypes in the lyrics: suburbs, driving, mother, bombs, lost feelings, kids, family. And the suburbs! Didn't we spend a whole album on that one?

Stuff's different, though. In Funeral AF did all they could to show the reasons to paint and reject these suburbs, from the dysfunctional relationships to war and loneliness and lots of driving and water and leaving places. In coming back to this topic, though, we're breaking through the stark and wildly colorful funeral picture into something even stranger: the dead body of youth, after it left. We're exploring what Neon Bible seemed to have so strongly left behind, to travel into realms of political commentary and loss in an ocean of negative media influence.

Instead we're right into the memories, not the present or the future but the past.Moving in your mom's van, what Funeral implied is now facing us in The Suburbs: we can't escape this past, and even if the feelings go past the memories stay and kids are still screaming screaming screaming. Who knows what it means now. It was all about the childhood gestures of drawing lines between us and them, screaming and yelling, getting hard, and getting bored with it all. Did it mean anything? Ever? The loss of Funeral was the idea and meaning of youth, but surfacing from the hard-life torment of Neon Bible, they look back and the loss has mutated into something else. Something else. Something else. Still screaming.

That's exciting fucking territory to travel to. What excites me even more is that even though AF released the title track of the work, we know from Neon Bible that the title track is only an exposition, a quick look into what an album is doing. I'm not sure that there are musical frontiers here, but it reminds me most of a slowed-down verison of "Poupee de Cire / Poupee de Son" cover from the Split 7" with LCD Soundsystem. Maybe some of "Cold Wind," actually a whole lot of "Cold Wind." Usually Arcade Fire songs can be thought as pure crescendos from A to B, but with this cut the beat's always on the same, and what gets added is a bit more melancholy. The descending electric guitar, synth wails, and strings that lay suspended in the air crying out under the harsher electric bass and (really well done) drums. Acoustic guitar thoughout is a great touch, adding a folky touch. The piano always plays the same progression diatonically, but it morphs it into more spaces...the weirdo major turn earlier in the song becomes a morning pedal point, drilling drilling drilling already past already past. The song breaks maybe a lit of mold, but mostly it takes everything Arcade Fire has done so well and puts it into a 5 minute romp/funeral march. Maturity is here, and also a lot of confusion.

If Month of May had xylophone in it, you could tell it was an Arcade Fire song. I...I can't even...not right now...maybe later...

Concert Review: Flobots (5/25) and other things

Hey! So this show wasn't just Flobots, but I didn't get to catch the openers. I have no experience with the group beyond "Handlebars," and had never been up to Allston, or specifically to Harper's Ferry. It's a beautiful hole-in-the-wall with, yes, cheap beer, which is apparently why a lot of people were there. But the whole setup was casual, with no biggie ticket check even though they were a little on the pricey side ($20?). Dedicated to the band? Maybe 150. But that made it all the so much bigger.

I know shit about Flobots, but that stopped me. Stopped nobody; you could feel people gravitating in off their barstools to be here. Musically I'm into what they do, I guess. Start with: a very tight drummer, who knows when to kick on and kick off, and how to throw in double-time on the snare and hihats to funk up a beat without derailing it. The jittering mass of their songs couldn't have gone along without their bassist, who not only was tight, but creative and clearly into it. The violist did some beautiful work, with her vibrato and attention to tone, but she wasn't always able to get beyond her role and character as "contrast." Especially in a show without horns, you need to find ways to add melody, and she could've been more outgoing and stabilized some of the grooves. The guitarist was a huge geek, but I loved him dearly. Both as frontmen and as skilled musicians, though, the two rappers stole the show.

I think of rap as three things only: rhythm, tone, and beat, in order of importance. I'm going to use Busdriver's solo on Islands' "Where There's a Will, There's a Whalebone" to illustrate what I'm talking about. Rhythm and cadence are just the same as in drumming; I think that any good rap line should be able to double as a snare solo on drums. Finding ways to find those cracks in the song where offbeats, syncopation, or (favorite!) triplet runs push it forward. Here's what I'm talking about, to the right: it holds up on its own, just as music.

The manipulation of those rhythmic elements and motives has to be married to the tools of poetic words: rhymes, masculine and feminine lines, assonance, consonance, all of those simple tools of language. Sounds need to link to other sounds: in rhyme with another, in contrast with a line before it, in a pun that links back to another syllable. You can listen to rap like it's scatting.

I'm worst with the meaning. Even if that "Whalebone" song doesn't really say much that's sensible (or audible), you get the main themes pretty clearly and cleverly: being lost in a swirling realm of media, fame and fantasy, corruption, etc. Good rap can rally even if it's not specific; it can paint a picture through association, not literal words. I'm a sucker for instrumental music, but the power of a Flobots song couldn't be the same with out its lift. Decyphering their lyrics in real time was a treat, "Panacea for the Poison" especially, but everything! "Drop the debt and legalize weed" called to the crowd as much as the music behind it did, and both of them were amazing at all three things.

The two rapper added their interplay to the mix. They pushed each other in their friendly yet intense trading of lines, they spoke together and varied their tone to vaunt the whole song up, they melded their personalities against the characters that every other performer was in and blew it up with a word. Chain reactions across the floor. It was beautiful.

They wanted you to put your hands in the air and you put your hands in the air not because you felt like you had to but because you wanted to because together you could do something really exciting. They gave you messages scaled to a human level: not "overturn the Arizona immigration law now" or "equal rights for people of all sexualities and gender-identities now" or "troops out now", but prayers, wishes, conversations, and questions, meant to open our soul to what really matters: "standing up in a room. that's when change happens. Stand up, stand up, stand up..."

Kate Miller-Heidke's "Curiouser," and Concert with Ben Folds (April)

I picked up the album to your left during her tour with Ben Folds, a concert that I was very abruptly and very happily invited to at the House of Blues. More on that in a bit. In a bit of boredom, I threw a few albums together in a now playing list wtih this on it (also including Evelyn Evelyn's "Love Will Tear Us Apart" track which continues to blow my mind and The Avalanches' "Since I Left You" which is just perfect to play for friends and is not well known despite being lauded a thousand times over by Kitchfork and Antony's "The Crying Light" which is just too self-indulgently melancholy for me right now and Sufjan Steven's "The BQE," which continues to FUCK MY BRAIN but anyway). I've gotten a few chances to listen through it and I guess I'd like to say some things about it.

The album is a vein of gold. There's so much clear strength and power, and yet impure or...unrefined wouldn't be the right word, since the album's production sheen is flawless.

Despite her trademark voice abilities, I'm disappointed with the melodies she uses, which range from the unimaginative ("I Like You Better When You're Not Around") to the trite ("Caught in the Crowd"). Yet as an instrument weaving in with other, it gains an incredible amount of power ("God's Gift To Women"), catchyness ("Can't Shake It" and "Motorscooter"), and just presentation effect ("Politics in Space") . I say without irony that she would make an incredible backup or group singer, as I even saw with Ben Folds on "You Don't Know Me."

Lyrically, the album is very mixed. Her style tends to torrent along a theme or a rhyme scheme, and the effect is either stunning or falls flat on its face in a magical explosion of trite pop (..."Caught in the Crowd"...) . She's never just saying things, but she does get caught up in how smart she's doing, maybe? Or less venemously, getting caught up in the momentum that you get when you have a really good riff you like, or a pattern, and just throw it out as much as you can because you're excited. A lot of great excitement, and honesty and clarity, I don't feel bullshitted. But at the same time...I wish she listened to fewer of her pop bands and heard the songs the sex pistols made. She could focus more on energy and less on her really nice articifice.

In terms of grooves...again, mixed. There's a lot of invention going about, especially in chord progressions, song forms, and choice of instruments. But she gets caught up in it, despite all artful manipulations, and certain songs are just doomed to fail (..."Caught in the Crowd"...ok, another example: "Last Day on Earth"). But sometimes she's spot-fucking on, and the groove aligns with the words and the melody doesn't detract and and and and and the results are fireworks, "Politics in Space" and "God's Gift to Women" and "Can't Shake It" (my copy of the album also has "Words" and "Are You Fucking Kidding Me," both of which are mindblowing and were played live).

And live? She tours with an acoustic guitarist and uses a keyboard occasionally. And I think that's AMAZING. Without the tools to create a full pop artifice, she strips down the the pure energy and focuses on her strengths: insane torrents of words, radical manipulation of tone and pitch, inventive and surprising song structures over focused grooves. Kind of like Amanda Palmer touring vs. Amanda Palmer recording these days.

To sum up: I would love a panel of very, very deliberate artists and musicians and arrangers to come together and listen to this over and over, and put out a cover album of it. Mean title for it? "We Make Kate Miller-Heidke Songs Better Than Kate Miller-Heidke Can." Nice title? "We Tap Into the Inspiration and Genius of Kate Miller-Heidke."

These Days of Grey Summer

A few musical-related things that excited me have started to happen, or are sorta nearing the realm of completion and finality.

I found my old Casio Portatone, a sampling keyboard which I first learned how to plan on. As a sampler it's a pretty primitive tool, and I'm none to happy with it, but with the flute setting on it doctored a bit, it could sound like a legitimate synthesizer. Using a 4 mm cable and a converter I can actually feed it into the DP-01 and record it, which will feature heavily in my next project. There are also adorable little midi-drumbeats to play with.

I am out of classes, and for my senior project I am making an album. By time, half and half covers and originals. Covers are: "He Poos Clouds and "This Lamb Sells Condos" by Owen Pallett, both for piano and voice; "Accidents" by Arcade Fire, for clarinet quartet; "Like Someone In Love," the arrangement performed by Bjork on Debut, for piano and voice; "Woody Guthrie's America" by Akron/Family, for piano, clarinet, voice, bass, drums, flutes and recorders; "Martha My Dear" by the Beatles for piano, clarinet and voice; "The Fragrance of Dark Coffee" by Iwadare from Phoenix Wright/Gyakuten Saiban 3 for piano and sampled voices; and "Winter is Coming" by Radicalface for bass guitar, two clarinets, drums, and voice. Should be "done" May 25th...um...

I have finished my run of spring concerts, especially dense this month with Ben Folds, Evelyn Evelyn, Owen Pallett, and Jonsi, with Neutral Uke Hotel tonight for fun. I fell out of the habit of writing about music because I was worrying about too much else, but I'll be posting for the latter four pretty soon.

I am performing the entirety of Beethoven's Piano Sonata, Op. 26 (Theme and 5 Variations) early next month. I'm freaking out a little, especially since I haven't gotten into a good practice rhythm like I thought I would. I'm in control of the notes for the most part, so I think it should turn out alright...but when you forget to practice for a week...I have purchased a dayplanner and hopefully I can pick things up.

I'm online! My version of "Woody Guthrie's America" is the first cut of the Northeast division of WGA v.2. It's more of a demo than anything, and I'm redoing it for the album above.

Stupid little status updates remind bored musicians to keep to what keeps them on.

Concert Review: Jonsi + Death Vessel (5/5)

This concert...

Death Vessel was a great opener. He's the kind of performer that is better suited to a seated venue, but I think he did a great job keeping his energy going. He took a sort of bluesy "1-5-1-5" "I'm playing every sixteenth note" kind of rambling folk and really used silence and very good voice leading (across such simple chords!) to...call out emotions. Not evoke them, and not portray them, but to call their names in the crowd, have them stand up and stare outward, as a slightly confused yet strangely willing performer, as the spotlight shines on them and fades. Someone told me that his songs were all pretty similar, and I guess to a certain extent you could make the claim. Despite that, I enjoyed how deep he got into each soundworld he created, how chords seemed to spiral out of each other seamlessly like water, or like the crazy videography from later in the show.

Jonsi was nothing I ever expected. I hadn't listened to Go (the SE was waiting for me when I got home) at all, and all I knew was to expect the similar energy behind Gobbledygook. On the surface, the show was simple. A set of loose soundscapes with limited percussion, and a set of heavy drum songs. Below the levels, though, things were vibrantly changing. The brilliant videography was the first clue. The main structure was two scrims facing the audience, each with a bunch of projectors, with a window-like structure in between them. The linking structure was that beginning piece of paper with the animals on it, but what spiraled out of it worked between screens, without screens, with and without proper color, without shape and form. Lines and essences spiraling together in a dance of life so articulated, not just an empty platitude but an illustration of a point so heavy that the morphing forms it took seemed all new, special...just as the songs did.

First off, the five-fold deep bow at the end, like stage performers, was completely deserved. The sense of a wandering life was articulated by these five performers across...10 instruments? Main microphone, looping microphone, keyboard, vibes/crazy I'm going to drag two violin bows across this thing, other super weirdo key device, tiny upright piano, two drum kits, bass, guitar, acoustic guitar and ukelele, little lightup pad which controls swell....they all had these skills, although I think Alex did the most wandering, sagan bless his tiny head. There was generally a designated two guitars and drums and Jonsi, with Alex finding his place.

All of them did their work to meld sound together. The bassist worked mostly with the little lightup thingie, and he was responsible for the outisde shell of the song, the sheen which along with Jonsi's typical bowed les paul (no-showing at this show) is sorta the trademark of their sound. Both the bass and the guitar were heavily looped and pedaled over themselves, and that guitarist spent his time on the keyboards as well. He drew the links between that huge outer shell, I felt, drawing connections across textures to leave a space for the others. Alex elaborated on those tightly-strung lights, across his keyboards or strange devices, taking those threads together for a web. Jonsi was the heartbeat from every end of this, using his role as melody-maker very very responsibly and team-orientedly. The drummer, though...this man created these fantastic flashes of light, refracting and reflecting every other part back out of the whole. It wasn't just the incredibly loud HOB bass speaker I was sitting next to, it was the force of his ability to tie everything together and shoot it at you until it explodes in your heart. Right in your fucking heart.

I can't even get into the technicalities of the show, partially because it was almost a week ago now, and partially because it was so mind blowing that I was too busy dry sobbing. Grow Till Tall, though...I can't wait until I can hear it in a special place. Like an attic room with a slanted tiled ceiling, surrounded by bookshelves and piles of multicolored clothing, scarves arcing over the room, small glow in the dark stars and galaxies and sheep thrown into relief by a blacklight, quilts and pillows dusting a sprawling mattress. That kind of place.

I am forever smitten. Thank you a thousand times, Jonsi. Love, your friend Alyssa.

Concert Review: Owen Pallett + Snowblink, 4/20

I saw my first Owen Pallett concert on November 22th 2009, and followed that almost exactly three months later on February 20th 2010, and long before I left I had tickets to see another show three months later, on April 20th 2010. Now some peace, right? No more plans, right? Except I get home and the Montreal festival I was already planning to go to for Arcade Fire will also be hosted the fabulous Mr. Pallett and the impeccable Thomas Gill on August 1st 2010...about three months and two weeks from the last one. I feel blessed.

There were a few funny circumstances surrounding the show. Supposedly Owen and Thomas slept for four hours and then drove up seven hours to get here. They played on the 15th in Washington and the 18th at Coachella, and then supposedly went to Palm Springs (where your ears change?) and then came up here. They talked about it like they were starting fresh, even though many of the elements from the earlier shows, including some of the highlights of this one for me, are becoming a pretty rigid order. Hell, Owen appears to be repeating some of his banter, like the stuff while Don't Stop On My Account begins or "We're only going to play new songs now, because they're better." which is a total lie in two ways. Also...Owen chose to have it inside. The ICA has a fine inside venue, but fuck they have a wonderful platform overlooking the ocean that's great for concerts (Black Moth Super Rainbow aaaa). I believe I saw Owen reading some sort of book while I wandered around (or assessed the perimeter)...and Thomas got there 45 minutes before doors, and came through the main entrance past all of us waiting in line. Hmm hmm! Glad they're still selling scores, too. Aaaaaanyway.

Snowblink actually showed up on a reddit discussion of alt-country groups. I don't know if I would go that far, but they definitely aren't just your hippie folk vibe, if the Michael Jackson cover didn't tip you off. I loved the power of the sound without percussion at all. They were the kind of band that would make no sense for a standing venue, but are also maybe a bit too much for a sitting venue. No drums to rouse the crowd, but clearly so much spirit rising through their music. I liked the atmopsheric additions, but it sounded best when they were just straight-ahead groovin'.

Ok ok ok ok ok so: on the back of my copy of Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man lies the setlist and a few frenzied scribbles (I can't read these...):

E is for Estranged was as good as I've heard it...I always compare it to the rather scratchy and tuneless intro to the FM4 Recording in Vienna, but that's an unfair bar to set. This is the Dream of Win and Regine was really the taking-off point for Owen, with him shouting over an especially boisterous bass. In a lot of ways this was a high-point of the show, since Owen seemed confident and renewed in himself. But my favorite moment came during Scandal at the Parkade, a once-rare track now a cornerstone of the setlist. "Tight as all hell," I wrote, and I remember all of his lines coming together across the song. Instead of cabbages and butter, the forums finally got some insight here:

All that they know'd of cottages, cottages buttoned 'em down, buttoned 'em down.
Once they got into cottages, cottages buttoned 'em down, buttoned 'em down.

It felt like a piece in the style of Has a Good Home, i.e. somewhat written to be looped in the first place, and thus not having the occasional redundancies or difficulties that the looping has (such as the lack of a contrasting section and extra pickup measure in Many Lives -> 49 MP ), and yet so so so so so so modern, to be almost included on Heartland. Anyway to hear it was just... and even though he's been playing it more often, I felt intensely blessed when he started off on That's When the Audience Died. Definitely my favorite song from Has a Good Home, with it's lashing web of intersecting melodies, and I got a wish come true as well: Thomas accompanied, walking in halfway through in his semi-tranced way. His guitar accompaniment made a much wider sound, adding to the climax near the end of the song, and giving Owen more freedom to adventure outward into confidence and excitement. This setlist has become the prototype for the rest of his shows, and especially after Coachella and the island break, it felt like a coming home.

"Pitchfork called it a slam dunk." "Shut up. I've never heard of that site."

Midnight Directives was one of those "new songs" that they said they'd play because they were "better." They did a fine job. Keep the Dog Quiet + Mt. Alpentine was a strange performance, but I don't exactly remember why. Thomas' percussion was more creative than usual, I think. The Great Elsewhere rose from the muck, and it was mostly spot on, but I remember some cracks starting to appear in the face of things. The nervousness continued with Lewis Takes Action which, although the performance was fine, Owen forgot his "wurlitzer version of his voice," which he cutely added back before the encore as a leading tone. I love that he's adaptable like that, but certain things do seem to shake him. The song had a new intro that bewildered me, but I loved it dearly. Thomas left, and...

...and then there was a little monologue about prerecorded songs, and I knew we were going to be the third or so audience to enjoy Don't Stop on My Account. Even though he and Thomas (!!!) are apparently going into the studio pretty soon, I doubt anything will come of this in time...it sounds like the kind of thing like "wouldn't it be cool if we had a huge drum machine part under all this?" Thomas came in part way. Like a lot of the music of Arcade Fire and Radicalface, the whole song pivots around that 4-on the floor, here used to more poppy and bouncy effect. It was a really fun result, but it's the poppiest I've ever heard Owen, and I'm not sure I'm a fan. He followed it with He Poos Clouds, which is always tight and well-memorized, making both a sincere and arresting performance. No looping, I think? It's just belt it out, and also a chance for Owen to gather himself in comfortable territory.

"What are you drinking?" "Harpoon IPA Pale Ale. Thomas got he hooked on it." *cheers* "Oh, is that a local thing?" "How do you like Boston?" "It's nice! When I was first here I only liked the architecture."

Welcome back Thomas to a really delightful version of Flare Gun segueing to The Butcher. They followed it with a really really really especially specially done Many Lives -> 49 MP. They closed with Lewis Takes Off His Shirt. The song was especially interesting to me because I heard how Thomas was changing the way he used percussion (Wilbur: no snare click; Outremont: all snare click; ICA: some snare click) to keep the beat moving. He reserved the good stuff for the end (I think he called it a "piece of work").

The encore was kind of sad. It was a botched version of This Lamb Sells Condos, which fell apart once or twice, and Owen didn't have the graces to not launch into a short monologue about it. I chatted up Thomas after, and he said he wasn't satisfied with it as a whole, especially as a jumping off point to the rest of the tour. As a fan I loved it, and the whole venue was with me I think. The strong moments of a band who knows themselves and their set really well can't be overshadowed by mixups and fuckups, and I do not feel cheated in any way shape or form. Plus, I heard three songs I'd been dying to hear, and strong performances of many others. How can I go wrong?

I'm worried that the Osheaga setlist is going to suck, like the Coachella setlist did. But I think the performance will still be vibrantly spot-on. Long Live Owen and Thomas.

Concert Review: Muse + Silversun Pickups 3/6

I say there are two paradigms which concerts find themselves in between: physically energized and musically energized.

The musically energized concerts revolve around the emotional arc of the pieces, the dynamic range of the songs, the attention to form and detail and control. The participants are seated, and most audience members sit and listen (or stand, even, although that's more uncommon) to the conflicts and resolutions presented on stage. They live through it, in it, wrapping their minds notes by note over the conclusions that a piece represents, statements and questions and the eternal striving to express.

The physically energized concerts orbit around the physical involvement from the crowd, the force and frenzied power of the songs, attention to the crowd's energy and how to compliment it, and lots and lots of movement. Standing participants get into moshes of various kinds, or just sway around like some form of lava. If you're far enough into the spirit, you get into a place of ecstasy in the meaning and power behind a single motion, a single gesture to a neighbor. "Just give me a scene where the music is free, and the beer is not the life of the party, and there's no need to shit-talk or impress, 'cause honesty and emotion are not looked down upon." is the ideal.

The Flaming Lips are a perfect example of how fucking magical it is when a band can straddle the two. You can have a heartwrenching version of "Taps" to commemorate the loss of life in Baghdad, to immediately segue into a song about "We got the power now, motherfuckers it's where it belongs." You can start with Race for the Prize, which despite its amazing energy manages to be tacit vocally during its chorus, and follow it with applause-driven, slow-and-plaintive-ballad versions of hit songs. Fucking nuts.

Muse aren't that great. In my opinion their new record sucks more than the rest of their catalog, but if you can get behind the irony of 3 upper-middle-class guys from Devon singing about social unrest and third eyes (especially since concerts are the closest thing we have to a Two-Minute's Hate, festivals a Hate Week, in their power to transport and warp) you can revel in all sorts of very very pure energy. That's just their record that puts them so far in the Physically Energized column, but their live shows play on that tenfold.

Silversun Pickups, who opened, didn't strike me that much. Their drummer was solid in what he could do, and so kept a wonderfully steady backbeat, but I learned how to play those licks, those exact amen-break like riffs, in Freshman year. Because he drummed open-handed, the ride was appropriated to the crash position, and the crash was set up in the ride position...6 feet off the ground. He could reach it, sure, but all it allowed him to do was a few flamboyant stick tricks. Beyond him, the keyboard player was good when I could hear him, which was never. I liked the bassist a lot. The guitarist's strum work seemed all-or-nothing: either straight 16ths or sparse hits. Despite all that, they had a very sincere and grateful bent on stage, and so they did their job and played their set and got off. That feeling was helped along a great deal by the lead guitarist, who was swaying his axe back and forth, playing with climax using an echo pedal, and saying "very" about 60 times in "thank you very ... very much" I didn't enjoy their act much, especially when the drummer decided to be the last one to go off, but hell it was fun, and I appreciated them.

As I figure it, the golden age of Muse touring was post- Black Holes and Revelations. They were comfortable enough to reach far back into their catalogue, to start (and NOT end) a show with the bombastic glory of Knights of Cydonia, and then kill everyone with Take a Bow at the end. For a lot of reasons the Resistance album had a large amount of control over the show, which means LESS AWESOME but still cool energy. Setlist from the fanforums:

1. Uprising
2. Resistance
3. New Born
4. Map of the Problematique
5. Supermassive Black Hole
6. Guiding Light
7. Interlude + Hysteria
8. Nishe
9. United States of Eurasia
10. Feeling Good
11. Helsinki Jam
12. Undisclosed Desires
13. Starlight
14. Plug In Baby
15. Time Is Running Out
16. Unnatural Selection
Encore
17. Exogenesis: Symphony Part I (Overture)
18. Stockholm Syndrome
19. Man with a Harmonica intro + Knights of Cydonia

So Resistance tracks make up about 37% of the show, and most of the rest are either greatest stadium hits from a few years back, or instrumental jams from various sources. My main problem with the setlist is the lack of tension. The only song that really held the crowd hostage was the Exogenesis performance, which was brilliantly done...far too late. We were theirs long before that. None of the quieter songs from earlier albums to create tension and release, just BASH BASH BASH loud song loud song loud song. As a crowd we could take it, and we felt well-handled, but they've lost their touch so clear after Black holes and Revelations, to really take us on a journey somewhere...not playing a bunch of songs in an arena.

Not much else, I guess. What a shitty venue, most of all.

Concert Review: Secret Society 2/25

Apparently, buying furniture gives you passes to the Regattabar, one of the best Jazz clubs in Boston...and even more mind-blowingly, tickets there only cost $20. For the kind of shit they got comin' in there...we were looking through acts like Trombone Shorty, and they attract a lot of talent. It's amazingly cheap! But Shorty got canceled, so we decided to go to a different show, that of Secret Society. A very special performance in a lot of ways.

The band themselves is a collective of about 20 people. Pianist, electric/upright bassist, drummer/percussionist, guitarist, 6 horns, 3 trombonists, 6 or 7 reed players, and one conductor. The size was such that may have led, at least slightly, to a big-band style, but instead they functioned as a Jazz orchestra. That's in part because of the composing style which was, obviously, composed; although there were (beautiful) improvisations, most of what occured was heavily scripted intersection of lines. It had to be; that was extraordinarily complex music.

Two songs in common time the entire night, the rest ranging from 7 to 9 to (I think) 19. Ridiculous! And it's not like you could throw the chord sheets in front of the group. What chords? These players were working from full scores, highly impressive oversized tomes, each with heavily dense and contrasting lines. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful music, very raw and well orchestrated, but definitely not typical Jazz fare. It teetered on the edge of musical jargon sometimes: stuff that only musicians could appreciate and had little value as art. But you could get the arc of it.

They add fun bits of history into their work, which are explained by their conductor/composer/"ringleader". A nice discussion on fear and the fate of the inner of Mars' moon (and possible Martian Rings) led to Phobos, whereas a discussion on the most influential secret society led into Jacobin Club. A human rights discussion about unjust and unwarranted detainment resulted in Habeus Corpus, whereas Obsidian Flow was named because... "it sounds cool." Redeye (sleep deprivation), Zeno (Zeno of Elea) and Tranist (Fung Wah buses) all worked in there as well. I have less to say about the tracks themselves, which were long and fascinating and musically brilliant. I guess the group dynamic is more what stuck out at me.

In the first place, the ringleader is a creepy man. Darcy James Argue is sorta hunched over and unkempt with a fire in his eyes. He leads his anecdotes while looking off into the distance, and indulging in awkward tangents. He simply doesn't have the charisma to be a center of the group; yet he is an amazing genius. A couple of friends must've gotten together and started a small collective, which eventually grew into 20. These people are musicians for the sake of their art and the prospect of this amazing art.

The soloists who played (at one point, two at a time) had to work themselves into the grand structure of the ringleader's music, while at the same time playing the role of a contrasting soloist. Players stopped playing, sure...but usually to switch instruments. There was always some line working under, and although the fantastic drummer smoothed the edges and kept the form together, the soloists had an incredibly tough job. That they demonstrated their own genius within and without the genius of the piece amazed me the most. Virtuosic both in technique and in sense of melody.

I don't have a lot more to say about the group, I was kind of tired at the time. In sum: their album is really good.

Oh, and I saw John Pizzarelli play a few days later. What a badass.

Concert Review: Owen Pallett + Diamond Rings, 2/20

So this is the concert where I verified that I am, in fact, a fangirl. Yes I could make the excuse about me turning 18 and being a Senior and wanting to do something wild and fun, but really, there is no rational reason for spending a 14-hour round trip out of the country to see a concert, especially when I got there two hours before doors, especially since I saw the guy 3 months earlier almost to the day, and was seeing him again 2 months later to the day, especially since I was sick at the time. What can I say; I love what Owen Pallett does.

It's only after listening to it so many times that I've been able to appreciate the differences between Heartland and the live shows he does. The guy has progressed from the (mostly) solo or looped or layered violin for Has a Good Home, to the centrally string quartet and also some other orchestrated stuff on He Poos Clouds, to a fully orchestrated fully realized concept album for Heartland...and yet his shows, though expanding slightly with the addition of the stellar and sweet Thomas Gill, are still really in the spirit of Has A Good Home's elegiac construction of a song before your eyes. Thomas has the harder role of the two, I believe, since he has to accompany that spirit, and he doesn't get the chance to redo his mistakes over the loop like Owen (often) does. He has to mold himself around Owen's presence, both because Owen is the songwriter, and because Owen has that looping privilege. It's Owen's force out there. In this particular show, Thomas played the snare clicks on Lewis Takes Off His Shirt, something which only happened on-album and which I've never heard recorded live before. Just that little bit of independence really changed what that song did, what it felt like.

So we can listen to the St. Kitts orchestra all we like, and hear the contours of what he's made for people to perform for him, but when we're live we hear what he does for himself. I was privileged to buy the Heartland Orchestra Scorebook, which is in limited edition of 300 and too heavy to bring on tours, so is shipping for $80 rather than the normal price of $40, and the performers were given an absurd among of independence. That opening, swirling mass of strings at the beginning of Tryst With Mephistopheles? Improvised: "ponticello, play around with this motif, no player the same". The subtle creeping around on Keep the Dog Quiet? Improvised: "with loose bow / ponticello, durations of trills improvised" . On Lewis Takes Action: "arco / with lots of air / turn to random pitches, descend and die away" Every song as at least a few glissandos, in voice or violin or otherwise.The wailing to start off E is for Estranged walks the line between a trill and "like a wide vibrato." Owen can't control any of that, but he controls everything in his live shows. So they become a lot more personal, since he's not just speaking through an orchestra. That would explain why he's never recorded Honour the Dead or Else: too intimate, requires too much of his own spirit.

Anyway, let's jump in. After spending 2 hours waiting for doors, talking to a Junior from McGill and a crazy lady named Sheila, and 1 hour waiting for the opener, here we go:

Diamond Rings

I had listened to "All Yr Songs" quite a bit beforehand, but I didn't know anything else he was going to play. His shows walk the line between musicianship and performance. He sets up his beats and bass beforehand, and then either sings, sings and plays guitar, or sings and plays keyboard over what he has. Usually that kind of stuff makes me uncomfortable: I feel like musician really isn't, xe isn't displaying per talent or anything. But...god, the guy at such Charisma. He clearly put effort into getting everything ready, choreographing himself, and plus he was just...so energetic! Dressed in his denim jacket, zebra-print chaps/leggings, purple socks and sneakers, with all sorts of sparkles and makeup, he was able to be over-the-top dramatic without killing his dignity. He's a pretty good player with a great, great ear for melody, so even his sometimes awkward piano playing yielded exciting results. He's a fine guitarist, as well. Great, great, great voice, very deep and uses it well. I guess what it made me think of was a 90's throwback: synthesizers and purple sneakers and raising two fingers to rhyme with "too" or "to" and falling over when saying how he's "losing balance." Lotsa fun.

Owen Pallett (and Thomas Gill)

The setlist is via Scarychips, a member of the fan forums who was also in attendance, and who decided not to say hello to me even though he recognized me and I was pretty sure who he was, and didn't feel like asking people if they were scared of chips or something. Anyway, he was a sweetheart and posted this:

Théâtre Outremont, Montréal - February 20th.

1. Love Song to an Empty Room
2. Midnight Directives
3. This Lamb Sells Condos
4. Flare Gun
5. The Butcher
6. Many Lives > 49 MP
7. Took You Two Years To Win My Heart
8. E Is For Estranged
9. This Is the Dream of Win and Régine
10. Keep the Dog Quiet + Mt. Alpentine
11. The Great Elsewhere
12. Honour the Dead or Else
13. Lewis Takes Action
14. Lewis Takes Off His Shirt.
Encore #1:
15. The Man With No Ankles
16. Fantasy
Encore#2:
17. He Poos Clouds.

That's right, motherfuckers. Two encores.

Love Song To an Empty Room is a track I'd never heard before, although I'd heard he'd been playing that, as well as Independence is No Solution, The Arctic Circle, That's When the Audience Died, and even Better than Worse. We didn't get any of those, but we did get a slew of rarer/unrecorded cuts like this one. Much less a song than a swelling feat of choreographed accompaniment.

I love when Owen starts stuff with Midnight Directives. It's a baptism on-album, and off album it starts with that incredibly impressive run of pizzicato. The shift into This Lamb Sells Condos was a bit atypical, since he usually goes there from The Great Elsewhere, but I liked it. I feel badass that I can play everything he does now. His arrangement is a bit strange, in that the incredibly noticeable melody line that starts off the live reciording has to wait until after the first voice. That's one of the consequences of the looping style: you have to set up your accompaniment first sometimes, and then fill in melody and bass later. But the freedoms it gives you are wild and clear, and it was put to great use much later in Two Years. Back to chronology: Flare Gun and the Butcher were fine, as always, and that segue always works very well. I was kind of dropping off from fatigue at this point. What I was constantly noticing, however, is how Thomas interacts with what's going on. He's spasming, walking around the stage, inserting percussion hits where randomly appropriate. What he's doing is pretty scripted, I think, but he takes and approaches it with a hugely profound amount of sincerity and devotion.

Many Lives > 49 MP demonstrates two things about the performers: Owen Pallett is a melodic genius to be able to a craft a song which has a progression and emotional arc to it even though it's essentially a single melody line with some minimal bass later on; and Thomas Gill is an extraordinary skilled guitarist.

Took You Two Years to Win My Heart: it was requested back in Vienna last August, and Owen responded with a medium-length monologue about how she was "walking on his cookies." I thought it would never see the light of this decade, but wow. Raw and solo, it was a glorious performance. Thomas left, which is interesting; there are spots where accompaniments would've added a new dynamic. But most of his earlier material was intended, and is then played unaccompanied. That doesn't mean he doesn't add stuff to it: just as the improvisings he does over That's When the Audience Died instead of glissing up to the final note, Owen was taking more liberties with rhythm. It was also cool to see what he did at the end: cascade down and hold the notes for a little bit, record and repeat so it goes down further, and repeat that twice more until it sounds like four strings playing 2 note chords. Eeeee.

E is for Estranged was really the turning point for me in the concert. I actually felt myself falling asleep a bit, just letting the arcing melody lull me off. It was a beautiful and tender performance, and Owen managed to get some actual tone out of his strumming this time, which pleased me. This is the Dream of Win and Regine: he fucking nailed it. No messups on those octaves. Absolutely beautiful and energetic, wildly intimate too. Keep the Dog Quiet + Mt. Alpentine I've never understood why he chooses to keep the backbeat of Dog while Alpentine comes on. It creates some nice tension, I suppose, and I guess since Alpentine requires a certain..."suspension of disbelief," as it's not as jarring as it tries to be, especially on album. Do I really need to talk about The Great Elsewhere? Most amazing song on-album is religious live. Augh.

Honour the Dead or Else was wild on so many levels. Since Owen didn't have to do all the percussion himself, he got to do his violin-drumming parts (which is amazing, btw) but leave the bulk of the work to Mr. Gill. Better balance. The build off of "selfish selfish sleepy boy" gets better every time I listen to it, and it was the moment where I snapped and started really enjoying myself. Very well-executed.

Lewis Takes Action is not my favorite of his songs, but the live version appeals a lot more than the album version. Thomas always pulls out these really killer harmonies, which for some reason sound a lot clearer than those on-album. We knew that Lewis Takes Off His Shirt was coming up eventually, but what he gave us was something quite special: snare clicks. As someone who really knows Owen's live routine pretty well, that was jarring...and extraordinarily sexy, driving the spirit along.

The Man With No Ankles was slated and then removed from Heartland, and Owen played it solo. Highlighting moment: "Woahoahoahoahoh!" Fantasy, which followed, comes out of Owen's past, and it's a strange choice otherwise; no other song has that pop glitz to it. The two worked marvelously with it, as if they were satanically happy to be playing pop for a moment, just reveling in how "sweet" it all was. Maybe there was a note of irony in there too: RIP Final Fantasy. After a riotous round of applause, a second encore came though (the third I've seen: legally by Arcade Fire and illegally by State Radio), of He Poos Clouds. Solo. Oh dear, yes. He doesn't do the atonality on the second verse but keeps to the main lick. It's a remarkable song to play solo, in that the climax at the end of the "chorus" section ("move him with my...") has to be played first entirely unaccompanied, and then with maybe a little bit of harmonic power. It's a song that can't just ride on the dissonance of the chord or the volume of the player, it requires a very intent amount of control which Owen pulled off wonderfully as I struck an imaginary piano. Oh dear.

In sum: Owen has a sister?