A Downloader's Diary (41): July 29, 2015
by Michael Tatum
"A Downloader's Diary" first began five years ago this week at the
site of my frequent partner-in-crime Tom Hull. Then, for six months or
so last year, it appeared with other pieces of mine at
Odyshape, a music webzine
started by three of my like-minded friends. When that went the way of
so many rock bands, I spent a few unproductive months pondering what I
was going to do next. With Robert Christgau axed yet again (this time
from Medium, and screw the link on that) and rock criticism back in
the old doldrums once more, I decided to take the Expert Witness
Pledge and return to my previous identity. I'd like to dedicate this
inaugural Mark II (or III?) installment to Lester Bangs, who grew up
in Escondido, the town next door to where I currently live, and came
up through Who Put the Bomp?, a mimeographed fanzine that
allowed him to get away with the watershed "James Taylor Marked For
Death." And of course, to Wendy, who provided the cartoon avatar.
See you soon.
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Africa Express: Africa Express Presents Terry Riley in C
(Transgressive) Riley's landmark 1964 composition -- arguably the
"Rock Around the Clock" of "serialist" minimalism -- consists of
fifty-three musical phrases in the key of C to be repeated and
improvised upon by an indefinite number of musicians performing on any
instrument of their choice. In its original incarnation, Steve Reich
-- who would himself become a major player in this scene -- introduced
rhythmic elements to Riley that would become crucial: that's him
plunking away on the Wurlitzer electric piano in staccato
eighth-notes. Since then, there have been many permutations, but even
the excellent 2001 rendition by Bang on a Can sounds clunky compared
to this enthralling flight of fancy, masterminded by Afropop gadfly
Damon Albarn in Mali with local musicians, who prove that unlike the
far stiffer conservatory set, they have no problem thinking and
feeling simultaneously. For the first twenty minutes, it's an
exquisite head trip bordering on religious experience -- the arrival of
each enchanting new element (kora, calabash, flute, balafon, Albarn's
melodica) makes you wonder how long the 17 players plus one conductor
can keep building up this bewitching suspense, this graceful tension.
Which remarkably they do, until around about the halfway mark, when
the pulse vanishes, the players take a short but necessary breather,
and a few emotive vocalists ponder, muse, daydream, reflect. After a
sharp, incisive phrase on what sounds like a synthesizer though none
is listed in the credits, the music resumes, builds, and breathes, yet
feels more like a frustrated coda rather than a satisfying climax --
consider Reich's similarly-inspired but more carefully constructed
Music for 18 Musicians, which understands that anxiety makes
more sense when brought to a resolution. Wait a minute -- how many
players did I say were on this thing again?
Hmm. A MINUS
Jason DeRulo: Everything Is 4 (Warner Bros) And here I
thought my man Jason wanted to be the Al Green of the Auto-Tune age --
turns out he really wants to be the black Adam Levine. This is fine as
it goes -- DeRulo is charitable enough to produce more than one
"Sugar" per album, and the first four tracks are worthy of last year's
Talk Dirty, especially the wild "Get Ugly," Jason's reasonable request
to his boo as to how to deter leery, would-be suitors, and the
hilariously lecherous "Pull Up," in which he provides the hook by
imitating the screech of a braking car. But as predicted by those of
us made slightly nervous by his comparing Jordin Sparks' various body
parts to Coldplay, Katy Perry, and Kanye West songs, much of the
remainder could have been churned out of focus-group hell: Mehgan
Trainor! K. Michelle! Keith Suburban, looking to lasso up some
downtown action! Poor Jennifer Lopez, whose voice is so processed she
appears not as a duet partner, but as product placement, like Spicy
Nacho Doritos! And note that where street cred last time was provided
by Snoop, Tyga, and Timbaland, here the nifty lead smasheroo is farmed
out to producer Ian Kirkpatrick, responsible for keeping Hilary Duff,
Nick Jonas, and Neon Trees on life support. And with Kirkpatrick's
"Love Me Down," buried on the second half, inspiring fond memories of
the Four Tops' "It's the Same Old Song," I'm betting from here on out
DeRulo gets even more complacent. As for his enigmatic album title,
simultaneously press the shift button and the respective number on
your computer keyboard to see what "everything" is really "4."
B PLUS
Mbongwana Star: From Kinshasa (World Circuit) Amid
bitter accusations of gross mismanagement, the Congo's Staff Benda
Bilili telescoped the kind of career that takes most bands a decade
into a brief, three-year, two-album run, after peaceably eking out an
arduous six-year existence busking the dilapidated thoroughfares
surrounding the Kinshasa Zoo. With frontmen Coco Ngambali and Theo
Nzonza forming this new aggregation with younger hometown musicians
(who in publicity photos look as if they might inspire the likes of
Young Thug and Birdman to slink unobtrusively to the other side of the
street), Tony Allen collaborator Liam Farrell behind the boards, and
their Metacritic score floating around in the high eighties, I tore
into this like that blogger over there might lap up the new
Radiohead. I can't say I'm not impressed, but I'm not overwhelmed
either, and despite Farrell's radical mixing approach, redolent of
dubmeisters like Adrian Sherwood as much as simpatico guest stars
Konono No. 1, I couldn't figure out why until I came upon Tristan
Bath's curious rave on Drowned in Sound, which bizarrely observes that
this record has "danceable bass lines, but they're often razor sharp,
or stuck on a bare handful of notes, closer to Joy Division than Fela
Kuti." I don't care how singular an accidental musician Peter Hook
is, this cockeyed approach doesn't suit the pleasures of Congolese
music, nor does Farrell's voluminous, wind-tunnel mix highlight what's
most special about it -- like the Jurassic Park films, it sacrifices
humanity to a panoply of sometimes irritating attention-getting
special effects. Even worse, I'm not entirely sure it's Farrell's
fault -- until this rockets to life after a lovely ballad he was wise
to leave alone, the songs are vague enough his zooms and whooshes
function more like camouflage than window dressing. Not so vague: the
electrifying finale "1 Million C'Est Quoi?," the lyric of which,
unless I'm mistaken, has something to do with
money. A MINUS
Miguel: Wildheart (RCA) I'll concede the embarrassing
mistake of not recognizing Miguel as a major R&B love man two years
ago if you'll cop to admitting that this luxuriantly ambitious record,
probably the most daring this year excepting Kendrick Lamar's, doesn't
fulfill its admirably heady ambitions. From the cornball fatalism of
"A Beautiful Exit" ("We're gonna die young" -- hey, are we?) to the
highly dubious porno fantasy "The Valley" ("Fuck you like I hate you,
baby . . . force my fingers in your mouth," etc.), the lyrics are
frustratingly uneven, and the heavily textured music, awash in synths
and ethereal production geegaws, doesn't always rescue his more
strained conceits. Also, much like Don Henley, Miguel labors under the
delusion that a virtuous angel will liberate him from rotting away in
the lobby of the Hotel California, and even if Miguel works with more
exciting musical materials, it's really his youthful innocence, for
now anyway, that bails him out -- a more cynical lothario would never
follow the sweet trajectory of word play/gun play/pillow talk/sweet
dreams/coffee in the morning, nor would he spend much time fretting
about being "too proper for the black kids/too black for the
Mexicans/too square to be a hood nigga." Yet I although I imagine this
music to continue unfolding, to give up more of its secrets, in weeks
and months to come, I find the most telling moment here to be the
prettiest: "Leaves," constructed from the grist of the Smashing
Pumpkins' "1979," which despite Billy Corgan's icky vocal nevertheless
marshals a smarter sense of dynamics. The Smashing Pumpkins. A smarter
sense of dynamics. Than a major R&B love man. A MINUS
Boz Scaggs: A Fool to Care (429) Does anyone remember
this Marin County habitué anymore? Younger rock fans know him, if they
know him at all, for "Lowdown" ("Gotta have a jones for this, a jones
for that") and "Lido Shuffle" (a.k.a. "That Heaven-Sent Whoa-Whoa
Hook"), a pair of indelible hits from the otherwise forgotten 1976
smash Silk Degrees, the album my father, a fan of the records Boz made
with the young Steve Miller, once dryly referred to as "that thing he
made with those guys from Toto." What a shame. Because this left-field
winner is a shining example of old school record making -- you know,
when Bonnie Raitt or whoever would round up the boys, select a solid
bunch of songs, and cross his or her fingers. In other words, the sort
of record most people don't give a shit about anymore until something
like this tiny miracle turns rote nostalgia into a moot point. Since
this features the same skillful cabal of session men that appeared on
Scaggs' 2013 Memphis (the core: Reggie Young, Willie Weeks, Ray
Parker, Jr.) it's fair to say that success here boils down to, as it
usually does, songs: superior but surprising material plucked from the
catalogs of first-rate artists, augmented by some striking originals,
including one in which the gentleman-of-independent-means artiste, who
currently holds down a day job as a vintner, sticks it to fat cat
polticos with prize duet draw number one Raitt. I can see you're not
convinced. So skip right to the second half, which closes even
stronger than the first half begins, with soulful readings of Huey
Smith's "High Blood Pressure," Al Green's "Full of Fire," the
Spinners' "Love Don't Love Nobody," and the Band's "Whispering Pines,"
on which prize duet draw number two Lucinda Williams turns in her most
heartfelt vocal in years. As for Boz himself, this seventy one year
old has always been laid back, but the way he has a ball lollygagging
around in his vocal tics finally makes it sound like a state of mind
to aspire to. And then there's his agile guitar work, which isn't laid
back at all. A
Skrillex & Diplo: Skrillex and Diplo Present Jack Ü
(OWSLA/Mad Decent) This historic meeting between the bros and the
mates recalls the golden age of nineties electronica duos, except who
knows what the individual members of the Chemical Brothers brought to
the table aesthetically? Here we can assume that Sonny Moore of
Highland Park, California masterminds the whopping big beats and
cacophonous splatter bombs while Thomas Wesley Pentz of London,
England by way of Tupelo, Mississippi adds the formal discipline and
uncanny ear that have served him only intermittently since that
breakup with M.I.A. robbed him of his greatest context. Maybe it's
foolhardy to impose too much musical analysis on a record on which
your favorite moment involves the normally execrable 2 Chainz chanting
"Yeah, I'm the shit/I should have Febreze on me" (and hey, does
Proctor and Gamble get a kickback?). Either way, one assumes if
Rolodexes still existed outside of backwater insurance offices, these
well-connected schmoozers could probably fill several football fields
full of index cards -- I'm sure they could have enlisted more famous
helpmates than Kai, Kieza, AlunaGeorge, Bunji Garlin, and
I-thought-she-retired Missy Elliot, but the robust music here is so
invigorating, they'll do. I imagine you're probably chomping at the
mega-bit for me to talk about the Justin Bieber track. If you ignore
the stinky perils-of-fame lyric, it's actually not bad. I think it has
something to do with the production. A MINUS
Sleater-Kinney: No Cities to Love (Sub Pop) Speaking
as someone who squealed like a little riot grrrl when Corin Tucker
ordered bouncers to escort a douchebag out of the Troubadour after he
tossed a lit cigarette up onstage -- this would be 1997, on the tour
for Dig Me Out -- I must confess I found the collective fawning over
this beloved trio's comeback slightly embarrassing. Yet though I
wouldn't swear they changed the world except for people for whom their
subculture is their entire world, they undeniably opened a door that
very few since, female or otherwise, have had the courage to walk
through. But with the initial thrill of this record worn off and
replaced with deeper admiration, I'm reminded of how much they needed
each other even on their worthy solo projects: once again, Corin
provides crucial context for the formal pleasure of Carrie's
articulate guitar noise, while Janet Weiss, finally back in her own
house, bangs the skins like she doesn't give a shit about waking up
the neighbors. But not only has the music deepened, so has the
worldview -- where on their early efforts their feminist tracts
sounded like something they were parroting from a social media course,
here they trade theory for praxis, beginning with the hair-raising
"Price Tag," which says more about the class and gender wars than
anything else they've previously recorded. Their antidote: solidarity
and perseverance. "We win, we lose/Only together do we break the
rules." "It's not a new wave/It's just you and me." "Hope's a burden
or it sets you free." Corin claims she's no longer an "anthem": "All I
can hear is the echo and the ring." This is the rare instance in which
the echo and the ring will suffice. A PLUS
Sufjan Stevens: Carrie and Lowell (Asthmatic Kitty)
Death can be a problematic subject to broach in pop, which hasn't
stopped critics from overrating Lou Reed's Magic and Loss,
R.E.M.'s Automatic for the People, and now this, which
nevertheless stands as the best record Stevens has put his name on
since Illinois. Floating adrift on a life raft of fluttering,
finger-picked guitar lines, these rank among the prettiest melodies
he's ever written, while carefully-drawn details such as Oregon's
Tillamook Forest burning to the ground, a stepfather who calls him
"Subaru" because he can't pronounce his first name, and a communion
offering of fast food fries and Long Island Ice Tea, all evoke in the
manner of yellowing Polaroids in a weatherworn family photo album. I'm
also encouraged that Stevens' perpetually buried gay subtext is
finally asserting itself -- the detached lover who resembles Poseidon
and who checks his texts while Sufjan jerks off makes quite an
impression (though really, how many "Manelich"s do you know?). Yet
even discounting the numb, low-affect arrangements that cry out for
the release of drums and electric guitars -- hell, maybe even some
death metal screech -- I'm dismayed by the immaturity of the
underlying philosophy, and I'm not merely referring to his wearisome
over-reliance on Christian and Greek mythological references. It was
one thing for the death of a friend on Casimir Pulaski Day to trigger
a crisis in his religious beliefs, but it's another when Stevens falls
into the familiar trap of wondering why the universe deals him an
unfair hand when he leads what he considers to be a penitent
life. Keeping in mind the wisdom of Ecclesiastes 2:16, Stevens won't
move forward until he accepts that the universe is governed by random
chance, heartache is equally distributed, and death comes without
exception for Christians, Muslims, atheists, and everyone else. Or,
better yet, maybe he should give up Jesus altogether. Because God is
the concept by which I measure this solid if unspectacular return to
form. B PLUS
Veruca Salt: Ghost Notes (El Camino) Though we'll get
to the long-rumored physical altercation that temporarily ended the
first version of this band in a moment, one of Louise Post and Nina
Gordon's biggest problems after the impressive 1994 debut American
Thighs was finding a producer empathetic to women. By that word I
don't actually mean human beings with C-cups and vaginas, but rather
songwriters who, despite reveling in good sex and cultivating an
affinity for harder, crunchier guitars than their contemporaneous
Lilith Fair schoolmarms, ultimately traffic in traditional
relationship songs, not exactly an area of expertise for either Bob
Rock or Steve Albini. Crucially, this distinguishes them from, for
example, PJ Harvey, Courtney Love, and their supposed sound-a-likes in
the Breeders, and I suspect is one of the reasons the petty indie rock
set rejected them at the time -- and embraces them in fond remembrance
now. Not especially interested in challenging men in any way except
musically, they were made for the returning Brad Wood, who helped
define the mode for fellow Chi-Town resident Liz Phair, and who in
turn subverted the mode every chance she got. What makes this tuneful
comeback fascinating is that the relationship Post and Gordon are
limning isn't one with some dude -- it's their own. Louise, the more
nakedly emotional of the two, dominates the proceedings, comparing the
flood of her feelings to hemophilia and beginning "The Gospel
According to Saint Me" with the pithy "I wanted to live, so I
pretended to die/I had to shut down, cash out and get buried alive."
Artier Nina, who penned their two pop hits, still loves her pomo,
often self-referential jokes, such as resurrecting and revising the
nasty "Black and Blonde," omitted from the stateside version of her
solo blandout Tonight and the Rest of My Life because it concerned the
vicious hotel catfight she had with, well, Louise. Though the
harmonies are more cautious, oddly respectful in their distance from
whoever's singing lead, what becomes clear is that the "girls" (Nina's
word, I swear) they remember and the women they've become are far more
important to them than, say, whatever happened to Dave Grohl:
ultimately, they're sisters first. What's more feminist than that?
A MINUS
Young Thug: Barter 6 (300/Atlantic) When we last
encountered Jeffrey Williams, I made a joke that I would play Norman
Mailer to his Jack Abbott should his felonious shenanigans wind him up
in the pokey. Now that a close confederate of his has been indicted in
a failed conspiracy to murder his hero/rival Li'l Wayne however, I
shall now refer to him as Jeffrey Lamar Williams -- between
defiantly playing an inaugural show in Wayne's old digs in the
Hollygrove neighborhood of New Orleans (where he was roundly booed)
and boldly threatening his idol on Instagram soon after, Williams'
unhealthy fixation has officially has entered trinomial Mark David
Chapman territory. Let's not mince words: this is a scary man folks,
and cf. Jack Abbott -- six weeks after Mailer campaigned successfully
for his parole, Abbott stabbed a twenty-two year old waiter and
aspiring actor/playwright who refused to allow him access to an
employees-only restaurant toilet because it could only be reached
through a potentially slippery kitchen. So no, I don't really believe
some people can be "redeemed" no matter how goddamn talented they are:
like Abbott, Williams is a bruised and scarred man who seems to value
very little other than some fucked up perversion of self-respect and
honor. Having said that, this digital-only "official" mixtape,
released by Atlantic with no promise of a physical release, is
compelling, addictive, and downright frightening. Sputtering through
an arsenal of grotesque scat devices, torturing his tongue with
triplet-laden phrasing, tunelessly moaning so that the Auto-Tune
mercilessly drags his obsessive laments through the slime and muck,
Williams currently stands unrivaled as hip hop's most accomplished
stylist. Uneasy fans of the slightly hookier Bloody Jay summit Black
Portland should be advised Williams' pussy euphemisms remain oblique
(unless you fantasize about putting your dick in calzoni, I guess) and
he tempers his rampant minacity with embedded puns ("I'll leave you
dead and call it Dedication"). You'll do a stunned double-take
when he boasts he'll "fuck your father" if he gets prison. And then
there's the one in which he gives a shout-out to Mike Brown while
pledging unyielding loyalty to the Bloods. Its first line? "I think
I'm OD'ing on drugs." A
Honorable Mentions
Jamie xx: In Colour (XL) Like many noir specialists,
so much better in b/w ("Stranger in a Room," "Loud Places")
***
Father John Misty: I Love You, Honeybear (Sub Pop)
The thinking man's Michael Murphey -- you can tell by his Van Dyke
Parks-styled arrangements and the way he ironically peppers his lyrics
with internet slang ("The Night Josh Tillman Came To Our Apt.,"
"Chateau Lobby #4 [In C For Two Virgins]") ***
Wilco: Star Wars (BPM) A relief after Jeff's wan solo
album, but when your best song is an instrumental intro, the force is
not with you ("EKG," "More," "Random Name Generator") ***
Waxahatchee: Ivy Tripp (Merge) Aimlessness is her
theme (again), which unfortunately I could discern before I read the
lyrics ("La Loose," "Under a Rock") **
Kacey Musgraves: Pageant Material (Mercury Nashville)
"You can take the girl out of the country, but you can't take the
country out of the girl," uh uh -- especially when your idea of roots
is Owen Bradley at the Nashville High Senior Prom ("This Town," "Late
to the Party") **
Pops Staples: Don't Lose This (Anti-) That's not
really Jesus doin' the overseeing -- just Jeff and Mavis ("Somebody Is
Watching," "No News is Good News") **
Belle and Sebastian: Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance
(Matador) Dance beats from 1977, progressive politics from 1987,
best music in 1997 ("The Cat With the Cream," "Nobody's Empire")
*
Trash
Björk: Vulnicura (Elektra) Despite courting the hottest
beatmasters on the British dance music scene early in her solo career,
the Icelandic grande dame has been edging closer to stilted Artsong
over the past decade, in a manner that reminds me of the
screenwriter's complaint to Marcello Mastroianni's character in
Fellini's 8 ½: "[Your project] doesn't have the advantage of the
avant-garde films, although it has all of the drawbacks." Where at
least her re-imaginings of key tracks from 1995's Post with the
Brodsky Quartet (forgot about that, didn't you?) at least benefited
from the presence of "real" songs (or at least structure), these nine
tracks in one hour, with seven running between six and ten endless
minutes, are more like shapeless autoschediasm spread over
imperviously baroque arrangements. And while I know her insufferably
reverent claque has long since made peace with -- in fact, even
embraced -- her cockeyed phonetics and ham-strung metaphors, they
suggest affectation that goes beyond a mere language barrier: does
anyone in the Scandinavian diaspora really roll their r's? Or pretend
that the word "coordinates," when employed as a noun, utilizes the
long a in its last syllable, rather than a schwa? Would even the guys
in ABBA describe an estranged lover as "coagulated," and oppose that
to "open chested?" "Moments of clarity are so rare," she opines
ruefully in the opener. I open-chestedly agree. In the next song she
qualifies that: "I smell declarations of solitude." Hey, lady -- she
who smelt it dealt it. C MINUS
Blur: The Magic Whip (Warner Bros/Parlophone) I have
nothing to say about the music per se -- nothing, really! -- but did
you know Blur bassist Alex James' new line of "everyday cheeses" hit
the British supermarket shelves in 2011, offering such enticing flavor
combinations as "cheddar and tomato ketchup," "cheddar and salad
cream," and "cheddar and tikka masala?" You're probably dying to know:
what did the critics say? Ask Tim Chester of The Guardian, who accused
James of "releasing bizarre flavour mash-ups in sliced, processed,
plasticky form." C PLUS
Tobias Jesso, Jr.: Goon (True Panther Sounds) Like
Josh Tillman's Father John Misty project, Vancouver's Tobias Jesso,
Jr. has been generating internet buzz on his recidivist musical
conception alone, but where the former exploits overripe
singer-songwriter usages, Jesso mines the classics: Randy Newman,
Nilsson, and other inheritors/subverters of the Tin Pan Alley
tradition. Leaving Dirty Harry out of it, if Newman honed his piano
style by studying Ray Charles and Fats Domino, Jesso gives the
impression he taught himself keyboards by poring over the sheet music
for "Sail Away" without actually listening to the record -- you can
almost hear an blandly automated voice over his shoulder counting off
the beats while he follows the bouncing ball on a Youtube video
tutorial. So far, as potential for comedy this could go either
way. But where smart guys working in this mode aim for the ironic,
Jesso is a wide-eyed romantic who makes the worst of hackneyed titles
like "Can We Still Be Friends," "How Could You Babe," "Can't Stop
Thinking About You," and "Without You," which I'm relieved to note for
Dirty Harry's sake is not a Badfinger cover, especially since Jesso
sings like Jonathan Richman with delusions of Eric Justin Kaz. Given
Jesso's so-self-conscious-he's-oblivious aura, I suppose this all
leaves his "sincerity" open for debate, but the only knowing wink he
gives is with his album title, which suggests he intuits what this
mushy collection will eventually earn him from its dedicatee: a
well-deserved restraining order. Say something -- he's (sob) giving up
on you. C
Ne-Yo: Non-Fiction (Motown) I'm not saying there
aren't a few good songs scattered throughout this concept album about
a narcissistic R&B sensation who, golly gee, just can't stay
monogamous, but why christen your two female characters "Integrity"
and "Temptation?" Why not just go full-Freud and name them "Virgin"
and "Whore?" It would certainly put his categorical denial of being
down for boy-girl-boy threesomes in fascinating
perspective. B
Bob Dylan: Shadows in the Night (Columbia) I admit it
-- Dylan's ability to pull off an octave jump in the first track
impressed me until I realized I was rewarding him for accomplishing
something Tony Bennett could do with Lady Gaga pinching his trachea
between her thumb and forefinger. And that was before I got to Bobby's
version of "Some Enchanted Evening." B MINUS
Darren Hayman: Songs for Socialists (Where It's At Is
Where You Are) The ex-Hefner frontman sets poems from William
Morris the nineteenth-century social activist to music, with the kind
of hyperactive bluster that suggests he wants to arouse the interest
of William Morris the talent agency. C PLUS
Lower Dens: Escape From Evil (Ribbon Music) I have no
clue what "evil" they're escaping, but if Siouxsie and the Banshees is
their new identity in the Witness Protection Program, I say going down
in a torrent of bullets isn't such a bad way to
go. C PLUS
Dawn Richard: Black Heart (Our Dawn Entertainment)
Yet another prog-R&B song cycle, this one about how that Dannity
Kane reunion record you ignored last year flopped commercially and
critically. Give me Yes -- at least when Jon Anderson warbled about
castles made of sand, warriors on the mountain, and a Phoenix rising
from the ashes he didn't cram his voice into a vocoder and stack the
resulting layers like deli meat. C
Viet Cong: Viet Cong (Jagjaguwar/Flemish Eye) Noise
punk psychedelia so excruciatingly tuneless it could make John McCain
cite the Geneva Convention. C MINUS
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