Archives : all posts by Jordan

Wooden Stars - "Orphans"

Math can seem ugly, there's no doubt about it. As some of you will know from having done your Ph.D. in number theory and others from having frustratingly grappled with long division in grade school, an intractable problem can appear as an otherworldly and chaotic mess. Yet it is exactly that sort of problem that, when solved, is most beautiful - suddenly, inexplicably grasped by our mind as an organized whole. The same can be said of the Wooden Stars, whose music displays an almost ugly precision and technicality that is also, when heard more deeply, the source of its surpassing beauty. Listen to the individual parts (guitars thoroughly intertwined, vocal harmonies constantly fluctuating, as bizarre as they are persistent, etc.) and you will be impressed, though perhaps left cold; but back up, take a broader listen, and something else will emerge: a simple, sour loveliness, the only route to which involves a good deal of difficulty.

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Syl Johnson - "I Hate I Walked Away"

"I Hate I Walked Away" is a self-flagellation of sorts, an abasement of every atom of Syl Johnson's being. The song regards a bed that Johnson made, but in which he does not wish to lie. He hurt a woman who loved him, broke her trust, and now he wants her back. SJ knows that he's not going to reingratiate himself with his ex-lover by buying her something expensive or by serenading her with one of his lascivious love songs. He's learned from experience that he cannot win her back in a duel or pay for her hand with a dowry. A smart man, a man of learning and notable scholarly skill, Johnson understands that a simple apology won't undo his romantic apostasy. Instead he prostrates himself, admits to his misdeeds and begs for forgiveness he knows he doesn't deserve. When he eventually sings the words "I'm sorry," he does so in a perverse, spasmodic falsetto that sounds more inwardly directed than not - a public self-punishment more than an apology. Finally, helpless and at the mercy of another, he opens himself up completely, revealing a moribund machinery: organs and strings, heads and skins, sticks and brass, chords and time. A wise gambit in that it's an honest one - a compelling closing statement that communicates his affection, regret and desire while recognizing the inevitable supremacy of his lover's discretion.

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Vic Chesnutt - "Vibratile Nerves"

Like a hollowed out outtake from Genesis' The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, and therefore, obviously, like the musical equivalent of the skeleton of the John Merrick of dinosaurs. There's something very wrong with this song that goes well beyond Chesnutt's willfully bizarre lyrics. The words are merely outrageous vestments for a body as ill-formed as it is unformed, itself just a shell for an unsavoury soul.

[Available only at emusic]

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Kilby Snow - "Greenback Dollar"

Get on your horse, turn up your horse stereo, plug in your horse iPod and ride ... slowly. This autoharp ditty is dense! [Buy]

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Elsewhere, in dance craze related news: My brother's strange and hilarious brainchild.

Medicine Head - "His Guiding Hand"

A bass drum, a harmonica, and an electric guitar are three instruments one person can play at once. Medicine Head splits them up between two people and still can't seem to hit all the notes or stay in time. Doesn't matter to them. This is between one man, another man, and an unmoved mover. Passing judgment on their playing would be like passing judgment on your neighbours' lovemaking: weird and useless. Though not technically precise, Medicine Head are oh-so-careful in the manner in which they commune: soft attacks and long decays assure that no one and nothing will be startled; a simple snaky instrumental path is easy for all to follow; and a quavering Antony voice traces the border between the monastic and the trangressive, negotiates between the righteous and the human. [Buy]

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American Analog Set - "Choir Vandals"

Very few members of the set of all songs containing the word 'coffee' or 'caffeine' are shared by the set of all songs that have the property of goodness. One exception to this principle is American Analog Set's "Choir Vandals," which belongs to both sets, as well as to the rather large set of all songs that achieve beauty through repetitive simplicity; the set of all songs that use the ride cymbal to its aching maximal effect; the set of all songs; and the set of all named things, to name just a few of the infinite elements of the set of all sets containing this song. [Buy]

(The Ignoramus and The Polymath sit at either side of a chessboard. The Ignoramus (white) has just posed the Queen’s Gambit. They are listening to two songs by The Innocence Mission: “The Brotherhood of Man” and “Into Brooklyn, Early in the Morning”)

The Ignoramus: In what way is cheese produced?
The Polymath: Cheese comes from cows.
The Ignoramus: And goats, too, right?
The Polymath: Occasionally.
The Ignoramus: What about emotionally manipulative artists?
The Polymath: Them as well, Ignoramus. But you don’t have to milk Stephen Spielberg; he milks himself.
The Ignoramus: Oh. How about aesthetic innocents, seduced by viscerally appealing sound?
The Polymath: Yes. They make fine cheese, such as this.
The Ignoramus: Such as this?
The Polymath: The music we are listening to as we speak. It is a fine cheese – the fifth in my five fine cheese cannelloni. Can you not hear it?
The Ignoramus: Oh, Polymath! I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I did not recognize this auditory input as music.
The Polymath: (lets out a booming laugh) I have not since acted in as apt a fashion as I did on the day I named you, Ignoramus. You truly are an ignoramus!
The Ignoramus: (hurt) This is why I pretend to know things that I do not, so that you will not make fun of me so heartlessly.
The Polymath: Can you not hear the easy melody? The gently warmed guitars? Tambourines and accordions? That perfect voice, floating up from the music untethered and from great heights dropping lyrics as rich with cliché as half-melted brie is with flavour?
The Ignoramus: Polymath, I do not mean to presume, but is your pedagogical method not flawed? To me - an admitted ignoramus, mind you – what you have done seems the same as leading a monolingual Frenchman into a room full of objects and saying “Do you not recognize a bike, a toaster, a big foam finger?” Surely, he would respond, “Indeed, I recognize these objects, but as ‘une bicyclette’, ‘un grille-pain’, et ‘un grand doigt de mousse’.” For, though I recognize these sounds from having heard similar ones before, your utterance of the word ‘music’ was the first I had heard of it. Can you either define ‘music’ or give an exhaustive list of everything that might be referred to by the word?
The Polymath: You are right. I have shown poor judgment. To add insult to injury, I am also unable to provide an answer to your question “What is music?” As such, I propose that we complete my humiliation by switching names for all time. It only seems right.
The Polymath: As you wish, Ignoramus.
The Ignoramus: I am not sure what you mean by the word ‘wish’.

[Buy]

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Please cross your fingers for me.

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Thank you so much for your kind donations. We three truly appreciate it. Yet we remain so hungry.

Elizabeth Mitchell - "Three Little Birds"

This is a song for kids. As I don't know any kids or understand what they like, I have no way of evaluating how successful it is at achieving its intended purpose. For this adult, the cutesiness of the kid's voice is a little grating at first, but then takes on a very different dimension halfway through the song. At 1:05, when the Hammond organ reggae opens up into a strummed family folk, the parents and the kid start into a call and response. Only at this point does one begin to hear how difficult it is for the kid to form words with his tiny little mouth. He hasn't been speaking for long, and he's not quite used to it yet. When he sings "I woke up this morning," we understand that this is still a relatively new state of affairs for him. He saw three little birds - probably the 89th, 90th, and 91st since he learned the word 'birds'. He sings the exact same words as his parents, but he means something very different by them. He is still sensitive and obtuse and receptive. And here are his proud parents - just as hopeful, but far more wary - singing "don't worry about a thing, 'cause every little thing is gonna be alright."

Also: What's up with that funky krautrock bass line? Who let Moebius and Plank in the house (cf. Rastakraut Pasta)? Seriously, who? There's a child on the premises! [Buy]

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The Mighty Hannibal - "Trying to Make it Through"

Four facts about "Trying to Make it Through":

Staccato is the soul of soul. Every note is an island. The rhythm section builds little legato bridges and the scorching guitar burns them down.

Raise my body from this seat, then raze my body to the ground.

James Brown, alone in a hotel room after a Night at the Apollo, thirsty.

The Mighty Hannibal knows how to grunt and moan and clip and suppress, but he's at his absolute best when he turns inward and sings. [Buy]

Screamin' Jay Hawkins - "All Night"

The line between insanity and theatricality in the extraordinary case of Screamin' Jay Hawkins is as thin as the indistinguishable border that separates a scream from a laugh from the outright chortle that begins this song. Whether Hawkins' madman antics are real or performance makes no difference, since each possibility entails the other – if he is mad, then symptomatic of his instability is his compulsion to share; and if he is playing, then he is insane to present himself thus. This too: If Screamin' Jay Hawkins is a tenderhearted man, it's only because life repeatedly brought down a sledgehammer on the sinewy chunk of red meat that constitutes his heart. Hawkins takes the butcher's tenderizing violence and adds to it the stalker's violating tenderness, the combination of which yields a song of equal parts love letter and death threat. Each of the song's couplets reveals opposing sentiments: a desire to be with and to kill his "baby." Meanwhile, the band expresses the same tensions: the horns woo while the guitar barbs, the back-up singers grovel while the drums intimidate. Throughout, Hawkins delivers a thoroughly engaged comedic performance that, like much of the best comedy, verges on the frightening and hints at the tragic. [Buy]

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Cat Iron - "O, The Blood Done Signed My Name"

The way I see it, Cat Iron was one of two things: a device for the unwrinkling of cats or a cat for the unwrinkling of clothes. Almost nothing is known of the great gospel-blues player's life or personhood, and unless James Cameron finds his bones, little is likely to be found out. We know merely what we can hear: a rich baritone by turns in unison and as counterpoint to a plaintive treble melody, set by sure fingers to strummed alternating bass notes. With children playing in the background, Cat Iron sings of blood, of Christ, of pursuit and arrival, impermanence and immortality; a transient singer, just passing through.

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