Aural-gasm: Scissor Sisters, "Night Work"

I’m less of a music snob than you likely believe me to be; in fact, if you’d asked me two months ago, I probably would have confused the Scissor Sisters with Le Tigre or some other hazily riot grrl band. On a whim I grabbed their first two albums, which quickly became my personal soundtrack as I danced around my apartment, packed it up, moved to my new one, stomped through the streets of Cambridge, sat in coffeeshops around Harvard Square tapping my foot wildly, &co&co. It was as if I’d returned to my old haunt—The Wave, in Norfolk, and found myself woozy and suddenly dancing on stage. Fortunately, the sheer fun of listening to the band dispelled the melancholy of homesickness, and I eagerly anticipated their new one—enter Night Work. Whether you’ve never heard of them—or you have—or you hate them—or you hate music on principle—you should feel obligated to allow this album at least two listens, and come to the revelation that no other album will as perfectly slide into the discomforting heat and ennui of this summer.

Imagine your favorite dance-band revisiting Footloose, Dirty Dancing, and Flashdance, tossing in a stash of poppers and meth, twisting it with a healthy dose of anonymous semen, and finally emerging from that skeezy back-alley to keep on dancing. This is, without question, a rather naughty album; one to dance to, certainly, but more importantly, one to fuck to. It’s got the energy and the Velveeta-drip of the 80s but brings with it the tainted despair of our post-romance, post-social, post-internet age. The album runneth over with runaways, hookers, “sexual gladiators” (as Ian McKellen so wisely says on the album’s final track), tweakers, dirty dancers, terrifyingly deluded stalkers, and lovers who will almost certainly never see one another again (or if they do, say on the T for instance, they’ll studiously avoid one another’s eyes and continue to cruise the other passengers).

Aural-gasm: Review of Goldfrapp, Head First

Alison Goldfrapp and Will Gregory, the two musicians that congeal behind the aptly-named duo Goldfrapp, prove themselves, once again, to be fascinating little sonic changelings. For over a decade now, they've been driven with each album to try something a little bit off, to veer in a direction that perhaps you thought would never happen following their previous effort. It began with 2000's stunning Felt Mountain, an atmospheric, film-noir-esque spectacle that sounded as if it were the soundtrack to the best townie bar on Pluto. Black Cherry followed, a bit more erotic, a bit more electronic, perhaps slightly more dance-able, particularly with robotic-grind tracks like their famous "Strict Machine." Nevertheless, the same icy sheen that accompanied Alison's breathy, wide-ranging siren call on the debut seemed intact. 2005 saw their venture into 70s-esque disco on Supernature and brought them into heavier club rotation, with singles "Ooh La La" and "Ride a White Horse." By this point, Goldfrapp seemed somehow everywhere and nowhere at once: songs like "Ooh La La" and "Strict Machine" were joyously accompanying phone company commercials, and every up-and-coming act interested in electronic music and in reviving New Wave either counted Goldfrapp among their influences or blatantly ripped them off without credit. Still, Goldfrapp has somehow evaded the mainstream spotlight, despite the instantly gratifying accessibility of much of their music and their wide-ranging (but usually unnoticed) reign over current 'It' kids like Little Boots and La Roux, not to mention that wacky bitch Madonna (who supposedly looked to Goldfrapp's Supernature tour for inspiration on her own Confessions on a Dance Floor tour). In 2008, the pair vomited up the glam image and club-crowns to tackle pagan-esque folk music and their most dreaded instrument--the acoustic guitar--in Seventh Tree. Alison's trademark vocals carried the effort, but the spacey chill of their first three albums was replaced with a lush new warmth. Alison shed her sex-bomb image to become, as in the first track "Clowns," a mischievous circus performer.

I begin with this because even those of my friends that are familiar with some of their music know little about their history, or the far reaches of their output--I've a friend, for example, who listens to "A&E" from Seventh Tree on the way home from the club weekly, but who probably doesn't know how much he'd love their more grind-y, eminently danceable work on Supernature. Sorry for the lengthy history.

Head First finds Alison and Gregory shifting shapes once more. Now that Goldfrapp's many proteges have seemingly exhausted the 80s revival, Goldfrapp finally make a record that seemed perhaps inevitable--perhaps impossible--for so long: an unabashedly sincere, joyous, warm, orgasmic 80s album. A number of critics have claimed that Goldfrapp fell behind the curve here--after all, who hasn't revisited the 80s by now? But what these critics leave out is this: who the hell does the 80s in the way Goldfrapp can? There are moments on the album that make you want to throw your hair into a bouncing side-ponytail and slide grease over your thighs to slip into fuchsia Jazzercise spandex--see "Alive," "Believer," lead-single "Rocket"--and others that evoke the ambient experimentalism of Kate Bush, circa The Dreaming and Hounds of Love--for this, go to "Hunt" and "Dreaming." The album is short and sweet; a mere 38 minutes long, this is easily listenable on your morning walk/run/shower, and it's about all I've listened to during those activities since it leaked a week or so ago.

(Continued after the jump...)

Because I'm not fucking old enough to do a Best-of-the-Decade List (Part II)

Music, 10-1

10 Metric, Fantasies

I may find Live It Out to be a catchier album, but Fantasies is mature and resilient from beginning to end. Emily Haines will never let me down. Key tracks: Gold Gun Girls, Collect Call, Help I’m Alive

09 Patrick Wolf, The Bachelor

Pop, electronica, folk, and piano balladry—not to mention Tilda Swinton as the ‘narrator’ of the album’s journey—all compressed into a hot white ball buoyed by Patrick’s beautifully emotive vocals, The Bachelor may well be his strongest and most cohesive effort yet. Key tracks: Oblivion, Blackdown, Count of Casualty, The Sun is Often Out

08 Gossip, Music for Men

Gossip outdo themselves on this one; every track has the power to provide a soundtrack to your stomp-offs and mirror-karaoke. If the last album showed that Gossip had come into their own, this one proves their true artistry. Beth Ditto’s voice remains soulful, uplifting, and full of conviction. Key tracks: Music for Men, Love Long Distance, For Keeps

07 Tori Amos, Midwinter Graces

Tori was well on her way to complete irrelevance and oblivion, but strangely, a seasonal album dragged her kicking and screaming out of the slump. It’s a tender, deeply felt, and beautiful album, focused by her kooky eye trained on traditional carols, while remaining universal enough to play for the whole family. Key tracks: Star of Wonder, Winter’s Carol, Holly Ivy and Rose, Candle: Coventry Carol (yes, had to choose four)

06 Lady Gaga, The Fame Monster

If you don’t love Gaga already, I won’t be the one to convince you; nonetheless, this is a flawless eight-track EP that blows even her impressive debut out of the water. Impossibly catchy and fascinatingly constructed, TFM wears its influences on its sleeve while proving that Gaga has both come into her own and harbors the capacity for transformation. Key tracks: Bad Romance, Telephone, Monster

05 Florence + the Machine, Lungs

A truly exciting debut album filled with gems; Florence’s voice is at turns violent, booming, caressing. Each song shines, sometimes drowning out the album as a cohesive whole, but give it time to sink in—she’s certainly got a bright future. Key tracks: Cosmic Love, Girl With One Eye, Howl

04 Bat for Lashes, Two Suns

Her debut was fantastic, but Two Suns takes Natasha Khan far away from the sophomore slump and proves that she has staying power; she’s matured from what could have left her as a Stevie-Nicks-knockoff into a voice all her own. Key tracks: Daniel, Siren Song, Sleep Alone




03 PJ Harvey and John Parish, A Woman a Man Walked By

I’ve come to realize the PJ Harvey is possibly the only artist I love that has a spotless track record, at least in my book. Every album is ace; nearly every track is spot-on. I can put her on at any time, in any mood, and find something enjoyable and new. People bitched about her new collab with John Parish, complaining that it’s intentionally ugly, that her gimmick is wearing thin, that she’s doing things simply to seem avant-garde—but I couldn’t disagree more. Admittedly, I loved Dance Hall at Louse Point (their first collab), which is another divisive album, but just when I thought she couldn’t take her music in any other directions, she and JP pull this one out of their sleeves.

Every track is a surprise, and each one inhabits its own sonic and narrative world. Black Hearted Love is vaguely reminiscent of the alt-pop glitz of Stories; Sixteen Fifteen Fourteen is a biblical tale gone sour, or perhaps a Hansel-and-Gretel fable of lost innocence. If Grow Grow Grow (on her last album, White Chalk) was a child’s terrifying elegy for her dead grandmother, April from this one is the grandmother’s haunting poem to her lost granddaughter. The title track could be dissected within the parameters of feminist body horror theory, with its bizarre attention to a woman/man hybrid with “chicken liver balls,” not to mention the narrator’s violent declaration that she wants to “just get up your fucking ass.” The album runs the gamut of emotions, with fury and arrogance carrying Pig Will Not and violence the title track. Melancholy dominates much of the rest: “Send me home damaged, and wanting” she cries in The Soldier, while in April, the plea is for escape, when “these days just crush me.” Passionless, Pointless is perhaps one of the subtlest laments for a love-gone-bored-stiff that I’ve heard; the breakout into wailing midway through the song elevates the yearning to the passion she wishes for, but otherwise, the song merely encapsulates the failure of a love to sustain itself. Cracks in the Canvas, the closing track, is a reflective glance back over the many places the album’s been, and fittingly leads us into the silence that follows.

Polly’s voice remains chameleon-esque; on April she croaks like a century-old hag; on Sixteen Fifteen Fourteen she howls like a lost girl; she growls and shrieks her way through the title track; she’s an otherworldly siren for The Soldier and an androgynous demon on Pig Will Not (evidently, inspired by a Baudelaire poem, to boot). If DHALP at times suffocated under the weight of its experimentalism, AWAMWB creates its own private world that thrives on its strangeness and gains coherence through loosely connected narratives among the songs. PJ has never been more daring vocally, and even if the stakes weren’t high for a side project like this, she and JP are both (chicken)balls-out for the whole run. It’s ugly, it’s haunting, it’s violent and beautiful. Incredibly difficult to rank these top three, I should add.

Key Tracks: Sixteen Fifteen Fourteen, April, Black Hearted Love



02 Neko Case, Middle Cyclone

I know most prefer her last one, Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, to Middle Cyclone, but I think I may be on the other, more evil, end of the spectrum. Though the standout tracks of FC shine brighter (re: Star Witness, Dirty Knife, Hold On Hold On), Middle Cyclone tears you open with its opening note and doesn’t stitch you back up until the bitter end. There are (to my mind) two weak tracks on the album; everything else is simply perfect. This Tornado Loves You would probably top my Songs of the Year list if I were making one, and nothing is quite as heartbreaking as the title track. Of course, Neko’s soaring voice is the highlight of every track, but she never suffocates the music. This isn’t a ‘narrative’ or a concept album, but it feels like it could be, because I always feel as though I’m doing it a disservice if I don’t listen to the thing in its entirety.

And now that I’ve sat down to write about this, I have no idea what to say. I was lucky enough to see Neko live in Richmond, VA in April—she was as stunning and powerful as you might expect. There are artists with distinctive voices that I love—PJ and Karen O among them, not to mention Bjork or Joanna Newsom, or Patrick Wolf—and then there are vocalists that are simply so polished and beautiful. Neko somehow manages to excel in both of these, and the best of it was that this power came through even live. Her lyrics seem only to get better with time, whether they’re darkly humorous, as in “You spoke the words, ‘I love girls in white leather jackets’—that was good enough for love, it was good enough for me” from The Pharoahs, or simple and emotionally wrenching, like with “Baby, why’m I worried now? Did someone make a fool of me? For I can show ‘em how it’s done. Can’t give up actin’ tough; it’s all that I’m made of. Can’t scrape together quite enough, to ride the bus to the outskirts of the fact that I need love” on the title track.

She’s a bit country, a bit indie, a bit pop—none of these and all at once. I suppose she’s a bit of a hipster darling from her work in The New Pornographers, but there’s not a more earnest or genuine artist in music right now—she truly strikes me as an artist’s artist, and that shines through on this album. It’s a moving forty-five minute trek into a timeless sort of landscape, and you’ll be kept warm with Neko’s incredibly voice to hold your hand along the way.

Key Tracks: This Tornado Loves You, Middle Cyclone, People Got a Lotta Nerve, Don’t Forget Me, Prison Girls, all the rest



01 Yeah Yeah Yeahs, It’s Blitz

Essentially flawless from beginning to end, It’s Blitz is the album that, according to the band, brought the Yeah Yeah Yeahs back from a career precipice. Karen O confessed that Show Your Bones and the ensuing tour nearly brought the band to their breaking point, personally and creatively. Some people have called this album derivative or said that the YYYs jumped a little too quickly onto the neo-eighties bandwagon, but nothing on the album feels stale or forced; it’s electrifying, fresh, and strangely compelling (though the emotional power of the YYYs isn’t, for me, usually the first strength to come to mind). They’ve revitalized their sound without leaving behind all the qualities that make them so distinctive in contemporary music. Karen O coos and howls her way through each track; the band matches her word-for-word, and the listener (okay, well, I) follows the siren-call. Some tracks compel you to stomp around (Zero, Heads Will Roll, Shame and Fortune); some to dance (Dull Life, Dragon Queen); some to cry (Runaway). Tracks like Soft Shock and Hysteric are of the sort that no one does better than the YYYs—they impeccably juggle reflective melancholy and naïve hope. Maybe it’s Karen O’s voice that captures this—I can’t think of anyone who really sounds like her right now, or, if they do, they don’t do it nearly as well. I’m sure this is why she was asked to do the Where the Wild Things Are soundtrack, because who better brings a childlike joy to a frighteningly jaded and adult world than Karen O?

I honestly don’t even know what to say about this album without sounding forced, mawkish, or kiss-ass-y. The best thing I might close with is that this album has followed me throughout the year, through high moods and low, through lonely nights and booze-fueled tranny parties; I played it in the car, in the shower, at work, for my friends and for my mother. As much as I love Neko and PJ, this album had already topped my year-end list by the time I finished my first listen.

Key Tracks: Dull Life, Heads Will Roll, Soft Shock, Runaway, all the rest

There you have it.

Because I'm not fucking old enough to do a Best-of-the-Decade List (Part I)

I was thirteen-years-old when the big, bad Y2K apocalypse threatened us all; my memory is so awful that anything before that moment is a bit hazy. As such, I’m not going to pretend that I can wield any goddamn best-of-the-decade lists. Here’s a few things from the year that I loved; if you trust my judgment at all, check them out. Trusting my judgment™ is recommended by 0 out of 5 ADA-approved dentists.

The movies list is sadly incomplete, as I really haven’t seen that many from 2009; the books, likewise, are comprised almost entirely of books *read* this year, though not published in 2009 (except for Atwood’s Year of the Flood). The books are alphabetical; the films are basically unranked, except for Bright Star and Inglourious Basterds, which were my two favorite films of the year. The albums list isn’t too bad, though, and so there’s a pretty strict ranking system there.

In conclusion, 2009 had its high points—I completed my thesis with highest honors, I somehow managed to sneak into graduate school, I read about a million books, and survived the two most harrowing academic semesters of my career thus far—and its low, which I have no desire to get into, but all in all, I’m ready to kiss that shit goodbye. Not sure what 2010 has to bring, but as Ella F sings, something’s gotta give, and hopefully, this year will at least run a bit more smoothly. Cheers to you all.

Films

Best film of the year:

Bright Star












Runner up:

Inglourious Basterds












Honorable Mentions:

Star Trek
Coraline
Drag Me to Hell
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Up

Disappointments:

X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Halloween II
Paranormal Activity

Books

I read approximately 82 books this year (which means I didn't reach my goal of one hundred), and these were the ones that stuck out for me:

Margaret Atwood, Alias Grace
Margaret Atwood, The Year of the Flood
Jane Austen, Emma
Alison Bechdel, Fun Home
Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre
A.S. Byatt, Elementals
A.S. Byatt, Possession
Angela Carter, Wise Children
William Faulkner, Light in August
Ian McEwan, Atonement
Toni Morrison, Beloved (re-read)
Alice Munro, Open Secrets
Sapphire, Push
Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
Jeanette Winterson, The Passion
Virginia Woolf, Orlando

Music, 18-11

18 Martha Wainwright, Sans Fusils, Ni Fouliers, A Paris: A Tribute to Edith Piaf
17 Nellie McKay, Normal as Blueberry Pie: A Tribute to Doris Day
16 St. Vincent, Actor
15 The Decemberists, The Hazards of Love
14 Marissa Nadler, Little Hells
13 Little Boots, Hands
12 Karen O and the Kids, Where the Wild Things Are
11 Tori Amos, Abnormally Attracted to Sin

To be continued...

Aural-gasm: Review of Little Boots, "Hands"

Her stage name derives from the film Caligula, so Wikipedia informs me, but Victoria Hesketh (aka Little Boots) does far more than pilfer on her debut album Hands (out June 8th in the U.K.—not sure if the U.S. date is the same). I’ll confess up front, I wasn’t expecting much from her/the album; I’d heard intermittent hype from the likes of myspace and one of my favorite forums (geek alert!), but she sounded as though she’d end up being just another blowup doll in the ceaseless line of pop tart automatons that crop up from time to time on the ‘hot’ music scene and fade away. With comparisons to Lady Gaga more than abundant, I figured she’d be riding the wave of Gaga’s fifteen minutes (see: Duffy on Winehouse’s spotlight) without offering anything new. Like Gaga, Little Boots has been playing the piano since she was five (only a bit later than another favorite of mine with a recent album—Tori Amos, with May’s Abnormally Attracted to Sin), and though the piano isn’t particularly prominent here, the synth work is fabulous, and really a highlight of the album—which, by the end of the twelve tracks, seems an almost perfect dance-pop confection. From the opening Goldfrapp-esque synth flourishes of “New In Town,” to the infectiously dark verse riff of “Hearts Collide,” I’m pretty much hooked in for Little Boots’ sparkling escapades.

Little Boots wears her influences on her sleeve; there are distinct traces of Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, Kylie Minogue (perhaps most of all, and LB claims to have written single “Stuck on Repeat” with Kylie in mind), and even a hint of fellow Brit Kate Bush (on the album’s standout lament, “Ghosts”). There’s no shame in her five-finger-discounts from these musical predecessors—in fact, the album is all the better for it, because fans of these women will hear their footprints, but find something radically new to love in Little Boots’ wide-eyed interpretations. On “Ghosts,” the almost alien background vocals and accordion-imitating synth sounds call to mind tracks from Bush’s The Dreaming, while simultaneously allowing Boots’ own evocative voice and more dance-heavy aesthetic room to breath. It’s a track that evokes a sort of offspring between Bush’s album and Madonna’s “Devil Wouldn’t Recognize You” from last year’s Hard Candy. There’s a little lure for everyone, though: tracks like “Ghosts” and “Stuck on Repeat” seamlessly blend the discotheque with the sob-fest, while “Meddle” unveils an undercurrent of menace, with LB cautioning an unidentified suitor not to “Meddle with her heart / meddle with her mind / meddle with the things that are inside / —you don’t know what you’ll find / you don’t know what she hides”. The breakdown with distorted synth and a battle between Boots’ sirensong and a male vocalist (who sounds almost as though trapped in a frightening hymnal) inspires fear, perhaps even moreso, because for five tracks we’ve been accustomed to fairly bubble-gum style niceties from the girl.

“Mathematics” and “Symmetry” are pure, unadulterated (and unembarrassed) cheese-fests. With lyrics like “Take just a little of my mind / and subtract it from it my soul, / add a fraction of your heart, / and you’ll see it makes me whole. / Multiply it by the times / that we’ll never be apart, / you’ll see nothing can divide / just a heart plus a heart” (in the former track), you’ll find yourself giggling and grinning like a complete goof. Somehow it works. Though the ‘OMG HART + HART = LUV’ equation has been done before, and is always at least somewhat laughable (especially when sung in earnest), by this point in the album, you want to like her and forgive her her follies—besides, on a dance pop album as fun as this one assuredly is, the macaroni lyrics are somehow more accommodating to the experience. After only a listen or two, I found myself singing the silly stuff as loudly as any of the more serious lyrics (though I should be honest and say that the lyrics more generally are certainly not going to be printed in a separate book of poetry at any point in the near future). “Hearts Collide,” another standout track, is the best impersonation of Kylie Minogue since Kylie’s last album, X.

There are the weak links, of course, but for a debut album (and especially for a dance-pop debut), Little Boots actually manages to dodge a few bullets. “Tune Into My Heart” is so saccharine and bubblegum that I couldn’t muddle through the track’s molasses without a toothache; “Click” is underwhelming to the point that I honestly can’t remember my complaints with it. The album closer “No Brakes” isn’t insufferable, but is certainly unmemorable—and for an album closer, that strikes me as a definite downfall. I’m of the mind that every album should strike in with a bang and leave on another explosive note. If the middle falls by the wayside on occasion, it’s forgivable, but always ensure that the album’s bread stands out. But of twelve tracks (and again, on a debut, no less), three weak links (which aren’t even awful, just forgettable) do not an album destroy. In fact, it excites me to think how much more seamlessly incredible LB’s next album might be, with such an even debut.

If you’re into the European dance aesthetic, into the aforementioned leading-lady-predecessors, or simply looking for a handful of incredible summer anthems, check her out. I’ve had “Stuck on Repeat,” well, stuck on repeat, and have likewise been playing the upbeat tracks like “Mathematics” and “Symmetry” on my way to work, to distract from the drudgery—LB’s world, after all, is as far away from the filthy dishes and frugal rednecks of my serving job as one can get. She evokes the illusion that elementary math can tie two people together in passion, that there’s a disco ball for every experience, and that a glittery evening out dancing can cure any malady. It’s the kind of summer illusion anyone can be glad to get lost in.