Carrying the torch of Jeans Wilder Sparkler, similar elements are here infused a decade later and with different meaning.
Spectral and with more than a glancing glimmer of the void, the lead guitar melody loops back upon itself, an ouroboros, devouring it’s own tail indefinitely.
This perpetual motion machine can be yours for the low, low price of $3.
As mentioned in the prior post, The Mountain Goats’ The Water Song feeds nicely into this track, in tempo, theme and texture.
And it is all a lot of texture, isn’t it. It’s such a lovely, warm, lugubrious track.
The 50s pop influences are here, gently warped through the lo-fi bedroom lens. If it’s not already in some slow motion film sequence or twenty it will be soon enough.
The mood has been captured or crafted and awaits appropriation, to be shuffled sequentially, reformed into a new purpose. It’s too good not to be gathered up and set against new backgrounds, some complimentary, some gaudy and/or heartless.
John Darnielle has carved out a place in the world for himself through an exhaustive output of decades worth catchy and insightful pop music.
It is seemingly self-sustaining and I admire him a great deal for this achievement. As the gears about us churn and crush everyone else, John has managed not to be ground into a fine paste.
That is not at all to say that he didn’t have his fair share of hard times, from what I understand, those due all sentient beasts. But that he continued to create throughout them and continues to make interesting media. At some point most people stop.
This song is gleefully dire. There are some field recording elements for texture, subtle but sticky backing vocals in the chorus, and the bareness of John’s grating/glorious voice.
I am most familiar with this song in the context of a mix in which it feeds directly into Jeans Wilder’s Sparkler. And that will be posted next. Due to the way chronology works in archiving posts, it will be in order but now perceived out of order. The trick is that it doesn’t matter.
Baby Mayo is a blast from the not so distant past of 2012.
It was a simpler time. Instagram gave a generation of not-yet-middle-aged millennials a reason to live. One neoliberal oligarchy apologist was our symbolic figurehead instead of another. And the domestication of the dog continued unabated.
Looking back over it now it is a real triumph of lo-fi bedroom rock. Both melodically interesting, lyrically playful, strange but also truly pretty.
I am all for representations of abrupt and seemingly arbitrary deterioration, having experienced them personally as a bipedal multicellular biological organism, like when the track hits a disintegration loop or two.
There is a lot of craft and detail going into this track which may be lost on some less familiar with the genre. Mostly because it sounds like an ice cream truck falling apart upon reentry. but it is there.
Z-ZERO is 90 seconds of blown-out synth pop punk.
The bifurcated melody lets for once the bridge also be the chorus, and it is no small wonder that this works out fine. Yet again, Australia has shown us the way.
It’s all very good. There’s enough style that it lapses back into substance at some point in the general mire, the rhythm guitar bounding back and forth across the soundscape throughout.
“26 without a shot / that’s more than Bonnie and Clyde got”
Never one to shy away from a lengthy title no matter whose blog title section it will disrupt, CFTPA/Owen Ashworth writes songs plenty good enough to overlook this flaw.
It starts with twinkling starlight keys affixed to a broad void of bass drum, just listen to the song. It is all beginning. Synthetic clapping, you should listen for that. And there’s a tremendous organ solo that plays Tom off. You can just listen to it.
There’s a few great tracks on Total Revenge’s S/T, but Jeep Cherokee is my favorite of the set.
Drums that register somewhere between trashcan and streetlight corral a blown out but triumphant melody, bleeding out graciously into the verse. All of this builds pretty quickly to some kind of boil before dissipating in feedback to close out the record.
“I do all the things that I should / For once in my life I feel good”
Check out also The Fair for similar sludgery that reaches comparable heights of wonder.
Beauty Sleep is utterly great dreamy, spectral synth pop. A small triumph of pacing, texture and enveloping synthesizers.
“fell asleep in the garden / the flowers are starting to take root in my brain”
The immensely carefully constructed unfolding is something we can all learn a lesson or two from.
There is a lot to admire in the crafting, the phasing of layers, and the levels and positioning at which field recording elements are place peripherally, never pulling too much focus from the ear-worm chorus and verses.
It is good. Check out other sounds he’s made at the soundcloud.
Shitty Hits is one of the best albums of the last decade. It is endlessly impressive and inspiring material, awash in fervent commiseration, fearsome eulogizing, and in this way it is difficult to choose one track to feature.
Knowing how good the subsequent offerings are, starting with track one makes sense.
There are no fewer than several dozen instances in which effortlessness combines seamlessly with the elaborate. Like in Going Down when it almost sounds like it’s all about to fall apart, stalling just after the field recording, then careening back into the chorus, outdoing the previous effort’s loop. Or essentially all of The Image, or Life’s a lie... or Isolator, or Hold…
There is a great quote that is applicable here from an article reviewing Denis Johnson’s Lament of the Sea Maiden by Geoff Dyer, “Control is achieved through willing proximity to its loss.”
And that is anything with content and form, style and substance, design and function. But rarely is it metered so consistently with such exactitude and genius.
With great rarity does the lo-fi indie bedroom-rock world produce things that are both believably personal and properly anthemic. Generally speaking, for most working within this subset, the ambition doesn’t stretch much farther than the size of the room it was crafted in.
Exceptions include the occasional track by Joanna, Spencer and that immensely talented okie who wrote Funeral. But they are everywhere here. If you play it you too will become pleasantly impaled on one of the very many hooks.
Katie Von Schleicher has written two remarkable albums in the last few years and I doubt either of you vulgarians own them yet. You can still buy Shitty Hits on vinyl at the bandcamp.
Also follow on Instagram for quality bird-centric social media content second only to Marianne Williamson.
La Tormenta is the final track on Daga Voladora’s wonderful album Chiu-Chium (“an onomatopoeic representation of the sound made by a flying dagger,” referenced in track 5).
The album cover approximates well the texture, color palette and detailing within: varied warm and fractured synthesizers revolve around the vocal heart of each track.
The track selected, La Tormenta, is an account or rumination on being at sea in the midst of a storms throes. A cover of Lorena Álvarez, the poise of this rendition is held in perpetual balance by the 4-5 electronic murmurs.
There is among them what appears to be a synth estimation of a harpsichord involved, that calmed but febrile plucking. The style is of the highest order, pacing, structure, production and melody.
The calming and all consuming dread is felt, whether in defiance or resignation. And the beauty of this lamentation contorts to good whatever cruelty of fate initiated the storms summoning. There is an account. They have come out the other side.
Plainly & Painfully 