May 2012
8 posts
“But so what if their Afro-tribal-electro-twee-pop is indeed all sugar and no...”
– Reptar: Body Faucet | Album Reviews | Pitchfork
Ian Cohen smacking down on cruddy bands is one of music writing’s great pleasures, but I’m posting this here for the Animal Collective thing. I went through college listening to Feels too, but man am I sick of hearing new bands try to...
jamiesoncox:
A Shot of Jamieson, Episode 3 -...
pitchfork:
As a companion to his Underscore...
5 tags
Hidden Tracks?
I did not download/listen to the leak/NPR-preview of Bloom, I waited until it came out yesterday and I bought it with money, so I haven’t had the months that many folks have to let it sink into the back of my brain. So far I like it more with each play.
Something about “Irene” bothers me, though. Not the song itself, but the fact that the track is 17 minutes long and, lo and...
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Animal Collective - "Honeycomb" b/w "Gotham"
Somewhere along the line I lost track of the idea of ‘weirdness’ in music. The further you step back from it, the harder it gets to pin down what ‘conventional’ music is supposed to be and how anything can be called ‘weird’ in opposition/as an alternative. I used to be able to use Animal Collective as my own mile marker for weirdness, partly because their music...
4 tags
Daughn Gibson - All Hell
“I saw him, underneath the neon lights of a corner bar, crying like a child. So I asked him, ‘What’s the matter?’ and he said, ‘I’m just an old man in a young girl’s world…’”
Daughn Gibson delivers that little bit of theatrical scene-setting in his commanding baritone half way through All Hell, drawling the words in imitation of the old...
April 2012
12 posts
“Fevers and Mirrors isn’t degraded from being removed from the bullshit of...”
– Bright Eyes: Fevers and Mirrors / There is No Beginning to the Story EP | Album Reviews | Pitchfork
This sorta skirts an idea I’ve had for a while that I’ll occasionally bust out for an ill-timed dinner party rant, which is that certain musics are (unintentionally?) designed to have a...
B Michael Tumblr: Four Pictures Of Instagram →
bmichael:
Last night and this morning I saw three music writers write on Instagram. I was going to reblog Perpetua, but I couldn’t upload photographs to the reblog, so this new post should suffice. Amanda Petrusich says, These days, instead of eschewing technology, we’re using it to deny itself — it’s…
Go read this whole thing. It’s great. Two cents of mine: Instagram is gradually...
Anonymous asked: I can't find love. Like, anywhere. Now what?
Anonymous asked: Coachella?
Anonymous asked: If you could make a living doing whatever you want, what would it be? What is your passion?
justsoicancomment asked: Why don't you share your DJ set playlists?
Anonymous asked: Is living in NYC really THAT awesome? I mean, how much better than everywhere else can it be, right? I've wanted to live there for almost as long as I can remember, but I'm half a world away. If I wanted to move there after I graduated, it'd be a crazy huge undertaking, and risky with it. Would it seriously be worth all that?
crumbler asked: How do I choose the right IPA for me?
everygreatsongever asked: If you had someone trapped on a desert island, what disc would you play to slowly drive them mad?
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Ask Me Questions? →
Please? I’m in need of a jolt of inspiration. Or something to riff on that doesn’t end up a 1,000-word slough no one ever reads. I am stuck in my ways—help shake me out of them!
(I am, however, prepared to speak at length on non-musical topics such as fried chicken in north Brooklyn, the ins and outs of choosing the right IPA for you, and working from home as a sustainable...
4 tags
Listening Journal: Alabama Shakes - Boys & Girls
It’s hard to make soul music sound fresh. Perhaps there are one too many gold-cased 20-disc Time Life compilations in the world. Or maybe there’s just something in the stylistic DNA that tends to make it feel comforting and a little nostalgic. Bloody and visceral, too, but forgiving in ways rock ‘n roll rarely is. With that said, everyone getting excited over Alabama Shakes...
3 tags
"Why the Old-School Music Snob Is the Least Cool... →
Oh boy. OK, here’s the thing. I tend to think of taste and notions about taste as a sort of developmental issue, the idea being that people develop/inherit tastes and some attendant modes of thinking long before they develop the capacity to consider them self-critically. Your ideas about what is good and bad taste—about where music’s value comes from, in other...
March 2012
13 posts
3 tags
Why I Don't Like Mad Men
My resistance to and even occasional contempt for the phenomenon of Mad Men is probably, at its deepest, a cultural issue. What I mean is: were the show to exist in some impossible vacuum outside of the fervency of its fan base, I believe I’d be much more inclined to view it charitably. As it stands, though, I both can not and (perhaps most tellingly) will not grant it the all-loving pass it...
2 tags
Spring, Sprang, Sprung →
I finished another mix tape I’ve been idly toying with the last couple weeks, partly to commemorate the beginning of spring (manifesting itself in New York City via wild shifts in temperature, visibility, and precipitation from day to day), and partly to try and get my mind off the disturbing incident from this weekend, which still has me a bit rattled. So: spring! sunshine! plants! love!
...
L Train Murder: Fatal Fight At Bedford Station As... →
I was on this train. Sitting in the frontmost car, actually—the one that hit him and pinned him against the platform—and I felt the two or three dull thuds that jostled the entire car when it ran him over. The conductor was clearly trying her best to stop in time, but I don’t think people realize just how fast these trains go. The statistic you always hear is that 50% off all...
4 tags
Listening Journal: Rimar - Closer
Turns out chillwave’s smuggled beach margarita can still pack a solid punch when it’s, y’know, about something. Rimar has his own intriguing voice, though, so maybe I’m selling it short. He strikes a great balance between the intensity of his musical atmospheres—this is a record unflinching in its sense of hot, breathy intimacy—and the grounded sensibility of...
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Listening Journal: The Shins - Port of Morrow
Y’know, under-production hasn’t been a problem for The Shins’ since they were called Flake Music. I wouldn’t mind all the bells and whistles here—hell, I probably wouldn’t even notice ‘em—if there wasn’t this odd sense of deference in the whole affair. All the glassy guitars, synth whooshes, extra percussion, bleeps and bloops, they hit your...
The White Savior Industrial Complex →
seejilltumbl:
Teju Cole’s interesting, hyper-articulate response to Make Kony Famous:
‘The White Savior Industrial Complex is not about justice. It is about having a big emotional experience that validates privilege.’
A few caveats: a friend of mine works for Invisible Children—hi, Angela!—and I have no doubt that she and the people she works with sincerely want to contribute to...
3 tags
Against Reverb
As part of my never-ending quest to catch up on what the rest of the internet was listening to a month ago, I’ve spent the last couple days trying out the new albums from Grimes and Julia Holter. In both cases I find the biggest obstacle to my enjoyment, the thing that most prevents me from getting excited about them1, is the particular way they’re colored by reverb. On Grimes’...
1 tag
Thoughts at a Dive Bar on St. Patrick's Day
The problem with Queen’s “We Will Rock You” is that it’s written in the future tense. There is the communal stomp-stomp-clap beat, sure, but that big chant is a completely hollow promise. Queen will eventually rock you—they are not rocking you now, though—and we all know that the more something is promised, the less satisfaction we find in its delivery....
4 tags
Beach House - "Myth"
“Myth” opens, like many a Beach House song, with the measured tap of a chintzy drum machine. Tss-tss-TONG-tss-tss-tss-TONG—that hollow metallic noise programmed into Victoria Legrand’s keyboard sounds like the lazy bell of a buoy muffled by humid, salty air. Beach House devotees might recognize it from as far back as “House on the Hill,” on their debut...
“More insightful stuff might not be at the pace of your bigger aggregators, but...”
– The Daily Swarm - A Rational Conversation Between Two Adults: Maura Johnston of The Village Voice On Music-Writing Qualifications
I’ve been on vacation from Day Job this week and haven’t paid close attention to my various feeds, but Maura Johnston really knocked this...
February 2012
16 posts
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The Dutchess and The Duke - "Out of Time"
I’d sort of forgotten about this band (they split up to little fanfare in 2010), but they put out a couple of neat, perversely enjoyable albums during their short run. I say perversely because The Dutchess and The Duke were the type of songwriters who dealt exclusively in sharp, personal despair. Rebecca Raber once wrote that their music was about exorcising demons, which is a spot-on...
“Apprehending Mr. M does not take a genius, nor does it take an English degree,...”
– This.
3 tags
Very sad to learn that Chris Reimer, of the band... →
rawkblog:
He was 26, my age. What a horrible thing. Both of Women’s albums are great but their first self-titled release is a painfully underrated piece of art — the kind of abrasive, ecstatic, challenging guitar record that you want every guitar record to be.
This is really sad. If you haven’t listened to Women, you’re missing out on one of the greatest guitar bands of the last...
Sleigh Bells' Positive Rock →
barthel:
Here is the Sleigh Bells piece! I try to get into the emotional heart of the album, and talk about how the sound design and images send a message.
This piece pretty well nails the differences between Treats and Reign of Terror—I especially like how Barthel frames one as a distortion of space and the other a distortion of time—and I sympathize with the arguably therapeutic...
Oh hey, this looks new... →
I’m fairly certain most people who read this read it through their own Tumblr dashboards, but those who don’t will now be treated to a much handsomer and easy-to-read experience. It was made by my roommate Mike—who designs things for a living—using this highly-malleable theme. I like it a lot.
4 tags
Sleigh Bells - Reign of Terror
You wouldn’t think that boring technical minutia would matter when it came to a peppy, poppy band like Sleigh Bells, but it does. We’ve all seen the little track player widgets on SoundCloud before, yes? With the horizontal spectrum that displays the waveform of the song in it? Think of the very top and bottom edges of that SoundCloud player as boundaries†. If the amplitude (or...
“At the Gainesville kickoff show, an eager dude jumped out of his car and smashed...”
– William Bowers went to Sleigh Bells/Diplo/Liturgy’s “Paradise Lost” tour of Florida and lived to tell the tale. (via pitchfork) Sometimes I miss Gainesville, but most of the time I do not. Also: this whole piece is fantastic. Bowers!
You Either Love Love or You Don't
In the wake of her death, Valentine’s Day seems as appropriate a time as any to write something about Whitney Houston. I think it’s fair to say that she—at least our idea of her, the her portrayed in the songs she sang—loved love. She did not love it like Celine Dion, who makes it a shrine, draping it in crimson silk on a silver pedestal surrounded by sleeping multiracial...
3 tags
Fake Outrage
I don’t think there’s much difference between the (ostensible) recording industry giving itself awards and, say, a widely-read magazine/blog putting out a year-end list of favorite albums. People should not treat them differently. Maybe the Grammys just produce a lot more talk because a lot more people pay attention to them, but I worry that since there’s a ceremony on TV where...
9 tags
Listening Journal
I have a habit of not pushing myself to hear new releases all the time, waiting around for good records to somehow find their way to my ears, which is not a good way to do things if you want to be an even half-decent critic. So I spent the last couple days playing catch-up on a handful of talked-about albums I’ve been meaning to listen to—some newer than others—taking notes as I...
2 tags
Useful things I did on my day off today:
- Finished that Edie Sedgwick piece I’ve been sitting on for a couple weeks
- Finished another cartoon / illustration for a friend’s blog that will be up soon
- Started planning my two-week trip to Florida at the end of April
Useless things I did on my day off today:
- Took a nap
- Ate a pint of chocolate ice cream
- Watched “Best...
7 tags
"What Cue?..."
“…’Faye Dunaway’ take two,” mumbles Justin Moyer in a terse moment of verité that kicks off First Reflections, the otherwise spotty and confounding 2001 debut of his Edie Sedgwick project. It’s been a different ‘band’ every album, but in the beginning it was a bass-and-drums duo of Moyer and Ryan Hicks, both stalwarts of the DC Dischord scene. The...
2 tags
Good Morning to You →
People seem to like these and it’s been a few weeks since the last one, so here’s another mix tape. I might just be wired differently, but I’ve always preferred Emily Haines’ dour solo work to Metric’s glossy bombast. When given some room to breathe she has a knack for elucidating the tired and helpless sides of adulthood, even to the point of letting the mood become...
4 tags
I Listened to the Lana Del Rey Album
I am taking the side that says this is a fatally flawed album, fascinating though it can be. Here are some more thoughts:
- While I hold to my previous impression of it, “Video Games” is indeed the best song on the album. It’s focused and evocative where much of Born to Die is a slapdash grab-bag of signifiers—one of the few that can be said to be about more than just,...
January 2012
11 posts
B Michael Tumblr: It's Not For You →
bmichael:
I’ve had some really good conversations on Twitter today, which really foregrounded a problem with criticism. The idea of a critic landing a cross-genre shot, contre-pied’ing our expectations (think: David Wallace on Terminator 2) is delightful. But it has to be done extremely well, drawn from a decent amount of knowledge and even more empathy.
Most times, when a critic of one type...