#this new violin or instrument is a product of the desolation??

[r0semultiverse]

Samama is looking into the Magnus protocol :pogchamp:

I mean, I’d be curious too having heard about the Magnus Institute then seeing a reference to a protocol.

Gwen being “trapped here forever,” I wonder if that’s literal or just a reference to Elias. 😂 Also would she be Elias & boat captain guy’s kid?? Asking the real questions.

Also, is Augustus’s voice a character from The Magnus Archives proper or a new voice actor/character?? Okay, new voice apparently!

Last Fortnite? /j

Okay so the violin is definitely paranormal or has paranormal origins.

Also the name Oliver strikes me as very familiar but idk why. 🤔

FAR AWAY MUSIC? ITS THE WAR MUSIC THINGY?? MAYBE THE HUNTING ONE?

“Unseen maestro of his own imagination.” Oh yeah no the music man is back in some form or it’s a new thing.

BRO JUST LEPT FOR IT??? Holy fuck. Wait did this thing take hold of his tutor, then the carriage guy??

A FLAME FIGURE??? THE FIRE LADY ENTITY??

This instrument is hot! 🔥

I wonder if the musical notes will burn the audience or something. 👀 Oh shit it’s musical talent for blood! ⚰️ Vampire ass instrument. Deal with the devil type shit.

Oh shit... he fed other people to his violin. I wonder if it ate him in the middle of the night because it got hungry & he hadn’t fed it.

HOOOOOOLY SHIT CANNIBALISM SONG!

“Feed my violin nephew.”

“I could disappear again, they would never know!” WHO & WHY??

[oneadaymadonna]

Love Don’t Live Here Anymore.Like a Virgin.Madonna.

Madonna: The One-A-Day Complete Discography

Significance and Analysis of "Love Don't Live Here Anymore"

"Love Don't Live Here Anymore," originally by Rose Royce, is a soulful ballad that delves into the heartache and desolation following the end of a cherished relationship. The song's enduring appeal lies in its raw emotional honesty and the universal experience of love lost. Its lyrics articulate a profound sense of abandonment, encapsulated by the imagery of a home now devoid of love.

Why Madonna Chose to Cover It

Madonna's decision to cover "Love Don't Live Here Anymore" for her "Like a Virgin" album stemmed from a suggestion by Michael Ostin of Warner Bros. Records. Despite initial apprehensions, Madonna and producer Nile Rodgers saw the song's inclusion as an opportunity to diversify the album and explore deeper emotional territory. Madonna's personal affinity for the song also played a crucial role in its selection. This choice highlighted her willingness to tackle challenging material and demonstrate her artistic versatility.

Cultural and Thematic Significance

Originally not a disco track but rather a soulful ballad, "Love Don't Live Here Anymore" carries significant cultural weight for its emotional depth and the innovative use of the Pollard Syndrum, lending it a distinctive sound that resonated with audiences. 

The Pollard Syndrum is an electronic drum synthesizer, notable for being one of the first electronic drums that allowed musicians to play synthesized drum sounds in real-time. Developed in the mid-1970s by Joe Pollard, the Syndrum offered a range of sounds that went beyond the capabilities of traditional acoustic drums, including synthesized tones that could be adjusted in pitch, tone, and decay. This meant that drummers could produce sounds ranging from traditional drum sounds to completely novel, electronically generated tones that were not possible with acoustic drum kits.

Within the song "Love Don't Live Here Anymore" by Rose Royce, the Pollard Syndrum serves a significant function by adding a distinctive electronic texture to the song's arrangement. Its use in the track was innovative for its time, providing a unique sonic character that helped set the song apart from other soul and R&B tracks of the era. The Syndrum's sound reverbs contribute to the emotional and atmospheric depth of the song, enhancing the overall feeling of melancholy and loss. The ability to adjust the pitch and decay of the drum sounds allowed for a more expressive and dynamic percussion part, which could mirror the song's emotional nuances more closely than traditional drums.

In essence, the Pollard Syndrum enriched "Love Don't Live Here Anymore" by offering a new palette of sounds for the producers and musicians to work with, enabling them to craft a more textured and emotionally resonant musical backdrop that complemented the song's themes and vocal performance. Its inclusion is a testament to the song's innovative production and the willingness of its creators to experiment with new technologies to achieve a specific artistic vision.

The song's themes of love, loss, and emotional vacancy are timeless, making it relatable across generations.

Differences Between Madonna's and Rose Royce's Versions

Madonna's rendition, while faithful to the emotional core of the original, introduces a slightly different melodic arrangement, especially evident in the 1995 version featured on her compilation album "Something to Remember." This version employs classical instruments and a more pronounced use of violins and Uilleann pipes, adding a layer of dramatic intensity to the song. Additionally, Madonna's vocal delivery—ranging from high-pitched tones to a soulful depth—along with the inclusion of modern remixes, showcases her ability to reinterpret the song while maintaining its heartfelt essence.

Critically, Madonna's version received mixed reviews, with some appreciating the emotional depth she brought to the song and others critiquing her vocal performance. Despite this, the song's inclusion in her discography and its subsequent music video directed by Jean-Baptiste Mondino demonstrate her commitment to artistic expression, even when exploring the works of others.

Conclusion

"Love Don't Live Here Anymore" stands as a poignant exploration of love's aftermath, with both the Rose Royce and Madonna versions offering unique interpretations that resonate with listeners. Madonna's decision to cover the song reflects her artistic curiosity and her desire to engage with complex emotional landscapes, further cementing her status as a versatile and emotionally attuned artist. While differing in arrangement and production, both versions maintain the song's thematic core, capturing the universal experience of navigating through the remnants of love.

[theeverlastingshade]

Favorite Albums of the 10s

25. Shaking the Habitual- The Knife

The Knife made a name for themselves with their third and most celebrated LP, Silent Shout, but it’s their fourth LP, StH, that pushed their idiosyncratic blend of electroacoustic synth-pop to the furthest, most far-flung places that they’ve gone yet. The record deals with a diverse range of topics from the surveillance state, to fracking, pollution, gender discrimination, and unchecked greed with colorful, ketamine-fused candy cotton synth work and ritualistic percussion. There are long passages of ambience like the menacing build of “A Cherry on Top” dispersed between roaring apocalyptic dance numbers like the astonishing industrial eruption “Full of Fire” and the electro-acoustic freak out “Without You My Life Would Be Boring”. With the exception of the mid-album ambient epic “Old Dreams Waiting to Be Realized” every song on StH justifies its length with consistently engrossing arrangements that sustain their momentum without compromising an ounce of their potency. Everything about the record lives up to its title, from its thematic ambitions, to the breadth of the sonics, pacing, and performances themselves. StH if the full manifestation of the darkness that was lurking beneath the surface of their music from as early as their breakout single “Heartbeats”, but thankfully the music never collapses under the weight of their thematic concerns. Their resilience remains inspiring all these years later, and if Karin and Olof never reunite for a fifth LP we couldn’t have asked for a better send off.

Essentials: “Full of Fire”, “A Tooth for an Eye”, “A Cherry on Top”

24. XXX- Danny Brown

Hip-hop grew to remarkable heights throughout the 10s, and yet there were few rappers that displayed the level of growth and consistency from record to record throughout this past decade quite like Danny Brown. The Detroit native spent the aughts hustling the mixtape circuit, finally catching a spark with 2010’s The Hybrid, his strong debut LP. But a year later Brown returned with his sophomore LP and magnum opus XXX, a twisted rap odyssey that ignited the blogs, and signaled that a new era of hip hop was beginning to emerge. XXX found Brown rapping over an assortment of wonky boom-bap instrumentals courtesy of Bruiser Brigade producer Skywalker that fused classic hip-hop, trap, baroque pop, and techno into shapes far more disorienting than the beats that the vast majority of his contemporaries were rapping over. While it was evident beforehand, XXX really cemented the notion that Brown could rap over anything. The beats here are generally extremely impressive, and there are plenty of singular stylistic touches like the slurring violin stabs of “Lie 4”, the menacing synth lurch of “Monopoly”, or the distorted brass loops of closer “30”, that really stand out, but the appeal is first and foremost Brown’s rapping. His voice alone is one of the most versatile and unpredictable instruments in hip-hop, but aside from his masterful vocal alteration, always perfectly synched to the tone of any given moment on any given song of his, he’s a naturally gifted writer, as thoughtful as he is straight up hilarious. Whether bragging about his destructive lifestyle (“Die Like a Rockstar”), describing how much he loves cunnilingus “I Will”, mourning the desolation around him “Party All the Time”, or reveling in his come-up “30”, Brown is a thoroughly engaging presence throughout the entire album. On XXX profanity and profundity march gleefully hand in hand with one another, casting Brown as one of the last decade’s most singular voices.

Essentials: “Die Like a Rockstar”, “Monopoly”, “30”

23. House of Sugar- Alex G

On Alex G’s latest LP, House of Sugar, his concoction of warm guitar pop and warped electronic production reached a new peak. The songs on HoS detail the misdeeds of various characters succumbing to their greed, and the vignettes that he paints are growing increasingly well-realized thanks to a continuously sharpening songwriting voice and a plethora of tasteful pitch-shifted vocals that help imbue his characters with color and personality. HoS opener “Walk Away” provides a reasonably sonic barometer for what’s to come before dropping us into a series of the most immediate pop songs that he’s ever penned. “Hope” and “Southern Sky” are nimble acoustic guitar pop songs that are almost disarming in their immediacy, and framed around references to the real life death of a friend of his due to opioids and a dream he had, respectively. By the time we reach acoustic guitar and sitar-drone of “Taking” the pitch-shifted vocals are at the forefront of the music and HoS shifts gears into its abstract middle section which owes a lot to the new-age beat deconstruction of avant-garde electronic producers, specifically Oneohtrix Point Never. On the instrumental “Sugar”, a sublime concoction of pitch-warped whispers, dissonant strings arpeggios, and creeping acoustic guitar plucks, HoS reaches the depths of its depravity. The next song, “In My Arms”, leads us to the suite of sublime acoustic reveries that close HoS, arguably peaking with the gorgeous acoustic love ballad “Cow”. The dramatic sonic left-turn that HoS takes midway through may leave some new listeners a little cold, but for most Alex G fans nothing about the eclecticism of HoS should come as a surprise. Nor should the overwhelming quality of the songs here. From Alex G’s debut, Race, in 2010 up through HoS, he released a remarkable catalog of some of the most eclectic, and vital indie rock of the century, and I have no reason to believe he won’t top HoS at some point.

Essentials: “Gretel”, “Sugar”, “Walk Away”

22. Sea When Absent- A Sunny Day in Glasgow

A Sunny Day in Glasgow may be one of the 21st century’s most underrated bands, but not even Pitchfork could resist the coveted BNM tag when it came time to review their fourth and strongest LP, Sea When Absent. Building off of their first three idiosyncratic LPs that superbly fused electronic pop with shoegaze and dream pop, A Sunny Day in Glasgow moved into decidedly more psychedelic territory with their fourth LP while still retaining the sharp melodic sensibility of those first three. Much of the shift is easy to credit to vocalist Jen Goma who joined the group on their third LP, Autumn Again, and here her soaring vocals deliver rich melodies that are more fleshed out and focused than anything on their past releases. SWA sidesteps the kaleidoscopic sprawl of their 22 song sophomore LP, Ashes Grammar, and instead delivers 11 tight, stargazing pop songs. Whereas on the prior records it more often than not felt like the band were throwing ideas at the wall to see what stuck (with primarily successful results) on SWA the band commit more thoroughly to their ideas, writing songs that are well within their wheelhouse but have never been so well-realized. “Byebye, Big Ocean (The End)” and “Boys Turn Into Girls (Initiation Rites)” erupt with a wall of dazzling distorted guitars that slowly build into engrossing melodic payoffs while “Never Nothing (It’s Alright (It’s Ok))” and “The Body, It Bends” are sublime, soft spoken breathers that put a premium on texture and melody, and are among A Sunny Day in Glasgow’s most impressive songs yet. Even seemingly inconsequential moments like the “Double Dutch” interlude positively radiant with melodic warmth and joyous energy. Their strain of sun-kissed, jubilant dream pop tonally stands in stark contrast to much of the pop that’s dominated the airwaves this past decade, but their temperament doesn’t sound naïve so much as defiant. They have yet to follow up SWA with another LP, and I can’t blame them if they feel like they’ve said everything that they have to say with SWA.

Essentials: “The Body, It Bends”, “Never Nothing (It’s Alright (It’s Ok))”, “Boys Turn Into Girls (Initiation Rites)”

21. Strange Mercy- St. Vincent

Annie Clark has spent the past decade releasing music under her St. Vincent moniker, collaborating with the likes of David Byrne, producing for Sleater-Kinney, and appearing on the sketch comedy Portlandia. Although she began her solo career in earnest with her strong 2008 debut, Marry Me, in 2011 Clark released Strange Mercy, her third, and strongest record to date. Produced by John Congleton, SM is a compelling fusion of art rock/and chamber pop that often lands with a jarring, visceral impact, but is still imbued with a sense of grace that heightens the sentiments of her bewitching songwriting. Her first two records showcased her singular voice and tastefully, ornate baroque arrangements, but on SM Clark begins to let loose and lean into her virtuosic guitar playing. Songs like “Cruel” and “Northern Light” are propelled by her nimble riffs caked in distortion while strings rise and fall in a satisfying sweep all around her triumphant vocals. “Surgeon” brings the pace down to a crawl and gets a tone of mileage out of sensuous synth arrangements as Clark sings softly of depression and carnal desire “Stay in just to get along/Turn off the TV, wade in bed/A blue and a red/A little something to get along” before the song erupts into a furious storm of guitar distortion. The balance between fury and serenity animate the record from start to finish, and Clark seamlessly toggles these impulses from start to finish. On the title track, over a lumbering tom/kick drum rhythm, the incessant ping of a synth, and bluesy guitar licks Clark brilliantly sums up the record’s theme with a scene of police brutality “If I ever meet that dirty policeman that roughed you up/No, I, I don’t know what” that depicts the contraction inherent in the way justice is carried out by police in the west, and the way those contradictions bleed through to our understanding of morality on the whole. SM is a record full of these sorts of messy contradictions, and the music constantly reflected that perpetual sense of disarray with songs as colorful and chaotic as they were controlled.

Essentials: “Northern Lights”, “Surgeon”, “Strange Mercy”

20. A Moon Shaped Pool- Radiohead

Radiohead’s eighth LP, 2011’s solid but unremarkable King of Limbs seemed to cement the notion that while Radiohead may not have another game changer left in them, they were probably weren’t ever going to make a bad record. And with all of their various solo pursuits it seemed plausible that we may never get another Radiohead record, as underwhelming as capping off a career as thrilling as theirs with KoL would have been. Thankfully things didn’t pan out that way, and in 2016 Radiohead released their ninth LP, A Moon Shaped Pool; the platonic ideal of a master stroke from a legacy act. The album is partially composed of older songs re-worked into new forms, such as the tense string onslaught of opener “Burn the Witch” while a few of the newer songs like the gorgeous, ambient “Daydreaming” are string-laden compositions that are as eerie as they are radiant. For a band that’s been prophesizing the increasingly dismal state of the world that we now find ourselves in for the past several decades, they sound increasingly comfortable with their position in the world, and there’s no question that they’re in full command of their craft here. The production is sublime throughout the entire record, with a sense of encroaching doom bubbling just beneath the surface juxtaposed against rich baroque instrumentation. AMSP is the Radiohead album most informed by Johnny Greenwood’s work scoring films like There Will Be Blood and Phantom Thread, and as a result there’s a remarkable sense of immersion at work even for a Radiohead album.

So while there are some recognizable forms from records past, such as the brass-lead krautrock strut of “Ful Stop”, or the twitchy IDM drum work of “Identikit”, the spectral production heightens the potency of everything here. The compositions on AMSP are the most elegant, and nuanced of Radiohead’s to date, and Yorke’s voice continues to age superbly. Yorke’s lyrics touch on familiar topics, more relevant now than ever, such as climate change on “The Numbers” “The numbers don’t decide/The system is a lie/A river running dry/The wings of butterflies” the dangers of unchecked authority on “Burn the Witch” “Abandon all reason/Avoid all contact/Do not react/Shoot the messengers/This is a low-flying panic attack” and the broader, horrific realities of the world that we live in on “Ful Stop” “Why should I be good if you’re not?/This is a foul tasting medicine/A foul tasting medicine/To be trapped in your ful-stop”. What’s more unexpected are songs like the graceful string-led “Glass Eyes” and the devastating ambient closer “True Love Waits”, two songs that are poignant tributes to Yorke’s ex-wife, Rachel Owen, who passed away from cancer in late 2016. AMSP isn’t just a spectacular late-career gem that would make a superb swan song; it’s also the most human record that Radiohead have made yet.

Essentials: “True Love Waits”, “Daydreaming”, “Ful Stop”

19. Eye Contact- Gang Gang Dance

Few bands set the tone for the kind of cross-culture hybridization that would become the sonic norm for music throughout this decade quite like Gang Gang Dance. Throughout the early aughts they cut their teeth in the Brooklyn noise scene alongside bands like Animal Collective, Black Dice, and Exceptor blending noise, experimental rock, and worldbeat into blistering, unconventional shapes. As the years progressed Gang Gang Dance gradually began to open up their sound, folding elements of hip-hop, dance music, and psychedelic pop into a colorful concoction of rhythmically robust, delightfully manic pop music that was just as forward-thinking as it was infectious. The shift really began on their criminally underrated 2005 LP, God’s Money, but began notably on their terrific 2008 LP, Saint Dymphna. On the follow-up to SD, their remarkable fifth LP, Eye Contact, the sound of Gang Gang Dance crystallized into something more immediate and far-ranging than anything that they had done prior (or since so far). On EC, everything that the band had attempted throughout the course of their career (tribal rhythms, eastern melodies, shards of refracted noise) was gloriously combined into a hyper-saturated tapestry of progressive future pop. EC is the peak of Gang Gang Dance’s prior decade of sonic exploration, and nearly a decade later there’s still nothing that sounds anything like it.

Beginning with the astonishing slow-burn intro of “Glass Jar” that finds the band patiently building up what begins as a pent up ambient composition toward something more volatile that eventually rips open midway through, spilling into a calamitous, euphoric release into the song’s second half, EC is bursting with joyous energy and possibility. The melodies are some of the sharpest, and most direct that vocalist Lizzi Bougatsos has ever penned, providing a warm immediacy that cuts through even the most outre arrangements here, and they continually expand into shapes as the songs continue to progress. “Adult Goth” and “MindKilla” are bolstered considerably by Lizzi’s dynamic vocal performances, and the off-kilter, spellbinding synth arrangements of the band’s keyboardist Brian DeGraw, while “Romance Layers” provides an ideal mid-album psychedelic breather.. And on the album’s closer, “Thru and Thru”, the band deliver a send-off that succinctly sums up a prior decade’s worth of experimentation into a nearly six-minute song overflowing with eastern melodies, mesmerizing chants, and infectious tribal rhythms that congeal into a sound that couldn’t possibly be mistaken for anyone else. Although they’ve only graced us with the somewhat underwhelming 2018 record Kazuashita since, when Gang Gang Dance are firing on all cylinders, as they are on all of EC, there’s simply nothing like it.

Essentials: “Glass Jar”, “Adult Goth”, “Thru and Thru”

18. Shields- Grizzly Bear

Although the zeitgeist was already beginning to dramatically shift by the time that Grizzly Bear released their fourth LP, Shields, guaranteeing that it wouldn’t have the same immediate impact that they enjoyed with its predecessor, their 2009 breakout LP, Veckatimest, they still ended up releasing their magnum opus. Compared to Veckatimest’s approachable folk-pop leanings there are moments on Shields that sound downright prog, but the band never let these intricate baroque pop/psychedelic folk arrangements get away from themselves or compromise the remarkable melodic instincts that were undeniable on their terrific sophomore LP, Yellow House. The ten songs throughout Shields are perfectly paced, and there isn’t a single moment that overstays its welcome, but they each develop just as much as they need to. The band’s primary songwriters, Edward Droste and Daniel Rossen, were each peaking as singular songwriters in their own respective rights on Shields, and they both deliver a handful of the band’s strongest songs to date. Droste’s songs tend to creep in ethereal waltzes with delicate baroque instrumentation (“gun-shy”, “A Simple Answer”) unfolding patiently while sustaining a remarkable sense of tension while Rossen’s are jaunty folk rippers that unfurl in unpredictable, and thrilling cacophonies that still retain the grace that the ornate instrumentation demands (“Yet Again”, “Speak in Rounds”) but unfurl in far more complex structures than those on Veckatimest.

Grizzly Bear’s progression from Droste’s cozy lo-fi folk bedroom project to a knotty baroque folk juggernaut was one of the most quietly satisfying of any band from the past decade, and on Shields they hit a gorgeous peak. While Droste and Rossen had peaked as songwriters here, their contributions never overshadowed those of Chris Taylor or Chris Bear, and the chemistry on Shields is sharper than most bands ever come close to achieving. It’s easy to get lost admiring the sheer craft of their meticulous arrangements, crisp production, provoking but elusive songwriting, and the sharp interplay between Droste and Rossen each on their own individual merit, but on Shields everything that previously stood out about their artistry is amplified, and congealed in a way that’s approachable yet inimitable. On Shields Grizzly Bear umped the ante from Veckatimest on both fronts, and proved that they could grow more immediate and melodic while still dazzling with rich compositional complexity. Grizzly Bear followed it up with Painted Ruins in 2017, that while a perfectly good record in its own right is nowhere as cohesive, and most unfortunately, patient. And to be honest, I haven’t heard a baroque folk record released since Shields that’s as consistently engrossing, or one performed with such remarkable execution. Shields isn’t their most immediate, but it best distills their singular essence, and its generosity knows no bounds.

Essentials: “gun-shy”, “Yet Again”, “The Hunt”

17. The Money Store- Death Grips

Anyone from future generations looking to hear a band that’s most emblematic of the 10s as a full decade probably couldn’t do better than Death Grips. The trio consisting of vocalist MC Ride, keyboardist/producer Flatlander, and drummer Zach Hill released their abrasive Ex-military tape in 2011, and right out of the gates the trio had a fully-formed sound that plucked unapologetically from west coast hip-hop, industrial, hardcore, and noise. Although far from the first band to draw equally upon genres like these, Death Grips stood out immediately thanks in no small part to MC Ride, who has since proved to be one of the last decade’s most compelling frontmen. His lyrics are cryptic, and intelligent yet visceral, with a deceptively wry edge. Although there’s quite a bit of variety to his delivery, it’s always propelled forth with an overwhelming intensity that can take some time to become accustomed to. Ex-military was received rapturously by critics and bloggers, but as exciting as group like them may have seemed at the time it would have been hard to predict any kind of real longevity for them. And their unrelentingly antagonistic streak (leaking No Love Deep Web, putting a picture of Zach Hill’s dick on the cover of said album, skipping performances or just playing recorded music instead of performing, trolling fans, faking a breakup) would have decimated the momentum of almost any other band, but Death Grips feed on this sort of chaos like a troupe of anarchist vampires. Their arc from Ex-military to 2018’s Year of the Snitch is one of the most rewarding streaks of any act throughout the 10s, and while most of these records are great, there isn’t one that better distills their essence than their 2012 debut LP, The Money Store.

While Ex-military presented them as an admittedly idiosyncratic, yet undeniable product of their environment, TMS blew their sound wide open proving that they had range far beyond sounds of their native state. Right from the bass arpeggios that jolt opener “Get Got” to life, it’s clear the fidelity has improved considerably, but they haven’t compromised an ounce of their fury. This still scans as music custom-tailored for little other than violently thrashing your limbs, and little else from the past decade as been anywhere near as effective at distilling that aesthetic so neatly across the run of a single record. But on TMS Death Grips were still writing actual songs, with memorable hooks, sticky melodies, and conventional structures that served to heighten the potency of their tantrums. Songs like “I’ve Seen Footage” and “Hacker” are shocking for how immediate and unthreatening the band sound despite MC Ride’s sour bark, while songs like “The Fever (Aye Aye)” and “The Cage” showcase early peaks for Flatlander’s immaculate, and underrated synth work. MC Ride is at his best here, whether talking shit and espousing authenticity (“Hustle Bones”), calling out doubters (“Bitch Please”), or just railing against general conformity, he delivers 13 career defining performances in neat succession. Death Grips have continued to relentlessly experiment on all their subsequent records, and while some have come close to matching the excellence of TMS, they’ve all fallen short. Thankfully, the immense exhilaration and urgency of TMS sound more potent with each successive year that we inhibit this desolate hellscape.

Essentials: “I’ve Seen Footage”, “The Fever (Aye Aye)”, “Hacker”

16. Twin Fantasy (Face to Face)- Car Seat Headrest

It shouldn’t come as any surprise that a re-recording of a devastatingly personal LP that Will Toledo recorded at 19, with better production, stronger arrangements, and cleaner vocals, would end up being his best record to date. What was surprising was that he decided to return to the record of his that’s most important to him, and give it the sort of justice that it deserves after having developed into a far more adept talent in the years following its release. And although I’m sure some of those songs (if not all of them) were painful to revisit, the discipline and audacity paid off enormously. Twin Fantasy centers entirely around falling in love with another man at 19, and the arc of their relationship from mourning the distance between them on the opening song “My Boy (Twin Fantasy)” to the newfound acceptance of their relationship’s dissolution on closer “Twin Fantasy (Those Boys)”, detailing the highs and lows with unabashed sincerity. While the original still holds up fairly well, there’s no question that the re-arranging, cleaner vocals, and stronger fidelity overall just heightened the potency of what was already there without diminishing any aspect of the original record. Will’s cleverness, sense of humor, and dynamism as a bandleader elevate TF beyond a melancholic teen drama into a searing document of formative growth, demonstrating craft, ingenuity, and wisdom far beyond his years. More so than any other record released throughout the last decade, TF exemplifies just how potent indie rock still is.

This new version of TF is more of a “re-imagining” of the original record than anything else, and as such the thematic scope as it initially existed, along with the exact same track listing, is held perfectly intact. The record’s two epics, those being “Beach Life-In-Death” and “Famous Prophets (Stars)” are both even longer, and benefit more so than anything else here from their new arrangements. The fidelity has been cleaned up notably, but TF is still far from overproduced, and without any fuzz obscuring a lot of the detail you can hear just how crisp, and superbly layered these arrangements are. The new-wave outlier “Nervous Young Human” practically radiates with a newfound sheen, and is handedly the most radio-ready song the band have ever written, but it still folds seamlessly into the record’s mid-section between the anthemic, distortion-fueled peaks of “Sober to Death” and the record’s mid-album power-pop stunner, “Bodys”. Toledo’s drawing from a great deal here of different sub-genres here, and he manages to land on a remarkably uniform sound that belies the myriad of intricacies at work that prevent these compositions from being crushed underneath the weight of their own ambition. The album’s greatest achievement is how deftly Will manages to tell a story about the most profound event of his life coupled with music that’s as multi-faceted as the human experience being conveyed. TF may be proudly out of step with the current cultural zeitgeist from a sonic perspective, but the sentiments conveyed throughout are sublime missives from a distinctly millennial outlook. As far as concept albums about a single relationship are concerned, Toledo has set the bar this century with TF.

Essentials: “Famous Prophets (Stars)”, “Beach Life-In-Death”, “Bodys”

15. Modern Vampires of the City- Vampire Weekend

Vampire Weekend have come a long way from the indie afro-pop roots of their debut to their pastoral, jam band informed fourth LP, Father of the Bride, but on their third LP, Modern Vampires of the City the band refined their sound to a sublime strain of chamber music and art pop filled with Ezra Koenig’s strongest writing to date. Whereas their first two records were entirely produced by the band’s multi-instrumentalist and not-so-secret weapon Rostam Batmanliij, on MVotC Ariel Reitscheid, a producer known for working with acts like Charli XCX, Haim, Solange, etc joined the proceedings, and there’s a lighter feel to a lot of the arrangements, but everything has more dimension overall, and the low-end really pops on a lot of these in a way that it hadn’t really before. There are plenty of welcome production choices throughout, like the sprinkling of auto-tune on “Step”, or the blistering saxophone solo on “Worship You” that do a great deal to expand the parameters of the band’s sound without ever finding them really going out of their depth. Compared to their prior records there’s a fairly vast tonal gap on MVotC, with a heightened sense of existential dread and fixations on mortality, nostalgia, and faith. It’s weighty stuff without question, and the exceptional pacing goes a long towards helping evenly pack in the melancholic, languid compositions like “Everlasting Arms” and “Don’t Lie” with infectious up-tempo numbers like “Diane Young”, “Unbelievers”, and “Finger Back” that, while far from the best of what’s here are still as immediate as anything they’ve ever released and benefit from the same immaculate arrangement, production, and writing as everything else here even if they don’t break as much new ground. But the best of what’s here are without question among the best pop songs released so this far century.

Both opener “Obvious Bycycle” and “Step” are devastating looks at nostalgia that frame Ezra’s thoughtful character sketches in rich compositions that in the case of the former consist of soft wisps of grand piano, percussion that sounds like a stamp being punched, and surprisingly visceral bass, while in the case of the latter the band opt for gorgeous harpsichord arrangements, and a swaggering bassline. But “Hannah Hunt”, which is for the record the best VW song to date, is on another level entirely. It opens like the sun after the storm with field recording of a crowd of people clearing away for delicate grand piano and the gentle rumble of bass. Ezra sings of a relationship slowly starting to break apart as a couple travels the country together “A gardener told me some plants move/But I could not believe it/’Til me and Hannah Hunt/Saw crawling vines and weeping willows”. The song slowly builds into a rousing baroque pop crescendo over roaring keys as Ezra delivers one of his most devastating lines to date “If I can’t trust you then damn it Hannah/There’s no future, there’s no answer/Though we live on the US dollar/You and me we got our own sense of time”. Rostam left VW in 2016, and although their first record without him, the aforementioned 2019 comeback LP, FotB, his absence was sorely felt. On “Hudson” it almost sounds like Rostam is singing to Ezra, under that lens especially, it’s functions as a poignant, but fitting cap to VW’s first era. As great as FotB, Rostam’s 2017 debut Half-Light, and I Had a Dream That You Were Mine, his 2016 collaboration with Hamilton Leithauser of The Walkmen, I hope that MVotC isn’t the last time the two of them work on a full LP together.

Essentials: “Hannah Hunt”, “Step”, “Ya Hey”

14. Channel Orange- Frank Ocean

Few albums released throughout the last decade have brought about the sort of sweeping sea change that Frank Ocean’s sublime debut LP, Channel Orange, did. Ocean’s kaleidoscopic, self-released 2011 mixtape Nostalgia, Ultra established his artistry as something far beyond that of the go-to hook ghostwriter identity he cut his teeth establishing for himself. A year and a half later, amidst signing to Def Jam, collaborating extensively with Tyler, the Creator, Kanye West, and Jay-Z, and writing a now legendary tumblr post stating that his first love was for another man a few days before releasing his immensely anticipated debut LP, Frank Ocean released that album, and decided to call it Channel Orange. Like Ocean’s music itself, the narrative surrounding his ascension feels both timeless (moving to LA after Hurricane Katrina struck his hometown of New Orleans, ghostwriting and joining Tyler, the Creator’s hip-hop collective Odd Future before releasing his own music, which drew primarily from soul, classic r&b, and funk more than anything that was on the radio at the time) and modern (sampling extensively on N,U, having a few key co-signs that seemed to unlock all the right connections, leveraging the power of the internet along with the rest of Odd Future to build and sustain a fanbase) but none of it would matter if the music didn’t live up to the hype. But all of this is particularly interesting to consider when talking about CO, especially considering that it’s the best debut LP of the 10s, and an absolute master class in songwriting.

CO is a remarkably fully-formed debut LP that finds Ocean in complete control of his craft on all fronts. The instrumentation is a lush palette of analog keys, bass, and strings, and with the exception of a few fairly stripped down ballads, shows a keen command for maximalism that never sounds overwrought. Even a song like the colossal, mid-album change-up “Pyramids”, is saved from complete indulgence after the beat seamlessly shifts into a woozy down-tempo trap instrumental with plenty of space for Ocean’s falsetto to linger in. Ocean would shift gears dramatically with the 2016 visual album, Endless, and his second studio LP, Blonde, trading in the rich, dense analog soul and r&b for a minimal psychedelic soul sound. While the production on Blonde and Endless is more impressive than that of CO, neither record was quite able to match the lush immediacy that seemed to come to Ocean so naturally here. Ocean produced the record alongside the musicians Jonathon Ikpeazu, Malay, and Om’Mas Keith who all provided additional keys, drum programming, and/or guitars. Earl Sweatshirt, Tyler, the Creator, and Andre 3000 are the only guests that provide verses, and while each completely delivers, CO is Ocean’s record through and through. Regardless of whether Ocean is singing about the emptiness of privilege (“Super Rich Kids”), or depicting a tale of someone’s life falling apart due to crack addiction (“Crack Rock”) or delivering the closest thing he’ll likely ever come to a straight forward love song (“Thinkin’ Bout You”) his eye for detail, wit, intelligence, and empathy render the characters as rich, and multi-faceted regardless of what angle he’s coming at them from. The warmth and immediacy of the instrumentation and Ocean’s voice draws you in, but it’s the sheer strength of his songwriting that elevates CO from simply being another immensely promising debut to the classic that it is.

Essentials: “Crack Rock”, “Bad Religion”, “End / Golden Girl” ft. Tyler, the Creator

13. Sunbather- Deafheaven

Deafheaven were far from the first band to blend black metal, shoegaze, and post-rock, but on their stellar 2013 record Sunbather they distilled elements of these genres into a punishing, and breathtaking sound that’s unmistakably theirs. Their solid 2010 debut Roads to Judha showed tremendous promise, but their songwriting wasn’t on par with their ambitions yet. But on Sunbather, Deafheaven lived up to that early promise. Sunbather is primarily a blistering fusion of black metal drumming and shrieks engulfed in walls of shoegaze guitar that often give way to instrumental outros that shine with the radiance of Sigur Ros or Explosions in the Sky. George Clarke delivers the lyrics in an indecipherable shriek that either amplifies the intensity of the surrounding arrangements, or is used as a sublime juxtaposition to their fleeting moments of transcendent beauty. Sunbather is seven songs long, and superbly paced so that the band’s lengthier compositions are evenly split between songs that include a dreamy minimalist guitar/piano composition (“Irresistible”), a menacing baroque-noise march that congeals midway through into a jangly guitar conclusion (“Please Remember”), and an eerie collage of vocal samples and droning strings (“Windows”). This odd assortment of songs may seem random, but they do a nice job of breaking up the surrounding onslaught, and demonstrating the band’s range, while still adhering to the record’s searing aesthetic. It’s remarkably accessible music as far as metal is concerned, and if you can make it past the tone of Clarke’s voice there’s a lot to love about this album.

For all of Sunbather’s seemingly impenetrable harshness, there’s a great deal of beauty glistening just beneath the surface. On Sunbather, Deafheaven managed to strike a near perfect balance between beauty and chaos that, while greater heights were achieved later on, they never quite improved upon. The longer numbers here transition into moments of transcendent, cathartic beauty, and back into frenetic fury so subtly, and masterfully, that the juxtapositions quickly begin to seem less like extreme exercises in contrasting dynamics and tones so much as the fluid spectrum of Deafheaven’s multi-faceted artistry. And while the lyrics throughout Sunbather match the brutality of the corresponding arrangements, they also match their life-affirming, triumphant sense of urgency. Whether Clarke is reflecting on habitual patterns and habits that he just can’t shake “Lost in the patterns of youth/And the ghost of your aches comes back to haunt you/And the forging of change makes no difference” on “Vertigo” or ruing the alcoholism that he inherited from his father “In the hallways lit up brightly but couldn’t find myself/I laid drunk on the concrete on the day of your birth in celebration of all you were worth” on closer “The Pecan Tree”, his lyrics throughout Sunbather imbue his tortured yelps with a devastating poignancy rendered all the more morose by the band’s unflinching, formidable poise. It’s not hard to hear why Sunbather was the best reviewed album of 2013, and a game changer for black metal. Few records, metal or otherwise, have managed to convey such overwhelming emotional intensity through such ambitious composition. Its crushing beauty hasn’t lost an ounce of its potency in the years since.

Essentials: “Dream House”, “The Pecan Tree”, “Sunbather”

12. To Pimp a Butterfly- Kendrick Lamar

Kendrick Lamar caught the attention of the zeitgeist with his generation defining sophomore LP, Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City, but that record’s follow-up, To Pimp a Butterfly, cemented his status as one of the definitive musical auteurs of his generation. Whereas the former record was a gripping street epic that seamlessly tucked a coming of age story into the larger fabric of a blockbuster west coast hip-hop record, the latter record blew open the history of black music and wove together a tapestry of disparate styles that congealed to express a more multi-faceted look at the black experience. The beats are composed of live instrumentation courtesy of Terrance Martin, Kamasi Washington, Thundercat, and a plethora of the west coast jazz elite, and they span the likes of jazz, r&b, soul, and funk alongside instrumental hip-hop without showing the seams. The music runs the gamut from uplifting anthems (“Alright”) to bouts of unbridled fury (“The Blacker the Berry”), and everywhere in-between, but thanks to Kendrick’s deft pacing and execution nothing sounds out of place, and there’s no mistaking these songs for the work of anyone else through sheer scope alone. Kendrick’s writing and rapping had increased considerably since GKMC, but throughout TPaB he spends less time trying to prove what a capable rapper he is, and far more time using his ability to explore the nuances of systemic racial issues through the lens of a plethora of different characters. TPaB couldn’t have possibly sounded more out of step with the zeitgeist upon its release, but in venturing beyond what hip-hop in the mid 10s sounded like, and exploring perspectives beyond those of himself, he was able to tap into something far more universally human.

Throughout the course of TPaB Kendrick tackles a wide plethora of topics with music that’s matches the breadth and scope of his thematic ambitions. The g-funk strut “King Kunta” is one of the most immediate songs in his career, and he juxtaposes the song’s infectious backdrop against verses that evoke the resilience of Kunta Kinte in the novel Roots as a through line for the jarring shift he experienced throughout his come-up after growing up in poverty. “u?” brilliantly distills the sort of tragic survivor’s guilt that Kendrick experienced in the wake of his success watching so many of his friends continue to succumb to the perils of systemic racism through harsh free-jazz arrangements, while “i” gains power within the context of the record as an uplifting neo-soul anthem of self-love after the preceding storm has subsided. The uplifting anthem “Alright” has become a canonical protest song in the wake of civil unrest as a result of excessive police brutality while the finale, “Mortal Man”, begins with some of his strongest verses to date before transitioning into a fabricated interview with 2Pac. There’s an absurd amount to unpack within the songs on TPaB, but the album never buckles under the weight of its ambition, and delivers performances that are striking at every turn. Kendrick never shies away from depicting the devastating realities throughout the history of the black American experience, but he finds reasons to persist through these tribulations in the power of community, god, and love.

Essentials: “The Blacker the Berry”, “u”, “Wesley’s Theory” ft. George Clinton

11. Lonerism- Tame Impala

On Tame Impala’s debut, Innerspeaker, the band proved adept at piecing together the finest moments from their record collections into strange, idiosyncratic new shapes, but on their sublime sophomore LP, Lonerism, they began to push their sound into the present moment. The flanged guitars, shuffling drum rhythms, and frontman Kevin Parker’s Lennon-esque falsetto are a hallmarks of classic psychedelic rock, but the spellbinding synth textures, evocative samples, and cavernous production showcase a definitively 21st century sensibility. There was no mistaking them for a pure homage act on Lonerism. With the exception of piano on a few tracks courtesy of Jay Watson, and a spoken word interlude courtesy of Melody Prochet, Lonerism was written, recorded, and produced entirely by Kevin Parker, and it helped signal a major shift from bands being the dominant artistic vehicle in indie music to the solo artist taking up that mantle. Lonerism is a perfectly paced album, and aside from a few breathers, and a few epics, it almost plays like a greatest hits set. There were signs of the disco-prog synth act that Tame Imapa developed into on a few of Lonerism’s more immediate moments, but this is still thoroughly steeped in the lineage of psychedelic rock, acid rock, and blues rock. With Lonerism, Parker began to show signs of the poptimist that he was all along, but he hadn’t yet compromised the instrumental ingenuity that he’s capable of for a strong melody, and so here you get the best of both worlds; the band’s sharpest hooks and most adventurous production. Lonerism is where Tame Impala evolved from a promising project with immense potential into one of the defining musical acts of Parker’s generation.

Lonerism is a record that completely lives up to its title as a concept record about isolation. Every song here finds Parker grappling with some aspect of self-imposed isolation set against hazy, psychedelic pop/rock instrumentation. Some songs like, the disarmingly immediate “Feels Like We Only Go Backwards” spells out his anguish explicitly, with a love interest that he keeps falling for against his best judgement, while “Endors Toi” finds Parker rejecting the hardships of reality for the bliss that’s only possible when you’re literally dreaming. The lyrics rarely go deep, but on a record like this they’re entirely beside the point. Thankfully Parker’s writing works superbly within the context of the concept without detracting from the instrumentation and production. Parker wrote a few strong hooks on IS, but they were the exception, not the norm. On Lonerism, Parker’s melodic intuition had fully blossomed, and the hooks on songs like “Elephant”, “Why Won’t She Talk to Me”, and “Feels Like We Only Go Backwards” were more immediate, and more memorable than anything on the top 40 at the time. The songs on Lonerism are bursting with sonic personality; whether we’re talking about the euphoric streaks of synth that send “Apocalypse Dreams” into the stratosphere, the phaser-smeared guitars and immersive samples that bring “Sun’s Coming Down” to its triumphant finale, or the propulsive drum fllls that propel “Endors Toi”, Lonerism is the most sonically rich record that Parker has ever released. Parker would achieve more audacious and unexpected heights on his superb 2015 follow-up, Currents, but he has yet to top Lonerism’s consistency, and near perfect balance between studio experimentation and pure pop craftsmanship.

Essentials: “Nothing That Has Happened So Far Has Been Anything We Could Control”, “Sun’s Coming Up”, “Apocalypse Dreams”

10. Flower Boy- Tyler, the Creator

Flower Boy may not have come as a surprise to those who closely followed Tyler Okonoma’s progression from the lo-fi hardcore hip-hop days of Bastard and early Odd Future through his chaotic, candy-coated third LP, Cherry Bomb, but for the casual listener it may have seemed like an unthinkable evolution. And no one could have predicted its consistency. The signs of Tyler progressing into melodic, psych-leaning neo-soul were on the wall as early as his terrific 2013 record, Wolf, but on FB his melodic sensibilities, compositional chops, and an increasingly empathetic outward writing perspective all coalesced into an idiosyncratic tapestry of vibrant sound and color unlike any hip hop record ever recorded. It’s the first time that Tyler’s chops had fully caught up with his ambition, allowing him to completely deliver on the promise of a truly genre-adverse opus that Cherry Bomb merely hinted at. The lyrics are somber, and reflective, demonstrating Tyler’s newfound sense of maturity that would have been unthinkable throughout the early OF days. The sincerity and vulnerability of the lyrics go a long way towards heightening the potency of his vibrant, melodically rich compositions. FB capitalizes on all the strange contradictions that have always been inherent in his music, while removing the adolescent excess that have bogged down each prior release. The result is a highwater mark for what hip-hop and neo-soul can sound like unbridled with concern for what music should sound like. That attention to detail and unrelenting creative spirit are what helped propel FB into being the classic record that it ended up being.

Eschewing the lo-fi Neptunes meets MF DOOM beats of his past records, Tyler landed on a perfect blend of neo-soul synths, jazz strings/horns, and drums that split the difference between classic boom-bap and mid-10s trap for FB. The music is bright and vibrant, with a wealth of detail tucked within each mix that rewards multiple listens. There are songs that are completely in Tyler’s wheelhouse, like the frantic, mid-album trap cut “I Ain’t Got Time!”, and a few like the show-stopping psychedelic soul ballad, “Garden Shed”, that dramatically expand the parameters of his sound, but they all cohere together superbly into a fully-realized kaleidoscope of sound. Even the songs like “Pothole” and “November” that seem like more run of the mill Tyler cuts showcase a renewed sense of focus and tight production that belie their simple construction. FB is a record that’s focused on unrequited love, and while themes of abandonment, disillusionment with fame, growing pains, and insecurity emerge as on past records, the bulk of the action is focused on Tyler coming to terms with both his bisexuality and the anguish of a missed connection. Rarely does heartbreak sound so unflinchingly, thrillingly alive. True to form, the music is never mopey or saccharine, but it’s always brimming with the intensity of young love. FB is the record that Tyler has always set out to make, and while I’m sure he’ll top it at some point, it currently stands at the definitive realization of his singular vision.

Essentials: “911 / Mr. Lonely” ft. Frank Ocean & Stevey Lacy, “Garden Shed” ft. Estelle, “See You Again” ft. Kali Uchis

9. Until the Quiet Comes- Flying Lotus

After Steve Ellison, aka Flying Lotus, dropped his masterful third LP, Cosmogramma, it seemed like he could take his sound anywhere, but doubling down and improving on the maximalist excess of Cosmogramma would have proved a near impossible task. Thankfully, on his stellar follow-up LP, Until the Quiet Comes, FlyLo swung all the way in the opposite direction, and despite it being the flavor of the decade minimalism rarely ended up sounding better on any other artist. UtQC is a minimalist electronic jazz/instrumental hip hop record with dreamy meditative arrangements that belie their complexity at every turn. The album is a concept record that finds FlyLo exploring the realms of human consciousness coupled with ambitious arrangements and immersive production that complements his thematic ambitions perfectly. FlyLo is still making beats in a traditional sense, but the compositions on this LP are more rich and varied than the entire discography of most producers, and the music he draws from spans the likes of ambient, psychedelia, r&b, post-rock, progressive rock, and meditative astral jazz as much as his usual instrumental hip hop, IDM, and free jazz touchstones. And so while UtQC is more insular, less immediate, and more likely to necessitate multiple listens than any other record of his, it’s the best showcase of FlyLo’s versatility, melodic intuition, and use of texture.

The compositions are short and sweet, and barely last longer than it takes for FlyLo to introduce an idea, tweak it, thwart expectations, and move on. Like on Cosmogramma, UtQC incorporates live instrumentation weaved throughout various compositions (Thundercat’s bass playing was cemented as a staple element of FlyLo’s sound here) as well as vocal features from the likes of Thundercat, Thom Yorke, Laura Darlington, and Niki Randa. The features are all utilized tastefully, and heighten the potency of the existing arrangements without detracting too much. There are songs like “All In” and “Yesterday/Corded” that just feature FlyLo alone constructing remarkable, lived-in soundscapes from his usual toolkit of drum machines, samplers, sequencers, and keys, while others like the title track and “DMT Song” that commit thoroughly to their minimalism, and coast effortlessly around strong melodies or guest vocal performances. Many of these songs retain the visceral low-end and celestial sweep of his best work, but they don’t serve to overwhelm and disorient as much as they sedate and mesmerize. “Getting There” hits the sweet spot, with and infectious, heavy-hitting low-end juxtaposed against Niki Randa’s sweeping falsetto. UtQC may not go for the jugular as FlyLo’s prior two records, but it’s just as captivating in its own quietly confident way.

And a few of the songs on the back half of the record are some of the most gorgeous that FlyLo has ever composed. The loose and dreamy “Only if You Wanna” provides a simple but sublime bridge from the drum and bass rush of “The Nightcrawler” into the droning r&b mirage with Yorke’s vocals wafting eerily through the crevices in the mix. From there the record moves into “Hunger” and “Phantasm”, two songs that skew the closest that FlyLo has ever veered toward straight up ambience, and they slowly unfurl into gorgeous, unpredictable string progressions as Niki Randa and Laura Darlington deliver understated, ethereal vocals, respectively. From there we’re led into “me Yesterday//Corded”, one of the strongest songs that FlyLo has released to date. It begins in the same somber, minor-key tone of the preceding songs before erupting into a cosmic drum and bass coda with a euphoric melody and pitch-shifted vocals. The final song, “Dream to Me” is a whirring synth and woodwind lullaby that brings everything full circle, leading us right back into the intro, “All In”. UtQC breezes by in nearly 47 minutes, but there’s another singular, self-contained universe of detail packed into this record’s spellbinding grooves.

Essentials: “yesterday//Corded”, “Electric Candyman ft. Thom Yorke”, “All In”

8. Carrie & Lowell- Sufjan Stevens

By the time that Sufjan Stevens released Carrie & Lowell he had already released several classic records and had undergone several stylistic change-ups, but nothing in his discography established the precedent for a masterwork quite like C&L. On C&L Sufjan returned to the sparse chamber folk sound of his superb fourth record, Seven Swans, but he replaced the short vignettes and character studies that peppered that record with an engrossing scope that centers around his tumultuous relationship with his late mother who suffered from substance addiction and schizophrenia. The music is hushed, and minimal, consisting of little more than finger plucked guitar, banjo, ukulele, and an assortment of strings underneath Sufjan’s tender delivery. His music has always radiated a sense of overwhelming empathy, and so when plumbing the depths of his psyche for memories of his mother the tone is often devastating and cathartic in equal measure, but never overly morose or self-pitying. With C&L Sufjan succeeded in honoring his mother’s memory as honestly and as faithfully as he could while his songwriting hit a new peak.

C&L sustains an almost overwhelming poignancy throughout its duration, but it’s never a slog. The heaviness of the sentiments never really subsides, but these songs are each filled with strong hooks, sweeping melodies, and a disarming directness that he’s never quite managed on prior records. Songs like the opening cut “Death with Dignity”, “Should Have Known Better”, and “The Only Thing” soar with warm, infectious hooks and nimble guitar arrangements alongside a few electronic and orchestral embellishments, while songs like “No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross” and “Fourth of July” bring the tempo to a crawl and bask in Sufjan’s falsetto and minor-key acoustic guitar arrangements. It all comes to a head on the devastating centerpiece “No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross”, as Sufjan depicts the self-destructive behavior he engaged in right after his mother’s death “There’s blood on that blade/Fuck me, I’m falling apart/My assassin/Like Casper the ghost/There’s no shade in the shadow of the cross” just so that he could feel closer to her.

Essentials: “No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross”, “Death with Dignity”, “The Only Thing”

7. Some Rap Songs- Earl Sweatshirt

Earl Sweatshirt was arguably the greatest living rapper before dropping his magnum opus, Some Rap Songs, but since its release it’s become much harder to dispute. On SRS Earl runs through 15 songs in 22 minutes, delivering sometimes little more than a hook and a verse per song before transitioning into the next one. The songs operate according to their own logic, and forgo traditional song structure for a loop-based compositional approach. Earl produced the bulk of the record himself, and heavily opted for dusty, de-tuned pianos, shuffling, lo-fi percussion, and a plethora of discordant texture. Earl’s precision is remarkable, and what may initially scan as awkward or clumsy flows slowly reveal themselves to be masterfully sidestepping the rhythms entirely. But for all its challenging aspects, SRS is hardly a precious, posturing sort of record. It demands your full attention, but will reward it several times over.

The songs throughout SRS are bleak missives from a remarkable talent unpacking years of trauma. The record tackles many of the same themes of abandonment, drug abuse, and depression as his past records, but he’s cut out any lingering excess in his prose, distilling only what’s absolutely necessary into each bar. The rapping is lean, and virtuosic, but never showy, and the brevity of the songs themselves is indicative of how succinct and substantial the music there is. Songs like “Red Water” have just a single couplet that he repeats a few times as the ebb and flow of the instrumental sustains the onset momentum, while other songs like “The Mint” are closer to convention, but still unfold along unpredictable loops, and verses that zig zag in and out of the mix at irregular intervals. There are songs like “Cold Summers” and “The Bends” that are the closest that Earl comes to rapping accessibly, and there are those like “Playing Possums” and Peanuts" that owe more to tape loops, ambient, and noise music than anything resembling hip hop. SRS and it’s follow-up EP, Feet of Clay, are easily the most challenging, experimental, and divisive records that Earl has released to date, but they’re also singular masterworks that push hip hop into stranger, and more human realms.

Essentials: “Peanut”, “The Mint” ft. Navy Blue, “December 24”

6. New Bermuda- Deafheaven

After releasing their superb second LP, Sunbather, Deafheaven had become one of the most acclaimed metal bands of the century, and had achieved a level of popularity unprecedented for metal bands. Never mistaken by anyone as purists, Deafheaven began their career flirting with through lines between shoegaze, black metal, and post-rock before tastefully combining them on Sunbather. While they easily could have churned out another LP of post-rock/blackgaze of the same stripe, the band went deeper and darker, and re-emerged with their third LP, New Bermuda, the heaviest, and arguably most melodic, record of their career to date. Across five songs that collectively clock in around 46 minutes Deafheaven continue to expand their parameters of their sound, incorporating heavier tremelo guitars, incendiary blast beats, and sweeping post-rock passages that are more adventurous, expansive, and gorgeous, than what any other bands are doing today. NB may lean the furthest towards the brutality of classic black metal, but the band’s 2015 onslaught still amplifies an immense feeling of transcendence alongside the terror.

Opener “Brought to the Water” rustles to life with the ominous sway of church bells before its lead guitar riff kicks into gear, foreshadowing the premium they place on atmosphere with foreboding timbres. Throughout the next several minutes the band continue to build a scorched earth black metal composition bristling with distortion and rapid fire drumming that eventually slyly segues into a sugary breakdown reminiscent of “Kiss Me” by Sixpence None the Richer. It’s disarming, and unprecedented, but a perfectly logical evolution of their sound that reaffirms their status as the most versatile band at the vanguard of contemporary black metal. “Luna” and “Come Back” are two of the heaviest songs that Deafheaven have ever released, and get a ton of mileage out of their seismic guitar riffs and pummeling percussion, while “Luna” boasts one of the loveliest melodies they’ve ever penned, gliding alone a star-dusted, stratosphere-bound guitar riff. Closer “Gifts for the Earth” is a succinct culmination of the preceding 38 minutes, capped off with their most cathartic coda to date with jangly guitar and minor key piano softly swirling around Clarke’s feral shrieks. The warmth exuded beneath Clarke’s shrapnel-laced delivery posits Deafheaven as a band executing well-beyond the scope and limitations of metal.

Essentials: “Gifts for the Earth”, “Brought to the Water”, “Luna”

5. Halcyon Digest- Deerhunter

By the time that Deerhunter geared up to record their fifth LP, Halycon Digest, they already had a rich body of work behind them, but very little of their music set the kind of precedent for where they would go on HD. Here, Deerhunter tapered down their most avant-garde impulses in favor of cleaner guitar arrangements and big, bright melodies, unearthing the pop band they’ve always been at their core with poise and aplomb. The walls of guitar noise, ambient interludes, and studio effects that had defined their previous releases became relegated to marginal aspects of their song craft, and they began opening up their songs like never before. Thankfully, they didn’t dilute their sound, they just cleaned it up, and the 11 songs that make up HD are the most immediate, and richly produced (thanks to Ben Allen, who produced this record after nailing Animal Collective’s Merriweather Post Pavilion a year prior) of Deerhunter’s career to date. Deerhunter’s shift towards accessibility only seemed to accentuate their inherent strangeness, and HD remains one of the most engaging and endlessly replayable indie pop records of the 21st century.

From the droning low-end thump that ignites opener “Earthquake” it’s clear something substantial has shifted. Allen’s biggest contribution was a heightened low-end that caused Josh Fauver’s bass to really pop without distracting too much from the rest of the arrangements. This extra oomph propels songs like “Don’t Cry” and “Coronado” well into infectious, anthemic territory while it helps ground more ambitious cuts like “Helicopter” and “Desire Lanes”. Frontman Bradford Cox had completely grown into his role as a charismatic, provocative frontman with the pipes and poetic disposition to back up the antics, and propel his band towards a stadium sized sound even if they would never end up touring them. Bradford’s vocal melodies on closer “…He Would Have Laughed” and centerpiece “Helicopter” are the strongest that the band ever penned, while he delivers two of his most impressive vocal performances on the lulling “Sailing” and the pensive “Earthquake”. The closer, a tribute to the late Jay Reatard, is perhaps Deerhunter’s finest moment to date, with Bradford spinning surreal couplets “I live on a farm, yeah/I never lived on a farm” around the band’s steady harpsichord pulse until the composition bursts with euphoria, and then slowly begins to fade out before cutting out abruptly. Deerhunter have never made a bad record, but HD was the last time they showed how simultaneously adventurous and immediate pop music can be.

Essentials: “He Would Have Laughed”, “Helicopter”, “Desire Lanes”

4. Black Messiah- D’Angelo & The Vanguard

In the years following D'Angelo’s spectacular second LP, Voodoo, it seemed increasingly likely that he would never release another record. But then in the twilight days of 2014 D'Angelo surprise dropped his 3rd and best LP to date, Black Messiah, with a new band supporting him called The Vanguard (which consisted of Questlove on drums, Pina Palladino on bass, Isaiah Sharkey on guitar, Roy Hargrove on horns, and a handful of other musicians). BM eschews the warm r&b/neo-soul solo singer-songwriter sound of the first two D'Angelo LPs in favor of a fiery cocktail of avant-garde soul, jazz funk, and psychedelic r&b that’s simultaneously more abrasive and experimental than anything he had done prior. D'Angelo still has a remarkably agile falsetto, but it’s been notably weathered by the years away, and it now has a grainier disposition that happens to be a much better fit for the songs throughout the record. The band’s chemistry is just remarkable, and it’s hard to believe that they weren’t all cutting records with each other for decades prior. Unlike most artists that come back with new work after a notable dry spell, D'Angelo has never sounded more human than he does on this latest LP of his. Thankfully, despite the years apart D’Angelo hasn’t lost an ounce of his remarkable talent, and brings a magnetic charisma, sublime range, and a much sharper point of view to songs that reflect the turmoil of the preceding years of unrelenting police violence, yet respond in a multitude of ways. The Vanguard prove to be an ideal backdrop for D’Angelo’s songwriting, and together they achieve a new standard for neo-soul.

Although it had been 14 years, D'Angelo’s return felt right on time in the immediate wake of the deaths of Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, and plenty of others at the hands of the police. While D'Angelo’s music has never shied away from political statements, BM is by far the most explicitly political record of his career. “1000 Deaths” opens to a sample of a Khalid Abdul Muhammed speech about Jesus being black and quickly gives way to a visceral, funk rock rhythm and red-lining guitars with D'Angelo dissecting the difference between courage and cowardice “Because a coward dies a thousand times/But a soldier just dies once”. On the following track, “The Charade”, D'Angelo opts for searing soul that builds into his most anthemic melody to date while he delivers devastating imagery of the cruelty still inflicted on black people all over the world “All we wanted was a chance to talk/‘Stead we only got outlined in chalk” while “'Til It’s Done” contains D'Angelo’s finest melody to date and finds him questioning the nature of our existence and whether we’re really reckoning with the way that capitalists are destroying our planet “Perilous dissidence evening up the score/Do we even know what we’re fighting for?”. He also delivers some of his best love songs to date, including the funky mid-tempo shuffle of “Sugah Daddy”, the tender soul ballad “Betray My Heart”, and the spellbinding centerpiece “Really Love”. These songs fold neatly within the larger fabric of the record as a whole, and complement the politically charged songs without breaking the greater aesthetic. D'Angelo’s conviction is palpable throughout it all, and the newfound wisdom that he accrued in the years since Voodoo enrich the perspective that he brings to the songs in such a generous, humble way. Even if D’Angelo never releases another record we couldn’t have asked for a better swan song from him.

Essentials: “’Til It’s Done”, “The Charade”, “Really Love”

3. MBV- My Bloody Valentine

Like D'Angelo, it didn’t seem likely that My Bloody Valentine would ever follow-up their masterful second LP, but 22 years after the release of Loveless, in the dead of February 2013, MBV, the third My Bloody Valentine, finally emerged. There are 9 songs here, and they can neatly divided into three sections that find the band progressing from an extension of what they were doing in the 90s to styles never associated with them. MBV picks up right where Loveless left off, beginning with expansive suite of shoegaze songs rendered with the kind of sublime texture and tone as we’ve come to expect from the group, and slowly but surely they branch out into psychedelic pop, ambient, and pure noise, realms they’ve teased in the past but have never quite committed to prior. You can hear the band straining against their limitations, and although seeking out perfection is a fools errand, they nearly achieve it.

There’s no mistaking MBV as the work of any other band, but here they’re painting in darker, bolder hues than they’ve used in the past. Beginning with the opening song, “She Found Now”, their sound is much richer, and more forlorn, than it’s ever sounded, with thick plumes of guitar washing over wispy androgynous vocals and faint, skeletal percussion. Even as the tempos increase and the melodies begin to peak out beneath the fuzz, that wistful, melancholic tone remains. “Only Tomorrow” amps up the tempo with a driving rhythm and scorching guitars perpetually firing into the red

while “In Another Way” is a bludgeoning slice of driving noise pop with a strong melody from guitarist Belinda Butcher. “Nothing Is” coasts off the hypnotic repetition of its bludgeoning guitars for 3.5 minutes, and perfectly segues into the glorious noise piece, “Wonder 2”, which closes the record on a note of whirring guitars that approximate the overwhelming euphoria of first wave shoegaze, but takes the listener to much stranger places.

The nine songs throughout MBV strike a perfect balance between updating the shoegaze style that they perfected on loveless while wading into new territory, but it all hangs together beautifully. Kevin Shields and Belinda Butcher still harmonize on the bulk of these songs, and they’re ethereal delivery is still the perfect counterbalance for the aggression of the guitars. The searing slow-burn of “Who Sees You” is the peak of their vocal interplay, while on the midsection pop numbers like “New You” and “In Another Way” Butcher takes the reins and delivers two of the band’s strongest melodies to date over driving percussion and sleigh bells. The relative immediacy of “New You” is new sound for the band, and they completely deliver on its hypnotic pop premise. “Is This and Yes” and “Nothing Is” are the two instrumentals at the polar ends of the band’s sound that perfectly balance out the more dynamic songs, and the aforementioned noise piece “Wonder 2” complements the opening song “She Found Now” perfectly in that it’s an exploration of what My Bloody Valentine might explore more of if they ever release a fourth LP. It’s a miracle that MBV even exists in the first place, so the fact that it’s this good is just icing.

Essentials: “Only Tomorrow”, “New You”, “In Another Way”

2. Blonde- Frank Ocean

After releasing his generation defining 2012 debut Channel Orange, it was hard to say where he was going to take his music next. A cryptic series of videos in mid-August 2016 featuring Frank building a ladder led to few clues, but at the end of this week we received an audio-visual album titled Endless. Before anyone could really acclimate themselves to sleek, genre-agnostic minimalism of Endless, the proper follow-up to CO, titled Blonde, released a day later. Whereas CO was the sound of a singular talent discovering what he can do, Blonde is the sound of that talent capitalizing on those gifts with unparalleled precision. On Blonde Frank opts for a striking minimalist palette of psychedelic pop, avant-garde soul, ambient, and jazz, that are off-kilter and adventurous without sacrificing the warmth of his past work. Like CO, Blonde primarily explores themes of nostalgia, heartbreak, identify, and the nature of human perception, and here his eye for detail and attention to detail remains unmatched by any songwriter of the last decade.

From the opening song “Nikes”, Blonde presents itself as a drastic stylist departure from what Frank was doing prior. The first half is a distorted r&b dreamscape with Frank crooning in a pitch-shifted higher register, and actually has him rapping a few verses, before returning to his normal register. Blonde is filled with strange, yet tasteful stylistic touches like this, from the distorted shrieks at the end of “Ivy”, to the collapsing, pitch-shifted orchestra that gives way to an eerie children’s choir’s on “Pretty Sweet”, the album rarely shifts into anything that scans as conventional. “Pink and White” is the most straight forward moment on the album, but the verses rarely stay grounded, and soon give way to a soaring chorus that slyly tucks Beyonce’s voice into the fold before the instruments dissolve from the mix entirely. “Skyline To” and “Godspeed” flirt with ambience and put a great deal of emphasis on exploring texture and negative space, while “Close to You” is a brief, glitchy cover of Stevie Wonder’s classic that provides a terrific segue from the “Facebook Story” interlude into the record’s devastating centerpiece, White Ferrari. The record covers a remarkable amount of ground sonically, but it coheres in a way that completely belies this scope.

“Nikes” sets the tone for the record on the whole as Frank watches his friends lose themselves to the spoils of his fame and begins to recognize himself as a placeholder for a partner’s lost love. “Self-Control” depicts the story of one of Frank’s relationship’s imploding “I’ll be the boyfriend in your set dreams tonight/Noses on a rail, little virgin wears the white” set to a mesmerizing neo-soul slow-burn that unfurls a gorgeous, understated melody while “Nights” juxtaposes the highs of the come-up “Oooh nani nani/This feel like a Quaalude” with a guitar pop/boom-bap instrumental and the perils of fame with a woozy, cloud-rap adjacent second half “Shut the fuck up I don’t want to hear your conversation/Rollin” marijuana that’s a cheap vacation". The record hits its peak with the spectacular ballad, “White Ferrari”, the strongest song of his career to date. Over warm acoustic guitar provided by Alex G Frank details the permanence of the love that he’ll have for someone that he’s no longer in a relationship with “I care for you still and I will forever/That was my part of the deal, honest/We got so familiar”. The humility and humanity of the moment is heartbreaking, and speaks volumes about the depths of Frank’s artistry. Blonde set a new benchmark for avant-garde pop, and is arguably the most influential album of the past decade.

Essentials: “White Ferrari”, “Nights”, “Self-Control”

1. Cosmogramma- Flying Lotus

After breaking through with his superb sophomore LP, Los Angeles (a singular blend of IDM, trip-hip, and woozy Dilla & Madlib-esque instrumental hip-hop) it would have been easy for Flying Lotus to continue mining the same sounds for successive records that were just slight variations on that singular template. But for FlyLo’s third LP, Cosmogramma, he blew his sound wide open, eschewing the quantized beat grid for a lusher, more sprawling sound that couldn’t be confined to standard rhythms. Cosmogramma is steeped in the lineage of instrumental hip hop and IDM like its predecessor, but it manages to juggle a wider palette of disparate styles such as four on the floor, drum and bass, jungle, free-jazz, and experimental bass while incorporating a wide variety of guest musicians that do a superb job of fleshing out his expansive compositions. Cosmogramma is a record that can barely contain its ambition, and despite having been released over a decade ago it still shines like a beacon illuminating the boundless possibilities of where music can go.

The sublime fusion of the live instrumentation, supplied by Thundercat on bass, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson contributing string arrangements, and Ravi Coltrane providing tenor saxophone, among many others coupled with FlyLo’s mind-warping production is what gives the album it’s compelling thrust. The first half primarily splits the difference between frantic drum and bass/synth-pop heaters and atmospheric cosmic-jazz interludes, and the pacing is just remarkable, with no moment overstaying it’s welcome and plenty of space to give each idea the space it needs to develop. Thom Yorke drops by for a wispy vocal performance on the agile IDM strut “And the World Laughs With You” while Thundercat delivers a formal career introduction on the tender ballad “MmmHmm” before the record shifts into the infectious four on the floor centerpiece, “Do the Astral Plane”. From here the record deploys the astral jazz and eastern influences in a more pronounced fashion on songs like “German Haircut” and “Dance of the Pseudo Nymph” respectively. The celestial ambience of “Table Tennis” featuring Laura Darlington is a welcome breather for the life-affirming synth surge of closer “Galaxy in Janaki”, ending the album on a somber, but ultimately uplifting note with Flylo sampling the ventilators that his mom was hooked up to on her death bed for a euphoric, synth-streaked send-off.

The enduring appeal lies in its function as ambition existing for the sake of ambition. The songs throughout Cosmogramma all vary in texture, tempo, and tone, and they all around great on their own, but it’s the journey from start to finish that Cosmogramma exemplifies as a spiritual experience. Cosmogamma was intended to function as a loose concept album of sorts about lucid-dreaming and out of body experiences influenced by the study of the universe, heaven, and hell, and it’s remarkable to hear just how much of that vision that he’s able to convey without the prevalence of vocals. Although electronic music has changed dramatically in the decade since Cosmogramma was released, the execution of FlyLo’s masterpiece hasn’t been in matched, in electronic music or anywhere where else. Cosmogramma is both the pinnacle of where music has been, and a glimpse at the possibilities of where it could go moving forward.

Essentials: “Galaxy in Janaki”, “Do the Astral Plane”, “MmmHmm” ft. Thundercat

[thesunlounge]

Reviews 263: Benjamin Lew

Every retrospective release on STROOM tells a story and one of my favorite yet comes via Benjamin Lew’s Le personnage principal est un peuple isolé. In this case, STROOM transports us to 80s Brussels and a loose community of musical expats that were perhaps enticed to Belgium by labels such as Les Disques du Crépuscule, Factory Benelux, and Marc Hollander’s Crammed Discs. A meeting place within this creative scene was a tropically themed bar called Le Papaya, which employed author, poet, and generous creative vessel Benjamin Lew…a “enlightened amateur” in the words of Hollander who came to music rather nefariously, having no interest in the form until stealing some records from a local shop in his youth. Of course, renaissance man as he is, Lew at some point developed a passion for analog synthesis, using the daylight hours, his electronics, and an 8-track recorder borrowed from Hollander to explore ancient African cosmologies and Arabian desert fantasies. He began bringing his tapes into Le Papaya and passing them on to the resident musicians, which led to a rich partnership with Tuxedomoon, especially Steven Brown. After shifts at the bar, Lew would return to his apartment with Brown, giving him free reign to color the taped synthesizer compositions with saxophone and keys…a process that eventually involved Gilles Martin and Hollander as well, resulting in Lew’s debut album: Douzième journée: le verbe, la parure, l’Amour, released in 1982 on Crammed Discs.

But it is the period following this album that STROOM is concerned with on Le personnage principal est un peuple isolé, which collects together tracks from 1986’s A propos d’un paysage (also written with Brown and including Vini Reilly), Nebka from 1988, Le parfum du raki from 1993, and a curious collaboration with Samy Birnbach of Minimal Compact called When God Was Famous that married Lew’s enigmatic compositions to Birnbach’s evocative readings of poetry from Yeats, Hesse, Apollinaire, Patchen, and many other famous poets from across America and Europe. As always, label head Ziggy Devriendt has assembled from these albums a weird and wonderful collection of songs and arranged them into a wholly unique journey, one that ignores temporal borders and instead attempts to strike at the very heart of Lew’s magical and collaborative sonic world. Across the twelve tracks, we hear chamber ensembles playing from the sea floor, exotic lounge jazz emanating from shadowy clubs at the edge of time, sea shanty horn minimalism and Afro-idiophonics, spiritual ragas beamed in from alien dimensions, ambient liquids dripping within crystal caverns, dramatic spoken word flowing above dark industrial lullabies, scraped string riffs wandering beneath fourth world flutes, and choirs of distortion singing above wandering pianos and glimmering chimes…all led by Lew’s otherworldly synthesizer, the imaginative production of Martin, and the clarinets, keys, and drums of Hollander.

Benjamin Lew - Le personnage principal est un peuple isolé (STROOM, 2019) “Profondeurs des eaux des laques” features lazily flowing guitar arpeggios from Vini Reilly that remind me of The Durutti Columns “All That Love and Maths Can Do” while Steven Brown uses clarinet and soprano sax to weave deep earth mysticisms and layers of opium den ambiance, with occasional emotive bends into the feverish night. Lew enters with aquatic pings and deep sea refractions…his soft electro-pulsations coalescing with the reed instruments and guitars to create a mysterious underwater landscape. “Moments” follows with space bubbles sequenced into an exotica waltz and layered horns moaning in desperation. Brown traces melancholia spirals high in the sky on clarinet and a jazz rhythm emerges from the ether, with Alain Lefebvre’s tapped rides and brushed snares locking into a daydream glide. Lew’s electronic evoke plucked string instruments from alien planets and Hollander adds a touch of synthesis, with ascendent Afro-jazz melodies sourced from synthetic brass. The title track is built around world percussion hypnotics from Gilles Martin while Renaud Pion and Michel Berckmans evoke a small scale orchestra of woodwinds and reeds moving through mystic motions. Denis Moulin’s sky-seeking violin performance recalls the ecstatic folk ragas of Henry Flynt and the air is colored through by chanting voices, fluttering horn solos, and wavering tremolo breaths as ethnological drums merge completely with Lew’s percolating synthesis…the whole thing like a soundtrack for a robed caravan of desert sages marching in unison beneath a blood red moon.

“Face a ce qui se derobe” is dominated by the clarinets and saxophones of Brown and Hollander, which periodically wash over a disturbing panorama of cosmic chimes, rapid motion synth trails, and polyrhythmic pad layers creating strange swirling vortices. The woodwinds lock into slow motion and slightly drunken trance patterns that align with the contemporaneous work of Yasuaki Shimizu while also presaging the guttural sax spells of Colin Stetson. And Reilly is supposedly somewhere in the mix on guitar, though he’s impossible to discern…so alien are Lew’s electronics and so overwhelming are the cycling reed hallucinations. The exotica of “Qu’il fosse suit” sees electronics mimicking birds of paradise as kalimbas and balafons play minimalist spirituals for an African sunrise. Rainforest hand drums weave shambolic polyrhythms while Tuxedomoon’s Blaine L. Reininger soars to transcendental heights on violin and as in the previous track, dazzling woodwind patterns drift through the mix, though here moving in round, with layers sourced from Hollander’s clarinet flowing ear-to-ear and dreamily overlapping…his bubbling runs giving way to gaseous drones and then repeating. “The Wheel” is one of two pieces featuring Samy Birnbach’s poetry readings, and here Lew’s synths and Peter Principle’s guitars background a double-tracked and pained reading of W.B. Yeats’ “The Tower.” Bass throbs, feedback wisps, scraped starshine textures, and bell-tone modulations sit above glowing reverb metals and there’s a kinship with Current 93, though more so Tibet’s later explorations of pagan neo-folk and dream psychedelia.

The second Lew and Birnbach collaboration is “Little Birds Sit on Your Shoulder,” which floats upon the springtide cellos of Aurelia Boven. Her themes for fairy flower forests are accompanied by Lew’s silvery electronics and liquid space glitters…all setting the stage for Birnbach’s reading of a poem from Kenneth Patchen, though no longer delivered in a desperate swoon, but instead clearly spoken and apathetic. “Etendue” hearkens back to Lew’s early experiments accompanying his one-off Fossile fanzine, as warbling and wavering tape loops featuring choral arias are smothered in burning smoke. Majestic voices sing together…their waves of heavenly power washing side to side while Brown wanders through it all on piano, with beauteous chordscapes and fantasy dream strands. Lew adds further tape layers featuring wild laughter and whispered conversations that slowly wash out the choirs and all the while, the pianos grow in intensity. Black hole vapors flow in from the void in “Ces Personnages” while machines communicate with spirits of the cosmos. New age sequences swim through oceanic dream worlds, wisps of galactic light wrap around quivering feedback textures, and searing fuzz leads scream through ethereal hazes of blue, with everything supported by bass synths floating on unseen currents. There’s a connection with the underwater galaxy explorations of ÆOLUS and Iury Lech, though it’s all interspersed by the moaning reed and brass spiritualisms of Pion and Luc Van Lieshout…these skronking and slow motion atmospheres of New Orleans jazz transmuted into a funereal drift.

Aside from treatments by Martin, “Joyeux regrets imprécis” is a Lew solo adventure, with electronics evoking chimes and gemstones gently colliding and decaying through gaseous fx. Synthesized pianos lock into mesmeric sequences, mermaids weave joyous siren songs, and ominous bass pulses and soothing percussive clacks float through the mix, with the music once again touching on the darker and more exploratory shades of new age. Though Lew contorts his synths into many unbelievable forms across this collection, his work in “Hommes assis devant un mur chaulé” is truly mystifying, as electronics evoke Afro-psych guitars and electrified Middle Eastern string instruments, only as if reduced to a shamanic trance. Wiggling scrapes and glissando runs are interspersed between an esoteric riff out and flutey leads work over top, all fragile, spacey, and vaporous. Choirs are smeared into a shadow panorama, Arabian symphonies play desert incantations, and as things progress, there’s the overwhelming sense of galloping camelback across some infinite expanse of sand and desolation. Closing track “La magnifique alcoolique” is named after a patron of Le Papaya…a mysterious woman into alcohol and maybe “other things” who Lew avoided for fear of being pulled into her dark world. Musically, sampled pianos shamble through a hallucinogenic procession, almost harp-like and playful, though washed over by tones of sadness. Peter Principle’s e-bow guitars sing out alongside Martins ethno-drums, with layers of sustaining and reversing psychedelia swimming within smoldering clouds of bass distortion.

(images from my personal copy)

[nahrsuada]

The Lady in Waiting

--

The stone roads of Boralus had won endearment from the bard who seldom was romanced by architecture and forceful squalls driving her strides onward. But this port city was familiar enough without the droll of Stormwind’s unfettered pomp and circumstance. Even the upper echelon of society, the opulent rings linked amongst one another seemed far less incestuous. Her mixed breeding seemed less out of place, finding kinship among the porcelain flesh, filigreed lotus collars, proletarian accouterment. It was a home where reticent elegance nuanced within the modest seams of woman’s attire were no longer rebuked or menaced by implied insecurity.

Within the cityscape’s labyrinth, desultory intent landed her strides into an unfamiliar part of town whilst mapping her way home once more. There was no urgency to her pace, nor her destination. Leathern spats enfolded upon petite ankles, kept sturdy atop the piked, low heel deriving quiet clicks upon the stone. As she ventured toward the walked intersection, carriages running perpendicular slowed when passing the overflow of patrons staggered outside a single building. Having returned from the city’s blue-blooded heights, the hardened case consuming her violin was cradled now by the taut vice of gloved digits. A brass moniker scripted the name: Ladies in Waiting in shadowed relief.

Innuendo was hardly lost upon she, duress contracting her breaths, lungs staggered upon an impact which bludgeoned the often indomitable air about her resolve. Memory’s ghost abruptly waxed her fine, freckled complexion as she plummeted her stare downward, unable to even register the cause. Pressing chine upon corrugated brick the bard stoned. The way a skirt flew, exposing familiar tawny flesh, the carefree titter of feminine guffaws and feigned modesty. Breaths hitched, remembering a scarlet ribbon which dwelled now, torn within the velvet coffin of her gifted instrument. The walls of her mind easily plunged into the horror of familiarity.

-

The young girl, hardly within her teens with a form as dimensional as the planks lining a dingy venue for the carnal employment and lavish flaunting of feminine whiles, slowly began to uncoil from her seated station moments prior. For one so premature in adult sensibilities, the den of inequity was a curious locale. The sumptuous forms and bawdy attire allowed her performance to simply live within the air, amplifying the joviality and ample patronage of those whose lecherous trade flourished. She was but a decoration upon hearth’s mantle.

Twilight’s cutting gusts had forced the doors to a close, a single nobleman nursing his cigar watched the elven adolescent in her premature departure, having shrugged a furred poncho over narrowed shoulders. The woman who had toyed with his curled tresses for hours, tormenting the stirred excitement upon sheathed mast could seldom break his stare from scarlet curls. Each time he arrived, not a single coin outside his wine spent until the production of harmonious ballad came to a close. He abandoned his charge, levying a gloved palm to lay heavy upon Nahrsuada’s shoulder. “Madame,” asserted his pastoral resonance. Pivoting upon her booted heel, a swan-like crane revolved her nape, allowing his hand to veer upon its base. Glass ribboned upon her spine, impaling from the inside of her flesh where his palm dwelled. But it was him who excited the omen within, but the mortiferous rivets sunken in the woman’s irises that stalled her breaths. Her glare no longer lingered upon he, but its new destitute host. Paralyzed from toe-to-tongue, an ironed smile fixed upon tense aperture, sealing her lips closed whilst never denying acknowledgement. “I wish you to join the cast of Ladies in Waiting for my wife. Her brilliant sensibility is woefully lacking in artistic endowment.” With the heel of his palm riding each vertebrae, blazing digits of lupine affliction boiled as they ensconced the stubborn line of her jaw. The innuendo in his possession spoke beyond a simple offering; a youthful concubine groomed beneath his thumb. His index brazed her pout whilst steering her entire silhouette to square before he by one, tethering tug beneath her chin.

“I would be honored,” came her benumbed reply. Lashes dimmed, knees dipped in honorific curtsy. All while such mechanized affectations flourished beneath his scrutiny, amassing a fiendish simper from him; the courtesan watched with inflamed ire.

“Excellent. Your patron knows of my residence. See that you are sent there a candlemark before noon,” proclaimed his distinctive baritone before a velveteen cloak brandished from its dormancy as he yanked the heavy door open. She need not allow it to close, the danger of snuffed hospitality ever encroaching. Where he traipsed left, she trotted right. Lighter, chaotic footsteps vaulted in her wake, swallowing the ground beneath with effortless anguish enveloping the other.

Soon, manicured nails buried within the girlish, blush ribbon tying her bun with a heavy bow. Nahrsuada’s next stride ricocheted from the stone, landing her within the bowels of a desolate alleyway. “You cunt,” spat rasped vitriol laced in feminine venom. With fibrous vice barely hovering her scarlet crown an inch from the ground, her leather violin case flung toward the ground, split open to expose a fractured, mahogany neck. Gilded aurums snapped open, lips hung ajar in silent plea for whatever travesty can be spared. Knuckles met temple, vision faltered, bleary and liquefied. No face, just the harried breaths of spent outrage, years of isolation, torment, rejection now raining from its victim to the unsuspecting girl, a sympathy unspent.

Screams swallowed as serrated steel first sliced the ribbon of its pristine tie, leaving it to wade within the silence wind and lay upon the ground. Locks of crimson and curls spilled in its wake. The other, the obscurity born of woe weaved in a bustle and bodice soon framed her webbed victim’s jaw ‘tween index and thumb. Force her throat into a crane, the sadistic smile painted deep violet flashed muddied tiers framed with neglected plaque. “You’re pretty in the bar, you’re pretty when you’re scared,” she started, the ellipsis tailing looming threat when steel lay upon the bard’s gullet. “You’re pretty when you sing..” continued the backbitten silk of her whisper. Just as a scream courageously mustered from the girl, blade plunged. With a single swipe of her forearm, torrential life blasted from the incision. Ear to ear, the woman allowed Nahrsuada’s desperate, pleading moments to be spent with her own hands tightening upon the gaping fissure rendering her helplessness mute. She sank upon the corroded wall, knees jamming upon brick, obsidian pits rolling back for the lunar whites to soon disappear beneath tear-stricken lashes.

“You’re even pretty when you’re dying,” observed the echoed, hollow tone as the woman procured the sliced ribbon from the ground, neatly tying it upon her malleable, bloodied canvas. With a bow wrapped upon gruesome fatality, footprints disappeared.

She felt the minutes fade, blur as one, she now slumped with the coagulated blood slowed from its initial tidal pour. Droplets within her sleeve, not an ounce of effort left for her breaths. A grim gift lay waiting the passing surgeon whose routine stalled him at these very walls, awaiting the girl. The grisly wound masked until his silvered hues found the lurid source. The haste, the chill, the macabre bred to avenge willed her eyes to open days later.

-

A leather glove, all of her own design gently cradled the modest, pearlescent pendant upon a burgundy ribbon, breaths seeping once more from her lips with the gothic gables once more coming into focus. She could feel it still, the raised flesh marring sublime porcelain. Another way, instructed the coo within her mind. Rather than face the laugh once more, she but retreated down the road from whence she came.

@holtandthornetradingco

[doomandgloomfromthetomb]

An Interview with Dan Bejar — 2004

Sunday interview! I remember feeling nervous about this one -- there weren’t a whole lot of interviews with him at the time and Bejar seemed kinda mysterious! But he was very friendly and receptive ... I still think Your Blues is one of the best Destroyer records. So there! 

Under the ominous moniker Destroyer, Dan Bejar has released some of the most adventurous and iconoclastic indie rock of the past few years. Never content to settle on one particular sound (or backing band), Bejar's already impressive body of work displays an artist with a gift for infectious melodies, a unique lyrical voice, and a fearlessly experimental streak. Your Blues, the latest Destroyer release, sees Bejar flinging himself wholly into the alien world of Roland synthesizers, MIDI guitars, and highly orchestral song forms. It's almost the polar opposite of his previous record, the sprawling, messily brilliant This Night. But once the shock of this jarring sonic shift wears off, Your Blues reveals itself to be another idiosyncratic masterpiece. On the eve of a rare North American tour, Bejar talked about the genesis of the new album, among other topics.

I understand you just played SXSW? How'd that go?

Well, it was with the incarnation with the band that's playing songs off of Your Blues, which is basically this band Frog Eyes who have learned the songs. It was our second show ever, so keeping that in mind I thought it was really good. I just started practicing these songs in the last couple months, and we've got a little ways to go, a couple more songs to learn. We did one show in Vancouver just before we played SXSW.

So are there challenges in presenting these new songs in a live setting? The album certainly isn't a "rock band" type of record.

There's no challenge, because the idea of trying to replicate or even approximate what's on the record was the first thing that we threw out the window. I mean, on some songs the vocal melody is the same, the lyrics are the same, the chords generally stay the same, but they bear no resemblance whatsoever to what you might hear on the record. For the most part, it's a full-on rock band. I'm in the middle of it right now, so I feel like I can't quite describe what exactly is happening to the songs. And also, it's really being shaped by Carey [Mercer], who is the main guy in Frog Eyes.

How'd you hook up with Frog Eyes?

A few years back, the New Pornographers played a show in Victoria and [Mercer's] band at the time, Blue Pine opened up. I met him briefly then, and heard his record and was a big fan of it. Then he started this new band Frog Eyes, and when I moved back to Vancouver I went to go see them play. We corresponded a bit, and when it came time to figure out how to tour the record, Nic [Bragg], who played a real integral part of the This Night experience, had the crazy idea that using Frog Eyes might be an interesting way to decimate the songs in a cool manner. And he ended up being right.

I'd like to talk a bit about the new record. Obviously, the production and execution of Your Blues is radically different from This Night. Did you go into recording this new one thinking you wanted to do something completely different?

You know, it was an idea I had even when we were making This Night. I don't think it was purely reactionary to the last record. I liked the idea of actually sitting down and composing something. But the idea I had is actually a fair bit different than what came out. I wanted it to be along the lines of a weird, crooning record. Lots of orchestrations, though I had a feeling I'd have to go down the MIDI road, because I knew I wouldn't be preparing charts for an orchestra or anything like that. So yeah, the idea was growing for a while. That being said, I don't think it's something I'll ever do again. I'm pretty sure of that actually.

Was it a pleasurable experience to make it? I know you've worked in more "band" settings in the past.

Yeah, it was fun. And in some ways, it was kind of leisurely. In other ways, it was nerve-wracking. But the set up was pretty easy. You just pick up your MIDI guitar and plug it into the computer and you do your metal riffs and you punch in the 101 strings setting and there you go. But at the same time, I was questioning from beginning to end whether the whole thing was completely misguided. Like, was there some sort of strange death wish I had in making the record? And I still listen to it with a certain amount of trepidation. I think it came out way more palatable than I first thought it would be.

Did you know you could get a good sound out of all of these synthesizers? Or was it more of an experimental thing?

With the MIDI technology we were using, we really didn't want to court some kind of eighties nostalgia. We got the highest end sound module we could find. Hopefully the one that ["Late Show with David Letterman" band leader] Paul Schaffer uses or something like that. And I really did want to approximate the sound of strings, or the sound of a woodwind section as much as I could. And with the synth settings, I was thinking more along the lines of new age settings more the New Wave settings. But also, my ears are worse than most people's, so you could probably play me a fairly chintzy violin sample and I'd be like "Oh man, that sounds so great!" Meanwhile everyone else would just be rolling their eyes. Having heard the record a few times, I can see where people are hearing synths where I'm hearing strings. Maybe that kind of backfired a bit. But I always knew that would probably be the case, and I wasn't too concerned with it.

Are there any sonic touchstones for Your Blues? Any records that you used as reference points?

I've always been a big Scott Walker fan. And I've listened to certain Richard Harris records that Jimmy Webb did.

Are those spoken word records?

No… well, the way he sings, it could be debated [laughs]. He did try his hardest to infuse some sort of drunken melody into the thing. And I would listen to somebody like John Cale, who I've always really liked. Just the way he used classical instruments. He always ends up being a specter on whatever record I do.

Is there any reason you're drawn to his stuff?

I just really like his solo records. There's kind of like a marriage of this old world austerity with this unavoidable pop sensibility. I can't seem to shake that.

That makes sense actually. I hadn't thought of it before, but his early eighties stuff like Music For A New Society is kind of similar in tone to Your Blues.

Exactly. When I had the idea for the record I pictured it being way more desolate and kind of barren and brutal. But the songs that I brought to the table, for the most part, were just too busy. Too many major chords. Too wordy. So things changed.

Is that the case with most Destroyer records? Do you have ideas for them that change through out the recording process?

For the Thief and Streethawk records, we were essentially trying to put forth what the band ideally would sound like if we just walked into a room and played the songs. And that was always a bit of sleight of hand, because we were always a messed-up lineup. But [producer] John [Collin]'s pretty good at creating those kinds of illusions.

And with This Night, I just wanted to make a sprawling, fucked-up record. And that was easy - I just practiced with some people who I knew would be really good at that kind of thing. And we just totally messed up the songs and didn't practice much. I went in the studio and just threw stuff at them. Those records actually ended up pretty close to the way the initial idea of them was. While this one, because it had a definite conceptual basis, changed a bit. And also, I had no idea what it would be – I'd throw around the word "MIDI" and I just didn't know how it would work or what it would sound like. And John and Dave [Carswell], who were pretty integral in shaping the record, they'd never done anything like this either. I walked into the studio with the chords and the vocal melodies and the lyrics. The rest was just us sitting down and saying "Oh, well how about this here," and John coming in at the end of the day to edit it to make it sound… not completely embarrassing. Once in a while he'd have to say, "You know, maybe MIDI congas aren't a good idea." [Laughs]

So it wasn't a free for all. But I think it definitely came out sounding a lot more melodious than we were originally thinking. And that has a lot to do with Dave as well. Once you get him on a guitar -- even if it is a MIDI guitar – he's gonna come up with catchy parts.

You mentioned the "sonic" concept of the record, but I was wondering if you'd dare call Your Blues a "concept" record? I mean, is there a narrative going on in the lyrics?

No. Lyrically I've never approached having a concept. A theme, maybe in some ways. I've kind of dabbled and waltzed in and out of this idea of a record that addressed, I don't know what, some kind of abstract bankruptcy in underground music and culture [laughs]. But I wanted to get away from that as soon as I did it. But any conceptual basis for Your Blues is purely a musical idea.

I guess the reason I ask is that a lot of the tracks have this theatrical, dramatic feel to them. I can almost see them being sung on stage.

That's funny. I'm always hesitant to mention this, but a lot of the songs on Your Blues are to be used in a play.

No kidding! But that came after the fact?

No, that came before the fact. But I have a) no ability and b) no interest in writing narrative songs. So it wasn't like I sat down to write a libretto or something like that. It was more like, here's a bunch of songs, and maybe you can use them to color the play somehow and see if somehow a Destroyer song would make sense with someone other than me singing it. And also I was pretty adamant that I had this idea for making this record that some people might mistake as like "The Sound of Music" [laughs], and that in no way would that be the way I would envision the songs being played onstage. The songs that do get used will hopefully be really stripped down and just will shine some different light on the songs.

But anyway, I think there's always been a certain amount of theatricality, if that's the word you want to use, to Destroyer songs going way back. And the songs on Your Blues, if I look at them, don't seem that atypical from the rest of the stuff I've written.

Your lyrics have always been really strong and distinctive. Are there lyricists you admire?

Yeah, of course. Somewhere in the heart of me there lurks an indie fan boy, I think. There's always a couple songs off of a Smog record that I'll hear, I'll just shake my head and walk away from it. Just like, "This fucking guy." And then I'll wonder if you can really approach writing [those sorts of lyrics] without being some kind of sociopath. And there's stuff that I really love that most people don't associate being really lyrically based music. Like the Plush records or the Neil Hagerty records. There hasn't been anything in recent years that's really leapt out at me. Frog Eyes I think are really awesome. I like the Cass McCombs record, I think that's really good.

Do you consider your songs autobiographical, or confessional in any way?

I would never write something down just to confess it. Usually it's a pretty conscious effort to create something of aesthetic value. You know what I mean? I mean, my approach to language is not super conscious in that I sit down and have some over-arching idea that the language has to fit into. It's actually really instinctual. But the aesthetic is one of using language that just works. You write it down, and somehow it's just working for you. It's not what the words mean, but what they do, I guess. How the phrasing interacts with melody, and how meaning can change once you throw that in there. That being said, you could probably comb through my lyrics and find a handful of threads that would piece it all together.

One thing I think that makes your lyrics stand out is that often they're really funny. Not in a novelty sense, but more like Bob Dylan can be really funny.

Yeah! That's cool that you think that. No one has ever said that to me. That's really good. It's not something I'm striving for, but there will be times when I look at something [that I've written] and -- I won't laugh at loud -- but I think it's just… yeah, I'll use the word "funny." In the same way that like Leonard Cohen can be funny. And Dylan can be really funny. I think that any writing I really like walks the line between severity and playfulness.

[newyorktheater]

Buzz Aldrin was the second man to walk on the moon (nine minutes after the first, Neil Armstrong), 50 years ago next summer.

“No one will think of them as ‘the first men on the moon.’Neil will be remembered. Buzz will be forgotten,” say members of the cast of “1969 The Second Man.” On stage through September 8 at Next Door at New York Theatre Workshop, the show recounts some of the high and low points of the astronaut’s life – before, after and during the Apollo 11 mission.

Jacob Brandt conceived the show and wrote some dozen original songs for it, a score of pleasing folk-rock melodies that invoke some of the sweeter sounds from the 60’s – the Mama and the Papas, say; The Association; a hint of James Taylor.  Brandt is also one of the six charming musicians who play it, on guitar, bass guitar, violins, mandolin, drums, and  kaossilator (a hand-held music synthesizer)

But “1969: The Second Man” is not really a musical. It’s far closer to a concert. The musicians and the cast are one and the same; the half dozen performers largely function as a band. They stand in place with their instruments, sticking to their spot, while ironically they talk and sing about a man who traveled farther than (almost) any other human being in history.

Brandt’s lyrics seldom advance the story; they more often establish the general atmosphere, either emotional or historical, or both:

 The Russians are a-rushin’ to lay claim to that white sphere Everyone is happy and everyone will cheer But us Yankee Doodle Dandies     gonna kick em in the rear

The show takes an approach similar to that by The Bengsons in such “musicals” as “Hundred Days” and the Bengsons have many devoted fans (though I don’t count myself among them.)  But the Bengsons are writing about themselves, not a historical figure (one who is, by the way, still alive, at 88.).

For most of “1969: The Second Man,” the life of Buzz Aldrin unfolds not in scenes with characters, but through folksy storytelling by cast members, taking turn reciting the lines written by the show’s book writer Dan Giles. Sometimes Giles sounds impatient to get through it all.  At one point, cast member Maya Sharpe says: “Hard decade for Buzz. Two divorces. Dad dies. 1978: Broke.Alone. Watch news. Drink. Room spins. Repeat.”

But if “1969: The Second Man” won’t take its place along Hamilton or Fiorello or even Evita in the pantheon of biographical musicals, its subject is more intriguing than one might have expected.Welearn how ambitious he had been from the get-go, and how smart. He had a PhD from MIT; “Buzz makes complex orbital calculations instantaneously and in his head,” Lizze Hagstedt tells us.“By 1962 standards, he is literally smarter than a computer.” Aldrin also seemed almost destined for lunar exploration: His mother’s maiden name was Marion Moon.

Before the moon landing, Aldrin’s mother committed suicide, as did her father before her. This helps explain Aldrin’s own struggles with depression. After the lunar landing, he also had trouble landing a job, and keeping sober. His near-fame didn’t help matters; he was forced to engage with the public wherever he went, encounters that the show cleverly sums up with a trio of half-finished lines:

“When you were on the moon, I was….” (As Angel Lin observes wryly: “Story that’s almost about him but not quite.”)

“Are you still in touch with…”

“What did it feel like to….”

  It’s not until the end of “1969: The Second Man,” that we get to the moon landing itself. The storytellers skipped that part in the chronology, surely for dramatic effect – and these last 15 minutes or so come closest to being dramatically effective. Though the blocking scarcely improves, the performers turn from storytellers into characters, portraying Neil, Buzz, Mike Collins (the third astronaut on the mission) and Mission Control in Houston. There is a sense of suspense as they act out the transcript, including the first words that both Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin say on putting their boots on the lunar surface.

Armstrong: “That one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Aldrin: “Magnificent desolation.”

(Those two comments give us almost all we need to know about the difference between the two men.)

As they speak, the famous video of their moon walks unspool — projected onto Tony Aidan Vo’s drum.

Jacob Brandt

Paris Ellsworth, Jacob Brandt, Lizzie Hagested, Maya Sharpe and Angel Lin

Paris Ellsworth, Maya Sharpe, Lizzie Hagstedt and Jacob Brandt

1969: The Second Man Next Door at NYTW Concept, Music & Lyrics by Jacob Brandt Book by Dan Giles Directed by Jaki Bradley Production design by Oona Curley, co-scenic design and video design by Daniel Prosky, lighting design by Stacey Derosier, costume design by Ntokozo Fuzunina Kunene, aouns swaifn vy Jim Pwrry. Cast/musicians: Jacob Brandt (guitar), Paris Ellsworth (violin), Lizzie Hagstedt (bass guitar), Angel Lin (guitar, mandolin, & percussion ) Maya Sharpe (violin and guitar) , Tony Aidan Vo (drums, guitar and kaossilator “1969 The Second Man.” Is on stage through September 8, 2018 —

1969 The Second Man Review: Moonwalker Buzz Aldrin, A Life in Song Buzz Aldrin was the second man to walk on the moon (nine minutes after the first, Neil Armstrong), 50 years ago next summer.

[hauntedladycherryblossom-blog]

Listening Post #4

Confusing Tears for the End of Days

The first movement is a stark, bleak combination of all four voices - the cello, the violin, the clarinet, and the piano. What makes this movement so interesting is the superposition of the clarinet and the violin. While the cello and the piano are both playing they are mainly background supporters, which we can see mainly by the length of their notes in comparison to the violin and the clarinet. Also, their lower registers place them in near silent contrast to the violin and clarinet making the clarinet and the violin seem more out of place. Because the two parts don’t align whatsoever “Crystal Liturgy” creates the illusion of chaos and a hectic reality without boisterous overbearing sound. This idea is also produced by lacking the qualities we would traditionally associate with “music.” It kind of gives the listener a bit of a headache which helps create the sense of confusion that Messiaen is seemingly attempting to produce.

The second movement starts of just as bleak sounding as the first movement with rapid chord progression by the piano, but quickly demonstrates a more typical “musical” sound. We hear a bit of fugue between the violin and the clarinet very early on, but as the piece moves forward it quickly slows down and the clarinet mostly fades away. Then we move forward as if we are slowly, but surely rolling down into a dark pit as the dynamics are tiered to lower and softer volumes. As the volume decreases so does the sharp tone of the violin until the cello can barely even be heard and the rhythmic padding of the piano becomes almost non-existent and all we hear is the quiet cry of the violin. The second movement ends with a screaming dynamic change from all four voices as if the listener was rolling down a hill and then… Messiaen dropped them off a cliff. It is violent rapid and expressive.

“Abyss of the Birds” is an oddity to me. It clearly is meant to say something but what exactly that is I am not entirely sure. The beginning of the movement is rather plane. It seems as if a clarinet is just warming up. This is until the clarinet has its own steamroller of sorts and starts out even more quiet than it began and crescendos all on the same note. Then each subsequent measure line displays more vigor and hoping about the notes, until once again the clarinetist needs a breather and he begins the steamroller all over again. This movement seems to be all over the place, but the fact that the clarinet is unaccompanied establishes a lonely, desolate quality, like a child wondering through the forest. This makes sense with the circumstances under which the piece was written., as Messiaen and the rest of the quartet were POW under the German army. There is little progression of ideas, more just sad “spewing” of notes that are both high, low, long, and rapid. The clarinet is sharp sounding in all cases, but the quiet nature of the sound leads the listener to listen carefully despite sounding mostly nonsensical.

“Interlude” is actually super frickin’ cool, because we get a bit of a break from the confusion that the first three movements presented us with. It actually sounds like dancelike music. The only really confusing parts were these runs that the clarinet had that were first heard in the “Abyss of the Birds”. The movement has several sections of unison between the clarinet, violin, and the cello. The part that is most appealing is still the maintained tension in the movement, this time created by the call and answer between the clarinet as one voice and then the cello and violin as another. They finally come together in a rapid, equally as stark section toward the end. Here all contrast is felt in the rhythmic style, at one moment long and flowing and the next detached and staccatoed.

The fifth movement, “Praise to the Eternity of Jesus,” is just the cello and piano, which I find the most beautiful of all the movements. There isn’t much of a melodic directive per say but you can hear the passion behind the cello especially in this movement. The piano is merely just accompanying the cello on a journey. It was about halfway through this movement that I began to think each instrument represented a group or persons experience, because each instrument keeps the same style throughout the quartet. For the cello, in this movement there isn’t always an underlying beat, but it’s playing is long and sad with a bit of vibrato. The piano dictates the dynamics of the section and as the too get higher the music gets louder. Again, the sense of confusion is maintained in that it is difficult to follow the direction of the notes. When you think the cello is going to go up it may go down or vice versa.

The sixth movement is in unison between all four instruments. It demonstrates syncopated rhythms and rapidly changing patterns. This one returns a bit to each of the ideas already mentioned but for the most part the movement says something different because of the tonal quality created by all instruments expressing the same idea together. It does not embody loneness the same way that the other movements do. Rather, this movement seems to suggest collective despair! Yay!

“Tangle of Rainbows, for the Angel Announcing the End of Time” is mainly about the cello again, accompanied by the piano, as it was in the fifth movement, but only at the beginning. After some mumbo jumbo and hullabaloo, it becomes about the violin and the clarinet, also accompanied by the piano. In the sections where all four instruments are participating it is rapid, jumbled, and confusion, but when there are two or three it flows easily and peacefully. It is as if three is a party, four is a crowd. This really helps drive home the idea of the instruments as characters, because in the times when all four parts are involved it is almost as if the piano is unsure of who to assist by accompanying, so instead it defaults to wandering up and down the staff on its own. All instruments are a part of a “family” but the characters operate on their own.

The 8th, and final movement is just left to the violin (and yeah the piano but it really does almost nothing). It is reflective, slow, and quiet. From the violin we see that notes mostly get higher and higher as we progress through the piece. Naturally the dynamics follow with a slow but deliberate crescendo. The piece finishes by the two instruments fading out into thought provoking silence together.

 Part 2

Movement 2

“Abyss of the Birds” closely matches Monday’s reading in that it was very reminiscent of the sound birds would make in the morning, which exactly matches Pasquier’s description of what the group mostly bonded over. While the clarinet starts off quiet it slowly but surely increases in volume until we reach a point with no clear pattern, varying rhythmic ideas, low notes, high notes, and generally just a chaotic combination of many ideas. This reminds me of the birds in the morning and of what Pasquier describes. The first bird starts off quietly and it progressively gets more rapid and “messy” when all the birds join in. When the clarinet begins it’s crescendo again it signifies a new day. The tone also seems to match what we would expect of a caged bird, which in a sense Messiaen is now that he has been captured by the German army. His homeland, France, seems out of sight, so he, as a bird, is calling out in search of help. Symbolically he may be represented by the first bird, that is alone.

Movement 7

Messiaen’s description seems to match the movement almost to perfection. When we think of  “blue-orange lava” or “swords of fire” what comes to mind is vibrant and perplexing, but as Messiaen seems to suggest it is meant to do, the colors of the rainbow are tangled in a “roundabout compenetration of superhuman sounds and colors.” This seems to suggest that what he experiences is in a sense beautiful, but it is so fast, perplexing and “tangled” that his experience is actually depressing. He can now longer enjoy the beauty of the world he lives in because his experiences (represented by individual colors) are sloshed about into a mess of a whole, so that one cannot focus on the few bits of beauty that actually exist in life.  This makes sense in relation to the music because it is hard to see a clear path in the music. This listener is always left asking, “What note is coming next,” similarly to how Messiaen would be asking of himself and his own situation. The sharpness of the cello’s sound is also characteristic to this symbolism in that it demonstrates the pain that one experiencing such confusion might feel.

Movement 8

The second movement is to drive home thanks to God for sacrificing himself to the pain of being human despite the fact that he doesn’t need to, and although he will live eternally by visiting Earth and creating people he will forever be burdened with the knowledge that he created something so, in some peoples’ eyes, terrible – people. While we can only suffer through the pain of life for a limited amount of time he must always reflect upon the atrocities he help create. The violin solo is meant to thank him more than praise him, for in the higher register of the violin it is more symbolic of a weeping grateful person.

 My Perception of the Work

Overall I find the story of this work’s production interesting and compelling. While the work on its own seems a bit bland and strange to me, once we begin to speculate on the nature of its creation it does develop a divine beauty that causes reflection and a humble look into my own situation. The pain felt in the music is relatable, but simultaneously foreign, which allows me to more heavily consider the burden others feel by life alone. The story that gets us to “The Quartet for the End of Days” is painful, chaotic, and scary, but it is those glimpses of hope, like Akoka or Pasquier’s involvement, that make living worthwhile for Messiaen. Overall, the thought and symbolism behind the work is very compelling to me.