Archives : all posts by Jordan

Nat Baldwin - "Within Walls"

Among other things, music is a physical object extended in space and time. A song's coordinates can be roughly plotted on a Cartesian graph with rhythm (time) on the x axis and pitch (space) on the y. In fact, we do just that all the time and call the result "staff". As far as I know, Nat Baldwin doesn't use staff paper (at least he didn't when I saw him play last week), but his facility in the manipulation of both the spacial and temporal aspects of music suggests that he either uses a musical staff (wrought of what? ebony?) that imparts to him god-like powers of emotional evocation, or a competent musical staff of advisors, wonks and mandarins.

Space: Most bands pack everything into the middle. Guitars, keyboards, voices: all take up the centre of the sound space. Baldwin fills the low-end with his bowed bass and the bass drum-and-tom-heavy percussion. He fills the high-end with his soaring, monastic vocals. The middle is left open - a calm, empty space. In this space we experience "Within Walls" as a conundrum: do we revel in the sublime above, or do we respond to the earthen pressures below? Do we think or do we dance, because...

Time: The drummer gives us a lesson in the implications of 4/4 time, treating us to an exponential unfolding of rhythms, of frames, of approaches. Look! A rock beat works. Here's something dirtier! Triplets have a wonderful effect! Why are you dancing around like that? Like a wild living room beast? Is it because of my bass drum on the one, three, and three-and?

When space and time come together in the form of something like a chorus at 2:36, Baldwin sings some words about the space we fill and the time we have to fill it. Write home about this: it's something to write home about. [Info]

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Richard Buckner - "The Tether and the Tie"

"The Tether and the Tie" is a taut thriller. The repetitiveness of the crisp acoustic guitar pattern, the modest vocals, the panning Rhodes and distorted guitar accents - all give the impression that something big is going to happen at any moment, something to relieve the quiet tension. Nothing does. It's not the summer anymore. This is an autumn jam, and perhaps the young season's finest. [Buy]

Otis Redding - "Chained and Bound"

It's true, I know, that men are born free but are everywhere in chains. It's a small consolation that a few of the many kinds of chains that bind us are paradoxically liberating. For instance, for some, including Otis, the chains of fidelity don't so much narrow the parameters of the possible as they do shift them to encompass something deeper. Yeah, Otis has been bound by the chains of his love, but the last thing he wants is his freedom, or the oppressive chains of untetheredness that he knows come with it.

It's kind of like how men are born naked, but are everywhere in clothes. Or how men are born stupid but are everywhere much smarter than when they were born. Or how men are born ten inches tall, but are everywhere at least six times taller than that. Or how I was born yellow (jaundice), but am everywhere beige. You know?

"Chained and Bound," is not a perfect song; it is merely very good. Otis Redding was freed of the chains of this world shortly after he recorded "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay," a song that promised so much. What he left behind are a great many vocal performances that far exceed the quality of his songs. This is one of those. When he first sings the words "chained and bound," someone - is it the drummer? an idle hornblower? Otis himself? - lets out a small "woah." It's a statement of wonderment, of genuine astonishment that something so insignificant as this lyric, as flawed as this little ballad, as limited as this human voice, as imminent as these waves of sound (all chains), can set so much in us free. [Buy]

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Alfreda Brockington - "Chained and Bound"

Because women are born free too, and are also everywhere in chains. Because they too are born naked, but are clothed. Because women babies are just as stupid as the others, and grow to be just as smart. Because female hatchlings are also extremely small people who grow to be "taller than the tallest pine, sweeter than a grape on a vine." [Buy]

Detective Kalita - "Mary 16"

I assume that you like Sherlock Holmes, and that, like Holmes, you value a simple, elegant argument above almost anything else. Now, Holmes doesn't need directions to Simplicity and Elegance, but for those of you who haven't been there yet, the quickest route is via Brevity (Ave.). Brevity is a particularly important virtue in the detective game (not Clue, but yes, also in Clue), as well as in the other game favoured by Philip Marlowe (my favoured detective), chess. Marlowe always managed to be knee deep in a chess problem which acted as a perfect metaphor for the case he was investigating. The key, inevitably, was to find a solution in the fewest possible moves, to get the villain before the villain got him: a principle understood at a deep level by Humphrey Bogart, the actor who played Marlowe most memorably, and who was an expert-level chess player. Bogart was one of the few actors who might have actually been able to solve Marlowe's ludicrously difficult chess problems. The problems tended to involve mate in at least seven moves (very long) and almost always required a knight's oblique, deceptively innocuous, attack.

"Mary 16" achieves its sweetness in a roundabout way - through a decidedly sour approach - and takes only 1:19 to do it. A most efficient, detectively communication. [Info]

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Barton Carroll - "Cat on a Bench"

Imagine a cat on a bench. The cat is a yellow Tabbie, the bench is a lightly varnished pine. You're drinking tea.

Now take that same cat and that same bench, but this time, imagine the bench on the cat. You're drinking black coffee.

OK, this time the cat's on top, but the Bench is made of flesh and is a member of Johnny Bench's family. You're laughing, milk is pouring from your nose.

This time, imagine a catbench: half cat, half bench. You love it, you pet it, and you feed it, yet you sit upon it, because that's kind of what it's made for. You just gave up drinking liquids entirely (an overreaction to your erstwhile alcoholism). You're listening to "Cat on a Bench". This, you think, is the life. The catbench meows. [Info]

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My band, The Cay, will be playing on Saturday (the 16th) at Casa, and Wednesday (the 20th) at Le Divan Orange. You're all invited.

It's been said that what we cannot speak of, we must pass over in silence. Putting aside the interpretation of the maxim that makes it logically true (and treating the must as a must and not as an ought), I think I can disprove it with the following. That is, like Dan Beirne, I can't handle Joanna Newsom's Ys, and yet it's been handling me to such an extent that I have no choice but to address it, despite my inadequacy for the task. I mean, the album is actually forcing me to not pass it over in silence, though, in truth, I cannot speak of it. How could that be, you ask? How could a man who speaks with so much intelligence and authority, at such great length about such a diversity of music from all over the world, finally be at a loss for his usual mots justes? First of all, thank you.

Ys is actually unlike anything you have ever heard. And that includes The Milk-Eyed Mender. Ys displays a compositional ambition the presence, or even promise of which I did not detect in MEM. Each song consists of many, sometimes nonrepeating, parts, each of which is overflowing with musical ideas: a thousand approaches to a single melody, digressions that turn out to be explanations, about-faces that reveal themselves as logical continuations.

Newsom plays harp and sings differently on Ys than she did on her debut. Whereas before, she was content to leave harp errors alone, she now plays perfectly, always in time, always with confident, subtle control of dynamics. And whereas the vocals on MME were highly divisive, too cute and affected for some (though not for me), she has improved by leaps and bounds since then, effectively making a mockery of anyone who has ever argued that she is not a vocal virtuoso. Her flights through pitches are mind-boggling, her grasp of the manipulative capacity of timing is heart-breaking, her range of timbres is immoral: here phlegmatic, there phlegmatic (different sense), now phlegmatic (still different). Also piercing, cutting, delicate, and brash.

The combined effect of these improvements is to make a sound less superficially human than her previous efforts, but more profoundly human than any I have heard from new music in sixteen hundred years.

Joanna Newsom - "Sawdust and Diamonds" (removed by artist request)

The only song on the album that is just Newsom and her harp. There are two other songs on Ys ("Emily" and "Only Skin") that are as good as this one (there are only five songs on the album), but I didn't want to give everything away.

47 seconds into the song, Newsom goes into a quick-plucked harp part that recalls the sublime density of John Fahey or Charles Ives piano songs: the illusion of slowness is created, despite the rapidity of the playing, through a glacial melodic progression. Every four bars, amidst the flurry of notes, Newsom alternates up and down a Major 2nd, and in so doing, makes a convincing case that the Major 2nd is the best interval ever.

Of course, Ys has its antecedents: English folk, Appalachian music, Bjork, and many more. But more than any other music Ys reminds me of an album it sounds nothing like: Astral Weeks. Both albums are sophomore releases, both are revelations about their respective author's strengths, and both are sprawling, perfect realizations of unique, strange, and enigmatic visions.

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Mary Townsley - "Young But Growing"

Nothing comes from nothing. Nothing ever could.

[Buy]

Technically, so many songs are like so many others. The set of elements from which Western pop music is drawn is a relatively tiny one. The same pitches and timbres, melodies and harmonies, tempos and meters, appear again and again in both the songs we like and those we dislike. The questions Sean posed here about what sets good singer-songwriters apart from the rest, can be generalized to the problem of distinguishing between good music and the rest. So if, as Sean suggests, the subtle difference can be boiled down to something to do with “character and wit and voice and lightness of touch,” then what can the music critic do but point out that “here lies more character, wit, voice, and lightness of touch than does most elsewhere?” Essentially, we write about the same thing (I mean, almost the exact same thing) every day. How then can we find new ways of talking about it? Since the written word lacks the abstractly sublime quality of music, we are forced to do what music does not need to do: diversify. I hope that with some combination of the objective and the subjective, the analytic and the phenomenological, music writing can enrich the listener’s experience. Maybe through a diversity of approaches - essays, stories, codices, petit mal seizures, dances a propos de architecture, haiku, or epics - the critic can deepen the listener’s appreciation. Maybe sometimes with gratingly post-modern plays?

Elizabeth Cotten - Hello, young Bob. Why don’t you try to imitate my music.
Bob Dylan - Yes, OK, that sounds like a good idea. Here goes.
Well, that wasn’t so bad, eh?! Might actually be the start of something! But perhaps I shouldn’t have asked that young woman in the song to marry me. I mean, here I am, a year later, and I’ve left her. I’m all alone and on the dark side of the road.
James Carr - Here? With me, on the dark end of the street?
Bob Dylan - No, in a different but related place.
James Carr - Oh. Bob?
Bob Dylan -Yeah?
James Carr - How did you get from there to here?
Bob Dylan - James, it was such a long, long trip. I know it’s hard to see it this way, but maybe you should be thankful that the graph of your career has only one significant point.
James Carr - I’m not so sure about that, Bob.
Bob Dylan - No, nor am I, really. James?
James Carr - Yeah?
Bob Dylan - Goodnight.
James Carr - Goodnight, Bob. Goodnight, Elizabeth.
Elizabeth Cotten: Goodnight, guys.

fin

[Cotten and Dylan, Dylan, Carr]

Huey "Piano" Smith and The Clowns - "Don't You Just Know It"

You’re a chicken, a shrimp, and a pig. You’re a thirteen-year-old cow(ard) leaning against the wall of a middle school gymnasium, paralyzed. You’re hoping that someone will ask you to dance, while praying that no one will ask you to dance. The dignified among your kind - those unwanteds with at least a modicum of self-knowledge - can presently be found amidst the library stacks, seeking out a Robert Cormier novel, or The Catcher in the Rye, i.e., some small, safe pleasure that can’t lead to VD. Can dancing lead to VD? (You’re flunking health class). Your height (roughly 4 feet and 5 inches) means that if you were to dance with an average sized girl, your head would be awkwardly situated at her breasts. Some have said to you that this is a blessing; you are well aware that it is a curse. Marshall Kruspe is dancing with Jennifer Carter. You are so angry about this. Effing ef! Totally unfair! But what are you going to do about it? There’s the rub, eh? There’s nothing you can do, because you don’t even want what you want. You know as well as Jennifer Carter does that you wouldn’t know what to do with her if you had your chance. Every pore of your body exudes pathos, as well as grease.

Disconsolate, sure that nothing will ever undo the trauma of this day, you decide to go to the bathroom, where you will mope at least, cry at most. As you are leaving the gym, however, you observe something of interest: an anachronistic gang of 1950s gentlemen stretching hyperactively, laughing uproariously, drinking from flasks. Most of them are nerds. In addition, there is one dandy, one transvestite, and one big fat cyclops. Wearing tuxedos and armed with musical instruments (piano, bari sax, upright bass), they walk past you into the gym, and by the time you turn around, the deejay is already lying on the floor unconscious (dead?). The UB40 is brought to a halt. The men start playing a song - a piece of wild, unbridled musical theatre (you can hear the song in question by clicking on the link above). Suddenly, you’re intensely, irresistibly drawn to the dance floor. What’s more is that you’re a genius dancer, a regular Nureyev. The transvestite, playing the female character, sings “Baby, don’t believe I wear two left shoes,” and winks at you. You blush. The cyclops plays the male character, but since his voice is cyclops-deep and he doesn’t speak any English, it’s pretty much impossible to understand him. Luckily, Cyclops doesn’t need language to express his democratic message: love and partying for all, even freaks like him and you. Sensing an imminent revolution, everyone who had previously been dancing begins to retreat with fear, and all those who waited, leaning or sitting against the wall, come forth and populate the centre of the dance floor. Tentative at first, their wiggles and hops become more confident as the dandy begins his call-and-response chorus.

Dandy: Gooba gooba gooba gooba!
Y’all: Gooba gooba gooba gooba!

Overcome by your grace, artistry, and athleticism, and infected by the bombast and abandon of the anachronists, Jennifer Carter runs from Marshall Kruspe’s side, grabs you and pulls you into her. Your head is now firmly planted between her breasts. Both you and Jennifer are laughing breathlessly, painfully, your eyes watering. Little acne-afflicted David Finkelstein pops open a bottle of champagne. Everyone is overcome with hysterical, convulsive merriment.

Dandy: Ah-ha-ah-ha
Y’all: Ah-ha-ah-ha

Marshall Kruspe, scared, is trying to wake the deejay. “C’mon man, you haven’t even played 'October Rain' yet! This is ridiculous!”

“Oui, c’est vraiment ridoncule,” says a handsome man slyly. He sports a trench coat, a thin moustache, and a cigarette holder.

“Who are you?!” asks Marshall, his voice pubescently cracking.

“Je suis Monsieur Ben-ya-meen, le nouveau professeur de Français,” il dit. “Je vous verrai dans la détention!”

Ouch.

[Buy]

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Exciting StG news: Sean’s first Pitchfork review was published yesterday. Please go read it. As is to be expected, it is a fantastic piece.

Black Bear - "Black Bear"

Black Bear is pretty sure that it's better to be a black bear than a human. Maybe so - I wouldn't know. Black bears are better natural fisherbeings, they are stronger, faster, supposedly lack human foibles like fakery and envy; but humans are smarter, better baseball players, supposedly have more developed aesthetic and moral sensibilities. Black Bear likes that for a black bear, "the fur that he is wearing is the fur that he prefers," but dislikes that humans are never content with their own fur: if they have a fox, they want a mink, if they have a lot, they want a little, if their pelt is loose, they have it tightened. But I'm not so sure that black bears aren't occasionally jealous of their fluffy, deep brown grizzly acquaintances or their particularly silken pet springer spaniels. Granted, maybe I'm anthropomorphizing; but not even Black Bear would claim that a black bear could have made such a catchy, infectious, unexpectedly moving pop song as "Black Bear". Their meaty bear paws simply lack the necessary delicacy. [Info]

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Austin Coleman - "Good Lord"

Also, could a black bear give it like Austin Coleman? Would not a black bear lack the emotional depth, the religious fervor, the far-ranging creativity in his phrasing, the perfect meter? [Buy]