Rage Roundup @ 6 March '09

Music videos, lately shown on Rage. Let's March!

We Walk — The Ting Tings

The Ting Tings' earlier singles danced on a strange edge, for me: each one would have a really good hook at some point, but the rest of the music would be so annoying that I couldn't stand the song as a whole. (Their band name is bloody annoying, too.) But I think this new track finds a better balance. There's a greater strength and melancholy to this music; it avoids the annoying tics of their earlier singles. It's an interesting wedge of dancey pop, built around staccato piano and a compelling rhythm. There's a defiant, assertive edge to the vocal melody. Also, it's a great video: it cleverly assembles a set of dynamic visual "pieces", slices of action frozen and replayed, and then uses artificial defocus to create a faux-3D layering effect. The visual edits are a smart match to the rhythm, too. Good stuff.

Bottle Bin — Jackson Firebird

Check out the percussion, man. That is mean. Stripping it back so far that even the drum kit is gone – you've got to admit, that sort of stone-cold awesomeness is pretty funny.

Even when modern electric blues is listenably good, it's usually so derivative that it's basically unremarkable; it's difficult to not be dull. But this here is a pretty neat sound, I think. For what it is, this is mighty fine stuff. (If you want an immediate comparison, you might think about Jon Spencer Blues Explosion in the mid-90s? But don't think about it too hard.) These guys look like they'd be good fun as a live act, too.

The Beast — Major Major

So is it true? Is guitar-based indie moving towards a sort of grunge revival, now or soon? There's certainly a 90s vibe floating around the place these days, but I'm sure it's not that simple... For instance: the loose chorus vocals at the end of this song are a very 00s gesture. (In fact, those voices at the end vaguely remind me of the Arcade Fire, oddly enough.) But I think the vocal tones in the rest of this song, and much of its riffage & rhythm, definitely show a strong 90s-indie influence. Australian-style 90s-indie, especially. But, not too much influence. So, actually, this is probably not a good example at all...

It's tricky to pin down Major Major here in terms of 90s revivalism, because there's really a different feel at work. The song sounds like any other guitar-indie at first, but it grows into something quite different. It's a neat track; the guitars have charm, there's some real emotion to the vocals, and I like it the more I listen to it. Also, "the beast is coming for me..." – it's a great lyric. The video is cheap and not particularly profound, but it has a nice look and it holds attention well enough.

So: not the best example for investigating signs of grunge revivalism in contemporary music, but possibly worthwhile on its own merits. Looking to their myspace, it seems that this single is actually much heavier than their usual stuff. Grunge is almost certainly a bad comparison to be making, then. So! Let's say we dodged some kind of bullet?

(Nice band name, too. Was it going for the Catch-22 reference? Would the name be better or worse if it was Major Major Major, or Major Major Major Major, or Major Major Major Major Major? How thick is the line between repetition for impact & interest, and repetition as a rambling joke? ...)

Chelsea Smile — Bring Me The Horizon

Most of the time, I can't really get into death metal; the scream vocals are just too dull for me. (There's no dynamic to it: it's constant, but in a way that erases tension instead of building it.) This isn't quite that, though. Here, the vocals are (just barely) on the side of melody and tone rather than guttural white noise. It feels like a scream for emotion, rather than a generic sound effect: it's interesting. Add that to some interesting structure and some nice guitar textures, and all of a sudden this is compelling stuff. There are rhythmic changes in the service of the song's form, rather than time-signature fripps for virtuosity's sake; it's not something you hear everywhere. People, this is good metal!

Also: excellent band name. At the very least, it's a heck of a lot better than most metal bands can manage. (I'm looking at you, Terror. And Kreator. And DragonForce. Although, actually I guess "DragonForce" is kind of awesome, when you think about it*...)

*By the way: I've just done some googling, and for a band you've never heard of, DragonForce sure have some astounding statistics. One of the songs on their myspace has over 2 million plays, and it's only been out for 2 months! They have more than 300,000 myspace friends, while Radiohead have less than 200,000! (And okay, Justin Timberlake has about a million, but he's special.) Also, they went through 4 different bass players in eight years. (If that's not rock, I don't wanna be right.) Most awesome of all, according to wikipedia: "The band have frequently referred to their style not just as power metal, but as extreme power metal."
Yes.

Feels Like The First Time — Joel Sarakula

For an out-of-nowhere pop wannabe, this is not nearly as terrible as it should be. I think that's largely due to the production, which manages to keep the sound pleasantly immediate and direct... as opposed to most commercial songwriter-pop, which tends to swathe the sound in a fog of ProTools unreality. This guy may look kind of like he's aiming to be a male Delta Goodrem – although apparently, he's trying to be a male Billy Joel? – but either way, he's doing a surprisingly good job. The songwriting isn't exactly sublime, but it's more than solid pop. Sarakula doesn't look like a sex symbol or a pretty boy, but he's less pudgy than Alex Lloyd. If he manages to swing some decent radio airplay & a guest slot on Rove, he could easily be another hotcakes.

Sons Of God — "Jesus Christ" Through Adriaan

Rage's "we'll play anything at 4am" open submissions philosophy occasionally throws up some truly bizarre stuff. (Also, Made Austria.) Take this: it sounds like 80s-style synth-rock (except for the evangelical-Christian lyrics), the stereo drops in and out like the tape was wearing out, the video looks like somebody pointed a camera at a tv screen while playing a loop of 1980s-tech visual effects, the name is "Adriaan"... and no, this isn't on YouTube. It isn't anywhere. Somebody discovered a Betamax tape that their crazy uncle had made while born-again and dropping acid in 1988, they mailed it off to Rage, and the Rage programmers were happy to broadcast it at 4 in the morning. And it will never be seen again.

Mykonos — Fleet Foxes

For goodness' sake, people! If this doesn't make it for you then there's no hope, I have no hope for you. (See also.) Damn it all! Watch, listen, forget about it, this is wonderful. I promise. Please pay attention.

That's all for now. Let's rock!, etc.

--the Musical Thoapsl

Rage Roundup - @ 8 August '8

Possibly the last Roundup for a little while (for some hints as to why, read this). But let's live in the moment, okay? Check this:

Fussy – End Of Fashion

End Of Fashion put out several nice tunes three or four years ago, so it's nice to see them back. Their old stuff was fairly standard-sound MOR pop-rock (like Powderfinger with more Perth, I guess), but the songwriting had some interesting turns to it. A sound that was conservative enough for commercial airplay, hooky enough for some pop interest, and (barely) edgy enough to flirt with indie cred. Not much has changed. Odd lyrics, though – "I get so fussy when I'm on my own..." – a very unusual perspective for a pop song to illustrate, huh? The lyrics mesh a little uncomfortably with the video, which is a second-person view of the lead singer apparently torturing a captive, Hostel/Wolf Creek-style. It's unclear whether it's trying to be genuinely creepy or a light-hearted lampoon; by turns, it's both. The song itself is pretty decent, but the arrangement is sort of relentless. With more variation to the dynamics it could have been much more effective, I think.

White Winter Hymnal – Fleet Foxes

I've been plugging these guys to everyone I know for a while now, because the two records they've released this year are both utterly, awesomely great and wonderful. This is the first video of theirs I've seen. Actually, I think it's a really bad choice for an opening single – for me, this is one of the (relatively) worst songs on the album*, and it also gives a misleading impression of their sound. While they technically do sound a lot like this, acoustically speaking, the "feel" here is not typical. This song has a very choral feel to the arrangement – or it's almost like a round, or a medieval children's song – while most of their other tracks are stylistically closer to early-70s folk-pop. That might sound pejorative, but it isn't; what makes Fleet Foxes so great is the way they transcend all their various sort-of-sounds-likes to create something so unique. They remind me a lot of the Beach Boys at their weirdest and most baroque (Feel Flows, Surf's Up, Cabinessence, etc). But that's a terrible example to use, because most people are only aware of the surfy-boy-pop versions of the Beach Boys, and if you talk about the weird-baroque-artsy Beach Boys then they're justifiably confused. Anyhow, Fleet Foxes' instrumentation is more stripped-back than anything from the Wilson brothers. The mood is folkier, too; there's a stronger purity of intent.

The video is a cheap claymation – reasonably compelling, but nothing too spectacular. Listen to the music, and then listen to some of their other songs, and then listen to it again.

*PS: there's a bit of confusion going around about the title of their debut album. I think it was originally supposed to be entitled "Ragged Wood", and that's what a lot of journalists called it in early reviews. However, it was released as "Fleet Foxes", self-titled, and "Ragged Wood" is just the name of one of the tracks. Their EP released a month or two earlier is called "Sun Giant". So now you know.

Why Do You Let Me Stay Here? – She & Him

Zooey Deschanel & M. Ward, they're the original odd couple. Or not. But they are unexpected. It turns out that Deschanel can sing with a very appealing croon; her intonation is almost country-style, oddly enough. Her voice is probably a little weak overall, technically speaking, but it's well-served (and the weakness well-disguised) by the arrangement. (And don't mistake me here, it's a voice as good or better than the majority of indie vocalists). The music is quite different from M. Ward's usual stuff, but that's to be expected because Deschanel wrote it. Actors who do music are generally disrespected, so it's Ward who's lending Deschanel the marketable indie cred; but Deschanel probably deserves the lion's share of the respect, given that she's shouldering all the songwriting and the bulk of the performance. It's genuinely nice music, too. The arrangements & production help it along a lot, but it's essentially a very fine tune (and not too generic, either, which is a nice surprise).

It's also a nice video. Deschanel looks great, of course; but if you find her annoying, you can still enjoy watching a goofy series of Deschanels being violently killed (and turning into ghosts). It's light stuff, but it's very pleasant.

The Bears Are Coming – Late Of The Pier

I wrote about these guys' earlier single a few weeks ago – Numan-esque new-rave synthy-dance-pop, it was. But this is really something else: a much more avant-garde sound, dense with percussion and full of squelchy, almost P-Funk-ish synth choices. The songwriting is distinctive and clever, and the music even contains a section which morphs from 4/4 to 6/8. There's no more obvious way to proclaim your musical ambition than to change time signatures, right? So they're not techno kids trying to make dance music, they're actually artsy-indie kids trying to make electrish party music. Good to know. They're doing a pretty good job here, in fact; the melody is very strong, the rhythm is addictive but not obvious. Overall, it's catchy and it's a lot of fun. They even called it "The Bears Are Coming" – how great a title is that? More songs like this and fewer like their last single, I'll be a fan for sure.

Mercury – Bloc Party

Now this is interesting. Initially I thought the chorus refrain was annoying, but weirdly compelling... and now I've watched the clip a few times, I'm finding that the compel increasingly overwhelms the annoy. Similarly: the video might at first seem like a really lame attempted satire, but it also becomes more intriguing over time. The surreal visuals and the disconcertingly obvious costumes, the humourous tropes alongside some genuinely sinister content & soundtrack – it's ultimately really effective. The highly produced sound here is very different to their earlier, guitar-heavy stuff, but it might be a worthwhile new direction yet. On the other hand, their last couple of singles were pretty terrible, I thought. So I guess I'm not sure. But I do really want to keep watching this...

Crank It Up – Hadouken!

I don't think I actually like this, but there's something a little addictive about the chorus. Also, I read an interview with the band where they admitted to all being too young to have actually played Street Fighter 2, which is some kind of horrific; maybe that's why I feel weirdly curious about them (down, down-forward, forward, punch). And the other thing I found rather interesting was the way their lyrics actually reference what they want the audience to do:  "Rip the tune off the compact disc and drag-drop into your favourites playlist / Convert to MP3 and give it 5 stars in your iTunes library" – those are the actual lyrics, no kidding, and it goes on with lines like "set this track as your default ringtone" for a couple more verses, too. Wow. I mean, really, as far as lyrical strategies go this is relatively unprecedented, right? Seriously, wow. So are people younger than 22 really not freaked out by lyrics like that, even just a little?

In A Cave – Tokyo Police Club

Aw, they've been around for a little while and now they're starting to go a bit mellow? Slightly emo? Is it serious? Quite possibly, I guess. I still like their sound a lot and this is a pretty decent tune anyhow, to be fair; but it certainly doesn't have the same edge that their earlier singles did. Here's hoping they regain their composure. (Or hecks, if not a composure with the exact "same edge" as before, then at least a more forthright composure/edge than this... either way, I reckon they can do better.)

Freakbeat Phantom – The Rascals

Ah, so now it's the band of the other guy from The Last Shadow Puppets, eh? An interesting piece of skittery '67±'08 psych it is, too. Finely crafted and musically deft, though it's perhaps a little too long-winded & repetitive (trying too hard to be "epic", maybe?) for it to make for a good pop single. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. Overall, the song is oddly intriguing; the lyrics probably aren't as good as they should be, but that's okay. You know what? I think I like it.

Repetition Kills You – The Black Ghosts

Is it ironic to call a song "Repetition Kills You", and then make it annoyingly repetitious? I very much liked the Black Ghosts' earlier clip, "Any Way You Choose To Give It", but this is far less interesting (musically or visually). Ah well, there you go... bloody ironists.

L'Amoureuse – Carla Bruni

Lyrics in a language other than English, that's always interesting. Though I'm still a little freaked out by the fact that she's now married to the President of France, to be honest. Or is it the President of the French? I shouldn't even mention her husband, I assume he has nothing to do with the music. Which is quite nice, by the way: the tune is extremely catchy, and the music itself is charmingly, tastefully arranged. Bruni has a beautifully expressive tone of voice, too. If this song marks the general tone & standard of modern French chanson pop, then it's a real shame we hear so little of it outside France. And the video is clever & pretty, too. Sweet stuff.

I think that's about all I have the time and/or inclination to write about for the moment. The director's cut of this post reveals that I also liked "Days Of Joy" by Mirror House Antics, and "Hungry And Down" by the Kill Devil Hills. Both of whom work within fairly well-established genres (2006ish pop-post-punk and rockish-bluesy-country-death, respectively), but who both still manage to put unique and worthwhile new spins on those sounds. Pretty much, anyway. Okay, so they're both a little derivative and they're not really all that unique, but they're also both still sharp & newish enough to be well worth a listen. Truly.

I'm about to be late for something, so I'd better stop now. The next post may be posted from another continent, or from October (possibly both). You'll see.

-the Musical Thoapsl

Rage Roundup – 6 June '8

In fact, the following selection is not only from Rage of June 6 — there's some stuff from the few weeks beforehand, too. Overall it's been a not-so-stunning month for new singles, I think. The most exciting music I've heard recently is the new Fleet Foxes album, and they haven't been on Rage at all, yet! (I could rave on about Fleet Foxes right now in more detail, but the eloquent ravings of more respectable folks are already all over Pitchfork, so...)

These new-music-on-Rage posts should probably be monthly instead of weekly, if I'm going to have any hope of regularity. Call this post a "Rage Roundup of the period from mid-May to early June", if you like?

August — Catcall

This new single sounds like an off-kilter experimental pop thing, but Catcall's other songs make it clear that she's actually coming at this outta hip-hop. (While the vocals here could pass for indie drawl, on other tracks she's much closer to a straightforward rap technique). What (mis)places her sound into a less obvious context are the judiciously juicy organ loops. They're closer to choral pipe organ than the usual Hammondish jazz-funk, so they give the whole sound a surprisingly unique feel and texture. Interesting stuff, I think. The video clip is nice, too; clever and intriguing despite the obviously zero budget. And the word "Catcall" makes a neat pun out of her real name, so I like her already.

Mouthwash – Kate Nash

I've found all of Kate Nash's singles so far vaguely annoying. Maybe it's her accent... maybe it's her music? I figure that in theory she should be fairly appealing to me, but in real life the appeals are unsuccessful. Except for this one. From the sharp & syncopated piano riff, to the real depth of feeling she puts into the chorus, this one really works for me. The pop songcraft builds a nice momentum: there's a great musical use of tension to repeatedly draw us into, not actually "release", but into a different mode of tension. The lyrics successfully skirt the pop line between too-shallow and too-pretentious. Best of all, she restrains her usual hip-hop-influenced tendency to speak-in-tune rather than actually sing (which, don't get me wrong, is a perfectly fine & valid technique; but it does restrict the available dynamics, and I think it might be the reason I've found her earlier singles a little grating and repetitious). Particularly in the chorus, her voice here is great. Perhaps she's becoming more confident with her singing voice, now that she's found some success? Either way, I hope she keeps it up.

Relativity – Grafton Primary

This song is mindblowingly cheesy and daft, but it's also hooky as hell; I had the damn thing stuck in my head for days. Which got kind of annoying, to be honest. But it's still a neat song. It sounds a lot like Gary Numan (even down to the vocal phrasing), but Numan's chilly alienation is replaced by a mood of weird, cheery irreverence. We're reaching an interesting little cultural tipping point, here: use of '80s synths is going so far past irony that it's becoming genuinely mainstream again (see also this post of mine from a couple of months ago, re: the Galvatrons & Ladyhawke; or listen to Van She). But at least here my ears aren't bleeding like it's the worst of 1988 again. As long as it's all as sweet and amusing as this, I'll be alright. How can you not grin at a stupid lyrical pun like "We! Equal m c squared"? Let's face it, absurd science-fiction synths deserve ridiculous science-pun lyrics. It's a one-joke song, but Grafton Primary make it count.

I Will Possess Your Heart – Death Cab For Cutie

I've more or less ignored Death Cab For Cutie for years, on the grounds that their band name is the crappiest band name since, I don't know... since the coming of emo? Anyhow, this was clearly a wrong and short-sighted position on my part, because this song is excellent. Perhaps I should have been listening to them earlier, huh? The video has a pointlessly long stretch of silence at the start, which always strikes me as pretentious, and in fact the rest of the video is... also sort of pretentious... but it's basically inoffensive. And snowy, which is nice. But the music is the important thing, and the music is great. The singer has an interesting vocal style, the lyrics are compelling (and pleasantly sinister), and the arrangement is deceptively clever: listen to the way the guitars and drums drop out of the mix for only a couple of lines, just as the first verse starts. It's a well-written song, with enough depth to it that it improves over multiple listens. Who would've thought? And band names are usually such a good indicator of musical quality...

Please – Bright Yellow

Another band channeling a weirdly 1990s vibe; even their video is just like one of those many 90s "alternative" videos that pretended to be aping a psychedelic 60s video. Heck, even their haircuts are grunge-90s-doing-60s. If retro style eats itself, does it matter? I'm not a gosh-everything's-so-unoriginal-today-it's-the-end-of-history-postmodern-aarrgh-run-for-the-hills sort of guy; I'm fairly convinced that this sort of cultural recycling & re-imagining is not an essentially "new" phenomenon. It's just that it becomes less obvious to identify, the further you look back, because as you look back you possess less and less of the cultural context with which to notice it. I can see now that there are lots of 40s and 50s notes sprinkled through typical 70s style, but (having grown up in the 80s and 90s) I didn't know enough to spot this until relatively recently. I'm pretty sure that you could say something similar about 1930s style, and 1840s and 1620s and whatever (with periodic kinks as new technology & other genuine novelties kick in). The prime caveat being, that the proliferation of modern communications and media of the last century has sped everything up by several orders of magnitude.

Or maybe not. Either way, it's a nice tune.

Echoes Round The Sun – Paul Weller

His grasp of punctuation may be questionable — shouldn't that be "around" or at least "'round" the sun? — but you can't argue with Paul Weller's musical conviction. This sounds contemporary in a way that his contemporaries (Hi Sting, hi) haven't been since, gee, the mid-80s or so? (Exceptioning the late Joe Strummer of course, I guess). Paul Weller is never going to be The Jam again, but 2008 is never going to be 1979 again, either. And that's okay. Please continue, Mr Weller, this is good stuff.

Do The Panic – Phantom Planet

Good song title, although I'm not sure how well it matches the music — because at least for me, it's really not a panicky tune — but it's still a good title, and it's still good music. I think it's a really cool song, actually: charmingly loose lead vocals balance against the well-polished backing vocals, the arrangement is dynamic and the chorus is killer. They even wrote a bridge! Who still has the fortitude to do that, these days? Good work, chaps. It's such an enjoyable song that I won't even mention the OC, okay?

Young Love — Mystery Jets (featuring Laura Marling)

I'm still undecided about Laura Marling's solo work, but she sings fine on this single so I'll say no more. Mystery Jets, though, seem to become more impressive the more I hear of them. This is a really great, inventive song; it's not especially complex, but the subtle tweaks and polishes are extremely effective (eg, the crescendoing shimmer-chords at the end of the chorus lines). It's a rare talent to make pop that doesn't sound just like a retread of something else; I guess you could classify the Jets as brit-pop, but they're much better (and more unique) than that label would indicate. There's definitely something worthwhile going on here, I think. Very interesting, at the very least...

Another Day – Jamie Lidell

And to round out this post's selection of music, a sweet number from the talented Jamie Lidell. Sure, it's a total pastiche, but if you like this sort of thing then you'll probably like it anyway. It's not nearly as exciting as his last single — while that was Stevie Wonder verging on P-Funk, this is pure acoustic Motown — but it's still an overwhelming *smile*. I really need to check out an entire album of his some time.

And that's that, okay. Until next time, for goodness' sake: FLEET FOXES, people! In particular, I would suggest the tracks "Mykonos" and "Blue Ridge Mountains". (The recent albums from Crystal Castles and Eddy Current Suppression Ring are excellent, too; heck, there's enough stylistic breadth across these three groups to satisfy anyone's fancy, surely!)

--the Musical Thoapsl