Rhythm Stick

I've been in Dallas over a year now but this past week marked my first concert here.  As someone who used to go to multiple shows a week, this is a bit of a change.  Reasons are various but living in the burbs definitely makes things a bit harder -- after commuting to work and back it's so much easier to call it a day than to go back out again, but I managed it on Wednesday and didn't really regret it.

Nicolas Jaar finally induced my return to the nightlife.  Not an artist I've ever really listened to, bar possibly hearing some mixes at some point, but he does electronic stuff and is pretty well respected, so that was enough to get me out.  Plus there's a part of me that doesn't want to give up going out and hearing new things.  Add to that tickets to the show at the Granada were pretty cheap and I found a couple of friends to go with.

The show proved to be a bit of a mixed bag, which wasn't entirely down to Jaar.  It started out alright, with some very loud ambient sounds that verged on this just this side of cheesy (rainfall and bird sounds were present, so...); the other problem with that initial segment was it just seemed a bit too abstract.  There was a decent crowd present, and this section, which was probably somewhere between 10 and 20 minutes long, got me thinking about the live experience when it comes to electronic music.  What I've noticed is that crowds at a concert have certain built-in expectations, and it's hard for electronic artists to meet those expectations.  Even when I used to go to Motor lounge in Detroit, if the DJ that night was a big enough name a significant part of the crowd would just be facing the DJ booth instead of dancing; at a concert that's billed as live that's almost 100% the case, but more often than not there's nothing much to see.  Artists make up for that in various ways -- extensive visuals, random instruments to make things as "live" as possible; but others just have a bunch of machines and a laptop and stand behind them.  So, in the absence of anything to see, I think a crowd is at least looking for something to grasp on to aurally -- hit them with abstract ambient for 20 minutes and you end up with a bunch of people who are basically waiting for something to really happen, and they'll happily whoop if you just drop a big slab of bass.  Which is what happened at the Granada.  Unfortunately, right at the point that I think Jaar had planned to introduce some beats and more danceable sounds, there was a technical issue which ground everything to a halt for around 10 minutes.  The show then lost all momentum so that by the time the music started again most people were on their phones or carrying on conversations.  Kudos to Jaar then for being able to turn that around and get people re-engaged.  The fact that from that point on everything was far easier to dance to really helped; a 25 minute segment towards the end really stood out in that regard.

Jaar has quite a range of musical styles, which I hadn't expected (well, I didn't really know what to expect).  Apart from the ambient stuff he also had some disco bits, house, bass music, tropical beats, and techno.  In a couple of tracks he even picked up a mic, adding and looping his voice into the mix.  The crowd, I think again responding to traditional concert cues, loved it; I liked it too,  mostly because those tunes were great.  Jaar gave a good sense of playing his music live, which is another area I think can be challenging for electronic artists.  There's a need to properly convey that some risks are being taken, that someone isn't just hitting 'Enter' on a laptop and then noodling around.  Not all artists are successful at this aspect -- many don't do enough to justify the live tag, while others go too far and up playing jazz!  For me, Jaar found the right balance, but, as mentioned before, it didn't make for much of a visual experience, other than when he was singing.  The stage set up was two banks of machines and a laptop, with Jaar solo and pretty obscured behind his gear.   Fair enough as I suspect few artists can afford to take a really good visual set-up on tour, but I think even arranging his equipment differently could improve things.

To sum up, it was a decent show let down by one technical problem.  After that issue the sound didn't seem the same; it sounded like a speaker was blown and the music just wasn't loud enough for me.  The show lasted about two hours; I do think Jaar could clean things up a bit and make the show tighter and more focused.  As far as what I want from my electronic live experience, there was a visceral quality that was missing for me; I'm looking to be hit hard by something just nuts, and that didn't happen.  Not Jaar's fault, that may not be his thing, but I feel like I'm looking for something and not finding it.  I got a glimpse of that something in the latest album by Hieroglyphic Being, but unfortunately the track only lasts a minute and 10.  I think what I'm after is a massive four-four beat that's been messed with, played at ear-bleeding volume; the search for that aural high continues.

Twittered

I've written about Zomby before; he's one of those enigmatic dance music producers with the kind of underground and bass music vibe that's appealed to me for a while, kind of like Burial.  I heard a few tracks of his last year and ended up following him on twitter, and then getting quite excited about his latest album Ultra, especially when I heard it was coming out on Hyperdub, and that there'd be a Burial collab -- so excited that I bought it without reading any reviews.  I do sometimes succumb to the hype machine and then subsequently regret it, and sadly this is one of those times.  I really wanted to like the album and was looking forward to some electronic weirdness but with a good beat.  I listened to it twice and didn't feel satisfied so went and read a review on RA which basically nailed exactly what my issues with the album are.

First of all, too many tracks sound like out-takes from Step 2001.  Others feel like they're either missing something vocal or lack a hook.  A couple of tracks are decent, but overall the album is basically disappointing, like it's flirting on the edge of being really good but isn't quite finished.  After two listens there's no track that I can recall from memory, and that includes the collab with Burial.  The let-down feels even worse because this CD cost me $18!  No idea why the price was so high; even the guy at the record shop was confused, but it's definitely not due to any extras, or special packaging, or anything like that.

In the RA review the reviewer mentions a previous album and how it's tracks just faded away, feeling half-finished.  I have an older Zomby album called 'With Love' that I actually returned once to the record shop because I thought it was some sort of industry sampler, not a real album -- all the tracks just faded out after a very short time.  Turns out that's how the album was meant to be!  It's a shame, because Zomby is obviously talented; in part I'd say his record companies are letting him down by letting him release work that's barely there.  I'm still going to follow him on twitter, but I'll be wary of letting the hype to get to me next time.

Complete Control

I was reflecting on my habits as a music fan during my morning commute today (50 minutes, mostly in traffic, ugh).  I was considering the fact that I've never been a completist; I've moved from favourite band to favourite band but never gone and got, or even listened to, any artist's entire back catalogue, no matter how taken up by them I was at the time.  When I was into U2 I stuck with just "Achtung Baby" and "Zooropa"; when it was Black Grape I only got the first album; even with the Clash I only went a few albums beyond "London Calling".  I suppose for me it's never been about buying into anyone's entire career or oeuvre; it's more about the individual work that I may intensely like, while being able to keep things in perspective and realise that not everything by any given artist is going to be good.  Plus I think I lack the attention, especially these days, to really focus on any one thing for too long.

This was all prompted by hearing "Sing" by Blur on 6 Music today.  It got me thinking about Blur and their sound and trajectory.  "Sing" is off their first album, "Leisure", which I don't think I've heard fully, so what I'm about to say may sound like complete balls to anyone who's a real Blur fan.  My Blur fan-hood is kind of like my fan-hood for every other band -- there are a few albums I've listened to a lot, and that's it.  So I'm hardly the person to really know enough about Blur to say what I'm about to say, but I'll say it anyway.

When I heard "Sing" this morning I was struck by the thought that it sums Blur up in a way.  The song itself is pretty non-traditional for a pop song; it's experimental, with no easily decipherable verses to sing along or relate to, and it barely has a chorus.  It's a great song, but very far removed from those which made Blur famous -- songs like "Girls & Boys", or "Country House", or "Song 2".  Even if I consider Blur as an indie act instead of a pop one, "Sing" is a lot more ambitious than anything else I've heard from that period -- and they produced it themselves. "Sing" sums Blur up as a band who are actually very experimental and who've had many different sounds and phases in their 28 years.  And when I hear "Sing" and consider some of Blur's other music it seems not at all surprising that the band eventually fell apart; because it would be hard for any band with so many different ideas and sounds to capture it all in one outfit.  It makes sense that Damon Albarn ended up starting and being part of many other acts, and worked solo, as did Graham Coxon.  Blur was never going to be enough to encapsulate all the ideas those two, and particularly Albarn, had.

This is probably not news at all, or fresh original thinking.  Really this is me trying to figure out who Blur are to me.  I'm re-examining them and re-thinking who they are as a band.  Britpop Blur wasn't really the Blur I loved; the Blur I loved was the Blur of Think Tank and what I realised today is that Blur were always the band that would make Think Tank; that album isn't an anomaly, it's actually who Blur are.  And "Sing" is what proves that to me.

Metal

Heard some lovely, lovely, atmospheric and groovy music in the past week that I had to archive/share.  First up is this track by BadBadNotGood, who I've written about before.  Time Moves Slow is very soulful without sounding like a pastiche of the past; it's from their upcoming album IV:


I've also featured Bibio on this blog before.  I came across this track, Petals, earlier today.  The video is not official, but it's pretty good regardless, the kind of thing I wouldn't mind having a longer loop of to play in my hypothetical office:


Slightly moodier direction now with Can't Say No by Ivy Lab featuring Roses Gabor.  Makes me think of late nights in cities, shiny glass and concrete, reflections off cars driven slowly.  Kind of menacing.


Bonus Track: Rush by Roses Gabor


Dang, listening to this stuff is making me want to put together a mix tape!  

teenage memories via teenage fanclub

I remember the very first time I came across Teenage Fanclub, in the early 90's, in the NME, when I was totally new to non-top 40 music.  I couldn't understand them, I literally could not understand what Teenage Fanclub were, was, etc, I had no idea they were a band; I was just like "teenage fanclub of what??".  Anyway, I grew to like them immensely, they have lots of quality songs.  I re-heard this one recently and was just struck by it -- it took me back to a time when I was young and single and sad about it and it just seemed like finding the right person would fix everything.  Also reminds me of just how free I was then, no responsibilities, and I didn't even need a lot of money to get by.  That juxtaposition is basically my whole life in a nutshell!  Unhappy at the time,  nostalgic about it later on.  Happily, I got see Teenage Fanclub live at the 930 Club once, and even though I can barely remember the show, the fact that I saw them makes me happy.

New reviews of old albums (1)

Maybe this will become a series, or may it'll be a one-off, but I've decided to write a short review of a couple of albums I finally got around to listening to in the last couple of weeks.  Back in Arlington, VA, the library system stopped buying music CD's a few years ago, but I've recently discovered the Dallas Public Library is pretty up to date when it comes to music (for instance, they've got the newest Disclosure album).  So I'm hoping to easily catch up on some releases without having to buy or torrent.

First up have been the last two albums released by Gil Scott Heron before he passed away in 2011.  In 2010 he put out "I'm New Here"and 2011 saw the release of "We're New Here", which was billed as a remix of the entire album by Jamie XX.  Both came out on XL recordings.  I'm glad that my lateness has meant that I've been able to hear both records back to back, as that's been an interesting experience.

I got "I'm New Here" a couple of weeks before the Jamie XX remix version.  Overall, it's a good album, and it really does work as an album.  To me it seems like a goodbye album, as if Scott-Heron knew it was going to be one of his final pieces of work and wanted to wrap things up.  He talks about his life and how he was raised, the people involved in him turning into the man he became.  It's a bit like the final Bowie album in that it seems like music from a person who knows things are drawing to a close.  But unlike "Black Star", "I'm New Here" is much more straightforward lyrically, very direct and comprehensible.

While listening to it I did wonder about the production and how much input Scott-Heron did or didn't have in that regard.  It's quite stark, with mostly minimal beats and bass highlighting the lyrics and Scott-Heron's cadence.  I can easily imagine the voice tracks being laid down and then the production happening around them completely separately; I believe production was handled by the head of XL Recordings.  On the one hand it all sounds quite fine, but on the other it's very of it's time and I have a feeling it won't age well -- it's very electronic, very 2010, and it already sounds a bit dated.  That's a shame as it stops the album from feeling very essential, even though lyrically I feel like Scott-Heron has a lot to say. The track I'm putting here is a bit of an anomaly as it's one of the few that isn't so electronic:


Well, that may not sound wholly positive, but I do think it's an album worth checking out.  That's not something I can say about the Jamie XX version. I'm not sure what went wrong with "We're New Here" but I found it very disappointing. The title, and the write-ups at the time, made it sound like some sort of joint effort between Scott-Heron and Jamie XX, but it really is a remix album, and not in a good way.  The remixes are similar to a lot of more modern remixes in that there is barely a hint of the original songs left.  This is basically a Jamie XX album with some Scott-Heron samples, and even then, most of the time, the samples are so far in the background that it could be anyone.  In fact, for some of the tracks, having no Scott-Heron at all would probably have been better.  It's a disservice to him to just have snippets of his voice mumbling away behind everything else.  It really is quite jarring at times -- there really seems to be no connection between the music and the lyrics at all, for instance, in album opener "I'm New Here".  My guess is that it has something to do with the fact that Jamie XX was very early into his solo work when he did this; it almost seems like a practice run, which is OK, except it got released and was even well-reviewed when it came out.


So, to sum up, I do recommend checking out "I'm New Here", at least if you have some interest in the work of Gil Scott-Heron.  It's a good album with mostly good songs, and even if the production is a bit 2010 it's still not bad.  As for the Jamie XX version though, there is really nothing to recommend it, other than the novelty of hearing something so wrong -- I really do feel that strongly about it.

Not so guilty pleasures

It's time to drop any pretense of cool and admit to some completely mainstream pop that I'm liking -- I need to confess and this blog is the place to do it!  Actually, I've always liked top 40 pop music; not everything of course, but I was never too snobby about something being too mainstream, whether it was Tony De Bart or Take That.  Lately I've found myself (and I know I'm not alone, and that there is a hipster factor to take into consideration) grooving to "Sorry" by Justin Bieber.  I have a feeling this song is produced by either Diplo or Skrillex.  I've never really given any thought to the latter, but I remember Diplo from the mid-2000's, when he was more an up and coming producer and quite underground.  Now, despite what I said about not being snobby, I am full of contradictions, and part of me is thinking "Diplo has sold out!".  But another part, the better part, is OK with that, because at least he's bringing some good sounds to the masses!  Especially the US masses, who've been in need of quality pop for a long time.  When I first got here in the mid-90's the situation was particularly dire, and for a long time the best pop music, the most forward-thinking, was R&B and rap, which is why a British brown kid living in suburban Detroit was watching BET and had the local black radio stations tuned to the buttons in the car stereo.


I'm also liking the Zayn Malik solo stuff.  I'm not sure if it's first-mover advantage, or the cool that comes from being good-looking and an ethnic minority, but I don't think any of the other boys from One Direction could pull off the solo career that Zayn may be able to.  All he has to do is pick the right songs and the right producers and he should be all set.  It's funny how pop is now -- not too long ago, a song like "It's You" would've been thought of as quite weird and underground, and probably would've been championed as some great twisted indie R&B, but in 2016 it's being put out by someone who was about as mainstream as you can get.  Again, I think it's great -- I'd rather good music be mass-market than crap music!


Lastly, Disclosure + Lorde.  I've heard this track a few times, and the last time I just thought to myself "this is perfect pop".  Lorde is on a different level of credibility than the two boys above, but it's all on the same continuum really.  Everything is cool now!  Or at least it can be.

On Carlos D and Interpol

Written enroute to Utah:

I grew up listening to Interpol. My first interpol concert was when I was 16, at St. Andrews in the D with my brother Feraz. I felt like Paul Banks was looking right at me at times, typical fan I was.

Turn On the Bright Lights is such a good, classic album. A rare album where every song is a gem. What a force. What a statement. It will always be one of my faves, and "Obstacle 1" just gets me moving and emotional every single time I hear it. Every single time.

The follow-up album Antics was good as well, but didn't have the same impact. I saw Interpol live two more times in college. Interpol and MIA are the only acts I've seen live, 3x each, both during my college years in MI.

I was so infatuated with Interpol, that in the summer of 2006, when I was doing summer internships in New York, and thus, living in the city for the first time, this happened: I was broke, yet again. I was passing out flyers for some Anglophile party, funny enough. It was July, night time, hot, I had been listening to Interpol once again for weeks on end; everyday Paul Banks's voice feeding my mind. That night, on that corner in the Lower East Side, Paul Banks walked right in front of me. Right in front of me. He was wearing all black, and a black hat, of course, in the middle of summer. Stunned, I grabbed his shirt as he passed by me. Hahahaha.

Stupidly: "Are you Paul from Interpol?" I knew that he was, I just, that just blurted out. Hey, I was genuinely starstruck!
I think he either nodded or said "Yes." He looked quite amused. Maybe its the only time a hijabi girl has grabbed his shirt.
I told him how much I loved his band and his music. How much I really, really loved Interpol.
He asked me my name and I answered. Then he shook my hand and went on his way. Despite being broke as a joke and not having a great time in New York in those days, that chance moment made my summer.

I've encountered celebrities since then, but that interaction is the most memorable and meaningful for me.

Of course, the other band members were so interesting too. Sam's drumming, is like no other on those albums. Daniel Kessler with the crazy feet during the live shows. The guys would frequently smoke cigarettes as they performed their killer songs, which seems very impossible, including Paul, the singer! But they pulled it off.

And then of course, Carlos D. Oh…Carlos D. What a man, what a look, what talent. What stage presence. He just looked awesome in those days, purely amazing. His bass-playing is I think what made me first fall in love with bass so much, and I still think its the instrument with the sexiest sound, and the one I've always wanted to learn. Carlos has a lot to do with that. His work on those albums is just excellently phenomenal. Yes, he deserves all these words.

sexy Carlos D back in the day, doing his thing

And to think, he didn't even wanna become a musician. As revealed in this rare and revealing interview below which I somehow stumbled upon a few weeks ago.

Interpol's third album had bad reviews. I think I have it somewhere, or I might not. I gave it a listen and was done. That happens with me a lot, when it comes to music. I can really dig a band's first album or two, but then when the third album comes and the bad reviews hit, I stop paying attention, and I only listen to their earlier work that I love. Even if later albums are said to be good, I just can't be bothered to check it out. Interpol. the Strokes, MIA, the Stills, I'm sure there's several others, that I've done this to.

Though, I've heard Interpol's last album really deserves to be checked out, so I will.

Anyway, back to Carlos. Here are some really interesting passages. Carlos ditched the band 6 years ago and hasn't looked back since. He's now an actor. He's a completely different person! So much love and respect to Carlos :-) I love you man and your work! Please don't hate me coz I'm a fan from your Interpol days.

"At some point in time, I think the moment for me, and it’s funny to think that this is the occasion for it, but when Coldplay— our old manager was Coldplay’s manager— when they played Saturday Night Live, he offered us tickets. And when I felt so much titillation and excitement over all the skits— Jon Hamm was the host— and looking at how they were being performed. And then when Coldplay came on, I felt bored, quite frankly. I knew then that there was something going on with me, some kind of identity shift, really. It really troubled me."
- I think its funny what he says here about Coldplay. I also stopped liking Coldplay around this time, after I went to one of their concerts I think in 2005. I just couldn't handle all the sappiness. I've been done with Coldplay since then.

"You had this very distinct style of dressing back when you were in Interpol, and you look very different now. Everything has shifted. I don’t think I would have even recognized you had I not known. Have you had an identity shift like this before?
Yes. That’s another thing. I’ve been a chameleon from day one. As soon as I got skillful at that sort of image making, I started to feel that image as a constricting suit of armor and I’d have to change it immediately."
- Funny, I'm going through a change as well I think, in my look. Not as major as his, but its a shift.

"Sure, I love telling myself that I should have continued along with my scholarly pursuits and that was the plan, then it got derailed by Interpol. This is a very attractive story to me. But that’s not really the story. And most people don’t really give a shit about me, they care more about the music that has changed their lives, or the music that has affected them to some extent. That’s the story that they’re emotionally tied to. So my own kind of, “You need to know I was on my way to being a scholar,” it’s peripheral. And I try to remind myself of that when I get too caught up in what I want to do and what I want to get done."
- Sorry Carlos! I'm probably one of those people.

Here's the full read:
http://bedfordandbowery.com/2015/08/five-years-after-interpol-carlos-d-tells-us-where-hes-been-hiding/

Here's his website:
http://www.carlosdengler.com/

And turns out he just wrote about Bowie for Pitchfork:
http://pitchfork.com/thepitch/999-carlos-dengler-on-how-david-bowie-gave-him-the-freedom-to-quit-interpol-and-find-himself/

Carlos Dengler, now

Row your boat

The new David Bowie release got me thinking about streaming this past week.  I was discussing the album, and how certain reviewers make me feel  like just going out and buying albums before I've even heard a single track.  The same thing was happening with the Bowie album:  All the chatter about it, and the positive press, got me considering just going and getting it and listening to it afterwards.  Something good may have come of that decision as I may have given it more attention if I'd went through with a proper purchase -- I was looking forward to going to the record shop, picking it up, listening in the car, and so on.  But instead I decided to listen to whatever tracks were up on youtube and ended up finding the whole album there.  So then I just streamed it, and it was OK, but, for now at least, I lost the urge to buy it.  I think that streaming cheapens music too much in that regard -- with streaming I literally invest nothing in the music, so I can just take it or leave it, not really pay it a whole lot of attention.  I think some very good work probably gets short-changed that way.

As for the Bowie, Petridis says it's proper jazz, not just a band with some horns.  He also thinks the music is quite avante garde.  This is another possible problem with reviews, they can really send your expectations in a certain direction.  Thankfully, in this case I think Petridis overstates the case a bit -- to me this sounds exactly like a good but normal band trying a little too hard to be "different" -- or maybe the spectrum of pop music is so wide now that something like this album ends up sounding quite normal, in a good way.


I may have issues with streaming, but I'd say modern changes to the way I consume music have overall made things better.  I heard this BC Camplight track on 6 music via my phone, and then found it on Soundcloud  for this blog.  Because of that I heard the rather nice track by Amason, who I'd never heard of otherwise.



Speaking of 6 music, the Chemical Brothers were on that over Christmas for a three hour show.  It was good, just a nice show with chatting and music and mixes.  The Chemical Brothers came across as very current, which is kind of remarkable for a 20 year old dance music act.  But even though they talked about things from the past, to me they didn't seem like one of those  nostalgia acts that are around.  They seemed like a relevant act who happen to have been around for a long time.  It was good, made me happy for them.  The show's worth checking out for some of the mixes and remixes, especially the Tom Rowlands remix of Doves' Kingdom of Rust.  Six years in the making apparently!   That mix is the last half hour of the show, or you can hear it by itself here.   The old tracks have held up very well -- I'd love to see these guys live again.  Fun fact: I ended up buying Q tip's solo album after listening to the show; you'll have to listen to the show to find out why though.



Lastly, earlier today my wife and I were discussing the lack of diversity amongst Islamic scholars, the best known of whom are basically all men.  We agreed that there must be well qualified women out there who just aren't being given the opportunities that men are, which is very problematic, for multiple reasons.  I think when someone like my wife identities a problem like this, they have to act.  Which, of course, brings to mind the Streets: