November 2024 - Sex, Sleaze, Yacht Rock, and Rage
Albums
Leila Moss - Transparent Eyeball
What is it that makes music sexy? Well, there’s no accounting for taste, and of course it changes over time. The “porn bass” of 70’s funk is mostly a punchline these days, 60’s jam bands are far too noodling for most modern amorousness, I don’t even know what people were fucking to in the 50’s (The Everly Brothers? Fats Domino?), and one of my favorite things to imagine is ancient Greek orgies set to some dude in the corner plucking pentatonic scales on a lyre. In my experience, though (and maybe this is reflective of my generation), the albums that work best are slow grooves, bass-heavy, sultry, and very very dark. I think of Mezzanine, Dummy, Careful, and now this album, Transparent Eyeball.
Another throughline is that the lyrics are generally… not very happy. I always wonder, when Portishead and Massive Attack recorded these albums, singing about jilted lovers, problematic power dynamics, and trauma, did they know how people would internalize it? Usually my conclusion is “of course they did.” A lot of us find problems appealing, either as a fantasy or (often) as a reality. The lyrics on this album are no exception. The relationships she’s describing are not happy ones. Genius doesn’t have this album listed yet, but the lines that have stuck out to me are pretty dark:
From “Dark Kitchens”
All the sorrow that you can stand
directed through the veins in your hands
Maybe it don’t matter at all
or did someone else take the fall
From “Freedom Likes Goodbyes”
Use me
Hold back
Use me
Hold on
Hold Back
As the glory fades against the wall
Freedom, it always likes goodbyes
From “Conditional Love”
You reacting to me as I watch you
You reacting to me as I watch you
You reacting to me as I watch
Looking for yourself
in other things.
Conditional love is unsafe
You’re looking for love
in other things.
I don’t have it
I don’t know
I don’t have it
under control
I’ll say a little bit about “transparent eyeball” here: it’s a phrase from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay Nature, and is generally interpreted to mean that for Emerson, truly appreciating nature goes beyond observing it. Instead, you must become one with nature, and through it, God (this is the transcendent part of Transcendentalism). If you want to read more about that, you should, but I think it’s fair to say that the kinds of relationships described here are decidedly not what Emerson had in mind, even though “You reacting to me as I watch you” and “Looking for yourself / in other things” are certainly evocative of a dark turn on his idea.
Anyway, whether you hear this album the way I do or not, it’s a fantastic, dark, immersive groove.
Master Peace - How to Make a Master Peace
Remember indie sleaze? That subgenre of mid/late 2000s indie art, music, and fashion that celebrated the hedonistic aspects of youth culture - the sex, the drugs, the dancing, the clubbing, the (facetious) anti-intellectualism? For example, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, LCD Soundsystem, The Strokes, Peaches, Crystal Castles, Kate Moss, The Cobrasnake, and Alexa Chung? No? You don’t remember that term? Well, that’s because the term wasn’t coined until 2021.
The thing is, that’s how it works. Nobody is really able to be helpfully describe their own aesthetic sensibility until later generations look back at it and say, “This is what I was inspired by at that time. This is what it meant to me. These are the things it made me think about. These are the way it made me feel. These are the artists that made me feel that way. And since not all of them did, let’s come up with a name.” No one called it “darkwave” until the 90’s. No one called it “yacht rock” until 2005. And, getting back around to the point, when the stuff that we call “indie sleaze” came out originally, we just threw under the umbrella term electroclash, which we knew was unhelpful even at the time.
Master Peace is, by his own description, an indie sleaze artist. This is party music. It’s dance-rock with a hyper-enthused vocalist going over the top. Check out these lyrics from “NARCOS”
Girls and the chicks and the drugs and the whips
And the Fords and the broads, man, I just don't know
Hated my friends 'cause they wanted me dead
And I know that I'm lost, that I just can't cope and—
If you’re reminded of The Dare’s track “Girls” from a few months ago, it’s no mistake. Master Peace has cited that song several times as a major inspiration.
Point being, Master Peace knows what he’s doing here. He’s produced a kickass party album with one banger after the next. And goddamn, it’s a lot of fun.
JIM - Love Makes Magic
You would think that if you became famous in the band Crazy P (formerly Crazy Penis), you’d be able to come up with a better name than fucking JIM. Sigh.
Well, at least the music is interesting. During lockdown, Jim Baron (aka Ron Basejam) decided that he wanted to finally get his guitar skills in order. What came out of it, strangely enough, is an album of lush harmonies, gentle fingerpicking, and introspective lyrics. Comparisons to Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young are inevitable, but there are also heavy doses of yacht rock and Balearic beat.
Marjan Farsad - White Tree
As always, it’s tough to come up with good research on artists from the non-Western world (even if they immigrate to Canada). Here’s what I can tell you:
Marjan Farsad is a writer, animator, singer, and songwriter who left Iran in 2008 to live in Montreal. For the most part, she says that her music is apolitical, focusing instead on personal interaction and emotion. She has, however, at times used her music to comment on the arrests of her friends in Tehran.
I can also tell you that her animation is gorgeous, and her music has a beautiful melancholy. It’s definitely inspired by Western folk/rock music, even though the lyrics are in a mix of English, French, and Farsi.
Unfortunately, that’s all I’ve got, but her work is beautiful.
Dead Pioneers - s/t
As Gregg Deal says, “We were punk first.”
Like a lot of punk music, Dead Pioneers doesn’t need a whole lot of unpacking. From its earliest manifestations, punk has been straightforward about its rage, and few peoples have been so fucked over, so deserving of their rage, as Indigenous Americans.
Deal approaches the topic with both fury and irony. “Bad Indian” is a wry commentary on the expectations of White observers of Indigenous people, and Dreamcatcher zeroes in on what is one of the most absurd examples of appropriation.
There are moments in which Deal calls out an affinity across marginalized groups as well. From “This Is Not a Political Song”
Religious zealots judging you with eyes and ears that are told not to judge on Sunday
Black Lives Matter
Land rights
Equal rights
Marriage rights
Voting rights
Gay rights
Trans rights
Black rights
Latino rights
Indigenous rights
Workers rights
Labor rights
Immigrant rights
No one illegals on stolen land
but for the most part, he’s zeroed in on the position of Indigenous Americans, which is a punk voice that’s rarely heard.
Tracks
AJJ - Best of All Possible Worlds
This track is taken from Disposable Everything Else, a collection of alternate takes from the primary album, Disposable Everything. For the most part, I prefer Disposable Everything Else. It’s much more acoustic, which I think gives the quirky, contemplative lyrics more room to breathe.
This particular track is a humorous musing on the idea of the multiverse. I have to ask though, what the hell is Kool Keith doing here? Not like, why is he here at all, but like, what is he doing? Did he not listen to the rest of the track before recording this generic brag verse? That said, Kimya Dawson provides a great verse that’s very much in line with both the tone of the song and with her own work (I know her best from 2006’s wonderful Remember That I Love You).
While you’re at it, I’d check out “Death Machine” and “Moon Valley High” from Disposable Everything Else.
Ladaniva - Jako
Eurovision makes an appearance in here once in awhile, sometimes because of its exaggerated drama and flamboyance, and sometimes (as is the case here), just because a lot of sounds that arise there are almost completely missing from the US musical landscape. In this case, the French-Armenian band Ladaniva bring us a track reminiscent of the wild folk dances of West Asia. I won’t pretend to know anything else about the wild folk dances of West Asia, but if they sound like this, they’d probably be fun to watch.
Él Mató a un Policía Motorizado - Slippery People
Covers are tricky business. It’s easy either a. make the audience feel distracted when they catch familiar lyrics in an unfamiliar instrumentation or b. be so faithful to the original that the audience wonders why they wouldn’t just put that on instead. Él Mató a un Policía Motorizado have done a great job getting around this problem by translating the lyrics into Spanish. The finished track doesn’t have much in common with the original Talking Heads’ version, but the groove is great and I love Santiago Motorizado’s grumbling vocals.
SOFT PLAY - Act Violently
Until 2022, SOFT PLAY was called Slaves. They changed it for obvious reasons, which sparked an outcry from a portion of their fanbase that thought they were being “too woke.” For that reason, a lot of this album, HEAVY JELLY, is a response to that response, basically saying, “Uh, what? Fuck off,” which is a thing you get to do if you’re a punk band.
Kim Deal - Crystal Breath
I wouldn’t have guessed that this is the co-vocalist of The Pixies. It certainly has some elements that evoke that era - the wonky guitar riffs, for example - but this feels to me like a departure into Flaming Lips territory. I haven’t spent a ton of time with the album yet, Nobody Loves You More, but from what I’ve heard of, it’s a departure from that too.
Peter Cat Recording Co. - People Never Change
Peter Cat Recording Co. is an indie rock band from Delhi, which is a bit of a surprise to me, given how much this sounds like a Vampire Weekend melody over a cabaret instrumentation. I have a personal fantasy of doing a gig as a crooner in a suit and tie, slinking around the stage and leaning on a piano when I point a finger at the audience with a half-ironic grin. This would be a fun song for that. First I have to learn how to sing, though.
Holy Tongue, Shackleton - The Merciful Lake
There’s a great psych-bass groove here, juxtaposed with a chorus section. I’ll admit that the rest of the album was a bit frenetic for me, but this one is lovely.
Gabe Carter - Buffalo Road
I keep thinking, oh this is a really nice rendition of a classic blues song, but Google insists that it’s a Gabe Carter original. And that’s awesome. I hope he does more stuff like this. He doesn’t seem to have a lot out there.
Oh, don’t get confused - there’s another artist out there named Gabe Lee who also did a song called Buffalo Road. My googling on this song kept getting the two confused.
Avishai Cohen - Courage
Jazz! It’s jazz.
Nathalie Joachim - Ki moun ou ye
A lot of this album was recorded at Joachim’s family farm in Haiti, and a lot of the lyrics are about heritage and immigration. The title of this song translates to “Which person are you?” It’s a reflection on all the relationships, heritages, and experiences that make up our identity.
Yannis & the Yaw - Rain Can’t Reach Us
Yannis & the Yaw is a collaboration between Yannis Philippakis (frontman of Foals) and Tony Allen. Tony Allen might not be a familiar name, but he’s legendary in the music industry. He’s considered one of the founders of the afrobeat genre, having worked with Fela Kuti for the 60’s and 70’s, and collaborated with dozens of musicians in the following years, including Jeff Mills, Brian Eno, Gorillaz, Danny Brown, and countless more.
This album, Rain Can’t Reach Us is a collaboration that Philippakis completed after Allen’s death in 2020.
Matthew Herbert, London Contemporary Orchestra, Theon Cross - The Horse Has a Voice
I’m always curious how collaborations like this decide whose name gets put on the album and who gets featured. In this case it’s “Matthew Herbert & London Contemporary Orchestra (feat. Theon Cross),” but it’s not at all obvious to me who did what. I’m guessing Cross did the flute part? But given how chaotic and uncharacteristic this is of all three artists, it’s hard to tell.
Bullion, Charlotte Adigéry - World_train
Bullion is one of those guys. He’s worked with everybody, including Carly Rae Jepsen, Ben Howard, Nilüfer Yanya, Avalon Emerson, and here Charlotte Adigéry. This is a bit uncharacteristic of either artist, given its Western flair, but I think it’s pretty fun.
Erlend Øye & La Comitiva - Upside Down
This takes me back to the era of Jens Lekman and Aberfeldy, when slightly twee vocals and acoustic guitars were paired with dark, even disturbing lyrics. In this case it’s not quite as troubling as some of those tracks, but “I’m gonna turn your life upside down” is a pretty powerful statement.
Oppidan - Mr. Sandman
In the mid-late 2000’s, I worked at The Gap, and this totally could’ve been on our playlist. It’s a fun groovy update on a classic song, which people were doing all the time back then. This time there’s an extra layer of retro, in that the “update” only takes us to the 2000’s and this track was released in 2024.