"Candles in the Sun" is the sort pseudo-political love for all people track that just shouldn't work. It's easy to hear Miguel's warm intonation of "they say we're all created equal, but that ain't how we treat each other," as cloying of the highest kind. Then something brilliant happens around the point in the video, which was released today, that a blank contemplative stare consumes Miguel's face. The slow drum and electronic effects that have been languishing up until this point, ring out like a gun shot in the night and embolden the singer as he tells the tale of "white collar war crime, money gettin' spent."By starting the chorus with the sly-nod to the Notorious B.I.G. "kick in the door, carry the .44," Miguel is acknowledging what is soon to come in the chorus, "heroes often get shot." We so rarely pay attention to the world that is around us, that it take something as a loud and vicious as a gunshot to wake us up out of our slumber. The world Miguel sings of is not a far-cry from the world of Chaplin's Great Dictator, we "think too much and feel too little." Peace becomes a thing of the past and any notion of real love is lost to the history books. "Candles in the Sun" is Miguel's attempt to find that peace and love, to find any sense of God in this wicked world we walk through. "May we all live long, may we all be brave," he sings near the song's conclusion. We have lost the way, but there's always a bright flame in the night to call us back when we stray from the path. If there is indeed a God, he/she/they would want nothing more than for us to know "we're all created equal."
"Domo 23," the first single from Tyler's forthcoming Golf is almost too good to be true. The song plays out like a dejure distillation of the entire Odd Future catalog to date. A Spartan horn-section slowly teases the intro, as Tyler embraces his inner Biz Markie and incoherently warbles. The stomach-churning synths of Goblin are back in full-force, along with churlish keyboards ripped from page 1 of Bastard. After satirizing "bottle popping" and "model f***ng" in the first verse, the monolithic chorus drops, leveling everything around it with the cry of "f**k that, GolfWang." With such pugnaciousness its impossible for Tyler not to take a few shots, so in verse 2 he trolls the 2011 Pitchfork Music Festival anti-domestic violence protestors that came out in droves to protest Tyler and the whole O.F. crew. "So a couple f*** threw a little hiss-fit," he raps with tongue-in-cheek before a cockroach crawls out and he retorts, "so I grabbed Lucas and filmed us kissing." In 2011, when the protest went down, Tyler hand-delivered cupcakes to the group and shouted them out during the Odd Future show. The sweetness of that moment is buried under the controlled chaos of "Domo 23," where every inch of the track is bursting at the seams. It's rare that a chorus consisting primarily of "f*** that" could provide respite, but on a track this unstable, clinging to the familiar is your only hope for survival. That is, until the beat drops.
"Domo 23"
Wolf is slated to drop April 2 via Odd Future Records, and Tyler will start touring in support of it March 13 with a show in Columbia, OH.
It's almost too perfect that James Blake affectedly croons "we're alone now," on "Retrograde," the first single from his forthcoming sophomore effort Overgrown. In its most hushed moments, the small ember of Blake's music can make any place seem desolate. The wordless vocals that waft in come like a call from another room and soon Blake is singing of love and loss, and world's where "you're on your own." In true R&B fashion, Blake crafts the following chorus into a loverman ode, asking the apple of his eye to "show me why you're strong, ignore everybody else, we're alone now." The first time Blake sings the line his pitch-shifting voice plummets into a wallow. Not long after valley comes Blake's ascent to the mountain, when the synths, keyboards, and clattering drum machines reach a musical zeitgeist as Blake is hit by the "starkness of the dawn." The bravado of "nostalgic" tracks like "CMYK" soon dissipates and all that's left is a machine-like whisper. When you're alone for so long, it's hard to keep company around.
"Retrograde"
Overgrown is out April 8 on the Republic record label.
I’ve
essentially lived in the “mbv”-less realm for my entire life. I don’t what it’s
like to rhapsodize about a Valentine record when such praises are still
trenchant. I’ve come to know Loveless,
but was informed of its great mythos long before I ever pressed play on “OnlyShallow” and let a sea of feedback, reverb, and tremolo wash over me. I’ve felt
the alternating world-weariness and triumph of tracks like “To Here Knows When,”
but the emotions were hardly mine own. At times I was warping them like the
red-veneer of Loveless’ album art to
fit preconceived notions of what one should feel when listening to My Bloody
Valentine. In effect, I was more concerned with how I should feel about the
band, then what I actually felt when listening to them. So when the word
finally came that Kevin Shields and company would be breaking their 22 years of
silence with an out of nowhere release this past Saturday, I felt liberated. I
was ready to come to terms with MBV on my own terms, in my own way.
To
me the most remarkable thing about m b v,
is not that it exists but that exists circa 2013. When My Bloody Valentine was in
its first run, the shoegaze genre was nascent, it was the Indie R&B or
freak-folk of the early 90s; something for the music hype machine to devour and
demand more of. So in MBV’s two-decade plus absence, a slew of bands stepped
into the void and staked their claim on what MBV had left on the table. When
you hear Beach House’s Victoria LeGrand softly cooing over a swell of sound, the
spirit of MBV vocalist Bilinda Butcher is there with her, leading her through
the ether. Anytime Deerhunter guitarists Lockett Pundt and Bradford Cox rip
away a soft-melody and dovetail into stereo-shattering solo, Kevin Shields silent
cries are just within earshot. MBV attempting to begin again in a landscape it
invented is virtually unprecedented, but restless innovators like Kevin Shields
have rarely been concerned with precedence.
From
the moment the first notes of “she found now” hit, all sense of time seems to
stop. The entire discography of My Bloody Valentine is enjoined and the last
two decades seem to disappear. Shield’s almost androgynous cooing of “you come
back and see I welcome,” is appropriate when considering the constantly shuffled
time-tables for this record’s release. As
melancholic as the steady storm of the guitar is, it’s a welcoming sadness, one
that lets us know we’re alive. The more strident “only tomorrow” is suffuse with
life. Colm O Ciosoig lock-step drumming snaps the track out of hypnosis as
Shields sings of wishing for a tomorrow where “love comes easy.” Every beat of
his heart and every swipe of his guitar is a reminder that he is still alive.
One
of the most arresting moments found of m
b v is when the decibel levels come back down to earth on “is this and yes.”
Over a circular synth, Bilinda Butcher’s whisper comes wafting up through the
floor boards. Without a lyric sheet to cling to, it’s apparent that pain
permeates throughout the track. The track is one of raw emotion, where the suffering is
not from vociferous sound, but from silence. If the past 22 years have taught MBV anything it’s
the power of minimalism.
Elsewhere
“new you’s” melodicism is a turning back of the clocks to a time before Loveless when albums like The Stone
Roses’ debut reigned supreme in the alt-landscape. It’s easy to close your eyes
and hear the jangle of the song as a band’s bid for commercial playability, but any
band that takes 22 years off probably isn’t making a bid for commercial
success.
In
his review for Pitchfork, Mark Richardson suggested the album is effectively divided
into thirds, with the squall of the first section gently fading into the hushed
tones of Act II songs like “new you” and “is this and yes.” The final act then becomes
a bloody shootout, where doors are ripped off their hinges and the five senses
begin to crumble. Shields has repeatedly spoken of his fondness for jungle and
drum n’ bass music, and its shows on tracks like “in another way.” While the
guitar sputters the same fractured chords, the drumming is unrelenting
propulsion. When listening to for the first time I found it impossible to make
sense of the song, let alone find time to breath.
All
the air is sucked out of the room by the time closer “wonder 2” storms in. It’s
appropriate the whooshing on the track recalls a helicopter because I am
instantly reminded of Apocalypse Now
when the chaos unfurls. The lush jungle of Shields’ vocals becomes is set
ablaze, as the cacophony touches down. As the last clouds of smokes waft into
the night air, MBV ascends into the sky; looking for another village to raze.
Since
I first become a hardcore music fan, I’ve been able to define my life by the
releases I come across. Nevermind was
my great awakening, The Queen is Dead
was my grounding in mortality, Kid A was
my portal into another world, My Beautiful
Dark Twisted Fantasy was my sin and In
the Aeroplane Over the Sea continues to be my salvation. With every one of
those albums I will always remember where I was the first time I heard them. Driving
through Kansas City on a cold November day, trying to keep my car from crashing
as my hands shake with every world Kanye utters. The same is true of m b v.
I’ll remember the joy at seeing the announcement posted that this did exist,
the frustration I felt when that contemptible 404 error popped up. No amount of
Ludovico therapy can erase from my mind the sight of watching snowflakes alight
on my windowpane as the discordant notes of the opener come piping through my
laptop speakers. I don’t know what it’s like to a love an MBV album when the
relationship is still new, but I do now.
