Working on my own songs recently has led me to revisit bands whose sound has influenced what I like about Pop music. Prime among those would be the British band, Lush.
They didn't really take off in the States until their third album, Lovelife (1996), by which time they had embraced a trendier Britpop sound, and I had started to lose interest. They effectively broke up soon after that with the tragic suicide of their drummer, Chris Acland, although it took a year and a half of mourning before they could even announce that they had quit as a group.
Their first album, Spooky (1992), reached #7 on the British charts, and includes one of my favorite tracks of theirs, appropriately titled, "Superblast." It epitomizes their appeal for me: icy cool vocals, and radiant layers of distorted guitars strummed in shimmering harmony:
Faye Wong is a legendary C-pop diva, songwriter, actress, and model. Beloved by fans who call themselves "Fayenatics," she has sold almost 10 million albums, and is wildly popular across China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Her name is often preceded by the designation, tiānhòu天后, meaning Heavenly Queen. She has been attuned to and influenced by Western music, and names Cocteau Twins as one of her all time favorite bands.
With Fu Zao, Faye was ready to take artistic risks, resulting in one of her more experimental albums. It remains Faye's personal favorite, however her audience in Hong Kong and Taiwan were not so receptive of its style. The Fayenatics loved it and made it a cult hit. On Fu Zao, Faye actually collaborated with Cocteau Twins, as they wrote two of its tracks for her just prior to the breakup of the band. Subsequently, Robin and Simon of the C. Twins continued to write for Faye.
It is evident that Faye pays homage to Cocteau Twins throughout this CD. We can hear the arpeggiated guitar parts through delay lines, the flat planes of sustained harmony, the simple drum loops, and the abrupt endings associated with the revered Scottish trio. Faye even mimics the vocal mannerisms of Elizabeth Frasier, not an easy task to accomplish. Although the C. Twins' overall approach to sound is iconic, and highly influential, I can't think of anyone else who's ever dared to attempt to emulate Frasier's beautiful, but eccentric, style of warbling. The two songs actually written by Cocteau Twins, track 4, "Fracture," and 8, "Repressing Happiness," fit right in with Wong's originals. In fact, if forced to guess, you might fail to surmise exactly who wrote what, although "Fracture" does kind of stand out as having greater depth compared to the other tracks. Myself, I would bet "Repressing Happiness" was a Faye tune, and "Decadence" would be by the Twins - I would be so wrong.
Jon Hassell has been doing pretty much the same thing for over 30 years, yet he always sounds up to date. I wouldn't say that his most recent CD, Last Night The Moon Came Dropping Its Clothes In The Street, is necessarily "stripped down," since that would imply something is missing. But it's almost as if Hassell said to his band, "Let's make a groove, now take away the 97% of stuff that isn't necessary." It's like listening to ice melt. It's cool, it's light, but also deep and dark. Hassell plays and composes like a natural phenomenon. Imagine you're in a forest, listening to the play of wind, birds, creaking trees, distant noises. It may coalesce into something like a concert or composition, but it's your brain making sense out of gentle chaos. Hassell is elemental that way. Ideas are dropped and evaporate in a perpetual hazy present. The way time is kept in these tunes is remarkably subtle. Bassist Peter Freeman mostly keeps a hesitant pulse, while the drummers, Helge Norbakken and Pete Lockett, have more of an ornamental and filigreed relationship to time.
Part of Hassell's genius is with whom he chooses to play, and how, I suspect, he coaches his collaborators to proceed. I'm thinking of his album, "City," which made monumental and occasionally aggressive statements. Twenty years after that release, he plays with different personnel but some of the same sonorities appear to be revived, now evolved into the most ethereal of forms. His current band, Maarifa Street, are marvelously sympathetic to Hassell's vision of sound.
A good friend and jazz aficionado told me connoisseurs value a player's tone almost above the notes they play. Hassell's tone is certainly part of his music's appeal. Ghostly, and disembodied, it's like a wordless, vibrato-less, mezzo-soprano, or an alto flute. His style of playing epitomizes the disappearance of the artist, at the same time affirming the intelligence he imparts with the power of a few well-chosen notes over a flurry of tones. North African violinist, Kheir Eddine M'Kacich, achieves a gentle vocal style as well, and beautifully matches Hassell's approach.
Hassell has always been inspired by the real world, yet his sound has always been other-worldly. Now he seems to be playing from some plane beyond reach. If it sounds silly to use descriptions like that, and much too new-agey, Hassell's music forces you to confront the limitations of language. One is tempted to be effusive, while the music remains ineffable.
"Fourth World" is a term Hassell has used for decades to describe his "continual exploration of ways in which exotic musics from the tribal cultures of the Southern hemisphere might be fused with the technological possibilities of the Western World" (from the Jon Hassell website). That "continual exploration" has led on this disc to an incredibly refined and empyrean realm.
Annie's followup to her brilliant debut, Anniemal (2005), finally arrived last November after years of tantalizing frustration. My daughter has almost doubled in age since Anniemal came out, which she loved.
So, how does it compare?There's nothing quite as sticky as "Chewing Gum," on Don't Stop. For that, you'd have to get the single, "I Know You're Girlfriend Hates Me," which was released earlier in 2009. The new album is less bedroom electronica, with fewer digital squiggles, blups and buzzes. The new songs are still pop, but with more of a filled-out rock band arrangement. Guitars are a lot more prominent, and the drums and percussion sound more "live," (whatever that means in 2010).
The songs on Anniemal frequently revealed a touching sensitivity, with occasional flashes of a confident and analytic sarcasm. The ratio is reversed on Don't Stop, with most of the songs displaying self-assuredness, humorous cattiness, challenges, and kiss-offs. It's pretty amusing, and fun. On the whole, it's spunky and perky pop with a rockier edge, although Annie is working with a variety of producers here, so some of the tunes have a completely synthetic glow:
Songs Remind Me Of You Some high points: the tribal drum corps and chanting in the opening "Hey Annie," which starts out very Missy, and ends up quite cosmic, and the song built around the ultimate insult for a musician: "I Don't Like Your Band."
Connoisseurs of electronic music might scoff at her canned beats and off kilter MIDI programming, but George definitely has it - I just don't know what "it" is.
There are four CDs in my car right now, Immolate Youself by Telefon Tel Aviv, Pop Ambient 2007, and 2008, and Salon des Refusés by George Pringle. Today I was listening to Row by Thomas Brinkmann on my iPod, but the CD I can't stop playing again and again from the beginning is the one by Ms. Pringle.
It's hard to pinpoint exactly what it is that makes George Pringle so different, so appealing. Her clap-trap drum tracks won't give Xenomania any sleepless nights. She can sing, but hardly ever does, preferring to deliver her lyrics/stories as monologues with F. Scott Fitzgerald's powers of social critique. Her mind is like a closet stacked with overflowing shoe boxes full of trivia and details, you pull one out and the rest tumble down. But it's more poetry than stream of consciousness I hear. It must be the voice: an upscale, cynical, yet vulnerable instrument she uses to depict her tales of observation and loneliness.
The last year has revealed a raft of electropoplettes, and some are quite good, but I don't recall any of them being described with the words, "outsiderness" and "self-parody," as the Independent did when discussing George.
She first got attention on Myspace, which, if you do music, and are actually making an effort to get noticed there, is (as some of you must have found out by now) virtually impossible (although it's happened a couple of notorious times). George has pretty much gone it alone, using the built-in mic on her Mac to record tracks all by her lonesome on GarageBand, releasing her own record and getting gigs without a booking agent. She's been subsequently profiled in such high-profile journals such as The Independent, The Guardian, and The Times (London). This is the type of exposure you don't get just because you're a girl doing music on your own. You have to stand out from the crowd, and she does. I was thinking of contacting La Pringle for an interview, but then I found this, and realized I couldn't do it any better myself. It even includes embedded videos, so I won't bother posting any here - just give it a click, please.
I can't think of another band that lost it's frontman and focal point, yet regrouped and emerged as an even greater popular and critical success. Genesis lost Peter Gabriel and enjoyed an upsurge in appeal, but critical esteem - well, no.
Joy Division, with it's epileptic and depressed Ian Curtis, seemed to find a shadowy corner somewhere at the end of the punk era, hinting at a haunted netherworld that was both raw and spooky. They foreshadowed Goth bands like Bauhaus, and contemporary post-punk revivalists such as Interpol.
After Curtis's suicide, the band stayed together and brought in Stephen Morris's girlfriend Gillian to play keyboards. Now renamed New Order, the band turned out sleek, terse music that flirted with the dance club but retained its punky muscle. As you can see in this video, the members exude what I would call an attitude of "ordinary genius." In other words, they don't look at all like gods of rock and roll, but they possessed an aesthetic sensibility that set them above just about anything else going on in popular music at the time. Things I love about this video: Gillian turning the knob of a synth module, Stephen looking sheepish, and the Joy Division poster on the wall. The serenity displayed on their faces opposes the cliched depiction of the Romantic "struggle" of the artiste. This is about as far as you can get from "Rock" and still remain "Rock." Their almost militant stance against the Rock stereotype actually seems "punk" to me. It's "cool," in the sense of detachment, but it still rocks like a sledgehammer. It's an enigma.
While the Beatles are getting a great deal of attention for the reissue of their remastered recordings, Saint Etienne is also in the process of re-releasing their entire recorded output with additional discs of supplementary material, starting with their first CD, Fox Base Alpha.
One can only imagine artists such as Springsteen or Dylan receiving such special treatment in the States. Saint Etienne's fans are often completists, so the band will most likely have no problem selling scads of these repackaged gems. Despite the seeming homogeneity of pop music worldwide, Saint Etienne is recognized in the UK as a marvelous and sublime entity, while being only a rare delicacy around these parts. But true fans anywhere are inspired to an almost religious level of unconditional devotion. Lucky folks in the UK are being treated to concerts during which they will perform the entire Fox Base Alpha record.
While the trio produces their own dance-pop masterpieces, they have occasionally covered other tunes, most notoriously, Neil Young's "Only Love Can Break Your Heart." Here's a live performance on Top Of The Pops of a hit single originally recorded in the 70's by Jigsaw. Anything Saint Etienne touches they make their own, so it ends up sounding like something they would have written anyway.
Who Do You Think You Are:
One of the (many) things I appreciate about Saint Etienne is how they maintain a profound level of chic while being kind of surreal and whimsical. And they've never been too cool to be a little silly. The royal getup that Pete is wearing during this performance is the same costume he wore in the official video (unavailable on YouTube), in which he portrays a king with Elvis glasses. A very recent and fascinating interview with Bob Stanley is here, if you're interested in his thoughts on the history of pop music.
