A Record Every Single Day

054: Kill for Love by Chromatics

On every Johnny Jewel record, there is at least one moment where he makes a really  odd artistic decision. Usually, it involves an incredibly stilted spoken word section. Examples (queued up to the moment in question):

“Under Your Spell” by Desire: http://youtu.be/v3LUBKRY4rQ?t=1m35s

“The Telephone Call” by Chromatics: http://youtu.be/NUZyatCrw-s?t=56s

The break in “Under Your Spell” is especially aggravating, because it comes right in the middle of what is otherwise one of my favorite Johnny Jewel songs. These moments were a little off-putting to me at first, but the more I listen to Johnny Jewel’s projects—he’s the brains behind Glass Candy, Desire, Chromatics, and Symmetry—the more I just regard it as a funny quirk of his. 

Kill for Love does has a section where you hear someone listen to a voicemail from his girlfriend, and then delete it. My eyes might have rolled a little, but it’s actually almost tasteful, believe it or not. No, the really wacky decision on Kill for Love is tacking “No Escape”—a meandering, 15 minute long ambient/drone piece—onto the end of the album. Including this song, Kill for Love is 90 minutes long. And the second half of the record already has a lot of sparse, slow, instrumental tracks. In short, every Johnny Jewel record has at least one moment where I slap my forehead and exclaim, “What the fuck were you thinking?”

Now, even outside of each album’s WTF moment, most of Jewel’s past records were a little uneven; a few amazing tracks, a few decent ones, and a bit of filler. But this is the album that I always knew Jewel had in him. Yeah, it didn’t have to be as long as it is (with or without “No Escape”), but this album has a very strong arc: it leads off with most of the propulsive, poppy night disco bangers, segues into a more spacious middle section, and then picks up just enough as it gets closer to the end. Completely different genre, but the arc of Kill for Love kind of mirrors that of The Moon and Antarctica, to give you an idea. Kill for Love also has an insane number of great songs: the title track, “Lady,” “A Matter of Time,” “The Page,” “Into the Black,” and many more. Songs from this album will be showing up on my mixes for a long, long time. Partly because no one else makes music that’s quite as sexy and as stylish as this. I mean, if you’re able to get someone back to your place, this album will almost certainly help you seal the deal. If it doesn’t, well, you shouldn’t get freaky with that girl or guy anyway, because they obviously suck. Someone with your impeccable taste deserves better. 

[Kill for Love stream on Soundcloud]

053: Marnie Stern by Marnie Stern

It’s hard for me to be moved by “rock” records. I think there are two main reasons for this. First, after I became interested in some of the crazier varieties of metal, more traditional rock ‘n roll’s “edge” started to feel pretty dull to me. A lot of the appeal of both rock and metal is its danger, its violence, its rebellion, its grime, and its energy. After you’ve listened to a band like Converge or Lurker of Challice, a lot of “rock” records sound like child’s play, and begin to lose their sex appeal. Second, most rock bands these days smack of complacency. Two recent examples are Open Your Heart by the Men and Zoo by Ceremony. I wouldn’t say I hated either of those albums, but neither of them did anything that I haven’t heard before. They both sounded like yet another rock band full of white dudes (I can already hear what they look like, for christ’s sake) using the same chord progressions and the same backbeat that I’ve heard a million times over. It’s not bad so much as it’s just uninteresting. 

So, I want you to appreciate my full meaning when I say that Marnie Stern is a rock record and that I fucking love it. There’s just enough of a math rock influence for it to sound different and interesting, but not so much that it descends into wonkery. And few people with as much technical skill as Stern (she can shred) are also really great songwriters. I mean, Steve Vai is incredibly skilled at guitar, but he can’t write a song to save his life. Stern’s songs, on the other hand, are full of vigor, energy, life, and a surprising amount of nuance, given their volume. Also, Zach Hill’s asymmetric and furious drum parts are the perfect complement to Stern’s tap-heavy guitar style (which kind of makes me a think of a sped-up, musical morse code). If that all sounds a little mathy, it is, but the technical complexity really doesn’t take away from the songs at all, which is a hard thing to pull off. Marnie Stern sounds more like punk than prog, really. It’s rare that I hear a truly brave rock album, but this is definitely one of them.

[Spotify]

052: Strange Mercy by St. Vincent

Annie Clark just keeps getting better and better. Marry Me had some great moments, but was more promise than delivery. Actor was a big step up: on it, Clark staked out a unique blend of noise-rock, old vocal music, prog, pop, and god knows what else. 

That same description holds true for Strange Mercy, but this record represents a similar jump in quality. She’s not only refined the sound that she first invented on Actor (which I liked quite a bit, mind you), but she’s also thinking bigger. The songs on Strange Mercy are more catchy, but they’re also more experimental, and more out-there, in the best possible way. Clark manages to effectively combine elements that just shouldn’t work together. Sometimes I feel like I’m listening to Brian Eno, sometimes I feel like I’m listening to Edith Piaf, and sometimes I feel like I’m listening to Television. 

I didn’t spin Strange Mercy when it first came out (shame on me), but if I had, it’d be in my top three of 2011. Easy. Of course, I’m so late to the Strange Mercy party that this probably isn’t really news to anyone. So I guess the takeaway is “GO LISTEN TO THIS AGAIN!”

Also, is it just me, or does Annie Clark totally look like Miranda July?

Lastly, “Music Sounds Better With You” by Stardust comes right after Strange Mercy in my iTunes. This is a great day.

[Strange Mercy on Spotify]

051: My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy by Kanye West

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Kanye West

I went to a bar by myself tonight. Not for the first time, or anything, but for the first time in a while. At one point, “Runaway” played over the speakers, and completely arrested me. I stopped caring about anything that was going on in the vicinity. This album has many great songs, but “Runaway” is the real centerpiece. It’s nine minutes long, but it doesn’t waste a single fucking second. 

People like making fun of Kanye for being crazy. He is, to an extent. I mean, one of the first lines of this song is “I sent this bitch a picture of my dick.” Still, I feel like all the talk of how weird Kanye is takes away from an honest assessment of how great of a musician he is, which is best exemplified by how he can open a song with the aforementioned line, but still completely win you over by the end of it. It’s because on “Runaway” he maintains his typical superficial bravado and oddity, but still admits the fact that inside he’s really kind of unhappy, despite all the wealth and fame he’s been able to acquire. It’s weird: he’s Kanye West, but he doesn’t really have that high of an opinion of himself, and it really comes through in this song. 

“Runaway” captures a very specific emotion perfectly: “I’m unhappy, and it’s my own goddamn fault.” I mean, Kanye is saying that people should keep away from him, because it’ll only turn out poorly; how many rap artists write songs about things like that? 

As is probably obvious, some of that hit close to home tonight. The fact that this record achieves such poignancy is a testament to how good it is, especially in light of the fact that more than half of the album is completely and utterly ridiculous.

050: Kindred by Burial

Kindred [Grooveshark]

Burial

The short of it: Burial has indeed changed gears, and it’s turned out very well. He hasn’t strayed quite as far from his characteristic sound as many of things written about Kindred had led me to believe—this isn’t that different than Street Halo—but there’s enough of a spin on his sound here that Kindred very gracefully avoids any real stagnation. 

Kindred is being billed as an EP, but it’s over 30 minutes long. Each of its 3 tracks come in at around 10 minutes. That’s the first big change (for him): these are the three longest songs of Burial’s career to date. The other big left turn (again, for him) is the second track, “Loner,” which has the most straightforward beat that he’s ever employed: this is as close to an honest-to-god four-to-the-floor as Burial has ever come. 

That all being said, this record still retains a lot of what makes Burial so unique: the grimy atmosphere, the incredibly effective use of vocal samples, the crackle and snap of vinyl. Whenever I write about a new Burial release, I’m almost tempted to just say, “It’s Burial, of course it’s brilliant.”

If you’ve never heard anything by him, listen to Untrue [Spotify] immediately. It’s one of the best electronic album of the last ten years. Everything he’s put out after has been of similar quality. Most of the great electronic albums of the last few years have at least a little bit of his influence; I mean, if you create electronic music, and you haven’t listened extensively to Burial, then I feel like you just haven’t done your homework. 

049: Themes for an Imaginary Film by Symmetry

Themes for an Imaginary Film [SoundCloud] [iTunes] 

Symmetry

Johnny Jewel is the mastermind behind Glass Candy, Chromatics, and Desire. The biggest difference between those three bands—all of which are on Jewel’s label, Italians Do It Better—is that each one has a different singer. But that isn’t such a noticeable difference: the average listener might be hard pressed to tell any of them apart. Point is, those three groups are all branches of the same italo disco-influenced tree, and Symmetry is its latest arboreal outgrowth. 

Themes for an Imaginary Film is exactly what it promises. As I understand it, Jewel was actually approached to do the music for Drive, but it didn’t end up working out, so he repurposed some of what he had already written and expanded on it to create this album. Some of the songs have the driving night disco sound that Jewel is known for (see “City of Dreams”), but Themes is mostly ambient, and far more experimental than anything else of Jewel’s that I’ve ever heard (a lot of these songs would be at home on a Boards of Canada record, which isn’t something I thought I would ever write about a Johnny Jewel release).

As a big fan of Johnny Jewel’s various bands, it’s really cool to hear a different side of him, though this album definitely retains a lot of the keystones of his sound: retro, sexy, effortless, nocturnal. Note that Themes for an Imaginary Film is a double album: at two hours long, it isn’t really meant for sitting down and actively listening to it for the duration. Instead, put it on while you paint, cook, read, or just lie down (with or without a significant other). And in any event, if you’ve never heard anything by Johnny Jewel, I might recommend starting out by listening to Chromatics’ cover of “Running Up That Hill” or “Don’t Call” by Desire, in addition to the albums those tracks are found on. If you find that you dig his aesthetic, then definitely pick up Themes. 

One of this record’s best moments is at the very end. Closer “Streets of Fire,” the only song on Themes with any vocals, features an heartbreaking, nearly a capella performance from Chromatics’ Ruth Radelet. Check it out below this post. 

048: Immolate Yourself by Telefon Tel Aviv

Immolate Yourself [Spotify]

Telefon Tel Aviv

Immolate Yourself is one of my favorite electronic records. One of the most interesting things about it is that it sort of sneaks a number of different genres by the listener: “Helen of Troy” is 80’s throwback synthpop, “I Made a Tree on the Wold” and “Your Every Idol” make up a nearly ten minute ambient section on the B side (the latter song actually incorporating phasing into a pop song…!), and “Stay Away From Being Maybe” is almost funky. Yet none of it really feels out of place.

You don’t really notice the breadth of Immolate Yourself’s stylistic turns when you’re listening to it because the larger work is united by a very particular aesthetic of both melody and production. Vocals, when they appear, are hushed, almost a whisper. This is a very mournful record, which seems all the more relevant in retrospect, since one of its creators would pass away not long after its release. 

This is nighttime music, perfect for walking around a city lit by streetlight and store front.

047: The Glow Pt. 2 by The Microphones

The Glow Pt. 2 [Spotify]

The Microphones

So, I had a whole entry planned out for The Glow Pt. 2 where I would write about all the various things that make it one of my favorite albums of all time. I even came up with an accurate and possibly sacrilegious description: “Jeff Mangum meets Godspeed You! Black Emperor.” I was thinking about how it is one of most masterfully produced albums I’ve ever heard, and a real vindication for both studio rats and audiophiles. This album’s production is practically an extra instrument, and Phil Elvrum plays it as well as Jimi played guitar. Albums like The Glow Pt. 2 make a great argument for investing in a nice pair of headphones. 

Then, while getting ready to dive in, I realized that my copy of the album (if that’s what you could call the MP3s I’ve had since about 2004) didn’t include the last track. I’ve listened to and loved this album for years, thinking “Samurai Sword” was the closer. In disbelief, I double checked both Spotify and Wikipedia, thinking that “My Warm Blood” might just be a bonus track. 

It isn’t. Now, there have been a few instances where I thought a “bonus track” was part of an album proper and that the artist just made the unwise decision to include it. Bonus tracks rarely fit the pace or the narrative arc of a record, and as a rule, they’re pretty mediocre. This is why, in general, I despise bonus tracks (and usually just delete them from my iTunes). It’s like adding a shitty scene onto the end of Apocalypse Now. And it isn’t always immediately apparent to the listener that these “bonus tracks” are a sort of optional, supplemental extra, and not part of the main body of the work. 

In any event, I’m about to listen to “My Warm Blood” for the first time. I fully expect that it will be as good as the rest of the album. Maybe I should be excited that this record has a song that I’ve been unaware of for so long, because I now have the opportunity to listen to a “new” song from one of my favorite records. But I mostly feel strange. I’ve been talking and thinking about this album for years, and suddenly I’ve discovered that I’ve never even heard it in its entirety. 

046: You Fail Me by Converge

You Fail Me [Spotify]

Converge

You Fail Me was the first Converge album I ever heard. I had only been into aggressive music for a year or two, listening primarily to stuff like Poison the Well and early Hopesfall. When I first heard Converge, I was really taken aback, in the same way as when I heard Loveless for first time. When you’re confronted with something so new and different, it’s difficult to even know whether you like it. I had simply never heard anything quite like it before, and I still haven’t. Which is a lot of the reason why Converge has been my favorite band for about the last six years.

I could probably go on for hours about which Converge album is the “best”, and the bottom line would almost certainly be “I’m not sure.” So I won’t really get into that, other than to say that You Fail Me might not be Converge’s most consistent album overall—the first half is stronger than the second half, in my opinion—but it arguably has their best songs. 

The opening salvo of “First Light”, “Last Light”, “Black Cloud,” and “Drop Out” is just staggering. “Last Light” in particular is like no song I’ve ever heard. Somehow it is both inspiring and terrifying. Jacob Bannon sounds like he is hanging on for dear life to the music like it’s some kind of runaway train, as he sends mantras up to the heavens, begging and praying for some semblance of meaning in a world gone mad. The music matches these sentiments perfectly, too. In brief, “Last Light” is one of my favorite songs of all time. By any artist. 

You Fail Me, like all of Converge’s albums from Jane Doe on, is anything but your typical metal record. They’re one of the most innovative and interesting artists of our time. I honestly think that it’s worth getting into metal just so you can understand and appreciate them.