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Sam Taylor-Wood :: "(I'm In Love With A) German Film Star"
Single (2008)
Sam Taylor-Wood came from the same school of art brats as Tracey Emin and Damien Hirst, a cloyingly self-assured spate of self-aggrandizing bar-hoppers who partied with the Britpop heroes in the mid ’90s, showering the art world with their lazy, one-dimensional, pun-riddled pap. So far from that world we have only had one successful collaboration in the form of Fat Les, formed—by Damien Hirst, he of the pickled sharks, Alex James, the now portly ex-bassist from Blur, and Keith Allen, actor-slash-bon-viveur (read: drunk who is now more famous for siring the irrepresible Lily)—to record an anthem for some soccer championship or other. Admittedly, they did produce “Vindaloo,” which in its drink-fueled bullishness is probably the most precise analysis of the British psyche since Noel Coward.
Unfortunately, they tried to comb that beer-swilling camaraderie over the bald patch of British pride with a pompous take on “Jerusalem” and a novelty Christmas single. Their venture was understandable; snowblind from coke and possessing a golden touch, it seemed churlish for the blue-eyed boys of the London bar scene to not have a crack at the music industry. All of which makes Sam Taylor-Wood’s outing all the more remarkable. Firstly, its her timing. We’re well into the 21st century and her once alternative stance has now been reassessed following a series of high-profile installations, music videos, and a much-publicized battle with cancer. She is part of the art-scene glitterati now, a mainstayer in her 40s with no place in the superficialities of pop. Secondly, this is a very adult song—not in subject matter but in its restraint.
“(I’m In Love With A) German Film Star” sees Taylor-Wood collaborating with those dour masters of ennui, the Pet Shop Boys. A cover of the one and only hit by dream-pop couldabeens the Passions, it has been mostly forgotten, save for the recent reissue of their debut album Thirty Thousand Feet Over China on Cherry Red. Almost in respect of the song’s innate fragility (as part novelty hit and part glimmer of a career that could have been) the Pet Shop Boys turn in a respectful production job built upon washes and one-finger piano lines that echo the original’s statuesque simplicity and their own masterpiece “West End Girls.” In sympathy, Taylor-Wood submits a deadpan performance. Whether this is down to a lack of technical ability or in fear of rendering the song a pastiche her vocals are monochrome and distant, treating the song’s themes of fame, infatuation, and hopelessness with a dry cinematic eye.
Alicia Keys and Jack White :: "Another Way To Die"
(CP)
From Quantum of Solace OST (RCA; 2008)
It’s fitting that with this newest Bond re-vamp along must also come a gussied “new hot acts of the noughties” Bond theme; hence, world, Jack White and Alica Keys. As per the new Bond ethos, they have a raw, bluesy affair here. The most obvious White watermark is the sound of the guitar and drums. While the axe grinds with garage grit, the drums have a reverb punch that’s dirtier than Bond themes of the past. As anyone who has seen either Casino Royale or Quantum of Solace understands, Daniel Craig is also a dirtier Bond than we’ve seen in the past. The one-sheets and reviews vaunt that no longer is Bond infallible, that he doesn’t get over the deaths of friends and lovers with a witticism and a martini, who isn’t always the master of every situation. The tension and lack of overwhelming studio polish on “Another Way To Die” fit this new Bond to a T. Even the orchestra, while present, is surprisingly scaled back.
I was skeptical at first of a duet between Alicia Keys and Jack White; two singers of very different schools. Together on “Another Way To Die,” however, Keys and White are possessed of the love-hate, sex-and-violence tension that new Bond has with his female partners. Bond themes have traditionally either been epic songs sung by men, or sultry lounge pieces sung by women. It’s novel to hear gender tension in a Bond theme, but then again, it’s also novel to have as much continuity and human emotion as Quantum of Solace displays. Like the latest Bond restart, “Another Way To Die” is neither better nor worse than its past predecessors, just different, and titillating for that.
Caspa :: "Rubber Chicken"
From I Love Dubstep (Rinse; 2008)
Whoa. This tune merits some explanation. The dubstep producer’s success is definitely not measured by the girth of his or her wobbler bass. But the fact that the dizzying subsonic effect has wiggled its way into Britney Spears’ 2007 hit “Freakshow” demonstrates that it hasn’t only become the shake by which you identify dubstep, but a colour friendly to even the most trite fodder of the masses. Senior dubstep producers like Skream and Benga, who nurtured the style with reggae, dubplates, and the delightfully pseudo-analog FruityLoops TS404 patch (and who now share an affinity for wobbling with certain Estonians) must be well aware that there is something about that deep gestation that draws you in. In quarter- and eighth-note tremors synched up with sultry half-step beats, the wobbler disturbs and coaxes, eases and throttles.
“Rubber Chicken,” which appeared on vinyl in 2007’s Tempa Allstars Vol. 3 and got mixed by Youngsta into the new I Love Dubstep CD compilation, is so overwhelming that, frankly, it took me a great effort to finally listen to this all the way through, only to listen a dozen more times. And that happened in my room, where it flowed out of a paltry pair of computer speakers—imagine being in a giant, foggy black club amongst a crowd of sweating people and having this thick tone pulse through your body with megawatt speakers…
At my next engagement with Dub War here in New York City, I’ll say bring it on.
Okay :: "Goal"
From The Bay Bridged, Volume 2 (The Bay Bridged; 2008)
The Bay Bridged, those energetic supporters of the Bay Area music scene, have culled together the second compilation in their Bay Bridged Presents series. This time around they’re showcasing exclusive songs from five local artists including Birds and Batteries, Okay, Rogue Wave, Emily Jane White, and Two Sheds. The album will be available on beautiful 10” vinyl.
In honor of this new record we are streaming Okay’s contribution, “Goal,” a sprawling (almost seven minutes), vulnerable, and lovely folk song. The acoustic strum is insistent throughout and frontman Marty Anderson’s creaky vocals wander nervously through a wash of soaring female harmonies. He sings, “You’ll always be lonely if you know how to be lonely,” but the song’s overall effect is positive, leaving us thinking of hope rather than despair.
Hotel Hotel :: "The Captain Goes Down With The Ship (Sinking)"
From The Sad Sea (Silber; 2008)
What happens when two post-rock land-lubbers team up with a salt-sucking barfly and go seek out the Mary Celeste? Somewhere between Texas and Haiti things got lost in low tides and gloom, pounded by relentless dumpers and sent drifting for days beyond either compass or Sat Nav. Luckily, the men on board the stricken schooner found time to record that all important LP of fogginess and float it home before the onset of yellow jack.
Slotting somewhere between the drones of Xela’s Dead Sea (2006) and most anything by the young Greg Haines, “The Captain Goes Down With The Ship (Sinking)” rolls out soundscapes designed to cause mindscrews, plus an extra peripheral element you really don’t want to entertain if you’ve just set foot on your first luxury liner. Violins slide into a cold and watery grave—not quite with the grace of the quartet in Titanic, but all the more authentic for it—conspiring with a frozen Theremin line to ice-nine a vast sea that dooms the listener to shivers. It’s a stoic and ghastly little number, cold as corpses in pack-ice and perfectly suited to anyone who gave up on the sound of a rescue chopper. Just the job if you’re into your brine and bereavement, but to the more casual listeners out there, I’d recommend heading Michael Caine’s remarks from the last few moments of The Prestige: “I once told you about a sailor who drowned. He said it was like going home. I lied—he said it was agony.”
Beyonce :: "If I Were a Boy / Single Ladies"
From I Am...Sasha Fierce (Sony; 2008)
As if spurred on by the ruby-encrusted tanks and go-go Challenger disasters of her little sister’s “I Decided” video, Beyonce Knowles has returned with a video at once sedate, deeply conventional and utterly baffling, and its shade haunts all who view it. While Solange’s subversion of the video form was textually complex while being awesomely awesome, Beyonce’s efforts creep. This shit is dead-serious and deranged. Rather than broadcast the depth of the video’s strangeness right from the outset, like “I Decided”’s cherry-blasts of colors and time-warp outfits, “If I Were a Boy” comes on slow, clean close-ups and spoken word introduction and in soft black and white and in soft white clothes. The video’s two-ness is subtle, skirting along against itself, a skipping stone across the lake of the viewer’s attention: this vast titular hypothetical situation. What if? If Beyonce were a boy would her man cook her breakfast? Would her cop uniform still have darts? Would Jean Claude Van Damme still want to be her partner? The ostensible point is: no, but what the fuck is she talking about? Why would she want to be a boy? She’s Beyonce! She’s the exact opposite of a boy! We start wondering not only what it would be like if Beyonce were a boy, but why Beyonce is making us wonder what it would be like if Beyonce were a boy, and this is where things spiral out of control. It grows stranger still—ambitiously halting, B and puppy-dog bf stare at each other, literally saying “What?” to each other while the viewers say “What?” to themselves. Are they mirroring us? Are they teaching us about the gender struggle? In what manner? (Use specific examples from the text.)
I mean, I get it: I get that she’s saying boys act dumb. Maybe the point is just underwhelming compared to the ostentaciousness of its delivery. But then the video flips, if you’re watching it on TV, into “Single Ladies,” wherein Beyonce has a bionic arm and demands marriage, although not from Jay-Z because that narrative doesn’t fit, so ostensibly she’s now a stand-in for other single ladies, ones who aren’t married to cultural landmarks. Here all the perverse logic of the meditative “If I Were a Boy” video slaps about like thigh flesh, a gender clash meted out in pouty lips and leotards—although delivered with all the vehemence of someone that looks like Beyonce Knowles and is married to Jay-Z. That both tracks are plainly awful is rendered irrelevant in the face of these brain-melting videos. One is left wondering who hasn’t been left in the dust aesthetically, intellectually, athletically by the end of this double-header, who could possibly remain that she might empower. The answer is the sainted molecules vibrating in her wake, and nothing else at all.
Ochre :: "Whispers"
From Death Of An Aura (Benbecula; 2008)
Ochre is essentially two things: the colour of coats from the seventies and Christopher Scott Leary, a veritable purveyor of British bleeps working hard to preserve 2004. And in case you’re three or recently paroled, that was the era when IDM was running at close to max capacity, and masterpieces arrived quicker than their imprints could commit them to limited edition. Leary himself was projected to cult status thanks to the now defunct Toytronic, who signed his delicately amazing A Midsummer Nice Dream (2004) and got him a leg-up to the Benbecula Records workshop of weirdness. That’s where he remains to this day, conjuring away with his prototype sequences, only now that it’s the present (duh) he’s got a wily knife in his boot: add a dash of 2011 to the mixture, and coo your audience with tales of a time where the cost of recording with electricity means it’s all going to get done by orchestras.
Taken from his recent Death Of An Aura EP (which in turn is intended as a primer for his third album—keep up at the back there), “Whispers” feels like the tiniest child in a row of Russian dolls; the one you want to kidnap from its ornamental ancestry ‘cos it’s just so darn cutesy. Beaming pools of synthetics snap like robot Rice Crispies while Leary’s humming works the shoegaze routine, erratic as M83 accidentally dialing a fax number. Could you ever imagine Underworld’s “Small Conker And A Twix” made bigger with strings and harmonies? No? Well just run the embed below and imagine you’re hearing a relaxation tape that’s merrily contracting hay fever. It might squelch like an allergy for sure, but with me it caught on fast as fever.
Black Milk :: "Give the Drummer Sum"
From Tronic (Fat Beats; 2008)
Whoa. Black Milk’s known for shit that sounds smooth and effortless and like Dilla but now this is something different: from the live horns to the forceful drum stutter (an unbalanced, almost awkward string of kick and snare hits) that’s so determined to sound hard right down to the strain in Milk’s raps and the way he takes a needed gasp at the words “get a breath in” or has his beat enunciate its own breath when the drums drop out for a millisecond so as to let the “organ get a stab at it.” The instrumental passages are bold and—how daring is this for a rap album—comprise what is basically the hook for the first single. With expertly multi-tracked horns blowing gold the organ transitions from one blurt to two longer chords in a subtle flourish that effectively elongates the measure marker and shortens the measure, giving this song’s big wordless moments a bunsen intensity that, to paraphrase a line herein, is the flame with which Milk ignites the rest. Near the end he even turns the heat down to simmer for a chill lil’ keys and horn jam. Oh, and the deftness of the bass is only properly explained by the insanity of the drums. A Quasimoto deadringer ponders: “It don’t make no sense / How we still be making no cents…” Well, it does and it doesn’t. And now people will have to adjust to something that yearns to be great. People ain’t really used to that.
The next song leaked from Tronic is called “The Matrix” and has scratches from Primo, a verse from Monch, and a loop that sounds like it was chopped from some long lost Morricone theme for Stargate. Ambition fits Black Milk quite nicely.
John Legend f/ Andre 3000 / Fonzworth Bentley f/ Kanye West, Andre 3000, and Sa-Ra :: ""Green Light" / "Everybody""
From Evolver / C.O.L.O.U.R.S. (Columbia/GOOD; 2008)
AndreWatch
In “Green Light,” after three and a half minutes of spry boom-bap and glossy synth washes, neither of which are as appetizing as that description would imply, and after a protracted spell of utterly faceless John Legend crooning, Andre 3000 starts rapping. In the video, he does this from the bottom of a martini glass surrounded by synchronized swimmers in what appears to be Ovaltine. The wordplay is basic and the narrative familiar, but Andre’s wide-open flow and (most importantly) vivid, giddy delivery are further proof that he can perform a Vulcan mind-meld with any beat of any quality with any company and set the fucking megaverse ablaze with rap blog hypegasms. Shamefully, the track treats this lyrical addendum as though it were mere garnish, but following the rap Andre’s riotous outpour of ad libs energizes the previously staid track into something like incredible, and, certainly, the best track John Legend will ever find himself on. If the fact that one is writing with his life a narrative on the worth of art and the other is John Legend isn’t evidence enough of the disparity between these two artists’ quality, their outfits alone show what’s what. Legend takes the easy route and attempts sophistication by, um, leaving his collar open; Andre rocks a tuxedo shirt and a red bowtie before switching into all-whites.
Dude could make Jncos fresh if so inclined. We see him tuxedoed again in the video for Fonzworth Bentley’s “Everybody,” the shooting of which we must assume was funny for the people involved. It’s an eyesore on screen, but per his superhuman transformative powers Andre rises above the muck like some strange anointed godchild lost at a low-rent carnival. Ever the accessorizer, here he rocks what appears to be an eyepatch while spitting a workmanlike verse compared to his other efforts of late, by which I mean it doesn’t dramatically realign the stars in its life-affirming resplendence but merely settles on wit, wordplay and high, breezy cadence. The real draw here is Kanye, who doesn’t bother rapping but flops about onscreen in one of the worst dance performances ever recorded. I’ve seen cumshot compilations with more grace. The track is from the long-delayed Fonzworth LP C.O.L.O.U.R.S., which may finally be seeing release, but regardless it’s middling 2006 production work from Ye and even way back then would’ve sounded as such. The release is notable exclusively for Andre’s presence, and (if not his best verse) it doesn’t disappoint.
Point being: there’s only one dude in the world with whom Andre should be rapping this well, and that dude is putting out a solo record instead. Rap nerds and Okayplayer boarders unite: let’s get a push going for 10 the Hard Way. It worked for Hell Hath No Fury, right?
Chicane :: "Early"
From The Best Of Chicane (1996-2008) (Modena; 2008)
Nick Bracegirdle has been a returning comet in the dance genre since its rise throughout the ‘90s, unfairly eulogised as a cheese machine by the highfalutin buffs from Planet Stylus. Many thought he helped push the club phenomenon to the masses with his hook-laden hits—try finding a Ministry Of Sound mixtape that doesn’t credit him somewhere in the liners—and that his overnight dalliances with big-name vocalists was tantamount to common prostitution. With Bryan Adams, Tom Jones, Moya Brennan, and Keane all signing their crosses on his bedpost, Chicane helped lure a lot of people into the superclub arena who might otherwise have been content to home-listen. Add that to the fact that he once had to shelve an entire album of material due to his management taking a dim view of leaking, and you’ll understand why he’s keen to compile this delayed Best Of. If nothing else it’s probably just to convince his dear old folks that forsaking his classical music roots was the right thing to do.
The peak of Chicane’s chart success came probably with “Offshore ‘97,” and at that time I was a footloose and centre-parted school-leaver, hungry for a fresh disc to load into my newly acquired Mini System. This, then, was where the lights turned green for me: track one from the first Chicane LP, aglow with a plaintive contemplation that would go on to eclipse his club hits and continue to be used to this day in comedown montages galore. I can still remember my first real soak of “Early”: lying fully clothed and skull-fucked on my mate’s mum’s sofa, magma in my bladder and not a single clue as to were the toilet light switch might be. As I fished out my silver slimline Walkman and pressed play while huddling in the sleeping bag, this beautiful, luscious swoon began to smudge away the wreckage in my nervous system, working in sync with the grey halo slowly filtering its way past the curtains. It felt like Vangelis making coffee with Moby and convinced me more than anything that music would forever be my fry-up. So it seems fitting that Bracegirdle’s remastered the track to round off his freshly released epitaph, showing us that, as Billy Corgan would go on to state the same year, the end is the beginning is the end. Here’s to you, Mr. B., and all the dawn crawls to the station you helped a bleary spod to accomplish. I could never afford the ticket to Ibiza but I always left the house with full batteries.
