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March 17, 2008
On "Century"
If any of our current readers were on board way back in our gawky fledgling days of 2006, they'll know that we were then in the grips of a collective death crush on UK new wave band the Long Blondes. With every new track or morsel of news we came running, bits of hyperbole falling from the toppling stacks we carried. So intense was the infatuation that it almost seems silly now. It's like remembering that summer as a kid when all you could think of was race cars or something. Their debut album Someone To Drive You Home is still plenty sharp, and those early singles thrill when they come up on shuffle, but the all-consuming element of our former coverage has inevitably gone. For that reason, hitting play on the band's new album "Couples" made me feel rather apprehensive. How could such a brief, blazing flame be rekindled? Well for the most part it can't. The record does have its moments though and the best is its first. If nothing else, "Well, that's the one with "Century" on it," can be an enduring legacy of recommendation.
The song and album start with a ominous sustained synth note that sounds not unlike a spaceship descending through cloud cover. Soon Kate Jackson is singing, "catch me when I'm falling/ century." From the beginning it's clear that this will not be a linear narrative like the band's usual soured romances. When the beat kicks in, it's somehow not as kinetic as you're expecting. The background music plays like a snippet of a fast club track, but looped and replayed on a slower speed than originally intended. "Everything I touch, lightning trails of human lust," she says. Jackson usually plays the victim of circumstance, but she's never sounded so adrift. This impression is intensified because she's singing in an airy disco-diva register that's an inch or two beyond her natural range. Throughout "Couples" she uses this device, often to distraction. In this context, with the music ineffably warped and her words removed from the limits of character study, the disorientation from a regular comfort zone fits the song's mood. Something is definitely amiss here.
If there's thematic worth to be gleaned from the word soup, it's the very feeling of disconnect that we'd already begun to internalize through passive listening. "Traffic stops abandoned/ out of sync, out of fashion." It seems that the fingers of our vintage clad fashion plates have slipped off the pulse, to their great dismay. In the song's world that qualifies as some kind of dangerous shift that would provoke panicked pedestrians to flee their vehicles. It's soon apparent that it's the world gone mad, and not our mod heroes. "Sharp lines in gloss/ a new world war/ untimeless beauty/ all the rage, all the rage." We're presented with a realm of fleeting pleasures, a style battlefield where ephemeral whims trump lasting quality. The Blondes seem to be holding up a certain nostalgic ideal that they don't see reflected in the world outside. "Nothing is sacred/ can can dance to the golden age," is Kate's doomed verbal cue before the song suddenly whiplashes the listener into the hedonistic present they've impressionistically described. It's at the 3 minute mark that renowned dance producer Erol Alkan makes his presence felt.
At it's most overtly nostalgic point, the song erupts into spastic day-glo dance music. Alkan has smuggled a techno beat or two into b-sides he's produced for the band previously (see: "Five Ways to End It"), but never has a Long Blondes' song featured an electronic segment so vital and dominant. From the previous lyrical puzzles, it would seem that this sort of amped up Hot Chip breakdown is the lamented perversion of the band's freeze dried Britpop world view. The cerebral content of the band's lyrics don't usually allow their protagonists to get this lost in a specific moment. This is a watershed moment in their catalog, the onset of a brave new world. In the face of such futurism, Kate can barely keep up. She shouts increasingly choppy phrases into the void. "White! Black! Grey Light! Spacecraft!" No time for withering wit in the pulsing swirl. The mournful synth melody from the song's first part returns, though the now-pounding beats underneath threaten to trample it entirely. It's like we're hearing sentimentality failing to stand up to the relentlessness of the present. The warped loop comes back for a second as well, but it's clearer now, snapped clear of its previous speed trap. It too is quickly overwhelmed by aggressively accelerating synth bubbles.
Calm comes with Kate's regally drawn out recitation of the song's title. The song began by viewing the "century" before it as alien and bewildering, but now there's an understanding of sorts it seems. Going forward is still a menacing prospect (as mashed synth stabs forcefully assert) but Kate's voice and it's multi-tracked echoes seem more in control. Then all of the accumulated elements are simultaneously vacuumed from the mix. The last thing we hear is the low sound of an idling motor. Perhaps a sly suggestion that we're not quite ready for the progress we've just glimpsed? As the record immediately regresses back to the Long Blondes' tastefully retro style of old, it seems they weren't entirely prepared for modernity's neon embrace either.
Previously:
- On "Manchasm"
- On "Plus Ones"
- On "Bushels"
Posted by Jeff Klingman at March 17, 2008 04:00 PM
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