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November 28, 2008
Thanksgiving Leftovers
Seeking desperately to ease my lingering post-feast fullness by clearing up room from someplace, any place, here are a few non-thematically linked tracks that have been cluttering my mind...
The Shop Assistants - "All Day Long"
Bloggers who've searched for flavor combinations that add up to Brooklyn's Vivian Girls have perhaps been overthinking things. Instead of evoking Phil Spector + Kevin Shields, or wherever the prevailing hyperbole pinwheel ended up, it probably should have started on the Shop Assistants and refused to budge. The Scots group was a minor NME cause celebre in the mid-80s, but their debut album Will Anything Happen has been out of print for over a decade. As the sharper tacks among you may have already guessed, that is no longer the case (tip of the hat to chronically hip label Cherry Red for continuing to monitor shifting retro trends). "All Day Long" is a nicely representative miniature of the album's charm, and prestigiously, Morrissey's declared favorite single of 1985. Simple, cymbal-less drums pound away relentlessly, only partially moored to the sheets of warm fuzz guitarist David Keegan lays down. Vocally, it's sweet and muddled both. Annabel Wright (who'd go on to wider, yet still fairly narrow renown in the Pastels) has a flat but reassuring delivery, struggling slightly to be understood in the midst of rhythm and color. Around 1:20, a simple adjustment to the mix brings the blur into sharper focus. Annabel is placed out front, the spotlight casting a lovely echo behind her. If the 1:50 running time is a bit too slight for you, the re-issue also offers a "long version" that clocks in at a whopping 2:30. You may have to clear your schedule to fit that epic in.
Robert Rental - "Double Heart"
Robert Rental was a minor player in the UK post-punk scene, who made a few drips but no real splash. "Double Heart," one A of a double A-side single released on Mute in 1980, has a warm constitution despite a construction from cold Teutonic elements. The stuttering drum machine delay is not far from sounds conjured by many other early eighties DIY dabblers. The synths sound poorly calibrated and possibly woozy on box wine. But Rob always sounds sincerely and soberly lovelorn, elevating his track above scores of similar unknowns who all sought to distinguish themselves with chilly disconnect. "I like your colors" he wails, perhaps cryptically referring to a dress pattern or just an interior glow. I like his tone, myself.
Christian Fennesz' crackling ambient compositions always have a bit more going on inside them than a first passive listen might suggest. "Glass Ceiling" from his latest record, Black Sea, starts off typically enough for him, with a still pond of sputtering static parted by steady string-plucked oar strokes. As it settles in to become stiller still, it becomes beautifully alien. The conspicuous notes cease, clearing space for the palest shades of a hidden pop song. From around two minutes on, it sounds like the strains of a vocal choir, somehow kept aloft on an arctic wind a decade after all its members hung up their robes and drove home from the concert hall.
Max Tundra - "The Entertainment"
I enjoy Ben Jacobs' compositions as a curio, more than a trigger for deeply felt affection. You have to admire an artist who testifies so adamantly in a songwriting language so inscrutable. (Well, I guess you don't, but I do). I fear it suggests a lack of imagination that most of 2008's Parallax Error Beheads You leaves me sputtering around my head and hard drive for familiar reference points. I suppose it is still possible for an artist at this late date, to, gasp, just sound like themselves. The version of himself that's I've hit repeat on most often is "The Entertainment," a broadly named track that sounds specifically like the residents of Nintendoland attending a late 90s rave. "I was born to entertain," he sings calmly amid a manic backdrop. Even if I suspect that he was born mainly to entertain Ben Jacobs, you might well catch some shrapnel of amusement.
Posted by Jeff Klingman at November 28, 2008 05:00 PM
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