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April 06, 2009
Dropping Out of the Zeitgeist...
I've been poring over Q1-'09 tracks for which to be included in this year's first podcast (coming this week, he says, knocking wood...). As always in this far-flung moment of ours, there are many great songs willed in to life, and with dedicated curation, quality is fairly assured. I have to confess to a slight disconnect towards the music of the here and now, though, a slight glitch that's barring me from intense preoccupation with any few 09 records. The hows and whys of it are probably best saved for a more thought out post. But, since no one can tell me what to do with this little shared corner of digital space, not even the great and powerful MS himself, I've decided that you loyal/stubborn dead-enders out there might as well share in my less-than-current preoccupations. Some tidbits from a mental spring cleaning...
Dark Day - "Hands in the Dark"
I'd been vaguely looking for this song for over a year, never quite searching hard enough down the right digital alleyways to tip me off to the fact that it had been sitting on my shelf throughout, within the 3rd volume of Soul Jazz's New York Noise compilation. When you get to a certain scope of music collection, it's hard to truly be its master, you know? Anyway, the impetus for the unnecessary goose chase was a cover by Chromatics. If that band's got a singular talent, beyond sighing narcotically, it's knowing how to choose a damn fine cover subject.
Dark Day was the alias for Robin Crutchfield, founding member of late 70s No Wave notables, DNA. DNA has always seemed less like a living breathing band to me, and more like a theoretical line that had to be crossed sooner or later. While I wouldn't call their music bloodless, or even chilly exactly, it's just much much easier to admire intellectually, than feel in your bones. To its credit, this post-DNA Crutchfield track can't help but give me the sincere willies. Its synth tones are crappy/awesome, but the construction is so tightly coiled that I find myself nervous just to be in its presence. Nervousness seems to be its raison d'etre, though. "Hands in the dark/ touch then depart." As a description of the queasy power of a ill-advised tryst, it's hard to beat that lyrical economy.
You basically know what you're getting from a Stereolab song, it's just that some are more perfect than others. For me, this rolling 8 minutes is one of their most sublime throwaways (It's taken from a Sonic-Youth-curated ATP festival compilation, and not an album proper). I've always interpreted the title as referencing the rich, blue-veined stank of its repeating horn section, though it's probably just as likely a reference to some piece of obscure propaganda, or revolutionary novel or something. The rusty horns give the track a distinct personality in the band's canon, though. Amid the pervasive smoothness, they chafe just right.
the Human League - "The Dignity of Labour, pt. 3"
If all you know of the Human League is extremely glossy 80s pop, made for cookie commercials, and sake-bombed karaoke duets, I urge you to give this little creeper a moment of attention. The third of four surprisingly emotive instrumentals, all supposedly an exaltation of the common Joe's day of toil. Listening to part 3, the most sinister of the lot, I'm hard-pressed to picture a profession that isn't "Blade Runner." There's a fierce primitivism to the boiling synths here that gives me the same tense thrill as John Carpenter's film scores. But then at around 1:30, the tones change and it becomes surprisingly Utopian, perhaps suspiciously so. It's the sort of thing you might expect under a piece of propaganda in the England of 1984. War = Peace. Coldness = Warmth. It's far itchier and brainier than you might expect from someone working as a waitress in a cocktail bar. That much is true.
Posted by Jeff Klingman at April 6, 2009 11:44 AM
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