This raucous track instantly grabbed my attention, as I listened to it in a playlist this week. It’s constantly on the verge of collapse instrumentally as Gareth Liddard’s vocals drag it down in a justified anger and cynicism.
Although the track has these harsh, intriguing qualities, its the poetry of the piece that elevates it into an essential listen. Descriptions of how we have enabled the worst in society permeate throughout, with a building rage. That the monsters only propagate because of our own apathy is told with a keen eye and poignancy. But the track never offers a solution, and only ratchets up the tension.
The protagonist of this track is stuck in the same situation as the listener. It’s up to them to change things or continue a course that will end poorly.
After deciding to make “Young Americans” my TOTW, I went back through my posts and was surprised to see that I haven’t ever posted a Bowie track as a Track of the Week, despite the many years of writing these posts.
I think this stems from a couple of reasons. The first being that I’m more of an admirer of Bowie than his work. I like the way he continued to experiment throughout his career, creating massively varied music and personas to perform them. He was a proper artist right through to his death.
He was also and still is posthumously massively successful, with many of his tracks ingrained in the British subconscious. At this point, I’ve found the idea of talking about some of my favorite Bowie tracks inconsequential. What’s the point of promoting tracks that everyone already knows?
But on the other hand my Track Of The Week was always about the music I was listening to each week, whether it be successful or unknown. To be honest, I think the main reason Bowie has never been in my Track Of The Week is it’s been rare that I could categorise any Bowie song as a Track of the week. They have always been there, played regularly, as part of a wide balanced audio diet. Yet, they have rarely been the main course.
So, how then did Young Americans end up being my first Bowie Track on my TOTW. I doubt anyone would argue its his best track, and I’d agree with them. It lacks the more experimental nature that I find most compelling in his work. But this week, the UK has been hot. There have been warm, sunny and sometimes stuffy days spent sitting in our garden, listening to music and generally enjoying the little dry weather Manchester offers yearly.
Returning to a track is never the same as hearing it the first time. It is never going to have the surprise it did when you first heard it, and therefore having the excitement about the track to write about it in my blog becomes harder, and more nuanced then a quick take on something completely new to me.
Young Americans overall aesthetic to me is the perfect soundtrack to this current environment. Dripping with R&B swelter, grooving percussion, and simmering sax; it is soothingly steadfast and familiar. As its grooves drift out of a small Bluetooth speaker into an abundant overgrowing garden, it leaves me thinking only one thing. When the track finishes lets put it on again.
Tim Hecker has always interested me as a composer. His experimental compositions and use of sounds manage to be distinctive and also give him a very strong aesthetic that makes his work recognisable, once you know what to look for.
On “That World,” the looping and detuneing audio mangling of woodwinds creates wide and haunting textures, typical of his work. At first, these drift in and out of the piece in the background of a plucked string instrument. But over time, these swell and develop into the center of the piece.
They are accompanied by a bass line, which provides a clear root note. This grounds the warbling pitch of the flutes, giving structure and changing the whole mood of the piece.
Tim Hecker rarely directs the listener towards strong emotions. Instead, the instrumental vagaries hint at feelings, subtlety working their way into the piece and your thought processes. Although, over time, the instrumentation in his music has changed, his treatment has stayed faithful, lending a consistency to his unique vision and way of stirring up that same subtlety of feelings for the listener, time and time again:
Sorry for the delay In TOTW recently. Although in the current circumstances I’ve had more time available the hours have been taken up with some bigger projects that you’ll all find out about soon and my track of the week recommendations have slipped slightly.
Bloodbuzz Ohio was easily my most listened to track last week. My girlfriend has been listening to a lot of their back catalog and has taken a shining to this track especially so its been on strong rotation at home. It is the opening single to my favorite album of theirs; “High Violet.”
Bloodbuzz Ohio’s success rests in the counterpoint between the high energy of the instrumentation and the downplayed baritone vocals. This energy continues to escalate throughout the track as it builds to the chorus, where its chord changes cause the track to plateau and resonate between two conflicting moods.
Its one of several styles and techniques that The National are exceptionally talented at and have utilized several times in their catalog. However, for me Bloodbuzz Ohio is the first time that they mastered this technique creating a song that still resonates with me to this day:
“Red Velvet Corridor” opens the Swans album “Soundtracks For The Blind,” which sent the band off for a ten year hiatus between album releases.
Swans greatest achievement is arguably their ability to develop and then transport the listener to environments that are so visceral you become part of them. These worlds are often not welcoming places and can involve some of the darker, sinister sides of humanity. This makes the group polarizing to listeners who find their subject matter uncomfortable to hear. But, for me, the craft required in their creations makes this band one of my favorites.
Red Velvet Corridor sets the scene for this album perfectly with its mechanical loops and drone textures, and a sound that sits somewhere between metal rubbing together and a human breathing. Its title reminds me of Twin Peaks, and so does the music with its off kilter and slightly disorientating atonal style. It doesn’t sit quite naturally on the ears, creating a surreal environment that leads you into the rest or the album:
“VOID FILL PRODUCT” Is the new abum by Datassette, who has stunned me for many years with his sound design and unique programming.
In his liner notes, he describes the process of making the album as “one-shot stereo recordings of hardware jams,” which were then refined into finished works. This tried and tested technique has been used effectively through the history of electronic music, right back to its experimental routes. It serves well Datassette’s natural talent for finding great melodies and interesting sounds.
“Nowhere” is a track reminiscent of one of my favorite albums “selected ambient works 85-92,” with its lo-fi recordings and stripped down instrumentation that play around with a single theme throughout its playtime. It’s a sound I love, and Datassette adds his own flair to it with a wonky bass melody, iconic of his compositional techniques. This makes ”Nowhere” a shoe in for my track of the week and an easy one to recommend to any fans of the genre:
Feelin’ Groovy is a classic that I’m pretty sure every one of my listeners has heard. I can’t remember the first time I heard it because it probably pre-dates my first memory. I grew up with the track as many people have, and over the past couple of weeks I’ve gone back to Simon & Garfunkels music and let their beautiful melodies and harmonies wash over me.
Listening to them in more detail, many of their songs come from a darker place than I remember. Stories from characters on the fringes of society, and feelings of loss and loneliness are prevalent in many of their tracks.
But even in more positive tracks, there’s always something sinister in them. It’s an overarching feeling, permeating a lot of pop music in the 60’s. The origins of this could be tied to the drug culture of the time period, or even the Vietnam war. Whatever the case, even the most uplifting tracks can have a sinister side and The 59th Street Bridge Song is a good example.
In its conclusion, the track seems to tilt to something manic as the harmonies and whistling fade out, leaving it in a different place than the opening. It leaves the track with a twist; an unsolvable riddle that keeps me listening to it to this day:
Sinister In A State Of Hope was the first track I heard from Loney Dear. Opening his album Loney Noir, the track sets the tone perfectly.
Most of his work has a downplayed and subtle approach. The instrumentation usually fades in and out of the track, developing so smoothly that it never tries to fight for your attention.
The introverted nature of the album may not be for some people, but if you can get into its mindset, there’s a lot to love. For me, it’s always been the instrumentation that has made me come back to Loney Dear’s work.
Mostly lead by acoustic guitar, and backed up by a massive variety of instrumentation; it is always beautifully recorded, with a care for intricacy.
Sinister In A State Of Hope is a great example of Loney Dear’s sound. Lush textures created by a large collection of different instrumentation bubble underneath the vocals and acoustic guitar. It creates a music that, although saccharin for some people, has stuck with me for many years:
I’ve been a fan of Peter Bjorn & John since first hearing the album “Writers Block“ over a decade ago. The album had come out several years before that, but somehow I’d managed to miss it. Their track “Young Folks“ had become so prevalent that its opening whistle had wormed its way into the subconscious of almost anyone who stood next to a radio.
I think my ignorance of “Young Folks“ really helped my enjoyment of this album, when I finally did hear it. Rather than being the seminal track that dwarfed the rest of the album, it was instead a catchy track in a collection of varied and exciting garage rock, trying to offer a wide gamut of different styles in the genre and somehow achieving each one of these lofty ambitions with fantastic results.
The track “Start To Melt” makes use of a tried and true sound of the rock genre, which I like to call the “indie pound.” Every instrument on the track plays on the beat at the same time, resulting in a pounding effect.
Its a sound that has been done by many “Indy” bands. A sound that continues to this day, popping up over and over again due to the intensity of the “attack and release” style of play it creates. Large transients barrage you with heightened emotion on a visceral, almost primal, level.
However when Peter Bjorn & John implement the technique on track “Start To Melt,” another level of complexity of emotion comes into play. The aggression is there, but there’s also a clashing mixture of romanticism, apathy and forlornness, created by employing a few different techniques.
It is in the aesthetics of the piece that this major stylistic change lies.
The lo-fi distortion on the guitar removes some of the punch that would be there on a cleaner signal. This more rounded off sound is also slightly thinner because of dilution by the number of instruments and layering used in the track. Further, it is all played organically, with more swing than usual.
This more drifting, rounded off sound sows seeds of doubt in what would usually be a single minded, focused technique. It gives the track a sponge-like, lingering thoughtfulness, which counterpoints the vocals, which are very defined, capturing a specific moment in time.
The moments the vocals describe are cryptic as to their subtext, but clearly have a huge emotional significance. In real time, the events described would be even shorter than the briefness of this track. But by extending the moment into the tracks length, it replicates the feeling of altered time, experienced in important events. The feeling where everything slows down and even the subtlest of moments can be remembered vividly.
And that’s what makes “Start To Melt” so great. It perfectly encapsulates a brief moment. Playing the track transports you there; not to the singer’s event but to your own. A moment that may have been fleeting, but at that time felt like it lasted forever.
Their album “Writers Block” deserves more attention than it gets. Over time I could see every track on it ending up as part of my Track Of The Week segment. “Young Folks” may be catchy downplayed Indy at its best, but it is only one of they many different styles they incorporate on the record, and all of them are done just as well. It results in a garage rock sounding record, with an emotional depth and proven creative talent that keeps it in my mind to this day:
Both Daniel Avery and Alessandro Cortini are highly respected in the electronic music world for their unique and experimental takes on different genre. They have come together to make an album that focuses heavily on sound design.
Large, slowly evolving soundscapes make up the majority of this album, with an emphasis on atmosphere over rhythm. Although large swaths of the album have a darker sound pallet, which is rich in distortion, its title track is certainly one of the more uplifting pieces.
The main focal point of “Illusion Of Time” is a looping, sequenced pattern that continues throughout. It’s supported by a deep bass line and a melody that uses the same sounds as the sequence, creating a variety in the piece.
But its the sound design underneath the surface that really makes the track for me. A large shimmer reverb and use of distortion creates vast rich pools of sound that sit low in the mix. They hint at something far grander than the lead composition displays:
Bandcamp:
TOTW Playlist:
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