Fleurs

admin — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 09:00:00 +0000

It was recently revealed that music was used as a torture device against detainees at government prisons, including Guantanamo Bay and Bagram, Afghanistan. Certain artists were sources of tremendous pain for the political prisoners (Nine Inch Nails, Barney the Dinosaur, Christina Aguilera) while others had little to no effect (Michael Jackson). While an admittedly heinous use for someone's creative output, it got me thinking about tastes and sensitivities based on who is exposed to what at what point in their lives. For example, the soundtrack to my youth included bands like Hole, Babes in Toyland, L7, and Bikini Kill. This is music that I still regularly listen to today. I consider it an integral part of myself. My father, on the other hand, considered it excruciating even coming into my teenage bedroom once when I was listening to Hole's “Beautiful Son” single to ask, “What IS that? Good God, do you have the cat in here or something?!”

The point? One person's agonizing pain is another's exquisite pleasure. One person's caterwauling cacophony is another's sweet symphony. So it was, in part, thanks to my predisposition to dissonance in music that I found myself keenly interested in Fleurs from indie-noise conglomerate Former Ghosts. They're kind of an underground supergroup trio, featuring Jamie Stewart of Xiu Xiu, Nika Roza from Zola Jesus, and Freddy Ruppert formerly with This Song Is a Mess But So Am I.

Familiar with the sweet glitchy pop sounds of The Postal Service? Their 2003 album Give Up has quickly become a contemporary classic. Imagine that as being the top exposed half of a rock buried halfway in the ground. Flip it over and underneath you are sure to find Fleurs by Former Ghosts. It's the darker underbelly of glitchy pop love songs. Unfortunately, it is also a flipside that some might say is better left buried.

I could not for the life of me tell you which songs from Fleurs are my favorite; it all starts to sound the same after the fourth track. I can tell you which songs annoyed the daylights out of me, though. First, there's the opening track, “Us And Now.” It's got a three-beat rhythm, off tempo with the pervasive rhythm (from which the listener is given a respite for only about 40 seconds) that courses throughout the song, making it seem much longer than it really is. There are also the prosaic details of “Mother,” a song about feeling cast adrift, without a home, in a sea of other people's lives.

There's a scene in the 1998 film The Wedding Singer where love-struck Robbie Hart (Adam Sandler) is about to board an airplane headed to Las Vegas. Before racing off to catch his flight, the agent at the ticket sales counter, sporting an awe-inspiring '80s hairdo, asks Hart, “Hey, do you like A Flock of Seagulls?” Hart quickly responds, “I can see YOU do,” while staring at the guy's sculpted hair tribute. That's kinda how I felt while listening to the three different voices that comprise Former Ghosts singing the twelve different tracks that comprise Fleurs. They all sounded pretty much... the same. These guys wear their influences—namely Joy Division's Ian Curtis—on their sleeves. It's like listening to a Joy Division tribute band at times. The crushing sounds of Michael Gira and his nihilistic '80s industrial group The Swans also seem to be haunting Former Ghosts.

Written by: M. Brianna Stallings, February 1st 2010

Rainwater Cassette Exchange

admin — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 23:25:00 +0000

By Deerhunter

Kranky

Deerhunter's latest album, Rainwater Cassette Exchange, is just five songs in fifteen minutes. Five songs perfectly placed and executed, there is nothing superfluous and nothing lacking. The five-piece group creates an experimental synthesis of noise pop, shoegaze and psych rock to produce an incredibly refreshing and complete masterpiece.

Rainwater Cassette Exchange is vivid, mesmerizing and transcendent. Ethereal vocals and fuzzy guitars coalesce with heart-pumping bass lines as they transport the listener to another world. The band draws on bells, slide guitars, organs, synths, theremins, and more to produce a disorienting and stunningly beautiful sound.

Ghostly echoes and ambient reverb are offset by dark lyrics charged with raw human struggle. When singer Bradford Cox asks, "Do you believe in love at first sight?" the response is taunting resignation: "Oh yes my son, I did before I died. And now it does me no good on the other side." The vocals are sweetly hypnotic, but they are also foreboding and tormented.

While it seems impossible to choose a favorite, "Disappearing Ink" is one of the best tracks on Rainwater Cassette Exchange. The song fearlessly drives the album with untiring guitar riffs, pulsating bass lines, slurring vocals and airy moans. Despite using disappearing ink, "the words still sting." The song leaves no room to escape the inevitability of pain and suffering. Thrashing drums finish the song with a naked moment of self-loathing, "What was I thinking? What was I thinking?"

Each song on this album cleverly develops complex themes of impermanence, mortality, futility and our susceptibility to life's merciless unpredictability. Cox gives us a taste of his own experience struggling with Marfan syndrome, a genetic disorder characterized by abnormally long limbs and a proneness to heart disease.

What's truly gripping about this album is that with each listen, there is something new. What at first sounds distorted and chaotic becomes deliberate and clear. What sounds encouraging and optimistic is fraught with conflict and distress. There is something in these carefully crafted songs, traversing the gamut of competing human thoughts and emotions, that is both disturbing and cathartic. The depth and complexity of each song make every listen better than the last.

Deerhunter has composed an album that intoxicates listeners as it gracefully navigates beyond contradictions. It is upbeat and drenched in anguish. It is confident and exposed. It is both deer and hunter.

Written by: Sofia Marin, September 28th 2009