Saturdays=Youth
[Mute; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it an 8.5 and listed it as the 8th best album of 2008.
One of my many, many faults is an inability to avoid feeling disappointed when things aren't as good as I'd like them to be. It's a pretty common problem, I'd guess, but it's still a problem. I get upset. Easily. That's on me. It's got nothing to do with the thing that "caused" it, it's on me. It's my fault. I understand that about myself, but forgetting is easy in the heat of the moment.
M83 does a pretty good job of reminding me here. My initial reaction to this, which Pitchfork effusively calls "the best M83 album everrrrrr" (I'm paraphrasing), is disappointment. I got the first well-hyped M83 album that I can remember hearing about, Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts (their second LP, maybe first domestic release, I dunno). I remember kind of liking it. This feels like a more toned-down (if that's possible) version of that, often replacing whatever traces of menace could be found back there in 2003 with gutless early 90's-era British shoegaze pop songwriting. Which I like less. So at first I took it kind of personally and got disappointed. Not at M83, but that this direction is being so critically lauded. It's like the critical powers-that-be want everything to water itself down, which is not what I want! GAH!
But then the reminding happened.
For one, these guys are French. Expecting them to really really rock is kind of a useless exercise. They are French synth-dream-electro-pop. They fill in every square inch of tape with warm sounds and then lay a bunch of reverb over it. That's what they do. When I say that I "kind of liked" Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts, I wasn't lying. I liked it. But only kind of. I'm not French. Or electro. Or particularly dreamy. Some of the harsher, more menacing and/or groove-based moments off of that album were my particular favorites, but it's not like "harsher, more menacing" for these guys is the same thing as, say Brainbombs. It's more like "kind of foreboding and minor key while still being warm and electro-synthy and French." Their vocals, especially, even on that album I kind of liked, were very French. Light-as-air borderline moaning, perhaps grammatically incorrect. I remember getting the album and thinking "this is ok, I get it though. Thanks, M83, this will be enough of you for me."
For another, once I adjust my expectations, this is really not that bad. Sure, they go a little dancey for my tastes a few times. And some of the female vocalist stuff is really, really far in the direction of letting their French flag fly. But there are highlights too. It's still dreamy and French and ambientelectropopsynthwavey. I don't know what else I would have been expecting. This is fine. It has its time and place. The bathtub, maybe. Or maybe like a bathtub party. I should have a bathtub party (no I shouldn't).
So... it's not like the critical powers-that-be have felled a giant redwood under the weight of massive peer pressure toward pop mediocrity or anything. This is just a French band making another French band album, and for some reason people grabbed onto it at the time because they were in the middle of the great April 2008 bathtub party. Or something. Either way, it doesn't involve me, and I should probably just relax and continue on my usual non-M83 course as planned.
In the meantime, here's a blurb for them:
"If you don't have another one of theirs, this one's fine."
-2 Year Lag
Sally Shapiro
Remix Romance Vol. 1
[Paper Bag; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it a 7.6.
Ok, so: this is a remix album of the 2006 album Disco Romance, which was not released in the U.S. until 2007, so that leaves us with a lot to consider in terms both cultural and... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Sally Shapiro is a Swede who makes techno disco pop. It's fun and cute if you're into that sort of thing. The end, forever, amen.
Toumani Diabaté
The Mande Variations
[World Circuit; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it an 8.3.
How am I supposed to judge this "artful musicianship" (like: here I am playing this music alone in the Sydney Opera House in front of throngs of politely golf-clapping imperialists) recording of a Malinese kora player? I've never even heard of a kora before, I don't think. Let me check. Nope. Heard it, but haven't heard of it. Which is more rare than vice versa.
Anyway, this guy's kora playing seems to be on par with what I expect, musically speaking, from a kora virtuoso who brings such weighty accolades along with his... I'm sorry. Is this for real? We've got to RATE this on a scale of one to ten? Why this amount? Are there exactly 1.7 albums which are more appropriate for the yoga studio gift shop?
I don't want to shit on anybody's rich cultural tradition, or put a glass ceiling on anybody's progress as a "serious musician" simply because their instrument of choice happens to be traditionally African, or play "pretend I know better when I don't" here. BUT: "Joshua Klein" doesn't sound like a Malinese name to me. It sounds more like somebody who's been suckered by white liberal guilt into helping this opportunistic (and probably very good from what the fuck I can tell) kora player get the fuck out of Mali, where everything is currently FUCKED. Which is all well and good, but has nothing to do with the actual music and everything to do with a knowledge-about-the-music-of-Mali jerkoff sesh.
What the fuck.
What the fuck.
Ok. Relax, me. This is fine. It's fine. It's fine. This guy is undeniably great at playing unaccompanied kora in a very sharp-sounding hermetically sealed recording studio that in no way reminds me of any of the admittedly second-hand and few things I've ever heard about Mali. Not liking it based on those grounds is prejudicial, probably racist, kowtowing to the authenticity falsehood, etc. So: this recording's only real crime is that it's not really my thing, with a boring misdemeanor. Breathe. There are other things besides my thing. In this case they reek of patchouli oil and Tom's of Maine toothpaste. Ok. That was a decent enough joke. I'm calm now. This is not the music's fault. Nor is it the fault of Joshua Klein's Pitchfork review. It's the fault of your Unitarian Universalist upbringing. This is just giving you flashbacks.
Team Robespierre
Everything's Perfect
[Impose; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it a 6.8.
This is the cover. Imagine going on a blind date with a person who got a tattoo of this image. Now musically transcribe that exact feeling. It's pretty much the same: to the debatable extent to which this is fun, it's not my kind of fun.Division Day
Beartrap Island
[Eenie Meenie; 2007]
Pitchfork gave it a 6.1 because it sucks.
I'm sorry, I'm still all worked up about that kora player thing.
Let's see... this sucks with occasional interesting moments where you think "maybe this won't suck," but in a ...Trail of Dead way that still kind of sucks, but just as you get your hopes up that it'll even get that good it reverts back to regular-sucking. Try your best not to take it personally when this happens. Remember: if you can't listen without getting upset, don't listen.
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