Pitchfork Reviews 5/14/08

Quiet Village
Silent Movie
[Studio !K7; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it an 8.1.

So this is sample-heavy electro stuff that sounds a lot like a nearly beat-free DJ Shadow but 12 years later, just as dated, and not as good.


Ecstatic Sunshine
Way
[Cardboard; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 6.5.

Alexander Turnquist
Faint at the Loudest Hour
[VHF; 2007]


Pitchfork gave it an 8.2.

I can remember a few times as a younger guy having my eyes totally rolled into the back of my head by stuff like this. Aerial/Papa M comes immediately to mind. Those sit-on-the-floor concerts were a good time in their own way. There's a point past the initial involuntary yawns where it really puts you on another plain. But once you're older than 25, your back will probably be too sore from sitting Indian style on the floor of an art gallery for you to even get there. And it's kind of great to have an "I guarantee you'll be asleep by the time this is done playing" album in your back pocket for just in case, but I don't know why else you'd play yourself a recording of it. Maybe if you wanted to make an interesting choice to listen to in the privacy of your own home while getting stoned out of your mind, whacking it, and then passing out on the couch. Which as a listening program has plenty of merit, actually, but isn't the kind of thing you'd do often enough to need more than one album that sounds like this. Unless you were clinically depressed.


The Old Haunts
Poisonous Times
[Kill Rock Stars; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 6.7.

If you put this band on a live bill after Alexander Turnquist and Ecstatic Sunshine, people in that audience would initially think they were the best rock band in the history of the world. It's the fact that they combine some amount of multinote guitar lines and buzzing sludge/grunge bass with... a drummer. Plus Tom Verlaine-style yelping vocals. But then after a few songs stay on the same path, the yawns would kick in and not stop, and I'm guessing everybody but the very most polite would go home midway through this set.

The weird thing going on here is how much this sounds exactly like some less-good thing you'd hear on Kill Rock Stars 15 years ago.


Various Artists
Truth & Soul: Fallin' Off the Reel II
[Truth & Soul; 2008]

Pitchfork gave it a 6.7.

So this is a label comp of a soul revival label out of the Bronx that issues limited-run 45rpm singles. Which means that everything I'm hearing is from now and not from 1971. Which makes a lot more sense when Raekwon is rapping, and dramatically less sense when it's a Motown cover. A few of the tracks have a Latin vibe. Most are pretty good.

I don't know to what extent this is a trend, soul revivalism, but it sure seems like one. My intellectual brain is excited for it, but most stuff from now (and, to be fair, most stuff from then) leaves my gut fairly cold. As far as I personally am concerned, though, if there's to be a renewed call to arms in the direction of populist-driven musicianship for all things soul, I'd theoretically be into that. At the same time I'd also be theoretically frightened that this call to musicianship will end up putting money in the wrong (smooth jazz) hands. It's hard to "pull off" raw. You're either raw or you're not. This stuff gets pretty close at times, but it's neither horseshoes nor hand grenades. Smooth: yes. Groove: yes. Funky: yes. Raw: close. CLOOOSE.

Still: baby steps.

You know what else is weird about this? Going back to smooth soul in a post-hip-hop world, it's hard not to be hyper aware of any and all breaks. You know, since we've had over 30 years of sampling to wrap our heads around. And the soul-to-hip-hop overlap is fairly well-worn territory, too. So we know about many of the possibilities in that direction too. And this revival movement, as far as I can tell, is going way back to pre-digital. Pre-synthesizer even. It sounds like we're trying to rely on organs and electric pianos and clavinets here. Moog isn't even invited (yet?).

I like the idea, but I'm wondering if it's just tail-chasing. Are we gonna go back to basics for a while, let things mutate, find a singular artist who does things that others can't, and end up finding some new and interesting directions, or are we just minor-league characters fooling around trying to approximate a music that has already come and gone? Little of both? I mean, it's not like every soul act from 1966-1974 was breaking new ground or anything, so there's no cause to be upset that I've yet to hear anything on par with "In The Rain" yet.

Fair's fair: the Dramatics themselves never did anything else on par with "In The Rain." But also, fair being fair: I get a sense from the soul revival stuff I've heard that I'm not expected to know about "In The Rain." The revivalists have a "we listened to that stuff and then reheated it to feed the kids" vibe to them that puts me off. But: fair's still fair, and I was born with my hackles up over stupid shit like that. As far as great music is concerned, the more the merrier, and just because not all of it's gonna be great doesn't mean that trying is a bad idea.

The very good news is that soul music has traditionally been marked by rare flashes of complete brilliance in the form of gigantic, neverending-rotation singles. It only takes 3 minutes to lay down the the exact perfect 3 minutes. So I feel good. We'll get at least a summer hit out of this yet, I'm guessing.

Theory alert: maybe the golden age of smooth soul existed because there were too many soul groups, and the songwriting and arrangement patterns had become rote enough through repetition that people had to try new things in order to distinguish themselves from the rest of the pack. If this is in any way true, I can only hope that the "soul revivalist" trend (which I am hopefully not imagining just based on my narrow experiences) continues to the point where every high school in America has a group of kids dressed in matching technicolor leisure suits. Otherwise, without some perfect singles and/or some weirdo visionary to take up the mantle and do things we've never even guessed about, it'll just be swallowed whole by the next thing. Which I guess is ok too.

And I'll get off there before rolling out a wish lists of directions such a groundswell movement could go in once it reaches maturity. I've already crossed too many "if" rivers, I'm not even so sure this is real and not some Brian Setzer-type retro thing that fizzles on impact. I'm not gonna get my hopes up unreasonably high. Plus the doing of it is not gonna be my job. I just like or don't.