Last Train to Cool

Better than the Postal Service.

2005-01-20T22:39:00.000-06:00

Boom Bip always seems to shine most in his collaborations, specifically in his ability to mold his tracks around his collaborators. Besides the work on his debut album Seed to the Sun, his collaboration with Doseone on Circle proved his ability to expertly handle anything thrown at him, and provided Doseone with his best album. His new disc Blue Eyed in the Red Room continues the tradition, featuring two standout collaborations with Gruff Rhys and Nina Nastasia. The Rhys track is sincerely weird and wonderful in its own right, but it’s the more conventional track with Nastasia that’s the most notable.

Indie-rock songstress Nastasia details a failing relationship over Bip’s wonderfully subtle mixture of processed Autoharp, guitars, strings, and drums. The instrumentation is the aural equivalent of the relationship Nastasia portrays; swelling drones with impossibly delicate melodies continuously drifting in between them; its fragility renders it both beautiful and hopeless.

Nastasia’s couple is doomed to never truly deal with their problems, and her ability to capture their fate through the details of an uneventful trip to the beach, without resorting to obviousness, is admirable. What really pushes the track over the top is the connection between Boom Bip and Nastasia. Boom Bip has said he can identify with every word of the lyrics and his understanding is evident in the respect he shows Nastasia with his contribution to the collaboration, supporting the intimate nature of her vocals and never overshadowing them.

Boom Bip and Nina Nastasia - The Matter (Of Our Discussion)

Lou Reed's favorite transvestite.

2005-01-20T02:09:00.000-06:00

It’s likely that many got their first exposure to Antony through the Devendra Banhart selected compilation Golden Apples of the Sun. His epic piano rendition of the Edgar Allen Poe poem “The Lake” didn’t really fit in with the rest of the freak-folk crowd featured on the album, but any urge to whine about thematic coherency was quickly silenced by the song’s beauty. I like to imagine that Banhart knew it didn’t quite fit but was like fuck it, I want people to hear this song. Certainly many who bought the compilation had nothing but gratitude for the inclusion.

Not only does Antony not fit in with the freak-folk crowd, he isn’t really part of any scene. Rather he seems mostly to hang out in New York, doing his own androgynous thing, and occasionally collaborating with admirer Lou Reed. Antony specializes in drama-saturated epics of pain, in which he makes full use of one of the most beautiful and vulnerable voices active today. He sings like a damaged angel, his voice embodying the exposed gender tension that his songs often address.

With a voice as arresting as his, it is the subject matter and backing instrumentation that separate a good Antony song from a great one. In “Child of God”, a tale of religious hypocrisy provides the perfect vessel for Antony’s impassioned theatrical anger. Antony is in full on preacher mode and brings impressive conviction to his condemnation of the state of religion. The song’s most powerful weapon is its ambiguity. Is Antony decrying the religious for failing to live up to their faith, or is he mad at God himself- the line “child of god” perhaps suggesting that the hypocrisy is hereditary?

His backing band, the Johnsons, is also in top form. An instrumental opening culminating in the epic arrival of strings- prepares the listener for Antony’s entry and then ably supports the dramatic weight of his voice and words throughout.

Oh yea here’s the song.

Colin Meloy makes blatent attempt to attract young hispanic male demographic.

2005-01-18T22:39:00.000-06:00

Everybody keeps telling me I should like the Decemberists, and I try, but honestly, the last mediocre indie rock band I gave this many chances was Built to Spill.

And do you know that when I did finally fall for Doug Martsch it was not as guitar god of the penultimate northwestern indie rock band but instead as the foil to that-other-indie-icon-with-a-band-I-never-really-got-into, Calvin Johnson, in the Halo Benders. So maybe it isn’t that surprising that it's taken a similarly unexpected career detour on the part of Colin Meloy to finally force me to warm up to him- and give another chance to his band the Decemberists.

You see Meloy just started selling a tour EP titled rather honestly “Colin Meloy Sings Morrissey”, which features him covering the songs of the former Smiths frontman. Now in an astounding coincidence the Smiths are another well-liked band that I could never really get into, nor can I say I’ve found much enjoyment in Morrissey’s solo work, though I think I once admitted that "Irish Blood, English Heart” was altogether rather badass- but I sort of mumbled it when nobody was paying attention so I’m pretty sure it doesn’t even count.

Anyway the real intrigue in this story, and the chief fact supporting my assertion that I am a complex person of delicate and sophisticated taste, is that I like the tour only EP. Quite possibly it is because the EP features only Meloy and his acoustic guitar. As a band the Decemberists have performed the dubious feat of turning the phrase “gay pirate music” into a Decemberists-describing cliché, and often the self-conciously unconventional arrangements distracted from Meloy’s admittedly solid songwriting. Similarly, the confessional lyrics of Morrissey’s songs offer a nice break from Meloy’s dense literate narratives, which are admirable but often lacking in direct emotinal impact.

Meloy also does a service to the songs, breaking them free from the Morrissey mystique, his recontextualization forces the listener to acknowledge the strength of Morrissey's songwriting. Listening to a Morrissey song I have a hard time isolating the individual song from the Morrissey persona, the production and his voice always tie it too strongly to the rest of his output. This makes for a nice coherency in his catalog but it prevents me from appreciating it as fully and in-depth as some of Meloy's covers have allowed. In this way the EP has not only caused me to rethink my feelings on the Decemberists, it has also renewed my interest in Morrissey.

Finally the most endearing thing about the EP is Meloy’s occasional trying on of Morrissey’s vocal affectations, it makes it clear that he really loves these songs, and his passion is difficult to resist.

The Decemberists are releasing a new LP this year, I probably won’t like it, but thanks to this EP, I’ll probably give it plenty of chances.

Listen to Jack the Ripper and hear Colin Meloy try and say arms like he's British.