ALTER.NATiON
D. Patucchi, SAVAK, boygenius, Jon Spencer, Beach House, Girlpool, Gouge Away, Rays, Ellis, J Fernandez, Thom Yorke, Gary Pacific Orchestra
weekly favtraX
11-11-2018
In the heyday of low-budget television and scrappy genre filmmaking, producers who needed a soundtrack for their commercial entertainments could reach for a selection of library music: LPs of stock recordings whose contents fit any mood required.
Unusual Sounds is a deep dive into a musical universe that has, until now, been accessible only to producers and record collectors; a celebration of this strange industry and an examination of its unique place at the nexus of art and commerce.
Only a year separated SAVAK's second album, 2017's Cut-Ups, and their third, 2018's Beg Your Pardon, which is an impressively fast turnaround for an indie band in the 2010s. Stylistically, the band didn't advance all that much in the space of 12 months, but Beg Your Pardon does sound noticeably different than its older sibling... Guitarist Sohrab Habibion and Michael Jaworski have sharpened their attack both individually and as a combination, and bassist James Canty and drummer Matt Schulz hit harder and with a better sense of groove on these sessions, driving the music forward while adding to their melodic power.
In a delightful twist on this binary categorizing, Dacus, Baker, and folk-rock songwriter Phoebe Bridgers announced in August that they’d made an EP under the name boygenius, a nod to the way we can carelessly lean on gender to telegraph meaning. A boy can be an individual genius, while women in indie rock are all the same. In advance of a tour they had coming up together, the trio of indie titans decided to record a 7" as a supergroup, and the result briefly winks at, then pulverizes the reductive labels we heap onto women musicians.
Scuzz-rocking guitarist who fused ernest traditionalism and destructive tendencies fronting Pussy Galore, the Blues Explosion, and Heavy Trash.
...The only thing curious about that would be that this marks the first time Spencer has released a solo project. Spencer has always displayed a strong personal style, whether in the noise rock assault of Pussy Galore, the hard wailing of the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, the lascivious R&B stomp of Boss Hog, or the roots-conscious swagger of Heavy Trash. But if you were expecting that something new would be revealed with Spencer as the uncontested leader, free to bend his talents into any direction he chose, well, that's really not what you get here. More than anything, Spencer Sings the Hits suggests the Blues Explosion without the same degree of fire and gravity, and with a little bit of noisy clatter and keyboard blurt added for seasoning...
...“Alien,” which magically appeared on YouTube over the weekend, apparently comes from the 7 sessions; the YouTube caption only calls it an “unreleased B-side” from the album. But the song achieves the same sort of liftoff as the single “Dive.” It’s a grand, world-swallowing song, the type of thing that demands to be heard pumping from speakers at Red Rocks or at the Hollywood Bowl, while dry ice fills up the stage and makes the people up there hard to see...
You can never fully understand another person and nobody will ever fully understand you. We try to fill the gaps with communication and analysis, but our perceptions of people are just that. On “Where You Sink,” Girlpool carry this burden, consumed by the Sisyphean task of trying to know someone who doesn’t want to know themselves. It feels like quicksand. Grainy reverb and rumination drone toward a pit. Chugging guitars struggle to fight the earth’s pull as Harmony Tividad grasps at the frayed edges. There are moments where it’s hard to tell whether she’s drowning or digging.
Florida hardcore band Gouge Away are named after the final track on Pixies’ 1989 album Doolittle. And their new song, “Ghost,” finds the band moving closer to their namesake. Like “Gouge Away,” and Doolittle as a whole, “Ghost” doesn’t sacrifice melody for noise. The rhythm nearly inverts that of “Gouge Away.” “Ghost” sounds like its offspring, similar structure — simple, captivating bassline and gruff vocals — with modern flourishes.
Rays' second album marks a major shift for the band, one that makes a world of difference. After releasing a debut that was woolly around the edges as it mixed scrappy Flying Nun-inspired guitar pop and jagged, lo-fi post-punk, You Can Get There from Here is a slight step in a different direction. They've ditched some of the punk in favor of a mid-'80s indie pop sound that would have sounded good wedged between classic Pastels and Dolly Mixture singles... Now it's clear just how much Martinez is inspired by the vocals of Stephen Pastel, especially on the slow-rolling "To the Fire" and the sweet-as-punch "Fallen Stars," which leads the album off on the right foot.
“All This Time” finds Ellis in the thick of the storm. Sludgy guitars thunder, dissipating on the fringes of her words: “Do I scare you?” There’s a moment where she clears the sonic fog, her voice outlined in synth: “All this time I thought that you were trying to change me / You were trying to strip away the parts you knew were never me at all.” The clouds come back in as she repeats these lines, layered with fuzz, growing stronger with each utterance before losing shape and fading into the void.
The encapsulation of '60s & '70s pop is front and center in "Unwind." The prominent keys and electric guitar don't shy away from making bold statements instrumentally. The vocals compliment the composition perfectly by offering a relaxed and simmered sound. The genre melding that takes place here combines experimental pop and psychedelic fixings to create a short but sweetly pleasant prize. What did we do to deserve J Fernandez?
For Luca Guadagnino's 2018 remake of Dario Argento's 1977 horror classic, Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke took the reins to produce an updated soundtrack, adding familiar touches to an appropriately unsettling and tense experience. Yorke's Suspiria feels nostalgic yet strangely futuristic... "Unmade" is another standout, swirling together icy piano, Yorke's soothing vocals, and a sweeping choir in one of the soundtrack's only purely lovely moments. Altogether, Suspiria is an appropriate accompaniment to the film, generating fear and discomfort as much by what's presented by Yorke as what's left to the imagination.
Gary Pacific Orchestra - Soft Wind 2:05
...The perfect companion to the David Hollander curated book Unusual Sounds: The Hidden History of Library Music (out now on Anthology Editions), these 20 tracks, encapsulate the niche and fascinating subculture of library music. Genres were spliced, conventions dispensed with, and oftentimes hybrid music of astonishing complexity was produced. Elements of rock, jazz, soul, even twentieth-century avant-garde composition were all utilized, and no stone was left unturned. As a result, some of the best library music defies all categorization, reflecting the individualistic quirks and artistry of the various musicians who made it.
D. Patucchi, SAVAK, boygenius, Jon Spencer, Beach House, Girlpool, Gouge Away, Rays, Ellis, J Fernandez, Thom Yorke, Gary Pacific Orchestra
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