ALTER.NATiON
The Raconteurs, Marianne Faithfull feat: Nick Cave, Melissa Laveaux, Janelle Monáe, Aphex Twin, Marie Davidson, Meernaa, Kurt Vile, Okkervil River, Josh T. Pearson, Daughters
The Raconteurs, Marianne Faithfull feat: Nick Cave, Melissa Laveaux, Janelle Monáe, Aphex Twin, Marie Davidson, Meernaa, Kurt Vile, Okkervil River, Josh T. Pearson, Daughters
weekly favtraX
21-12-2018
It’s finally happening! The last time we heard from the Raconteurs, they were still a White Stripes side project. Jack White’s band with Brendan Benson, Jack Lawrence, and Patrick Keeler hasn’t been heard from since the 2008 album Consolers Of The Lonely... Meanwhile, Brendan Benson takes the lead on “Now That You’re Gone,” a blues-rock jam with a squirmy riff and a big, slow central beat. It sounds like the prestige version of bar rock, and it gets in a big, molten Jack White guitar solo.
Song You Need to Know: Marianne Faithfull’s ‘The Gypsy Faerie Queen’
...She also worked with Cave again for a track on her just-released, new album (and 21st overall), Negative Capability, and ironically it shows off more of her capability for positivity. Although there’s still a certain sadness to “The Gypsy Faerie Queen” (between Nick Cave and Marianne Faithfull, that’s inevitable), it retells Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream from the perspective of Puck, becoming a song of devotion as she sings of following the titular nymph into “the twilight in-between.” It’s a sweet fantasy, and with Cave singing along and his bandmate, Bad Seeds violinist Warren Ellis, adding some gravity to the melody, it becomes an ornate portrait of that feeling of loyalty. When compared with the song after it on the LP – a weighty redo of “As Tears Go By” – its lightness sounds even more profound.
There’s a beautifully bright sway to Mélissa Laveaux’s new track that instantly grips, the Ottawa-via-Haiti songwriter crafting something both tender and tremendous on her re-working of an original work by legendary Haitian artist Martha Jean-Claude, who escaped to Cuba after being imprisoned, whilst pregnant, by the regime for the militancy of her art. Laveaux’s take is a quietly magical piece... “The title of the song means when I’m riding my horse,” Laveaux explains. “In a vodou ceremony, when someone is possessed by a spirit, they are that spirit’s horse and the spirit is riding them. It’s also a reference to how vodou is, at times, very erotic.”
On “Make Me Feel,” one of two new singles from Monáe’s Dirty Computer (the musician’s first LP in five years), the polymath unpacks a rubbery funk tune that recalls the likes of Prince and Sheila E. Her 1980s influences are clear, down to each massive synth line and the feeling of raw sensual energy woven throughout the song. Much like her previous work, “Make Me Feel” is a flashy mix of modern bounce and old soul that puts her dulcet voice on full display. Perhaps inspired by her recent success on the big screen—in films like the Oscar Best Picture-winning Moonlight and Oscar nominated Hidden Figures—the video for “Make Me Feel” is equally theatrical, taking colorful cues from “Black Mirror” (think Season Three’s exquisite “San Junipero” episode) and the wide-open feel of the Purple One’s “Kiss.” With its irresistible, sugary pop ethos, “Make Me Feel” could be Monáe’s most straightforward single. Yet at this point in her trajectory, where Monáe is the most visible she’s ever been, the song is a clear statement of strength, freedom, and continued evolution.
Richard D. James has a way of grabbing one’s attention—and that doesn’t just mean stunts like the recent Aphex Twin logos that popped up in Turin, London, and Los Angeles, painted on a metal grate and semi-hidden in foliage. Given such campaigns, it would be easy for the hype to eclipse the actual product. And for the first two minutes of “T69 Collapse,” the first single from Aphex Twin’s forthcoming Collapse EP, the music does seem somewhat subdued... Not, at least, until the timer ticks over to 1:55: A dissonant synth lead cuts sideways across the tune and the beat seems to quake beneath it, the drums heaving like objects on a ship’s storm-tossed prow. Chaos takes the reins; the kick drum zippers back and forth. It’s as close to heavy metal as James has ever come—and he still has one more card up his sleeve. A false ending gives way to a third part of the track that’s gentler and more bittersweet than either of its predecessors: an acid-tinged coda that jettisons some of the squirreliness and slips into a sleek, head-snapping groove.
If Marie Davidson is ever looking for a side hustle, she should consider becoming a life coach. As “Work It,” the second single off her upcoming record Working Class Woman shows, the Montreal producer understands there’s no shortcut to success. “You wanna know how I get away with everything?” she politely asks before bluntly divulging the hard truth. “I work, all the fucking time.” Built atop a layered kick drum, skittish synths, and sharp, robotic jolts of noise, Davidson’s menacing techno mantra of work and sweat leave no room for half-assed efforts...
Beyond being the most sensual kiss-off of 2018, Meernaa's new single "Wildest Eyes" is a master class in synth wizardry that manages to bow before the throne of analog gear geekdom without ever sounding fussed over, or getting bogged down in its own minutiae.
"Wildest Eyes" shifts subtly, its long sonic planes moving at a seemingly glacial pace (which, fun fact, is also twice the rate of the neurons in Mike Pence's skull). Yet from the staggered plunkydunk synths in the first verse onwards, Meernaa make clear that they plan to fill every nook and cranny of the song with sumptuous surprises - whatever sounds like sand sliding down a metal door in the second verse is a particular delight.
...There is even a cover of Charlie Rich’s "Rollin With The Flow" half way through the album which acts as the work's beating heart, unifying and highlighting that use of chirpy yet soothing guitar and poetic, wide-eyed lyrics that are synonymous with Vile’s writing, as well as the country genre that he holds close to his heart: "It just all falls in line with all the books I was reading. I was just consuming tones of country music and that Charlie Rich cover just from a random, used Best Of CD, and his version is really awesome, it’s a bit cheesy with the girls singing and these syrupy strings like it goes a little far with the cheese [laughs] but still the root of the song is sick! I presumed it would be the very last song on the album, that was part of my original concept but the record evolved."...
...In fact, “Pulled up the Ribbon” could be one of Will Sheff’s grandiose compositions ever. Guitars ring out like giant bells, their vibrations crashing up against intent bass and percussion like swelling waves upon the shores...
...The Straight Hits! features multiple different flavours of country, rock and all points in between, taking in blasts of goofy shit-kicking country-punk (opener ‘Straight To The Top!’), cataclysmic rock’n’roll playing its romantic drama at high-stakes (‘Loved Straight To Hell’, which compresses the elemental power of Pearson’s previous band, Lift To Experience into five and a half minutes of symphonic turmoil)...
...The song’s title, “Ocean Song,” made me think it was going to be calming and smooth, maybe with some soft piano in the background.
I was very wrong.
At the beginning, the intense guitar and drums almost made me jump. Then the band’s frontman Alexis Marshall begins to tell the story of Paul. It seems that Paul is a character made up for the song and he’s going through some kind of frustration. He’s fed up with his life and he wants “to go, to run” and find a new life outside of his own...
The first of the two new songs is an absolute banger called “Sunday Driver.” White takes the lead on that one, and it’s a rip-snorting Camaro-rocker with hooks for days. In director Steven Sebring’s video, the camera spins vertiginously around the band as they play. Jack White recaptures that old rock-star swagger, and it’s a cool thing to see.
Selection from AllMusic Loves 2018
The Raconteurs, Marianne Faithfull feat: Nick Cave, Melissa Laveaux, Janelle Monáe, Aphex Twin, Marie Davidson, Meernaa, Kurt Vile, Okkervil River, Josh T. Pearson, Daughters
Nincsenek megjegyzések:
Megjegyzés küldése