It’s October, which means I’ve been watching horror movies almost non-stop for the last three weeks.  In fact, I think my Netflix account is starting to judge me a little, each day coming closer to the conclusion that I’m a psychopath.  Everyone’s familiar with horror tropes by now, but those genre conventions are brought into even sharper relief when you watch movies back to back to back.  I’ve put together a few suggested double features based on the noticeable parallels.

The “She’s a Real Sweet Girl” Double Feature: May and Audition

The female leads in both films are shy, sweet, soft spoken, and endearingly off-kilter.  But you’d better run like hell, because they have a penchant for dismemberment.

The “Location, Location, Location” Double Feature: Session 9 and The Descent

The Danvers State Mental Hospital in Session 9 and the caverns in The Descent are both monsters in their own right, even before the spooky shit starts to happen.  The characters, already damaged by personal trauma, begin to unravel in claustrophobic spaces.  The Descent throws in literal monsters for good measure, but both films have a haunted, melancholy atmosphere that would have been frightening enough without things that go bump in the night.

The “You’re Not From Around Here” Double Feature: Don’t Look Now and The Wicker Man

Donald Sutherland and Edward Woodward both search frantically for a lost little girl (one dead, the other imaginary) in unfamiliar places (Venice/Summerisle).  Stymied at every turn by creepy old ladies and local authorities, they struggle to take power into their own hands.  Little do they know that a mysterious plot is tightening its noose around them. See also: Antichrist vs. Don’t Look Now.  Explicit married sex.  Death of a child. Restorative vacation turned destructive.

The “Let’s Go to the Mall” Double Feature: Return of the Living Dead and Night of the Comet

Teenagers! 80s Music! 80s Fashion! Talking Zombies! The government ruins everything! See also: Dawn of the Dead.

The “My Girlfriend is a Corpse” Double Feature: Deadgirl and Make-Out with Violence

Make-Out with Violence is a much sweeter and more subdued film, but both are twisted coming of age tales about teenage boys and their friendships.  Plus an undead girl tied to the bed.  Deadgirl seems to be about impotence (or misogyny, or something), while Make-Out with Violence is more about coping with grief, but both films are creepy parables about playing house with a girl too zonked to even participate in the relationship.  See also: Doghouse vs. Deadgirl, on the zombie chauvinism front.  Alternately, Lake Mungo vs. Make-Out with Violence, from the “ghosts and zombies are a metaphor for not letting go of loved ones” angle.

The “Shit’s All Freaky” Double Feature: Poltergeist and Insidious

Haunted houses.  Creepy children. Malevolent spirits.  Objects that move around by themselves.  Alternate dimensions.  Psychics and hapless ghost hunters.  Insidious even features a subtle homage to Poltergeist when one of the embattled ghost hunters soothes his bruises with a steak to the face.  Sadly, the steak does not crawl across the table. See also: House of the Devil, another straight-faced modern film with a loving callback to spooky 80s movies.

The “Vampires Are So 2010” Double Feature: Cronos and Thirst

Two directors known for daring and originality: Guillermo Del Toro and Chan-Wook Park (Oldboy).  Two takes on vampire mythology so radical that the classic creatures of the night are barely even recognizable.

Here are the other movies I’ve watched in the last few weeks, even though I couldn’t quite pair them up for an effective double feature:

Dario Argento’s Inferno (probably best with any other Argento film, especially Suspiria)

Peeping Tom (pair with another moody classic, like Eyes Without a Face, Diabolique, or something by Hitchcock)

Red State

Frozen

Them (suggested with atmospheric European thrillers, like The Vanishing or another home invasion story, The Strangers.)

October isn’t over yet.  More to come.

I didn’t realize that SXSW would knock me into a six-month hiatus, but here I am, trying to remember my password and how to upload songs or images.

A few things:

I mistakenly thought the upcoming CD releases were looking pretty ho-hum this year.  I have a lot of respect for the Walkmen, but I’ve never exactly devoured their catalogue, and I thought I was over the likes of Sufjan Stevens and Of Montreal, but recent reviews have reignited some of the old excitement.  I’m eager to get ahold of Junip‘s new album, Fields (Jose Gonzalez‘ band), The Clienteles‘ Minotaur EP, and the forthcoming Belle and Sebastian record.  See? 2010 isn’t a total bust, after all.

My obsession with Scandinavian pop music has grown over the months, and finding a couple of great blog resources has only stoked the fires: All Scandinavian and It’s A Trap are a couple I’ve been looking at.  Recently, I’m searching out Finnish bands, particularly if they sing in Finnish — but they have proven a bit difficult to track down in a lot of cases.  I do recommend a group called Regina who makes off-kilter pop music with equal parts jazz and trance influence.

The scandi-pop taste has extended to a few guilty pleasures, as well: Robyn and Annie (I dare you to get “Chewing Gum” unstuck from your head. Hint: you can’t).  I won’t lie — it’s a little easier for a nerd like me to admit I enjoy dance pop if it comes from Sweden, although it’s hard to tell if the quality of craft and songwriting is any different/better than their American diva counterparts.  When evaluating electronic pop music, I ask the most important question: can I run to it?  According to this standard, Robyn’s Body Talk, Part 2 is far superior to Part 1, no matter what most critics say (although “Fembot” is still pretty bitchin’).  And just when I thought I couldn’t love Junior Senior any more after Hey Hey My My Yo Yo, I finally got around to listening to their first full-length album, D-D-Don’t Stop the Beat. I have to say: of all the bisexual Danish party-bands out there, Junior Senior are my favorite by far.

That’s the wrap-up for now.  I’m looking for some new stuff to get excited about, so if there’s something I absolutely-must-listen-to-right-now, please tell me!

Efterklang, for the win!

So, I made it through this year’s South by Southwest festival without any sunburn, hangovers, or blisters on my feet.  Don’t know about you, but I call that a success!

My roommates and I spent most of Wednesday in the small town of Gruene, a quaint old village with a grist mill (now a restaurant) and a dance hall where we saw the Drive-By Truckers play.  The weather was perfect, the Truckers were good, and Ellie could tell you more about it.  It felt a little weird going away from Austin on the first day of SXSW, but I was comforted knowing that Thursday and Friday belonged to me.  (Muahahaha) I spent a couple of days poring over every free/unofficial show list I could find to compile a near-perfect schedule. Honestly, I can’t imagine that having a badge or wristband would have made my week any better.  Everywhere I went, there were no lines, no hassles, no worries, and best of all, it didn’t cost me anything.

Thursday

I took it easy on Thursday.  This year was my very first SXSW, something I’ve been looking forward to for years, but I had absolutely no idea what to expect as far as crowds, lines, RSVPs, food, drinks, and bathrooms. The French Legation Museum was hosting a free Lawn Party that looked like a pretty good bargain for the day, with a lineup that included The Antlers, Zola Jesus, Holly Miranda, and The xx.  When my roommate dropped us off at 1:30, Ellie and I walked right through the gates and found virtually no crowd at all.

The Antlers got a little bit of a late start around 2:20 after what seemed like an endlessly frustrating sound check.  I had listened through their album Hospice a little while back and wasn’t very impressed despite all the good press I’d read, but I was still curious to see what they would be like live.  They used a lot of synth and feedback to create an ambient backdrop for their moody little dramas.  I held my breath for the lead singer as he reached for ever more impossible high notes.  ”Swoony,” Ellie observed after the first song.  Despite my skepticism, I have to admit they were pretty good live, and I might give them another chance.

I spend most of Zola Jesus‘ set standing in line for the bathroom, and that was probably for the best.  Harsh?  Not my thing.  I had heard one of her songs before and thought it was pretty decent.  She has a big, commanding voice and some doomy synthesizers, but all of the songs sounded exactly the same.  The day was all wrong for her, too.  It was gorgeous and sunny, she played on a tiny stage at the bottom of a grassy hill surrounded by historic buildings and a stone fence.  She wore all black and flailed around with more energy than the music really called for.

We walked a couple blocks south to the Eastbound and Found stages on East 6th Street, just in time to catch The Morning Benders, a band I was really excited to see.  I think I like them; their new album Big Echo was produced by Grizzly Bear’s Chris Taylor and they do sound a little like Grizzly Jr., heavy on the bass, four-part harmonies, and dreamy nostalgia.  I was shocked to see how young they were — I’ve seen pictures but I didn’t think they were actually that young.  Like fetuses.  But really adorable Cali pop-playing fetuses.

We walked around 6th St. to ogle the craziness for awhile, but never made it back to the French Legation.  Instead we walked almost all the way home before stopping for margaritas and some Tex-Mex.

Friday

Friday was a whirlwind.  We had quite a bit of trekking around town to get from one show to another and were blessed with some impeccable timing.  Started out at 1:00 pm in the parking lot of Waterloo Records and saw folk rock legend John Hiatt play to a full crowd (also, a much older crowd than we had seen at SXSW so far).  Hiatt played one of the more fun sets I saw last week; he’s an old pro who had a great supporting band with him.  Ellie and I especially admired his hot collection of guitars that he and his other guitarist rotated throughout the set.

Next, we saw Shearwater, a band I don’t actually like but wanted to see live anyway.  At this point, the size of the crowd was cut in half.  Jonathan Meiburg’s incredible, theatrical voice was just as impressive in person as on record, but while the songs were pretty, they were also kind of dull.  I’m not up on their discography, but I do know they played a good version of “Rooks” from the album of same name.

What I was really looking forward to that day was Miles Kurosky, the former lead singer of San Francisco (and Elephant 6) band Beulah.  The crowd thinned way down — apparently John Hiatt was going to be the most popular act of the day — which made me a little sad for Kurosky’s first solo outing.  A gaggle of teenage girls behind me wondered aloud which Beulah songs he would play.  Answer: none.  I was surprised to find that Miles can actually rock pretty hard.  Never thought I’d say that.  Beulah was always kind of fussy in its grand pop arrangements but looking back, I realize I underestimated that they did, in fact, rock sometimes.  The sound guy needed to turn his mic up; the vocals were almost completely buried.  Halfway through Kurosky’s set, he stopped to apologize, “I feel like I’m not giving 100%…I have this funny disease…” alluding (I think) to some of the health problems he’s struggled with for the past couple years. Apparently he felt awful for the entire Waterloo set, but hung in there until the end, despite looking increasingly distressed.

From there, we had an hour to get down to End of an Ear, a small record shop in South Austin.  Thanks to a little ride and a lot of walking, we made it home, changed clothes and shoes, and arrived at End of an Ear just in time to see Efterklang start their set.  Efterklang is an ethereal art-rock band from Denmark who make dense and dreamy songs like Sigur Ros, but with the song-oriented accessibility of Sufjan Stevens or Vespertine-era Bjork.  They have a sprawling, spacious sound, so I was very curious to see how that would play in a tiny record shop.  There were six of them crammed into a corner, but they had great attitudes, marveling over their first in-store performance (ever), playing to more intimate crowds outside their own country, smiling and cracking up the whole time.  Although they claimed their set would be very stripped down, I couldn’t tell a significant different in scope.  Efterklang was probably the most pleasant surprise of SXSW for me.  The new material sounded crisp in the small space.  I don’t know how many fans were in the audience, but the Danes won over the whole room by the end.  A couple guys who rushed in the door as the band said their final goodbyes begged for one more song.  ”We just got here!” they yelled, and the band happily obliged them for a brief encore.

From there, we made it over to Home Slice on South Congress, where the pizza joint was hosting their free Music by the Slice event.  We were there to see Lou Barlow, but showed up in time to catch the Cave Singer‘s entire set.  And pizza. Man, I love Lou Barlow.  It should have been weird to see him at something like SXSW.  Although not exactly a household name, he’s been a mainstay in the indie world since Dinosaur Jr.’s first album back in 1987.  And I don’t even know if Dinosaur played South by this year, but I did spot J. Mascis earlier in the day behind the Waterloo stage.

Lou Barlow’s performance style isn’t really suited to the 5-song set format of SX; you really need two hours in a laid-back setting where people can call out requests and let him fumble around a bit, telling stories.  His set that night was a nice happy medium; he took a lot of requests but stuck only to songs he knew well.  I was front and center, and had too many favorite moments to name, but at one point he announced, “So I read online that this song is terrible…” and then shrugged it off: “I have no filter.”  He launched into “Take Advantage” from his last solo album, Goodnight Unknown.  Also, nice to be in a crowd full of people who know him and his extensive catalogue.  The audience wanted to keep him.  He puzzled over how quiet and attentive the crowd was, in contrast with the rowdy Sixth Street parties he had played earlier in the week.  ”Welcome to South Austin,” someone explained.  Because Barlow was playing Home Slice’s last show of the night, the organizers didn’t seem to care much about time limits.  He played an extended set (lots of good old Sebadoh, too: “Soul and Fire,” “Brand New Love,” “Skull,” “Not a Friend,” “Willing to Wait,” and “Too Pure”), and even played a couple songs  on ukulele after the crowd insisted on an encore.

We settled at Doc’s awhile to drink away the pain in our feet, and by 10:30 pm, we were ready for round two!  We walked over to the Continental Club, where No Depression hosted a showcase, and saw the Deadstring Brothers play.  We did a bit of dancing, admired the band’s collective hairiness, and then went home to collapse.

Saturday

My SX experience on Saturday was unplanned and (pleasantly) unexpected.  Ellie and I knew we wanted to catch a couple of acts at Auditorium Shores, where Deer Tick, Lucero, and She & Him would be playing later in the evening.  I went downtown for a couple of hours to volunteer at the museum, and decided to do some impromptu wandering with a friend after I got off — it was fucking cold!  And dark!  And windy!  And I was only wearing a thin dress with some sweater tights, but I braved the misery, determined to eke out some more enjoyment on this last day of the great SXSW.  We rushed east of I-35 in the hopes of catching Austin instrumental band Balmorhea, but even though we were only ten minutes late, we caught the last song.  Seriously, who runs ahead of schedule at a time like this?

Then we wandered up to the French Legation to see what was going on. Again we caught one final song, this time from Admiral Radley who, as my companion pointed out, sounded an awful lot like Grandaddy.  (Aha!  Mystery solved... that’s because they are Grandaddy, plus Earlimart.  I knew I recognized Ariana Murray on keyboards!) Even though the wind and cold were getting increasingly dire, we decided to stick it out at least to see what the next band, Denmark’s The Kissaway Trail, was like. They weren’t bad, as far as I could tell from the one song we heard, moody, synthy, a bit 80s, (doesn’t hurt me that they were pretty Scandinavian boys with cool hair) but the cold sent us skittering away to a more indoor location.

We ducked into the inviting warmth (well, relatively) of Shangri-la and caught a couple of pretty excellent bands I’d never heard of.  First up was the Treetop Flyers, a band from England with a rootsy, soulful, 70s soft-rock sound a la Crosby, Stills and Nash, Harry Chapin, with a little Van Morrison thrown in. I should have bought their EP that was on sale, but really needed to hold on to my last five bucks in cash until I knew what the food sitch was like.  After the Treetop Flyers, Tape Deck Mountain played a noisy, percussive set with a lot of feedback and some good grooves that reminded me a little of a less-angsty Elliott.

We met up with Ellie at Auditorium Shores, but none of us realized they had pushed the showcase back by two or three hours due to the harsh winds.  Expecting Lucero to start at 6:00, instead we got Kimya Dawson kicking off the whole shebang.  I’m not crazy about her music at all, but she was gracious and charming enough, even though her hands were almost too cold to play the guitar.  After that, a thoroughly bland and middle-of-the-road folk rock band called Dawes played.  I felt bad for disliking them because they seemed like really nice guys.  But at this point, it was clear that we would not last another hour outside in the cold waiting for Lucero to play, especially now that the sun was dipping below the horizon.  We gave up the fight and headed to Fran’s for hamburgers and shelter.

And that concludes my SXSW!  Highlights: Efterklang, The Morning Benders, Lou Barlow, and The Treetop Flyers.

So, what were your favorites this year?

In other news, SXSW is happening.  Cheers!

I spent the better part of last week hermetically sealed inside Newsom’s music, living in this alien but meticulously detailed world she’s crafted.  Friday night, when I finally had to listen to something else, I felt a little like a traitor.  It was like leaving a country and knowing I might not be granted re-entry.  Today, fortunately, I find that place just as welcoming and immersive as last week.  Slate had a pretty good (and positive) write-up of the album today, called “Joanna Newsom Would Like Your Undivided Attention.” Naturally, discussions of the record have mostly focused on length; it’s interesting that it takes a triple album by Joanna Newsom (of all people) to make critics question what pop artists are allowed to ask of their listeners.  Has this issue poisoned the album?  Will Have One On Me be considered a masterpiece because of, or in spite of, its ability to sustain our interest for more than two hours?  How much should that even matter as long as the songs are worthwhile?  But most importantly, why are we so obsessed with our own attention spans (or lack thereof)?

On first impression, I like part three of Have One On Me more than the quieter second disc.  Like disc one, it has a little more musical variety and assertiveness, and therefore makes a perfect bookend to the album as a whole.  The PopMatters review I posted in a previous entry argues that Newsom could have pared down the album to make it stronger; this has stuck in my mind as I listened, so I’ve tried to consider which songs I would cut.  Although there are a few songs that I don’t care for too much, I can still argue for their artistic merit and right to inclusion.  The only song from the whole 18 track collection that I would offer up for sacrifice is “Autumn” from this last set.  In the opening moments, it too closely echoes “Go Long,” but continues on limply, with no build or real melody.  She even sounds bored in her vocal delivery.

The third disc opens with “Soft As Chalk,” which has the rough feel of a live track, like a piece of tossed-off studio tomfoolery, with splashes of missed piano notes and melodies that change direction and tempo every minute or so.  The “chorus” (if it has a chorus) reaches a crescendo that sounds a little like Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit,” and her voice even hits a few notes with Grace Slick’s forcefulness.  Despite its haphazard construction, “Soft As Chalk” has a charmingly loose sound, and has emerged one of my favorites on the album.  Fear is a palpable theme here, as she sings, “Give love a little shove/ and it becomes terror,” and ultimately finds the speaker “cowering with my light,/ calling out/ Who is there?” It’s a heartbreaking image, someone so undone by the worst aspects of love.

“Esme” is written as a lullaby, and Newsom stretches each syllable over an impossible number of notes.  She sounds positively awestruck singing lines like, “Taking so many photographs — / so amazed! –/ we’ve never seen a baby so newlyborn.”  I don’t have much to say about “Esme” that can’t also be applied to the rest of the album, but it’s a solid and beautiful entry in the collection. “Ribbon Bows,” a kind of folk ballad, finds her in a reconciliatory mood, inviting her lover to “come and get your love,” explaining, “I only took it back/ because I thought you didn’t [want it.]”  She sings with a soulful twang over mandolin and violins.

The penultimate piece, “Kingfisher,” is perhaps the grandest song on the album, a stately, medieval procession of flutes and deep, booming drums.  It has an epic, cinematic sweep.  I want to read the title as “Fisher King,” a reference to the castrated ruler of the Wasteland, which might not have been Newsom’s intention, but I can’t help but interpret the same apocalyptic overtones in the lyrics.  She makes repeated references to failed crops and ashes; the lines near the end, “And I saw that my blood / had no bounds, / spreading in a circle like an atom bomb,” (the second mention of bombs) are particularly chilling.  When she hums over the haunting instrumental break, I get goosebumps every time.

The last song, “Does Not Suffice,” brings the album full-circle, with its callbacks to “In California,” (a reprise) and “Easy,” (“everything that could remind you / of how easy I was not”).  The song begins groggily, the piano and Newsom’s voice both hesitant at first, then gaining in confidence as the speaker steels her resolve for a breakup.  She chastises her soon-to-be-ex-lover’s condescending platitudes, “It does not suffice / for you to say I am a sweet girl, / or to say you hate to see me sad / because of you.”  Instead of talking it out, she insists on removing every trace of herself from his life.  She presents the emptiness as a parting gift: “Everywhere I tried to love you / is yours again,/and only yours.”  Her voice even fades into the background as the song comes to its final climax.

It’s been a very long time since I immersed myself in music this way, bringing a new record home from the store, poring over the lyrics, and trying to absorb every sound.  Now the process seems like an exercise of self-discipline, but the payoff is still the same.  The final verdict: amazing.  Have One On Me is surprisingly inviting, starting with that title in big, bold letters, and only gets warmer and more welcoming on subsequent listens.  Favorites: “Easy,” “Good Intentions Paving Company,” “You and Me, Bess,” “Go Long,” “Soft As Chalk,” and “Kingfisher.”  These, of course, are subject to change given the mood of the day.

Listen: Joanna Newsom — “Kingfisher”

Newsom is quite the hottie

A couple of stray thoughts before we get started on Part Two.  First, in defense of Joanna Newsom’s voice:  I’ve found that her singing has become one of my favorite aspects of her music.  If she had a more conventional voice, her songs could be dismissed simply as “pretty music,” the kind of thing you might play in the background while getting dressed for the Renaissance Faire. Instead, I’m forced to engage with her strangeness and recognize that there is a person (and a personality) behind the music.  I know that’s a faulty argument for liking something, a whiff of contrarian logic, but there you have it.  On her first album, it often sounded like she only sang because it was a means to an end, i.e., conveying the lyrics to us, but on Have One On Me (and to a certain extent, Ys), she sounds like she’s enjoying herself, actively challenging her own vocal limitations.  She’s turning what might have been a liability into an asset, and for that I respect her confidence.

Thinking about Newsom’s voice and the way many people react to it reminds me of a larger question: what do we expect from our singer-songwriters?  At the most basic level, we expect them to be competent at songcraft.  But we also want the songwriter to have the mind of a Poet when it comes to writing lyrics, to be a virtuoso guitar-player (pianist, harpist, etc), and possess a great set of pipes.  It also helps if he or she is attractive.  Of course, the chance of  finding a human born with every single one of these qualities is rare — not unheard of, but let’s be realistic. I keep thinking about an infuriating conversation I once had with a college roommate; she demanded to know why Bob Dylan didn’t just hire someone else to sing his songs for him.

As we enter the second act of Have One On Me, we have a set that is more musically consistent than the first, with no departures or genre dalliances like part one’s “Good Intentions Paving Company.”  Part two is also considerably more sparse, both in length (all of the shorter songs are here), and in the complexity and arrangement of instruments.  Only “You and Me, Bess” and “In California” carry much beyond harp and voice, but the simplicity of this set is hardly a drawback; the songs here demand more careful attention and a deeper immersion into its dreamlike landscape.  I’m starting to notice patterns (horse and sugar imagery, fairy tale references) and seeing a larger theme take shape: nothing is what it seems.  Not love, friendships, personal histories, childhood, and certainly not the home you remember.

Part two begins with the light and (ambiguously) sweet “On a Good Day,” a stripped-down song that lasts little more than a moment.  Despite such brevity, it feels like a fully-formed song instead of an intro or gateway to the rest of the album.  When Newsom sings, “On a good day/ you can see the end from here,” it’s unclear whether “the end” refers to a conclusion that’s apocalyptic or a welcome relief.  In the songs that follow, the darker interpretation emerges as Newsom explores images of execution and dismemberment.

“You And Me, Bess” has a precarious melody, moving along like a sleepy brook and somehow defying nature to follow a path of most resistance. The disorientation created by this fractured melody provides a solid foundation for the lyrics, punctuating the sense of “nothing is what it seems.”  A speaker describes a close relationship between two friends (seemingly) on a journey “[picking] our way/ down to the beach / watching the waves,” but we soon learn her companion is actually a stolen horse, and the speaker’s punishment for theft is death on the gallows.  ”You and me, Bess/ we were as thick as thieves,” she proclaims.  I wonder if I should interpret the character as delusional, believing she has found a spiritual sister and partner in crime, but finding instead that a horse is only a horse, unsympathetic to her plight.  She appears to feel betrayed by her own delusions when she can no longer ignore the animal nature of her companion:

Who do you think that you are –

arching your hooves like a crane,

in the shallow gutter

that lines the boulevards,

crowded with folks

who just stare as I hang?

Almost every discussion I’ve seen so far about the album has referenced Joni Mitchell’s obvious influence.  This is true of much of the first disc, but here I find a stronger Kate Bush influence, especially on the more frenzied portions of “In California,” (and later, on “Go Long”) where Newsom sings in the fragile upper register of her soprano.  Part one’s “No Provenance” showed a speaker wishing that she could go back to the farm, but with “In California,” she finally achieves an uneasy homecoming, discovering “I am native to it, but I’m overgrown./ I have choked my roots/ on the earth.”  She also makes a distinction between physical and emotional geography when she discourages her lover, “You cannot come and see me,” but rather invites him to “cross the border of my heart,” a nakedly sentimental statement wedged between more obscure imagery.  ”In California” reaches one of the most satisfying musical climaxes of the album so far: strings swirling, drums pounding, Newsom’s staccato voice soaring through the chaos.

To me, “Jackrabbits” is a weak point, the quietest song on a relatively quiet set. This one might have fared better as a closing track (although that would be a somewhat predictable move), but coming as it does between two stronger pieces, it feels a little flat.  She sings in a weary whisper, and sounds genuinely tired when she says, “I was tired of being drunk./ My face cracked like a joke.” The only instrument here — the harp — is used sparingly, so when her playing grows more impassioned beneath the chorus, “I can love you again:/love you again,” the impact is felt deeply.

“Go Long” is an aching song that weaves together intricate harp melodies (the liner notes inform us that three harps were used — different kinds, I wonder?) as a backdrop for Newsom’s retelling of the Bluebeard story.  Bluebeard, who gruesomely murdered his first six wives, and kept their bodies in a locked room for his seventh wife to find, is treated in “Go Long” like a broken manchild more worthy of the speaker’s sympathy than of fear.  ”You have been wronged,/ tore up since birth,” she sings early on, making excuses for his violence, but we also understand the difference between helping a hurt sparrow and taking in a man whose secret chamber is “gilded with the gold teeth/ of the women who loved you.”  By the end, she has resigned herself to the role of the doomed seventh wife, singing, “What a woman does is unlock doors./ And it is not a question of locking/ or unlocking.”  She accepts destruction as the inevitable outcome of loving somebody who is damaged.

The first moment of the next song is slightly jarring after “Go Long”‘s delicately-constructed nightmare.  The piano-based “Occident,” by comparison, sounds earthy and soulful. I never thought of piano as a particularly heavy-sounding instrument before, but when played against the ethereal harp, the contrast is stark.  Newsom’s voice is deeper here, too, eschewing the thin vulnerability of the other pieces on the disc; this is the closest she comes to sounding like a lounge-singer in a smoke-filled room.  ”Mercy me, the night is long,” she sings with all the world-weariness of a blues singer.  The recurring theme of blunted nostalgia returns in lines like, “All my life, I’ve felt as though/ I’m inside a beautiful memory,/ replaying/ with the sound turned down low.”

And so we’re more than halfway through this opus.  Part two is less flashy and maybe more refined than its earlier counterpart, but it’s still too soon to say whether I’m satisfied.  So let’s continue to press onward.

P.S.  Joanna Newsom is dating Andy Samberg?  Really?

It’s no secret that our attention spans are getting shorter.  These days, we are grateful for albums that clock in at a half hour, and movies a tidy 80-90 minutes.  So when Joanna Newsom has the audacity to release a triple album that runs over two hours, with songs at 6-12 minutes in length, there will be one of two reactions: we can either crown the achievement with a lofty “epic” label, or dismiss the record, as in a controversial PopMatters review, as inflated and self-indulgent.  Because I haven’t yet listened to all three of Have One On Me‘s discs, I won’t get into the argument that Newsom could have trimmed away some of the fat.  Breaking the album into three parts seems like a helpful gesture to make the glut more digestible, but I’d argue that, like Newsom’s 2006 release Ys (which only contained five very dense songs), you should take this on a song-by-song basis.  Joanna Newsom is a pretty divisive figure, evoking hostility in some toward her idiosyncratic voice, and a triple album isn’t going to win any fans among those already predisposed to scorn her.  Me?  I like her just fine.  I like what she’s doing but have never been entirely convinced by the execution.  I’ve also been hesitant to get too invested because it feels a little like drinking the Kool-Aid sometimes.  But this release could probably be termed an “event” album, and therefore I feel like it deserves the full explication treatment.  Pour yourself a drink (ahem, have one on me), because this will take awhile.

The pensive lullaby, “Easy,” doesn’t feel like an opener, but it is one hell of a beautiful song.  The tone alternates between anxiety and comfort, as Newsom sings, “We are tested and pained/ by what’s beyond our bed./ We are blessed and sustained/ by what is not said.”  A simple piano melody adorned with strings slowly builds with cello and horns, before stripping itself bare again, leaving the speaker vulnerable.  ”Easy” seems to be about the pain of emotional distance, despite physical closeness.  When she sings, “I am easy, / easy to keep,” she sounds haunted, less of a reassurance to the lover than a plea for him to stay.  By the end of the song, she has become a virtual ghost, “like a Bloody Mary,/ seen in the mirror.”

The next song, the title track, doesn’t hang together quite as well.  At 11 minutes, it becomes unmanageable.  The first few verses struggle to find a foothold amid some predictable cascades of harp, before asserting itself; here Newsom sounds self-assured, almost aggressive in her vocal delivery of “Here’s Lola — ta-a! — to do / her famous Spider Dance for you!”  After this initial bravado, though, the middle section gets lost.  I’d be very interested to know what Newsom’s songwriting process is like.  Does she have structures mapped out before beginning, or is her composition style more improvisational?  I wonder if she just goes in half-cocked, letting the notes fall wherever they may.  Sometimes I get the sense this is the case, which isn’t always bad — it can result in unpredictable and pleasantly surprising twists.  And it’s not like she can’t handle 11-12 minute songs, either.  ”Emily” was one of my favorite songs on Ys and it never felt in danger of falling apart.  However, in the case of “Have One On Me,” the piece doesn’t come together until the last four minutes, settling into a tense, percussive hypnosis. Newsom’s breathy vocals spiral out of control, espousing violent imagery of drunkenness, death, and cruelty, and then lapsing into stunned reverie in the aftermath.

After the shambling “Have One On Me,” next track “’81″ has the indecency to sound like a pop song.  It’s amazing that “’81″ feels so huge despite the fact that it runs less than four minutes, making it one of the tightest, shortest songs out of the whole triple-disc set, and that it is composed only of a harp and Newsom’s voice.  Also impressive is the way she makes the “otherworldly” seem so near and intimate through the power of simplicity; she might sing about hosting a dinner party in the Garden of Eden, but “’81″ doesn’t sound like it was piped in directly from fairyland — you can practically hear the room she was playing in, the sense of space is that clear.  Some see the standout track “Good Intentions Paving Company,” which draws influence from country, gospel and 70s soft-rock, as a departure, but I see it as an obvious descendent of such Milk-Eyed Mender tunes as “Inflammatory Writ,” with its saloon-nostalgic twang and piano pounding.  The difference is that Newsom has smoothed away some of the rough edges and approached recording with a mature self-consciousness.

The mournful “No Provenance” find the speaker looking for safety in a past that might never have existed.  ”You burned me like a barn… safe and warm in your arms,” she sings, after spinning “gold clear out of straw,” like the girl from fairy tale “Rumpelstiltskin.”  Each time Newsom warmly sings the refrain, “in your arms,” sunny violins rise from behind to thaw the chilly atmosphere.  But only for a too fleeting moment.  This song makes a good pairing with “Easy,” with its themes of a tenuous love affair and appeals to the Fates, although not as strong or melodic as the earlier song.  ”No Provenance” also ties well with “’81″‘s wistful return to the Garden, as Newsom begs, “Pretty Johnny Appleseed,/ leave a trail that leads/ straight back down to the farm.”  The memory of a better and simpler time on “the farm” is as much a myth as Johnny Appleseed himself.

Rounding out the first set, “Baby Birch” begins with voice and harp in a traditional hymn structure.  The good news: Newsom’s voice has never sounded so silky.  Not as good: the song remains inert for six minutes until the cymbals enter, creating some much-needed tension, except she immediately backs away from it and the song is over.  It’s like dipping your toes in the water, finding it warm, but deciding not to dive in after all.  I want to applaud her restraint here, but instead I wish she had been more committed.

On the subject of short attention spans, this review is really long, eh?  And we’re only on part one.  As someone who doesn’t work for a music publication (with tight deadlines and six other records to review), I have the luxury of spending time with the massive collection that is Have One On Me, as opposed to a hurried once-over.  Stay tuned.

Listen: Joanna Newsom — “Good Intentions Paving Company”

Buy: Insound

This week promises to be more interesting. Today I want to pick up Joanna Newsom‘s new triple album, Have One On Me, and Swedish group Sambassadeur‘s European. Ideally, I’d love to cover Newsom’s release in three parts, but that’s a dangerous statement to make.  I also hope that things around here will be more exciting as SXSW approaches.

I’m intent on gleefully destroying any cred I might have as an amateur music critic, and today’s post is going to go a long way toward that goal.  I’m talking about the poor, neglected albums on my iPod that I never got around to hearing.  Sometimes I get overzealous and download so much music at a time (or friends burn stuff for me) I can never absorb it all, or I get sidetracked by  the one record I really love.  In most cases, I listened to the first two songs, or flipped through them all and decided I wasn’t in the right headspace, but never came back to it later.  It’s also possible that I’ve listened to many of these albums and that they just didn’t leave an impression on me.

So here they are, in alphabetical order:

1. Aimee Mann – @#%&*! Smilers I used to love Aimee Mann, but found her  quasi-concept album The Forgotten Arm to be a little toothless, despite a plot-line that revolved around a hard-living wrestler.  It’s hard to say if she’s changed or if I have, but either way, I couldn’t muster up the enthusiasm to give this record a spin.
2. Antony & the Johnsons — I am a Bird Now
3. Augie March – Watch Me Disappear This Australian band’s second album Strange Bird is one of my absolute favorites, and their first and third releases were pretty good, too.  But all it took was three songs from  their latest, Watch Me Disappear, and the awful classic rock sound sent me running, never to return.
4. Beirut — The Flying Club Cup
5. Beulah — When Your Heartstrings Break Love Beulah, especially their final album, Yoko.  I think I’ve listened to half of this one, but I’m not sure why it never stuck with me.
6. Bon Iver — For Emma, Forever Ago Shocking, I know.  Everyone else hailed this as one of the greatest albums ever, but I don’t get it.
7. Cat Power — The Greatest I like what I’ve heard from this, and Jukebox was tolerable, but I’m still a little traumatized from Chan Marshall’s exercises in dreariness on albums like Moon Pix and What Would the Community Think that I can’t stomach any more from her.
8. Choir of Young Believers — This is for the Whites in Your Eyes This is also no longer true, because I listened to this album as I was writing this post.  I was psyched for this after hearing the excellent single “Action/Reaction,” and although this is a very good sounding record on the production level, I wish it wasn’t so consistently downtempo.
9. Destroyer — Destroyer’s Rubies I need to try this again when I’m not prone to being weirded out.
10. Dirty Projectors — Rise Above
11. The Felice Brothers – The Felice Brothers Dylan-y.
12. The Flaming Lips — Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Love The Soft Bulletin, great album.  And I really like the first song on Yoshimi… which is the only song I’ve ever heard.
13. Hot Chip — Made in the Dark
14. Loney, Dear — Loney, Noir I really want to like this band more than I actually do, because they’re Swedish, and because their song “Airport Surroundings” was really catchy, and I’ve known a few people to recommend Loney, Dear.  But they’re like a less interesting version of Grandaddy.  And Grandaddy aren’t that interesting to begin with.
15. M. Ward — Transistor Radio I gave this album to my dad. Because that’s the kind of music my dad likes.
16. A couple of albums by Mount Eerie that my friend gave me.  This was part of a CD-swapping deluge and I just didn’t make it to these.
17. Neko Case — Fox Confessor Brings the Flood I am thrilled about Middle Cyclone. Loved it.  There’s really no excuse why I haven’t listened to this one yet, especially considering that most Case fans think it’s the gold standard.
18. Of Montreal — Skeletal Lamping And I thought I’d be the last person to complain about too many pop hooks, but Kevin Barnes happily frolics over the line.
19. Okkervil River — The Stage Names and The Stand Ins I have never been able to get into this band, and I feel so left out.
20. The Pains of Being Pure At Heart Ugh.
21. Radiohead — The Bends You were probably with me up until this point, and then you saw that I’ve never listened to the Most Favored Record by a Most Favored Band.  Seriously.  It’s not like I’ve never heard Radiohead before.  I pretty much own all of their albums, but it’s a case where I started towards the end and worked my way backwards.  Still working on it…
22. The Raveonettes – Pretty in Black
23. Regina Spektor — Like, all of them.
24. Ruby Suns — Sea Lion Sorry, Joseph!  My interest has been piqued for their upcoming album, so I will (re-)visit this soon.
25. Rufus Wainwright — Release the Stars and Rufus Does Judy at Carnegie Hall Rufus, I just don’t know where our relationship went so wrong.  I think I liked the idea of you more than the drippy, melodramatic reality, but I have to admit that no one does that sort of thing better.
26. Six Organs of Admittance — Shelter from the Ash
27. Sondre Lerche — Two Way Monologue There’s no reason why I shouldn’t be interested in this guy: he’s Norwegian, overly twee, and I once listened to a sample of this many years ago in the New Orleans’ Virgin MegaStore (RIP) — and remember liking it.  But it’s hard to get excited about something so palatable.
28. A whole bunch of albums by Stina Nordenstam.  So far I’ve only explored The World is Saved, but I like her a lot.
29. Also, everything by the Sugarcubes.
30. The Thermals — Now We Can See
31. The Walkmen — You & Me I think I might have actually listened to this once, but just didn’t give it the attention it deserves.  The Walkmen is one of those bands that intimidates me just a little because they have such unconventional song structures, and they seem wonderfully deranged — but in a way that demands love and attention.

Thar’s the list.  Blast away!

Sorry to sound so naive.  But you cityfolk have no idea what it’s like to grow up in a musical wasteland and then suddenly hit the motherlode.  I’m spinning.