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Tag: The Postal Service

Philip Boone's voice shines in A Light and a Line

Philip Boone – Songs Albums

philipboone

Indie and country have been mingling freely since the ’80s, but the trend picked up a ton of steam in the ’00s. Yet Philip Boone is able to bring a new light to the subject because of his seamless integration of both sensibilities into one sound. Boone’s A Light and a Line meshes confident vocals with strong instrumentation and recording style to create an wonderfully comfortable album.

Boone’s voice is similar to Ben Gibbard’s: smooth, lithe, emotive and incredibly calming to listen to. It’s a bit lower than the Death Cab for Cutie and Postal Service singer, but not by much. Boone plays to this strength, as the arrangements of these twelve songs never impede his voice from shining. He knows that when you’ve got striking melodies at your disposal, like in the Eagles-esque “Either Way” and piercing ballads of “The Truth Is” and “Don’t You Know,” you should use ’em to their full effect.

This isn’t to say that the band is slouching along; the instrumentalists keep the tunes moving, showing off their skill tastefully. This isn’t heart-stopping rock’n’roll; this is swoon-worthy indie-country. The band plays in that framework, and doesn’t ever create any difficult tensions for Boone’s voice (unless they’re intended to be there). The exception is the solo piano closer, which eschews vocals to great emotive effect.

Boone’s A Light and a Line is strong throughout; I could list off tracks with excellent qualities, but I’d be taking up hundreds of words and repeating myself. He knows his strengths, plays to them well, and produces one of my favorite country-rock albums of the year. The vocals simply shine throughout; in a genre where the telling of the thing is everything, Boone knows how to deliver a melody and a story. Highly recommended for fans of indie-folk and alt-country.

The Lovely Few release beautiful, fully-realized music that eschews pop moves

The best stuff I hear always takes the longest to review. When something is good, I can quickly explain why it’s good, compare to similar bands, edit for commas, then send some positive vibes out into the world. When something is great, it’s harder than that. There aren’t as many things to compare it to, for one thing; it’s also harder to explain why they songs are great because the songs often excel because they aren’t doing what other tunes do, lyrically and/or musically.

The Lovely Few has put out two great releases in a row: their full-length The Perseids and a follow-up EP The Orionids. (The namesakes are both meteor showers.) I’ve listened to them largely back-to-back, but they do have individual goals: Orionoids was intended to be the more user-friendly version of the Lovely Few sound that is fleshed out in Perseids. The former was necessary because the latter is a full and complete artistic vision that has few compromises or easy comparisons.

The only things I could think of as touchstones were sadly underappreciated Ithica and a way more artistic Postal Service. What The Lovely Few does could lazily be called electronic indie-pop, but that term also encompasses hyperactive stuff like Matt & Kim and Math the Band that have literally nothing in common with The Lovely Few. But the ideas that fall under the indie-pop umbrella are there: soft digital loops, moving vocal melodies, layers of electronic and organic instruments, strong control of space. The things that differentiate the album from indie-pop: an unusual optimism in minor keys that invokes the wonder of staring into space, flowing instrumentals, chorus-less tunes, liberal use of theremin.

Those instrumentals are important because they signal that the The Perseids is more than just a collection of songs: it’s a full-album experience, meant to be heard as a thing. There are highlight tracks, like gentle opener “Smoke in the Field” and the beautiful “Gorgon,” but those two songs are even better when heard in context. The placement of the ominous, mournful “Intrepid” directly before “Gorgon” accentuate’s the latter’s fluidity and reveals a corner of the tune that could be missed or underappreciated in a standalone listening.

The 11 songs of The Perseids create an elegant yet weighty whole. Even though the songs have a lot of space to let sounds echo in (sometimes literally), they never feel empty or undercooked. The tunes gel, and the mood holds. “Swift-Tuttle” is a glacially slow tune built on pad synths that would be rarely heard if considered on its own (except perhaps by ambient enthusiasts), but in the context of the album it makes perfect sense and pulls its own weight. No track here falters when the whole album is listened to at once.

The Orionids EP is not that much different than The Perseids, but it is different enough that I can see how it would achieve the goal of socializing and contextualizing The Lovely Few’s sound. “Orion” sounds just a nudge removed from the mood of Postal Service’s “This Place is a Prison,” what with the distant drumming and electronic loops. The song is more linear, in somewhat of a verse/chorus/verse structure. “Sci Fi Novels” features an electric guitar with its bass knob turned way up as the basis of the song, while reverent “Hunter” is the tune that can segue perfectly into enjoying The Perseids. (Aside from the :24 closer “Celestial Chord,” which is exactly that; you can run it straight into Perseids opener “Smoke in the Field,” and hardly know the albums have switched.) The one exception to the “knocking the pointy edges off” strategy is the glitchy “Try Again,” which is a weird outlier in many ways.

The Lovely Few’s beautiful music is some of the most enveloping that I’ve heard this year. I get lost inside The Perseids, checking out all the nooks and crannies and little sounds that have been lovingly placed inside it. It’s a fully-realized musical vision that often eschews the sure pop moves for the album consistency ones. I love the sound, I love the albums, and I fully recommend these releases to adventurous listeners who still love full albums.

Videos: Ugly Kids Club/TimPermanent/A Road to Damascus/SoundCloud

You may have heard that Sleigh Bells is releasing a new album. If it can’t get here fast enough for you, some Sleigh Bells-esque noise-pop action is available in Ugly Kids Club‘s “Diamond in Your Fire.” You’ll hear SB’s influence all over it, but when the melodies are this infectious, who cares? The video itself is really weird; just go with it.

While we’re on the subject of strange videos, here’s TimPermanent’s “Busy” clip. The song itself is a burbling indie-electro tune that owes The Postal Service a debt of gratitude. The video is something else entirely.

I’m reviewing fewer and fewer bands with the word “hardcore” in their genre name, but I don’t abandon friends. A Road to Damascus‘s video to “What a Waste of Breath” shows off their pop-punk/hardcore in a tour video: if you’re not down with the genre, it’s worth jumping to 1:45 to see a five-second clip of the bassist pulling off a one-handed cartwheel on stage while holding his bass. I don’t see that every day.



SoundCloud
has reached 10,000,000 sound creators, which is a pretty impressive number. The guys behind the project have created a Story Wheel to tell the history of SoundCloud. It’s a pretty fun little slide-show and presentation, and it’s only a few minutes long. Story Wheel is a pretty cool little app/program as well – I hadn’t heard of it until this came in over the wire.

On the pervasiveness of electro-pop and the scarcity of film

As computers go, so does electronic pop. In the ’80s, electro-pop was this magnificent other (and if you’re Chad Valley, it! still! is!!!). As computers became more ubiquitous, electronic pop did as well; The Postal Service’s Give Up triggered pop culture’s awareness that electronic pop could be gentle. Now we’ve come all the way to The Shoes, whose song “Wastin’ Time” makes electronic pop sound downright organic by integrating it seamlessly into “real” sounds. And I do mean seamlessly.

The video, on the other hand, is a throwback to an era when film meant something. The cinematographic style, story, camera angles and immense attention to detail all point to a time before disposable YouTube vids. (It’s telling that this is hosted on Vimeo and not YouTube, but that’s another post.) The attention to craft and the perfection with which the visuals match the feel of the song make this music video my favorite of the year so far, barely edging out Brianna Gaither’s “Find You.” It’s a bit unfair competition, however: Director Yoann Lemoine‘s recent work also includes videos for Katy Perry and Taylor Swift.

THE SHOES – WASTIN TIME from Yoann Lemoine on Vimeo.

The Top Twenty Quest: Sufjan Stevens and The Age of Adz


It’s now been over a month since I saw Sufjan Stevens at McFarlin Auditorium in Dallas, TX. The time gap is not for lack of interest in writing about the proceedings; the show was so overwhelming that it took a while for me to process it.

Only complicating the digestion of the show is its inseparability from The Age of Adz, from which the show pulled material heavily. Instead of the album being a teaser for the show or vice versa, the two create a total experience greater than either part. You can’t see Sufjan’s choreographed dances on the album; you can’t hear “I Want to Be Well” live. Both are necessary for a full understanding of what’s happening in both.

Much has been made of Sufjan’s recent drum machine obsession, and that is an important part of The Age of Adz, for sure. Sufjan wants to show the chaos that comes of a broken heart, and the brittle pounding of his digital music is a perfect medium for that. But it is important to note that he doesn’t just slam the listener with a post-apocalyptic slab of traumatized notes – he waits until track three for “The Age of Adz.” The first two tracks cannot be forgotten, lest the album become Ladies and Gentlemen, We Are Floating in Space redux. Not that appropriating Spiritualized’s masterpiece would be that much of a bummer, but Sufjan’s eyes are set higher than that.

And that’s why “Futile Devices” opens the album. More than just a way to ease hardcore Sufjanites into his new sound, it plays an essential role in setting the scene of the album. My first impression of the lyrics was that Sufjan is singing from the perspective of the girl who is leaving him; even though there are references to the person who would be Sufjan crocheting, I kind of expect Sufjan to be able to know how to crotchet. “I think of you as my brother, although that sounds dumb; and words are futile devices,” Sufjan laments at the close of the track. And what poor nice guy hasn’t heard a variant on those lines before?

After inserting some sounds like muted bombs dropping (nice touch!), Sufjan snakes his way into “Too Much.” It’s a nice post-Postal Service tune; a little heavy on the staccato drumming, but featuring a good melody and harmony lines that distinctly recall previous Sufjan work.

That’s the secret of Age of Adz, after all: it’s a regular Sufjan album when you strip away the digital stuff. It would be (mostly) possible to remove all the digital parts from the album, as there’s a remarkable amount of organic instrumentation throughout. I hope some aspiring DJ pulls it all out and gives us Age of Adz … Naked. It would be an interesting listen, but here’s what I expect we’d find if someone like Max Tannone did the project: Sufjan still writes amazing songs in much the same way he used to, regardless of the window dressing.

So is “Too Much” the giveaway that the digital stuff is a gimmick? No. That’s where the live performance comes in to make sense of things. Sufjan’s tour was a multi-sensory experience, not just a concert. “Too Much” live included a spastic video that isolated movements of Sufjan and others, bringing light to the robotic nature of motion when connecting motions are lost. Sufjan and two backup dancers performed a similar dance while singing, which was less spastic but more disorienting due to the odd nature of the planned movements.

Who hasn’t felt disjointed during a breakup? Sufjan points out the all-encompassing obsession with romantic love in our society in the lyrics of “Too Much,” then complains that because “there’s too much riding on that,” we’re all messed up when it goes wrong. Leave it to Sufjan to point out something so obvious that no one talks about it, and to make the point seem so clear that I can’t believe no one else is saying it as loudly.

But, as breakups are wont to do, things get worse. Sufjan noted during his performance that “Age of Adz” was “where I confuse heartbreak for the apocalypse,” and that’s exactly what the song sounds like. The art which graces the cover and fills the interior booklet correspond to this theme, as Sufjan told us (He also noted that it would have been artist Royal Robertson’s birthday, and that his widow was in the audience for the performance).

This and “I Want to Be Well” are the most jarring tunes on the album, and not just because they’re some of the most electronic-heavy ones. They touch a really deep nerve: It’s discomforting to hear Sufjan’s version of the break-upocalypse; the crushing melodrama is all too familiar and all too frustrating (irony: the girl I’m dating was with me at this show).

He follows it up with even more melodrama, as “I Walked” has some of the most raw (and, honestly, most high school-ish) lyrics he’s ever written. But the music in “I Walked” is one of the best musical efforts on the album, as it takes the songwriting style from previous work and effortlessly transitions it to electronic pop. As far as I can tell, there are no organic instruments in the recorded version of this song. Sufjan dances disjointedly in this song too, as well he should, for the same reasons as before.

Sufjan travels through various other breakup emotions: hindsight on “Now That I’m Older,” accusation on “Bad Communication,” longing for memories on “All for Myself” and self-motivation on “Get Real Get Right” and “Vesuvius.” When performed live, “Vesuvius” becomes even more dramatic than the recorded version; with an army of lights, Sufjan and his ten-piece band played accompaniment to the stage glowing red and orange in flickering patterns. They recreated the inside of a volcano, transforming the song from good to mind-blowing. In terms of sheer enjoyment, “Vesuvius” is the highlight from the show and the album; it is beautiful, powerful and moving.

Sufjan closes the album with “I Want to Be Well,” which has gotten lots of note for being the one where he says fuck sixteen times, specifically in the repeated phrase “I’m not fucking around.” Many Christians were sad. But as a Christian, I was not sad: these Christians condemning him for his display of emotion are not very honest with themselves. How many times have curse words burbled to the surface of terrible breakups? Lots. Especially inside people’s heads, which is where we are when we listen to Sufjan. Christian or no, it’s a hard thing to be broken up with, and sometimes it ends up with curse words.

Aside from that, it’s the biggest hopeful moment on the album, as Sufjan decides that he wants to get better from the breakup. He may not be getting better yet, but he wants to. He manages to say, “And I forgive you, even as you choke me!” That’s a pretty solid conclusion, wrapping around to the beginning of the album’s statements in “Futile Devices.” The mad rush of drums and vocals that is the last two and a half minutes of the song are some of the most heart-pounding on the album, because they’re simply cathartic.

It’s relieving that there’s a conclusion. If Sufjan didn’t have any finishing insight on what he saw, this whole album would be a hot mess (i.e. most breakup albums). But the lyrics, music and performances of Age of Adz all shed new light and commentary on the oldest pop music subject in the book.

We could have guessed this was coming, honestly. We got to hear about his home state, his religion, his childhood and his hobbies — why hadn’t we heard of his love life yet? Now we have. And boy, that was one massive breakup.

How bad was Sufjan’s breakup? Well, bad enough that he tells the whole story twice, because “Impossible Soul” is a 25-minute trip through the same exact story we just heard. It has almost exactly the same emotional arc as the first 49 minutes of the album, albeit with an extra bit that didn’t make the previous songs: an emphatic dance party in the middle where he recounts the best parts of the relationship. During the live performance, he heavily autotuned himself and seriously got down with the dance moves. I mean, Kanye West had nothing on this dude. He had an upside-down visor with a long tail of silver streamers on it. He was rocking it. It was incredibly fun to watch.

Aside from the dance floor jamz, the mini-opus travels through many of the same moods and feelings that the previous album did. And it’s brilliant. There’s really nothing else that can be said about a twenty-five minute track that doesn’t feel nearly that long.

Sufjan fleshed out his live performance with a few non-Adz tracks; “Chicago” made an obligatory appearance, as well as opener “Seven Swans” and “That Dress Looks Nice on You.” He played a couple from All Delighted People EP, which were nice (which is pretty much my conclusion on that whole EP, as well). They were thoroughly enjoyed by the audience, but in comparison to the inspiring opuses of Age of Adz, they felt a bit pale. Anything that can make the life-affirming power of “Chicago” seem pale needs to be taken very seriously.

And, seriously, Age of Adz is about as good as pop music gets. Sufjan has pushed the envelope of his own groundbreaking sound to its outer limits and returned with previously unknown jewels from those reaches. It’s fitting that acoustic guitar opens and closes the album; it truly is a Sufjan Stevens record. It’s just a Sufjan record that reaches for the very stars that compose the video of his “Seven Swans” performance. He pulls them down, too; there’s not a clunker anywhere on the album. Individually and collectively, this album succeeds. With the live show augmenting it, it becomes downright awe-inspiring.

Will this be his sound from now on? Almost certainly not. This is a document of what he went through that one time, and he’s a very good documenter of what he goes through. Like Ben Folds said, “I do the best imitation of myself,” and Sufjan’s most recently necessary imitation of himself required apocalyptic booms and synthesizers. Who knows what will happen next? I highly doubt Sufjan does, and that’s the wonder of his artistry. He makes as he is: he lets us in on secrets. The Age of Adz is not in the future; it happened already to Sufjan Stevens.

And we get to see and hear as he sees and hears. Rare is the talent so grand as Sufjan’s, and rarer still is an album so completely successful as Age of Adz.

Pandora Chronicle: The Postal Service

Pandora Chronicle: The Postal Service

Pandora’s been getting a lot of recognition as of late as a major player in the campaign to save internet radio. But even before they became a major policy-influencing organization, they were popular here at Independent Clauses. Our intermittent feature “Pandora Chronicle” features a staff member picking one of their favorite bands, plugging it into the Pandora radio station creator, and reviewing the first three tracks that come up (unless they’re really well-known). This month, editor-in-chief Stephen Carradini punched the Postal Service into Pandora, and these tracks are what Pandora recommended.

Lilian – Depeche Mode

This is a song from Depeche Mode’s 2005 release Playing the Angel. I didn’t know Depeche Mode was still together, but apparently they are alive, kicking and releasing interesting music. It’s kinda weird to hear a band that is associated with the 80’s in the now, as the hallmarks of the 80’s sound aren’t retro pandering but residual effects of actually being an 80’s band. That being said, this song is quite good, with some great melodies (that, truth be told, do have a Postal Service vibe). The instrumentation smacks of 80’s (drum machines, ahoy!) but no worse than She Wants Revenge. I liked the vocals a lot (less dour than most 80’s bands) and this song flowed well. Three cheers for an old band still releasing good music.

Was It a Crime – French Kicks

A repetitive, clanging sample and plaintive strum anchor the intro to this fuzzed out, lackadaisical song. The rest of the song doesn’t get much more complicated, as free-floating vocals, spare drumming and plodding bass work fill out the song. It makes for a very strange mood – the song is mid-tempo, but it feels very nearly epic. The problem is that it’s standing on the threshold- it never quite gets there. Not very much electronic about this band, although this quirky track will certainly impel me to check them out more.

Why London? – Eskobar

A more down-tempo, trip-hoppy style electronica is presented in “Why London?” The song is complete with a dusky, husky female vocal performance and tons of reverb. The mood set is pretty strong, but underlying melody is a little peppy for the beat of the song. It undermines the slow tempo a bit. But it sounds good in context of the song, and I still had my head bobbing for the entirety of the song. Very moody, very chill – definitely a 3 a.m. driving in Vegas song. It’s that in-the-know cool.

A Number, Not a Name – Statistics

This one starts off drone-heavy before introducing the vocals and a simple beat. The vocals here are the type I like – emotive, but not whiny; melodic, but not overly so. The voice sounds real. The beat is spare once again, relying on the strength of the underlying melodic drone and the chorus-initiating high synth melodies. By the time Statistics starts to layer the high melodies, it’s become clear that this is a formula that works. A very, very enjoyable song – probably my favorite of the four reviewed here.

Until next month, keep listening to Pandora.

-Stephen Carradini

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