Heartache With Hard Work

A few bands I discovered recently that deserve a broader listen:

When I Wake Up – Wintergreen

Wintergreen is a nice little Midwestern guitar-based indie-pop band. This track is a particularly great example of that genre. It’s a song about being confused, finding someone, losing someone, and generally not knowing what in the world is going on. In short, just about every depressing-yet-strangely-happy song in existence. For example: “You are leaving everything that we share behind / It doesn’t make sense / But it makes no difference / The way you looked at me made it feel alright.”

One thing that’s interesting about the song – they produced a very funny video about the ET game for Atari (described as “the worst Atari game ever”). Millions of copies were produced and almost universally reviled, returned, and eliminated from circulation. So the video follows the band to a landfill where they dig up hundreds of copies. I’m not sure about the historical truth (I think the excess games were actually destroyed, not just thrown away), but it doesn’t really matter. For a song about disappointment, what better way to demonstrate the point than to focus on a terrible video game rush-produced to follow-up on a great movie?

They only have an EP out right now, though they’re working on a full album. The EP can be purchased at their myspace page. Unfortunately, no one in the band (as far as I can tell) is named Yossarian.

Another band I ran into today is Penny Century, from Sweden. Somehow, there are actually two different bands named Penny Century, both from Sweden. This one plays sweet, melodious songs to buck up a sad heart. Yes, I know it seems like we’re already inundated with Swedish pop bands, but they do it better than most. For a taste, check out Tangled Up in My Sheets. It’s sugary, bouncy, and so on. If you like Swedish pop, you’ll like it. If not, then you, like the terrorists, hate freedom.

Airport – Like Honey

What’s that you say? You want MORE Swedish pop? I guess I could scrounge up a little more. Like Honey is on the Hybris label, which has a number of other interesting bands (their website seems to be down right now due to bandwidth problems, but I was there a day or two ago and it was working fine). You can also check out their myspace page. This song is more of the same great Swedish pop – buoyant, and with a singer who sounds like a Swedish Juliana Hatfield.

Nothing detailed to talk about today, so I’ll just give you a couple new songs that I’ve been playing a lot recently, and a couple old favorites.

Lightning Blue Eyes – Secret Machines

I’ve been listening a fair amount to their album Ten Silver Drops, which is officially released today. It is being compared to The Flaming Lips’ Mystics as both bands play a genre of music that is a large, spacy, and atmospheric form of post-prog rock. As one might guess from my review of Mystics, I don’t necessarily see this as a positive thing. Some of the same problems pop up on Ten Silver Drops: songs that drag on, amble a bit aimlessly, and are a little too self-satisfied. That said, there are a few songs I really enjoy, and Lightning Blue Eyes is one of them. At five and a half minutes, it’s hardly the most economical song, but here the length is not really a problem, since it provides an opportunity for multiple sections to unfold. Each component is tightly-woven and the ultimate result is an enjoyable epic feel.

The Pitchfork review had a quote which I really enjoyed: “The Secret Machines are never going to make it to “The O.C.” Their candyprog blitz– which combines Krautrock precision with U2-size melodies– is better suited to a show like “Battlestar Galactica”, with its Cylon battles and lost-in-space conspiracies, than to beach houses and young sunny romance.” Fair enough.

Other Days – Big Buildings

Amy over at Shake Your Fist had a link to this track a couple days ago and I quickly fell in love with it. She describes it as a “a gutwrencher, a good-bawl-in-your-beer of a melody.” I couldn’t say it better. It’s from their new album, which is apparently in very limited release. If the rest of it is anywhere close to as good as this song, I’m guessing it will end up pretty high on my year-end lists. Their myspace page is here.

Sleepy California – Her Space Holiday

When I was back home in Washington over Thanksgiving last year, my computer broke (a very traumatic experience), leaving me essentially without music until it was fixed. I made a stop at Sonic Boom Records (my favorite record store) to pick up a few CDs to tide me over. I don’t get much chance to just browse CDs these days (living in the middle of nowhere, New Hampshire), so I took the opportunity to buy a couple records based on staff recommendations. The description of The Young Machines by Her Space Holiday (“perfect music for a long nighttime drive”) piqued my interest and I gambled on it.

It won’t ever be one of my favorite albums, but there are some very good elements. It’s an album full of songs about broken relationships, messed up people, and their struggles to deal with those things. Musically, it occupies the space of electronic-melancholy. Pianos and keyboards are combined with electronic loops and drum beats to great effect. This song is one of the more “conventional” sounding songs on the album, and details the way you see things differently as you grow up. He re-evaluates his relationship with his mother, beginning to understand that the tensions and troubles between them may not be as meaningful as the love which hides beneath the troubles.

This comes to a head in the second verse, when he talks about a phone call he received telling him that his grandmother was dying. He laments that he failed to see her once last time before leaving town, since he realizes now that he’ll never get another chance. It’s a powerful feeling, when he concludes by half-singing, half-whispering: “But I just hope they know, how much I really care. How I want the best for them, even though I’m hardly there.”

Sleeping Aides and Razorblades – Exploding Hearts

Speaking of tragic deaths, one cannot discuss the Exploding Hearts without going into the backstory. Not long after releasing what could have been their breakthrough album Guitar Romantic, three of the members of the band died in a car accident. It’s an incredible shame. This song exemplifies the great music they were creating. It’s everything The Strokes were supposed to be an more: a garage pop-punk romp through a relationship gone bad (“You know the first night you left me babe, it was so hard / and it didn’t hurt you told all my friends I’m a retard / and you say you know what’s best for me / but if you got your way, I’d have a lobotomy”). It’s playful and exuberant, the kind of song that makes you want to get up and dance.

Like a lot of folks my age, I went through a ska-punk phase in high school. I got started a little before it really exploded (Reel Big Fish, No Doubt, etc.), and my introduction was a CD one of my friends let me borrow called Misfits of Ska put out by Bruce Lee (no, not that one) of Asian Man Records.

It’s a great compilation that includes about as many different genres of ska as conceivable, and it was followed a couple of years later by Misfits of Ska II a couple of years later, with 30 more genre-bending tracks. The idea was to combine some elements of The Misfits with more traditional ska components. Given that, it’s much more about the punk/metal take on ska than it is about the first-wave reggae approach. Still there’s a bit of that, and a whole lot more fun stuff.

If you missed the ska thing the first time around, or if you never really got what was so great about it, these compilations might give you a look into the wider world of great ska music out there. It has contributions from some of the more famous names (Less Than Jake, Reel Big Fish, and a really old Sublime track), but those are really some of the weaker contributions. I could go on about virtually any track, but here’s a couple of my favorites:

Nate B – Slapstick

Slapstick is one of my favorite bands, and this is my favorite song by them. They broke up almost a decade ago, but they have a self-titled CD that compiles virtually all of their songs, and is well worth a purchase. This song blew me away an absolutely perfect horn riff (almost identical to one from Simon and Garfunkel’s “Fakin’ It” incidentally). It’s not really “ska” except for the horns, but those add just enough flavor that it sounds like much more than a strictly punk number. There’s a slightly heavier-sounding version of this song on the album I linked to, but I prefer this one.

Acceleration 3000 – Blue Meanies

This is the first track on the first compilation and WOW what a way to start. It sounds metal-influenced, but more than anything it sounds frantic. And just as you need to catch a breath, there’s a wonderfully punch-drunk middle section before they hit you again at top speed for the conclusion. This is the kind of song that makes you put your foot on the gas pedal and drive 100 miles an hour (or, if you’re me, makes you want to put your foot on the pedal, but settle for imagining doing so while continuing to drive the speed limit – what can I say? I’m a rebel without a cause). Another song different from the album version, and, once again, I like this one a lot more.

Head First, Feet First – The Skolars

This is the only song by the Skolars I have ever heard and I have no idea why. I really should fix that. If their other stuff is anything like this one, it must be great. This is the opener on the second compilation. Much like the Blue Meanies track, it takes speed to a whole new level. While the other song takes the ska-metal approach, this one is much more traditionally ska sounding, with a definite punk influence. It’s just incredibly fast, with an incredible bouncing guitar.

Art Show (A Polka) – Johnny Socko

There are a lot of other songs I like more than this one over the two discs, but if you like the stuff I’ve already linked, you’ll probably go buy yourself the album and find them for yourself. So, for the last one to share, I thought I’d give you a peek into the more playful side of the album. It was a choice between “Fat Lady Skank” (pretty much exactly what you’d expect), and this one. I opted in favor of giving you all a chance to hear what happens when you combine ska and polka music. The answer? Awesomeness.

I got pretty into Rainer Maria four or five years ago, right after they released A Better Version of Me, but they really fell off my radar for a while after that. In 2003, they released an album (Long Knives Drawn) that I listened to a few times and then never thought about again. Somehow it just didn’t strike me.

So when I saw a few advance tracks from their upcoming album Catastrophe Keeps Us Together, I didn’t expect too much. However, I was pleasantly surprised on first listen, and after a few more was re-converted.

On past releases the band has, at times, walked the edge between emo and caricature-of-emo (given their choice to name the band after Rilke this should hardly be surprising), but this record is virtually free of those occasional missteps. It’s a bit of a cliche to talk about bands maturing, but I think it’s pretty appropriate here. The exuberance of the past is not gone, but it is now tempered, both in terms of lyrical choices, and in terms of the sound.

The edges are still there, but they’ve been smoothed a bit. Caithlin De Marrais sings with more confidence and a little less warbling (and Kyle Fischer, bless him, has been completely relieved of singing duties), the hooks are cleaner (and, y’know, exist which wasn’t always the case), and the band just sounds a lot tighter. They still remind me quite a lot of early Sunny Day Real Estate, but the arrangements are a lot cleaner and the guitars are a lot friendlier than they once were.

The album has a few weaker moments, to be sure. The cover of “I’ll Keep It With Mine” (written by Dylan and sung by Nico) in particular is rather uninspired. I’ll kill any indie cred I might have by admitting I’d never heard the original until after listening to Rainer Maria’s version. But even so, I can say they haven’t added much. To be honest, it just sounds a little dull. It’s 5 minutes without any variation, and her voice (while great on the more punk/emo influenced numbers) just doesn’t do sultry very well. There aren’t any other songs I would say are bad, though the middle of the album (Terrified, Cities Above, Already Lost) is not nearly as strong as the bookends.

Castrophe

The album opens with this track, following the tried-and-true technique of kicking off with your biggest-sounding song. It’s about finding love, or maybe just meaning, as the world is collapsing around you. Whether its a metaphorical collapse or whether it’s meant to be an apocalyptic love story is not totally clear. Really, I like either interpretation. It’s got a great ominous, imposing beat, which only makes it that much better at the end when she insists over and over “I’ve got a plan, I’m gonna find you, at the end of the world.”

Clear and True

This song really drives home what I said about them maturing. I don’t think it would have fit in at all on some of their earlier releases. In some ways, that’s a shame because, to be honest, it’s slightly blander fare. Still, as I’ve said before, there’s nothing all that great about making “difficult” records. While this song may be less adventurous, it more than makes up for it by exemplifying what makes jangle-pop glorious, resplendent with “woooos” and a choppy little drum beat that virtually screams “dance to me!”

Life of Leisure

This is probably my favorite of their more “old-school” songs on the record. It’s got a lot more of the punk flavor, though it’s still a lot more Replacements than it is Dead Kennedys. The drumming is a highlight here. Like Ringo at his best (that’s right, I said it), it manages to surround the song while they thrash along.

Ballboy is the Scottish Belle and Sebastian. Oh, wait…hmmm… Maybe they’re Scottish cousins of Carissa’s Wierd, then, with a little more twee, and a little bit less chamber pop. They’ve got a great energy, prominent strings, warm guitars, and a lot of songs about love, hearts, and all that stuff. They don’t have quite the songwriting ability of the bands I’ve compared them to, nor the ability to make harmonies that just make you want to melt, but they’re still a pretty neat band.

I came across them a couple years ago doing a Bruce Springsteen cover:

Born in the USA

It’s an interesting take on the song. The Boss himself has a couple versions, the bombastic, huge, and powerful version that everyone knows, but also the stripped down, acoustic version originally recorded for Nebraska that’s now on the Tracks box-set. The Ballboy version takes the song in a slightly different direction. While both of Springsteen’s versions emphasize the gut-wrenching elements of the narrative (either with screaming vocals that pummel you, or with a sparse, almost bluesy approach).

Ballboy, however, make the sound sad more than painful. With that warm acoustic strumming and weary, forelorn vocals, it takes on a slightly different feeling. No longer an attempt to expulse the pain, it is mournful.

I still prefer the original Springsteen version, but I definitely enjoy this one a lot, too.

Another song by them I enjoy:

Frankie and Johnny

This one is a lovely little tale about young lovebirds who share a blissful life until Frankie discovers him cheating on her, and blows his head off. Oops. I hate it when things end that way. Considering the subject matter, it’s a very bouncy quick-paced and fun-sounding song. It wasn’t until the second or third listen that I paid attention to the lyrics and realized it wasn’t nearly as happy as I had thought.

They’ve got a number of MP3s available for download on their website. And you can even get their most recent album in MP3 format from them.

Apparently Matt strongly disagrees with me about the new Flaming Lips. I dunno. Like I said, a lot of people seem to like it and who am I to argue with taste, but…it just doesn’t do it for me.

According to Stereogum, Mark Knopfler has an album of duets with Emmylou Harris coming out next week. Woohoo! Mark Knopfler, creator of my all-time, desert island, number one favorite song of all-time: Romeo and Juliet.

On a non-musical note, I just watched Manor House, which is pretty much the coolest thing ever. Reality TV, BBC style. They bring a family in to play the role of Edwardian aristocrats, and a bunch of other people to take on the roles of the servants. Upstairs/downstairs politics, a little history about early 20th century England, and a whole lot of crazy stuff. I had two main thoughts. First, it’s amazing how quickly and how deeply the family falls into the role of the “benevolent masters” – they quickly begin to think of themselves as noble, deserving of the constant attention of servants, completely unaware of how hard the life is for those who do all the work. It calls to mind Kurt Vonnegut’s admonishment from Mother Night: “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”

Second, it’s pretty amazing to watch an empire falling apart. It’s a small microcosm, to be sure, but seeing just how obsessed these people were with maintaing strict social hiearchies, with adhering to rules of etiquette, and with honoring their past reveals a lot about the state of the British Empire. It had become decadent, weak. Those in power did everything they could to maintain their hold on that power, creating an intensely stratified society that would soon be torn apart by world wars and economic realities which forced a drastic reevaluation of the role of workers in society. Obsession with etiquette did not cause British power to collapse, but it certainly helped things along. When they could have devoted their efforts to expanding their power, developing new technologies, modernizing the economic and political environment, instead they strove for stagnation. Very interesting stuff…

A shorter entry today. I’ve been busy with frisbee and watching Stargate SG-1 all day. It’s a tough life, I know.

I have put off listening to Josh Ritter for quite a long time – well over a year. And it’s for a pretty silly reason. See, one of my friends back in high school was named Josh Ritter. And I figured, I guess, that if I already knew one, it would be silly to get involved with a second one. Don’t ask me why I thought that made sense – it was just an excuse to explore some other band instead. After all, when there’s so much new music to listen to, the silliest reasons can end up meaning that you don’t hear someone.

It’s a shame because Ritter is, in fact, pretty awesome. I know it’s a cliche to compare singer-songwriters to Dylan and Springsteen, but I don’t care. If Ritter doesn’t achieve the gravity or the greatness of those two, he at least provides a pleasant variation on the theme. He has a warm, full voice and knows how to use it. He writes the kind of songs that make you feel good about life.

His most recent album, The Animal Years just came out, and it’s pretty good. I’ve read some not-particularly-enthusiastic reviews of the album, pointing out the occasionally weak lyrics (lots of vague allusions to religious themes) and the lack of variation in style (it sounds a little like “folk troubadour by numbers” at times). Those points are reasonable, I suppose. But frankly, it’s just such an enjoyable album to listen to that I can forgive it for not being life-changing.

It’s never going to be one of my favorite albums, but I bet that at the end of the year, I’ll have given this one more listens than a number of other records this year that I consider to be better, objectively. The thing is, what makes an album artistically and musically “interesting” doesn’t necessarily make it fun to listen to.

Ritter has two of the albums better tracks available for download from his website:
Girl In The War
Thin Blue Flame

Girl In The War is a track that I’ve seen panned by a lot of people, for the reasons explained above (it’s a criticism of the Iraq war using metaphors of Peter and Paul). But, like I said, if you don’t expect it to be too much, it certainly has a pleasant sound. And sure, maybe it’s a little precious. But whatever. After all, as David Foster Wallace (in A Supposedly Fun I’ll Never Do Again) says, there’s something refreshing about an artist who is “willing to risk the yawn, the rolled eyes, the cool smile, the nudged ribs, the parody of gifted ironists, the “Oh how banal.” To risk accusation of sentimentality, melodrama.”

If that’s true for the first song, it’s even more true for Thin Blue Flame. At almost 10 minutes long, it invites criticism of taking a good idea and beating it to death. But, for me, the sprawling nature of the song gives it a great deal of depth. The sounds have time to get up, stretch their legs, and move about. It’s a jam, but it never descends into meaningless meanderings. The quiets and the louds are well-balanced. And the lyrics are brimming with an idealism that has almost, but not quite lost its way. In a world where there is a lot of reason to be pessimistic about the future of the human race (And those still looking in the clear blue sky for a sign / Get missiles from so high they might as well be divine / Now the wolves are howling at our door / Singing bout vengeance like it’s the joy of the Lord), it’s still important to hold onto hope. As he says, “you need faith for the same reasons that it’s so hard to find.” I like that.

And here’s one more track from the album, that goes in a (slightly) different direction.

Lillian, Egypt

Compared to the rest of the album, this one has a bit more bite to it. A galloping piano interlude, a quick percussion-beat, and some wonderful harmonies give it a great feel. It’s a joyous romp, a nice counterbalance.

I don’t know too much about The Revelations. Here is a short list of things I do know.

They are three women. One is half-Portuguese. One is Swedish. One is from Essex.

Their record label is Fierce Panda Records, which is pretty awesome.

According to an article in the Sunday Times, this is their origin-story: “Annika Magnberg, Sarah Vitorino and Louise Masters answered an ad in the NME looking for the 21st-century Ronettes. Namecheck Spector’s babes and the Supremes, add swirling organ and a touch of northern soul, and you’re in the land of pure, timeless girl pop.” Given my love for 21st century takes on Spector-esque girl groups, how could I not love this band?

You’re the Loser

This is their first single, and (as far as I can tell) their only non-demo track that’s currently available. It’s bubbly, energetic, and the next best thing to a new Johnny Boy song. They’re snapping their fingers, they’re checking in with some nice woah-oh-oh-ohs, there’s a bass beat that sounds almost directly lifted from every great girl-group song of the 60s, and the harmonies almost burst out of the speakers. They’re a little sultry, they’ve got some swagger, and most importantly, they know that they’re almost so sweet, it’ll make your teeth hurt.

Sure, it’s well-produced (maybe even over-produced), but who said we had to do the DIY-indie thing all the time. There’s definitely something to be said for a record that just makes you feel good, you know?

As far as I can tell, this is the only officially released material by them. You can get that on iTunes or at Amazon. I’ll try to keep an eye out for when they release a full-length.

Like a Hurricane

This is one of my favorites by Neil Young, and they do a nice cover. It’s very mellow, emphasizing the quiet and pretty elements of the song.

And while I’m on the subject of 60s throwback girl groups, I thought I’d mention another band that’s been somewhat prominent in the last few months: The Pipettes. On the whole, I haven’t really been that impressed with what I’ve heard from them. But they have one song, It Hurts To See You Dance So Well that I have been loving. Clocking in at one minute-six seconds, it’s got everything a pop song ought to have. Here’s hoping that they re-create the perfect storm they grabbed a hold of here for some future songs.

Continuing on the theme of female artists that I’m secretly in love with, today the focus is on Laura Veirs, a former geologist who now makes amazing music. I know the easy crutch in discussing an artist is the “reminds me of” test, but it sort of breaks down here. I could list some people that I think of when listening to Veirs, but it would probably only mislead. Is it folk, is it country, is it post-alternative, is it neo-folk? Who does she sound like: Suzanne Vega, Beth Orton, Cat Power? Who does she write like: Leonard Cohen, Colin Meloy, Walt Whitman? The answer: a little bit of all, a lot of “none of the above.”

Her voice sounds like pretty much no one else, but feels like either the North wind when you’re alone on top of a mountain in the dead of winter, or like the fire that you huddle near at the end of the day. It is not a musically astonishing voice – her range is actually rather limited. But it is poetic. And, maybe it’s just me, but it has this timbre to it which I’m not sure I’ve ever heard before–immensely strong, but gentle, more a part of nature than a human voice.

This fits perfectly with her subject matter. Her lyrics deal primarily with nature, geography, places, environments. You hear constant references to birds and beasts, clouds, lakes, hills, Summer, Winter, and the stars. It is music that, as Leopold suggests, helps us to “think like a mountain.” Indeed, her songs read far more like contemporary nature writing than they do pop music.

This is not to say that there is no human element. Like all good nature writing, she does not treat nature as perfectly transcendent. She has described her most recent album, Year of Meteors as “a road record,” which I think is true of all of her music. It’s about the sense of place, movement, and the journey. That means a lot of it will be about the environments you encounter, but it will also be about the personal journey. If movement is a constant, it is not just physical movement. That means that her songs are partly about mountains and trees, but they’re also about love and beauty, wherever they may be found.

Once again, this meshes very well with her style, which I would describe as “infinite complexity out of utter simplicity.” Much like any seemingly natural part of life, the path of a stream, a hummingbird flying by, seems perfectly reasonable and simple, the more we investigate, the more we understand how little we understand. What we understand to be natural is really the convergence of millions upon millions of chances and interactions between forces that are fundamentally chaotic and uncertain. I mean, let’s not even get started on Schrödinger.

And yet, we manage to function. Out of multitudes of chaos, we discover order. If I may, let me quote from one of my favorite books: Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams:

Mathematical analysis and computer modelling are revealing to us that the shapes and processes we encounter in nature – the way that plants grow, the way that mountains erode or rivers flow, the way that snowflakes or islands achieve their shapes, the way that light plays on a surface, the way the milk folds and spins into your coffee as you stir it, the way that laughter sweeps through a crowd of people – all these things in their seemingly magical complexity can be described by the interaction of mathematical processes that are, if anything, even more magical irt their simplicity.
Shapes that we think of as random are in fact the products of complex shifting webs of numbers obeying simple rules. The very word “natural” that we have often taken to mean “unstructured” in fact describes shapes and processes that appear so unfathomably complex that we cannot consciously perceive the simple natural laws at work.
They can all be described by numbers.
We know, however, that the mind is capable of understanding these matters in all their complexity and in all their simplicity. A ball flying through the air is responding to the force and direction with which it was thrown, the action of gravity, the friction of the air which it must expend its energy on overcoming, the turbulence of the air around its surface, and the rate and direction of the ball’s spin.
And yet, someone who might have difficulty consciously trying to work out what 3 x 4 x 5 comes to would have no trouble in doing differential calculus and a whole host of related calculations so astoundingly fast that they can actually catch a flying ball. People who call this “instinct” are merely giving the phenomenon a name, not explaining anything. I think that the closest that human beings come to expressing our understanding of these natural complexities is in music. It is the most abstract of the arts – it has no meaning or purpose other than to be itself.”

Veirs’ music plays around with this paradox. Songs that begin simply build upon themselves. A simple riff is toyed with, placed in different contexts. But she is not creating chaotic noise. The point is not to overwhelm the senses, it is to find sparse melodies and explore them.

She plays around a lot with layers. Many of the songs have an underlying track of feedback and short electric riffs, while above that plays a strong acoustic track. “Secret Someones,” for example, is a rollicking song with a deeply buried feedback track that occasionally elbows its way to the front, and then suddenly there’s a cascade of bells, the feedback surges, and the vocals pile on top of each other. Or on “Black Gold Blues,” when an eerie set of strings is combined with a broken drum track, a fuzzing (almost grungy) guitar provides a secondary beat, and she sings a round with herself.

I haven’t seen her live (May 22 in Cambridge is the next chance), but I get the impression that this layering effect is just as prominent there, even when she plays a solo show. Through use of the looping pedal, she lets the song build and build, as she continues to add to the chaotic mix, holding onto the basic theme, but letting the rest of the sounds swirl around in broad movements.

However, while she does a lot of interesting things with layers of sound, in my opinion, her best songs are the most stripped down. They remain complex, but more subtly so.

Magnetized

This song is almost painfully beautiful. It begins quietly, just her and her guitar. Only in the second half do the layers appear. And even then, it’s only two layers of quietly strummed music, the primary vocal track, and harmonies in the background. Contrasted with the pure simplicity of the rest of the song, it adds some depth, but does not fundamentally change the attitude or feeling of the song., and it’s not until halfway through that the piano and strings make an appearance. By the end, it feels like a hymn.

And, when she sings “Homing pigeon fly, to hover by” her voice is just so perfect in its imperfection that I can’t even deal with it.

Where Gravity is Dead

This is the first song I ever heard by her and may still be my favorite. The melody is haunting. I just can’t think of any other way to describe it. The carefully plucked electric guitar sounds like it is being played by a ghost. The meshing of sounds in the long instrumental ending is perfect. Sounds enter and leave just off kilter, but not so far as to disrupt the flow. And how great is the line:

But doesn’t it get lonely
Riding up there to the sun
On a single raft for one
Don’t you wish for someone

She did a show with Colin Meloy back in January that NPR broadcast. They’ve still got the MP3 of the show up. It’s worth a listen. Also, you can hear MP3s from a show she did on KCRW’s Morning Becomes Eclectic at So Much Silence.

You can also download her albums on iTunes, or buy them at her website. I recommend you do so.

So it seems like the theme this week is my favorite women in indie rock. Let’s just move on down the line, then. Next up: Jenny Lewis, the lead singer of Rilo Kiley. She was a vegan for a long time and drinks lots of Kombucha. So that’s pretty awesome.

But let’s face facts. If you’re reading this, you probably already know who Jenny Lewis is, since she’s like the biggest thing in indie rock these days. In fact, she dominated the field in Stereogum’s “Miss Indie Rock” Poll last year, single-handedly taking in almost a third of the votes.

I have to say, the Jenny Lewis Phenomenon is a little strange sometimes. If you’ll pardon the digression…

The thing is, people love her. I mean, they really love her, far beyond what I perceive to be her actual talents (substantial as they are).

To understand, the important thing to remember is that we’re dealing with hip indie kids. They consider themselves to be far cooler and less superficial than the masses. They scoff at the adoration for modern pop stars, all obviously chosen because they look good in front of a camera, not because of any musical talent, artistic sense, or lyrical ability. “We’re so much different” they say.

So they’re a little uncomfortable with the fact that a big part of what’s appealing about her (and her music) is sex. It’s not just that she is very pretty – it’s also that a lot of her songs (for Rilo Kiley a little more than her solo work) are very upfront in their discussion of sex. And, beyond all that, her voice is magnetic, rapturous. It’s not sensual in an overwhelming sense (that would be far too obvious), but it’s carefree and insouciant. She sounds just real enough that you can imagine her as a real person. And, while she is pretty, she’s not drop-dead gorgeous in a classical sense. Once again, the important thing is that she’s ideal because she’s beautiful, but not too beautiful.

All of which means that she occupies a strange space in the indie rock consciousness. She is in the blurry zone between, on the one hand, being so beautiful and perfect as to be unattainable, and on the other, seeming like a real, live human being. So, I think, there is a lot of guilt in the crowd of indie boys who love her. They don’t want to accept that sex is a big part of that adoration, because it runs counter to the indie-ideal.

But the not-so-hidden secret is that, while we all want to meet a girl who reads Tolstoy, is into Neutral Milk Hotel, and wants to watch Northern Exposure, we also want her to be pretty. Sure, it’s a different kind of beauty. Glasses are hip, blond is SO mainstream, and the whole concept of $300 shoes is anathema. But while the superficial stuff is a little more muted, it’s still lurking.

So we hear constant admonitions to stop talking with how she looks, and instead to focus on how talented she is. Which is perfectly reasonable. Because she is enormously talented. I’ve already talked about her voice, which is great, but she also writes amazing songs, along a fairly wide spectrum of musical styles.

That said, sometimes it seems like people are a little too effusive. Like maybe the elephant in the room of her physical attractiveness makes them overcompensate in singing her other praises. A case in point is the reaction to her new solo album Rabbit Fur Coat.

It is a fairly typical solo album – not particularly different than her work with Rilo Kiley, more an excursion into Americana than a sign of any fundamental shift. It’s pleasant, and at times provides an excellent vehicle for her voice. Still, it suffers from a problem that many encounter when they make their country-influenced solo record – it feels affected. Part of what makes country and soul music so good is that they really dig deep into the human soul. That’s not to say you have to write “serious” songs for your music to be any good, but for the album to really do what it’s meant to do, I think it would have to get more into the nitty-gritty. As it is, it’s just a regular indie album stripped down to acoustic guitars, with a little not-quite-Southern twang and a few country cliches (God, the Devil, love, etc.).

It’s not a bad album at all, but it’s also nothing groundbreaking. It’s a pleasant diversion. But to see people write about it, you’d think The Beatles had reunited or Janis Joplin had risen from the grave to release one last album. Comparisons to Loretta Lynn are rampant. People are declaring it one of the best albums they’ve ever heard. We are ordered to purchase it immediately!

It just makes me wonder if the “I love Jenny Lewis” thing may have gotten a little out of hand. All that said, I can still sympathize. I really WANTED this album to be fantastic because (of course) I have my own secret crush on her, and was hoping for a record that would bowl me over. It didn’t turn out that way, but maybe it still works for other folks. Who knows?

I guess my point here is that I think it would be a lot more honest, when discussing all of these enormously talented female musicians, to recognize that sex appeal is part of the equation. It’s okay to have a crush on them because they’re pretty. There’s no need to pretend that we’re objective and distant.

Anyway, amateur indie-pysch hour is over. Now I can gush about a couple Rilo Kiley songs that demonstrate why I’m in love with her…

Portions for Foxes

This song just flat-out rocks. It’s a car ride on a sunny day, or just about anything else fun you could imagine. It bursts out at you, knocks you over with the guitar riff. If there was any doubt about my earlier statement that sex is a big part of some Rilo Kiley songs, this one should dispel that. It’s a song about physical (and emotional) need, the joy of another person, and the realization that we’re all a little lonely, all a little messed up, and maybe that’s just okay.

“I know I’m alone if I’m with or without you
but just being around you offers me another form of relief
When the loneliness leads to bad dreams
and the bad dreams lead me to calling you
and I call you and say “C’MERE!”

It’s about every relationship that’s ever gone wrong, and a bunch of them that never were that good in the first place. But it’s also just a little hopeful. Maybe it’s just the fact that the song is so universal that flavors it with optimism – we all know how it feels, and that shared experience (and the knowledge that most people do find happiness one way or another) is a buoy. And at the end when she repeats “but you’re bad news” over and over before concluding “I don’t care I like you,” you realize that it might just be enough. There’s no perfection, but there is something to be said for just getting by.

Spectacular Views

If the last song is like a car ride on a sunny day, this one is like a rocket launch. It’s a huge, overwhelming song, surrounded by fireworks, and sweepingly anthemic. Her voice is less throaty – here it’s all wide-eyed innocence, full of light and joy, until about 2 and a half minutes in, when she sings:

“We can see the stars
from where the birds make their homes
staring back at us.
Indifferent,
but distanced perfectly,
projected endlessly.
It’s so fucking beautiful”

And on the last line, she just lets it all go. And in that moment, everything in the universe makes sense. That’s just all there is to it.

There’s a Rilo Kiley live show at Kwaya Na Kisser. In particular, I’d recommend the cover of “Let My Love Open the Door” to hear a little Blake Sennett, the other (sometimes) singer.