Ever wonder what it’s like to be an indie-rock band on the road? Hey Rosetta’s new video for “Carry Me Home” is cool little clip that captures both the thrills and tedium of being on tour, from the exotic locales and exhilarating live shows to more mundane activities like packing up the van, eating greasy food and smoking backstage. It also features some pretty slick dancing from random characters along the way. (Kudos to director Noah Pink for documenting these moments.) If you dig the song, I’d suggest getting your hot little hands on the Newfoundland band’s holiday-themed EP, A Cup of Kindness Yet, which was just released a few weeks ago. You can read my full review in the current issue of prairie dog.
I love Arcade Fire. But when I heard the title of their latest album, The Suburbs… I winced. I figured, OK here we go: a rant about the soullessness and conformity of life amongst the big box stores and McMansions. Blah, blah, blah. Kind of an easy target, right?
But within seconds of playing the title track, my fears were put to rest. Win Butler’s lyrics don’t feel like a lecture – they’re much too fragmented and impressionistic to come across that way. Instead, he gives us vivid images of hot pavement, kids screaming and running through the yard, and a “suburban war”… but stops short of spelling it all out.
The accompanying video is similarly head scratching and it’s fascinating to see how director Spike Jonze interprets the music. At the start of the clip, the teenagers are riding their bikes around the neighbourhood and goofing around, mirroring the languid piano and vocal melodies at the start of the song. It’s shot in an alluring way, with the camera following the kids as they wind around the sun baked streets.
But as things progress, there’s a sense of foreboding – that something’s not right with this picture. Helicopters zoom overhead and clouds of black smoke gather in the distance. By the time Win sings the lines “Sometimes I can’t believe it/I’m moving past the feeling/and into the night”, all hell breaks loose. The dramatic scenes are intensified by the music, with the strings amping up the tension and Regine Chassagne hanging on that crazy-high note forever.
I’ve watched the clip several times and still don’t know what it all means. I could hazard a guess, but this isn’t a Cultural Studies seminar… and I could use some more coffee. But I wish you all a happy Boxing Day and hope you enjoy this song/video!
Dan Snaith (a.k.a. Caribou) is no slouch. A prolific musician who’s been recording albums since the early aughts, he also found time to complete a PhD in math in 2005. A few years later, he pulled off another big achievement – this time, an artistic one: the 60’s pop tinged Andorra, which captured the 2008 Polaris Music Prize. Rather than trying to duplicate the feel-good psychedelia of that disc, the Canadian-born, U.K.-based electronic musician took a different tack with this year’s Swim, a stark and eerie sounding record by comparison.
One of the things I love about Swim is that it manages to be both cerebral and emotional all at once. Cerebral in the sense that Snaith’s not afraid to experiment with strange textures (one track features a prominent clanging sound, like someone hitting a metal bowl with a spoon) or unorthodox songwriting styles. And emotional in the sense that he seems to want to elicit more than just a head nodding to a beat.
Take the opening track “Odessa” for example. The words (“Takin’ the kids/drivin’ away/turn around the life she let him siphon away”) suggest a woman trapped in a bad relationship – possibly an abusive one, depending on how you read into it – and plotting an escape. But even if you don’t care to analyze the lyrics (I honestly didn’t even notice what he was saying until a couple of weeks ago), the song is still engaging on a strictly musical level. I’m always amazed by the variety of sounds that Caribou comes up with time and again. On “Odessa”, it’s weird little shrieking noises set against funky percussion, resulting in a track that’s simultaneously haunting and danceable. Who knew?
Not to sound like a whiner, but the summer of 2010 was a little stressful. I was working far away from home, up in northeastern B.C. and trying to deal with some family drama from a distance. The music of Beach House was a balm for my tired brain. But restorative properties aside… I thought it was the most original and beautiful album I’d heard all year.
The song “Norway” is the aural equivalent of a blurry old photo. You can’t really make out of all of the details, but it tugs at your emotions every time. Alex Scally’s woozy guitar lines dip in and out of tune. Singer Victoria Legrand swoops around playfully in the verses, almost mimicking the wobbliness of the music behind her. Her timbre is pretty unusual, which I like. (Actually, I couldn’t tell if it was a man or woman singing, the first time through.) It all builds to a sparkling chorus with a lightness that makes you feel like you’re laying in the sun, with your feet in the grass.
If you like “Norway”, be sure to check out the rest of Teen Dream. It’s a gorgeous record… and my pick for album of the year.
Flip through enough of those star magazines at the grocery store, and you’ll start to believe that plucky, hyper-confident teenagers rule the world (Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber.) Thankfully, there are musicians like Matt Berninger – frontman for Brooklyn band The National – to remind us that it’s OK to be a Sad Bastard 30-something still trying to figure things out. “Conversation 16” is just one example of what drew me to their album High Violet: the shimmering guitars and breezy backup vocals juxtaposed with brooding, oddball lyrics (“I was afraid I’d eat your brains/’cause I’m evil”) had me hooked.
In an interview with Under the Radar earlier this year, Berninger talked about his unease as a live performer, likening the experience to being dunked in freezing water. “It takes a good hour to warm up to the point where you feel like you’re not going to drown”, he said. With that in mind, I wasn’t sure what to expect when I caught The National’s show in Vancouver this fall. But I was pleasantly surprised to see that Berninger was – yes – a little awkward in that enigmatic, Michael Stipe sort of way… but also capable of cracking jokes in between songs, adding a bit of levity to an otherwise intense set. And on a chilly September evening, the enveloping sounds of “Conversation 16” felt just right.
