forkcast tracks

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

"So Insane"

Discovery
"So Insane"

[XL]

8
 

"The battles over authenticity, over appropriation, are ancient history to these guys. They are playing the hand they've been dealt, and... they're playing it expertly." So said critic Andy Greenwald cutting through all the "How dare they?!" bullshit over Vampire Weekend's initial bum rush in his excellent Spin cover story from last year. The sentence also applies-- probably even moreso-- to Discovery, aka VW keyboardist-singer-producer Rostam Batmanglij and Ra Ra Riot frontman Wes Miles. Maxed-out with Auto-Tune, 1980s synths, and drum cracks that instantly recall everything 00s r&b, Discovery's debut album-- slyly dubbed LP-- probably swerves like a tipsy Mustang going 115 in a school zone to the world's appropriation police. "So Insane" may seem pretty insane to those still stuck in a world where pop and indie are separated by propped-up dividers. Pity them.

To everyone else-- i.e., people who don't think twice about waking up to Bitte Orca and then driving to work with T-Pain, i.e., people who only know broadband, i.e., the post-authenticity generation-- "So Insane" shouldn't sound too surprising. There's some "Electric Slide" ("teach you! teach you!"), snares possibly ripped from OG Nintendo cartridge "Wild Gunman", some "Bleeding Love" breaks. Pleasure is pushed. Fittingly, the song is all about first-look infatuation-- a truly universal mania. "Oh baby, you got me going so insane and I just don't know what's going down," sings Miles, gilding his crush with harmonies, chirping backups, and sheer pop vulnerability. No navel-gazing crypticisms here. "I don't even know what to do," he concludes. Let's hope he never figures it out.

— Ryan Dombal

"Bicycle"

Memory Tapes
"Bicycle"

[Loog]

6

Memory Tapes is an offshoot/collaboration between Memory Cassette and Weird Tapes, two acts so similar in sound and name they simply had to align (it's also possible that they all may be the same person). After hearing the project's first official offering, "Bicycle", my only qualm is that they didn't label themselves Weird Memory, but I'm guessing that such a no-duh moniker would spoil the surprise. However clever or inventive those projects were, both usually opted to hide behind the quirky histrionics of tape haze and vague dance loops ad infinitum, whereas Memory Tapes embrace the bright, frightening light with a vigor and that's almost startling. Much like Tiedye's celebrated rework of DJ Kaos' "Love the Night Away", "Bicycle" has a confident hold on the blissfully bored and gorgeously relaxed, but where you'd expect it to wash down like Sunny Delight, it flips inside out and transfixes into something unsettling and astringent. Hell, things get downright eerie as a seemingly benign declaration of love melts into a deliriously disquieting medley of pitch-shifted synths, ghostly come-hithers, perilous low-end melodies, and a grab bag of island-infused percussion.

If that trendy juxtaposition of salty and sweet leaves you a little neutral, you're not alone, but it's in the final two minutes that we can fully see Memory Tapes' shiver-spurring potential. "Bicycle" glides out on a wonderfully languid guitar break that's more authentically New Order than anything New Order have offered in almost 10 years, operating like a long-lost, sweat-drenched hymn from the Haçienda's 11th hour. It's a breathtaking moment, one capable of emotional transport beyond the sort of nostalgia that's so often tastelessly cooked up and thrown into the mix. If Memory Tapes can continue to put out stuff as vibrant and bold as "Bicycle", we're richer for it.

— Zach Kelly

"I'm Good"

Clipse
"I'm Good"

[Self-Released]

4

Just dismayingly bad. Despite what the production credits would lead you to believe, "The Neptunes" likely had nothing to do with this-- I don't think Chad Hugo has been allowed near a Korg synthesizer since at least 2004, if in fact P didn't just lock him aboard his ass spaceship and send him into orbit after the last N.E.R.D. record. No, this is a 2009-era Pharrell production, and hoo boy, the difference is crystal clear. Garish cocktail-jazz keyboards, weak snares, and Pharrell's endless, irritating squeaking-- "I'm Good" is the same atrocious beat he's been peddling since "Allure". He might go down in history as the first major rap producer to be completely undone by the discovery of Mel Bay's Jazz Piano Chords. If your first thought upon hearing Snoop Dogg's "Sexual Eruption" was, "Man, I bet Clipse would just kill this," then you're in luck. For the rest of us, though, "I'm Good" is depressing, like biting on tin foil for three straight minutes. Surrounded by such Euro-cheese, Pusha and Mal sound utterly lost-- blank, tired, and detached, and not at all compellingly so, as they were on "Emotionless". Over three verses, the sharpest shit either of them manage is "today was a good day, ice cubes on my chest" and "swimmin through the streets, lookin like I'm Shamu." After years of weathering bullshit and coming out stronger and more determined, it seems the Thornton Brothers are starting to sag inwardly, and at this point, who could blame them?

— Jayson Greene

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

"Olympus"

Raekwon
"Olympus"

[EMI]

6

Relative to the other high-ranking Wu-Tang officials, Raekwon has always been strictly for the heads. RZA has his legions of weirdos, Ghost holds it down for the hipster set-- even GZA has managed to carve out a niche for himself with some of his headier constructions. But the Chef has made his M.O. pretty clear, his flow remaining entirely un-fucked with, his production as stocky and raw as the man himself. So if you're going to look at "Olympus" (supposedly from Only Built 4 Cuban Linx II, but you never really know with these guys) in any other context, well, you probably aren't a big Raekwon fan. Are the stories any good? Are the punches tight? Is he getting aggro or cooling out? It's kind of a mixed bag. If I were to venture a guess, I'd say that this is Rae getting gassed up, squeezing in a little exercise before the main event. Most of the quick little couplets land nicely over Tru Master's unassuming baseplate of snaps, shakers, and a wavy little synthesizer loop. This isn't Raekwon at his ballsiest or brawniest; instead, he's using "Olympus" to loosen up and get his mind into full-on Linx mode. Casual fans probably won't give "Olympus" a second spin, believe that the true heads will be able to find something here.

— Zach Kelly

"Capricorn One"

Anti-Pop Consortium
"Capricorn One"

[Big Dada]

7

Indie rap isn't quite the same beast it was when Anti-Pop Consortium broke up back in 2002-- at least, it shouldn't be if it's done right. The good news here is that the comeback track from the epochal, two-years-reunited avant-rap dons sounds comparatively dated only because time finally caught up with them-- and even then, "dated" in this case means it sounds like it's from three years in the future instead of 20. The beat's all gear-grinding electro engaged in a space-laser dogfight, spark-and-hiss malfunction funk tasered until those haywire twitches get subwoofers throbbing; it's bracing stuff even if it's not all that more out-there than some Jeezy deep cuts. And their flows are rendered practically grotesque for effect against that backdrop: Beans sounds like he's punching back against each beat, High Priest is filed down to a flat drone more interested in jostling his rhythm than his range, and Sayyid spends most of his verse emulating a caricaturized, monotone rapbot with a brief, almost non-sequitur fast-rap interlude as digression. Even if they've lost a bit off their abstraction knuckleball-- Kimbo Slice metaphors, profiling gripes, and supreme-technique boasts are more straightforward than you might remember them being circa Arrhythmia-- they've still managed to put together one of the best surprises of the summer.



MP3:> Anti-Pop Consortium: "Capricorn One"

— Nate Patrin

"The End Is Near"

The Fiery Furnaces
"The End Is Near"

[Thrill Jockey]

5

Like a raving street lunatic with a sandwich board, the Fiery Furnaces' new single, "The End Is Near", predicts that doom is imminent. Yet somehow, despite the apocalyptic sentiment, the song just isn't crazy enough. "Down the road and up the creek, it's over/ It's such a clear and certain hell of a thing, it's over," sings Eleanor Friedberger over brother Matthew's groovy, relaxed, and somewhat incongruous piano playing. The origin of all this considerable anxiety, however, remains unrevealed. As recently as 2007's Widow City the Friedbergers were as rich and florid in their lyrical imagery as they were chaotic and unpredictable in their instrumentation. But "The End Is Near", drawn from the duo's upcoming record I'm Going Away, is lean in both its arrangement and narrative. And economy isn't particularly flattering for the Fiery Furnaces in this case. Lacking the sudden left-turns and manic storytelling of the duo's best work while also coming up short as far as melody, "The End Is Near" is a little too clear and cogent for its own good.

MP3:> The Fiery Furnaces: "The End Is Near"

— Aaron Leitko

Monday, June 15, 2009

"Dreamer"

Tiny Vipers
"Dreamer"

[Sub Pop]

8
 

There's something about the West Coast. I've never been, so I can't explain it, but for all its happy sunshine pop and gloriously liberal policies (Prop 8 notwithstanding), it's produced some of the darkest music I've ever laid ears upon. Hell, the Red House Painters single-handedly keep my utopian fantasies of San Francisco in check. And now Jesy Fortino-- better known as Tiny Vipers-- is doing the same to Seattle. Okay, the latter city isn't quite so cheery (cloaked as it is in constant drizzle), and its grungy reputation doesn't do it any favors, either. But where Kurt raged and bitterly struggled to exist, Jesy takes the Mark Kozelek approach, using an acoustic guitar to strum a single sad, slow melody, over and over, to impressive (albeit depressive) results. But let's dispense with comparisons, so we can focus on Fortino's most unique and, not coincidentally, valuable asset: her voice. A guttural warble in the best sense of the term, it's deep yet fragile and feminine-- and when it cracks with the high notes, it only accentuates her anguish, giving us a glimpse of a pain so private, we can't even begin to comprehend. The lyrics sure aren't offering any clues: with lines like "What can we learn when we can't understand?" and "What do these feelings mean?" Fortino offers more questions than answers. But when she grows quiet toward the end, focusing her energy to erupt in one last plea-- "I'm dying for a way out"-- it's impossible to misunderstand, and difficult to remain unmoved.


— Sean Redmond

"In the Dreamlife You Need a Rubber Soul"

The Clean
"In the Dreamlife You Need a Rubber Soul"

[Merge]

7

The song title and the jingle-jangle of what sounds like a Rickenbacker might make listeners think of the Beatles, while the tune's pastoral lilt (ably abetted by some ethereal harmonies) might recall the folky shimmer of the Go-Betweens. But whenever the Kilgour brothers and friends get together-- be it to chisel the Rosetta Stone that musicians of the indie persuasion all across the globe are still trying to decode, or simply to write songs as effortless and gorgeous as "In the Dreamlife"-- it always sounds like the Clean.  The lyrics' consideration of day-in day-out drudgery might be plain-spoken to a fault ("You wear the same face every day/ Worried that you might have a small hole in your soul"). However, when combined with the song's gently propulsive melody, these words are imbued with an honest wisdom, and the phrase "in the dreamlife, you need a rubber soul" transformed into a mantra that sounds like it could hold the answer to all of your troubles.


— David Raposa

"Birthday Sex (Remix)" [ft. R. Kelly]

Jeremih
"Birthday Sex (Remix)" [ft. R. Kelly]

6

As a precursor to R. Kelly's first major post-trial release, Untitled, the DJ Skee/DJ Drama-hosted mixtape The Demo Tape has reignited the conversation about whether the embattled R&B star is either relevant or, at very least, welcome in this industry anymore. Acquittal notwithstanding, Kelly has spent the past seven years as one of pop's most polarizing figures, surprisingly incapable of stunting his unpredictable creative output, especially in the looming shadow of enough legal paperwork to silence, or perhaps ruin, any other public figure of equal or greater standing. But maybe that's why we've stuck with Kelly, and despite the hollow catharsis exhibited on 2004's gospel offering, U Saved Me, the records he has released since his indictment have managed to remain as raunchy, bizarre, and enjoyable as anything else in their respective orbits.

So it's a relief that it's back to business with The Demo Tape, most notable on the Kelly-assisted remix of Jeremih's smash "Birthday Sex". It's actually kind of disappointing that Kelly doesn't have owners' rights to this thing, an impossibly silky headboard thumper that has Kelly's brand of funny, knuckleheaded horndoggedness written all over it. Mike Schultz's production is quite masterful in its own right, with its bongo raps and celestial twinkles reserved only for lap dances in zero gravity. But the real star is Kelly, with his slightly Auto-Tuned voice as buttery and recognizable as ever. Though really only giving the NC-17 tweak to Jeremih's lyrical construction (watch him nail that "Girl you know ay ay ay!" part), the larger statement taken here is that, like it or not, this is what R. Kelly does, and he can do it better than you can. Now go on, blow out those candles.

— Zach Kelly

Friday, June 12, 2009

"When They Fight, They Fight"

Generationals
"When They Fight, They Fight"

[Park the Van]

6

Diabetics take heed-- this is some sugary stuff, right here. New Orleans duo Generationals are Ted Joyner and Grant Widmer, two guys seemingly obsessed with the twist 'n' shout of yore, jam-packing their tunes with blasts of late-1960s sunshine pop. "When They Fight, They Fight" comes from the band's debut, Con Law, which spins a series of songs that don't stray far from "Fight"'s time-capsulated goodness. It comes as kind of a pleasant surprise to hear a band from N.O. sound this bright and enraptured in life's simple joys. But man, does this thing flirt with overdoing it. You'd have to be pretty cold-hearted not to raise some sort of a smile for those fun little bossa nova nods, big horns, and amateurish girl-group harmonies. However, if you don't happen to be spending your Sunday flipping through teeny-bopper magazines and kicking your legs in the air with delight, or watching the credits roll on the latest Zooey Deschanel eye-roller, "Fight" can feel just a tad too blithe for its own good.

MP3:> Generationals: "When They Fight They Fight"

— Zach Kelly

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