Expect Little Dragon’s third record, Ritual Union, this Spring.
Everything this person has written for TUNETHEPROLETARIAT
Gone, gone from New York City
Conor Oberst – NYC – Gone, Gone
“All my friends, [I] want you to know, I’m gonna miss you when I go.” There’s something about repetition, isn’t there? There’s something about repetition, isn’t there? NYC – Gone, Gone, while failing to quell this ferocious headache, is at least clasping the crotch of catching attention. “Short and sweet like an ass’ gallop,” my primary school teacher would tell me of my creative essays. Indeed. [Buy.]
There’s a sequel
Death From Above 1979 – Blood On Your Hands
I bought the record on which this song features almost six years ago in a small store, now closed, along a pedestrian street in Carlow town. Pink covered with elephant-man illustration. You’re A Woman, I’m A Machine. On its fifth track, ‘Blood On Our Hands’, pedal driven bass blasts entire and unstoppable on song’s entry, accompanied by vexed vocals of rooted and wanton observation and admission. “You’re a woman, we both know it’s true from the things that I’ve done to you,” spills lead vocalist Sebastien Grainger as he ignores reluctance with an opulent indictment of said possible lover, “There is blood on all the shoes you’ve worn from the people you’ve been stepping on.”
The fiery tantrum then collapses to a hushed end, steering through drums of next-door realism and sensitivity, awash with subtle lines of pop-organ that feed care and a solemn finish to the preceding chaos and violent abandon, each note plummeting to depths of a celebratory funeral procession. Any flaws that may exist are stainless and fraught with riotous drive. This is the least customary of all songs in that it may be entirely flawless. [Purchase.]
.03%
Trent Reznor And Atticus Ross – In Motion
Sweeping clean through in a cul-de-sac of spasmodic beats and tricks is the highlight track of a certain soundtrack, whose edge spills with guided nostalgic coughs of arcade-win synth explosives and that old gaming console same-beat same-note looped backing track that never tires [the mind]. Feedstuff for the mindless and incessant, with floorboard creaks of provoked and scouting warehouse guitar. Watch ‘the Social Network’. Delete your Facebook account! [Feed Trent’s Attic.]
A call to you and romance
The Maccabees – Toothpaste Kisses
So this is a love song.
As inviting as a call to conquer! As inviting as the teasing and alluring finger curl of the being in your dreamed dreams. As inviting as the cradle of vinyl crackle and the arrival of growing pre-taste on sight or sound of crisp cigarette burn (00:01) – and its blow out, half a minute later (00:24).
A love song.
The waspish rhythmic fidget of hand over guitar string ensures Toothpaste… is held with consistent regard, allowing for the assurance of grace and a heartfelt gush through its fine centre. Weeks’ voice is entirely implicated in the listeners fall to submission, as his romantic drawl and pitch precision wins inviting hearts, “Cradle me [and] I’ll cradle you.” Swinging Hawaiian lead guitar overlaps rumbles of sweetened bass, all exercising the fresh elegance of subtle playfulness until their final exhaustion, expressed through confidently escaping whistles.
“We’ll do the things that lovers do.”
[See also ‘Precious Time’ and ‘Latchmere’.] [Buy, please.]
I need to make a sound
The spherical beat of You is a provider of limited solace. It’s the drudge and sheer faithlessness of a trapped mind, the shredded skin of love’s coil, the vibrant drown of senseless compulsion. “You! You! You! You! You! You! You! Me! Me! Me! Me! Me! Me! Me!” The consistent elation of stolen and kept delirium. On an unapologetic loop, sped-voices puncture as many holes into the sphere as the accompanying electronic drums, with a distant circling of hazy three-note melody washing the backdrop. It is the single moment of uncorrupted obsession, dragged out into an underground dance anthem of lights and stolen senses. [Buy, please.]
Carrot seeds
The Dust Brothers – Corporate World
About five to six years ago I sent Chuck Palahniuk a letter. In it, as directed by him, I discussed resolutions for the forthcoming year. Somewhat of a blur to my mind, they pertained to learning languages, memorising the faces of loved ones, and writing something (anything) every day. There was a sprinkling of the formal/everyday resolutions, too – the better eating, the better attitude, bettering the better. And a note to an invasive procedure I had undertaken some months previous. An appeal to his senses, I might have thought.
Without flinch, I will admit to not having started, never mind realising the fruition of, any of those resolutions. That brings sadness. To enhance the bitterness of these failures is to also admit that a sizeable portion of my letter read as a miniature review of all his work to that date. “Book A was better than Book D, but Book C? Wow. Book C was great! Book B was a tough read, though.” I still can’t quite fathom my thought process at the time. Why did that seem like a reasonable idea?
So to my surprise, a package! And inside, a letter, too. A letter divulging the secret to his work. The real meaning. The sacrifice of the one for the greater. The Jesus-factor. Beneath the propped letter, a copy of his debut novel (it’s the film poster cover; a pet peeve if ever there was one) – autographed inside, “Daniel, let the dogs and rocks work for you. Chuck Palahniuk/Chucky P.” My power animal as chosen by Chuck? A dog. The rocks? A hand made necklace of stones that would bring me luck, and my named etched across fourteen of them. The remaining package consisted of fake vomit, carrot seeds (“Guts”), chocolate sweets, confetti, fake cheques, and other joke items – and maybe some bouncy balls, too.
This is why I will never leave Chuck Palahniuk behind like I have done to many others of my late teenage years. Firstly, his work alone means he’ll travel and age well, but such gestures are hard to dismiss. Getting over the kindness of a stranger is a task. A pointless one, but a task nonetheless. Gestures, of the good kind, is my New Year’s resolution. More numerous, more intentional. [You are not your fucking CD collection.]
We’ll dazzle them all…
Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti – Round And Round
When it knocks in the dead of the night, I will be ready.
You see, I do imagine that one day it will all click. The thing we all must do – the something to live for – will come to us in the sneak or the rush. As a dream, in a mismatch of the written word that reshapes to suit, in song, in love, in war. I have to believe it’ll meet me one day, because what a waste it would be to not find it. And maybe I’ll eventually fail at whatever it might be, but I’m ready for that or at least readying myself for the threat of such an outcome. And in the strangest of places the search reignites; next door aeroplane neighbours, the offering of dry crackers, and the trust that you’ve met one of the rare, one of the good ones, the one who has already found the thing that they must. But for now, sleep. [Tenderly pink.]
The colour black means it’s time to die
Coming to Janelle Monáe with complete clarity, as if she were merely plucked from the very skies above us, it’s a troubling task to repress hearing in her music the trembling purity of the Mamas & The Papas, the grit-like foundation of anything and everything Alicia Keys may do right, the hopeful pacifism of a Sam Cooke, or the expressive bellowing of a younger Mariah Carey – when she had credibility, maybe.
This is an almost four-minute chest of strictly sumptuous music with soft delivery and exact production that exhales through to backing sounds for a walk-through memory, and a dazzling cloud of a synth oil spill – rapidly glittering and spitting tongue twisters.
And yet all the comparisons, for my incessant focus, are entirely unfair. This is not a compilation of tricks; it is entirely a sole offering. As long as she continues to flourish with her current collaborators – or those who will push her further, we’ll all hear the colour in the flowers. If the future of music were a lean neck then Janelle has hands of teeming veins wrapped and taking hold.
Oh, Maker is the perfect appetite creator – and the ArchAndroid, the album, is the filler. The answer. Furthermore, it’s to know that there’s more left in pop music. Just when we thought it was forever stuck in the cyclical, up sprouts an entire universe of extensions and flirtatious choice. “Perhaps what I mean to say is that it’s amazing that your love was mine.” [This is a cold war.]