Issue 40

Under the Radar | 24

PA G E 2 8

Message for the Address | 37

northeastern students on music

Bright Eyes Discography | 46

I S S U E 4 0 TA K E S A L O O K AT 4 0 Y E A R S O F S AT U R D AY N I G H T L I V E ' S M O S T U N F O R G E T TA B L E M U S I C M O M E N T S

No 40

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The Team

President Dinorah Wilson

Staff Writers Terence Cawley Audrey Cooney Clarissa Cooney Tim DiFazio Amanda Hoover Anika Krause Jason Levy David McDevitt David Murphy Kelly Subin Marco White Peter Giunta Anu Gulati Emily Arntsen Raquel Massoud Jonathan Vayness Mallika Malkan Sarah Kotowski Taylor Piepenbrink

Incoming President Ryan Kehr Editor in Chief Ben Stas Art Director Stephanie Lee Marketing Director YJ Lee

Staff

Get More Can’t get enough? Check out more original content on tastemakersmag.com Become a fan on facebook at facebook.com/tastemakersmag

Features Editor Nathan Goldman Reviews Editor Mike Doub Interviews Editor Joey Dussault Photo Director Ben Stas

Marketing Kelsey Eng Nate Hewes Rami McCarthy Sofia Benitez Nathan Goldman Martin Au Jae Lee Sarah Maillet

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The Cover Tastemakers Music Magazine 232 Curry Student Center 360 Huntington Ave. Boston, MA 02115 tastemakersmag@gmail.com Š 2014 tastemakers music magazine all rights reserved

Art & Design Ellie Fung Ben Muschol Marissa Rodakis Becky Still Jennifer Heintz Aideen Murphy Sara Trosky Milan Moffatt Carisa Tong

Illustration Allison Bako

Meet the Staff

About Terence Cawley Position Incoming Reviews Editor Major Biology Graduating Fall 2017 Favorite Venue Brighton Music Hall Tastemaker Since Fall 2010

Allison Bako Position Illustrator Major Media Arts Graduating 2018 Favorite Venue TT the Bear's Tastemaker Since Fall 2014

Jonathan Vayness Position Staff Writer Major Psychology Graduating 2018 Favorite Venue Paradise Tastemaker Since Spring 2015

Mike Doub Position Reviews Editor Major Psychology/Journalism Graduating 2015 Favorite Venue Royale Tastemaker Since Fall 2012

Listening to

Sufjan Stevens Carrie and Lowell Alvvays Allvays

Quote “Someone should be writing down everything I’m saying”

Sade "Your Love is King"

Aretha Franklin "At Last"

“I'm playing as a lesbian on Tinder”

Aretha Franklin "One Step Ahead" Aretha Franklin "I'm Every Woman"

LCD Soundsystem Sound of Silver Lauryn Hill "Tell Him"

“R. Kelly invented the R&B soap opera, personal issues aside that's an achievement.”

STRFKR "Girls Just Want to Have Fun"

Arcade Fire Reflektor Waxahatchee Ivy Tripp The Beatles Let It Be

“What a long strange trip it’s been. HAGS.”

Cursive

Photo by Ben Stas (English/Journalism)

Table of Contents Cover Story

28

Banned From New York, It's Saturday Night!

Editorial

Reviews

20

08

Revisiting 40 years of Saturday Night Live's most controversial music moments.

Local Talent

18

When and why fiction trumps reality in the films profiling our musical heroes

22

Sweden: A Musical ExposĂŠ

27

The In Crowd: How Kickstarter is Shifting the Artist-Fan Relationship

Pasture Dog Amanda Hoover profiles the Northeastern singer/songwriter

31 37

Under the Radar

34

The should've-been hits from superstar artists' commercially overlooked works

Gang of One Marco White interviews founding guitarist Andy Gill of the postpunk greats Gang of Four

Message for the Address: A Map of Boston's House Shows An overview of Boston's best DIY spots

Something So Sentimental: In Defense of Carly Rae Jepsen's Kiss Nathan Goldman stands up for the maligned pop artist's overlooked debut record

40

Free Will and the Philosophy of Aleatoric Music In discussion of sounds left to chance

06 Calendar 12 Local Photos

Show Reviews Father John Misty, Cursive, La Dispute, and Kaki King

Album Reviews Reviews of Andrew Bird, Sufjan Stevens, Ghostface Killah, and Death Grips ' new albums

Etcetera

46

I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning: Examining the Bright Eyes Discography The career highlights of Conor Oberst's sprawling folk-rock project

Returning to an Abandoned Sound Risks and rewards for artists returning to their own pasts in their new music

36

42

Analyzing the nation's diverse and hugely influential musical output

The new revolution in fan-funded music

Features

24

Interzone: Musical Biopics vs. Reality

50

Just a Taste of Cave

Calendar May Su

Sa

1

2

Six Organs of Admittance Great Scott

3

4

Toro y Moi Paradise Rock Club Atmosphere House of Blues Acid Mothers Temple Great Scott

Sufjan Stevens Wang Theatre

10

11

Andy Stott Middlesex Lounge

Faith No More Orpheum Theatre

5 Twin Peaks Great Scott

6 Kiesza House of Blues

Paramore Wang Theatre

12

18

19

Mastodon/Clutch House of Blues Lightning Bolt The Sinclair Primal Scream Royale

Courtney Barnett The Sinclair

Azealia Banks Paradise Rock Club

24

25

8

Daniel Avery Middlesex Lounge

Of Monsters and Men Orpheum Theatre San Fermin/Natalie Prass The Sinclair Hop Along Great Scott

Pokey LaFarge The Sinclair

13

14

Waxahatchee The Sinclair

The Tallest Man on Earth Orpheum Theatre

20

21

The Psychedelic Furs The Sinclair

17

7

26

15

16

22

23

Melt Banana Great Scott

Palma Violets Great Scott

9

Dan Deacon Brighton Music Hall Boston Calling City Hall Plaza

27

28

29

30 FIDLAR/Metz Paradise Rock Club

Boston Calling City Hall Plaza

31

Rockommends

Sufjan Stevens May 4 @ Wang Theatre Sufjan Stevens will be performing in Boston. Sufjan Stevens has not played a non-Christmas show in Boston since 2010. Sufjan Stevens will be touring in support of his new album Carrie and Lowell. Carrie and Lowell is soulcrushingly beautiful and quite possibly the best album of 2015 so far, as well as the best album Sufjan Stevens has ever made. Have you bought tickets yet?

Terence Cawley (Biology)

June Su

Sa

1

2

3

4

5

6

Wire The Sinclair

Hot Chip House of Blues

Unknown Mortal Orchestra Brighton Music Hall

Little Dragon/Odesza House of Blues Catfish and the Bottlemen The Sinclair Iron Reagan Great Scott

Nothing/ Merchandise The Sinclair

Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds Boston Opera House Porches/Frankie Cosmos/Krill Lily Pad

8

9

10

11

12

13

Femi Kuti Paradise Rock Club

Alvvays Brighton Music Hall

Florence + The Machine Blue Hills Bank Pavillion Juicy J House of Blues

Best Coast Paradise Rock Club

Ex Hex The Sinclair

Refused The Sinclair

7

Stephin Merritt The Sinclair

14

15

16

17

Viet Cong The Sinclair

Calexico The Sinclair

Mono Middle East Downstairs

18

19

20

Spoon House of Blues

Phox Brighton Music Hall

Lower Dens The Sinclair

Dillinger Escape Plan Royale

21

22

Liturgy Great Scott

28

29

23

24

25

26

27

Rush TD Garden

Real Estate Paradise Rock Club

Torres Great Scott

Royal Thunder Great Scott

Melvins Paradise Rock Club

30

Sondre Lerche The Sinclair

Refused June 1 @ The Sinclair

Best Coast June 12 @ Paradise Rock Club

Legendary Swedish prog-punks Refused are reactivating once more following a triumphant 2012 reunion tour, and they’ll bring 3 more years of pent-up rage to the Sinclair stage in June. It’s an intimate venue in comparison to their previous billings at Coachella or Primavera Sound; be prepared for the place to close down for repairs when they blow the roof clean off the building.

Come see Best Coast at the Paradise Rock Club on Friday, June 12th. What better way is there to spend a summer night than jamming along to some fuzzy surf rock? Unless you already have tickets to see another lo-fi indie pop band that night, then by all means take a pass. But for everyone else, Best Coast promises a fun a show.

Ben Stas ( Journalism/English)

Jonathan Vayness ( Psychology)

Show Reviews

Reviews Spring 2015

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Father John Misty

Ben Stas (Journalism/English)

Father John Misty w/ King Tuff March 31 @ Paradise Rock Club The rising star of Father John Misty provides the best refutation of the proverb forbidding a band’s drummer from writing songs (sorry, Dave). Originally the drummer for Fleet Foxes, Father John Misty – then recording under his birth name Joshua Tillman – left the band after the tour for their second album, Helplessness Blues, due to fear that he wasn’t being true to his artistic muse.

As prestigious a gig as drumming for Fleet Foxes probably was, the fully-formed persona that arrived on Fear Fun validated Tillman’s hunch. On that record Tillman’s lyrics marry revelry in drug abuse with sardonic observations of humanity’s follies, sung over simultaneously playful and polished folk rock. I Love You Honeybear, Tillman’s latest album as Father John Misty, is an even more surefooted effort within this aesthetic.

Throughout Honeybear Tillman sets his sights on loftier concerns, musing on whether or not his recent marriage and love of another person can coexist with an awareness that humanity is a tragic joke played on the planet.

His set at the Paradise Rock Club touring that release was similarly full of contradictions: raucous but never sloppy, engaged with the audience but often at their own expense. However, Tillman’s opening act, Vermont-based garage pop trio King Tuff, didn’t aim for his level of nuance.

Instead the group appeared to delight in being both raucous and sloppy, powering through a set of earworm hooks and crunchy guitars that slid together like toast out of a toaster. All three members were visibly delighted to be present, grinning at each other during every simple riff and displaying due composure during instrumental breakdowns. King Tuff’s set was one of simple thrills, but their enthusiastic demeanor prevented these thrills from ever going stale. The trio seemingly has yet to

grow out of the pleasure that comes from playing with your friends onstage.

That homegrown feel was absent during the indie rock grandiosity of Father John Misty’s set. Marching on stage to the title track of Honeybear, Tillman approached the microphone with a stern demeanor fitting of the song’s weighty subject matter. These first few songs were noticeably banter-less, though Tillman was far from mute, writhing around the stage like a well-dressed scarecrow in the wind. The set picked up steam during a 1-2 punch of his silliest songs, “The Night Josh Tillman Came to Our Apartment” and Fear Fun’s “Writing a Novel.” Afterwards Tillman became noticeably looser, poking fun at his famously debauched performance at the 2012 Newport Folk Festival and conducting a brief Q&A with the audience. The change in attitude bled into the rest of the set, as Tillman howled through the fiery Honeybear cut “The Ideal Husband.” Later he adopted a loverman persona on the Leonard Cohen cover “I’m Your Man” to the adulation of the audience.

Tillman was supported by a seven-piece band, who amplified the southern boogie aspects of his songs. The Father John Misty shtick might seem tired on paper – sarcastic know-it-all pokes fun at normalcy – but in the live setting his undeniable charisma put such concerns to bed. During his performance of Honeybear’s first single “Bored in the U.S.A.” Tillman liberated an audience member’s phone from its master and continued the song with the phone several inches from his face, recording everything. The moment, though hilarious, also explains the appeal of Father John Misty in microcosm. His songs and stage presence are so winsome that even the people Tillman satirizes can’t deny his obvious charm.

Mike Doub (Psychology)

Kaki King March 3 @ Brighton Music Hall With the release of her eighth studio album and its accompanying live show, Kaki King has truly reinvented herself again. Her new show, The Neck is a Bridge to the Body, serves as the counter-piece to her LP of the same name and contains everything that nobody familiar with the artist would expect. The audience is treated to trippy screen projections, flashing lights, and a new cool girl persona that is embodied in her all-white getup and newly styled hair. Gone is the cutesy indie-girl image of an artist humbly performing her instrumental acoustic numbers on stage in a T-shirt and jeans. Instead, Kaki emerged without a word to her guitar, which was suspended in such a way that she needn’t even rest it on her legs. The guitar lit up as she grabbed it, and she began playing the ambient “In the Beginning,” the opening track on her newest album.

The Neck is a Bridge to the Body is nothing short of a uniquely awe-inspiring experience. The show was created to highlight the guitar itself. The idea centers

on the guitar as an “ontological tabula rasa” in a creation myth of the universe; the guitar acts as a sentient being independent from King, with its own thoughts and emotions. Sound trippy yet? It gets better. Visually, the show is astounding, mostly due to the projection mapping on the guitar itself. During each song, from the percussion-driven “Thoughts Are Born” to the horn-laced “Anthropomorph,” as Kaki fingerpicked, fret tapped, and hit the body of her instrument, a corresponding series of lights projected on the guitar itself in time with her motion and rhythm. Each number had a unique light pattern on the guitar, each of which fit in beautifully with the tempo and rhythm of the song.

Kaki truly is a master of her craft, and her playing style is genuinely unique.

She strums, fret taps and hammer-ons, not a note out of place. Her songs are truly unique. In fact, as the sheet music for one of her numbers flashed by behind her as she was playing, I realized that the song was entirely comprised of hammer-ons and pulloffs, while another was entirely percussion.

King also incorporated some of her previous work into the show, such as “Great Round Burn” and “Streetlight in the Egg,” both off her previous effort Glow.

The show was short, barely over an hour, but it was exactly as long as it needed to be. Nothing dragged on, and the ten-or-so song set was briefly interrupted by the most adorable (and “totally not biographical” Kaki sarcastically remarked at the end of the show) video clip chronicling the story of a misunderstood, lonely, synthetic-material guitar that is inspired by a busking street guitar to never give up playing in its strange tunings and styles. Kaki played along on stage in sync with the guitar’s on-screen dialogue, effectively speaking for the instrument. Two blissfully ambient songs, a brief chat with Kaki, and an encore of “Kewpie Station” (a short track off her first LP Everybody Loves You) later, the show concluded, leaving me wanting to watch it all again.

Jason Levy (Business) 9

Reviews

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Cursive Ben Stas (Journalism/English)

Cursive w/Beach Slang, John Congleton and the Nighty Nite March 14 @ The Sinclair

Spring 2015

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Full-album performance shows can be a tricky prospect for veteran bands. The Breeders taking Last Splash on the road for its 20th anniversary, for instance, offered plenty of sure-fire crowd-pleasing moments, but also left room for a good deal of awkwardness.

“Mad Lucas” wasn’t a song meant to be played live, and it showed. It’s also a challenge for a band to maintain enthusiasm about playing the same setlist of old songs night after night, as the Pixies increasingly rote live shows during and after their Doolittle tour have indicated. Omaha emo/indie rock mainstays Cursive are the latest group to try their hand at this particular brand of nostalgia with a tour revisiting their 2003 high-water mark The Ugly Organ, and their sold-out stop at Boston’s Sinclair saw them largely avoiding these pitfalls of the album-as-tour concept.

Leading off the set with an eraappropriate b-side and a 2006 deep cut, it became immediately clear that the band intended to mix things up rather than give the crowd exactly what they expected. Though the entirety of the record was performed over the course of the night, it was presented in punctuated form, with both older and newer songs thrown in to keep things from feeling predictable. A career-spanning addendum is a necessary part of a show like this, particularly

when the record at hand barely nudges past the 40-minute mark, but working it into the set rather than dividing the performance in half felt much more organic.

That’s not to say that playing it straight through would’ve been a miscalculation either, however. Ugly Organ is a well-regarded selection from the Saddle Creek catalog with good reason; it’s a tautly constructed record with no shortage of big, driving songs that sound great in a live setting, not to mention a perfect set-closer built right in with the smoldering fade-out of “Staying Alive” (which concluded with frontman Tim Kasher splayed out on the stage, exhausted by his own creation). The re-addition of cellist Gretta Cohn to the band for a handful of these dates also helped to bring the songs alive. Cohn’s contributions to the original record were uniquely dramatic touches, and even when she was occasionally lost in the mix here, she was a welcome presence on stage.

Being a record that was released on Saddle Creek in 2003, The Ugly Organ naturally has its moments of overwrought lyricism, but an oft-smiling and gesticulating Kasher seemed to acknowledge and embrace the album’s cornier moments rather than attempting to play them dead-serious. This was an evening of nostalgia for all involved,

and he seemed overjoyed to share it with a particularly psyched audience. With a deft balance of timing and presentation, Kasher and Cursive delivered an ideal example of this type of show; the appropriate balance between giving a beloved record its due and still playing a set that felt vibrant and fresh.

A strong selection of openers were also a boon to the evening, of course. John Congleton, best known in the moment for being the versatile producer behind the latest works by artists like Swans, St. Vincent and Cloud Nothings was on first, billing himself and an accompanying keyboardist as John Congleton and the Nighty Nite. In addition to his prolific production career, Congleton also fronted the art rock/noise rock outfit The Paper Chase from 1998 to 2010, and presented a number of those songs in stripped down form for his opening set. His knotty and engaging lyrics were delivered with a slightly unnerving intensity that kept the early arrivers riveted.

Buzzy Philadelphia rockers Beach Slang were on next, and proved themselves worthy of the hype with a breathless set of catchy songs and a youthful spirit rooted firmly in early Replacements territory. It was a satisfying triple-bill through and through.

Ben Stas (Journalism/English)

La Dispute, Title Fight, The Hotelier & The Attending March 29 @ Paradise Rock Club On March 29th La Dispute and Title Fight played their third sold-out show of their spring 2015 tour. The Attending, (fronted by La Dispute’s touring guitarist Corey Stroffolino) opened the show with a set that flirted with both metal and posthardcore. While clever instrumentation shown through in bursts of melodic guitar and tight percussion, the performance’s highlights were dimmed by Stroffolino’s lack of vocal talent. Although the singer has a nostalgic tone reminiscent of late ‘80s rock, his constant straining makes him comparable to a little league Axl Rose. The crowd’s weak reaction to The Attending seemed to mirror my own—unimpressed.

Although the first act was flat, Massachusetts’ own The Hotelier brought the room’s energy from zero to 60 as soon as they took the stage. Crowd-surfers were up within the first seconds of the band’s opening song, “An Introduction to the Album,” the first track off their highly acclaimed 2014 LP, Home, Like Noplace Is There. With singer Christian Holden’s fiery cry of “Fuck you” came the crowd’s transformation into an angst-ridden sea of flailing limbs. Apart from their effective ability to engage the crowd with addictive sing-alongs, the band

displayed exemplary instrumentation.

Humming guitars and precise drums meshed together into catchy grooves, onto which Holden overlaid gritty confessions to form an incredibly memorable performance.

Pennsylvania natives Title Fight began their set with the mellow haze of “Murder Your Memory,” but quickly elevated the vibe with “Shed,” the title track of their first LP. Frontman Ned Russin’s spunk was contagious, as both he and the crowd raged on through tracks such as “Numb, But I Still Feel It,” “Make You Cry,” “Liars Love,” “Mrahc,” “Your Pain Is Mine Now” and others. The true high points of the set were the crowd pleasing “Symmetry” and the melancholy “Head in the Ceiling Fan”.

Having never attended a Title Fight show before, let me just say that they executed an eruption of guitar haze, quick percussion, and power-punched vocals in an extremely calculated manner. The band was tight.

La Dispute were the final act to take the stage and immediately surprised fans with “King Park,” their heart-wrenching ballad of a young drive-by shooting victim and his suicidal gunman. The room grew extremely charged as frontman Jordan Dreyer thrashed and led the chant, “Can I still get into heaven if I kill myself?” that closed the song. The band

continued the set with their signature sound of melodic guitars, dynamic drums, and Dreyer’s genre-defying spoken/screamed vocals. While La Dispute promoted tracks from their latest LP, Rooms of the House, they also played nostalgic tunes from their first two LPs, such as “The Most Beautiful Bitter Fruit,” “A Letter,” “Harder Harmonies” and “Safer in the Forest/ Love Song for Poor Michigan.” Although fans may have had deeper connections with the classics, the new material was received positively. This reaction is unsurprising, since Rooms of the House is an incredibly potent display of La Dispute’s songwriting ability and maturation. As the show came to a close with “You and I in Unison,” all bandmates left the stage except guitarist Chad Sterenberg, who was left mindlessly plucking strings until chants from the crowd sparked an encore.

Careless picking soon morphed into the band’s epic twelve-minute ode “The Last Lost Continent,” a song that every La Dispute fan has dreamed about experiencing live. The crowd convulsed in timely chaos as a possessed Dreyer screamed the final lines, “We are but lovers/We are the last of our kind/And if we let our hearts move outward we will never die.”

Raquel Massoud (Music Industry)

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La Dispute Marissa Rodakis (Graphic Design)

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Local Photos

Electric Wizard Royale, April 2015

Ben Stas (Journalism/English)

letlive.

House of Blues, March 2015

Seb Herforth (Mechanical Engineering)

Taking Back Sunday House of Blues, March 2015

Seb Herforth (Mechanical Engineering) Speedy Ortiz afterHours, March 2015

Ben Stas (Journalism/English)

Kishi Bashi Royale, February 2015

David McDevitt (International Affairs/Economics)

Milky Chance House of Blues, March 2015

Seb Herforth (Mechanical Engineering)

Local Talent

Local Talent

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Spring 2015

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Photo by Deirdre Massaro (Computer Science/Business Administration)

PASTURE DOG members

Alexa Masi sounds like

Frankie Rose Radiator Hospital r eco m m e n d e d t rac ks

Garden Tomb Lizard Patrol Lazarus Saturday Sulking eps

Southern Gothic Yawn Songs c h e c k o u t pa s t u r e d o g

pasturedog.bandcamp.com

For some artists, limited access to recording equipment can be an obstacle. Alexa Masi, the sole creative force driving Pasture Dog, a Northeastern–based act, sees it as an opportunity.

Her latest EP, Southern Gothic, was released in March and is another venture written, performed and recorded by Masi, who “lives and dies by GarageBand.” Without any formal training, she relies on minimal recording equipment, using lo–fi techniques to create a spooky, hymnal–like sound. Influenced by the lo-fi pop punk scene, Masi cites Radiator Hospital, Mitski and Frankie Cosmos, who she played a show with at the Fenway Center last month, as her main sources of inspiration. Her tracks are short, with most on the latest EP clocking in between two and four minutes. Although she refers to them as “tiny” songs, her voice brings layers and dimensions to the music, somber and heavy over simple, soft chords—something that sounds anything but small.

A third–year English major, Masi has been making music under the moniker Pasture Dog since her freshman year at Northeastern when she released a cassette with HEY WTF records. Recently, she’s added a bass player and drummer to the live lineup and started playing shows on campus at afterHOURS and the Fenway Center, but Masi is still the mastermind behind the project. Before coming to Boston a little over two years ago, she got her start playing in various bands throughout the local indie music scene in her home state of Connecticut. Now, she’s lining up shows in the Boston area and finding her footing within the local scene.

With two EPs under her belt and the support of a full band, Masi plans to play more shows. Keep an eye out for Pasture Dog around campus and in the city to catch Masi in concert in the coming months.

Amanda Hoover (Journalism)

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Feature Editorial

INTERZONE: INTERZONE MUSICALBIOPICS BIOPICS MUSICAL VS. VS. REALITY REALITY

By Audrey Cooney (Journalism) With Courtney Love announcing that production for a Kurt Cobain biopic will start sometime this year, 2015 seems like a worthwhile time to revisit musical biopics of the past and consider what exactly makes semi-fictionalized accounts of popular musicians so appealing.

Fall 2012 Spring 2015

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Firstly, it’s important to note the distinctions between a biopic and a documentary. Whether focusing on a musical figure or not, a biopic has a plot and, like a film version of a book, events may be compressed for the sake of time or ease of comprehension. They also are typically allowed a certain amount of fictionalization that a documentary would never get away with. This gives the creators of such films artistic license to attempt to give audiences a better understanding of what the subject was like, rather than hard facts about their life.

But why are audiences so open to these portrayals? Fans in the audience aren’t seeing their idols in the flesh, and the films are often too fictionalized to act as a solid introduction for anyone not already familiar with the subject.

It’s possible that audiences enjoy seeing their musical heroes, or a proxy of them, in a setting besides the stage or interviews. Such scenes let audience members feel closer to the musicians featured, as they get a glimpse into their off-stage persona, or at least a film’s representation of it.

The 2009 film Nowhere Boy paints a melancholy picture of John Lennon’s teenage years, focusing on his relationship with his mother Julia and aunt/foster-mother Mimi. Fans who know much about Lennon’s early life might have been surprised to see the young musician, portrayed by Aaron Taylor Johnson, discover at his uncle’s funeral that he and Mimi were not actually his parents. In the film, Lennon learns about a messy custody battle between his parents, including his father’s demand that the then-toddler choose which parent he live with. In reality, George Lennon abandoned his family while John was still an infant, and Julia regularly visited Mimi’s house, where John lived under his aunt and uncle’s care. It’s possible the filmmakers chose Lennon’s relationships with his parental figures as their main focus to avoid reiterating better-known segments of his life. However, between his absent father and erratic mother, Lennon’s formative years contained enough conflict to be of interest without all the added drama.

Despite its title, Oliver Stone’s 1991 film The Doors focuses mainly on frontman Jim Morrison, following him and his antics from his days as a UCLA student to his death from a drug overdose. Surviving band members poured criticism on the film, singling out among other issues its portrayal of Morrison as an almost animalistic madman, constantly with a bottle in his hand, pulling dangerous stunts like locking his girlfriend in a closet and setting it ablaze. Keyboardist Ray Manzarek has claimed that incident never occurred, and that the movie reduced its characters, especially Morrison, to caricatures of their real-life personalities. In some respects, filmmakers played into what some audience members wanted: a shocking account of an enigmatic figure. But this portrayal does Morrison a disservice, along with the other figures depicted through convenient tropes. Like Lennon, Morrison’s life was fascinating enough to entice audiences without the fabrications. The phenomenon of placing actual people into fictitious events is an odd one.

Like the majority of movies, even those based on fact tend to have a romantic storyline that overshadows other narrative arcs. Control, a 2007 film about the life of Ian Curtis, gives the spotlight to the Joy Division frontman’s failed marriage and affair. It seems to point to his tangled romantic life as his main motivation for suicide, focusing on that rather than his struggles with depression and growing stress over his epilepsy. Deborah Curtis helped produce the film, which could explain the focus on the relationship she had with her deceased husband. Here, the film doesn’t bend facts so much as choose which ones to emphasize. Again, it’s all for the sake of drama.

While The Doors reduced its characters down to single personality traits, I’m Not There carefully dissects Bob Dylan as an individual and examines what the filmmakers decided to be his most significant traits.

This exceptionably out-there tribute film pushes the limits of what can be considered biographical. In it, Dylan is represented by six different actors, with the idea being to portray Dylan’s many “lives.” Christian Bale plays both Jack Rollins, a hippie meant to represent Dylan’s days as a protestor, and Pastor John, a reference to his time as a born-again Christian. Marcus Carl Franklin plays Woody, a young African American boy who shares Dylan’s fixation with Woodie Guthrie. Cate Blanchett plays Jude Quinn, a young musician whose life closely resembles the one Dylan led in the 60s; the character answers interview questions with Dylan quotes, has a touring entourage closely resembling Dylan’s, and causes outrage by playing a rock version of “Maggie’s Farm” during a folk festival. Dylan’s name is only mentioned once in the film, in a caption that reads “Inspired by the music and the many lives of Bob Dylan.” It’s an abstract concept, but it achieves the goal of giving audiences a better understanding of the subject’s psyche.

Regardless of how far they wander from the truth, biopics largely serve to humanize the subject. The musicians featured are often painted as tortured souls, struggling to make sense of relationships, addiction and their status as musicians. This sort of portrayal can give audiences a sense that they’re now somehow related to the subject on a more personal level, however far the facts were stretched in order to give that impression. The entire concept is a bit indulgent, but it’s one that’s unlikely to disappear anytime soon.

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Editorial

SWEDEN: A MUSICAL EXPOSÉ The Swedes truly have it all – beauty, social responsibility, and a killer music scene. In the past ten years a wave of English-singing Swedish artists has swept over the indie/electronic music scene in Europe and the United States. Lykke Li, Little Dragon, Peter Bjorn and John, Robyn, Avicii, Icona Pop and NONONO are just a few of the noteworthy Swedish musicians who made their mark on pop culture far beyond Stockholm. These artists capture the ears of a worldwide audience with their trend-setting originality and a dance-y, quirky Scandinavian edge.

Let’s take it way back to 1994 when Robyn, the trailblazer of Swedish synth-pop, released her first hit single “Do You Really Want Me,” putting her on the track to international popularity at age 15 and Sweden on the electro music map. Throughout her career she has produced eight albums and worked alongside other Swedish artists such as Avicii. Like Robyn, Avicii’s career started early at age 18 when he started remixing music in his bedroom in 2007. One of the most popular Swedish DJs, Avicii’s initial break was when he turned an old Etta James song into the catchiest, most hackneyed dance hit ever – “Levels.” While America went through the R&B/teen pop ‘90s, Scandinavia was preoccupied with the first inklings of aliencomputer EDM beats and has been obsessed ever since. Today EDM is still strongly entwined in Swedish nightlife and party culture, and even though Sweden didn’t invent EDM, it did invent one of the guys responsible for it going mainstream in the states.

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Around the same time Avicii was re-inventing the remix, Peter Bjorn and John released Writer’s Block with the track “Young Folks,” i.e. “that whistling song” that spurred all other whistling songs. A peppy cross between indie rock and folk, the band’s style is different from Avicii’s or Robyn’s yet still noticeably Swedish. To an unsuspecting ear it’s easy to overlook the band’s nationality, but certain elements of their music are classically Scandinavian. For example, the pan flute from the beginning of “Amsterdam” is reminiscent of old world

Swedish folk music, conjuring images of wooden clogs and long blonde braids. In addition to their folky music style, their charming Swedish accents also peek through some of their lyrics. The English phoneme “th” is tricky for most non-English speakers, so when words such as “the” and “that” become “da” and “dat” it’s a dead give-away for some northern Germanic language, in this case Swedish.

2007 brought the self-titled debut album of Little Dragon, an electropop group who, much like Peter Bjorn and John, are happy-golucky and a little bit quirky. Despite living in a country plagued with darkness for almost half of the year and associating with a group of people notorious for exclusively black wardrobes, Little Dragon’s music is exceptionally colorful. A perfect example of their contagious vibrancy is their second album Machine Dreams, a lighthearted mix of xylophone-heavy fairytale dance music.

With the release of her latest album, I Never Learn, Swedish singer Lykke Li’s sexy vocals and groovy beats (courtesy of Peter Bjorn and John’s producer, Bjorn Yttlnig), have transcended borders and piqued the interest of a global audience. She’s no newcomer, however—since releasing her first album in 2008, Lykke Li has coined and mastered the combination of breathy vocals and dramatic bass years before artists like BANKS or Florence + The Machine even started to follow in her footsteps.

Sweden is surprisingly concentrated with innovative musicians of ranging genres. Pioneers of EDM, indie-rock and folk, the Swedes, despite their comparatively small population, have made a significant impact on a variety of genres worldwide.

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Feature

a collection of acclaimed but underrepresented albums Jonathan Vayness (Psychology)

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A few things can happen when an artist releases an album. Fans can love or hate it, and critics can do the same. Often the critics and fans are on the same page in their disapproval or adoration for an artist’s new work, but it is not uncommon for fans to love an album and critics to hate it. Critics aren’t going to love everyone’s favorite band (sorry Smash Mouth fans). Every once in a while, however, an album comes out that gets universal praise from critics, but goes generally overlooked by fans. Critics could consider these among an artist’s best work, yet the general music listening public remains in the dark. Often the problem with these albums is a lack of support from singles. Casual listeners get a lot of their music from whatever songs are played on the radio, or more recently, whatever songs are posted around the Internet so much that they can’t be ignored. Albums that fall into this category are great because of the whole experience they offer; they’re meant to be listened to from start to finish, but if people don’t have a song or two to get them into a full album, they tend to overlook it. Here are a few such examples:

Paul’s Boutique | Beastie Boys

Songs that should have been hits

Paul’s Boutique is easily Beastie Boys’ most complex album. Mike D, MCA, and Ad Rock’s lyrics blend seamlessly with each other and with the eclectic collection of samples present through the album. Paul’s Boutique, their second record, came in between the two heavy hitters License to Ill and Check Yo Head. It isn’t surprising that Paul’s Boutique was passed over by casual fans. The album doesn’t really lend itself to huge singles; instead, it’s best heard in one sitting. An uninterrupted start-to-finish listen lets you appreciate the intricate samples woven through the album. Those samples do make the album a somewhat difficult listen, but are exactly what make it unlike any other the three emcees ever produced. The second track, “Shake Your Rump,” alone uses 14 different samples, most from funk and jazz origins. Paul’s Boutique has a dense sound and playful, humorous tone that was never really duplicated on any of their other records.

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy | Kanye West

Songs that should have been hits

Kanye West’s most ambitious, sprawling album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy entered completely new sonic territory, one that Kanye has not returned to since. The album opens with a command from Nicki Minaj: “Gather ‘round children, zip it, listen!” and transitions immediately into a chorus of beautiful harmonies. By telling us to sit down and shut up, and then immediately showing us why with those soaring vocals, Kanye instantly established that this record would be different. It doesn’t have the original grime or charm of The College Dropout or Late Registration, but it’s far less artificial than Graduation or 808s and Heartbreaks. This album is Kanye fully realized: angry, arrogant, and showing us exactly how gifted a producer he is. This album did have a few hit singles - for a while you couldn’t go anywhere without hearing “Power” on some commercial radio station. But “Power” wasn’t enough to pull people into the whole album. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was Kanye’s lowest selling album at that point, to date it has only sold 1.3 million copies, a meager number when compared to The College Dropout’s 3.3 million. Like the rest of the albums on this list, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is best experienced as a whole, so even a great single like “Power” couldn’t represent what people would be getting from a complete listen.

Released not long after his famous VMA interruption, maybe people were just too mad at Kanye to appreciate his latest opus. But My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is a necessity for rap fans; Kanye turned his production talents towards a world of harmonies, and pushed the boundary of what popular rap could sound like.

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The White Album | The Beatles Feature

Songs that should have been hits

Before you freak out, I know that The White Album breaks my mold a little. Any album by The Beatles will have at least a few hits, and The White Album is no exception. “Blackbird” and “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” two of the bands most popular songs originate here. But despite these and some other well-known tracks, few people really appreciate the depth of The White Album, with all of its hidden gems and downright weirdness. A broad range of genres is covered over the 94-minute album. With songs like “Yer Blues,” “Happiness Is A Warm Gun” and “Helter Skelter” The Beatles broke into heavy, almost metal-esque territory. But the brilliance of the album doesn’t lie in just exploring a new genre, but in the juxtaposition of many. After the heavy bass, wailing vocals and distorted guitar of “Yer Blues,” the album snaps right into “Mother Nature’s Son,” a soft song that puts any lullaby to shame. For the average Beatle fan The White Album is a tough listen; they might be perfectly happy listening to the singles and leaving the rest of the album unexplored. However, for those looking to break away from “Greatest Hits” collections, a close listen of The Beatles' most experimental and bizarre album is a must.

Exile On Main Street | The Rolling Stones

Songs that should have been hits

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When a band has as large of a discography as The Rolling Stones, it can be nearly impossible to pick out a “best album.” Yet practically any credible source puts Exile On Main Street in that coveted number one spot, and it usually finds itself in the top ten of most “Best albums of all time” lists. Despite such universal praise (and a few classic spots in Scorsese movies), many would be hard-pressed to name a song off of the album. Again, this is more than likely due to the fact that without support from radio hits, few people bother giving the whole album a shot (or even know about it). These people are missing out on a fun and gritty listening experience. Exile On Main Streets was recorded with sweat and grunge, and you can hear that on the record. From the first track, “Rocks Off,” the band lets you know that precision is not going to be hallmark of the album. The harmonies are on point, but sound like they were recorded in a bar as opposed to a studio, almost giving you the feeling that you’re at a concert singing along with other fans. The Rolling Stones wanted this album to be messy; it was punk rock before punk rock. If you wanted crisp, clean harmonies you could listen to The Beach Boys, you listened to Exile On Main Street because it was laid back, sloppy, and totally original.

How Kickstarter is Shifting the Artist-Fan Relationship Flip through Kickstarter, Indiegogo, GoFundMe or any of the dozens of blossoming crowdfunding sites, and you’ll find endless pages of musical pet projects. With a few dollars, you can help a label-less band create its first album, jumpstart a tour, or help an old favorite back on their feet. Crowdfunding and music have become an empowering duo for fans by changing the way music gets made. By shifting from fan to funder, a fan gains power in the production process and can use their pennies to handpick future releases.

The kickbacks of Kickstarting are manifold. Of course, there’s the NPR-pledge-week-style reward system of cheap gifts at varying donation levels. Spend $50, get a copy of the album and a sticker, spend $100 and get a t-shirt (and make Macklemore miserable).

But the true satisfaction lies in the action and the anticipation of the result. By donating, backers get to actively become a part of the creation process, getting to track the project from their few dollars to the final product, delivered to their inbox long after their initial donation. This changes their emotional relationship to the album as well, allowing fans to transcend the traditional role of passive but passionate devotees. “They put out an album” becomes “I made this album a possibility.”

You don’t have to look far beyond campus to see these possibilities become realities. Northeastern a cappella group Distilled Harmony created an Indiegogo campaign this January to fund their first album in four years, kicking off a wildly successful year that recently brought them to the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella semifinals. Through friends, family, and the Northeastern community, they raised over $15,000 and will be releasing their album this fall.

Middler member Brian McCarthy was glad to have been funded by fans and friends. “They care about us and want to see how much we love the music we produce, so we provide that.” McCarthy also commented on the enhanced expectations relying on backers created for the group. “To be seen as a solid group and advance in the a cappella community, it’s super important to put out a solid album.

Then you add the expectations of backers and it becomes a lot to think about.” Still, small projects like this perfectly illustrate how, ideally, crowdfunding becomes community funding and establishes a mutual respect between artist and backer.

This mutual respect is how the magic of Meow the Jewels came to be. Killer Mike and El-P, both hip-hop veterans in their own right, have found themselves catapulted to new levels of fame after joining forces in 2013 as Run the Jewels. The dedication of their followers became even clearer last year when fans turned a joke into a challenge by setting out to raise $40,000 for the duo to rerecord their second album using only cat samples. Within a month, the Kickstarter exceeded its $40,000 goal, and caught the attention of Killer Mike and

El-P, who promised to make the album and donate a portion of the cash to charity. Already in the works, this feline fantasy will feature the talents of Zola Jesus, Just Blaze, and everyone’s favorite Insta-cat Lil BUB. Fan-curated and artist-created, Meow the Jewels is the, ahem, purrfect example of crowdfunding done right.

That isn’t to say that crowdfunding is magic turned music. Especially when used by established artists rather than small-scale starters, the legitimacy of fan funding becomes questionable. Amanda Palmer became the infamous queen of crowdfunding after she raised $1.2 million for her 2012 album Theatre is Evil, then asked local musicians to “volunteer” to open at her shows, and, instead of actual payment, promised to “feed you beer, hug/high-five you up and down (pick your poison), give you merch, and thank you mightily.” Palmer’s fans were rightfully pissed, thinking this refusal to pay implied that she had palmed the extra cash post production.

A similar mess occurred when a Kickstarter was created to fund the 2012 edition of Best Music Writing. After the publication was dropped by its publisher, Da Capo Press, editor Daphne Carr decided to create a publishing house called Feedback Press and started the Kickstarter to establish Best Music Writing as the house’s first publication. The campaign raised over $17,000 and promised a release in the fall of 2012. Yet, by the summer of 2013, backers had yet to hear a word from Carr. After an accusatory Noisey article questioned Carr’s actions and lack of communication, Carr released a statement saying that she had taken on more than she was capable of with the project, and made a sincere promise to refund the project’s backers. Still, getting your $20 back nearly two years later with nothing to show for it is far from the gratification of a self-funded publication.

These disasters are an enormous asterisk to the positive possibilities of crowdfunding. But while these screw-ups led to questions of legitimacy, they also led to media- and fan-forced accountability. As stakeholders instead of fans, backers had the opportunity to collectively enforce promises, or at least try to, and advocate for themselves.

The days of anxious album release anticipation have passed with chain wallets and Hit Clips. Now, albums can be gobbled weeks before they’re officially released and streaming promises an immediate fix of the new. Yet, in the face of instant gratification, the slow-burning satisfaction of crowdfunding is gaining ground by changing our relationship to how music is made. So next time you’re considering a five dollar cup of coffee, think of taking a risk and funding a Kickstarter to (maybe) create something great.

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Cover Story

RAG E AGA I N ST T H E M AC H I N E

S I N E A D O’CO N N O R

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The outspoken, bald-headed Irish beauty rose to fame with her rendition of Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2 U,” one of the biggest songs of the 90s, if not ever. While her one-hitwonder will remain on music critic’s lists for decades, a piece of her legacy will always live on through her shocking October 3, 1992 SNL performance. As planned in rehearsal, O’Connor was to hold up a picture of a refugee child at the end of her a cappella performance of Bob Marley’s “War,” intended to be a symbol of protest against the sexual abuse controversy in the Catholic Church. Instead, the singer infamously concluded her ballad by presenting a photo of Pope John Paul II, ripping it into pieces, and tossing them towards the audience as she declared “Fight the real enemy!” The live stunt sent shockwaves through the nation, resulting in O’Connor’s swift ban from SNL, as well as a devastating blow on her career.

Rage Against the Machine is known for being fiercely outspoken and anti-authority, so much so that they have a Wikipedia page dedicated to their many controversial incidents and activist stances. It should come as no surprise, then, that the Grammy Award-winning band was not about to play by the rulebook of infamously strict SNL producer Lorne Michaels. Rage Against the Machine was set to perform “Bulls on Parade” and “Bullet in the Head,” with two upside down American flags behind them, providing a satisfying contrast to that night’s host, billionaire and two-time Republican presidential candidate Steve Forbes. Producers attempted to have the flags removed seconds before Rage Against the Machine took the stage for their first song, but were unsuccessful and the band performed in front of the inverted flags on live television. Lorne Michaels was so outraged that Rage Against the Machine was asked to leave the studio before they could perform their second song, triggering a lifetime ban from SNL.

E LV I S C O S T E L L O

Saturday Night Live celebrated its 40th anniversary this year, with a huge, star-studded anniversary special. Although the ensemble cast and guests have made the award-winning sketch and variety show into the iconic, late-night television staple that it is, many of the show’s musical guests have proven to be even more memorable than the jokes. Whether it was a blatant disregard for producer/dictator Lorne Michaels’ rules, or just your run-of-the-mill lip-sync scandal, here are some of the most unforgettable music moments in Saturday Night Live’s 40 year history.

K E L LY S U B I N ( M A R K E T I N G A N D I N T E RACT I V E M E D I A )

THE

REPLACEMENTS

CYPRESS HILL

FEAR

Stoners everywhere will defend Cypress Hill's freedom of expression on the October 2, 1993 episode of Saturday Night Live. Reportedly, the producers told the hip-hop group one too many times they were not allowed to smoke onstage, irritating them into defying the strict anti-drug policy. After their initial performance of “Insane in the Brain,” Cypress Hill took the stage for their second song “I Ain’t Going Out Like That.” As the music began, DJ Muggs declared “Yo, New York City, they said I couldn’t light my joint, you know what I’m saying? Well, we ain’t going out like that,” and proceeded to do just that, sparking up on live television. Cypress Hill’s lifetime ban was issued the moment DJ Muggs touched the joint to his lips, propelling them into SNL infamy.

The selection of musical guests was much more lenient in the beginning years of Saturday Night Live, as compared to the current formula of featuring a current artist who’s about to release an album or go on tour. In 1981, legendary SNL cast member John Belushi asked producers if one of his favorite punk bands, FEAR, could play the show. Evidently, they agreed. Total chaos ensued the moment FEAR took the stage, playing songs like “Beef Bologna” and “New York’s Alright If You Like Saxophones.” America was treated to live mosh pits, crowd surfing, and the destruction of instruments and equipment. Producers cut the performance immediately, fearing that a riot might break out. Wondering if FEAR was asked back? I think you can answer that question.

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Cover Story

ASHLEE SIMPSON Much like a car crash, a good lip-syncing disaster is something you just can’t look away from, and Ashlee Simpson’s SNL performance was like a ten-car pileup. Back in 2004, despite struggling in the shadow of big sister Jessica Simpson, Ashlee had a string of pop hits culminating in an appearance on Saturday Night Live. The first performance of the night went well, with Simpson singing “Pieces of Me” without a hitch. However, during round two, as Ashlee held up her microphone to sing “Autobiography” accompanied by her band, “Pieces of Me” began to play instead, for the second time. The singer attempted to shake off the fiasco with an on-stage jig, but the damage was done. Ashlee walked off stage without returning to finish her performance, and America cringed with secondhand embarrassment. She ultimately blamed the lip-syncing catastrophe on her backing band… then just her drummer… then, finally, acid reflux.

LANA DEL REY Lana Del Rey was the first artist to perform on Saturday Night Live without an album out, thanks to the buzz from her cult-like internet following. Her national television debut lived up to the hype, sending Twitter into an instant frenzy seconds after she hit her last note, but for all the wrong reasons.

Clearly nervous, Lana’s performances of “Video Games” and “Blue Jeans” both garnered harsh criticism for her shaky vocals and detached, zombie-like stage presence. One relentless tweeter compared her to “a drunk Julia Roberts trying to remember her own lyrics.” Despite a bleak career introduction, Lana defended her infamous performance and her debut album Born to Die went on to be a success.

I L L U S T R AT I O N S B Y A L L I S O N BA KO (MEDIA ARTS)

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A Z A L E A F T. M Ø

GANG OF ONE Marco White (Journalism)

Andy Gill, the last remaining founding member of the band Gang of Four, smacks his guitar against the stage as it spews feedback, while John ‘Gaoler’ Sterry preforms the deadpan lyrics to “Anthrax” with astounding physicality during a March 2015 show at the Paradise Rock Club. During their soundcheck earlier that night, Gill plays the lick from “Not Great Men,” another cut from the band’s classic 1979 debut Entertainment, shortly after adjusting Sterry’s reverb for “Where The Nightingale Sings” from their latest, What Happens Next. Hearing the rhythmic, serrating tones from Gill’s guitar, it’s like I’ve been slapped awake from the rambling languor of the reverb soaked vocals and drum machines on “Nightingale.”

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Feature

<

The newest album largely conforms to the style of this initial track.

What Happens Next is the first Gang of Four record not to feature Jon King, the founding singer of the band who left in 2013 after recording 2011’s Content. Gill wrote and produced all songs on the latest record, saying of his mindset while recording, “don’t worry about what constitutes a Gang of Four record and don’t be retro.” The record features 5 different singers including Alison Mosshart of the Kills. The production, performances, and lyrics all feel weighed down compared with the blunt politics and harsh guitar tones of the band’s past.

“Gang of Four was very much of the minute. We tried to develop a language of realism and I also tried to breakdown the musical things I liked into building blocks and put them back together into new forms,” Gil says in our interview. As we walk out of the Paradise, Gill is stopped by two graying men who speak enthusiastically of a show Gang of Four had played at Brown University in the 1980s. Later, during the show, these two high-five a number of times after the band finishes playing one of the songs from Entertainment that they had just been shouting for.

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Gang of Four formed in 1977 around the duo of Gill and King who met at Leeds University in England. The band weathered multiple line-up changes before disbanding in 1984. King and Gill reformed the band and released Mall in 1991 and Shrinkwrapped in 1995, though these releases are often overlooked in favor of Entertainment and 1981’s Solid Gold. Gang of Four are constantly cited as a major influence

all photos by Ben Stas (English/Journalism)

on a number of bands including the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Franz Ferdinand, but many of their devoted fans are those who were around to witness the band in their politically impassioned prime.

Now that Gill is the only remaining member, some have questioned whether the band can really go on. “Some people will say a band is only authentic if all the original members are, which is obviously the case with Gang of Four,” Gill says on the subject. “I would say, what’s more important, that you have the four members or that the spirit that began the band is still there?” Gill wants to avoid becoming stuck repeating the sounds of the past, saying that he felt Content was a problematic record for this reason. “With What Happens Next, I wasn’t looking back, trying to make some sort of fake copy of Entertainment.

I’m here now and this is the sound that I think works for me.”

When the band plays a song off one of the newer albums the crowd momentarily refrains from calling out for tracks and some bob along to the drum machine. But it’s all in anticipation of songs like “Damaged Goods” and “I Love A Man In Uniform,” which draw out ecstatic shouts from the audience as young and old alike sing along. The Paradise crowd must be nearly three-fourths graying baby-boomers and former hippies, some of whom can remember the media backlash against the supposed Marxist English Punks. When I asked Gill to describe the band’s mindset in tackling at-the-time controversial subject matter he responds, “We were searching for a realistic depiction of our lives and

what we saw. It was never about party politics or trying to persuade anyone to think a certain way.” It’s obvious that many attendance at the show had at one time been similar politically minded radicals, as evidenced by the woman with greying dreadlocks who requests “Death to Poverty” with a shout.

The crowd continually calls out a wish-list of classic Gang of Four tracks, most of which are satisfied by the show’s conclusion (though one man with his fist in the air unsuccessfully demanded “Outside the Trains Don’t Run On Time” till the bitter end). I had the distinct impression I was one of the only members of that audience that had or ever would listen to the latest record, as many bobbed obediently along to the unfamiliar songs until they could call out their old favorites off of Entertainment during the interim.

The show could easily have devolved into a bored recital of the songs people remember fondly, but even on the new tunes the band performs with such stone-faced intensity that the songs seem entirely separate from the lifeless new record. It’s an astoundingly energetic and well-received show from a band that, by all indications, would seem to be in its final days. Even if Gang of Four continues on with Gill as its only remaining member, they have shown that they can maintain the rebellious energy that defined their prime years.

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RETURNING TO AN Editorial

Abandoned Sound album Sequels You won’t find any horn fanfare, musings on state history or electronic cacophony on Sufjan Stevens’ new album Carrie and Lowell. Across the 44-minute exploration of grief, Stevens rejects bombast for intimacy with gentle acoustic guitars and the occasional piano or ambient interlude. It’s a style that works in favor of Carrie and Lowell’s tribute to the singer’s recently-deceased mother, but it’s not a style that’s new to him.

Stevens first approached singer-songwriter simplicity on the 2004 full-length Seven Swans. Seven Swans is quite good, and absolutely worth your while, but give or take a Godfather it’s also the rare predecessor outclassed by its sequel. Carrie and Lowell captures the feeling of a closed-off friend whispering his innermost secrets to you, its delicate fingerpicking and layered vocals Elliott Smith-esque in their haunting beauty. Don’t be surprised if it’s the best album you hear all year.

Though the comparison is an easy one to make, Carrie and Lowell isn’t strictly a sequel to Seven Swans. That album had its hushed moments but didn’t entirely reject the maximal freak-outs that have appeared, in some shape or form, on every Stevens album other than his new one. But then, albums don’t usually have sequels. Connections between related releases tend to be more spiritual, like the romantic turmoil connecting of Montreal’s new release Aureate Gloom to the group’s opus Hissing Fauna Are You the Destroyer?. They can be merit-based as well, as with Weezer’s unexpected return to form Everything Will Be Alright in the End last year. Sonic similarity is relevant here but not all-encompassing – were it, then every Washed Out release would be a sequel to the one that came before. More important is a sequel’s ability to recapture the mood that the first album lived in.

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That is, unless the sonic mimicry is so astute that comparison is unavoidable. To that effect, consider the controversial Album of the Year winner at this year’s Grammys, Beck’s Morning Phase. Morning Phase is perhaps the most recent example of an album being thought of as a sequel to another, and it’s not hard to understand why. Morning Phase reunites the band that played on its predecessor – 2002’s Sea Change – and resuscitates its lush folk sound. Even the album cover, stark and slightly aloof, seems designed as a callback. The major difference between the two is their respective tones. Sea

The context of Cuban Linx 2’s release underscores a notable trend with sequels: the artists releasing them have usually fallen into a rut. Just as Cuban Linx 2 capped off a string of unmemorable releases, Morning Phase jumpstarted interest in Beck after a six year gap between albums that seemed far longer. Both records reflect how common of an escape strategy sequels have become, so much so that the concept has penetrated the music world. Simply put, we used to not think about albums in this way. But in 2015 we assign a high value to nostalgia, such that forgotten 80s action franchises can find new life and the not-too-distant past is viewed through an Instagram filter every Thursday. Like most people who try to relive the past, depleted artists tend not to find vitality in the same place twice, and the motivation for these moves isn’t often pure.

But occasionally an artist operating at the peak of their power revisits a mood, and ends up with an even more impactful statement than what came before. While Sufjan Stevens’

Change’s lyrics are centered on a relationship post-mortem, while Morning Phase is a record designed for basking in the California sun. Quality-wise, Morning Phase doesn’t succeed as brilliantly as Sea Change either. Nonetheless the similarities between the two records make the sequel narrative hard to write off, and if the perception of Morning Phase suffers slightly it’s because the record doesn’t overwhelm with emotional frankness like Sea Change (not to mention its victory over giftto-humanity Beyoncé at those Grammys).

Carrie and Lowell may not validate the empty cash-grabs that sequels these days tend to be, it does suggest that perhaps we should approach these sequels with skepticism rather than resignation. Its folk stylings prompted instant comparisons to Stevens’ previous releases, but like the best sequels Carrie & Lowell instead uses its foundations to build a monument on top.

• Mike Doub (Journalism/Psychology)

A more clearly demarcated sequel is Raekwon’s 2009 comeback Only Built 4 Cuban Linx…Pt. II. The Wu-Tang rapper hadn’t released a notable record since the first Linx in 1995, and outside of guest verses on the records of his more consistent compatriot Ghostface Killah he rarely sounded engaged.

When the second Cuban Linx was released it singlehandedly rewrote Raekwon’s career trajectory. Sonically the record captures the smooth opulence of its predecessor, but with a maximal bent likening it as the Fishscale to the first Cuban Linx’s Ironman. Its return to form is also lyrical. On Cuban Linx 2 Raekwon successfully returned to his Mafioso persona with a performance that ranks among his very best, suggesting the rapper’s skill is best put to use when it details the exploits of a fictional drug empire. His recent, revitalized guest verses on records like MadGibbs’ Piñata and Schoolboy Q’s Oxymoron seem to suggest that Raekwon knows that too.

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Editorial

SOmething so sentimental In Defense of Carly Rae Jepsen’s Kiss

In September 2011, a former Canadian Idol contestant named Carly Rae Jepsen released her new single, a sweet ode to infatuation known as “Call Me Maybe.” The track didn’t make an immediate splash, but hung around the middle of the nation’s pop charts. Then, as the story goes, teen pop sensation Justin Bieber, best known for his frequent appearances in the pages of Tastemakers, heard the song on Canadian radio in January 2012 and fell in love instantly.

Bieber tweeted out a recommendation to his fans and made a Youtube video of himself and famous friends (including his thengirlfriend Selena Gomez) lip-synching to the song, which, of course, became a surprise international hit.

Cut to the present, where Jepsen has released the single “I Really Like You,” which seems to be seen by detractors as a weak attempt at avoiding the label of one-hitwonder and fans as the fantastic follow-up to “Call Me Maybe.” But both groups seem to have widely ignored the fact that she hasn’t just been hibernating for the past three years—in fact, she already followed it up by releasing the best pop album of 2012, a littleknown gem simply called Kiss.

The album’s bouncy Sam Cooke-quoting opener “Tiny Little Bows” quickly lets us that we’re in for more of what we’re already used to getting from Jepsen as she sings, “Everywhere you are is a place I wanna go.”

While it’s easy to complain that too many of Carly Rae Jepsen’s songs retread the narrative of “Call Me Maybe,” to say this is to profoundly miss the point. Scorsese directs movies about hypermasculine violence, Kafka wrote stories about dehumanizing bureaucracies, and Jepsen makes songs about overwhelming crushes. Her songs aren’t carbon copies, they’re the result of a distinct style and subject matter.

This laser focus also magnifies the impact of recurring motifs. When closing ballad “Your Heart is a Muscle” echoes “Tiny Little Bows” with the line “I wanna go wherever you are,” it feels like we’ve come

CRJ

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as far in the relationship as Carly herself and are just as desperate to save it. If her words tend to sound simplistic, that’s because they hit that perfect pop lyric sweet spot I’ve best heard described as “generic specificity”— imagery that manages to feel specifically tailored to your own experiences, but is universal enough that obviously isn’t the case. Decrying the line “Before you came into my life I missed you so bad” as easy to write is like saying “I could’ve made that!” upon seeing a piece of modern art. Yeah, but you didn’t, so shut up and enjoy it.

Having a crush can be hopeful and joyous. It can also be miserable, anxious and damn near unbearable, even when there’s no good reason for it to be. Jepsen knows this, and most of her songs hover on the razor’s edge between the two sides. “You’re walking closer and it’s hard to breathe / I should be running, but the heart’s naïve / And I’ll expect too much,” she reflects in “More Than a Memory.” Later, on its climax “Tonight I’m Getting Over You,” the album plunges headfirst into the painful side with the abrupt pivot of “I wanna touch your heart / I wanna crush it in my hands.” In this instance, our source of hope isn’t the crush, but the faith that we can dance hard enough to reach escape velocity and leave the infatuation behind for once and for all.

To achieve that, Kiss pulls together a diverse set of influences. Robyn, The Cars and James Taylor were among those Jepsen named as most important to the sound of her album, a sugary yet restrained set of tracks.

While a couple recognizable names were involved (“Tonight I’m Getting Over You” is the handiwork of every pop fan’s favorite Swede, Max Martin, and a surprisingly subtle Redfoo worked on “This Kiss” and “More than a

Memory”), for the most part Kiss is the work of a more anonymous gang of American and Canadian producers and songwriters. Besides Jepsen herself, the main figure is Matthew Koma, a frequent collaborator with EDM artists such as Zedd and Tiesto, who wrote and produced three album tracks as well as must-hear deluxe cut “Sweetie.”

Kiss isn’t a perfect album. Let’s disown two songs, which share two key similarities: they’re both duets with men, and they’re the only tracks where Carly Rae Jepsen doesn’t have a writing credit. The first of these, “Good Time,” tries to juxtapose sexuality with the anodyne Owl City, and it doesn’t work no matter how hard the robotic Adam Young tries to namedrop Prince. “Beautiful,” on the other hand, is a tepid acoustic ballad and blatant stab at the popularity of One Direction’s “What Makes You Beautiful” featuring Jepsen’s benefactor Bieber. Yet, their flaws aside, and in spite of the fact that Kiss might have done better had they not existed as many people’s only impression of Carly Rae Jepsen outside of “Call Me Maybe,” the existence of these tracks only makes you love the rest of her album all the more—they simply confirm our suspicion that Carly is most powerful when there’s no interloper standing in her way.

• Nathan Golman (Sociology)

a map to Boston’s house shows

The house show is a vital organ in any healthy music community. It is a crucial platform, allowing fledgling bands to cut their teeth within concrete walls. And at their best, DIY venues are a bastion of music discovery; where else will somebody chance their Saturday night on not just one, but four bands they’ve never heard of?

Sometimes, the only place you can catch an affordable (or even free) show is in somebody’s dingy apartment. There is some debate over which is the ideal – low covers to pay touring bands, or optional donations to encourage a diverse and engaged crowd – but most agree that the house show itself is an essential institution.

The Boston Police Department’s recent (and usually hilarious) attempts to shut these spaces down have been generally fruitless – but nevertheless, they have shaken the indie sensibilities of local 20-somethings.

But never fear: the house show is still kicking in Boston. And if you’re just beginning your foray into the rumbling basements of Allston and Mission Hill, Tastemakers has compiled a handy list of names to look out for.

• Joey Dussault (Journalism)

d their venues an here. e th to t c espe given R: With r addresses will be E M I A L DISC on, no d operati continue .

Nice try, BPD

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Feature

ouse H â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a m d Gran Allston

sych p , l : a d t o n o e h m Neighbor , noise pop, experi k Style: pun

The Womb

Neighborhood: Allston Style: anything goes

JP Drive Iond: Jamaica Plain Neighborho o, drone, punk m Style: lo-fi, e

Spring 2015

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The Overlook

Neighborhood: Mission Hill Style: punk, bedroom pop, whatever

Whitehaus

Neighborhood: Jamaica Plain Style: folk, punk, hootenanny

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Editorial “Aleatoric.”

“Aleatoric?”

“A-lee-a-tor-ic.”

“By digitizing thunder and traffic noises, Georgia was able to compose aleatoric music.”

These are as much the lyrics to The Books’ “Read, Eat, Sleep” as they are a recording of the 2001 Scripps National Spelling Bee. The sample appears in the context of their 2002 album Thought for Food, a nod to the fact that “aleatoric” by definition means “music with chance elements.” In other words, The Books used sampling to create a narrative out of apparently disparate sounds, creating order from disorder.

Sampling is not truly aleatoric, because the producer has complete control of what is conveyed to the listener. However, it represents a kind of distance between the composer and what is composed.

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A producer can only choose whether to include the sample or not, and can do little to alter pre-recorded material.

Aleatoric (also called indeterminate) music widens that distance between composer and composition, to the point that the composition itself is based on chance. It deconstructs the western classical idea that music should be annotated down to the very fabric of the piano bench, leaving space for variation in its eventual performance. The question is, why have people like John Cage, Krzysztof Penderecki and James Patterson focused so much of their attention on distancing themselves from their own work?

One answer lies in the notion of “free will.”

Consider free will in terms of conventional physics; that is, an object with free will is untouched by any external force. If we think of composers as external forces, and compositions as objects, composers of indeterminate music are attempting to grant their work at least as much agency as they themselves command.

Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood is one modern champion of the form. The band has long scorned their past listener-friendly efforts, most notably the original smash hit “Creep.” Greenwood’s film music, meanwhile, has offered him a platform to confront listeners with some truly challenging pieces.

Since 2007, Greenwood has paired up with auteur Paul Thomas Anderson to illustrate complex characters in There Will Be Blood (2007), The Master (2012), and Inherent Vice (2014). In his score for There Will Be Blood Greenwood makes use of samples from Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima, a 1960 composition by Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki, one of his main influences. The piece employs indeterminacy to ensure that neither the composer nor the audience can detect the pitch of the grating strings.

The effect is wholly discordant, and mirrors the film’s evil-incarnate protagonist Daniel Plainview. More specifically, the score mirrors the trials and tribulations of following a story in which the narrator has a viscous contempt for mankind. Similarly, the protagonists of The Master and Inherent Vice (who both happen to be Joaquin Phoenix) are serial substance abusers, and determining reality from drug-addled hallucination becomes near impossible.

The trope of the unreliable narrator as it exists in Anderson’s world serves to place distance between story and storyteller. Since the audience knows that the characters are likely presenting some false information, they cannot know what information isn’t false. Every fabricated detail is a reminder that the story exists independently from the narrator, and Greenwood’s choice of aleatoric music becomes a variation on the theme of deconstructing “truth.” Both Greenwood and Anderson challenge the belief that truth lies in the hands of the composer/narrator.

Greenwood has even applied this principle to his recent performances with the London Symphony Orchestra, in which audience members were allowed to move around and comment freely on the pieces midperformance. This tactic further downplays the significance of the performer or composer by leveling the playing field, lowering the stage so that the audience and performers are on the same level.

In general, this deconstructionist approach to music traces historic swells of artistic photorealism and abstract expressionism.

There will always be people who don’t want to pay money to see a chair hung on the wall of the ICA. That same person likely wouldn’t fork over admission prices to watch John Cage not play the piano for an hour. However, the push and pull of these competing ideas addresses a fundamental imperative in music composition. Artists strive for humanity in their work, so that they might access and alter the humanity of their listeners. Aleatoric music pushes the composition away from the composer and toward the listener.

In fact, the argument for aleatoric music rings like a case for live music in general.

Live music has the advantage of subtle but detectable variation across performances, to the point where its practice could be classed as a form of indeterminate music.

Conversely, a recording of that same piece lacks any aleatory quality, having been mixed and mastered to resemble the very brain stem of the artist. Perhaps this is why Jonny Greenwood has performed his There Will Be Blood soundtrack in concert with the film. The performance is inherently more human, in part due to its indeterminate deviations from the source material. In this way, aleatoric music becomes indelibly tied to humanity.

`• Peter Giunta (Biology)

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Album Reviews

Reviews

If you would like to submit a review to be considered for publishing in print or online, e-mail: tmreviews@gmail.com

Andrew Bird Echolocations: Canyon Release date February 3 Label Wegawam Music Co. Genre Indie Rock/Folk Tasty tracks Groping The Dark, Antrozous, The Canyon Wants To Hear C Sharp

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Notorious for his musical ingenuity, Andrew Bird has once again broken the conventional parameters of music making in his quest to capture and experiment with the ethereal realm of sound. His latest album, Echolocations: Canyon, released Feb. 3, was recorded at the basin of Coyote Gulch canyon in Utah and is the first album in his upcoming series of site-specific compositions and short films. Void of the witty rhymes and elevated diction common in most of Bird’s albums, his latest is an instrumental that is both sleepy and compelling. A cross between Native American meditation music and the sound of someone artfully tuning his violin, Echolocations: Canyon is classic Bird with its droning strings and dove-like whistling. The album incorporates more instruments than just a violin and a wet pair of lips, however.

Bird capitalizes on the sounds of the water and wind around him to complement the equally drifty, leaky sounds of his violin and his occasional tweeting. For example, Bird plays the river by recording the pitter-patter of water against water as he kicks the stream into the air, as shown in the video.

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Echolocations: Canyon commences with “Sweep The Field,” a seven minute ballad of Bird amusing himself with the reflections of sound against canyon walls and prefacing his audience for the 50 hypnotizing minutes to come. “Groping The Dark,” debatably the strongest song on the album, follows with more sophisticated successions of reverberating violin. About five minutes into the track, Bird introduces a bullfrog/ boomerang noise that is simultaneously striking and obnoxious, traits that also suit the album as a whole. After “Groping The Dark,” Bird takes the listener on a listless journey through violin la la land with a brief breach at “Antrozous,” a captivating mix of patterns and percussion-esque finger picking. The audience wanders through two more songs until concluding with “The Canyon Wants To Hear C Sharp,” a crescendoing smorgasbord of strings, wind, water, and whistling.

More than just an album, Echolocations: Canyon is a multi-media work of art. Musical, visual and physical, Bird’s composition chameleons from music to short film to art

exhibit. From now until May 10 the ICA’s exhibit, “Sonic Arboretum,” showcases sculptor Ian Schneller’s brightly-colored phonograms that play Bird’s latest album.

Scattered around the room, different clusters of phonograms play certain aspects of each song. In the center of the room is a seating area where museum-goers listen to the completed sound, an accumulation of noises coming from all corners of the room. "Sonic Arboretum" is yet another way Bird prods his audience to conceptualize his music.

Genius in its technique and execution, Echolocations: Canyon highlights Bird’s most admirable qualities; however, it’s not entirely palpable. This album is perfect background music for writing essays or drowning out a roommate’s snores, but in other contexts becomes overwhelmingly whiny. Although the album is at times too experimental to digest, the idea and expertise behind Bird’s unique formation and presentation of Echolocations: Canyon make it an album worthy of recognition.

Emily Arntsen (Undeclared)

Sufjan Stevens Carrie & Lowell Release date March 31 Label Asthmatic Kitty Records Genre Indie Folk Tasty tracks Eugene, No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross, Should Have Known Better

Losing a loved one is like traveling through an intimate, contoured map.

Grief isn’t something you get over, it’s something you accept, and Carrie & Lowell embodies that gradual acceptance of death.

Sufjan Stevens’ seventh studio album is a public space for him to pursue meaning, justice, and reconciliation after his absent mother’s death His navigation and gradual healing is portrayed through haunting falsettos, bare instrumentals consisting of mostly lo-fi acoustic guitar and piano, and introspective lyrics that make Carrie & Lowell one of the most poignant albums ever made.

Stevens’ mother left him when he was one year-old, but to hear Stevens tell it her

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departure was arguably for the better.

Carrie was an alcoholic who suffered from depression and schizophrenia, someone who found herself incapable of raising Stevens and his older brother. The time he spent with her added up to only three summers when Stevens was a young boy in Eugene, Oregon. In the song “Eugene,” he recalls pulling at his mother’s shirt and asking for lemon yogurt, and describes learning to swim from a swimming instructor who opted to call him “Subaru.” The song goes from playful to tragic as he begs, “I just wanted to be near you,” exposing his vulnerability.

Carrie disappeared from his life after those summers, leading him to create a kind of mythology about her in his adulthood, until

she reappeared in 2012 on the brink of death from stomach cancer.

The bewilderment over how to react to her passing led Stevens to drug and alcohol abuse, imprisoning himself in his suffering.

With the sound of his air conditioner whirring in the background of “No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross,” Stevens achingly construes his newfound pill addiction as a lover leading him to the happiness he once felt. In “All of Me Wants All of You,” he begs Jesus to help him while he sins, then wonders afterwards why he doesn’t feel any better. There’s an instrumental outro on almost every song, and each one forces the listener to reflect and meditate during the ambiance. These outros perfectly capture the spirit of the album’s mourning.

“Fourth of July,” Carrie & Lowell’s centerpiece, doesn’t feature an outro. Like Kanye West’s “Only One,” Stevens sings about his mother through his mother’s perspective.

He alternates between her voice and his own in a song detailing the day his mother passed away filled with heartbreaking nicknames like “my little dove” and “my little Versailles.”

At the end, as fleeting as death itself, Stevens asserts “we’re all gonna die” several times before quietly slipping into the next song.

The phrase is Carrie & Lowell in miniature: brutally mature, honest, and resonant. The final song, “Blue Bucket of Gold,” might be expected to provide some kind of closure to Stevens’ lamentation, but instead, it’s a quiet sigh where he accepts that there will never be closure. There’s no grandiose revelation after losing someone close to home; we move on because… well, that’s life. In “Should Have Known Better,” Stevens wallows in regret until an inspiring electric keyboard melody enters the fray: “My brother had a daughter/ The beauty that she brings, illumination,” Stevens cheerfully chants, ready to push his sorrow aside after seeing traces of his mother in his niece. Carrie & Lowell is a reminder that you are not your grief, but your own individual in full control of life.

Anu Gulati (Computer Science/Math)

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Ghostface Killah Sour Soul Release date February 24 Label Lex Records Genre Hip-hop/Jazz Tasty tracks Six Degrees (feat. Danny Brown), Tone’s Rap, Ray Gun (feat. DOOM)

Reviews Spring 2015

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It’s a scientific fact that Ghostface Killah is draining the life-force of the other rappers in Wu-Tang Clan. At the very least, it seems possible. Give or take a Cuban Linx, the once-unflappable crew is nowadays suffused with lyrical cruise control and sonic nostalgia to a fault, delivering on RZA’s one-time promise of eternity with stagnation. Ghostface’s recent releases, on the other hand, showcase an admirable forward motion for a rapper over 20 years into his career.

His mic performance is as cleverly cruel as ever, and from the soul band stomp of 36 Seasons to the Tarantino-meets-Leone psychedelic strings on Twelve Reasons to Die, his recent beat selection strikes a satisfying balance between retro and relevant. That MO is far removed from the fussy posturing former commanderin-chief RZA brought to last December’s A Better Tomorrow, and Ghostface’s continued excellence is proof that his ceaseless productivity – or perhaps ectoplasmic pilfering – is the superior success strategy.

Your mileage may vary on Ghostface’s last few albums though, depending on your opinion of his new playbook. On his last three records Ghostface altered his terms of engagement, rejecting the sprawl that provided the template for many a Wu-Tang classic. Instead these records have been exercises in concision and, on Twelve Reasons to Die and 36 Seasons, experiments in form by way of the concept album. Sour Soul isn’t a concept album, but it has more in common with those two albums than anything else Ghostface has done. He’s teamed up with another live band – the Toronto jazz trio BADBADNOTGOOD – for an album that clocks in at just over half an hour, and on the mic Ghostface isn’t awe-inspiring so much as sturdy. He’s playing a character he’s played many times before and playing him reliably. That might make Sour Soul sound like just another good Ghostface album, and it is, although it’s an especially

good Ghostface album. Freed from the storytelling that sometimes constrained him on Twelve Reasons and Chambers, Ghostface doubles down on his acerbic wit with some guests that are more than happy to follow suit.

These collaborators are largely responsible for the album’s success. Perhaps motivated by Wu-Tang strife, Ghostface replaces those affiliates with underground heroes of the past and present on Sour Soul.

Each delivers on his own variety of strange, be it Danny Brown’s plans to eat other rappers like butternut squash on standout “Six Degrees” or Elzhi’s self-assured hubris on “Gunshowers.” For my money though, Sour Soul’s true stars are BADBADNOTGOOD.

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The jazz trio turns in some of their best instrumentals to date here, eschewing their trademark jazz for a livelier take on Adrian Younge’s psychedelic soul from Twelve Reasons to Die. Their spry funk, in addition to the guest rappers, makes the most convincing case for how Ghostface has stayed afloat while his clan compatriots have faltered: great taste. By surrounding himself with fresh talent Ghostface is better able to mask the occasional out-of-touch moments that accompany any musician his age. Although as he proves on his own throughout Sour Soul, an all-time great in in slightly diminished form is still an all-time great.

Mike Doub (Psychology/Journalism)

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We publish album reviews online too! tastemakersmag.com

Tasty

Death Grips Jenny Death Release date March 31 Label Harvest Genre Alternative Hip-hop Tasty tracks Inanimate Sensation, Centuries of Damned, On GP

It’s finally here. After almost a year of vague hints, practice videos, and a very weird instrumental soundtrack, Death Grips have brought us the second half of their double album The Powers That B. And every member of the group is functioning at their absolute maximum output. If there is one word to describe this album, it’s “overwhelming”.

Jenny Death is a collision of guitars pushed to the limits, MC Ride’s insane, inconsistent delivery and some of Zach Hill’s most manic drums yet. It is in many ways a very typical Death Grips album in its onslaught, but there’s also a lot to Jenny Death that is new.

Most noticeable are the new voices and flows that MC Ride brings to the table, alternating between whispers and shouts on first single “Inanimate Sensation” and adopting a bizarre,

Mr. Roboto-esque autotuned voice on “Why a Bitch Gotta Lie?” He seems to completely lose the beat at times, like in the screaming, offkilter chorus of “I Break Mirrors with My Face in the United States.”

In terms of production, Jenny Death is the rawest Death Grips release since their first EP. With the possible exceptions of “Pss Pss” and “Death Grips 2.0,” every track features extreme instrumentals, the various pieces of which collide together violently. In terms of energy, this is as much a punk album as a hip-hop album. It feels in many ways like a foil to Niggas on the Moon, its sister album and part one of The Powers That B, as that album featured some of the cleanest DG production to date. Another interesting facet of Jenny Death is its progression. It starts out at its heaviest and grittiest, with these early songs – “I Break Mirrors,” “Inanimate Sensation,” and “Turned Off” – being some of Death Grips’ loudest songs to date. But as it goes on, Jenny Death develops a transcendent feeling.

Death Grips often talk about their sense of disconnect with the material world, and the second half of the album feels like a genuine departure from reality. The guitars on “Beyond Alive,” Centuries of Damned,” and “On GP”

are much more clean and atmospheric than those on the album’s first half, and the lyrics reinforce this feeling of ascent.

Many have pointed out the themes of death and suicide on “On GP,” but MC Ride’s desire to commit suicide seems to stem not from depression, but rather from a desire to leave our reality and find a new one. “I fall back, concoct new worlds / I fall out in throbbing swirls,” he spits. They would be perfect final words for Death Grips, so of course the group can’t leave it at that. Jenny Death, in true Death Grips fashion, ends with a short, confusing instrumental track – the only one on the album. It could be read a number of different ways. Is it a sign that MC Ride went through with his desire for death?

A representation of the new dimension that he so wanted to enter? The credits at the end of a long movie? Or is it simply a “fuck you” to the fans that Death Grips have never really seemed to serve? Regardless, it is about as Death Grips as anything else they’ve done, and if it does signal the end of the band it may be the most appropriate way things could have ended.

Tim DiFazio (English)

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I’m wide awake, it’s morning:

EXAMINING THE BRIGHT EYES DISCOGRAPHY

Etcetera

Starting with a fanbase of emotional teenagers at the turn of the millennium, folk-rock group Bright Eyes knew how to connect. Whether it was the hopeful love song “First Day of My Life,” the hauntingly sexy “Lover I Don’t Have To Love” or George W. Bush musical smackdown “When The President Talks To God,” Bright Eyes singer-songwriter Conor Oberst’s Dylan-esque poetry and wonderfully whiney vocals let angsty millennial teens both rock out and mope.

Since its start, Bright Eyes has remained something of an

ongoing solo-project as Oberst and producer Mike Mogis are the only lasting members. Early acoustic tracks recorded during Oberst’s teenage years were released under the name Bright Eyes, and although he has named a solo career for himself starting in 2010, Bright Eyes is still seen as his lasting, ever-evolving creation. Oberst’s lyricism taps into self-pitying depression, existential shamanism and apathetic cynicism as Bright Eyes musically paints his words. Oberst isn’t afraid to feel, and neither are Bright Eyes’ listeners.

written by mackenzie nichols (journalism)

where to begin

2005

i’m wide awake, it’s morning

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The cohesive progression of Bright Eyes’ I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning as a folk-rock album with a country twang showcases Oberst’s melancholic poetry through softly produced folk songs. The record opens with a story: A woman is flying to meet her fiancée and tragedy strikes as the plane’s engine fails and the passengers fall 30,000 feet into the ocean. “At The Bottom Of Everything” is a bouncy folk tune sung by the man sitting next to the female passenger. “We’re going to a party. It’s a birthday party. It’s your birthday, darling, and we love you very very very very very much,” the man says to her, and starts to sing “death will give us back to God, just like

the setting sun is returned to this lonesome ocean.” As the plane falls, picked guitars and mandolins play a happy jig. Oberst paints tragedy and death as inevitable with the sort of lyricism he is so famous for. “We must stare into a crystal ball and only see the past / And in the caverns of tomorrow / With just our flashlights and our love / We must plunge, we must plunge, we must plunge.”

Sad tracks such as “Lua,” “Land Locked Blues” and “Poison Oak,” juxtaposed with the uplifting “First Day Of My Life,” “Old Soul Song (For The New World Order” and “Train Underwater,” access the spectrum of human emotion while never straying away from the

record’s bright, gentle production. I’m Wide Awake speaks to city dwellers and deep southern woodsmen alike, with nostalgic horn lines in city protest track “Old Soul Song” and molasses-smooth slide guitars in “Another Travelin’ Song.” The anthemic “Road To Joy,” Bright Eyes’ take on Beethoven’s 9th symphony, confronts the flaws of religion and war as well as Oberst’s own self-doubt as a singer. Oberst’s sneering, powerful last line “let’s fuck it up, boys, make some noise” brings forth a complete big-band breakdown where Bright Eyes announces their presence and Oberst tells listeners that yes, he is “wide awake.”

digital ash in a digital urn

2005

Released on the same day as Wide Awake, Digital Ash breaks the band’s folk-rock boundaries by using synthesizers, prerecorded loops, and a denser, more sensual sound. The record is dreamy, sexual electrorock. It begins with the sound of a door opening, heavy breathing, mechanical noises, keys jingling, and footsteps on a staircase.

Synth chords accompany the heavy breathing and Oberst starts “Time Code,” an industrial mash of electronic percussion, pre-recorded snippets of crowds cheering and clocks ticking, and dreamy synths. Bright Eyes’ experimentation with computerized tones draws a completely different musical blueprint than that of Wide Awake. The undeniably sexy track “Down in a Rabbit Hole” is melodically and rhythmically sensual, telling the story of

a dark descent into the unknown. Another track “Take It Easy (Love Nothing)” uses video game synths to tell a story of a young love: “You’re a beautiful boy / You’re a sweet little kid / But I am a woman.” The synths are replaced by distorted guitar and a faster tempo as the sad lover copes with rejection by building an emotional barricade. Digital Ash’s most lyrically and harmonically dense track is “I Believe in Symmetry,” a symphonic drama that seems to put Oberst’s heart and mind on a stage. Heart-wrenching electric guitar lines are accompanied by strings as Oberst “walks up and down that lonely treble clef.” Both “Ship in A Bottle,” a love song for a woman watched from afar, and “Easy / Lucky / Free,” a free-floating emotional ballad about the freedom of death, have an underwater sonic quality that differs from the rest of the tracks. Digital Ash is Bright Eyes’ experiment with technology and the digital world, and set next to Wide Awake, shows the band’s range of melodic and harmonic interests.

illustrated by elise fung

fevers and mirrors 2000 Oberst uses lyrical motifs to express the thematic elements of Fevers And Mirrors, a hauntingly angry record. Opening song “A Spindle, A Darkness, A Fever, and A Necklace” features a fuzzy pre-recorded young boy speaking and Oberst singing sadly over his acoustic guitar. The use of accordions on Fevers and Mirrors adds a certain macabre atmosphere to the tracks, such as “Arienette,” “Something Vague, and “A Spindle, A Darkness, A Fever, and A Necklace”.

A highlight of Fevers and Mirrors, “Sunrise, Sunset” is Bright Eyes’ hostile adaptation of a song famously written for the musical Fiddler on the Roof. Oberst angrily criticizes an exlover using eerie mandolin and flute lines to mimic early 20th century music. “An Attempt

to Tip the Scales” incorporates a recording of what seems to be a Q&A between Oberst and an interviewer, but is really a scripted piece written by Oberst and acted out by his friend Todd Baechle of The Faint. “Oberst” discusses the images of the record: The Fever symbolizing “whatever keeps you up at night,” The Mirror as “self-examination or reflection,” The Scale “our attempt to solve our problems quantitatively” and The Clocks or Calendars our measurements of time constantly chasing us. These clocks and calendars are used prominently in the angry track “The Calendar Hung Itself…” to symbolize the constricting measurements of time.

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letting off the happiness Bright Eyes’ second album Letting Off The Happiness starts with “If Winter Ends,” a track that encapsulates Oberst’s signature emotional songwriting. He sings as if he is weeping and strums his guitar in rage. “But I give myself three days to feel better / Or else I swear I’ll drive right off a fucking cliff / ‘cause if I can’t learn to make myself feel better / How can I expect anyone else to give a shit?” “Padraic, My Prince” tells the story

Etcetera

of Oberst’s brother who died in a bathtub.

A sad, emotional, suicidal Oberst swears to the listener that “tonight to celebrate I will poison myself / Another coughing, shaking fit in a bathroom, that is spinning.” The

overall content of the album is depressing and heart-breaking with the exception of “The City Has Sex” and “Pull My Hair,” which are sexier and somewhat more upbeat. “It’d seem more like a song / and less like it’s math / if you pull on my hair / and bite me like that,” Oberst offers seductively in “Pull My Hair.” Elsewhere, “Touch” insists that Oberst’s lover will leave him while they still embrace on the floor. After taking in Oberst’s later songwriting, the pleasant moments in Lifted and Wide Awake, Letting Off The Happiness brings you into the dark mind of the young writer who started spewing his emotions into song at 13 years old.

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LIFTED or the story is in the soil, keep your ear to the ground Depression. Self-pity. Self-loathing. Rejection.

Suicide. Apathy. Sex. Self-improvement.

Perseverance. Love. Hope. Beauty. Lifted as a record is a thematic mood swing through which Oberst and the rest of Bright Eyes tackle human emotion. From the low-fi, acoustic first track “The Big Picture” to the lyrically and musically dense big-band finale “Let’s Not Shit Ourselves (To Love And To Be Loved),” the band covers all the bases, each track capable of triumphantly standing on its own. Lifted’s mood-swinging behavior shines during the transition from Oberst’s pain-stricken rock-folk track “Method Acting” to the waltz-y string and guitar-based “False Advertising.” Perhaps Bright Eyes’ most recognizable and popular sex anthem, “Lover I Don’t Have to Love,” also comes from Lifted; cue the screaming fangirls. “Your tongue in my mouth / Trying to keep the words from coming out / You didn’t care to know / Who else may have been

you before,” Oberst murmurs into the ear of a post-show one-time lover. “Lover,” with its lustful tonality, ends with an upbeat rhythmic pattern on acoustic guitar which becomes the basis for “Bowl of Oranges.” “Oranges” is a mood swing in and of itself, beginning as an uncharacteristically cheery folk-song urging sad listeners to see the beauty in life and then quickly transitioning into an eerie, nostalgic piano/guitar instrumental. Lifted’s finale is truly a finale. At 10:08, “Let’s Not Shit Ourselves (To Love and to Be Loved)” is the longest on the album and begins with Oberst and a timpani roll, recorded to sound as if he and the rest of Bright Eyes are performing it live. The rest of the finale is a poetic and cynical folk-song that pulls together all of the human emotions expressed in Lifted and laughs at them.

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cassadaga Cassadaga opens with a woman describing the titular spiritualist camp in Florida, as if she were being interviewed. “Cassadaga…

Oh yeah, that’s where you’re gonna find the center of energy.” As she continues talking about tarot cards and psychics, Bright Eyes brings some chaotic strings to the forefront of the track “Clairaudients (Kill or Be Killed),” drowning the mysterious woman out.

The mystery of Cassadaga as a camp for spiritualists and mediums is alluded to many times throughout the album. The record is less angry and self-loathing in comparison to much of Oberst’s earlier work and more an exploration of the soul, of humanity as inherently good, and of Conor Oberst transitioning from emotional young poet to a happier man. The album overall has a more bluesy, country indie-rock feel with higher production value and more vocal harmonies.

After experiencing Oberst’s early songwriting as a basis for understanding Bright Eyes, Cassadaga shows an older singer-songwriter, a “hopeless romantic, [now] turning tricks” as sung in the track “Soul Singer In A Session

Band.” Even Oberst’s poetry has evolved toward optimism; take “Cleanse Song” for instance: “Take the fruit from the tree, break the skin with your teeth / Is it bitter or sweet? All depends on your timing.” By 2007, Bright Eyes has evolved from the success of I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning and have added to their instrumentation, production value, and folk-rock feel. Lovers of the more emotional Oberst may miss the darker days, but Cassadaga is nonetheless equally as beautiful.

the rest of the collection

a collection of songs written and recorded 1995-1997 1999 every day and every night ep 1999

a christmas album 2002

there is no beginning to the story 2002

one jug of wine, two vessels (with neva dinova) 2004 motion sickness: live recordings 2005

noise floor: rarities 1998-2005 2006

four winds ep 2007

the people’s key 2011

49

Etcetera

Spring 2015

50

TASTY RECIPE Vanilla Mochi Cake Type of dish Dessert Preparation time 15 minutes Cook time 90 minutes Difficulty Moderate

Instructions 1 Preheat your oven to 350°F. 2 Line a sponge roll tin with baking paper.

3 Put all the dry ingredients in a large bowl and

Ingredients

whisk to mix and get rid of lumps.

4 Pour all the wet ingredients into the dry

Moldy

Stale

Edible

Fresh

Tasty

110 g butter, melted and cooled a little

ingredients and whisk till smooth.

2 tsp vanilla essence

5 Pour cake mixture into the prepared pan and

2 cups caster sugar

bake for 1 hour and a half, until golden brown and

5 eggs, beaten

a skewer comes out clean and the edges are pulling

2 tsp baking powder

away from the tin.

3 cups glutinous rice flour (or mochiko)

6 Cool completely in the pan...or don't.

1 12 oz can of evaporated milk 1 13 oz can of coconut milk 1/4 tsp salt

ZOOMED Can you tell which six album covers we’ve zoomed in on here?

Eminem The Marshall Mathers LP, Drake Take Care, Dr. Dre 2001 2nd Row:

Atmosphere When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold, Outkast ATLiens, Ludacris Chicken-n-Beer 1st Row:

CRYPTOQUOTE

FIND BIEBER We’ve hidden Justin Bieber somewhere in this issue. Find him and maybe something cool will happen...

“ F R K E I H

‘ H J T D M

V E L A M H I D , L K ,

S L G

”

A LY K I D !

– Nicki Minaj 51