My Little Corner Of The World – Volume 45

by Vinh on February 23rd, 2010

Ween – Chocolate And Cheese (1994)
As a rock band, Ween are certainly a very strange entity. Are they a serious act or are they just in it for the laughs? Chocolate And Cheese could provide arguments for both sides but what is for certain is that when they want to Gene and Dean, Ween are extremely capable songwriters. There are the silly moments such as ‘Mister, Would You Please Help My Pony?’ and ‘The HIV Song’ that, fun as they might be, could be seen as a wall or defensive shield to hide away from the spine-chilling brilliance of something as instantly blissful as ‘What Deaner Was Talking About’, two of purest minutes of pop you are ever likely to hear. ‘Baby Bitch’ has all the elements that made Elliott Smith such a treasured artist while the soulfulness of ‘Freedom of ‘76′ is a sun-filled gem. A lot of this might pass the listener by as they laugh along with the sound advice of ‘Don’t Shit Where You Eat’ but if you give it the attention it deserves, there is an unexpected disturbing sense of genius flowing through much of this album. – Matthew James

Xiu Xiu – A Promise (2003)
In ‘Ian Curtis Wishlist’, songwriter and singer Jamie Stewart wails loudly but pathetically, quivering with agony, “will you ever bleat out ‘DO YA LUV ME, JAMIE STEWART?!’/Jane S. I am kidding.” He stops, his voice cuts off abruptly. The listener can only hear a skip in the tape’s looping, a quick breath, the menacing but simple strings sound gently playing in the backroom, ready to explode but seemingly content to stay restrained for the moment. While this bout of shameful self-indulgence sinks in, but before the listener can brace themselves for what is about to come, in a darkly snarky tone of voice, he repeats “I’m just KIIIDing.” It’s evident that he’s not. It’s quite apparent that the one he so desperately needs to need him back doesn’t, and it’s not romantic. It’s not a charming game of love and loss that makes for life-lesson angst. It’s ugly, and that’s when the elegantly somber string music in this dirge becomes corrupted with a deafening fit of electronic cacophony. It showers over the song seemingly out of nowhere, and just disrupts any sense of melody. This song serves as a microcosm for the rest of A Promise — a collection of ten songs steeped in post-punk-infused pop songwriting. However, as soon as the listener gains an uneasy comfort with the subtle but catchy hooks in the song, the power electronic found sounds or no wave minimalist fits of noise molest any and all semblance of anything palatable. It becomes an exercise of endurance for the listener, and that’s the greatest compliment one could give this album. Stewart, a product of domestic woes, sexual abuse, gender confusion, and surviving his father’s suicide, could be one of the most important figures in western music. Striving for catharsis in the form of sonically challenging arrangements, taking his pain and anger and perversion out on each song, he does something few abuse sufferers can; he takes control of something, and that’s the ability to shape his songs and destroy conventions. By doing this, he conveys an experience that’s often shunned in media. Analyzing the sentiments of the album through the lens of sexual abuse or the products of domestic woes, familial strife, sexual and gender identity confusion, and frustration, and so on, these subjects are often ignored in media, or used for easy emotional exploitation of the audience. How often are those who experience these things seen as something other than helpless victims unable to take control of their own destinies after the events, who strive to reach some sense of catharsis after, or who even get a chance to express the angst and turmoil it caused? These events are always told from a 3rd person narrative or a removed, set plot, never really examining the emotional and the physiological fallout of the events for those who have been recipients or involved in them. Shunned or made to feel shame/victimization by media representation, invariably, those who experience these issues often internalize this lack of representation and eventually believe they are, in fact, something to be ashamed of — that they’re mere victims that illuminate the dangers of patriarchy, classism, and heterosexualism, and gender binary and so on instead of having actual, distinctive experiences. So here, in somber songs of pop butchering, dour sexuality, and hideous love, Stewart unwittingly becomes the ambassador of the broken in a way that isn’t exploitative — nothing here that’s sexual is sexy, none of these candid insights into Stewart’s psyche and experiences are played for titillation. Just when the listener thinks it’s okay to start listening closer, anything audibly delightful is disrupted. It’s difficult to listen to and it’s clear that this is the point; the subject matter is difficult and unpleasant, but its representation in media is necessary for a segment of people who need to feel some semblance of normalcy amidst the mythology of what it is to be abused in media, in what it is to have an identity. In that respect, Stewart, specifically in this, the most sonically unnerving of their efforts, may be one of the few true activists left in music. – Todd Kearns

Noir Desir – Des Visages Des Figures (2001)
Noir Desir sound best against the backdrop of a gloomy, colorless winter, after the snow melts but before there’s any spring in sight. Noir Desir’s Des Visages Des Figures is a brooding promenade that advances into the storm rather than away from it. The songs embrace an ominous simplicity that is positively hypnotic. The opening track ‘L’Enfant Roi’ lays down a slow and intimidating groove that pulls you through layers of texture and countermelody before releasing you at the song’s end where you find yourself collapsing at the feet of the next track. It sounds like something that a reanimated corpse would have on it’s iPod while taking the train home after a long work day. The lyrics are primarily in French, with a few scattered lines of English. ‘Lost’ includes a haunting refrain of “I am lost” that eventually morphs into “I’m lost but I’m not stranded.” As dark as much of this album is, Noir Desir is always in complete control, and in that control is a certain security… perhaps even a kind of optimism. Lost, but not stranded is what if feels like to hear Des Visages Des Figures. – Jeremy Schaefer

Busta Rhymes – When Disaster Strikes (1997)
When this album came out, Busta Rhymes was my favorite rapper. Now I’m not sure of how much stock to put in this since I was 10 years old and my mother only let me own the edited version, but to this day his raspy, frenetic flow still holds some strange spell over me. Amid Busta’s characteristic apocalyptic paranoia, classics like ‘Dangerous’ and ‘Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Can See’ proved that he had the skills and confidence to put himself at the top of late-90s hip hop. While he has since relinquished that position, this album ranks as one of the best rap records of that decade. – Paul Bulow

Iggy Pop – The Idiot (1977)
After the dissolution of The Stooges and a stay at a mental hospital, Iggy Pop returned with his most personal and accomplished album to date. With the help of longtime friend David Bowie, Iggy crafted an album full of spacey, cerebral tracks that hardly seem like they are from the same man that made Raw Power. We have never seen Iggy as inward-looking as he is on tracks like ‘Nightclubbing’, ‘Sister Midnight’, ‘Dum Dum Boys’, and ‘Funtime’. This is a chance to see one of rock’s bad boys at his most honest and fragile point, take it. – Joe Mateo

Dusty Springfield – Dusty In Memphis (1969)
The British pop singer traveled to Memphis in 1968 in an attempt to reinvigorate her faltering career, and ended up recording one of the greatest blue-eyed soul albums. Though Dusty in Memphis was not a smash at the time, the standout track ‘Son Of A Preacher Man’ gave Springfield her last major hit and is perhaps her best-known song to date. The album brings Springfield’s deep sultry voice to the fore, and the horn-heavy arrangements are more reminiscent of R&B productions of the era than those of the Spector-style girl-group scene from which Springfield emerged. Most songs deal with the standard ups and downs of love: being cheated on (‘I Don’t Wanna Hear It Anymore’), morning sex (‘Just A Little Lovin’), and seducing an ex (the excellent ‘Breakfast In Bed’, in which Springfield repeatedly coos “You don’t have to say you love me”). Be sure to check out the underrated ‘Willie & Laura Mae Jones’ — from this album’s 1992 reissue — too, which seems to be about a poor white girl’s childhood crush on a black sharecropper in the deep south. – Laura Mojonnier

Cluster – Sowiesoso (1976)
Perhaps it takes a bit of an oddball to find the otherworldly so comforting, but then again, oddballs aren’t always equipped with a sense of home rooted in reality, suburbia, bustling big cities, or by-numbers rock ‘n’ roll. Cluster seems to consist of two oddballs too, searching for their respective nests in an immense universe and while they spurred significant waves with their two first space-rock ventures, it soon became apparent that the cacophony was expanding the dimensions of their pursuit rather than narrowing them down. Dieter Moebius and Hans-Joachim Roedelius underwent a shift in disposition to reconcile this strait, teaming with NEU!’s Michael Rother to form krautrock supergroup Harmonia, in turn shunning the dissonant and atonal in favor of lush, sublime atmosphere. Cluster’s craft was profoundly impacted by the collaboration, eventually resulting in the duo’s most riveting effort: Sowiesoso. The reins had been handed to drum machines and synthesizers two years prior — 1974’s Zuckerzeit — and now that Moebius and Roedelius had adapted to their vehicle’s steadier pace, dubious growing pains were substituted with piercing clarity. This is a record rife with pure, unadulterated promise, with possibility as boundless as the distant realms Cluster roves through. The title track’s uncanny, tumescent synths defy gravity, propelling us to celestial heights as we flutter about like a feather in the gentle current, peering down on the vast landscape to derive rhyme or reason from its composition. The enchanting chirps on ‘Dem Wanderer’ for their part remind us that we do not stand alone in this lithe odyssey, that we comprise a family united by a common purpose, scouring the endless ether for enduring shelter. Finally, the honeyed piano amidst muffled tribal fare on ‘Emleitung’ serves as our beacon, illuminating the dusky night to trace a course to our desired doorstep. This voyage may be futile, but take solace in the notion that every time Sowiesoso is inhabited, home at least feels a hell of a lot closer. – Vinh Cao