And another thing I’ve been wondering lately…is the consideration that many of the best pop songs are like conversations – even ones you interrupt midway through like that still-tremendous opening line I just appropriated from the Gurus.
The success of self-confessed “educated young lass” Lorde and her often apparently filter-free musical conversations may have emboldened others, across a range of genres. Eves The Behavior is in one way of the style of Ms Yelich-O’Connor – built as it is on quiet beds of synths that underpin Electrical (Dew Process), but the words are more inward focussed as this artist abstractly attempts to work out her own workings. They say ‘enigmatic’, let’s go with that. It (and she) manages to provoke curiosity as to whether she’s found any answers.
Meantime, Anna Cordell is happy to go into the folk(-ish) category, but is as candid and simultaneously as guarded in her anything-but-idle chatter. As the narrative of I’ll Wait Here (Independent) heads off into interpretive dance, there are hints of Florence and her mystical Machine, if on a slightly more reserved scale. It is somehow sweet, and yet isn’t. But again beckons you to continue the interaction.
And some can’t help yelling who they are, even if not deliberately doing so. Although, with Courtney Love, you’re sometimes never quite sure of her motives. Then again, she might not be either. Miss World moves on to being Miss Narcissist (Ghost Ramp) here, but the snarling shout at you from a distance as the guitars divebomb through is well within her usual template, here actually done quite well. Adding to the usual head-scratching she provokes, Ms Love announced last week she “wasn’t really interested” in making music currently. And immediately thereafter, releases this new record. Predictable in her mercurial unpredictability, as usual.
Don't miss a beat with our FREE daily newsletter
Adding to their own dose of mixed messages, The Strokes’ bassist Nikolai Fraiture joins Hammond Jr having something else going as their ‘main’ band gears up for their next turn on the album/tour/album treadmill. Fraiture is also part of Summer Moon, an aggregation of indie semi-luminaries – notably Erika Spring of Au Revoir Simone, one of those bands who seem often to get mentioned in those UK music magazines that aren’t quite as important as they used to be. For its part, their Happenin’ (Rough Trade) finds a suitably clattering groove and runs with it.
Then sometimes, the conversation isn’t occurring in the song, but may have taken place in the studio with some third party. Thus, the Findlay sisters of Stonefield are still trying to move beyond that perception of them as some kind of novelty – those teenage girls who really listened to Led Zeppelin. Selecting the man known as Kram as producer and collaborator for what comes next might have been a real clever move. Musically it makes some sense, but there’s also his own youth as one of those musically-obsessed kids trapped in a country town. He makes a good mentor. Golden Dream (Wunderkind) has the siblings heading toward somewhat of a psychedelic feeling, and doing it as capably as their previous attacks along a harder rock line.
Also digging into their past, the singular Spoon. Although I’m maybe just a little surprised they have some old Cramps records in their milkcrates. But their fairly respectful messing with TV Set (Sony) has a purpose, becoming part of the soundtrack of the remake of genuinely creepy old horror flick Poltergeist. If you’ve seen either version, you’ll understand why the song is an apt choice. Opinion on the movie will be expressed elsewhere hereabouts, but the tune goes pretty well in its own right, even if lacking Lux Interior’s gloriously messy sheer animal screech.
Meanwhile in Australia, as the meme goes, the success of the Faker named Chet means that synthesised take on blue-eyed kinda soul singers are now allowed a look in. Jarryd James is one of these, and he knows his way around the genre, and a good tune. Give Me Something (Dryden St/UMA) can be taken as either a statement or request. Perhaps more deliberately polished and commercial than some, the trick might be in working out an outlet for this form of the currently fashionable.
And let’s call Total Giovanni ‘dance’ rather than the somewhat more open to ridicule pigeonhole of ‘disco’. Although, there certainly is some ‘70s grooviness to it. The Melbourne collective tiptoe along that line between homage and pastiche, but there’s enough intelligence and smartness to When We Break (Remote Control) to want to realise they’re just terrifically adept in their take on the form, whatever you want to call it.
