Pretty Goes with Pretty

Once

This weekend my brilliant wife and I passed over the various blockbusters and took in Once instead. It’s a small “anti-musical” starring Glen Hansard, the singer-songwriter behind the Frames. I definitely recommend seeking this film out if it’s in your town, or renting it as soon as it’s available. It’s probably the best movie I’ve seen that takes a struggling songwriter as its subject. Unlike biopics like Ray or Night and Day, or fictional travesties like Dreamgirls, the protagonist of Once was not touched by the hand of God and is now merely waiting to be discovered. He’s someone who loves making music and really has no idea how to find real success, beyond “going to London.” There is no payoff to that end, either. The movie climaxes with the recording of a demo over two days in a real studio—no small victory for any would-be songwriter.

The story of Once concerns Hansard, a songwriter in Ireland that works in his father’s vacuum-repair shop part-time and spends the rest of his day busking on street corners and writing, writing, writing. He finds a fan, then a bandmate, in Markéta Irglová, a Czech ex-pat who cleans houses by day and shares an apartment with her mother and daughter. Irglová is a refreshingly direct woman who says what she wants and doesn’t beat around the bush, yet is hardly abrasive. She sees real talent in Hansard’s songs and seems more enamored by his music than by him at first; likewise Hansard finds that Irglová can sing and play piano, and a songwriting relationship blossoms. A tentative romance reveals itself as the story progresses, but both characters have exes in their past, haunting them throughout the film and barring them from ever consummating their feelings.

As a modern-day Brief Encounter the movie is well done, but that’s not where its true strength lies. What sets it apart from other movies (never mind other musicals), is how perfectly it captures the smallest and best pleasures of making music with other people. The very fact that recording a demo is the ultimate high of Once shows just how small the slice of life is. This would have been the first twenty minutes at most of any blockbuster musical. But by honing in on these short weeks of a this musician’s life, Once is able to capture a lot of subtleties that every musician will appreciate. The best is when Irglová leads Hansard to a piano shop, where Hansard quickly teaches her the simple chord progressions to one of his songs and then puts the lyrics in front of her. As he sings the first verse and chorus, she picks up on the song and begins singing harmonies and adds small flourishes on the keys. Hansard gets that look on his face—the one every musician gets when they hear one of their own songs made better for the first time. Later, when they make it to the recording studio with a full band, many of the details are just right. From having an idiot savant bandmember (the drummer) to having a recording engineer decide the music was good enough to put in a lot of extra effort. The all-night session, the “car stereo test,” the sheer enjoyment of hearing your own music on tape. It got all of that right.

Details aside, Once is most definitely a musical, but don’t let that scare you off. I’ve heard it described somewhere as a “video album,” which it nearly is. It is packed with songs, and unless you like the genre of music (fairly sappy, sad brit ballads—you know, like the Frames), you might be annoyed with the movie. The tone of the songs are fairly somber throughout; it doesn’t have the pacing of a typical musical. This didn’t really bother me, though, since those are the songs the guy writes, after all. It felt real. That realness is what many reviews have pointed to when they call Once an “anti-musical.” Unlike other musicals that buck the Hollywood model, such as Umbrellas of Cherbourg, which is wall-to-wall singing, or Dancer in the Dark, which puts the music in the protagonist’s fantasy life, the songs in Once are naturally integrated into the movie in a not-jarring way. The guy’s a singer, so he’s going to sing. And he’s not going to sing one verse and one chorus just to expedite the plot.

Yet I hesitate to join in calling Once a “video album,” because it risks putting the film in a modest little corner. The songs’ naturalistic placement might be what makes the movie palatable to people who don’t normally like musicals, but it’s not what makes it successful as a film. Once could easily be a collection of great Glen Hansard songs interspersed with some excellent attention to detail—and likely that’s all it is to a number of people who see it. But there’s one thing that truly sets it apart from other musicals, and this is what made the film, for me, a great piece of cinema: the lyrics.

Because Hansard and Irglová aren’t so focused on enunciating every lyric, it’s easy not to pay close attention. But in fact they tell a great deal of the movie’s story. Both characters have a significant other with whom they’ve recently parted ways. Ironically, as they are building toward a romance with each other by connecting through their music, every song they sing is about their past. The exes hardly appear in the movie itself, but you get all the back story, all the character, of these two phantoms through the lyrics. Paying attention to the lyrics actually deflates any comparison to Brief Encounter, because you realize that while their chemistry as songwriters is wondrous, their hearts have really never left their previous relationships.

This is where Once really draws a line between itself and standard musicals, where songs are used to explicate a person’s feelings right now. In reality, songs are never about the present. Even a day after writing a brand new song, it’s already a portrait of your previous self. In the immortal words of Jennifer Lopez, “this is me… then.” The power of Once is that it shows how mysteriously two people can connect through music; how much they can tell each other not only through lyrics but through the looks on their faces as they sing or how uncomfortable they are talking about their music when the song is over. Once is the first musical I’ve ever seen where it actually makes sense that the characters express—rather than explicate— their feelings in song.

Further on the Flawed Feist

Apropo of my quibble with The Reminder, I've presumptuously re-jiggered the tracklisting to my own liking. Though the album is still not quite perfect—there's no getting around the fact that eight of the thirteen tracks are ballads—I think the record is not quite as muddled this way. Give this a try and tell me what you think.

1. 1234
2. I Feel it All
3. Honey Honey
4. The Water
5. My Moon My Man
6. So Sorry
7. The Limit to Your Love
8. Sea Lion Woman
9. The Park
10. Brandy Alexander
11. Past in Present
12. How My Heart Behaves
13. Intuition

Feist: The Reminder

My wife and I were first exposed to Feist in 2004 through her two guest spots on the Kings of Convenience album Riot on an Empty Street. We had no idea who she was but we fell in love with her voice. A little research led us to Let it Die, which was at the time available only in Europe. Lucky for us—here’s something you can’t often say—we happened to be going to Europe that month. So we bought it in Paris.

Associating Feist with that trip to Paris, as well as with our final year in New York, makes for a certain sentimental attachment. But sentimentalism aside, Let it Die deserved all those spins. It has become one of those albums that has remained in steady rotation for years, not months or weeks.

My anticipation, you might imagine, has been pretty high for The Reminder. Particularly because Let it Die, in fact, was not a perfect album. “Inside and Out,” “Leisure Suite,” and especially “One Evening” veered too far into adult contemporary territory. These were the only songs in my collection I could describe as “silky.” But all indications from the press I’d read at the time was that Let it Die’s popularity was something of a fluke, that Feist did not really intend to “compose” a real record (hence so many covers). She promised the next album would be closer to her originals, closer to “the good songs.” As far as I was concerned there was a high chance for perfection the second time around.

So now The Reminder is upon us, and pretty much every review I’ve read seems to make that claim. The hyperbole is nearly unanimous—which brings me to an awkward position. I like this record. I wanted to like this record and I do like this record. Nearly song for song, The Reminder is better than Let it Die. The album will very likely remain in rotation for much of the year and will probably show up in my year-end top ten list.

Yet I can’t be hyperbolic. I have a nit, and I must pick.

I’ve read grumblings here and there that if The Reminder is flawed, it is because there are too many slow songs and not enough upbeat songs. That might be true—I wouldn’t object to one more track as joyful as “1234” or “I Feel it All”—but on the other hand there are no bad songs. I think a more precise criticism is to note how frequently The Reminder kills its own momentum. The album is sequenced really curiously, to its detriment.

The album kicks off with “So Sorry,” a mild, folky ballad similar in mood to Let it Die’s opener, “Gatekeeper.” It’s a nice song, but it’s also the most modest of the dozen tracks. Meanwhile “1234,” which both lyrically and musically seems like such an obvious opener, is buried in the last third of the album, long after its buoyancy can really save the record’s pacing.

“So Sorry” almost feels like a false start—oops, meant to begin with the upbeat twosome “I Feel it All” and “My Moon My Man.” Okay then! Now we’re cookin’! Except, we’re not. Much of the album is a weird collection of couples; the two peppy tracks are followed by a pair of morose songwriter’s songs—lots of verses, not a lot else—“The Park” and “The Water.” The songs are very similar, and they add up to about ten minutes of downtime that kills all the wonder of the previous songs. The energy comes back with “Sea Lion Woman” and “Past in Present,” yet this is a curious pair too: higher energy, yes, but it feels like Feist’s genre-skipping interlude—the first has the feel of an indie rock tent revival; the second is the sole country-influenced track. Halfway through The Reminder, none of the songs feel comfortable within the skin of the album. “1234” tries to turn things into a party, but it’s surrounded by so many downers that there’s really no hope of saving the momentum.

Yet every song is good! And that’s what makes this a strange album. Even though they chop the album off at the knees, both “The Water” and “The Park” are fantastic songs. Even though the pairing of “Sea Lion Woman” and “Past in Present” belies a certain self-consciousness, taken individually they’re both a lot of fun. And despite reaching a certain level of exhaustion and frustration two-thirds in, the final quartet of songs are some of Feist’s best.

It is the quality of each individual song that keeps me coming back to The Reminder. I was hoping that the logic of the album would reveal itself to me the more I listened to it, in the manner that Andrew Bird’s latest did. But countless listens in, I’m still frustrated. I've been hesitant to even post about this album because I know that this single irritation, on paper, seems to outweigh my pleasure, which isn't the case. If I were rating it on the Pitchfork scale I'd probably put this in the high 7s to mid-8s. I recommend all thirteen of the great songs on The Reminder, even if I can't really recommend The Reminder.

Enjoy the Weekend: Camp Lo

Camp Lo: "Luchini"

Enjoy.

Len Lye

City of Sound has a great post up on the work of Len Lye, an experimental film artist working from the 1930s through the 1980s. Rather then doing traditional animation using stop photo techniques, Lye drew, stenciled, or etched directly onto his film.

According to the wikipedia entry on Lye,

His 1935 film A Colour Box.... was made by painting vibrant abstract patterns on the film itself, synchronizing them to a popular dance tune by Don Baretto and His Cuban Orchestra. A panel of animation experts convened in 2005 by the Annecy film festival put this film among the top ten most significant works in the history of animation (his later film Free Radicals was also in the top 50).

In Free Radicals [1958, revised 1978] he used black film stock and scratched designs into the emulsion. The result was a dancing pattern of flashing lines and marks, as dramatic as lightning in the night sky.

Here they are together, thanks to youtube:

CoS has one more, Rainbow Dance. Meanwhile here's a third, Swinging the Lambeth Walk (1940):

Travis: One of These Things is Not Like Other

At the record store last week I saw the new Travis album, The Boy with No Name. Earlier that day I saw their video for "Closer" [below] and liked the song, in all its Travisness, despite the video being a bit twee. It's the only song I've heard from the new record so far, but it definitely sounds like a return to form for the band.

And I emphasize return. The band tried to branch out with their last album, 12 Memories, which ironically committs a sin worse than being bad—it's forgettable. It was a critical and commercial dud; I remember walking into a record store less than a year after the album came out and seeing a new greatest hits album out—a sure sign that 12 Memories was such a flop that their label had all but given up on the band entirely, hoping to make what cash they could before "Driftwood" escaped the collective pop memory forever.

Getting back to that phrase: return to form. Travis is in the position of trying to resussitate an all but dead career. Reinventing the wheel, they apparently decided, will not be the way to go about it. On the surface—again, I haven't heard the album—the band looks to have retreated to their comfort zone. You need look no further than their album covers. Back is the trademark typeface—which I'm actually happy about. Remember when a band's name had to be portrayed as a logo? These days, aside from Travis, what am I supposed to write on my binder? Also back is the "band in landscape" photograph, rather than 12 Memories' grid of closeups demonstrating the band's poor taste in hats. Finally, the album title: as with The Man Who and The Invisible Band, we have an album title indicating someone only half there.

All of this is just begging you to give Travis another chance, isn't it? Barring actually hearing the new songs, they seem to be banking on their cover design to reel you back in. It's a promise that this is the Travis of 2000 or 2001, not the dastardly doppleganger of 2003. It's a trilogy-with-hiccup. "We promise we've regressed!"

And you know what? I'm intrigued. It doesn't hurt, of course, that I like "Closer." But really I'd all but written the band off in my mind, even though I still listen to The Invisible Band on a fairly regularly basis (not regarded by most as their best, but I think it wound up having more depth than The Man Who). Even liking the song, though, wasn't necessarily enough to get me to pull the trigger. Seeing the album cover and immediately relating it to the Good Travis bumped my temptation up a level, though. (Still didn't make the purchase; too much other stuff is out this month.) At any rate I'm keeping my eye on this one.

Here's the video for "Closer." (Incidentally, why would a band that has spent most of its career being compared to Bends-era Radiohead shoot a video in a grocery store?)

How Many Licks Does it Take to Get to the Center of Andrew Bird's Armchair Apocrypha?

One
Though Armchair Apocrypha is Andrew Bird’s seventh album, I’ve managed to never hear him before. My first exposure to him was while my brilliant wife and I were having breakfast at our friends’ house over Thanksgiving.  I liked what I heard but never did get around to picking up one of his albums.

Then a few weeks ago "Heretics" started popping up on the blogs [for that reason I'd post something else, but I'll respect Bird's wishes as indicated in this post]. Coincidentally I came across a new song from the Sea and Cake’s new album on the same day. They were a fitting pair, since both Bird and Sam Prekop share a similar ease of delivery. In fact that pairing colored my first few listens of Bird’s album once I made the purchase. Armchair Apocrypha sounds a bit like what Prekop might be up to these days if he had followed the template he set out with Shrimpboat and early Sea and Cake records—a looser, more acoustic variety of airy pop—rather than following the fork in the road that was the John McEntire–influenced electronics of The Fawn.

The Prekop comparison faded soon enough. For one, Bird’s got pipes. The first half of Bird’s album culminates in the one-two punch of “Armchairs” and “Darkmatter”—the first a mini-opus that stretches Bird’s voice into an emotional territory Prekop has never explored, the second a dynamic rocker of the sort Prekop has never attempted.

Two
By the time I’d picked up the actual album, I’d committed most of “Heretics” to memory. It makes sense that every blog I saw referenced the same song—it’s the most immediate, with its violin hook, catchy chorus, and half-spoken/sung lyrics. The rest of the album on first listen was a bit of a mush. Bird often mumbles his lyrics, and the songs don’t always follow a simple pop structure. Small motifs pop up throughout the album, too, making the whole feel pleasurable yet not quite tangible.

We bought the album just before my wife and I headed out of town for a drive from Los Angeles to Big Sur, most of which is the winding PCH, lush mountains on the left and the Pacific Ocean crashing on the right. Tooling up the coastline on a weekend afternoon may well have been the best way to take in Armchair Apocrypha. It’s not an album you can easily process while doing other things. Not because it’s dense, but because it will pass right by you if you’re not paying attention. Best to relax, enjoy the scenery, and let Bird soundtrack your life.

In fact a Sunday drive is the perfect metaphor for many of the songs and the album as a whole. Bird, without the slightest hint of self-consciousness, winds through his songs without much noticeable effort, not always feeling the need to repeat a melody or follow a standard song structure. The opener, “Fiery Crash,” is a good example. After an intro, verse, and chorus, the song pauses for an overlay of pop-syllables (ba ba ba, etc.); then some whistling—one melody, no repetition, for just a couple bars; too short to be a solo, too singular to be a motif. Then he returns to the verse and chorus. It’s just a little detour. Many other tracks follow a similar path, weaving this way and that without worry for pop structures. As a whole the album is structured with the same ease. The first four tracks are short shots of pop, followed by the emotional peaks of “Armchairs” and “Darkmatter”—either of which (especially “Armchairs”) could function as the album’s closer, if Bird was interested in making the whole thing a steady build to a dramatic climax. But instead we climb the tallest peaks at midpoint, take a break for a short string interlude, then wind back down with the second half, all of which is just a touch slower than the first.

Three
This structure, in the first few listens, makes the album feel longer than it actually is. Actually on one of my first intent listens my iPod malfunctioned and I thought the brief instrumental “The Supine” was the last track. I thought: short, concise album, perfectly plotted. It wasn’t until I returned from Big Sur and I listened to the album again while I took my morning ritual walk that I realized I’d missed four tracks. So I had to process the album all over again, knowing the first two-thirds much better than the last. Suddenly the album began to feel more exhausting. “Armchairs” alone swings up and down emotionally over the course of seven minutes that it really sweeps you up; by the time Bird laments “You never write, you never call / It never crossed your mind at all,” you’re drained. The remaining third of the album, quiet as it is, causes a small amount of discomfort considering how little it moves you compared to the middle of the record.

But that changes. Like the rest of the album, the songs simply take a few listens to reveal themselves to you. It wasn’t long before I found myself looking forward to the lovely chorus of “Scythian Empires,” but reticent to skip past anything lest I miss another lyric I hadn’t heard before.

Four
And that’s the final stage: the lyrics. Outside of sitting down and reading the lyric sheet while the CD plays on my bedroom boombox—frankly something I haven’t done since high school—it takes real concentration to follow Bird’s lines. Not every chorus repeats the same lyrics, not every verse the same melody, and enunciation is not Bird’s primary concern. But after enough of those morning walks with the full album, the content of “Imitosis” starts to come into view; “Plasticities” too, and the rest. You start to see that Bird is having fun with turns of phrase and that most songs wrestle with existential issues (“The fiery crash / is just a finality / or must I explain / it’s a nod to mortality” [“Fiery Crash”], or “Do you want to know where the self resides? / Is it in your head or between your sides?” [“Darkmatter”]).

After a week of listening—in my world, that’s about five to seven spins—the album has gotten fully through the processing stage and now I’m simply enjoying it the way a great pop album deserves to be enjoyed. I’m singing along, whistling along, imitating the violin sounds and nudging my wife every time a lyric comes up that I think is especially cherce. This album was the epitome of a “grower”—but it’s officially grown. Huge thumbs up. You’ll hear me go on about this album more in the future, I’m sure.

Mingering Mike on NPR

I posted once before about Mingering Mike, but now that the book is officially on shelves I thought I'd plug it one more time. NPR's Day to Day did a two-part story on Mike: the first part is an interview with the book's author, Dori Hadar; the second is with Mingering Mike himself. It's really great to hear the story told this way; for one, you get to hear some of the actual songs in the background, plus this is the first time I've heard the story from Mike's mouth.

But of course the best way to get the full story—and to see all the great artwork—is to buy the book. I was the book's editor, so I've read it just shy of 183 times, but I can tell you that the more time you spend with the story and looking at all the details on the album art, the more endearing the whole thing becomes.

Sat in the Hot Tub & Let it Snow

A few years ago my wife and I took a cross-country road trip and along the way stopped at a small town, where we took in some breakfast and then poked our head into a couple of antique stores. (Oh, if only we had a U-Haul; there was gorgeous, rustic furniture selling for a couple hundred bucks that would have fetched a couple thousand in New York).

Instead, I found a diary. It’s really a fascinating thing, mostly because of how minimal and not-introspective it is. You need to see how each day gets its own page though the woman never filled more than three lines to sum up her day. You need to see how light the pencil is on the page. Best, how many blank pages there are—between April and July are countless blank pages, as if she continued to turn a page for every day even though she wrote nothing, The whole thing is a whisper. It begins mundane enough but somehow the entries as a whole really resonate.

Below I’ve transcribed the entire contents of the diary. In the rare event that someone is self-googling, I've removed the (very few) instances in which someone was named by first and last name. There are three main participants—the diarist, who apparently owns a shop probably not unlike the one where I found the diary; her husband John, a construction worker of some sort; and Ed, who appears to be their adult son, based on the fact that he lives on his own yet seems to switch from day to day working for the diarist or for John.

April 13
John worked on Alice’s house in Big Springs.  Wind blew terrible—went to Maundy Thursday Seder supper.  I worked all day at the mall.

April 14
I closed the store at 2pm.  John still working in Big Springs.  Went to Assembly church & sang in the cantata for Easter.  It was very nice.

April 15 (Saturday)
Store open all day.  John & I sat in the Hot Tub for an hour, had dinner & collapsed in bed.  We are both very busy & working a lot.

April 16 (Easter Sunday)
Went to church.  John & I both sang in the choir.  Visited with Ben S----.  Birdie was working.  Had Easter dinner w/ Heidi and Ryan.  Ed came out and all the Fraizers were there & Rosie & Kenny.  Suzie called from Arkansas.

April 17 (Mon.)
Started snowing & raining after spring like weather.  Sat in the Hot Tub & let it snow. 

April 18 (Tues.)
We have 10 in of snow on everything today, no wind—very wet—the trees are heavy laden.  Ed working for me til noon—then he & john going to Big Springs this afternoon.  Damon K---- passed away last night.

April 19
It snowed in the morning.  John & Ed worked on Alice house.  I had the day off.  Just cleaned the house etc.  No choir tonite.  Sat in the Hot Tub while it snowed.

April 20
Got my hair done.  Met Ed & John at Grandma Max for lunch.  Got in the Hot Tub.

April 21
Ed & I worked in the mall.  He got really sick w/ the flu.  He, John & I went to Harold F------'s birthday dinner at their house.

April 22 (Sat.)
Evelyn & I worked today.  Ed feels a little better.  John went to Big Springs.  Nothing eventful.

April 23 (Sun.)
Went to church.  Had dinner w/ the Fraizers.

April 24 (Mon.)
Worked.  Choir practice.  Came home & Bathroom floor in basement is flooded.  Sprinkler on west side must leak.  I fell off front steps.  Ouch!!

April 25 (Tues.)
Worked.  John very quiet—Rain—Pam & Ed stopped by after supper.

April 26 (Wed.)
Had my nails done and took the day off.  Just a lazy day.  Washed clothes.  Ed came over for Tacos.

April 27 (Thurs)
Ed & I spent the day in Haxton.  Gave a bid on Damon K----’s collection and went to Kurtzer later & picked up a bird bath & and a treadmill & candles.  Very interesting day.  They seemed to be very nice people.  John got a lot done in Big Springs.  We are both very tired.

April 28 (Fri)
Ed & I worked today at the mall.  John in Big Springs.  DR coming to visit Carl & Ed went to pick them up.  Beautiful day today.  Warm.

July 30
I sold the mall to Peggy L-----.  She’ll take over Aug. 1st.  She bought only the business none of the inventory.

July 31
My last payroll & then I’m done.  It’s been good to me but a lot of work.  Right now I’m not sorry to see it go.  Maybe later.

August 1
I am a working girl!  I will work one or 2 days a week.

September 12
Sold my mutual fund today from I.D.S.  Didn’t make much money on it so will use it to help pay off my van or my house.  Don’t know which yet.  It’s only 9500.oo.

September 13
Trying to get ready for an auction.  John & I are going to have a sale Oct. 14.  Lots of work.  He’s still working on Alice’s house.  Maybe she’ll be in by end of month.

September 14
Had my hair done. Went to mall, took Diane B. to lunch.  Ed flipped today about Carl’s property, says he’s go to Calif.  Never seen him so confused. What a mess.

September 15
Ed left this morn for Texas, Calif. & Ariz.  Hope he can get it straight what’s going on.  I worked today.  So glad I’m out of that mall.  John and I went to Rondevouz dance tonite.  What a wonderful husband I have.  He’s unbelievably good to me—I’m very lucky.

September 16
It’s a beautiful fall morn.  Sun shining and 66˚.  John left for Big Springs.  I’m taking him lunch.  No we went to lunch & then I came home.

September 17
Sun—went to church—took a nap & spent a very leisurely day. Ed left for Calif. & we haven’t heard from him.

September 18
Didn’t do much all day.

September 19
Tues.  Worked today.  John & I fed Ed’s birds tonite.  Sorry to say he know doubt is drinking again.  Jack Daniels in the frig & he was supposed to be home today & didn’t make it.  I dread what is ahead.

Dulce Pinzón: The Real Story of the Superheroes

More here.

[via Tangled Eye.]