Friday, February 6, 2009

#15 (Attitudes Fortitudes Platitudes Edition)

This morning I woke up feeling lovely, so I had that going for me. We've all spent many days worrying, or anxious, or uncomfortable but on those rare occasions when we wake up uninhibited and unhindered, everything looks fresh all over. I like to think that the following two artists felt the very same way when they wrote the following songs (uninhbited, unhindered, and imbued with spirit-gusto). These songs are also companions in production style.

Portugal. The Man are not only one of the few bands that include punctuation in their band name (!!! also comes to mind), but also the only band on the national scene that I know of with ties to Sarah Palin's hometown. The band is four-piece, experimental grime-soul band--just listen--that hails from Wasilla, Alaska--or at least two of its members do. They've been around for a while currently touring to support their fifth full-length album, Censored Colors. Different from many experimental bands who use varied instruments to create eclectic sounds, PTM use very standard rock instruments (drums, bass, keys, guitars), but make those instruments sound all kinds of weird. In the song "Lay Me Back Down" the band uses heavily distorted bass to lead off with the opening riff, then transitions to unaltered twinkly pianos, then layers in guitar pedals that manipulate a traditional six-string into sitar sounds. Then they bring in sonically offered drum rimshots to sound like dried out hand claps, then end with some grizzly bear guitar and twinklepiano together. The results is a monstruous and new sound altoghether.

Hope you enjoy:

Portugal. The Man "Lay Me Back Down"

http://hypem.com/search/portugal%20the%20man%20lay%20me%20back%20down/1/

Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson could use some punctuation in his name. The singer-songwriter from Brooklyn used to be homeless and drug-addicted and now chums around with Grizzly Bear and Kyp Malone of TVOTR, both of whom helped produce his debut album. While I don't have the feeling that Robinson was unbridled while writing this song, I like to think that it was a bright spot on a day in which he woke up feeling relatively free. It has to be the twinklepiano. It's back, you see. I know, I know, he has a lamentation about growing old and yelps "I'm not sure that I want to stay alive/it's so expensive, but you can die," but still, you're nitpicking there. This has the feeling of catharsis, and it has the feeling of anthem, and it has the feeling of hope in despair. Tell me I'm wrong.

Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson "The Debtor"

http://hypem.com/search/miles%20benjamin%20anthony%20robinson%20debtor/1/

Aurally Yours,

Nick

No comments:

Post a Comment