Temporary Obsession
Mining Cultural Ephemera since 2009
Santigold is back (after what felt like forever), and she is having none of your sass.
I’m not sure I’m loving the verse structure, but the chaotic chorus is sort of killing it here. Master of My Make-Believe, her new album, drops sometime this spring.
Chairlift’s new album Something, out next Tuesday, appears to be mining some of the forgotten sounds of the 80s (a big trend from last year), but in their own way. Loving the old-school production values on this video. Can’t wait for this to come out.
Okay, so the title’s a little overwrought.
One of my favorite times of year is the MIT Mystery Hunt. It’s a weekend that allows me to completely indulge my geekiest tendencies, be entirely ridiculous, and spend vast amounts of time not sleeping. This year was no exception. For the second year in a row, Project Electric Mayhem graciously allowed me to help solve puzzles and run around campus with them. Were we anywhere close to winning? No. But it’s still an experience I won’t soon forget.
Unlike last year, I was there for the opening ceremony this time. As we all gathered in Building 7′s expansive lobby and awaited the start of things, I noticed people in suits milling about and arranging themselves near the large columns in the room. These had to be CODEX operatives, the winners of last year’s hunt preparing to start this year’s. Then another CODEX member, this time with an accordion, stood on a table near the projection screen and began to play a tune unfamiliar at first that quickly revealed itself as “Springtime for Hitler”. Only this time it was springtime for puzzlers at MIT. About midway through the song, I realized this wasn’t just a fun warmup for the hunt; it was the theme. We were going to help Max and Leo mount more musical bombs.
As for the hunt itself, I’ll just quietly direct you to the full archive of puzzles and let you wander around for yourself. The arrangement of puzzles was fairly genius and I loved the round names. We ended up only producing/performing one full musical for Borbonicus and Bodley, “A Circus Line”. By producing, I mean myself and another team member took time to stop puzzling, re-write the lyrics to “One” to include an elephant in a tutu and poor grammar (to irritate our critic as instructed by the metapuzzle), construct crude costumes (a red sequined jacket over my shirt/bowtie combo from earlier in the evening along with a black hat to make me a ringmaster, a paper cup-and duct tape elephant nose and ears along with a pink scarf around the waist for our elephant), and ACTUALLY PERFORM SAID NUMBER FOR AN AUDIENCE (of probably around 8 people and a video camera). There is visual proof of this, but I don’t plan on revealing it even if it does get released.
Other memorable moments:
This track carries on with the slightly-distorted thing I’ve had going on lately (see also: Amateur Best, Grimes). There’s a bedroom quality to this music (meaning it sounds slightly better than a demo), but there’s also an expansiveness that’s impressive. I’ll be keeping an eye on this guy – if the rest of the forthcoming Strange Weekend LP is like this, it’s going to be a great way to start off 2012.
I’m off at the MIT Mystery Hunt today, so this one’s posted in advance. I’ve slowly been dipping into the posthumous Amy Winehouse release, Lioness: Hidden Treasures, and for whatever reason, the original “Best Friends, Right?” has been stuck on repeat. There’s something in the jazzy arrangement meshed with the lyrics about a friendship that might or might not be that just hits me in the right place right now.
His Primary 1 project may have ended up D.O.A., but Joe Flory’s still making music, this time as Amateur Best. And while I don’t quite get (or like) the comic that comes with every monthly release, I do like the music. Here’s the latest pice of slightly-synthy, slightly-funky groove from Joe, “Be Happy”, out as a 7″ on February 13:
DD010 A1: Amateur Best // Be Happy by Double Denim Records
When talking about Tennis’ debut album Cape Dory last year, I noted multiple times that while I liked their sound, it got a little tedious after a while. It seems they’ve listened and responded with a sound that still contains the 50s references, but also includes some rougher edges and modern songcraft. ”Origins” is a lovely first taste of what to expect from their next album, Young and Old (out 2/14 from Fat Possum), and “Deep In The Woods” is an equally beguiling B-side (but we’ve covered that already).
Grimes reminds me of Washed Out in a lot of ways – a certain hazy, ethereal quality, lyrics less focused in telling a story or conveying meaning and more focused on setting mood through sound, and how everything is layered at about the same level in the mix. Perhaps that’s why I’m digging the latest taste off her upcoming album, Visions. If the rest of the album sounds like this, I’ve got another album for my list of music to pick up this year.
As part of TO’s coverage of music in 2011 (which, despite the title, did not actually contain 50 articles), I reached out to a few bloggers I knew to contribute guest posts about something related to music in 2011 that was memorable to them and to get it to me before the 31st. None of them followed my directions, so I’ll be running them as they come in.
The first post comes from Ben Piche of Technogeist, also known as my roommate. He chose to get his piece in 10 minutes before the new year and write about a song from 2010 that he’d been playing in the apartment all day, but a guest post is a guest post is a guest post. Here’s his thoughts: (more…)
To start off, watch the music video for this song. Yes, I know it’s a bit weird and overdone at the beginning. Yes, I know it’s 13 minutes long. I’ll wait. Go, go.
Okay. Back? Let’s begin.
The opening track on an album is an important one. Sure, there may be other tracks of note on the album, but the first track, like the first look of a fashion show, needs to be a stunner and get the attention of the listener. It doesn’t have to be the album’s thesis (after all, that’s what title tracks are for), but it does need to make a statement. In that regard, “Marry the Night” is an excellent opener to Lady Gaga’s second proper LP.
The Fame Monster EP showed Gaga pushing past basic electro-pop to pull from a diverse and more interesting set of influences to color her work, and Born This Way continues that trend. There’s influences from latin music, german electronica, country, and industrial all woven into the basic pop fabric of the album, and it’s pulled off flawlessly. While most artists are starting to look towards dubstep influences, Gaga (like Beyonce) looked to some other 80s influences – classic RnB and people like Whitney Houston and Bruce Springsteen (even going so far as to recruit his saxophonist, the late Clarence Clemons, to play on a few of the tracks).
The album is at its best when it is addressing big issues, like acceptance (“Born This Way”), gender roles (“Schiesse”), and following your passion (“Marry the Night” and “Edge of Glory”). The use of this theme in the opening and closing tracks of the album feels like Gaga’s highlighting that theme over all others – as though that theme fuels all the others.
Of the two tracks, “Marry” has the most edge. It’s all about committing yourself to your passion at all costs, following it no matter what, and that’s what makes it such a powerful song. Despite what you think of the outfits, the theatricality of her performances, and all the other weirdness surrounding her performing persona (like the “72 hours” she supposedly spent in a plastic egg before the Grammys), there’s quality songcraft and performance at the heart of this song and the album, and it’s been fun to watch it all throughout 2011.