Songs of the Week 04/05/2024

Hope you like 3/4, and 6/8 even more. Yea, that’s right, other time signatures exist, I just can’t tell them apart because I never learned to count.

WO IST ÜBERGANG | Ben Frost Very different from Nina Hagen, right?

When my Grandma started Dark, she soon decided she wouldn’t be watching with sound because the music was too scary, and honestly… fair. While I’ve often said Dark’s sci-fi cleverness and intricacy made its pervasive, European despair palatable, it’s undeniable that composer Ben Frost’s score contributes less intrigue and more abject bleakness. As someone who hypocritically enjoys spooky dissonance and horror soundscapes, I won’t say it wasn’t a fun listen (why else would I have binged all three albums last week?), but as someone who also first watched Dark while feeling generally defeated about the future, I’ll say Frost’s score doesn’t go down easy without some serious sunshine afterwards. While atmospheric albums like these can sometimes float past out of context, Dark: Cycle 1, the first season’s soundtrack (and, to me, the best of the three), establishes a ton of distinct leitmotifs for characters and scenarios that I’ve formed an odd nostalgia for. Noah’s villain theme, “Die Hölle ist leer, alle Teufel sind hier” is excitingly ominous, and despite its moping strings, “Ein Mensch-Ein Schmetterling” is about as close to coming-of-age innocence as Dark gets. Still, with what might as well be Dark’s main leitmotif, “Wo Ist Übergang” (“Where is the Crossing?” in English), listeners are slapped with a stark reminder of oppressive destiny, like a dead fish dropped down the back of their shirt—a reminder that, for all of these characters’ trials and strife, they are, each of them, trapped in a knot of their own creation. Where the Dark piece we reviewed last week was uncomfortable at worst, “Wo Ist Übergang” is downright bone-chilling, especially when its heartrending strings begin their iconic descent at 3:37. I’ll never not praise Dark’s writing, but so many of the show’s most devastating blows come down to Frost’s composition which, even in isolation, really does send a shiver down my spine and into my extremities. “Wo Ist Übergang” isn’t sad, it’s devastating—the loss it portrays is too brutal to be accepted, too malicious to be natural, and, as its title suggests, too unknowable to be conquered. As with startling soundalike “The Alien” (from Annihilation, also by a Ben, and also one of the best Sci-Fi stories of the 2010s, and also reviewed just shy of a year ago), it reckons with something far bigger than human comprehension—“was wir wissen ist ein tropfen, was wir nicht wissen ist ein ozean” (I do not speak German, but someday, I will quote this word-for-word and sound so profound). Time and time again, Dark’s characters spend actual decades deciphering a mystery that they perceive themselves as central to, only to find out, every time, that their story is but a means to an end, a cog in a machine that they could never possibly understand. Whatever that feeling is, “Wo Ist Übergang” nails it, but that’s a pretty heavy note to end on. Instead, I’ll say this: even in Dark, the nature of the universe is neither cruel nor even unsympathetic. Instead, it is human folly that festers into the knot, and it is human forgiveness that extricates those caught in its clutches.

…okay, but if you are wanting to wallow in these messy emotions, Frost has an extensive solo catalogue, and has scored 1899 (from the Dark creators) as well as Ridley Scott’s Raised By Wolves on Max (Todd. Dot. Com… was already taken, so they had to find a worse name for their streaming service). This one’s nine whole minutes, though, which sounds like plenty of time to wallow, if you ask me.

Pairs Well With: “Alles ist Miteinander Verbunden” (Ben Frost), “The Alien” (Ben Salisbury & Geoff Barrow) [04/14/2023], “Family” (Björk) [Reviewed 02/10/2023]

SWEEPSTAKES | Gorillaz (feat. Mos Def & Hypnotic Brass Ensemble) They say everybody loves Gorillaz, but allegedly, Gorillaz fans hate “Sweepstakes.” If so, I missed the memo, because it’s regrettably one of my favorite late-stage Gorillaz pieces to date. Oddly enough, I can’t find a primary source for this discourse—only threads like this reflecting on it—but in my search for receipts, three main complaints emerged. Some say Gorillaz songs lose their worth without Albarn’s vocals and that Mos Def’s hyperactive, auctioneer rap is a downgrade, but hasn’t cross-genre collaboration been the name of the game since 2001? Others still say “Sweepstakes” sounds out of place on Plastic Beach, but even if it didn’t share an instrumental language with the viral “Rhinestone Eyes” (and you don’t have to listen closely to know that it 100% does), a song that can stand on its own without acquiescing to an album’s context should also be judged on its own terms, right? I’ll admit it—I haven’t listened to Plastic Beach in full myself, but I was recommended “Sweepstakes” by my Gorillaz superfan sister, who loved this one because of her full-album listen. So, Gorillaz, Humanz, and other tasteless Primatez, I ask again: what is there to hate about “Sweepstakes?!”

Deep down, though, I know that what I love about “Sweepstakes” is the third and most reasonable reason many cite for disliking it: this piece is weird. Though there’s nothing particularly abstract about its mix, the song starts in a particularly off-kilter place—I’ve seen some liken it to an outro since it seems so ready to fall apart and fade out. For someone who spent a considerable amount of high school in orchestra, I’m no time signature whiz, but starting “Sweepstakes” in 3/4 almost certainly sets some listeners on edge, and it doesn’t help that Mos Def’s rap doesn’t exactly synch up at first. Personally, I’m a sucker for an asymmetrical song like this—the tension in dissonant elements like these makes for a super satisfying payoff when every layered piece clicks into place, suddenly revealing how everything connects. In this case, dissonance isn’t the only tension-builder—build itself, actually, does some heavy lifting over these five and a half minutes. The metronomic, pitched-down, marimba-mimic (?) and the dark synth that glitches in soon after are incredibly repetitive, but they lay a moody foundation for Mos Def’s increasingly-impassioned rap, meant to evoke the overstimulating, jangling keys of casinos. It’s because of this foundation that the blasting brass from none other than the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble—you know, from Fargo? Or, uh, I guess The Hunger Games, if you’ve heard of that—goes so hard when it phases in. And that chorus of sinister whistling? It’s hype, as the kids say, though I would never. Personally, “Sweepstakes” is a style I’d love for Gorillaz to explore further, but I’m predisposed to enjoy this sort of thing given how much nineties trip-hop and industrial I seek out. For fans of Gorillaz’s more lo-fi, pop, or even rock fare, I really can understand how a song like this might seem jarring on a first listen. Luckily, in my search for hate, I mostly found forgiveness and growth—many, on subsequent listens, have learned to love a song that first defied their musical norms, and isn’t that what makes Gorillaz so universally great in the first place?

Pairs Well With: “Repetition” (TV on the Radio), “I Against I” (Massive Attack & Mos Def), Run Run Blood (Phantogram)

ONE OF THESE DAYS | Bedouine I talk big about all genres being equal, but I’ve gotta admit it—I’ve been feeling pretty basic reviewing so much soft acoustic music lately. I’m still super hardcore and obscure and enigmatic and all that, I promise, but sometimes, sleepy soft rock just hits the spot, and Bedouine’s “One of These Days” is a bullseye in that regard. Found in the same shuffle of my girlfriend’s Spotify that unearthed Cat Clyde, “One of These Days” is equally catchy while sounding comparatively shy. Despite growing up in Syria and Saudi Arabia for the first ten years of her life, Bedouine (pronounced like Bedouin, in case four different vowels also scares you)—known offstage as Azniv Korkejian—leans hard into American sixties folk, down to the floral outfits in this song’s grainy, indie music video. It’s an aesthetic many have emulated and fewer have pulled off, but Bedouine effortlessly inhabits this era, singing soft and low like Haley Heyderickx, but without the vocal cracks that make the latter sound raw. This steady delicateness also comes through in the fluttering guitar, which, bolstered by warm bass, keeps “One of These Days” moving just outside the realm of afternoon melancholy. Mirroring the guitar and bass is a male voice harmonizing with Bedouine at the end of each verse that manages to maintain this song’s tranquility, reminding me of Adrianne Lenker and Buck Meek’s stripped-down “Money.” There’s a serenity here that’s less dubious than Lenker and Meek’s work—oddly enough, the chord progression at play in “One of These Days” is almost like a muted sibling to Dan Croll’s “Surreal” (which was also reviewed just shy of a year ago… starting to believe there’s a cycle happening). Still, Bedouine has brought us something indisputably warmer than both, and while it’s sometimes great to feel big feelings in full, I seriously can’t self-soothe enough with this. Great stuff.

Pairs Well With: “Surreal” (Dan Croll) [Reviewed 05/12/2023], “Money” (Adrianne Lenker & Buck Meek) [Reviewed 12/30/2022], “You’re Too Weird” (Fruit Bats)

LEAVE THE RAIN OUTSIDE | Birdmask I think I should’ve started Songs of the Week straight after potty training, because reviewing what I’m listening to on the latest season of my musical journey has left a lot of holes. Like, how is Manuel Gagneux’s obscure chamber-pop side project Birdmask showing up before his well-known metal band Zeal & Ardor? As much as I’m a continuity fascist (but a fascist in no other way! Cancellation averted once again), I’ve yet to find someone who found Birdmask first, so I’ll just have to be the chaos I want to see in the world.

Of course, seeing as my path to Birdmask was first through Zeal & Ardor, I can’t help but compare the two. Despite his chill, soft-spoken demeanor in interviews, Manuel Gagneux’s musical maturation came about mostly through noise rock and black metal, and he found his niche amongst all manner of abrasive expression. In conjunction with Zeal and Ardor’s ethos—being a black metal band singing slave hymnals and equating the christian demonizing of pagan traditions to the American dehumanizing of African slaves—this soundscape coalesces into an ironic synchronicity. Birdmask, however, was born when Gagneux asked how his ragged vocals might translate to the language of pop. At first, I felt it might be reductive to introduce “Leave the Rain Outside” with this “Previously On…” preamble, but out of everything I’ve heard from Birdmask’s (apparently prolific) catalogue, this chimerical piece bears its stitches on the surface—even Gagneux himself admits he’s cooking with more than just pop ingredients. And however unconventional things were in the kitchen, Gagneux was most definitely cooking, by the way—with its dramatic keyboard, whimsical whistles, and sweeping wails, “Leave the Rain Outside” has almost too much grandiosity to be contained within the pop box. While moments like the aforementioned synth whistle set up a quirky structure not unlike Suzanne Vega’s “Headshots,” Gagneux bays the chorus just as harshly and heartily as in any of Zeal & Ardor’s satanic invocations. Like mixing air currents, the collision of unlike properties swirls into something that can’t contain its own contrast, which gives “Leave the Rain Outside” its sweeping spirit. The wailing vocals will the piano to pound lower, will the drums to march more ugently, but the whimsy never gives way to outright drama—in a way, it reminds me of the legendary Cab Calloway, with whom Gagneux is no stranger. While it certainly makes me wonder about the future of Birdmask if it’s beginning to homogenize with Zeal & Ardor, I have over a decade of Birdmask material to review before I can even begin to judge. If you’re up for the task of analyzing Birdmask with me, support them on Bandcamp.

Pairs Well With: “10 Lb. Mustache” (Man Man), “Headshots” (Suzanne Vega), “Come On Over” (Royal Blood)

GREAT WHITE SHARK | Big Thief This might be crazy to hear after that “Wo Ist Übergang” review, but yea, much as I like to pretend I’m a sophisticated critic, I’m really not one for subtlety. A dark side, I think, of being so sparkle emoji sensitive sparkle emoji is that I’m prone to blow any hint of sadness out of proportion. Even in warm and happy pieces like “One of These Days,” quiet can mean melancholy to me, though that’s so often just not the case. Now, Big Thief’s Capacity, on the other hand… if my review of “Mythological Beauty” is anything to go by, yea, holy shit, it’s sad start to finish. Reconciling a complicated relationship with Adrianne Lenker’s teen mother? Sympathizing with the hardships of sex work? Christ, Capacity is a rough ride with few, if any, emotional highs. Still, after returning to some of its more palatable songs, I’ve struggled to parse out how much of this album is sad and how much is just subtle.

That’s where “Great White Shark” comes in, or, as Emily put it,“Great Black Shart Diamonds,” because this section is actually a Trojan horse for two other songs from Capacity that I couldn’t decide between: “Shark Smile” and “Black Diamonds.” Despite “Shark Smile’s” lyrics that end with, uh, spoilers, a couple so absorbed in gazing at each other that they accidentally drive through a fucking guardrail and are instantly killed in the fiery wreck (check out the big metaphor on Brad), these three songs only sound sad on a bad day—most other times, in fact, I’ve come to find them oddly comforting. Other than “Black Diamonds,” which is unambiguously warmer, there’s certainly melancholy to be found in these songs, whether it’s the story of “Shark Smile” or the wistful, minor chords of “Great White Shark,” but all three are better characterized as an understated mixture that I had to mature into. Though all three are characteristically lo-fi and stripped-down, each expertly releases tightly-reigned energy into moments of muted rock—a technique I’ve come to begrudgingly love thanks to the likes of Wilco. It makes sense, then, that the soft freakout at the end of “Shark Smile” pairs so well with Wilco’s “Via Chicago.” “Great White Shark,” to me, is perhaps the most musically interesting of the bunch, with—and don’t misunderstand my expertise, I had to look this up—a tempo alternating between 6/8 and bars of 3/8 in sixth and diminished chords. This tempo lends a propellant breeziness to the drums, which buoy Lenker’s whistful, whispery voice in a unique, almost-unpredictable pattern, much like bobbing in an innertube on waves. I’d like “Great White Shark” just fine if it stayed laid-back, but when it picks up, it really picks up, somehow drumming and plucking furiously without much of a crescendo. Again, it’s that restraint that might seem frustrating at first, but adds so much more tension to the listening experience in retrospect, and I’ve come to really love it.

Ultimately, I’m not sure this subtlety is for everyone, but it’s certainly grown on me. I find that the happier parts of Capacity make for great morning music—when I’ve just woken up, I’m far closer to overstimulation at any given moment, but I’ve recently found that the perk of this dullness is that it’s also easier to appreciate meek expressions (and I don’t just mean Buck. Just a little Big Thief Joke for you. Like and Subscribe). Where I once thought Capacity was sad bastard music, I’ve found it to just be subtle bastard music—and a perfect way to ease into a nice day.

Pairs Well With: “One of These Days” (Bedouine), “Via Chicago” (Wilco), “Lull” (Andrew Bird)

TWO EARTHLINGS | John Brosio Ugh, and doesn’t that title just slay you? Though unassuming without context, I can’t read “Two Earthlings” without tearing up—talk about a punchline. There’s a lot of potential implications about the nature of life and mortality in those two words, and many of those takeaways are not optimistic, but here’s my two cents to the contrary: in fossils, we see ourselves across time, two points on one thread. This world is all we have, and there is a piece of us in everything that has ever respired. All we need is each other.