Songs of the Week 11/10/2023

This week: pretentious music I’m afraid to tell people I like, and then a song everybody likes. There is a light at the end of this tunnel.

LITTLE JOHNNY JEWEL (PARTS 1 & 2) | Television As I’ve previously discussed with the ever-jittery Feelies (I feel those feelies all the time), nervous, noisy post-punk is great… when I’m in the mood for it. I never like to admit it when my music taste is dependent on something like a fleeting feeling (imagine that), but I have never hated Television more than when that wiry, contemporary jazz guitar jam enters its sixth minute and I’m having a sensory overload. On the other hand, I’ve never loved Television more than when I’m feeling confident in my own skin and “Little Johnny Jewel’s” raspy pluckings tighten into a fantastically scrappy punch at 1:03. Go figure. I guess that’s the duality that avant-garde artists must occupy, or at least the sincerest among them—manifesting an obscure feeling that isn’t always easy for audiences to exist amidst. If the role of art is to expose emotional truths, then much of mainstream and even countercultural music dwells on the same familiar feelings—accessible feelings—where avant-garde musicians instead attempt to study less-depicted emotions. I’m not making any assumptions as to Television’s intent—if I was to take a stab at it, I bet they were just stoned and noodling around—but what they’ve created in “Little Johnny Jewel” rocks so hard, even if it’s more than a little rough around the edges.

Though I first found Television through their awesome rock romp “See No Evil,” it seems their 1977 album Marquee Moon really made the rounds, defying genre to reach multiple circles. My Dad’s sales pitch for Television has always been that Marquee Moon is the favorite album of both Nels Cline and Jeff Tweedy, which really clicks listening to their collaborations as Wilco. What really threw me for a loop, though, was that Siouxsie and the Banshees also covered “Little Johnny Jewel” with wonderfully Siouxsie results—I’d even say this is the more accessible version of the song, and I’m just as surprised by that as you are. Actually, I don’t think I should be surprised by any of this, considering The Banshees also covered The Doors’s “Lost Little Girl” on this album, which somehow sounds like good company. Though they’re on the scene a little later, I think Television absolutely belongs with The Doors, The Who, and The Velvet Underground in a club of seventies bands that sound like nicotine lungs (but in a good way? Maybe? I think The Violent Femmes have an honorary membership). Certainly not for everyone—not even for me, at times—but I’ve never been able to deny a good pairing, have I?

Pairs Well With: “Love Me Two Times” (The Doors), “Lonesome Cowboy Bill” (The Velvet Underground), “Won’t Get Fooled Again” (The Who)

CVALDA | Björk If my Björk pick last week hadn’t already lost you guys, this’ll be the one that sends someone over the edge. “Cvalda” is the song you play if you want to lose an argument about Björk. This is what people who make fun of Björk think all Björk sounds like. Also, I love it.

“Cvalda” flew under the radar for me in part because it’s not a part of Björk’s independent discography, but rather the first soundtrack she had ever composed: an album called Selmasongs for the Icelandic film Dancer in the Dark. Björk herself also stars as Selma, a factory worker suffering from a degenerative visual impairment slowly closing in on her family and future. As it turns out, Björk was inadvertently method acting, living the experience of an oppressive workplace encroaching on her freedom due to incessant sexual harassment on set from director Lars von Trier. After coming forward with her experience during the #MeToo movement, von Trier and associated producers denied all allegations in a slanderous statement that paints Björk as a diva actress—something numerous of her other collaborators have since denied (I’ll link the controversy here). At this point, it’s Songs of the Week Routine (Songs! Of! The! Week! Routine!) for me to make an ass of myself talking about songs from movies I’ve never seen, but when both the story and the circumstances surrounding it seem so bleak, I’m not sure Dancer in the Dark is worth my time. “Cvalda” may be somewhat soured—I’m sure it brings up bad memories for Björk, unfortunately—but there’s a lot here not to ignore.

My girlfriend and I were recently complaining about how appallingly samey most musicals sound—I’d call in Lin-Manuelification, but even he is a mere symptom. Still, I’d be just as pretentious if I wrote off the entire genre, and it’s genuine art like The Nightmare Before Christmas or Selmasongs itself that keeps me from denying musicals entirely. In the case of “Cvalda,” this song is a near-incompatible blend of industrial and show tune soundscapes the likes of which I’d only trust Björk to tame. As a fan of industrial metal, I’m ashamed to admit I’d have been fine if the hellish, mechanical shrieks counting out the song’s opening formed an abrasive, OSHA-violating song entirely on their own, but Björk’s bright-eyed, beaming vocals make for a captivating curveball on every listen. While her giggled, factory onomatopoeia never sound down, they’re never quite joyous, even when the lush, lurid strings more typical of the genre swing into the song. At points, “Cvalda” even sounds like a fusion of early and late Björk, with the show tune style evoking her classic “It’s Oh So Quiet” while the unconventional sounds mesh far more with a song like “Pluto” or the even-louder “Declare Independence.” It sounds how I bet tetanus-flavored ice cream tastes, except I don’t think I’d enjoy tetanus ice cream nearly as much, so maybe strike that from the record. In truth, it’s an almost inquisitive combination—filled with wonder despite its hostile edges, almost like a rat scrambling between churning machinery. While I’ve heard this scene precedes some pretty heavy stuff, the film itself captures this with… some success? See for yourself:

To be fair (where perhaps I shouldn’t), I’m bound to be more critical of a director this openly disgusting, but this isn’t my favorite “extracting music from one’s ordinary surroundings” depiction I’ve ever seen, even if I love the concept. Perhaps I was setting myself up for disappointment, though, since this song sounds right out of Terry Gilliam’s brilliant Brazil, one of my favorite weirdo movies of all time. In fact, even though I’d say “Cvalda” sounds wholly from a world of its own, pairings for this one came pretty easily. One of the strangest to click with “Cvalda” comes from Suzanne Vega of all folks. In context with her noisiest work, 99.9°F, it makes more sense—combining this album’s pots-and-pans percussion with her sometimes show tune sensibilities makes “As A Child” a solid sibling for “Cvalda.”

Pairs Well With: “As A Child” (Suzanne Vega), “It’s Oh So Quiet” (Björk), “Pluto” (Björk)

STICKS & STONES | Jónsi And now, with an accidentally great pairing, let’s finally talk about a movie I have seen many, many times. After I was barely able to contain, like, sobbing after showing my girlfriend The Iron Giant, she said something like “you really like your boy-and-his-creature movies, don’t you?” The Iron Giant, How to Train Your Dragon… she said Ratatouille, so maybe not all boy-and-his-creature movies… but whatever the writers put in the first two absolutely wrecks my shit. You can probably tell it’s been on the brain after last week’s reflection, but I never used to cry after movies like these, even though my body wanted to—I’d actually have to fight to keep it down. I’ve never not been moved by these stories—I can’t even say the Giant’s “I am not a gun” or literally anything about the scene where Hiccup and Toothless learn to draw each other without blinking back tears (fuck you, Dreamworks). However, where I’m eager to revisit these feelings and share them with others today, I was always a little nervous to rewatch these movies as a kid because I felt them so hard. That’s the feeling I associate with Jónsi’s incredible “Sticks and Stones,” the end credits to How to Train Your Dragon—a song I’ve long loved but never downloaded because I (correctly) knew a listen would slay me.

As a kid, I think my soul was so stirred by the end of the movie that I’d be too busy collecting myself to notice how inventive this piece is. Through all of this love I profess for pots-and-pans percussion, I never once remembered how prominent it is in “Sticks and Stones.” Upon trawling this song up again, I was surprised to find that the nuts percussion is practically its backbone, making even the tender vocals sound frantic. It perfectly captures how my heart always felt after How to Train Your Dragon—still swept away in the imagination and adventure, but sodden with all of these strange, wrung-out emotions. Like Toothless briefly breaking through the clouds in the climactic flying lesson, the song’s pause at 2:51 is awesome, in both the colloquial and archaical senses of the word—just enough time to process before diving straight back in. I don’t know how much Jónsi saw of How to Train Your Dragon when he was commissioned, but I find it hard to believe we weren’t resonating with at least similar frequencies after hearing this song. Few things truly capture the boy and his creature like “Sticks and Stones” does. After growing up gentle, sensitive, and a little strange with few outside my family socializing men to embrace all of these big emotions, nothing will move me more than confronting the demonized dragon inside not with a sword, but with an open hand. I love boy-and-his-creature narratives because the creature so often is the boy, and the boy the creature, and both must learn to not fight the parts of themselves they are taught to fear, but befriend them. Actually, I’m crying right now, did you know that? Okay, this is getting uncomfortable. Either way, thank you, Jónsi, for bottling this feeling so that, even if it is sometimes to big to swallow, I can always return to it when I need reminding.

Once again like last week, this song pairs so well with so many things that I’m going to have to make some honorable mentions for the songs that didn’t make the pairing cut. Aside from “Cvalda,” Kishi Bashi’s “Bright Whites” comes immediately to mind for balancing its (for me) tearful tenderness with a frantic tempo. Ultimately, though, nothing quite beats the transition from Elf Power’s “Embrace the Crimson Tide” into this song—it’s almost seamless.

Pairs Well With: “Embrace the Crimson Tide” (Elf Power) [Reviewed 10/06/2023], “Brostinn Strengur” (Lay Low) [Reviewed 01/04/2022], “Time Escaping” (Big Thief) [Reviewed 09/02/2022]

ME AND YOUR MAMA | Childish Gambino So, I know all of this useless midcentury music trivia, but as soon as we hit the 2010s—you know, the time where I grew up?—it all just disappears. Take Childish Gambino, Donald Glover, one of the most recognizable names in several celebrity circles. I mean, I guess I’ve seen Community… I remember friends dressing up as the “Awaken, My Love!” album cover on 2017’s Halloween… “This is America” will for sure be in the history books… but beyond that, I’m at a loss. I don’t wear that as a point of pride or anything, but I think I just remain in the dark because I don’t know which threads to follow, or where to start, really. So, when my sister posted “Me and Your Mama” on her weekly Sunday Songs this October, I was excited to check this one out, and let me just say up front: holy shit, dude.

If the grievously over-annotated Genius page for “Me And Your Mama” is anything to go by, this song has at best been talked to death, and at worst been Swiftie-overanalyzed, so forgive me for dropping another grain in the silo. Still, I can’t not talk about the way this track makes me astral project. First of all, I’ve heard a lot of claims that pop music is trending towards more simplistic structures that loop a single hook, so I was quite surprised that this song not only has a two-minute beginning build, but also takes its time to wind down and let the dust settle. Of course, the light, choral chanting can’t prepare you for the body that then rips in, blasting through the wall like the Kool-Aid Man. I’d go for a less cartoony descriptor, but the pitched-down villain laugh that follows the first guitar riffs probably couldn’t be put any other way—and I love it. The words that follow are perfectly belted—impassioned, desperate, and still roaring enough to sound rock ‘n roll. Maybe it’s just Glover’s line about “sleeping with the moon and the stars,” but the harmonies that hit with these screaming vocals send me straight into the electric blue constellations on the “Awaken, My Love!” cover. You’re the realest for this one, Madeline.

If “This is America” is anything to go by, Glover loves his allusions, and “Me and Your Mama” is full of them, though they’re far less somber. Though it’s not a direct sample, the evil-laugh riff is borrowed from Jimi Hendrix’s “Who Knows” (see about 1:36 in “Who Knows” and 2:07 in “Me and Your Mama”), which is probably why I love it so much. Supposedly, this song also lyrically tips its hat to “You Really Got A Hold On Me” by Smokey Robinson & The Miracles and Outkast’s “Ms. Jackson,” though the references seem pretty surface-level from the outside. Still, “Me and Your Mama” has layers, both as a part of a musical lineage and contained within its own narrative. A lot gets done in these six, short minutes, and it has me curious about exploring “Awaken, My Love!” further—I mean, what a title, right? The whole thing just seems super interesting—a Funkadelic and Isley Brothers-inspired album automatically has me curious.

Pairs Well With: “Breakadawn” (De La Soul), “You” (Julian Cope) [Reviewed 12/09/2022], “You Can Make It If You Try” (Sly and the Family Stone)

WHISPERS IN THE ECHO CHAMBER | Chelsea Wolfe THE QUEEN HAS AWAKENED! It’s Mariah Carey season, baby! Said no one on Max Todd Dot Com ever. I will be INTOLERANT of that. No such rumpus here.

In case these past weeks’ doting, Chelseapilled Wolfeposting weren’t clear enough, I am beyond ready for She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She, coming on February 9th. It’s become an unfortunate pattern recently for me to feel initially middling about new songs from my favorite artists, something I’m usually always in support of, and unfortunately, the first single for [2(She Reaches Out to) She] was not spared. Though I liked “Dusk,” [Reviewed 1o/06/2023] I wasn’t so sure it showed much growth into a new era ahead, which promptly changed when listened consecutively with Wolfe’s newest single, “Whispers in the Echo Chamber.” Much like my reconciliation with Wilco’s Cousin, hearing both of the album’s bookends gives so much more context for what’s coming, and has me incredibly excited for February.

“Whispers in the Echo Chamber” is delightfully creepy, through and through, from its chittering synth, to its anguished guitar, to its lyrics, delivered in a hair-raising whisper. Even in context with her most overtly metal albums, this is quite possibly Wolfe’s most industrial sound, making for an especially odd pairing with “Cvalda” —my Dad cited a clear Skinny Puppy resemblance, but I was first reminded of Hans Zimmer’s nail-biting Joker theme, “Why So Serious?,” from The Dark Knight. Since this song isn’t one sustained, climbing note, there’s a bit more reprieve built-in than the latter, but the atmosphere itself stays dense and crispy, like a corrupted VHS tape. Certainly, this song isn’t want for building dread, and the lyrics don’t hurt in that department—like, hearing “this world was not designed for us” whispered (!!!!) was a brand of chilling I haven’t experienced in months. “Whispers” easily slinks into the inscrutable, staticky corners of analog horror, or better yet, sleep paralysis—the experience that this song metaphorically twists.

It’s strange, then, that for Wolfe, this is a healing song. In her album announcement, she describes “Whispers” as “a rebirth.” As she puts it,

The song is about cutting cords from patterns, relationships, and situations that hold you back from growing. It’s about seeking what you need within yourself, instead of constantly reaching outward. It’s about self-acceptance. […] It’s my sincere hope that this song and ultimately the full album will help inspire others to empower themselves. I’m right there with you on that journey – as I wrote these songs, they demanded to be lived.

I know people sarcastically label things “metal” all the time—myself included—but now, with a completely straight face, let me just say: tearing free from societal manacles and forging a new self from the bones buried within? How metal is that?! It feels very pick-me to describe myself as an outcast, but it’s how I’ve always felt, and I’m so lucky to have been raised by the outcasts before me who learned Chelsea’s lesson so I wouldn’t have to. Every reassurance we could ever ask for already resides within each of us—there is no self-sovereignty outside. We each contain a changing cosmos, and even its most broken corners can be reconciled with compassion and patience. In that light, I think it’s perfect to use sleep paralysis to illustrate this—the panic of suddenly feeling powerless within one’s own mind while a predatory part of the psyche lurks just out of sight. In the music video for “Whispers,” director George Gallardo Kattah (Colombia cameo!) confronts his own sleep paralysis entity, which he reframes as “a calm inner voice cutting through mental chatter and anxiety to help guide me towards a more authentic path.” Isn’t that kind of brilliant—that, when one has become so immobilized stretching for outside approval, a gaunt and wounded part of oneself confronts you to change? Certainly, the entity in this video—a near-skeletal woman pinched by corsets, neck braces, and cinderblocks as sandals—seems like an excellent metaphor for that state of mind, and it’s a relief to see her freed and laid to rest. There’s a ton of other great imagery here, too—Chelsea Wolfe herself sings in an anechoic chamber, walled with so many sound dampeners that it looks more like a padded cell, and this is intercut with carnivorous sundew plants, which are as close to bondage as nature gets.

Okay, okay, that’s enough literary analysis for today. You gotta smother your emo thoughts in emo aesthetics like doggie downers in cheese if you want anybody to bite. Go watch the video and then we’ll talk.

Pairs Well With: “Why So Serious?” (Hans Zimmer & James Newton Howard), “The Mourn” (Skinny Puppy), “Suck” (Nine Inch Nails covering Pigface)

PAINTING NO. 20, 1961 | Vance Kirkland Since I can’t get enough of Vance Kirkland’s abstract compositions, this week I’ve opted for something slightly different than his dot paintings. Painting No. 20 doesn’t quite hit me like Explosions on a Sun 80 Billion Light Years From Earth [Reviewed 10/20/2023] did (I wonder if that title has anything to do with it). Still, I love the color composition of this one, like angry splashes of moonlight, or like the bioluminescent blood thrashed by a predator during the Diel migration. Isn’t it great to project on this stuff? Thanks, as always, for reading, I’ll be projecting into your minds again next week.