Tag: Music

Real Estate Real Estate

Matthew EilarLeave a comment

The New Jersey band Real Estate’s self titled debut album mines some of the same ground that we can also hear in the work of Fleet Foxes and Animal Collective. It’s too simplistic to call this music “surf-rock revival” or to limit their musical forebears to The Beach Boys, but there are grains of truth in those categorization*. On my first listen to Real Estate, I was again reminded of the influence of the Beach Boys, and fascinated by the different ways that contemporary bands are taking up their music.

*If any fans of Animal Collective, Fleet Foxes, or Real Estate knows any influencing musicians that were doing the same kind of things musically in between the ’60s and now, I’d be interested to hear who they are. Comment below or e-mail me at MOTBlog@yahoo.com.

Is there any more unlikely band than the Beach Boys upon which to start a revival? Their songs are (almost creepily) naive and innocent, with banal lyrics that would rot your teeth. They had prominent, unselfconscious close harmonies that today sound closer to old-timey barbershop than contemporary music. And the surf culture that they represented has been banished to the corner of Polynesian kitsch and Big Kahuna Burgers.

But their music is back in a big way. I can hear it in the harmonies and song structures of Fleet Foxes. I can hear it in the controlled chaos of Animal Collective’s studio production. And the elements of their music are transformed into the chill grooves of Real Estate.

Real Estate wants you to think you’re listening to relaxing summertime music; tracks on their album include “Pool Swimmers;” “Beach Comber;” and “Atlantic City.” But the vision of summer presented here is a melancholy one. The elements of surf rock are here: acoustic rhythm guitar, slide guitar, minimally processed drums and bass. Where the Beach Boys’ music was transparent and clear, Real Estate is smothered in heavy reverb (an effect I hear everywhere right now). That detachment defines the sound on the record. The drums, bass, and spare rhythm guitar keeps the groove, and the song, going while rhythmic power chords, shimmering steel guitar lines, and muffled harmonies drift in and out. Even in choruses, or one of the many instrumental interludes, the band never raises its voice, maintaining an even restraint.

The whole effect is of listening to ’60’s music through headphones made of molasses.  If “Surfin, U.S.A.” moved you to get up an dance, or “California Girls” made you want to cruise around in a car with wood paneling with a check-this-out look on your face, then “Suburban Dogs” might make you want to like down on the sand, look at the sky, and wonder where you’ll be in 10 years.

This band should be evaluated outside of the legacy of another band, of course, and I don’t want to give the impression that I’m dismissing them as Beach Boys-derivative or backwards looking. I enjoyed listening to this album. I think it’s also important to acknowledge what they didn’t do with their interpretation of surf rock: they didn’t simply emulate the style of older artists (like Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, or any of today’s countless retro cabaret artists) and they didn’t simply mix elements of the older style with the sound du jour (á la Smash Mouth and lounge music). It’s also really important that, while you can hear the sound of the band that influenced them in their music, Real Estate’s music sounds like now, and it could not be mistaken for that of any other decade.

It’s good music. Just don’t bring it to the beach.

Real Estate Real Estate

Matthew EilarLeave a comment

The New Jersey band Real Estate’s self titled debut album mines some of the same ground that we can also hear in the work of Fleet Foxes and Animal Collective. It’s too simplistic to call this music “surf-rock revival” or to limit their musical forebears to The Beach Boys, but there are grains of truth in those categorization*. On my first listen to Real Estate, I was again reminded of the influence of the Beach Boys, and fascinated by the different ways that contemporary bands are taking up their music.

*If any fans of Animal Collective, Fleet Foxes, or Real Estate knows any influencing musicians that were doing the same kind of things musically in between the ’60s and now, I’d be interested to hear who they are. Comment below or e-mail me at MOTBlog@yahoo.com.

Is there any more unlikely band than the Beach Boys upon which to start a revival? Their songs are (almost creepily) naive and innocent, with banal lyrics that would rot your teeth. They had prominent, unselfconscious close harmonies that today sound closer to old-timey barbershop than contemporary music. And the surf culture that they represented has been banished to the corner of Polynesian kitsch and Big Kahuna Burgers.
But their music is back in a big way. I can hear it in the harmonies and song structures of Fleet Foxes. I can hear it in the controlled chaos of Animal Collective’s studio production. And the elements of their music are transformed into the chill grooves of Real Estate.
Real Estate wants you to think you’re listening to relaxing summertime music; tracks on their album include “Pool Swimmers;” “Beach Comber;” and “Atlantic City.” But the vision of summer presented here is a melancholy one. The elements of surf rock are here: acoustic rhythm guitar, slide guitar, minimally processed drums and bass. Where the Beach Boys’ music was transparent and clear, Real Estate is smothered in heavy reverb (an effect I hear everywhere right now). That detachment defines the sound on the record. The drums, bass, and spare rhythm guitar keeps the groove, and the song, going while rhythmic power chords, shimmering steel guitar lines, and muffled harmonies drift in and out. Even in choruses, or one of the many instrumental interludes, the band never raises its voice, maintaining an even restraint.
The whole effect is of listening to ’60’s music through headphones made of molasses.  If “Surfin, U.S.A.” moved you to get up an dance, or “California Girls” made you want to cruise around in a car with wood paneling with a check-this-out look on your face, then “Suburban Dogs” might make you want to like down on the sand, look at the sky, and wonder where you’ll be in 10 years.
This band should be evaluated outside of the legacy of another band, of course, and I don’t want to give the impression that I’m dismissing them as Beach Boys-derivative or backwards looking. I enjoyed listening to this album. I think it’s also important to acknowledge what they didn’t do with their interpretation of surf rock: they didn’t simply emulate the style of older artists (like Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, or any of today’s countless retro cabaret artists) and they didn’t simply mix elements of the older style with the sound du jour (á la Smash Mouth and lounge music). It’s also really important that, while you can hear the sound of the band that influenced them in their music, Real Estate’s music sounds like now, and it could not be mistaken for that of any other decade.
It’s good music. Just don’t bring it to the beach.

Malcolm McLaren is dead.

Matthew EilarLeave a comment

I’m not going to fake being too torn up about this. I’m no particular fan of his, or the Sex Pistols, but after seeing Kill Bill, I’ve always liked his cover of the Zombies’ “She’s Not There:”

Arvo Pärt – Fratres

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Fratres for Violin and Piano.

Arvo Pärt (1935-) is an Estonian composer who developed his minimalist style and compositional methods in isolation behind the Iron Curtain. His music incorporates elements of Gregorian chant and modes; religious ideas; and minimalist textures. When he began composing, he experimented with neo-classical techniques, following Prokofiev, Bartók and Shostakovich. Dissatisfied with this approach, he turned to 12-tone composition. At that time, atonal composition was officially discouraged by the Soviet Union, and Pärt’s music was banned.

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vO92REraUo]

Fratres for Cello and Piano

In the 1970’s, in search of inspiration, Pärt began to research the historical origins of Western music, looking at Gregorian chant, church modes, and early polyphony. The compositions that follow these investigations imagine a different path of musical development, almost an alternate-history version of Western music. Many of them are explicitly religious; today he composes mostly sacred choral music.

Fratres for Chamber Orchestra

Over the course of his career, Pärt has developed a proprietary compositional technique, called tintinnabuli (the name comes from the Latin tinnabulae: of bells [it’s also where we get the beautiful English word tintinnabulation]). This method, at its most basic, consists of two lines of music, one moving by step, the other playing the notes in a triad. It makes for simple, ethereal, and deeply moving music. A good example of this technique is Pärt’s 1976 piano work, “Für Alina:”

Für Alina

Fratres is either a collection of works, or a single work with many orchestrations. It is very simple music; it consists of a progression of chords that alternate with a percussive section. The changes and forward motion of the piece result from small changes in rhythm and dynamics. The first version, for string quartet, was composed in 1976. From 1976-1992, Pärt has made five other orchestrations: for strings and percussion; for solo violin and piano; for solo cello and piano*; for eight cellos; for violin, strings and percussion. Other arrangers have prepared versions for wind octet and percussion; guitar and violin; and chamber orchestra.

*This version was featured in the movie “There Will Be Blood.” This is for good reason. It’s my favorite.

Fratres for Violin, Strings and Percussion

All of these orchestrations provide different compositional challenges. For the orchestrations with solo instruments, because they cannot play block chords, they are replaced with light, very fast arpeggios. The orchestrations without percussion instruments have different solutions to the percussive sections that separate the chord progressions: in the string quartet they are played as strong pizzicato, in the versions for solo instrument and piano, the crashing piano provides the percussion. An arrangement for wind octet was prepared by B. Brinner; the octet is not nearly as homogeneous in sound as the string ensembles, requiring another kind of adjustment.

Fratres for Guitar and Violin. Part Two.

Fratres is deceptively simple. All of the musical ideas are laid out in the first thirty seconds of the recording of any one of the orchestrations, and yet in the six months or so since I first listened to it, I’ve found myself revisiting –and hearing new things– in the various recordings and arrangements. It seems like each one has its moment when the music becomes transcendental.

Fratres for Wind Octet

Wikipedia: Fratres; Arvo Pärt

Amazon: Fratres/Summa/Festiva Lente/Cantus in memory of Benjamin Britten

A couple essays…

Matthew EilarLeave a comment

1. Tom Bissell writes about being addicted to video games and cocaine.

I’ve never tried cocaine. I wouldn’t, at this point in my life, dismiss the possibility entirely, however one of the things that goes through my mind when I think about it is that I am afraid that I would like it very much.

Tom Bissell writes about being a functional user of cocaine, but in a way that I’ve never heard before. Most description of functional substance users (from alcohol to weed to everything else) emphasize how little their substance use changes the day to day aspects of living. Bissell embraces the changes that have come to his life; he writes unblinkingly about playing video games for days at a time, going weeks without sleeping, and losing completely the motivation to complete writing commissions. The other half of this essay are Bissell’s ruminations on the unique way that video games are art.

I found this essay really challenging and somewhat disturbing. What I find hard to deal with is the fact that Bissell is obviously an intelligent and talented person, and yet he seems to have no problem with the way that he lives his life. I couldn’t live like he does. I highly recommend reading the essay.

2. Steve Almond writes ambiguously about the uselessness of music critics.

I’m not sure what is going on in this essay. Most of the evidence that Almond uses to argue that music critics are useless is that Steve Almond was a bad music critic.

Almond wraps the essay up with a sappy “all that matters is the fans” message (and how can you argue against that?), but I think he makes some assertions that I wouldn’t agree with. He says that [after a fun concert by a “bad” artist], “The very idea of music criticism — of applying some objective standard to the experience of listening to music — suddenly struck me as petty and irrelevant. I spent several more months as a critic, but my essential belief in the pursuit evaporated.” I understand that, and to some extent I agree with it, but I don’t think that’s what the value of music critics is. I think, by and large, music critics write opinions based upon facets of music that are more or less objective. While there is no objective answer to whether one album is better than another, the styles that the band is playing in, their instrumentation, the complexity of their lyrics are all things that a music critic can write about without touching the subjective experience of listening.

He also writes about how music and cultural criticism has become too snarky. I just don’t understand how this is an argument against music criticism. One, blogs and the internet have allowed bad writing of all stripes to be more easily accessible than at any time in history (look at what I’m doing right now!). Second, in an environment where critics are not trusted because their opinions are being influenced by things other than the music, an opportunity arises for another critic to build a base from people actively looking for high-value criticism.