Birth of Liquid Pleyades v. Steede Bonnet

Every time I smoke I remember why I don't smoke anymore, though because I have to wait before I can smoke again, I forget that I cannot actually smoke without wanting to not say that every time I smoke I remember why I don't smoke anymore, because that would mean that I'm both smoking and somone else, which is how I feel when I've lit a cigarette directly after vomiting from smoking the same one that I'm smoking now, for I've forgotten again and I only smoke to remember why I don't smoke, not to actually smoke, that would be silly and there's nothing silly about vomit only cigarettes, and how they're purchased for thought mostly, you buy them to start to remember why you never smoked before, to forget why you've always smoked and how when you couldn't find any to smoke it wasn't because you had never tried, it was because you threw them away so that the next time you wanted to smoke you'd have to buy more and pretend it was the first time, even as you walked into the store smoking the first of the newly opened pack in your pocket.

liKe oMFg thErE nOT eMO!

Abstract:
A recent posting on mtv2.com of Sunny Day Real Estate performing on 120 Minutes in 1994--http://www.subterraneanblog.com/2008/08/07/sunny-day-real-estate-in-circles-live-from-120-minutes-plus-more-tracks/--and their, by-today's-peculiar-standards, un-emo attire, caused me to write a small essay about how the self-proclaimed yet uninformed emos du jour would react to seeing this band, ostensibly influential in emo's evolution, dressed in such a way. Instead of merely talking about the already explored topic of how image can often supercede message, I mused specifically about how the emo "look" has changed in the past couple of years or so from something subtle--sweater-and-black-specs--to an aesthetic that, because of its ties to high/runway fashion, glamour, and goth, threatens to overtake the music entirely. In other words, the once separate clothing "genre" of fashioncore has become emo.

While emo used to be a label attached to individuals or bands who dressed or behaved a certain way, but one they infrequently associated with themselves, the dynamic has changed. Since fashion is all about being on display, the individuals who dress this way do it because they want to be seen as emo; they want to be trendy; they want to be unusually beautiful. In other words, the counterculture has become the popular, dominant one.




I recently discovered that MTV2.com had posted some archival footage of Sunny Day Real Estate performing on 120 Minutes. As I watched them perform "In Circles" from their classic debut Diary, I realized that most of the current culture that unabashedly calls itself emo, but has of course so logically conjoined it with romanticized acts such as murder and massacre, would laugh at the notion that this band pureveyed emo, stood for emo, or god forbid, considered themselves emo. While the band most certainly wouldn't have touted themselves as emo--that's something that bands and individuals have only recently begun to do; I'll address that shortly--many fans of the band's music would vehemently defend them not just as players of emo but among the founders.

I posted the video on a message board figuring that peers there would like to see a band with actual artistic merit performing in the kind of high-quality footage that such a major network can provide, and one of the posters made a very perceptive comment:

"Imagine the reaction from a mallcore scenester to this video would be something to the effect of 'wtf is that asshole from the foo fighters doing there. lols ew their clothes are baggy and.. not black. emo? yeah right.'"

This caused me to muse that the the current "emo" fashion has not superceded the music in the unfortunate-but-expected way that "image dwarfs message," but rather because of the way that a "look" or "aesthetic" has become a proper "fashion"--and one that by way of a symbiotic relationship with the runway, glamour world threatens to render the music superfluous if not asphysicate it altogether. While the derivation of this occurence is more complex than I theorize here, I hope that I at least begin to initiate a necessary dialogue.

The mainstream or popular defintion of emo has changed in only the last two years or so--and I'm talking exclusively as regards fashion; that emo could even be considered a manner of dress--and the growing tendency to define it as such. Previously the masses defined emo--clearly this statement is inherently ironic, for if anyone were to demarcate the parameters of emo, it obviously wouldn't/couldn't be the general populace--as meaning Rivers Cuomo glasses, Chucks, fitted jeans, and sweaters. But somehow this--admittedly absurd and in no way superior--encapsulation of emo has been conflated with what was once deemed fashioncore--an aesthetic influenced by goth. Whenever I now hear people talking about emo guys, for example, what they mean are anorexic boys in girls jeans with asymmetrical haircuts, eyeliner, a surfeit of tattoos, etc. What I wish to stress here is how the initially mentioned, more reserved, indie-influenced? look has been supplanted by one tending towards stylized squalor.

It's no surprise, then, that since fashion is often about a glamorized, gaudy lifestyle, there has been an increase in the occasion for one to regard him/herself as emo, whereas before if someone was emo s/he just listened to the music pigenholed as such or casually dressed that way. In other words, s/he didn't seem to be dressing that way in order to be seen or known as emo; if s/he was emo then that was, as 2pac would say, for only God to judge. The emo individual has gone from wallflower to fake, plastic rose.

I must admit, I have on occasion caught myself slipping into an elitist mode and questioning if that female wearing the studded belt and shirt that says "Punk Rock Girl" has ever heard of a band like Lifetime, for example. This clearly is not my place. But can you imagine one of these "emo" girls with the straightened-for-hours hair and runway makeup watching a performance of supposed emo godfathers Sunny Day Real Estate circa '94, seeing that their clothes weren't skintight and exclusively black, and scoffing at the notion that this band could be emo with such "hideous" threads? What I mean is, while I fault myself for judging the "punk" girl, shouldn't one question the authenticity, the derivation, the influence of the music first and the appearance--if at all--second?

Pyramids-Pyramids

Why aren't more people talking about this fuckin' release, that's what I wanna know! This is some serious next-level shit the mysterious Denton, TX quartet--who, according to their Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/pyramidsmusic, sounds like "textures"; litote anyone?--is coaxing out of the ether and into their/our hemorrhaging coitus.

They're signed to Hydra Head, and thus labelmates with weirdos Kayo Dot, so I guess no one should be surprised that A. Turner's baby is giving birth to another elephantiasis-bitten progeny. Still--I like to think I have a pretty eclectic palate: I'd happily put on Battles to drift off to sleep--I was mesmerized by my Pyramids cherry-poppin'. (I still can't believe there was a mainstream swing-revival band with "cherry-poppin'" in their fuckin' name. Not song title, lyric, or obscure liner note jotting, but NAME.)

Anyway, simply genre-ized this is dandling noise imbued with distant double bass, the only graspable vocals ethereal croons. This does Pyramids a disservice, though, because to foreground ambience means to, well, change the definition of ambience altogether. But they don't just hover a lantern over the skittish ambience, they bludgeon it with the seething light, and hungrily produce a flare gun which they unload through ambience's eye socket and up through its skull--where they wait to digest the orgasming torch and its contrail of matter upon exit .

Reviews have christened the sound a soothing nightmare. If you haven't done so, you can listen to the full album here: http://www.hydrahead.org/hh/pyramids_site/, at least for a limited time or until you muster enough energy to steal it. I christen it one of my favorite albums of the year and I think a lot of the people who have criticized it don't realize that it's not as impenetrable as they might think; frightening yes, oblique no. I'm sorry if I sound like David Lynch claiming that Mulholland Drive is linear: while it may be true, it doesn't fuckin' feel that way to anyone but him! To be fair, Pyramids often sounds like when I accidentally have two songs playing at the same time: somehow it works enough to either temporarily suspend one's dissonance threshold, euthanize it all together, or prove it never existed, that the ears synergize bereavement with romance of their own God-love-'em volition.

Pitchfork recognized the foursome as a raw but formidable talent, though still awarded the record only a 6.5: http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/51334-pyramids-pyramids. Hey, at least Pyramids didn't get the Kayo Dot treatment: http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/142842-kayo-dot-blue-lambency-downward. Yikes! And stupid! I love BLD for the artwork and "The Awkward Wind Wheel" alone. And can you believe that Delusions of Adequacy had the nerve to deem Toby Driver's serene vocals "useless." That's like saying Paul Banks shouldn't wack off to Ian Curtis. It doesn't feel right. (I love Interpol!) That's okay, though; unlike some, DoA is perceptive enough to see that the Dot is "bringing a worthwhile sound to the current music scene."

But this is about these horrorlullers and the essential cut "Hellmonk" which wears its name like a tattooed glove. Because the idea of a song being a portal through which you embark on a journey is not an especially novel one, Pyramids does not proffer the song as this nor even merely a logbook of your disappearance into the song some time before--ostensibly prior to when the band crafted it and the composition began to fester aglow on their limbs--as a chaste monk and the brimstone immurment thereof. Rather, it begins before the prelude, the womb's anteroom if you will, as you emerge from the same cocoon of sulfur, lust of horizon whose poles are in concert with your heart and for which you inexorably bloom. So if you download, stream, or mix-tape-in-order-to-appear-avant-garde one song, make it that oh-so-witty oxymoron.

Warning: Stay far away from Pyramids if (1) disgusted easily by pretension, either contained within an album or inside a pretention-prone reviewer of said album; or (2) unnerved by orphaned susurrations prophesizing your cerebellum's hum trajectory.

Jesu-Why Are We Not Perfect?

So the new Jesu EP has appeared on the heels of two other releases just this year: splits with both Japanese hardcore-turned-post-rock legends Envy and post-metal supergroup Battle of Mice, on Daymare and Robotic Empire respectively. Clearly, if there's one thing mastermind Justin K. Broadrick is known for it's being prolific. But in actuality the new one contains Jesu's three contributions to the now-oop split with Matthew Cooper's Eluvium project, put out by arguably the best extant label, Temporary Residence Limited--Warp boasts an impressive resume as well, but isn't as diverse--along with two alternate versions thereof.

I had neither heard the Eluvium split's songs--I guess the similar album artwork should have tipped me off--nor knew what tracks comprised this album. And after being elated at the brilliance and much-welcomed tempo variation of the Envy split's tracks, and subsequently underwhelmed by the Battle of Mice effort, I wasn't quite sure what to expect.

Well, unfortunately after one listen to Why Are We Not Perfect? it seems that Broadrick should have spent less time putting this split together and more either on the Battle of Mice tracks or on a longer upcoming release of new material. It's just that what made the Envy compositions so striking was that they substituted IDM beats for the usual drone percussion. All but one of the tracks are definately pleasant enough to listen to, but they don't depart much from the sound explored competently on Conqueror and Silver, and in my opinion don't achieve the transcendence of Jesu's best work to date--the aforementioned Envy songs. The second track, "Blind and Faithless," however, is essential; although you won't get quite the electronic vibe of the tracks on the Envy split I keep gizzing over, you will get to witness Broadrick remain uptempo while doing his best My Bloody Valentine impression--instrumentally at least.

So, you can either download "Blind and Faithless," "download the Eluvium split, or download this split and delete the other tracks--assuming, of course, that you share my opinion. I would both tell you to go for the Eluvium option and not to bother with the Batte of Mice one, but I can't do that because I dig both those bands/haven't listened to their splits' material yet.