Extended Pleasure, or How To End A Song

Sometimes we kid ourselves that our particular taste in individual songs and songwriters is based on some intangible personal connection - with projected nostalgias, secret meanings which only we pick up, or a melody or lyric that is all the more perfect for its unaccountable perfection. However, in my case, just a little consideration can quickly shatter this pleasant illusion. There are some quite basic material features that reappear in many of those songs that mean the most to me. I'm going to discuss one of the most prevalent, with reference to its occurrence not only throughout the work of my favourite artist, but also in my decided 'song of the year' (so far) and in one of the songs which I'm quite sure I'd have played at my hypothetical funeral. These are all monumental musical beacons in my life, and yet they are united (though not completely defined) by a simple structural trend, specifically the introduction of a new vocal countermelody over a looping chorus or coda in the final moments of the song.

Everything Is New #1: The Age of Adz and Extraterrestrial Parasites

At some point in the last year or two, aliens laid eggs in Sufjan Stevens's brain. Evidently, these eggs hatched just as the gorgeous, harp-like guitar texture of The Age of Adz's opener - 'Futile Devices' - draws to its delicate close. Yes, Sufjan has gone electronic, but the style that is introduced on second track 'Too Much', along with most of the rest of the album, is not that of the trippy, explorative, unbridled Sufjan of his latest EP, of Enjoy Your Rabbit, or of his other most alien moment to date: Dark Was The Night's 'You Are The Blood'. Sufjan is back in song mode (against all odds, even album mode) and somewhere behind The Age of Adz is another perky songbook of pioneer fanfares and cheerleader folk choirs. There are some brilliant upbeat melodies; 'Too Much', 'I Walked' and 'Get Real, Get Right' are all, in their way, relentlessly pop. Moreover, most of his familiar troops are out in force: the girl choirs, the flute scales, the triumphant brass. It's upbeat Sufjan at his most distinctive - and yet, what's that crawling down the inside of his spinal column? Sufjan's sound-world has been quite literally invaded by a huge new alien palette.

Synthetic Theatre: Xiu Xiu and Zola Jesus and Former Ghosts

Xiu Xiu/Zola Jesus/Former Ghosts - 1st November - XOYO, Shoreditch

I had always considered both Former Ghosts and Zola Jesus to be 'sub-Xiu Xiu' acts, having approached Former Ghosts through Jamie Stewart's involvement, and thence Zola Jesus through Nika Rosa Danilova's own involvement in that project. Seeing them all together in a line-up which stressed their equal standing (with big 'AND's inserted between identically capitalised band names) seemed to confirm their musical affiliation, but in reality the two younger bands don't seem particularly interested in borrowing from Xiu Xiu's work. If Former Ghosts occasionally recall Xiu Xiu's sound, it's solely because of Stewart's own penchant for certain synth and drum machine timbres. No, these bands are more purist in their influences, digging right back to when synths became cold enough to solidify a new goth aesthetic.

Lyrical Anchorage

So I've been going back and forth to Cambridge over the last month on trains and coaches, and for most of those journeys I've been listening to Surfer Blood's Astro Coast on loop. Now it's November and rather than talk about another summer album, I'm instead going to focus on one song from Astro Coast, with particular reference to a small structural feature.

Pop songs, miniature and regular as they are, work on a scale by which such small features can completely define or transform them, yet such moments are rarely defined or discussed. Most pop commentary tackles music at album-level, making reference to individual songs as units, perhaps occasionally highlighting different sections within songs. But the intoxicating effect of pop operates on a much smaller scale: in intervals, two-chord relationships, one-word gestures, little motivic licks, or the emergence of some new timbre, which is then contextualised within the larger structure of the song as a unique happening, as a marker in a cycle or arc which will then anticipate its return, or as the progenitor of a new, looping texture.

alright alright alright alright alright alright

I read this article on one of those papers that you get on the train in London, which claimed that the Mercury Prize organisers (whoever they are...) aren't actually looking for 'the best album of the year', but 'the album that best represents that year in British music'. So in a way, that kinda suggests that they're looking for the most 'average' record of the year - the one that is closest to most of the stuff that's going on, the 'median' or the 'mode', potentially the most mainstream, middle-of-the-road, default album of the year. Obviously this isn't what they think they're doing, but it explains why so much of the shortlist is always predictable dross.

Sweet Kink: The Meaning of Antony

Just one month until we get to hear Antony & The Johnsons' new album, Swanlights, which, along with the recent release of their Thank You For Your Love EP and musings on the upcoming Mercury Prize (which they won with I Am A Bird Now), has prompted me to consider the very particular place which Antony Hegarty has won for himself within today's music scene.

'Grown-up Music' and the Mercury Prize

The Barclaycard Mercury Prize 'Albums of the Year' award event thing is tomorrow. It's always a mildly interesting event, if only for the seemingly random outcome. It is, however, not an event that bares much scrutiny - just a brief glance at their website cannot help but leave me unsettled by my complete incomprehension at how such a thing can actually operate...

I'm not criticising the Prize. It has very clear positive aspects; mainly the highlighting of a number of musical acts for consideration by the least actively curious of the nation's listenership. People, often older people who don't keep in touch with new music, are presented with an immediate, consolidated list of notable albums which they can then go and buy from HMV or iTunes in the knowledge that they're not being naive. By presenting these albums as art-works, disconnected from the demographic of the fans and the public image of the artist, those people who are wary of the complicated value systems which operate within popular culture can placate themselves by showing interest in pop music which has a claim to traditional 'artistic' merits. The shortlists give kind of an insight into some sort of mainstream British musical identity. Occasionally, it will push a smaller artist towards a larger audience, via the broadsheets and in-store publicity, and potentially even open up a more 'alternative' sound-world to a fundamentally passive or conservative audience.