Monday, March 9, 2009
Monday Music #10 (Bat For Lashes, Dot Allison)
March is probably far, far too early to even be thinking about the best of 2009 - the best anything. It's only about a fourth of the way through the year, if that. But I've never been averse to stressing out about deadlines, then procrastinating on them. I've refined that skill for years. Speaking of which, I really should go out and buy New Year's presents...
In all seriousness, though, 2009's been a bit empty for me as far as purchases go. A lot of this is budgeting. I went to Chicago in December and decided to swell my wish list with books, like a plague of locusts. Literary locusts. Because that metaphor totally makes sense. It's starting to change, though.
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I can already tell, for instance, that Bat for Lashes' new album Two Suns is going to be on there. I liked Fur and Gold well enough, but didn't love it. Some of this is undoubtedly my not giving it enough attention, but nevertheless, a lot of the songs seem to have blended together in my memory. Not all of them, though. "Trophy" is still a wonderfully sinister, pulsing vengeance song. All its energy comes from danger. I just wish more of them were like that.
So I was a bit surprised to find out that Two Suns is, in fact, more like that. Everything's so much bolder and brighter, which makes sense considering that Natasha Khan described the 'character' on the album, Pearl, as "a destructive, self-absorbed, blonde, femme fatale of a persona who acts as a direct foil to Khan’s more mystical, desert-born spiritual self." (And, for the record, I love this kind of thing. It worked for American Doll Posse - a Pip song, say, isn't half as hard-hitting if you don't know it's Pip - and I see no reason why it won't work here.)
"Sleep Alone" may as well be "Trophy," but bigger. Before the end of the first chorus, all the elements present themselves: the beat, the maracas, the same basic key. If you listen closely, you can almost hear the bass part of that song as a phantom. But already there's more - distant backing vocals and piano flourishes making it a bit spooky. Then it opens up into more of a traditional dance song, but sweeping where others can be cold and mysterious where others can be discrete. It's lyrical dissonance, of course; the song's about loneliness, but it soars, instead of sinking. It's for mountaintops, not empty rooms.
In that respect, it's got a lot in common - and I never thought I'd make this comparison - with Kristy Thirsk's new songs. You've got the soprano vocals, if a bit less pronounced, and the gauziness of it all - especially at the end, where the song dissolves into a wisp. I happen to love Kristy's music, and I love "Sleep Alone" too. It's ridiculously haunting and I've been murmuring it all day. I wouldn't be surprised if I'm still murmuring it come December.
(EDIT: Apparently this is the second track, just like "Trophy" was. Probably just a coincidence, but a nice one.)
Listen here.
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Nina Ramsby's music also looks promising. She's not as much of a newcomer than Khan is. With her old group, Salt, she had a song on the Mission: Impossible soundtrack, for instance, and she's been involved in several other projects along the way. But the songs on her Myspace, from what I can tell, are new.
There's "I Can't Fucking Believe," which is decent musically but rather similar lyrically to Massive Attack / Sinead O'Connor's "A Prayer for England." (The other two parts of the Trinity replace the Holy Spirit.) (And yes, a song called "I Can't Fucking Believe" is invoking God and Jesus.) I like that song, though, so anything that's similar won't raise too many objections on my part.
If I had to choose, though, I prefer "I Keep Reminding Myself." Half the vocal lines processed into machinery, and the other half are plaintive. It's stark, plodding, and in its own way, lovely.
Listen to it here.
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