matt’s music blog

When I try to think of a way to accurately describe The Incredible Machine, genre wise, I usually fail. The best that I can do is to say that they sound like a mixture of Barenaked Ladies, and They Might Be Giants, with a little Jonathan Coulton thrown in there too. Which is to say, semi silly, sort of geeky lyrics, presented in a very serious fashion. On the other side, very powerful and moving, very lyrically poetic love songs. Also, their command of harmonies, and the interplay between Marrissa’s and Jordan’s voices (The two members) is impressive. I have to say, since I got their album, not a day has gone by that I haven’t listened to it atleast once. And the fact that they are a local band, of which I actually know the members, helps too.

One Time at Choir camp starts off simply with a little piano, and the first verse.

I’m only trying to believe
That you and I weren’t meant to be
I’m much too difficult for you
I couldn’t follow their rules

The tempo kicks up, some acoustic guitar is added, and the piano becomes more bouncy. I’m always reminded of the Freezepop song Science Genius Girl (this isn’t the real music video). I think it’s the chording that sounds similar to me. I dunno. Maybe I’m crazy. Anyway, verse two!

I couldn’t say that I was happy
And you would be the one to know
On these summer nights we’d consecrate our flaws
In hopes our zippers wouldn’t show
Oh, how embarrassing

Oh man. “On these night we’d consecrate our flaws” What a great line. The second part of the verse contains really great  higher, almost haunting, backing vocals from Jordan. Make sure to catch them when they come around.

I want you to dance
I’d like you to sing for me
Regardless of romance
I’ve still got your music to keep me,
company

Verse three continues in a similar manner, the the addition of more backing vocals.

It was the way you looked above me
And it wasn’t just your height
My silly sorrows weren’t enough to tie me down
I’m simply not the type to need
Oh, the comforts of sympathy

I want you to dance
I’d like you to sing for me
Regardless of romance
I’ve still got your music to keep me,
company

Then for the chorus the piano moves into a little pattern that sounds more like it would be at home in a classical composition.  It repeats it’s self twice. The second time around, the addition of “I know too much” in between each line.

pavement, concrete on the street
will never touch her feet
as long as she has you to
lift her tiny shoes from

Then finally we get a cool solid piano and guitar part, accenting the first and third beat, giving you the impulse to tap your foot, or nod your head in time. Also, the “Wah-ah-oh”s  in between each line, are really solid. The song climaxes, and ends in vocalization.

Stop screaming and believe me
that I was right for leaving

It’s over! Okay, so if that wasn’t an amazing song, then I don’t know what is. This is going to be the first of three that I’m going to review. Ideally I would do the whole album. But I think that it might be a bit much. I’d highly encourage you to see them live, if you can get a chance.

-James Out

My next project is going to be an ambitious one, to be sure. But I think it’ll pay off. The Decemberists have known for writing amazingly good songs, all of which usually tell a story of some sort. With the realease of The Craine Wife, we saw them move closer to a concept album. And finally, with the release of The Hazards of Love, they’ve done it. So what is my task, you might ask? I’m going to go through each song, track by track, and try and figure out: 1) How many story lines there actually are, and 2) How they are arranged cronologically, acording to the stories. Ambitious and Daunting, but ultimatly, will pay off. I’m going to try and fit it all into one giant post, but it might need to be broken up. We’ll see. Also, I’ll be focusing mostly on lyrical content, and very little on the actual musical side of things.

I’ve started off by rolling the prelude and second track (hazards of love 1) all into one, through the magic of FL Studio. Since it’s goning to save us a lot of space, I’m just going to link you to the lyrics, and we’ll talk about them in dept.

http://www.metrolyrics.com/the-hazards-of-love-1-lyrics-decemberists.html

So the album starts off with the singer’s true love riding out, and coming upon a a wounded fawn. She, being full of charity, tries to set the fawn’s legs. But then, the taiga starts to change, and so does the fawn. This next verse is the one that is kinda vague and confusing. We find out that the subject of the song is Margeret (a major player in this story), and that she makes love to the fawn (hopefully in a human shape, although, once again, it’s not really clear on this point)

http://www.metrolyrics.com/a-bower-scene-lyrics-decemberists.html

So later, I’m going to guess a good 7 or 8 months, Margeret is being chastized by her sister. And  she’s actually starting to show that she’s preggers. So she returns to the taiga, to find her lover.

http://www.metrolyrics.com/wont-want-for-love-lyrics-decemberists.html

This one is pretty simple. Margeret is setting out to find her love, in the taiga.

http://www.metrolyrics.com/the-hazards-of-love-2-lyrics-decemberists.html

This one is a bit vauge too. But I’m going to go ahead and guess that this is Margeret’s lover (who is still unnamed, and, as mentioned in the first song, used to be a fawn) who’s waiting for her, in the taiga (I’m really milking that word for all it’s worth)

http://www.metrolyrics.com/isnt-it-a-lovely-night-lyrics-decemberists.html

The next song, The Queen’s Approach, is an instruamental, so I’ll roll it into the next one, Isn’t it a Lovely night.

Once again, I think this is about Margeret and her lover. Pretty simple song.

http://www.metrolyrics.com/the-wanting-comes-in-waves-lyrics-decemberists.html

This one is one of my more favorite ones. Once again, there is very little naming, in this story, but I think that it’s a conversation between Margeret’s lover, and his mother (who’s called The Queen). So basically he’s trying to convince her to let him go and see Margeret. And then she’s trying to guilt trip him into not going. Finally she agrees to let him go, if he promises to come back at dawn, and then give his life to her.

http://www.metrolyrics.com/the-rakes-song-lyrics-decemberists.html

The next part is a little musical interlude, and then The Rake’s Song. The Rake’s song is a fairly innocolated song (as far as I can tell) because it has no bearing on the rest of the story line. It’s only mentioned again, in a later song, in a reprise. But We’ll get to that later. It’s about this guy that get’s married to a rich woman. Then when she starts having babies, he becomes dissilutioned with the idea. She dies in child birth, and not wanting to deal with the kids, he kills them off in various fashions.

http://www.metrolyrics.com/the-abduction-of-margaret-lyrics-decemberists.html

For some reason or annother, Margeret gets captured, and her captor has to now cross the river.

http://www.metrolyrics.com/the-queens-rebuke-lyrics-decemberists.html

Now we find that it’s by the Queen’s command that Margeret has been captured. This song is adressed to Margeret’s captor, sung by the Queen. We learn that it was through the Queen’s power that Margeret’s lover is changed into a fawn, durning the day time.

http://www.metrolyrics.com/annan-water-lyrics-decemberists.html

This one is also a bit tricky. It could be about a few things. It, once again, could be totally isolated from the main story line. Or, it could be sung by Margeret’s captor, who, is crossing the sea, with Margeret in tow, on the Queen’s request.

http://www.metrolyrics.com/margaret-in-captivity-lyrics-decemberists.html

This one is a bit more stright forward. It’s sung by Margeret’s captor. Margeret calls out to her love, but it seems to be in vain.

http://www.metrolyrics.com/the-hazards-of-love-3-lyrics-decemberists.html

This is a reprise of The Rake’s Song, sung from the point of veiw of his children.

The Next one, is simply a reprise of The Wanting Comes in Waves

.

http://www.metrolyrics.com/the-hazards-of-love-4-lyrics-decemberists.html

Once again, this one throws me for a loop. Obviously it’s about Margeret, who’s on the ocean, if you remember. But last time that I checked, she was with her captor. Maybe, he’s really in love with her. And that’s why he complied with the Queen’s request? And so, as the ship is going down, he finally confesses is love for her.

PHEW. And there you have it folks. A comprihensive interpertation of the story. Any comments or suggestions are very much welcome.

-James Out

I’m trying something new - rather than pointing out particular songs that I like, I’m going to go through my music library. Hopefully this’ll give me an excuse to post a little more regularly, instead of only when I decide that any particular track is worthy of ‘favorite’ status. Also, this’ll probably result in me reviewing stuff that I don’t actually like - maybe even things that are better off being deleted from my collection.

Myth Takes always plays first by default on my car stereo, by merit of ‘!!!’ (pronounced as making a clicking sound three times in a row, e.g. ‘chk chk chk’) being the first artist name alphabetically. The titular first track is catchy, with percussion that’s precise enough to be attention-grabbing, but there’s enough grittiness that it blends well with the rest of the instrumentation. The low whispery vocals alternating with wide guitar solo lines build anticipation, even though you could argue that the payoff never comes on this track - it’s the next one where you get a climax.

‘All My Heroes Are Weirdos’ is arguably better in the first 20 seconds then in the entire rest of the song - the guitar gets a little too crazy, I think, and it makes it tough to listen to for very long - it’s nothing like the driving intro.

‘Must Be The Moon’ settles into a nice almost disco-y groove as soon as it starts, and holds onto the kick/snare/tambourine pattern throughout the rest of the track - and it’s good stuff. The vocals are interesting too - there’s just enough there to keep things interesting, but they know when to pull back and let the instruments have their turn. The electronic stuff that elbows its way in towards the end of the track is also much appreciated.

‘A New Name’ has some interest growly bass and what might be some bells, as well as occasionally cool  percussive elements, and a neat establishing guitar line, and sort of reminds me of Damon Albarn’s vocal stylings at some points.

I almost feel like ‘Heart Of Hearts’ is sort of a bridge song, I don’t want to say ‘filler’ because that sounds negative, but it just doesn’t work for me out of the context of the album - but within that context, its inclusion was fairly insightful, since it feels like it really ‘fits’ there between the first and second half.

‘Sweet Life’ isn’t all that exciting either, and I guess it kind of continues the ‘bridge’ section.

‘Yadnus’ on the other hand, starts out with a nice ragged synth lead, and one of my favorite percussion patterns - ‘Like It Or Not’ off of Confession On A Dance Floor by Madonna, for instance, sports the same 3/4 rhythm. Something about that sort of swaggering configuration always sounds really good to me. The rest of the song sort of swings around between staccato falsetto and guitar, then back to nice sparse guitar picks, and has a pretty neat finale ending.

‘Bend Over Beethoven’ is like 8 minutes, which is crazy, and it’s pretty standard !!! stuff - it does a good job of exploring all the possibilities that the song’s time affords it. I’ll bet it’d be fun to watch this song performed live.

Not a whole lot happens (apart from some interesting horns and synths) in ‘Break In Case Of Anything’, and I almost wonder if the song’s title is a reference to this track acting as a ‘break’ after the previous one.

‘Infinifold’ is the final track - and it fits in the last slot nicely. The eerie grungy guitar echoing around behind the piano and hushed vocals sound like an ending. Finally, things start to build back up at the end, about three and a half minutes into the song… but it never peaks again, it just fades out. A good way to end things.

 

It’s tough to pick my favorite song, but I’m gonna say that all three of the first tracks (Myth Takes, All My Heroes Are Weirdos, and Must Be The Moon) plus Yadnus are probably tied for first - Must Be The Moon might be slightly ahead, though, so here it is, for your listening pleasure:

Apparently there’s no written lyrics available online for this song, or at least none that I could find - but it’s worth listening to. It’s featured on a compliation tribute album to Super Mario RPG: Legend Of The Seven Stars, one of the best RPGs (one of the best games period) for the SNES. Download it from gamemusic4all.com: http://gamemusic4all.com/heavytroopa.html

Basicly, there’s a bunch of drug references, and it stars a bunch of mario characters. The lyrics are clever, and the chopped up mario rpg bgm in the background is fairly genius. Mario has to save the princess, who is super high, and has of course been kidnapped by bowser, who he beats by having a weed-smoking contest. “That’s the last time I go to a Mario Party, man…”

Anyway, sorry for the lack of info, but I think that in this case, the track speaks for itself. Enjoy - and if you like the album, maybe throw a bit of money their way.

This was one of the best albums to come out in 2008, and it was totally unexpected for me - I wasn’t really (and I’m still not I guess) a big Kanye fan, considering he’s acted like a jerk on several occasions, but this album knows exactly how to get to me - auto-tuned vocals, the 808 drum machine, hop-hop that swings more towards funk/soul and electronic music then rap… so tasty.

It starts out strong - just listen to that gut-rumbling kick, and Kanye’s slightly FX’d vocals:

In the night, I hear ‘em talk, 
the coldest story ever told 
Somewhere far along this road, he lost his soul to a woman so heartless…
How could you be so heartless? 

So the intro is the chorus, and all it takes is a clap and a caliope-sounding staccato chord line to moves us into the verse:

How could you be so, cold as the winter wind when it breeze, yo 
Just remember that you talkin’ to me though 
You need to watch the way you talkin’ to me, yo 
I mean after all the things that we’ve been through 
I mean after all the things we got into 
Hey yo, I know of some things that you ain’t told me 
Hey yo, I did some things but that’s the old me 

I’m not sure why the ’street’ vocabulary doesn’t annoy me - normally a lot of that sort of slang turns me off, but in this context, “afta’ all da tings dat we been do, afta all da tings we got into” sounds… I don’t know, it sounds refined, almost cultured, like the narrator is trying to be reasonable with his girl, which I’m sure is exactly what it’s supposed to sound like. It works. The perky yet minimal hits that hit towards the end of the verse, into the chorus, keep with the ‘less is more’ approach that a lot of the tracks on this album take.

There’s more good lyrical candy in the second verse:

How could you be so Dr. Evil, you bringin’ out a side of me that I dont know… 
I decided we weren’t gon’ speak so 
Why we up 3 A.M. on the phone 
Why does she be so mad at me fo’ 
Homie I dont know, she’s hot and cold 

“How could you be so Doctor Evil?” Good stuff - and the short conversational “Why do she be so made at me fo? Homie I don’t know, she’s hot and cold,” line is so appealing, as far as the rythem and meaning goes.

And then there’s the bridge, where things get super grunged out for a second on the line, “and we jus’ gon’ be enemies.” It’s a nice quick break, before we get back to the chorus. That’s basicly all there is - no additional instrumentation, just some auto-tuned vocalizing.

I think a lot of my attraction to this song comes from its minimalism, and the fact that it’s telling a story. This is established in the first chorus right up front: “In the night, I hear ‘em talk, the coldest story ever told, somewhere far along this road, he lost his soul - to a woman so heartless…” It’s almost like a ghost story. This is good stuff.

This is one of my favorite Enya songs - as an artist, her music can be a little hit-or-miss for me. Sometimes it’s too ethereal for its own good, and loses its appeal in spaced-out vocals and ‘world music’ instrumentation. Caribbean Blue doesn’t have this problem.

The beginning is a great way to introduce a concept - brief orchestral strings, which fade away to trancey plucked arpeggios and nice bass swells. The beuty of the chord progression is made clear, along with the sort of flowing, lilting rythem of the song. The brief ‘ah’ vocal sting at :25 should make it abundantly clear to anyone listening that this is, in fact, an early Enya song. The swirling vocals immediatly afterwards give way to the enchanting lyrics:

So the world goes round and round
With all you ever knew,
They say the sky
High above
Is Caribbean blue.

More orchestral strings follow, along with more vocalizing, keeping things interesting but not varying much from the original music premise of the song. Next verse:

If every man says all he can,
If every man is true,
Do I believe the sky above
Is Caribbean blue?

More vocals, more orchestal strings, a little stronger this time, with more bass, intensifying things a little until the bridge at 1:58, carrying the song swirling onwards with higher notes, until the last verse comes around, this time transposed upwards a bit:

If all you told was turned to gold
If all you dreamed were new,
Imagine sky high above
In Caribbean blue.

By now we’ve heard all the song is going to give us - things roll onwards to the ending at 3:50, which is as brilliant a way to usher the track out as was the intro to usher it in - everything drops off, leaving a lone vocal pad, which briefly hints at a solo, before abruptly fading down to silence.

What’s the song about? To begin with, there are a few observations we can make about the ‘narrator’ - the fact that “they say the sky” is blue, and that its blueness is questioned in the next verse, and finally imagined in the last, suggests that wherever this song takes place, the colour of the sky is not readily ascertainable. Are they underground? Are they in space? Are they in a world that’s perpetually cloudy? When I think of the colour ‘caribbean blue’, I think of the deep endless ocean off the shore of a tropical island - impossibly deep dark blueness, accompnied by a fring of shallow green and sandy yellow. It sort of feels like a yearning for a lush vegetative island paradise - something the world in the song is possibly missing.

The phrase “so the world goes round and round” pretty explicitly refers to the passage of time - after all, that’s how our chronology works, revolutions of planetary bodies. “with all you ever knew” seems like another reference to time, and perhaps a sort of elder wisdom - a world in the future, where all the secrets of the past are contained somewhere on the planet? A planet which has lost its island paradise? The other lines seem to suggest that it’s possible for this paradise to be reclaimed: “If every man says all he can, if all he says is true… If all you told was turned to gold, if all you dreamed was true…” If the shattered world worked together, imagined progress, dealt honestly, and communicated… would the sky high above once again become caribbean blue?

Bowie’s ‘Outside’ album is an entire trip in itself, but a couple of track stand out, mixing the abraisive experimental sound of the project as a whole with an accessible sort of heavy industrial pop. As soon as The Heart’s Filthy Lesson begins, there’s a sort of harsh droning line, maybe an organ, accompnied by some ambient sounds, creating the tensions that’s broken as the instrumentation enters at :24. The sporadic overdriven electric guitar and Bowie’s vocals trade off over a quieter rythem guitar, bass, occasional piano arpeggios, and a consistent drum line.

Things get weird for a moment - “Paddy? Who’s been wearing Miranda’s clothes?” - before featuring a frantic piano break, and surfacing back into the main theme. This is good enough to be a sort of interstitial, but the song continues to progress after a quick break and vocal sigh at 3:21. The bridge sounds the same, but changes things up enough to keep the song interesting, and adds more guitar, building tension until the peak of the song at 3:59: “Oh Paddy… I think I’ve lost my way…”

The rest of the sound is a devolving outro. Through the song, Bowie doesn’t really identify what filthy lesson the heart has to offer:

There’s always the diamond friendly
Sitting in the Laugh Hotel
The heart’s filthy lesson
With her hundred miles to hell

Oh, Ramona, if there was only something between us
If there was only something between us
Other than our clothes

Paddy will you carry me, I think I’ve lost my way
I’m already five years older I’m already in my grave

Will you carry me?
Oh Paddy, I think I’ve lost my way

The line “I’m already five years older, I’m already in my grave” is great, and Bowie’s repeated cryptic remarks during the outro, “Paddy, what a fantastic death abyss! Tell the others.” is full of suggestion as well. Other then those lines and the interstitial ‘quotes’ throughout the song, I think the vocals work better as instruments themselves then as communicating any concrete idea.