Metal machine magic

Distortion
The Magnetic Fields
(Nonesuch, 2008)

The Magnetic Fields' 69 Love Songs is my third favorite album of all time. Judging from how often it comes up in conversation without any provocation, it's apparently about that high on the lists of about two-fifths of everybody I have ever met in my life. It seems to be the only album of which the cliché "That album changed my life!" may be exactly appropriate in a collective sense. I mean, really, it's kind of remarkable and scary how quickly this album made people do long-form, sustained artistic things in homage. (I'm the bald one.)

It also solidified Stephin Merritt as the most conceptual songwriter in indie rock history. Excepting his work as Future Bible Heroes, everything Merritt's done since and including The Charm of the Highway Strip has maintained some sort of constant, artistic backdrop, almost like it was on a dare. Sometimes that can feel like a cop-out, I suppose, in a time when such pretensions are easier to ferret out, when we expect our artists to maintain spontaneity, and a mistrust of larger themes or devices is implied. But I think the approach is just a tool, a groundwork where Merritt really can do anything he wants.

The last proper Mag Fields album (there's been plenty more from Merritt, who wears his side projects like some generals wear medals) was called i, lowercase, and its shortcomings sprung from its strictly intellectual concept. Every song title started with the letter "i," and I believe each song appeared in alphabetic running order. While you couldn't fault the effort of his composing, the introduction of a logical argument for a backdrop took a little away from the songs. Whether it's the case or not, it felt like Merritt was on deadline for some of i. The purely academic approach made it feel arranged, whereas everything else he's done never obscured his service of song.

Distortion goes back to a musical conceit, unless you want to argue that it's a mechanical one, in which case you'd be partly right. It's the most conceptualized use of feedback and squall since Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music, and at first – at first – it threatens to capsize Merritt's strengths in a thicket of screams and ragged filters, and the echo of one hundred glazed-tile bathrooms. The drums on Distortion are so dependent on reverb, it sounds like the snare drum was struck sometime last week and is just now making it to the speaker.

Yes, it sounds just like Psychocandy, as many others have already noted. But the contrast reminds me, a little bit, of Marshall Crenshaw's Field Day album. After making a very tight, song-oriented debut album that was dry in comparison, Crenshaw overfed the guitars and echo on Field Day with the help of Steve Lillywhite. The logic was that huge echo would sell the songs better at the time (1983), when groups like Big Country and U2 were practically giving the echo chamber its own dressing room. The knock on Field Day was that it obscured Crenshaw's songwriting. And at first it did. But I kept coming back to it periodically, and the songs sank in; Crenshaw's talents eventually overtook the acoustics and all was forgiven.

Same thing almost happens with Distortion, but it doesn't because such care is taken with the presence of distortion as a supporting actor. Every song blends the distortion differently. Sometimes it just blankets the listener so much they're bound to walk funny later. Other times, it weaves itself in to the middle of the mix, vibrating and flexing. It sometimes gets to the listener before the song does, but more often the distortion on Distortion is a post-modern Greek chorus.

And Merritt is having fun again. Sometimes the distortion is just flat-out funny, like in the ballad "Mr. Mistletoe," where the gentleness of the beautiful piano ballad Merritt is singing is shot over with a lumbering, steel-grinding mass of shrieking guitars. (I think they're guitars.) It's disorienting and calls attention to itself… but I just came back for thirds to find out what's behind it. I'm guessing there's a theme in that somewhere.

Distortion is also the Magnetic Fields' heaviest guitar album. Granted, it sounds like the guitar is being played by someone wearing an oven mitt. It's as clunky and ham-fisted as you can get. But it does exactly what is intended of it. It forces both comfort and agonizing into the listener, fighting to get through to hear about songs by people who are fighting to get through something themselves.

Then it becomes obvious: The distortion provides the external, amorphous cloud under which the characters on the songs muse about their reduced souls. Merritt's characters are either exhausted or resigned. Even in the instrumental opener, "Three-Way," which sounds like a contemplative surf instrumental, and where Mag Fields chant the track title the same way the Champs exclaimed "Tequila!" It's hilarious: A rather complicated sexual activity being honored in rock music's simplest form with unrestrained juvenile enthusiasm. They could be chanting "Tilt-A-Whirl!" or "New Coke Zero!"

The distortion either amplifies the complaints ("California Girls," as in "I hate..."), or worms its way into reflective moments ("Old Fools," "I'll Dream Alone"). And that's where you understand the point of it. Merritt, as dependent on lyrical cleverness as much as anybody, is trying to imbue rock's most chaotic sound with a lyrical sensibility. The feedback overwhelms the songs, but once you buy into their dwelling, it stops sounding indulgent and starts sounding collaborative. It loses its externality, which any device in a Merritt vehicle must do if it's going to work.

"A Nun's Litany" is about all the things a nun can't do, like being a Playboy bunny and a porn starlet (she'd "get to spend every day in bed"). It's very nice to hear Shirley Simms on a Mag Fields joint again (she was almost absent on i), and especially on "Drive On Driver," she's opened up her upper range to get through clearly over the distortion. She's trying to escape ("Take me to the airport/I need to be extremely far away"). Her escape route, like everything else on Distortion, is complicated by the existence of giant machines with uneven teeth. But they're only on the side of the road.

A lot of Mag Fields fans are going to describe Distortion in the simplest of terms: It harkens back to the band's earliest work, with the echoes providing distance and a partition of sound. (It's too thin and shrill to call it a "wall".) True that, but it also reflects the depth Merritt's taken on with his compositions. With 69 Love Songs being so immediate, and i being transparent almost to the point of immaterialism, I guess it's not a surprise that Merritt would make things a little tougher to discern on Distortion, just to keep the listener's game on.

Unlike their past work, Distortion isn't immediate and doesn't sink in on first listen. But I was enchanted enough to come back for a third time. Which must count for something. Especially since at this writing it's been out less than 24 hours.

Where all the sleepwalkers go

Coles Corner
Richard Hawley
(Mute, 2005)

You've heard "Sleep Walk," even if you don't know the title. It was an instrumental originally recorded, according to Wikipedia, in 1959 by Santo & Johnny. If you've been around 20 years and spent the minimum required amount of time in front of a TV or in a movie, you've come across "Sleep Walk." At some point it's been played for you. It's one of those songs that tend to show up when the listener needs to hear them.

It's unquestionably a rock song, but in the same way we call Roy Orbison's "In Dreams" ("the candy-colored clown they call the sandman") a rock song. Thematically it's almost like Percy Faith's grotesquely un-rock theme from "A Summer Place" – slow 6/8 time, droning melody comprised of very long, sustained tones with a lot of personal discretion as to where to change the notes. You can amble into them, or gently slide them ahead. Not landing on the exact beat is sort of the point of the song. It drifts, caught between wake and slumber, as the title suggests. If you play it strictly by notation your audience will feel something out of whack. Sort of the difference between a good masseuse and a harsh chiropractor.

You could turn it into Muzak if you have the right equipment, but "Sleep Walk" is a rock song because it evokes a feeling you only get if you've been out all night rocking extremely hard. It's the lazing hangover of the dawn. After you've spent all night with the A-type programming of pent-up agitation, release and declaration, "Sleep Walk" quietly drifts in and reminds you – in ways that aren't falsely comforting, but gently promising – that a good nap is really quite nice when you can get it in.

Coles Corner by Richard Hawley is "Sleep Walk" times 11. Most of its songs are either about being away or going somewhere; all of them are about the elusive promise of rest and comfort. And like "Sleep Walk" it conjures the dawn, one you can replicate in any part of the world.

For example, I personally envision Coles Corner taking place in a car – probably a Buick -- on the long stretch of Interstate 5 between Central California and the Grapevine, at approximately 4:45 in the morning. The sun is barely making its influence felt on the eastern horizon. If you're driving on this stretch of road at this time of the morning you're not just going down the road a piece. You're going somewhere at least four hours away from where you started. There are lots of truck stops on this part of I-5. You're either leaving something with no real sense of terminus, or driving with intent to land somewhere semi-permanently and never travel again, unless you win a cruise vacation and don't want to see the tickets go to waste.

Coles Corner is also not really a rock album, although the twang from "Sleep Walk" shows up periodically. Most of its songs are like mists that the narrator nevertheless hopes to cling to. There are hints of the dusty sophistication of Jimmy Webb, especially "By the Time I Get to Phoenix," and glimpses from Orbison's canon minus the teenage frustration angle. There are sad strings behind Hawley, or sometimes just the strangulated plucks from a country guitar. He doesn't stretch his voice too much, either – he occupies a timbre almost exactly between haunted lament and hushed reassurance.

This is unexpected territory for the guitarist of Pulp, one of England's most lyrically scathing and devotedly journalistic bands. Where Jarvis Cocker sneered and unwound himself in sarcastic sympathy in present-day situations, Hawley's album searches, with some measure of exhaustion, for someplace where the circus can't touch him. But Hawley's narrators may have to settle for melancholy searching. The title track contains this incredible parallel chorus:

I'm going downtown where there's music
I'm going where voices fill the air
Maybe there's someone waiting for me
With a smile and a flower in her hair
I'm going downtown where there's people
The loneliness hangs in the air
But no one there real waiting for me
No smile, no flower, nowhere

The point of the dream is the dream itself, the tools your subconscious uses to evoke your dream, because the reality of what you're dreaming about isn't really existent – or at least it's disappointing.

And that's how a lot of Coles Corner feels. Like the couple in the "Hotel Room" – a-ha, they're in the middle of leaving or going somewhere -- the man half of which holds onto the woman who's with him because, for some reason, he doesn't think they're complete lovers. Probably because he can't bring himself to land himself: he can't control the notion that he hasn't in fact found what he's looking for, even with some beautiful girl next to him. ("Now I've gone and lost it again/But I've got you here with me friend.")

At some point he gives up, or accepts something, in "(Wading Through) The Waters of My Time": "Don't look for me in lands of gold/I won't be there, I won't get old." But in the closing minutes of the dream, "Who's Gonna Shoe Your Pretty Little Feet," he gives himself a specific responsibility, maybe the only one he can handle: "Papa's gonna shoe your pretty little feet/And mama's gonna glove your pretty little hands/And I'm gonna kiss your ruby red lips." Can't be all things to all people.

Like "Sleep Walk," Coles Corner is affixed with the tube reverb that was made for the AM radios in those big classic cars of the late 50s – drenching, moaning, up front to compensate for what we now consider the limitations of the technology. Even if it takes place in Sheffield, England (Coles Corner is a real spot around there), Hawley captures the promise and dread of the open road, where you may never escape what you're leaving, or find what you want. But you've got the dream down, which is more than most road maps can give you. Dreams fold up much easier.

Take advantage of an old man, willya?

Wincing the Night Away
The Shins
(SubPop, 2007)

I should be thrilled. If it was 1987 and this was happening, I would be thrilled. The Shins' new album is gonna debut big this week. Possibly Top 10*, though I think Top 20 is more likely. There's nothing at all wrong with that. It's a good record. Several people 15 to 25 years my junior are going to take this into their lives, breathe it into their lungs, and start repeating its lyrics to themselves and their friends as if they were written upon dry-erase boards, engraven in gold.

That's how it should be. If this were 1987 I'd be beside myself that records like Wincing the Night Away would be muscling Mr. Mister and Bruce Hornsby down a peg on the charts. It's everything we fought for when we sported lapel buttons of Elvis Costello against a neon-pink background. America's rock music tastes are finally becoming as diverse as we imagined England's was.

And the Shins are excellent practitioners of their craft. They subreference a lot of great pop music. Most of it, natch, British in design. Hey, look, there's Ray Davies. Somewhere a kid is listening to this album and taking it into their lives, breathing it into their lungs. Better the Shins than Nickelback.

The Shins are in a new book called People You Hate or something like that. Each chapter is a transcribed fake monologue of stereotypes you're not supposed to stand. The Shins are in a chapter called "Indie Rock Snob Guy" or something along those lines. The dude is rambling about how much he used to like the Shins, when they were still an indie band. But he doesn't like their latest stuff. It's just not there anymore.

That book will help absolutely nobody, of course. Misanthropy isn't an answer to anything, and it's not very indie either. Look it up. It's a surefire date-killer.

There's an interesting point to be had, though. I'm just not worked up over the Shins. I'm happy for them, they mark a great advance in our nation's overall aesthetic pallette. I can appreciate them from a componential standpoint. I like so many things about them.

But take right now, for instance. I'm listening to them, writing this at the same time. I haven't felt the need to take notes on whatever's passing through my lobes at the moment. No representatives from the Shins are shooting strung arrows into my ears and forcing me to hang onto their every word. My concentration is not being arranged around this album.

Is this what it's like to get old? Am I just latching onto my generation? Am I getting to the point where a piece of music has to crack me over the skull and do something really obvious for me to consider it powerful?

I'm not Indie Snob, because I don't remember ever feeling strongly about the Shins. Indie or otherwise. But I wonder if their gently applied, subtle touches represent my passing from a young generation to an old one. If it's even conceivable that I could ever claim an artist 15, 20 years younger than myself might have a shot at being my hero.

Then I remember that I felt this very noncommittal way about several bands during my most impressionable years. Oh, say, Microdisney, for example. Or the Cure. (Although I just discovered I love Three Imaginary Boys.) And for awhile, Husker Du, before I really listened to 'em.

And I wonder if it's age. When you get really old people have to help you take your shits. The only board game you can stand is checkers. You worry about death, and dead things. When you look at a shriveled up plant you start to ruminate uncomfortably about your own mortality. In the midst of all this angst is a desire that your remaining years will be as simple as possible. You like things to be self-explanatory, more straightforward. You don't want complications, because there's not much time to sort everything out. Whatever decisions you can stop making, all the better. That's why Denny's has a senior's menu and people make plaid pants to wear on the golf course so you're more visible.

Have the days of joyful engorging on each strand of subtlety and complexity in music just, you know, ended? Am I only going to really be able to write about what I've known all my life?

I think my gums are swelling. And I like my table placement just so.

Oh, hell, this'll pass. Especially now that I've gotten it off my chest. Maybe nobody else is totally grooving to the Shins either. Maybe they sense the same lack of fire I do. Perhaps I've just begun adjusting to being part of a generation music isn't written for anymore. They used to. I was grateful they did. I had my time. It went pretty well. I never owned a Cutting Crew album or Michael Jackson's Thriller, so I think I turned out okay.

So, if you like good music, subtly presented, quirky enough to distinguish itself but not so trapped by liberty to sound overdone, you might like Wincing the Night Away by the Shins. It's a fine record. It will help you think about everything or nothing at all. Maybe one of its lyrics will be the answer you've been waiting for the last couple years. Perhaps this lyric will shove and align your process of self-inquiry in exactly the way you've needed to sort out that sticky romantic situation, or it will center the aerial view of your own existence. If it does, it could do so very pleasantly. Then one day you might run into me at a coffee shop or whatever and we'll start talking about something fairly acute and personal, and we'll be struggling for citations to illustrate our respective points, and you'll go, "You know what? It's just like the Shins once said..." and then you'll recite one of their lyrics to restate your truism succinctly. And I will nod and appreciate it and go, "Yeah, that's a very good way to put it." And we'll be very happy to have been enriched by the Shins.

I just can't see myself feeling strongly either way about this record, and I fear their might not be any current bands in the indie realm that will...

Oh, wait. The Fiery Furnaces. They fucking rule. Dude they like totally kick the Shins' ass.

Kindly disregard this entry.

---

(P.S. Amusing side note: After writing this piece, I discovered that at some point during the final few paragraphs the Shins album had ended. My playing device went straight into the next album on its queue, The Enemy Chorus by the Earlies, and played the first four songs from that album. I did not notice the change. -- P)

*(After this was written, Wincing the Night Away debuted at Number Two on the Billboard charts. It should also be noted that January 2007 was the slowest month for Top 10 album sales in something like 15 years.)