Dear Soundman,

Hi. We've talked a couple of times. You seem like a pretty alright guy, so I'll try and make this gentle. The job you do isn't bad, per se. It could just use some improvement.

Let's use tonight as an example. You did sound for A Place To Bury Strangers and Holy Fuck. Both sets were pretty good. The latter set was actually mixed really well. For some reason, though, APTBS was bass-heavy to a point where it was absurd. I had the compulsion to sit you down and have you listen to Loveless all the way through, so that you understand that an atmosphere can be created by instruments outside the rhythm section. It's really unfortunate when the guitarist has to actually go and adjust both the volume of his amp and the direction it faces in relation to the audience so that his playing can actually be heard.

This isn't the first time I've been to a show where this has happened, though it's pretty clearly the tipping point. I'd really wanted to hear the sheer sonic force I knew Oliver Ackermann could wreak upon an audience, especially since I'd kind of talked up that point in the concert preview I'd done for the student newspaper. Instead, somehow, a band notorious for destroying their own equipment through sheer volume managed to have a guitar sound almost neutered. It was way, way below the spot it needed to be in the mix. Don't get me wrong, the bass playing was pretty awesome and the drumming was brilliantly intense, but when I know a band is as capable of unbelievable guitar noise as A Place To Bury Strangers are, I kind of want to hear that noise, hey?

Certainly, they didn't put on a bad show. They were absolutely blistering in places, menacing, atmospheric, inspiring. The leaden spell they cast over the audience drew down jaws and knocked heads forwards with the rhythm. "Ocean," closing out the set, blew primal beats through squalls of noise into something ethereal and fantastic. What I'm trying to say, though, is that half of those squalls were missing until the last thirty seconds of the set.

And you're not the only one. I mentioned that earlier, and I'm mentioning it again. God, I've heard some poorly-mixed shows. Trimming the guitar out of a band with such a solid guitar foundation is a pretty major infraction, but I've been party to worse. I've heard vocals mixed so low the singer might as well have been doing something productive like knitting or workshopping lyrics, five-piece bands drowned out by washy cymbals, awfully-equalized bass farting all over an otherwise good set and much, much more. I've heard the gamut from way too tinny and piercing to way too muddy and thick and every limp-dick mid-range tone in between. All you did was forget a guitar; some soundmen commit war crimes the second they do a line check.

So, if you're reading this and you're mad, don't worry. The set came across just fine. The parts you did well, you did really well! Poor instrument balance is just a pet peeve of mine. Consider it a project. It's one that I'd really love to see some progress on.

Yours,
JC

Do You Like Rock Music?, by British Sea Power

When does style become genre? At what point can somebody such as myself, who chooses to write about music, stop saying “such-and-such band plays music that sounds like . . .” and start instead saying “such-and-such band plays music of [x] genre”?

In a perfect world this question wouldn’t matter. Hell, even in our imperfect world it doesn’t really matter a jot. But over the last few days, as I’ve been listening to Do You Like Rock Music? by British Sea Power, it’s a question that’s been on my mind a little. (Incidentally, the reason why I’ve only had the option of listening to the album over the last few days, and not over the last month like my British colleague tommydski, is something which I could go on a long rant about, taking in swipes at the music industry and tales of rigid personal morality along the way, but in the interests of a brevity which I’ve promised to many people I’ll forego the opportunity for such a tangent here, tempting though it is).

Of course, one assumes that if British Sea Power had their way there would be no genres, only “Rock” and “Not Rock”. Which is probably a pretty good approach, but it doesn’t really help me talk about the sonic transition the band has made with this, their third album. Their previous two albums were undoubtedly rock music. So’s this one. What’s the difference?

So, genres then. I guess that in order to qualify as a full-blown genre, a particular style of music has to have a few conventions. Sweeping guitar lines. Yearning vocals. Strong, indomitable beats. Sudden dramatic moments where the guitars drop out for a few bars. Equally dramatic moments where the guitars return, stronger and heavier and more insistent than ever before. Songs that steadily build to an exhilarating climax. A pace that rarely lets up across the course of the entire album.

Do You Like Rock Music? has all of these in abundance. Put them all together and you have something that, for argument’s sake, we’ll call “Anthemic Rock”. Anthemic Rock’s been around for a long time. Like any genre it has bands that cover the full spectrum, from “good” to “bad”, depending on where your personal taste lies: U2 play Anthemic Rock. So does the Arcade Fire. So, now, do British Sea Power.

Music is a pretty manipulative art-form at the best of times, but even so, Anthemic Rock is a particularly manipulative musical genre. The whole point of Anthemic Rock is to tug at the guts of the listener: to instil in him or her a peculiar sense of yearning for something that can’t quite be defined. It’s a stirring feeling, but also a slightly queasy one if you stop to think about it too much (as is my wont). But perhaps the most disturbing aspect of Anthemic Rock is the fact that, when you actually stop and listen to it, the lyrics are so often working at cross-purposes to the music: while the music of Anthemic Rock is, by definition, designed to be played loud, through speakers, and heard by large groups of people at the same time to create some kind of communal experience, the lyrics are often, in fact, about cutting off the listener from the rest of the world. Anthemic Rock typically comes with a kind of bunker mentality, which becomes all the more peculiar when experienced as part of a group: just look at any bunch of people shouting along to Rage Against the Machine’s exhortation of “Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me”, or closing their eyes and keening as Win Butler sings about tunnelling away from your parents and from the rest of the world out the front of the Arcade Fire. Such lyrics are as much a part of Anthemic Rock as the soaring guitars or strident rhythms.

So perhaps it’s telling that, for the first time in their career, British Sea Power have furnished an album with liner notes that reproduce the lyrics of that album’s songs. Because if they’re now playing Anthemic Rock, they’re subverting the genre in a quite marvellous and wonderful way. It’s obvious right from the start: the very first words on the album are “We’re all in it”. What exactly it is that we’re “all in” is open to speculation, but it’s notable that there’s no oppositional force presented here: British Sea Power aren’t railing against anything, and they’re not invited the listeners too, either – except, perhaps, their own complacency: “We’re all in it” the band chants, “and we close our eyes”.

Elsewhere the band takes time to explicitly invite outsiders to the party: “Welcome in” Yan sings on “Waving Flags”, urging Eastern European immigrants to come into Britain, “cross the Carpathians”. If the rest of the lyrics of the song don’t exactly make the band’s homeland sound like paradise on earth, at least they don’t make it sound like an exclusive club reserved for the native-born, either.

But I’d hate to give anyone the impression that Do You Like Rock Music? is just a mindless love-in. British Sea Power have always been as intellectually curious as they are emotionally generous. Still, even when the topic of evil is broached on the album, it’s never presented as black-and-white. I can’t imagine many bands today daring to write a song as ambiguous about Nazism as “No Lucifer”, which manages to separate the ideology from the humans who embraced it (or whom it embraced), and then goes on to hint at both the idealism and the downright horror of the Second World War in only a few short lines.

For the majority of the album the band’s lyrics are a good deal more cryptic than that, though, and as with all of British Sea Power’s work they’re best listened to with an encyclopaedia within easy reach. But even this is a kind of generosity: I seriously doubt that British Sea Power expect all their listeners to understand or appreciate every single reference in their songs, but all the same the mere presence of all those references suggests that maybe we should understand them. A British Sea Power album leaves the listener wanting to read up about the world as albums by few other bands do, save perhaps the Mountain Goats. I think that can only be a good thing.

This lyrical approach has been a constant throughout British Sea Power’s career. The difference between the band “then” and the band “now” lies in the music. Before they started making “Anthemic Rock”, British Sea Power were making music that while it had a similar emotional pull, felt like a much more personal affair. Even the most exciting songs on The Decline of British Sea Power or Open Season feel intensely private when you listen to them, as if their power would somehow be diminished if anyone else was in the room. But that’s not the case on Do You Like Rock Music? This is an album that demands to be turned up loud, that practically pushes the windows and doors open of its own accord so that all your neighbours can share it with you.

At the end of the day it all comes back to the album’s title. It sounds horribly jokey and gimmicky until you actually listen to the album. After that, it seems like the only title that could possibly fit. If you like rock music you’re going to love Atom, track nine here (reproduced from last year’s Krankenhaus? E.P.), which is the best rock song you’re likely to hear in a long time. If you like rock music you’re going to love the whole album. How much you get out of it is going to depend heavily on how much you’re willing to put into it, but Do You Like Rock Music? is the sound of a band reaching out. It seems only fair to meet them half-way. It could even make the world a slightly better place.

I’m Being Good with Infinite Chug

Johnny C has written briefly about Electrelane and I’m positive that at some point in the future Harry is going to gush about the new record from British Sea Power so I think it’s only right I post some words about my own favourite band from Brighton, UK. Although I haven’t lived there for going on six years, I still feel like my own musical awakening occurred when I was employed by an independent music rag on the south-east coast of England. Many of the bands I saw during these years have gone on to nationwide acclaim but some are yet to receive the attention they so richly deserve. Case in point, some incarnation of I’m Being Good has existed since 1991. Originally just comprised of guitarist and mastermind Andrew Clare with a drum machine, a rotating cast of characters has passed through the ranks over the years, taking in hundreds of shows, three incredible albums and umpteen appearances on various compilations. As well as I’m Being Good, Clare also runs the micro-label Infinite Chug and records experimental music under the name Pine Forest, as well as providing bright and imaginative artwork for all of the above.

There’s been a lot of press lately about certain British groups releasing free music online, seemingly oblivious to the fact that several other groups have been doing the same for years. Infinite Chug has half of their back catalogue available for download on their homepage. There are some excellent records available there and if you enjoy them at all, it would be appropriate to make a donation via PayPal. All of the albums hosted have full artwork to print and a high bit-rate. Personally, I think this might well be the way bands and labels will find themselves operating in the near future. Inviting donations rather than forcing people to buy from expensive online or high-street retailers looks to be an attractive alternative considering the prevalence of file-sharing. Since it is now well established that all but a handful of bands make their money from touring and merchandise sales, cutting out the middle-men (high-street megastores, major record labels) seems like a sensible solution. Rather than look at the internet as the death of commercial music, artists need to evolve their business model to accommodate the online market. One only needs to look at the popularity of free web-comics such as Achewood, Penny Arcade and indeed Questionable Content to see that there is still a viable solution for those prepared to put in the groundwork and establish a following. We should applaud Infinite Chug for having the foresight to be ahead of the curve in this area. Music is after all a labour of love, not an industry.

Available for download on the Infinite Chug site is the second album by I’m Being Good, entitled Sub Plot. The fact that this classic album is available for free is both admirable and borderline criminal. I am struggling to think of a British rock album I have enjoyed more in the past decade. For argument’s sake, let’s just go ahead and assume there isn’t one. If anyone actually went to the trouble of investigating Polvo or US Maple, Sub Plot will be a strikingly familiar and welcome addition to any playlist. Sounding more like a by-product of Kentucky or Illinois than Brighton, I’m Being Good storm through six of the creepiest, most atmospheric rock’n’roll songs these fair isles have ever produced. The laconically-paced ‘Angels on our Shoulders’ could be a long-lost outtake from Slint’s Spiderland with an emphasis on low grooves, piercing needlework riffs and some appropriately ominous vocals from Clare. “We heard a Nordic death-threat”, croons Clare from amidst the gloom. ‘Kill Him with War Savings’ is a furious blast of white heat, immediately doused by the abjectly menacing ‘Joust’. A steady pulse builds into a throbbing, bulging mess of snare fuzz, alternate tunings and frantically bipolar yelling. The olde world narrative is ultimately fixated by an unshakeable sense of hubris which seems to enrapture and dominate the whole album. The following ‘He Has Unborn Eyes on Long Tinsel Stalks’ moves from desperation to hysteria across eight unbearably tense minutes, via an unlikely Joe Jackson pastiche. ‘Silent Spring’ could well be the most paranoia inducing song ever cut to tape. After five minutes one could be forgiven for believing that not only does Clare know where you live, he’s literally going to be arriving at your door with a length of rope, a modified car battery and a vicious looking tenon saw. The epic closer ‘Solar System of Blood’ is basement-level dub punctuated by swelling tides of distortion and a clattering percussive assault for a chaser.

The eventual sequel to Sub Plot entitled Family Snaps is available for purchase on the Johnson Family website. You can also hear some of the demos I’m Being Good made in between these two records on the catch-all Spares and Repairs series available on the Infinite Chug site. If you are even remotely interested in ambient or avant garde music, you could do a lot worse than taking advantage of the other free downloads available there. If you’ve ever found yourself wondering what astonishingly minimalist free jazz would sound like played by a standard rock trio (and who hasn’t?!) then look into Small Things’ Pregnant Longer than Humans. Spoiler – It sounds pretty much like Sun City Girls but as any sane person will tell you there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. Andrew Clare has also recorded some beautiful music with a host of collaborators under the name Pine Forest. Some highlights from the Infinite Chug website include Rendered Oysterless, a sublime guitar duet set to boiling water and rainfall. In fairness it only sounds ridiculous until you actually hear it, whereupon it is literally impossible not to feel moved by the gentle splendour of the piece. Equally inspiring is Faceless Nativity, a brooding and hypnotic composition performed solely on xylophone and grand piano. Andrew Clare’s Crap Hologram is a mind-melting barrage of clashing instrumentation, which occasionally sounds like a guitar hitting every single note simultaneously over several minutes. You can also print full size CD trays to accompany these downloads so you can give the complete article away to loved ones. That’s everyone’s birthday presents sorted for the foreseeable future then.

Tommy Dski

Too Much Music

The other day I bought . . . And All the Pieces Matter, a compilation of music from all five seasons of the H.B.O. drama series the Wire. I’m a fanatic about the Wire. I’ll take any opportunity to recommend it to anybody I meet – even if it’s not situationally appropriate, as is the case here. It’s probably the best drama series that’s ever been on television, anywhere.

Among many other fascinating aspects of the show, one that stands out is its use of music. With rare and very strictly delineated exceptions, the Wire eschews the use of a “soundtrack”, per se. Rather, almost all of the music in the show – and there’s a lot of it – is “source” music: a character sits drinking in a bar, and the music that’s blaring out from the bar’s sound-system is the music that soundtracks the scene; another character pulls up outside in a car, and he or she is listening to the radio – a snippet of music, heard over a tinny car stereo, and that’s it. It’s all very carefully and very cleverly done.

And it serves to remind us of just how important and ubiquitous music is in our lives. I don’t just mean in the lives of music nerds such as myself or the other contributors to this blog, I mean in the lives of everyone: I think in my entire life I’ve met only one person who claimed to have no real interest in music. Even she probably turned the radio on when she was bored.

The radio’s the thing, of course. Before the advent of sound recording, music was something you had to go out of your way to listen to: you had to go to the concert hall, or to a dance. It wasn’t something that was just there, at least not in the way it is for us now. Things changed a little when the mass-produced upright piano became the television of its day, and families would gather around it of an evening and sings songs to each other – but even that required a level of effort and dedication that’s above and beyond the simple flicking of a switch we have these days. Music-on-demand is a relatively new phenomenon.

A couple of years ago I read a short piece in the Observer newspaper (online, that is) by Bill Drummond, formerly of the K.L.F. In the article, Drummond was talking about his idea for “No Music Day”. On one day of the year, the 21^st of November – the day before St. Cecilia’s Day, said saint being apparently the patron saint of music – Drummond would listen to no music at all. (The article, if you want to read it, is here: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/omm/story/0,,1892833,00.html). When I read the article, I didn’t really understand what he was on about. Why cut yourself off from music for one day? What was the point? Why such a radical act from someone who obviously has a deep and abiding love for music? It seemed utterly nonsensical to me.

I understood when I bought an iPod. I’d never had much interest in one before, in part because I’m a steadfast believer in listening to the world around you (especially if you want to avoid being run over by a bus), and in part because as far as taking music with me went, I had a portable C.D. player and a couple of small pouches in which I could, at a stretch, house around fifty or sixty C.D.s. This set-up had served me well for almost ten years, and I saw no compelling reason to change it.

The reason came when I went overseas to visit family in the U.K. at the end of 2006. Australia is a long way from anywhere, so leaving the country necessitates a lot of travelling time. Although aeroplanes have more and more entertainment options these days, sometimes you just want to listen to that obscure jazz album from the fifties, or that new release you bought just last week, or whatever else you might use to identify your own personal music collection. Knowing this, I packed my carry-on bag with everything I thought I needed, and right at the top was my portable C.D. player and fifty or sixty C.D.s in two pouches.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been on a long-haul international flight. Space is not a commodity that is in great abundance. A few cubic centimetres of baggage under the seat in front of you can be the difference between being able to stretch your legs beyond ninety degrees at the knee, and intolerable leg cramping for ten hours or more. It quickly became apparent to me that the C.D.-player-plus-fifty-or-sixty-C.D.s was no longer a viable arrangement. So half-way to the U.K., in the duty-free zone, I bought myself a thirty gigabyte iPod.

M.P.3 players are wonderful devices. You can store the equivalent of much more than fifty or sixty C.D.s in a little box that will sit comfortably in your pocket. I instantly became pretty smitten with my iPod, and I could see straight away why they were such popular devices (even if I can’t fathom why there isn’t any “stop” button). And, of course, apart from the practical reason for getting one, I wanted one because everyone else had one.

It’s amazing how quickly M.P.3 players in general, and iPods in particular, have become near-ubiquitous. I remember only a few years ago hearing stories of people being mugged for their iPods, of the tell-tale white earphones marking you out as a target if you were walking down the street. Nowadays nobody bats an eyelid at those thin white threads worming their way from hip pocket to ear: nowadays if somebody doesn’t have an ear or two plugged in, it’s almost more surprising.

So now I know what Drummond was on about – what he’s still on about: No Music Day (http://www.nomusicday.com/home.html) seems to be picking up more and more interest. We live in a world now where, more and more, people can soundtrack their own lives. It’s got to the stage where a lack of music is indeed a radical idea: I read a review last year of Panda Bear’s fabulous album Person Pitch, a quintessential “earphone” album, which concluded with the reviewer having the epiphany that, rather than follow up listening to the album on his iPod with listening to more music, it would be better to take the earphones out and listen to the larger world instead, to let the music settle in the mind. At this point the tone of the review becomes strange: as if the writer is sharing some kind of religious secret with his readers. How has an absence of music become such an unusual idea?

I confused the hell out of a salesman at Dick Smith Electronics a while ago when, in idle conversation while buying some piece of something-or-other, I confided that my iPod almost never leaves my bedroom. I don’t actually go on that many long-haul flights, so practically the only time I use my iPod is to listen to music quietly late at night, when putting a C.D. through the loud-speakers might run the risk of waking my housemates. And yet for all my self-righteousness, for all my iPod abstinence, I’m not immune from the music glut: I’m twenty-eight years old and earning more money now than I ever have in my life before, and I don’t have a car and I don’t drink much and I eat at home most nights, so I manage to have a pretty good disposable income. Mostly I dispose it on C.D.s. In the last month I’ve bought ten C.D.s. That’s not even above average.

Yet of those ten C.D.s, I’ve only listened to one of them more than twice. Most of them I haven’t even listened to more than once. I’ve already got hundreds of other C.D.s vying for my time – but I don’t listen to those much, either. I’m obsessed with getting new music – newly released or new to me – the people at my local record store know me by name and some time ago spontaneously started giving me a discount on purchases, I’m constantly looking for the rush that comes from listening to music the first time around. Music is a constant in my life.

But I’m uneasy about it. I worry that I’m not fully appreciating the music that I buy. I worry that I’m buying music just for the buying’s sake, just because I can. I feel sometimes that all the music on all the C.D.s on my shelves is as much a burden as it is a blessing. This is not the music’s fault: with a very few exceptions, the music is wonderful. But what value am I getting out of something that I only listen to once before forgetting about it for months on end? Is that what the artist had in mind for his or her endeavour?

Of course, even with my rapacious spending habits, there’s no way I’m ever going to even scratch the surface of all the music that’s out there. I’m frequently envious of musicians – no art form in the world connects so directly and so effortlessly with people as music – but it must be incredibly daunting, too, being a musician these days, when every note you record can be instantly compared to millions and millions of notes, thousands and thousands of musicians, who’ve gone before you. I suppose that’s one way of testing your commitment to your chosen art form: whether the competition inspires you or hinders you.

It’s high summer in Australia at the moment. This is the time of year when every week brings another music festival, when all the big bands are out touring. About a year ago I went to a festival called the Laneway Festival. For one day they cordon off one of the myriad back-alleys in Melbourne’s city centre, clear out the rubbish, put a stage at one end and sell tickets. The festival’s built up a good reputation in the few years it’s been going, and manages to attract a more impressive line-up each time. When I went it was solely on the promise if seeing Camera Obscura, one of my favourite bands currently doing the rounds. They were on early in the day, so the festival peaked pretty early as far as I was concerned. Nonetheless I stuck around, in large part because I’d forked out around one-hundred and thirty dollars for the ticket and that was a bit too much just for the sake of one band. Plus Peter, Bjorn, and John were playing at the tail-end of the day, and I was curious about them because 2006-2007 was the year when everyone was talking about them, so I thought I owed it to my inner indie-kid to stick around and check them out. But by the end of the day, after about ten hours of the festival, I was ready to pack it in. It wasn’t so much the crowdedness of the festival site, it wasn’t so much the lingering odour of recently-removed rubbish bins, it wasn’t so much the blazing sunshine and relative lack of shade, it wasn’t so much the fact that for ten hours almost everybody at the festival had been drinking – what really did me in was the music. Each band in the line-up played for between forty minutes and an hour, and there was about twenty minutes between each band on the main stage. But those twenty minutes weren’t empty: no, in those twenty minutes, while each band was packing up and the next band was setting up, the organisers of the festival relayed music from the D.J. booth over the stage’s speakers. When the band was ready to play, the music was faded out and the stage mics were turned up. For ten hours there was constant music. For ten hours there was no respite, no shelter.

In 2003 I was fortunate enough to visit the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. The art – both the collection and the building itself – was absolutely incredible. But it was also overwhelming. After about four or five hours I found that my brain could no longer take it in. I could no longer remember what I’d just seen. I was artistically exhausted.

It was a similar sensation I felt at the Laneway Festival last year. But in St. Petersburg, I could leave the museum and come back whenever I wanted. When I’d had enough I could go back to the hostel and lie down and shut my eyes. But you can’t shut your ears. At the Laneway, apart from the fact that there were no pass-outs so you either left or stayed, there was no escape from the constant music, the constant noise, because you can’t turn your hearing off. At the Laneway, I felt by the end of the day not so much that I was listening to music, than that I was being assaulted by it. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think a music festival should leave the punter begging for less. At the Laneway Festival, when I went last year, there was too much music.

But that’s the case everywhere you go these days. Everybody has their own taste in music, and nobody enjoys being subjected for too long to somebody else’s taste. The temptation to cocoon yourself in a musical world of your own moulding is very great. But when music becomes a soundtrack to life, when it becomes just a way to fill in the gaps, it’s diminished. I love music. I adore it. I can’t imagine my life without it. In times of sadness it keeps me company, and in times of joy it celebrates with me. But sometimes I need time by myself. I’m not as good at taking that time as I should be. I don’t think anyone is. Even when we’re trying to take time out, chances are we’ve still got a song in our head, or we’re humming to ourself, or tapping out a rhythm on our desk. We program our mobile phones to ring with our favourite tunes. But how much do we actually value music? As I sit at my computer writing this I can see rows and rows of my C.D.s that are yesterday’s favourites: the complete Decca recordings of Count Basie, Lonely People of the World, Unite! by Devin Davis, Forbidden Songs of the Dying West by Jackie Leven . . .etcetera, etcetera. I know I should dig them out and listen to them again. Sometimes I remember to, and it’s been so long since I last listened to them that it’s almost like hearing them for the first time all over again. But all the same, I’m not half as excited about them as I am about grabbing the new Mountain Goats album when it first comes out later this month, or putting on the C.D. I bought just two days ago. And so all these C.D.s take up space on my shelves on a promise, a thought that one day I’m going to take them down and listen to them again. And each new C.D. I buy so eagerly means just a little bit less to me. I love music, but sometimes I wish there was a bit less of it.