Deep Voices #32
Filled with smiles
Deep Voices #32 on Apple Music
A real mixed bag this week. I love a few of the transitions between songs. The total drop off of Laddio Bolocko’s drum attack into the (literal) vibes of Dylan Group. An On Bast’s totally excellent sci-fi techno vibe leads in perfectly to the total mania of Galen Tipton. Is that a clarinet? I’ve always liked finding connections between songs. Playing music out of the order it was meant to be heard always makes you hear it differently. That was the impetus behind my brief college DJ career. For a while, I had a weekly gig at the bar inside an arty movie theater, Visions, just north of Dupont Circle in DC, now long gone. I was terrible at mixing. But I had a cool, weird collection of records and I loved playing different styles together and people liked hearing that variety. I got ambitious and decided to start a more fun club night in the backroom of a local venue, the Black Cat, with my friend Dave (the now widely renowned DJ and producer Dave Nada). Dave is an incredible DJ and I was absolutely his warm up. But even in the easy slot, and even knowing the limits of my skills, I’d misjudged other people’s ability to hear in songs what I heard. I remember distinctly playing a Bohannon track, which I thought was the height of funkiness, and seeing everyone on the dance floor start to faux square dance, as though the music could only be heard through the lens of antiquation. I stopped DJing pretty soon after. Too stressful. Playlists are a better medium for me.
Playlist notes:
My friend Alex, after I sent him Fred Martin Jr. and the Exciters’ “Love Don’t Leave Me Now,” this week’s opening track, said he didn’t know I like music like this. And while I wouldn’t say soul is my bread and butter, the fact is I love a bummer jam whatever the genre. I love the way the song opens, with a quick drumroll to announce its arrival and the peppy introduction of the backing band before they settle into a light sway for Fred to pine over. The drummer is deeply in the pocket and lovesick Fred has his head in the clouds. He’s a deeply emotional singer, and not a bad one either, though the attraction here is definitely his devotion. That kind of thing can scare people off, though. I can imagine him sending a copy of this 45 to whoever he wrote the song for, begging her to come back. Maybe she says the gesture is a beautiful one but she’s moved on. She’ll find someone more stable, but never as passionate.
One thing I sometimes have some trouble with is art that’s too on the nose. Naming your album of experimental music Contemplative Figuration is so on the nose you’d probably need a doctor to remove it. Moving past that, I’ve come to really enjoy Broshuda’s music, all of which is expansive if fidgety, a more anxious neighbor of ambient music. Perhaps it's the motor vehicle reference in the more obscurely named track “Airlite DMV” that makes me think that song sounds so much like surfing through the dial. The static on the track never focuses, moving up and down with spikes of cohesion as though passing through channels. Contemplative, yes, configured no. If I’m being honest, that’s kind of how I like it anyway.
Itchy Bugger is great. The music gives me the same vibe as when I first heard Wavves 12 or 13 years ago. That project became something else altogether, but it began as a solo project of one dejected but passionate dude. A song like “Vermin” sounds recorded on a boombox, the bass played by someone who learned last week. The amateur cut and paste aesthetic can be extremely powerful if you’re good at writing songs. But if you’re good at writing songs, eventually someone will want to give you money for those songs and you get a proper recording and a backing band and lose the stress that made you want to write songs to let loose in the first place. And even if not, time just makes it’s hard to maintain the naïveté that gave the project its magic in the first place. But for that brief period, it’s pretty special.
The one man project of an Australian guy named Josh, Itchy Bugger doesn’t feel quite as bummed at Wavves. In fact, the tone of most of the tracks on the excellent LP Double Bugger are straight up delightful. The album shares Wavves’ smash and grab approach to recording, specifically the fuzzy vocals and brittle drums. But Itchy Bugger is filled with sunshine. It sounds like he wrote the guitar licks by translating an improvised whistling he was doing while taking a walk on a nice day. There are bits of piano, spoken vocals that sound like a phone call from a friend. A really lovely album. The lyrics for “Have You Seen John?” could actually be kind of disturbing if you look at it one way. Where the hell is John? “Isn’t it funny how life just carries on? One day you’re here the next you’re gone?” But it’s hard to imagine John went anywhere bad. Probably hanging at the beach. Josh, go take a look.
Another Deep Voices, another excellent track from the L.I.E.S catalog. This one comes courtesy of Delroy Edwards. I’m actually late to his 2018 album, Aftershock, which is a tactile journey through house and techno. It’s a raw album, which can sometimes be a synonym for a dour one, but here being stripped down feels like a signifier of intimacy. “Swingin in the Bitch” starts off with a little drum shuffle that sounds like marimbas exploding. The hi-hats and bass drum come in eventually as you’d expect, but they guide you, not bonk you on the head. A song filled with smiles.