Sonic Youth- The Diamond Sea

The Diamond Sea (Washing Machine, Side B)
Sonic Youth
DGC Records 1995
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Which is more surprising- that Sonic Youth released a lead single that evoked descriptors like “stunning” and “beautiful,” or that they did so in the form of a twenty-minute symphony of scarcity? Yes, this is the same Sonic Youth that comfortably reside at the precipice of post-punk grunge music, who have made a career out of accentuating the abrasiveness of supremely talented instrumentalists and, for lack of another word, love to beat the hell out of their famous Jazzmaster guitars.

Unbeknownst to anyone else, hidden underneath layers of angst, sex-drive, and pulsating rhythms, was a desire to bring out the intimacy in their music, and it culminated in the most contemplative and expansive song the band ever recorded. That isn’t to say that it’s quiet, but it is much more methodical and pensive than the majority of its previous work. The trademark screeching of frantic guitars still makes appearances, but that isn’t the point. Rather, the piece is a powerful sound experiment that takes the focus away from traditional song structures and towards the murkiness of the band’s characteristic and idiosyncratic guitar sounds.

“Time takes its crazy toll,” Thurston Moore sings to begin the spectacle that caps off the positively-viewed Washing Machine. He is right, of course, after reflecting upon a period that saw him and Kim Gordon, also a singer and guitarist in the band, get married and have their first child. In contrast to Gordon’s voice, which at its most crass is almost unintelligible, the song showcases Moore’s delivery as crystal clear and ethereal in its two short appearances. Alternating between words of warning (“You reflected into his looking glass soul/ Now the mirror is your only friend”) and offering advice (“Sail into the heart of the lonely storm/ And tell her that you’ll love her eternally”), the delicate lyrics are both surprising and comforting.

What sets the song apart is its dedication to continuity in its textures. From the onset, the wah-wah sounds of delay effects signal a commitment to the group’s ethos- noise creation, atypical guitar tunings, and the organized chaos of extensive reverberation and feedback loops. The trio of guitars (Gordon, Moore, and the irreplaceable Lee Ranaldo) wander around the unusually subdued percussion of drummer Steve Shelley; at times droning and swirling without a sense of direction, and at others strutting and interweaving in a more traditional sense.

To the unfamiliar listener, the notion of intimacy and acute focus carry an enormous asterisk- the song embodies intimacy in a Sonic Youth sense. After all, this is the same group that was influenced heavily by ferocious noise bands of the 1980s like The Jesus and Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine. In other words, the song still contains the grunge-laden hardcore themes of past successes and influences, only with a fragility unseen to this point in their careers.

By the time Moore’s voice returns for a brief intermission after seven and a half minutes of jamming, we are reminded that the listening experience did not happen in a vacuum- time actually has passed us by, and the imagery (“look into his eyes and you shall see/ why everything is quiet and nothing’s free”) is as vast and daunting as the allusions to the sea. This idea materializes in sonic form through reverb-drenched noise that fills the remaining twelve minutes. It ebbs and flows, fades in and out, and casts an aural shadow that begins at a lull and  eventually swirls into the suffocating but deeply intriguing feedback that fans have grown accustomed to. It’s fascinating, terrifying, maddening, and exactly why Sonic Youth is one of the most ingenuitive bands of its era.

“The Diamond Sea” is a winding tour through the ideas that have sparked the now-split band’s enviable triumphs. Moore’s lyrics are surrounded by a brief pop melody that brings back early memories of Daydream Nation. Ranaldo finds himself at his consistent best playing with and off of Gordon. The unfurling and volatile noise that closes the track is what listeners knew they always wanted. The song is less a fork in the road than it is a line in the sand. This is who they are. The courage to paint that picture in a bold, new way is deeply satisfying.

Tycho- Epoch

Epoch
Tycho
Ghostly International 2016

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David Longstreth, front man of established indie-rockers Dirty Projectors, raised a question last week that elicited fractious responses from fellow musicians and critics alike. He wondered, thinking in retrospect of the musically fertile, cutting-edge 1990s, whether music must necessarily contain the ambition to blaze new trails- to do something that hasn’t been done before- to be considered great. While drastic, his question is quite relevant and should be given its due consideration. In fact, it tackles a quandary that many musicians face, particularly after achieving moderate success. To continue honing in on this area of skill and comfort, or push the envelope to conquer a different niche or technique? The answers are typically far from straightforward.

While its new album came months before this discussion was brought to the forefront, Tycho- Scott Hansen’s musical project turned full band- offers a passionate response. Epoch, the third record of a trilogy that follows 2012’s Dive and 2014’s Awake, strikes a delicate balance between diversified sounds and the familiarity of atmospheric electronics that have accompanied Hansen’s past offerings. In terms of its greatness, it takes no background knowledge of the group to realize that originality isn’t the intended focus of its work, nor the benchmark for its quality, as Longstreth might require. Rather, Tycho is about feeling. It’s a projection of Hansen’s feelings, but it, more importantly, evokes feeling from the listener. Epoch’s dreamy melodies, punchy guitar and smooth bass surround eleven mystical tracks; mirroring themes of its predecessors, all while exhibiting unquestionable refinement.

Consistent throughout Tycho’s various ideations has been its accessibility to listeners- perhaps its best quality. Regardless of whether it’s called chill wave, electronic rock, or ambient (Hansen couldn’t care less), what makes it stand out is an endearing focus on simplicity, and this holds truer for the new record than of any before it. Add to it the shapeshifting of songs in and out of frenetically-paced percussion and languid soundscapes, and you get a fitting culmination of three successive attempts to get “it” right-. “It” is the intentionally ambiguous creation that manages to illuminate both the spectacular and mundane. Unique to the overall sound of this record is a noticeable advancement of the “band” identity, something that expectedly took time to develop from Tycho’s solo-bedroom-project roots. Live guitar player and co-producer Zac Brown excels with his sparse, tasteful, psychedelic picking, and dynamic rhythms pair gracefully with the group’s layered sounds. The growing awareness breeds expectedly sunny and more complicated melodies by Hansen, as well as sporadic changes of pace between and within tracks.  

Opening song “Glider” encompasses the collection of sameness and variation that fills the entire record. Interweaving synthesizer patterns and single-note riffs swirl as momentum builds, and the song explodes into swelling bliss. A-side standouts “Horizon” and “Epoch” showcase similar displays of brilliance; a mastery of repetition urges the listener to become lost, either in the song or outside of it in the surroundings. With careful listening, Hansen’s personal narrative that accompanies the album (hint: the word epoch literally is a reference to a specific point or period in time) is evident. He doesn’t look backwards simply for the nostalgia, and the music he makes certainly serves as a reflection. The end goal is to consider the past- through memories, or mistakes or something similar- and present it in a new way.

 On the B-side, tracks like “Division” and “Rings” allude to elements as far as the decade-old Past is Prologue, but thankfully don’t sound dated. As is typical of almost any Tycho output, the melodies are bright and uplifting, calm but decisive, organized and full of life. “Fields,” the final song on the record, fulfills the role that “Elegy” and “Plains” did on the two albums before it; quiet and delicate, the rare appearances of guitar are heavily drenched in reverb, proceeding slowly and careful into the calmed consciousness of the listener.

Curiously lacking from the album, upon completion, is a clear meaning to the spacey, rewarding completion of another beautiful Tycho record. There’s no obvious take home message, and it’s intentional. While, to Hansen, the album represents an opportunity to convey ideas from a time from the past in a new, refreshing light, that experience is highly individual. His goal, which is either admirably bold or highly questionable, is to not clutter his songwriting and production process with a cohesive meaning for the listener to gather. In other words, it’s intended to mean whatever you want it to.  The dangers of such a strategy are obvious- make music without a firm meaning, and it lacks substance to the point where listeners can’t relate. The upside, which Hansen certainly taps into, is a widely accessible, overly personal listening experience, and one that is consistently rewarding.

When David Longstreth furrowed his proverbial eyebrows on Instagram as he thought about what characteristics of music amount to lasting quality, it was Robin Pecknold of Fleet Foxes who leapt to the defense of the many bands and artists that felt unfairly criticized for making unoriginal records. With such a controversial comment, the musical community can almost thank Longstreth for providing an opportunity to consider what it is that music contains or evokes that holds the most value to us, the consumer of ideas and sounds. For Tycho, it’s an unwavering attempt to unlock feelings and emotions. The warm instrumentals that fill the most recent Epoch belong equally in the car while sitting in traffic or peering outwardly high from the mountain tops. In truth, its style is both simplistic and sophisticated, the ultimate compliment for an artist whose intense focus welcomes the scarcity of only the essentials above all else.

Jeff Parker- The New Breed

The New Breed
Jeff Parker
International Anthem Recording Co. 2016

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After listening to Jeff Parker’s solo LP, The New Breed, there seems to be an immediate conflict. The sound of this record (we’ll try to figure out what exactly it is in a moment) seems either strangely forward thinking or at minimum comfortably present. On the other hand, the photo that graces the album’s cover couldn’t be more dated, fading and frayed down the middle. Digging deeper, this strange duopoly means a whole lot more than meets the eye. On one hand you have Parker, a guitar aficionado, and melting pot of musical influences that flat-out rejects easy classification. On the other, you have what turns out to be a photo of Parker’s father from years ago, standing outside his clothing store named, you guessed it, The New Breed. As it turns out, we’re shown something very important when it comes to understanding Parker the musician. His album is exactly what this juxtaposition says it is- a display of new and old, his roots and his future, and a combination of pieces that don’t sound like they’d fit but somehow coalesce into the jazz-guitar record you never knew you’d love.

Obviously, these varied parts didn’t just show up on an album released during the third decade of Parker’s professional career. Having played in a myriad of groups and bands over the years, most notably Tortoise, Isotope 217, and the Chicago Underground Duo, he would be nothing without the collaborations and connections he’s established, and each one offers something unique to Parker’s personal style, as evidence by this particularly diverse project. In fairness, they would be nothing without him, either. Parker can stake claim as one of the most important figures in the blossoming Chicago jazz and avant-garde movement of the late 90s, cemented by the enormous step forward on Parker’s first Tortoise record, the stellar TNT released in 1998. Parker helped usher in sweeping jazz themes and daring experimentation that followed the band for the rest of their career. To dwell in past achievements would be an unforgiveable mistake, however, and The New Breed shines a light on the brilliance of Parker’s creativity when given the reigns to a solo album.

To begin, let’s start with what this record is not. It isn’t the brass-centric, briskly-paced traditional jazz that your (and his) parents listened to. Nor is it simply a twenty-first century Tortoise record, eschewing the trademark electronic-twinged post-rock for something far, far, more mellow. His obsession with percussion remains; the overbearing drum kits come second in prominence only to Parker’s perfectly-tuned guitar. Overall, it’s completely unassuming, but certainly far from daring. Somehow, he manages to turn the tempo down and his pedals and effects up, all while maintaining his reputation for groovy jamming in a slightly more confined space. In other words, a crawling bassline, scattered snare drums, and an electric guitar at the forefront. Just what you expected to carry the torch for modern jazz-fusion, right? Thankfully, Parker himself can summarize much more simply. “I’m mainly a guitar player. I like to make music in many different ways. I think music opens doors.” Yeah, what he said.

The opener, “Executive Life”, brings those words to fruition and shows that he means business, handing the keys to Josh Johnson (Esperanza Spalding, Herbie Hancock) by way of cloudy saxophone timbres. As the song progresses behind moody keys, Parker’s guitar reverberates in the background, making way for improvisation. This technique- pairing jazz instruments with delay effects and allowing the percussion section to keep things organized- bears semblance to experimental icon Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew, a revolutionary output from 1970. Later on, “Here Comes Ezra,” and “Visions” prove to be far more delicate (spare one saxophone outburst on the former), an ethereal texture meandering for the better part of seven minutes before seguing into the album’s highlight.

“Jrifted,” finds Parker in his truest, best jam session. An Aretha Franklin sample interrupts throughout, and shimmering cymbals shutter behind delightfully contained improvisation. Bassist Paul Bryan soon emerges from the subtleties of the background, creating precious moments intertwining with Johnson brass. The haze of the record has never seemed foggier, providing the perfect entrance for Parker’s newfound Los Angeles R&B vibes. His ambient guitar wobbles and settles into a welcomed soundscape of subdued bliss; a feeling that continues onto the fuzzy, synth-laden track that follows.

Avoiding predictability, Parker throws two curveballs to finish the record. First comes the album’s quickest hitter, “Get Dressed,” which reintroduces the R&B influences, only this time in tandem with a frenetic rhythm section. Head-nodding and foot-tapping soon give way to the warmth and smoothness of the only voice that appears throughout: Parker’s daughter, Ruby. “He told me the end was coming/ I responded that’s a cliché,” she coos twice, each utterance sandwiched between the most organized jazz the album has to offer. She was right, and before long, the beat stops, Parker takes his foot off the pedal, and the coolness of the last thirty-some-odd minutes is left to ruminate.

In the end, it isn’t the presence of a saxophone or a particular guitar tuning that preserves the “jazz” element in whatever hyphenated term is used to describe Jeff Parker’s playing style, and more specifically, the album. It defies classification and combines the most seemingly incongruent pieces, whether they be instruments or musicians from throughout his career solicited to play on the record. It’s the sense of collaboration, of improbable confluence that lies at the core of what makes jazz so rewarding. It’s what makes people happy, and most importantly, encapsulates what makes this record sound unmistakably pure.