MMMELOMANIAAA goes with a trio of new releases and deep into "midnights."
Swifties, you might like KOLB too.
KOLB - Tyrannical Vibes [LP/CD](Ramp Local)
Kolb throws back to the danceable Indie Rock glory days of 2008 and the irresistible naive melodic music of Arthur Russell. Michael Kolb has a brilliant knack for making dense Pop emerge from a handful of instruments and well-chosen voices. “I Guess That I’m Lucky” beautifully follows its chord changes to evolve around vocalist Carolyn Hietter before a sax solo turns it all back around for the big ending. Kolb’s Pop is at times absurdly simple (the sunny Talking Heads-ish “I Love To Play The Game,”) but he knows how to make it both tough (The Vampire Weekend-ish “Jean-Luc”) and funky (without trying to be - like the Prince-ian creation “Ectoplasm” where Kolb shows how he only needs eight tracks and a guitar solo to you moving.) “Tyrannical Vibes” is a lot of fun. Hietter and Ani Ivry-Block (of Palberta) become their own Human League on the swooping-but-pulsating “The Answer.” Here’s hoping he gets signed and refuses to change his homemade formula.
WEEED - Green Roses, Vol. 1 [LP](Half Shell/Light In The Attic)
Portland, OR’s Weeed collective is another of the bands returning the spacey side of music to Freak Folk. While they have been recording since 2008, this lockdown-oriented set from Summer 2021 is a fascinating minimalist launching pad. “Green Roses” is very spontaneous and acoustic. The opening cut “Harmonium” is not just tuning but a mood setter. Listening to the group buzz to life is not just awakening but a means to find the right headspace to engage and listen just as they were while recording. “Into The Light” keeps it simple. The acoustic figure is a natural loop while the drums steadily push this boat up the river. Little by little, the rest of Weeed joins. A Weeed song is a bit like a prism; turn it a degree or two and refract different light wavelengths. These songs could be Drone (the aforementioned “Into The Light,”) American Primitive (the microtonal exploration on “What Was Lost”), and Folk (the meditative “Song For The Homies.”) Weeed requires patience. Songs are designed to breathe. They use their space very well and the vocals tend to guide the tracks along the best (“Bridge” could benefit from the Vedder-esque singing.) “Green Roses” works because Weeed actually put you in their space. Eagerly awaiting Vol. 2.
CATE KENNAN - The Arbitrary Dimension of Dreams [LP/CD](Post Present Medium)
With her battery of New Age/Electronic-staple synthesizers and her guitar, Cate Kennan constructs several different angles of minimal music. “Sundial” is melodic and optimistic (with a few clouds that drift in from her choice of the right synth chord to color it,) “Blood Moon” is 180 degrees away with haunting Laurie Spiegel-to-Suzanne Ciani-like synth oscillations that find the right frequencies to play your emotion. While “Chimera” sounds the most like Space Music from the Eighties, Kennan maintains a sense of melody that makes her hope for your sweet dreams sound sincere.
Not to be viewed as a complete review, here are elements gathered from first impressions and brief ruminations on a release that dropped as Melomania was coalescing. For example, lyrics will be dropped in as they occur - because they immediately stood out. However, yet again immediacy is sometimes not the best indicator of lasting power.
TAYLOR SWIFT - midnights [LP/CD/CS](Republic)
The COVID-era Taylor Swift was a misty almost bucolic Folk-based Pop. “midnights” purports that behind the scenes Swift was living a life far closer to Jessie Ware and Roisin Murphy. Minus a lot of the ongoing themes that Swift has been working (and re-working,) “midnights” is notably spartan and tense booming with Hip-Hop beats and SynthPop ideas.
“Lavender Haze” kicks it off in style with a skittering beat and strong highs in her first chorus. Still, it is more dexterous vocally than usual. “Maroon” is possibly closer to a modern hit for Swift as she changes her “flow” (still sounding like a more engaged Lana Del Rey) as she rips into yet another disappointing beau. Not completely sure about the chorus and “how it’s a real fucking legacy.” However, Swift does unleash power similar to the reinvigorated “Taylor’s Version” versions from Red.
What is also different about “midnights” is the almost lo-fi haze that Swift is now content to put on her vocals. As a result, her highs are warmer and do not pierce as much. However, they can overexpose how accentuated her most seemingly clever lyrics are. The Billie Eilish-meets-Depeche Mode Synth rumble of “Anti-Hero” wheels out a lot of internal rhyme in its verses including this: “did you hear my covert narcissism disguised as altruism,” which sadly damages the impact of a solid, very original verse where she turns her coo of “sexy baby” into a surgically precise metaphor of feeling like Frankenstein. “Anti-Hero” marks the first step forward of “midnights” Swift - ripping at her own heart from the perspective of others.
The aforementioned Lana is along on the wistful “Snow On The Beach” that again presents Swift in conflict with her older self (the repetition of “snow on the beach” is a weak chorus) while creating a “Lover”-style image of love redefined yet again. More time will hopefully make this one - to quote Taylor - “weird, but fucking beautiful.” “You’re On Your Own Kid” is another throwback to the Swift of old as she turns details from her life into a “love story.” Ten albums later, Swift does have a magical way of building up tension as she regales us in the spinning wheel of details (“from sprinkler splashes to fireplace ashes/I gave my blood, sweat, and tears for this/I hosted parties and starved my body/Like I’d be saved by a perfect kiss.”) which always comes to a stop when that other voice drops in to remind her “you’re on your own kid.”
Swift really alters the experience with the voice change that opens “Midnight Rain” but quickly returns to the internal rhyme of “Anti-Hero” and the painterly details of “You’re On Your Own Kid.” Content and mood-wise, “Midnight Rain” feels a lot like the ten-minute version of “All Too Well,” but you can tell it may be the track that gave her the central sonic footprint/vocal character for the entire album. “Question…?” actually serves this realm better as the story evolves in scenes and Swift delivers it all without breaking the mystery of whether she is the subject and/or the narrator. The verses ride a familiar wave (see also: the above three) but “Can I ask you a question?” is such a great break in that wave. Swift then gives a very vivid picture “Did you ever have someone kiss you in a crowded room?/And every single one of your friends was making fun of you/but fifteen seconds later they were clapping too.” Now, she expands on this theme with all the alternate routes that only hindsight exposes, each time turning the screws on either herself/someone else. For this one crystalline moment, Swift takes full control and almost needs no music behind her to get the point across. Now, of course, this brilliant part is repeated with music - and loses its impact a few degrees, and “Question…?” reveals itself to be another jilted lover song. One great brief shining moment to accompany the promise of “Anti-Hero.”
By the midpoint, part of this still feels gimmicky. Like Swift is capitalizing on the mystery of a new album without a single preliminary note being heard beforehand. (to quote “Lavender Haze”: “talking, talking, go viral/I just need this love spiral/get it off your chest/get it off my desk”) However, even with high expectations, “midnights” is not calculated like “Reputation” and manages to replicate the “personal” feeling that she is leveling with her audience as she does on the still underrated “Lover.”
Swift changes tone for “Vigilante Shit” with a stealth revenge plot on a stark electronic beat with a hint of bass synth. It marks a real departure for Swift to string this plot together, but the real slash to the jugular is the hook: “I don’t dress for women/I don’t for men/Lately, I’ve been dressin’ for revenge.” “Bejeweled” may be the closest to a “calculated” song on “midnights.” It is written a lot like a Beyonce song with boldness and a self-empowering reveal in its chorus (kudos on the slight pause.) Lyrically, this is the first set that really slips out of the reality she is creating. “Baby boy, I think I have been too good of a girl” is a good juxtaposition. However, when she jams the words together for its payoff (“did all the extra credit and got graded on a curve”) it loses luster.
“Labyrinth” has its moments but its shimmering haze quickly descends into predictability (“Uh oh, I’m falling in love/Oh no, I’m falling in love again”) and sinks her low register into almost being inaudible. Thankfully, the end pumps Swift’s voice into machines and lets her compete with them. “Karma” is a welcome throwback to “1989” style Pop with hints of “Reputation.” Swift sells one hell of a chorus here that makes “karma” an immovable force in her life (check out the way she teases first with “Karma is a cat/purring in my life ‘cause it loves me” and then lowers the boom on the next line “Flexing like a god damn acrobat” hitting every syllable with a hammer.) The chorus here is an excellent example of avoiding repetition and Swift skillfully writing to the sound of her words.
“Sweet Nothing” is a sonic departure with its 70’s style electric piano and her twinkling part cast against its chords. Like “Lover,” this one is truly intimate. After she rattles off more details about her complex life, it finds its best moment in the de-escalation of “outside they’re pushing shoving/you’re in the kitchen humming/all that you ever wanted from me was nothing.” Swift is clearly highly inspired by this moment of clarity to then rebuild with the very Joni Mitchell-esque “industry disruptors and soul deconstructors and smooth-talking hucksters out-gladhanding each other.” A peak moment in a song that largely can be viewed as a late-album treat - hopefully, this is another deep cut for fans to burn during the late hours.
Finally, we wind “midnights” up with a breathy (effect-less) Swift coming through it all to “assess the equation of you” on “Mastermind.” Over its twilight sequencer loop and synths, Swift goes all out to prove that she is controlling her own destiny despite anything any of us write. “Cryptic and Machiavellian” is a stretch though, but we won’t ruin its “Compton”-style victory lap.
The best facet of “midnights” upon the first couple of listens has to be Swift’s voice. Without the pristine Pop production or the languid Folk background, Swift has power in her purring low register and how she reaches for her highs. In addition, with her writing voice being so prevalent in every song - she has also learned to sing in “character” very well preventing such a simple backdrop from making all of her songs sound too similar. Where they do sound the same is often in her delivery, but at least she is trying out different vocal patterns - this creates more growth as an artist. Content-wise, it is still too early to tell. Most of Swift’s songs are already very personal. The best ones cross that gap and actually belong to the audience. We respect that connection above everything in any music. Still, a “love song” seems to be all Swift. Fortunately, the audience is truly in love with those tracks.
Now, for the bad news. As huge fans of the production of Jack Antonoff, first listen quickly reveals that “midnights” should have been tougher in places and used the great synth sounds to either smooth them out or ratchet up the tension. Without his trademark ability to continue to add and subtract ideas/sounds/instruments/voices from the production, several of Swift’s best moments simply do not peak as they could. Working with a Hip-Hop producer perhaps (Jahaan Sweet’s contributions here seem to have some edge) could have turned “Midnight Rain” into an event and “Bejeweled” and “Lavender Haze” into the club bangers Swift has never had.
“midnights” is definitely everything fans have been dreaming about as it provides so much about Swift’s life, it is easy to see this one needing to be fawned over for a few weeks at least. In the grand scheme of her career, “midnights” is as personal as “Lover” and may even correct the mistakes of “Reputation.” Its biggest take-home prize is that Taylor Swift is strong and at her best when writing to weather the problems of her own life - a lesson we could all benefit from.
Well, another week, another list of several different styles and pursuits in music for you. Enjoy. Listen again. Share as you wish.
NEW RELEASES lovingly compiled for you from this very week!
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