Mobilis in Mobili

What if Suicide never died?

The answer brings us to Dirty Beaches.

Dirty Beaches is one of the more derivative bands I’ve heard in a really long time, but I don’t mean it in a pejorative way at all, because Dirty Beaches has brought derivation to the level of sublime genius.

In 1977 Martin Rev & Alan Vega recorded one of the rawest, slinkiest, punkest, most purely vicious albums of all time. The band and the record was called Suicide. With werewolf howls and husky whispers over a keyboard and a drum machine they proved you didn’t need guitars or glam to produce a wholly realized punk vision. The album dropped like a fully formed creature from the black leather lagoon and tore up the New York pavement.

After that record- they released some more, but it was never quite the same. Until now.

Alex Zhang Hungtai has recorded the follow up to Suicide’s self-titled debut and it’s brilliant. The twisted sonic additions, the neo-noir approach to 50s melodies, the coiffed hair, the puff of smoke, the dangling of a cigarette. Hungtai obviously loves rockabilly more than anyone since Lux Interior and it’s smeared all over this record like grease on a biker’s blue jeans. It’s low-fi, fuzzy, with it’s feet in the gutter and it’s head in the clouds of smoke from a gunning Harley.

This should be the soundtrack to a full length biker movie directed by Kenneth Anger.

Badlands Rising.

Dirty Beaches – Horses

I like unusual records. This album would serve well as the unofficial soundtrack to Ray Bradbury’s ‘Something Wicked This Way Comes’ – it’s really live recorded simply carnival music from the calliope. Even though the music is upbeat there’s something sparse and almost horrifying about it.

These are live recordings of the calliope, a mechanical almost clockwork instrument consisting of a series of steam whistles and played with a keyboard, in similar fashion to an organ. The music brings me into a weird zone, like just being on the edge of a fever dream that’s about to go wrong. This was recorded by Smithsonian Folkways live in 1961 at various carnivals around the US. The full album is available from their website.

“Proud men‥Call me the ‘Calliope’.‥ I am the Gutter Dream, Tune-maker, born of steam.‥ I am the Kallyope.” – V. Lindsay

Downtown Strutters Ball – Music of the Calliope

When you have someone with the creativity of Merrill Garbus her first two albums hit you like a one-two punch. While Bird-brains was originally indepedent – raw, recorded as simply as possible, but still with incredible song-structure and vocal performances, w h o k i l l sounds a bit more like someone who’s been practicing the sweet science.

As opposed to tiny apartment based recording in Montreal, Garbus has the full force of her label 4AD behind her with New, Improved Studios at her disposal. Having a proper studio gives her the proper technology to really explore her vocal range – from the soft innocent beginning of “Powa” to the full-throated Caribbean howl at the moon she’s capable of producing.

We still have the loops, experimental sounds, ukulele, and original song structures that made the first album such a success. This isn’t a commercial album, but rather an artist who really has the full range of gear to best express herself. The lyrics range from personal to political, with a bit less whimsy than her first outing. Some of this may be due to the influence of her new bassist and bandmate Nate Brenner, who co-wrote a few of the songs.

Strange, wonderful, and endlessly listenable, I’m sure this album will only propel Tune-yards on to greater success.

Tune-yards – Powa

I’m starting today – my 365 days project.

Every day starting today for 1 year I’ll be reviewing one album.

It could be new, it could be old, it could be weird, but always wonderful.