#shadow expert

Palm - “Walkie Talkie”

Palm, Shadow Expert (2017) I was beginning to doubt that music this inspired could ever emerge again. But stuff like this reignites the spirit of the early 2000s, or, at least, the spirit of how they’re remembered—does so in terms of creativity, innovation, yes, and most importantly, in its whimsy and brightness of tone. It’s too easy to wallow in post-punk cynicism or, you know, trite social commentary (Butler, Murphy, today’s prime offenders), and it’s all very depressing and sometimes that’s the music you’re after but I think what we need most right now (or perhaps its just me) is a bit of optimism. The technical details (which are no less than stunning, I mean, listen to how tight they are on “Two Toes”—that devilish subdivision goes 1-2-3-4-5/1-2-3-4 to a single beat) elevate this to a perfect EP but it’s all driven by the soul, just hear those colours—oh how we missed music that made you smile.

Death Grips, Jenny Death (2015) Picks up immensely at the parent double album’s namesake track; from then till the end there’s little respite and some of the hardest beats I’ve ever fallen in love with. Sure, from "I Break Mirrors with My Face in the United States" to “Pss Pss” its mostly just fucking around and having a good time, drunken fun, yeah, but the really profound part of the evening’s saved for that latter half. I’m prepared to put forth that the consecutive pair of “Centuries of Damn” and “On GP” represents the pinnacle of what I’ve so far experienced of their total output (all LPs minus Bottomless Pit, and also Steroids). On “Centuries” Ride spits world-tired verse then relinquishes the spotlight to a world-tired melody—a melody?? Not in my Death Grips, no, it can’t be... then we’re in 12/8 (or is it 6/8) for “On GP” and Hill’s really going at it, laying triplet sixteenths on each eighth (so is it actually a hyper-9/16), this is really something now, the feeling you get when riding this is quite indescribable—so all I can say is just please hear it.

Bill Orcutt, s/t (2017) For a while it was difficult to tell whether I kept returning to this because there was something genuinely precious about it or only because of the fetishistic attractive force of an album of grotesquely deformed renditions of popular standards; covers, that is, of carols, anthems, show-tunes, ten all up, except that you’d be hard pressed to recognise the source material if it weren’t for the track titles, e.g. on this record is probably the darkest, angstiest, most expressionistic “When You Wish Upon A Star” that exists, and will ever. But listen long enough and you’ll pass through the phase where you wonder: is this faux-passion?—pass on to understanding that there is heartfelt emotion behind these chromatic skirmishes. At times he is meditative. At others, rapturous. The entire thing exists past the meaning of rubato; timelessness in the Messiaenic sense.

Eric Dolphy, Out to Lunch! (1964) I find “Hat and Beard” to be strangely evocative—the head evokes a certain head, hatted, bearded, yes, and a body, too, strolling queerly down the street, very odd, this, but it’s just so curiously playful in manners familiar somehow to those of the nouvelle vague that you can’t help but meld sonic ideas with cinematic. It reminds also of Zappa, in the angular, asymmetric contour of melody—and in the debts that both owe to Stravinsky. There’s also a particular reason why the chameleon’s trace seems to waft throughout this: Dolphy and co. could so so easily stand in for the ragtag ensemble required of the middle-period masterpiece l’Histoire du soldat—direct matches in: cornet, double bass, clarinet, percussion. 4 out of 7 ain’t bad!

2017 So Far

Shadow Expert - Palm

What initially drew me to Palm was their 2015 album, Trading Basics, and how it reminded me of early Animal Collective. Avey Tare, Panda Bear, The Geologist, and sometimes Deakin forever altered the indie rock landscape. They also influenced a lot of bands, and those bands attempted to be experimental, but they ended up sounding atrocious. Palm succeeds though. Shadow Expert is a collection of art rock songs that blend dissonance and wacky time signatures with sharp songwriting that bends my brain to the moon and back.