todd akin

“From Afar” – Vance Joy

Jams

I’m the weird guy who still likes to purchase physical CDs. There’s something about actually holding the album in my hands that makes it feel like it’s mine. And if you’re like me, then you think that one day Apple will unleash their evil iRepo devices to take back all of the music on people’s iTunes and iPhones. Then I’ll be the one laughing in my self-driving car, filled to the brim with 30-year-old CDs that are useless because they stopped putting CD drives in cars years before.

Another, non-apocalyptic reason I prefer to purchase physical albums is that I can more easily play them in my non-futuristic, present day car. This allows me to listen to an album in its entirety, even if I’d rather listen to just a few songs, because I’m too busy playing Simpsons Tapped Out to fiddle with the dash.

Oftentimes I’ll completely forget that I’ve got music playing. And then, there’s this magical moment where time stands still. The sounds of the outside world disappear and a moment of clarity hits me, reaches my ears and strikes me in the profound way that only hearing a good song can.

“From Afar” by Vance Joy did this to me.

The first minute or so opens with a pretty traditional acoustic guitar. Vance Joy sounds melancholic, but it isn’t until 1:15 that my moment of clarity hit me. “I always knew that I would love you from afar.” The line hits like a punch to the gut, delivered by your 8th grade crush, using Amazon’s convenient and reasonable $3.99 One Day Shipping. It’s just so practical! But it hurts so much.

Vance picks up the volume in his second verse, but at this point it doesn’t matter, because you’re already in as much pain as he is. To anyone who has ever been turned down by someone they loved or thought they loved, this song is especially truthful. And that’s what makes it so beautiful.

“But I’ve been living on the crumbs of your love, and I’m starving now.” Good God, could he make it any worse? It’s like driving a wooden stake through a lovesick werewolf’s heart, except Vance is a sadistic Van Helsing who presses really slowly just to see you squirm.

The song ends with even more heartbreaking lyrics (“It shouldn’t come as a surprise, what I’m feeling, what I’m feeling now”), but by this time you’re already convinced that Vance can time travel. He got into his Delorean, hit 88 mph, found you in your weakest moment, and took diligent notes on everything you said and did.

I’ve always believed that great art is truthful, even in its simplicity. “From Afar” is so truthful that it hurts, but it makes you feel good that someone knows what you went through.

“Coulda Been My Love” – Foxygen

Jams

Foxygen are weird.

Forget the name, all band names are weird. It’s their sound. I just can’t seem to put my finger on it. And the way I’ve always processed new music is by comparing it to something I’ve previously heard. But sometimes I’ll hear a song, enjoy it, and think to myself, “Now why the hell did I like that song?” This is one of those songs.

“Coulda Been My Love” sounds like a studio outtake on the B-side of a later Beatles album. Now hear me out before you poop your Pampers, because there’s enough distance and qualifiers between a proper Beatles album and my previous sentence.

The song begins with a haunting piano playing in an ill-lit basement. Immediately the listener is pulled through the doorway and down the staircase by duet vocals just as tortured as that lonely piano. What I’m getting at is that Foxygen sound like they’ve got a case of the bummers in “Coulda Been My Love.”

The drums come in soon after with a simple rhythm that provides a backbone to the pain. Complementary vocals echo alongside the chorus to add depth and harmony to otherwise-simple lyrics.

So back to The Beatles. “Coulda Been My Love” sounds and feels like a “White Album” outtake. It’s like they invited Paul McCartney to sing their song on Rock Band (and then he decided to stay the night because mom bought a bunch of Totino’s pizzas for everyone). I am a bit biased though, as I spent a lot of last year listening to Foxygen’s “Take The Kids Off Broadway,” a 7-song album that twists and swirls its way through the late 1960s.

The song leaves its impression on the listener right around the 1:30 mark. We get a little wail from the Sam France (the lead vocalist I think?) that leads into a brilliant, satisfying progression that reaches its apex at 2:15 and the song coasts the rest of the way home.

“Coulda Been My Love” is a song that’s grown on me by a group that’s grown on me. Foxygen’s sound is elusive (and often eclectic), which makes it difficult to easily label them. They feel like a group that’s still figuring out their sound, which makes me excited to see where they’re heading.

“Gooey” – Glass Animals

Jams

Glass Animals are a band very much like alt-J in that both are English, both have complex musical arrangements, and both have lyrics that are almost unintelligible, making it nearly impossible for anyone to sing along to. Every one of their songs reminds me of R.E.M.’s “It’s The End Of The World” only because I can sing maybe four or five lines of each and the rest just confuses the hell out of me.

This is less a post about a single song and more about a whole album, as it would be a disservice to feature one without its proper context. Glass Animals’ debut album, “Zaba,” was released June 2014 and I’m kinda sorta pissed that it took me this long to listen.

It’s dishonest to say that I’m addicted to this album. Addiction suggests an abnormal appetite that needs to be sustained. Something that has a clear beginning, middle and end. “I was hooked on painkillers for two years before I went to rehab.” “Zaba” is the opposite of this. It’s beginning, middle, and end all at once. It’s the hypnosis wheel of albums, spinning in that never-ending circularity, drawing the listener in deeper so that you’re fixated, stuck in unblinking catatonia.

The fun part about “Zaba” is that you might not like it at first. I was unimpressed myself. But after a few listens, it worked its way into my consciousness. It was all over after that. I’ve logged 8 full listen-thrus and I haven’t wanted to listen to anything else. Much like a Quentin Tarantino movie, there’s plenty to uncover within each song.

Jungle sounds blend with spacey tones to create an otherworldly, out-of-body listening experience. All of this becomes actualized with the first single, “Gooey.” This song demands your full attention. But that doesn’t mean that it’s difficult. It opens with sleepy reverberations that transport you into another dimension. Bubbles of sound pop around you as whispery vocals lull you into a trance.

Each successive verse adds another layer of sound, which creates an immersive listening experience that makes Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound seem like a production style for ants. Instead, “Gooey” brings the listener into a 3-D sphere, a fully realized world of sound that’s hard to leave once you arrive.

Other artists with dense production (like Sufjan Stevens or MGMT) have similar styles, but where they’re overwrought and pretentious, “Zaba” is the opposite.

There’s not much else I can say about “Zaba” or “Gooey” without seeming like I’m being paid to promote the band. Listen to it, embrace it, love it. It’s infectious and brilliant and stop reading this sentence so you can go listen to it.

“Talk Is Cheap” – Chet Faker

Jams

I have the tendency to judge a book by its cover. I mean this both literally and figuratively, as I’m only interested in reading books with sweet covers and, in the broader sense, I prefer things that sound right, look right or feel right. Which is exactly why I didn’t want to listen to Chet Faker, because it’s a stupid stupid name.

Chet Faker is an Australian electronica musician who does have a pretty cool beard and a plethora of headshots on the Internet. When I first heard his name, I assumed he was some kind of Timeflies/Hoodie Allen/Jackass Jones artist who relied solely on a semi-unique, tongue-in-cheek name and rearranged covers of 90s R&B songs to get white college kids to play his music during pregames. His fourth most popular song on Spotify is currently a cover of Blackstreet’s “No Diggity.” (It’s very good but you get the idea).

I recently rediscovered Chet Faker on the New Music Tuesday Spotify playlist and was blown away by how stupid my initial gut reaction had been. “Talk Is Cheap” is a single from the 2013 album “Built On Glass” that Chet Faker released earlier this year and it’s the perfect early winter song.

The intro features a saxophone that guides you naked into an icy pool of water somewhere deep in the middle of the woods, so deep that the animals are unbothered by your presence. You wade into the water, expecting tendrils of ice to shoot up your leg, but somehow it’s warm.

The beat fades in, simple and relaxed. There’s a yearning in his voice that warns you of pain but doesn’t push you away. It’s not a sad song, I don’t think. It’s just a song that makes you feel. I imagine that this would be the kind of song I’d listen to sitting by my fireplace, warm drink in hand, toking on a bubble pipe (because I don’t smoke, it’s bad for you silly!) and reading my former roommate’s most recent copy of GQ because he hasn’t changed the address yet.

I was silly to assume that Chet Faker was nothing more than a YouTube artist with a fun name. He’s got a great sound, a cool beard, and he’s got cool album artwork, which makes it even easier to like him, because I still judge books by their cover. Until I’m proven wrong.