Chronicle #6: July 2020
Folk music takes center stage as we delve into electronic worlds, nihillistic fucks, and homemade cooking.
The Chicks - Gaslighter
What a privilege it must be to the be The Chicks (formerly known as the Dixie Chicks) in 2020. You’ve been absent from the game so long that your legacy as country’s “rebels*” is secure, and you don’t have to play by anyone’s rules anymore, essentially being able to do whatever you want. They certainly seem to be aware of that, given how they ditched any possibility of this being a proper country album when they hired alternative pop madman Jack Antonoff as the main producer, which opens a lot of doors for the Chicks. It’s interesting to see them come back now, with a title as demanding as Gaslighter. It’s stomping enough to remind people of their political assertiveness when they called out George Bush in 2003, but vague enough to also be about anything else, about any kind of person in control who’s mistreating or cunning, and Lord knows we all have those in our lives. But this is a very specific and attentive listen once you dig in-the main ‘plot’ behind this album being the messy and disastrous rollout of main singer Natalie Maines’ divorce, as she tries to gain composure helped by those around her. The results are incredible and dazzling, some of the best of the year-but my oh my, this year has been so good you couldn’t even call this the best breakup country album of 2020, since Brandy Clark’s heartbreaking Your Life Is a Record has that covered. So Gaslighter is ‘merely’ going to have to settle for being one of the most focused and assertive listens of the year.
The opening track alone already ranks high among some of the best music of the year, as a visceral percussion-heavy realization and reclamation of one’s sanity, as our main heroes realize the amount of toxicity and hurt they must carry around, as the warm swell of sharp guitars sprints around like the flames bursting from every drumline available. The amount of good lines here is brutal: “Acting all above it when our friends divorced/What a lie-lie-lie-lie-lie”, every lie stinking more than the previous; “You just had to start a fire, had to start a fire”, like the piling up of everything bad; “You made your bed and then your bed caught fire”, which speaks for itself; but the cake goes to “Gaslighter, you broke me/You're sorry, but where's my apology?” as the percussion rises and a choir goes to our hero’s aid, gaining strength with every step because they have to. One of the most perfect and cathartic pieces of folk pop in years, and it doesn’t stop there.
The first third of the album is one of the most righteously pissed off sections in music of the year, with a dedication to rhythm and cadences it’s hard to keep up at times, especially with “Sleep at Night”. Natalie sings a line as rhythmically and lyrically complex as “My husband’s girlfriend’s husband just called me up, how messed up is that?” and she’s a natural at it. One of the main concerns going into this album was that the 2 incredible musicians in the show, Emily Strayer and Martie Marguire would be sidelined in order for Natalie and Antonoff to take over, and while that does somewhat happen, it’s simply because they’re utilized in a different context-they’re accentuating and building the backdrop of the emotional arc of the songs, titling into Natalie’s insecurities and anger to motivate her to do better. A song like “Texas Man” couldn’t stand if it wasn’t for those accents, as it turns into a shackled anthem for sexual longing that might fall apart at any moment. And while the following ballad “Everybody Loves You” may not be great compositionally wise (still, credit for the Chicks for reaching out and cover an artist as young as Charlotte Lawrence), it sways into its own melancholy and ends up walking around in the middle of the night, aimless and frustrated because of the delicate and hurt instrumentation-interesting to note how 2 songs ago, they were asking, “How do you sleep at night?”, only to now admit they can’t either.
It’s hard to talk about this album as a whole, given that instrumentally and thematically, it moves as one full song, as the recklessness of the first third subdues and turns into a complicated, less angry examination of Natalie’s own character as she realizes she must build herself up first before being able to move on the way she clearly wants to. The following 2 songs, “For Her” and “March March”, exemplify that kind of more serene thinking, of stopping and looking around to realize what they have at their disposal-the former in the shape of the mantra “Stand up, show love, for her” as organs and violins mark different angles as to where the music could go, like standing in the middle of a crossroads (and Natalie’s vocals perfectly placed in the mix); the latter a quasi political anthem that may lyrically focus on standing up against the Trump administration, but musically it goes into a truly dark territory, as a 2 minute-long instrumental outro pulls into acute highs and plumbing, primal lows, less of a proper march and more the setting up and preparation of one, while the remaining hurt and second guessing never fully leave. It’s complex storytelling that never quite gets to resolve itself-not that it needs to.
The most interesting shift is that, after these realizations, the album slowly starts to lose it glossier aspects and begins to grow a more natural atmosphere, as Emily and Martie’s contributions become more and more marked, and more ‘traditional’ elements of country music start dripping in, as banjos and acoustic guitars start mingling even more with the prominent keys, whether that be in moments of reflection of “My Best Friend’s Weddings” where Natalie begins to finally be able to let go, or in the immediate follow up “Tights on My Boat”, where she realizes she’s still got a bit of remorse left, except this time without the intensity of the opening run of the album, as the atmosphere becomes more relaxed and even playful. All of this for the masterful exercise in color and restraint that is “Julianna Calm Down”, an ode to the Chicks’ daughters, where the lyrics teaching them how to handle through heartbreak are accompanied by a simple and gentle dance through their room as every item comes alive and dances with them, as the fake smile they put on becomes real and ready to take on the world-one of the most celestial pieces of music this year. Tickling through your favorite type of cloth.
After all that, there’s nothing left but winding down, the last 3 tracks being ballads. The true gem out of them is “Young Man”, the difficult approach of Natalie towards their sons whose “hero fell just as they came of age”, the most mature moment on the album, grappling with the disaster showcased previously and realizing that, in order for there to be no remorse or bad blood, the anger must be left behind so they can all healthily move on. It’s understated and understanding, which leads to the harmonic beauty of “Hope It’s Something Good”, a desolate composition like driving in the middle of the night only in your head, realizing your problems are still out there. It’s a heartbreaking admission of trying to let bygones be bygones, and expecting the other half to do the same on “Set Me Free”. Sign and release. Hoping it’s as simple as that from now on, but never truly being certain. One of those rare albums where each track counts towards the whole, and it treats itself as a piece in and of itself. It’s never that hard to tell someone off when you really love them, and Gaslighter is proof of that. Yet another proof that the personal is political too, and that’s a lesson not to be forgotten. And they still didn’t get their apology.
The Beths - Jump Rope Gazers
At their best, The Beths are one of the best rays of sunshine you can get in pop rock or the often-maligned “power pop”. Very meat-and-potatoes music; sunny guitars that may not jangle but do have that similar lightweight feel to it, a lead singer who’s coy enough to be endearing but confident and assured enough that she doesn’t simply become indie eye-candy, and hooks, quite a good amount of hooks that soar and explode. Their main weakness, like most “power pop” artists, is that their sugar-y content doesn’t last for an entire album (a problem even masters like the New Pornographers haven’t been able to avoid), so it’s best to take individual songs and find your pleasure among them than trying to find something you can hold on to for 40 minutes. Jump Rope Gazers falls victim of this too, but not to fret! There are enough songs here to rescue.
It’s important to note that they’re a band with a remarkable amount of charisma, every member gets what the other one is trying to pull off, and hearing them play off each other is part of what makes them so likeable and charismatic. A song like “I’m Not Getting Excited” can have a bass harkening back to the glory days of Blondie, but it truly shines hearing how the guitar echoes the main melody for a brief second to lead into a fantastic guitar solo that sounds like running through the park so fast you end up creating clones of yourself, and they’re as enthused as you are! Or take how, on “Dying to Believe”, the band seems to stop to hear the guitar find its own tune while it’s seemingly laughing its ass off at a meme it sees on its phone; or how, in the same song, the rest of the vocals slowly accompany the main hook until they get a hold of it, as if they were learning it for the first time there and then. A similar feeling found in how the entire band seems to relish in their own built-in tension on “Don’t Go Away” as they find the best possible ways to resolve it.
But the 2 main takeaways are right next to each other; the title track and “Acrid”. “Jump Rope Gazers” is a wonderful surprise, showing they can de-escalate themselves and slow things down for a 5 minute wonderful midtempo power ballad, as they flirt with melodrama only to leave it behind and embrace a more direct approach towards their feelings (“I… I think I love you and I, think that I loved you the whole time”, and she seems more surprised with every word), all strung along by a beautiful guitar tone, like wildflowers made of lollipops. It’s a song that understands that everyone has their own rhythm when it comes to expressing how they feel, and gives itself a break to understand the weight of its words. But “Acrid” is a surprised smile when it realizes the entire world is at its reach, as the song searches for the perfect words while exploring everything at its hand, until it realizes… “it’s you”. That’s more than enough for all the blushes and the sleights of hand in the world to unite and take over; they’re running the show now. And it’s a wonderful feeling indeed. At one point, there’s a little voice in the back of the mix accompanying the wonderful main melody, as if people in the background cheering for what’s to be the best encounter of all. Bravo, Beths; you know what euphoria feels like better than most of us.
Nicolas Jaar - Telas
Should this album exist? I mean, I’m glad it does, it’s one incredible piece of unclear ambient, but should this album exist? Should this kind of mystical, wandering and wondering kind of music have a place in our lives? It’s marvelous, and it’s not the first time Nicolas Jaar provides us with something like this-it’s not even the first time he’s done it this year. But this hits different. It’s more cacophonic than ever, less stable, a forest lost in its own misty woods. It has a life of its own like it was a creature born from the collisions of lands we’ll (thankfully) never get to touch. There’s humanity here, but it’s alien, alienated, alienating, figuring itself out as it goes. If this album could speak, it would say something like, “This is who I am, and who I am is somefjgsdlrdsjkjroiufrrr we’ll figure it out is that a lizard? hold that thought. i’ve never seen the light before. i’ve never seen the dark before. feel the sta-static” and so on and so on. Its shape is something we can’t reach, a combination of angry whites and woozy greens, always turning around to catch their own shadow. It discovers new civilizations within itself at every move. Civilizations that have been active for long before this album existed, as it stumbles upon unspoken rituals that tremble once they’re named, their voices going “Do Not Betray Us”. This album is tearing itself apart at any chance it gets, it’s coalescing into itself like putting on 2 shirts at once and feeling the friction. There’s a point in this album (right in the middle of “Telahumo”) where the high frequencies take over, invading the mix, only for them to be shaped into drone-like melodies; digital aurora borealis. By all means, a sight to be seen.
But should this album exist? Does it belong and deserve to be part of the conversation? Is this truly a new world to be felt with one’s own eyes (and ears) or is it just a producer’s caprice? Can it be both? What this music does, it’s uncanny, it’s unraveling pieces of fabric you didn’t know existed and admiring them as upclose as you want, but how much of this can truly resonate? Would you decide to wear that fabric if you wanted to? Would it be comfortable, would it be challenging, would it be something you would like to do? If you were to stay in this world forever, would it be a world you’d be looking forward to dominating? Or hell, even one you would just let unfold and show its mysteries to you in its due time? Imagine you’re Robin Williams, and you’re in Jumanji. Is this an appealing Jumanji, one you would like to live in for 30 years, or one you wish to get away from and be replaced by Jack Black and the Rock? This could be one of the best releases of the year… and yet it’s not. It decides not to be. It decides to remain in its own little world, content with being an explosion of wild textures with nothing to prove. I must congratulate this album for being so pleased with itself and yet so inviting at the same time. If this album didn’t exist, it would be fine, and we would carry on with our lives as usual, feeling as though nothing is missing. Telas is not only music, it’s an appendix to music. And should appendixes exist? Well, that’s not up for me to decide. Is this album good? Does it even matter?
Protomartyr - Ultimate Success Today
Yes, things are bad. Very bad. Yes, the world is atrocious. We’re all in the middle of a death spiral we can’t stop and the people who could either don’t want to or don’t care to. Cruelty is our fuel, and we can’t resist it. The worst possible scenarios, we believe in them and turn them into reality. We’re selfish, and needy, and we destroy everything we touch. All the tiny particles of air (or what air is made of) are new places for humankind to take advantage of; we can barely hold to ourselves or our loved ones, and the roots of everything we believe in are full of evil, malicious men. Yes, the past is full of dead men, and the future is a cruelty.
But goddamn, could you at least a little bit of color to it? Some seasoning, some spike, some spite? Does it have to be this monotonous, this grey, this unevoking, this far away from spirituality or beliefs of any kind? I ask of Protomartyr, a by-all-means fine post-punk band, what do you stand for? What does Ultimate Success Today mean? What does “ultimate success today” mean? Is it the scorn of those who think they have a solution, while all they do is just help their own kind and not the rest of the unprivileged world? Is it the takedown of those who will focus on trivialities, mundanities, and never anything real? Is it the lack of dignity and humanity of those working every day to keep society alive? What do you stand for? You say, “Self-doubt is a stalking fiend/Narcissism is a killer”, but you don’t act like it. Lord knows you’re too enamoured with your all-knowing nihilism that you can’t seem to consider that there are people dying, every day, every minute, every second, and all you do is stand there shouting “I’M RIGHT! I’M RIGHT!” to nobody.
Ultimate Success Today is a record to and for the anxious, agitated folks-like myself, I won’t lie-and it serves as nothing but a reminder to stay anxious and agitated, and it succeeds. When I listen to this album, I do get anxious and agitated. But it’s pure shock value. Once the trembling and the shaking end, you realize not only that the guitars are too crunchy to have any sense of texture or tone, or that the production is so swamped it’s locked inside its own cage, unable (or worse, unwilling) to get out of it, or that the singer is neither a leader or a follower or a mad man. He’s not stuck in the storm, he’s playing make believe. He tells stories like he’s bottling down a hard whiskey, when in reality once you realize how ridiculous of a hook “BEING PROCESSED BY THE. BOOOOOYS” is, you notice he’s actually drinking some very expensive, very shitty craft beer that he makes in his own basement while he talks to himself. Once everything crumbles and our little dreams stop “driving our bodies all down the line”, he’ll be fine. He’ll make it out alive. This album won’t have to put a fight when it all comes down. So why should I give a shit about Ultimate Success Today? Would you bat an eye waiting for war machines to pass you by? This album wouldn’t.
Lori McKenna - The Balladeer
It’s so nice to hear a project that’s so clearly homemade. One that seems to just wander around the house, coming up with new stories to tell or stumbling into them, as it gets ready for yet another day of domestic life. That’s been what Lori McKenna has been about for a while now, a songwriter who from the get-go established what she was all about: married with children in her early 20s, playing the role of the housewife that takes her time forming a family ever since. Her writing’s always taken center stage in her music, and for the most part she’s been able to provide traditional morals without being moralistic, and demonstrate the power of a woman content with herself, her decisions and her relationships. At times, maybe she gets a bit too lost in her homey values and forgets to come up with interesting melodies, but the forever warm, caring atmosphere around her has been able to make up for that occasional shortage for over 15 years now.
And yes, The Balladeer is yet another Lori McKenna album that’s always welcoming you to share its spots of intimacy and rest in its humility and simplicity. The invitation to embrace the femininity that conforms traditional households that she’s willing to uphold, being the cornerstone of her family, is spread throughout the album. Opener “This Town Is a Woman” is one of the sweetest approaches to her beloved small towns, treating them like nurturing creatures that prepare others to chase their own dreams and desires, only to be mistreated and left behind. Lori has always connected to that sort of pain, and she even wonders what would happen if she let go of it in the title track-realizing that she needs that part of her to continue and keep on fighting the “Good Fight” and supporting those she loves. She knows what it’s like to be abandoned, and she won’t allow herself to do that. It’s always complicated to form a proper family, one without any bad blood, and that’s been one of Lori’s main motifs throughout her career, and it’s not lost here.
It’s interesting, though, because The Balladeer might be one of her most melodic releases in years, one that focuses on proper melodies in ways an album like The Tree didn’t so much. The album’s a piece of sweet butter jam that always keeps its feet on the ground, from the story that unravels itself-musically and lyrically-of the title track to the beautiful uttering of the title word on “Uphill” that’s like a little push towards going to sleep, or the Americana-tinged wondering “Stuck in High School” (Great line: “Some good men may be born they said, the better ones are made”). Or maybe the career highlight “The Dream”, in which Lori describes an imagined encounter between 2 important men in her life, one still with us, the other one gone-who those 2 men are, that’s between her and her conscience-that suddenly turns into a content, reaffirming musical mantra that swells and passes through different dimensions, like a bird catching flight. She might occasionally get a tad patronizing throughout this album (in particular, the stiff closer) but, like she once said, people get old. Doesn’t mean they run out of stories.
Taylor Swift - folklore
How controversial is it to say that Taylor Swift is one of the best songwriters of our time? Certainly, that could not be said 10, 5, or even 2 years ago; not because that statement was not true. Possibly because the critical establishment has a hard time accepting that one of the most creative, vibrant, and thought-provoking artists currently working has a mostly adolescent-or worse still, mostly female fan base. Possibly because, thanks to the way Taylor managed to reach stardom through massive pop hits, she lost that illusion of artist exclusivity that many critics yearn to have. Possibly because the way Taylor sees the world, from such an openly romantic and hopeful point of view, where the teachings and mistakes of the past are what build the future, is too "cheesy" for the nihilistic and depressed wave from indie music. Anyway, the way Taylor has been critically ignored has been embarrassing, but more embarrassing is that they start accepting her now, for this, because of Folklore.
Not because Folklore is a bad record-quite the contrary, it is another demonstration of Taylor's power as a composer, performer and artist, a wonderful collection of stories with an immediacy worthy of the most enlightened, one of the best listens of the year. But it is a very deceptive album in its presentation and its aesthetics. Folklore is presented as a more "alternative" album by this super pop star, one that more easily accommodates to a facet of artistic authenticity, without the glamor and excess that is typically associated with Taylor. If you will, this is an album that tries to get you to focus solely on the music, and not the personality of its artist. The instrumentation is much more acoustic and organic with increased use of strings, the structures are closer to folk music, and most strikingly, it is produced by Aaron Dessner of the acclaimed indie rock band The National. In other words, it's a very easy album for critics to love-for the academic elite to allow themselves to love Taylor without restriction. Which is kind of ridiculous since, when you dig into the center of Folklore, you will find the same themes and the same pseudo-pop compositions that Taylor has always had, simply with another coat of paint. Folklore's massive acceptance indicates a clear preference for style and presentation before content, and it does a great disservice to a discography full of pleasures and surprises like Taylor Swift's.
A pity that all this has to be said before talking about the music, a gem to treasure. In several ways, Folklore is a surprise. This type of emotionally intense ballads, of feelings that after a long time manage to come to light, we were used to receiving from Taylor, simply not in this amount. "Enchanted" on Speak Now, "All Too Well" on Red, "Wildest Dreams" in 1989, "Cornelia Street" in Lover, those were exceptions-now they are the norm. The melodies flow with greater care, more concern than ever, in the midst of fragile and fragmented production. Even simpler songs like "The 1", which sounds like going through key places and remembering what once was, have a delicacy that cannot be ignored. Even the most upbeat track on the album, "The Last Great American Dynasty," moves without moving its feet, with its instrumental touches closer to her old country music moments. But those are exceptions; most of the songs sound like one of the center pieces of the album, "My Tears Ricochet", with its guarded melodies, winter-y instrumentation, and muted crescendos. We have songs that invoke the 90s dream pop in “Mirrorball”, or the abstraction played in “Epiphany” that cannot be solved, or the melodic anger of “Illicit Affairs”, a song that (like a good part of the album) is makes for one of the best in her career.
That care, that delicacy, is most openly presented in her lyrics, always the most appreciated aspect (with good reason) of Swift throughout her career. Taylor here puts aside her openly autobiographical writing, and focuses more on telling stories, the ones that come out of her-and because she’s Taylor, the stories that come out are of helplessness and loss. Taylor has never sounded as sorry as she does on this record, or at least never as cautious in showing her feelings. Even if she can try to shrug off her loss on "The 1", heartbreak is key throughout the album. "You were never mine", "If I'm dead to you, why are you at the wake?", "And though I can’t recall your face, I still got love for you", "Your faithless love’s the only hoax I believe in". It’s much more difficult now than simply blaming herself or blaming the other; now the so-called "maturity" comes from admitting that for Taylor, stories never die so easily. Every wound weighs, every mistake weighs. She manages to find despair in realizing that she is losing someone who gives her life in "Mirrorball", unable to detach herself from his own obsession. She won’t, or maybe can't, let go of the memories on songs like "August," which makes a composition like "This Is Me Trying" even more overwhelming, seeing that her best is not enough. Broken relationships in which conversations turn into monologues shine in "Exile"; or the shocking "Illicit Affairs," where secret love ends up breaking, breaking both of them in the process as well (particularly in her cunning second half, one of the most wounded sections of Taylor's career).
All of these emotions make moments where something breaks- for better or for worse- twice as powerful. A recurring motif on the album is how to account for the guilt and shame that society places on women, as even successful legends like Taylor fall victim to boundless social judgment. She can't help but compare her story to Rebekah Harkness's in how she was judged for her debauchery and free will, yet Taylor rescues how neither she nor Rebekah let that stop them. She knows what her limit is, and when she should react. That reaction is found in "Mad Woman", one of the smallest songs on the album and yet one of the most cutting, where Taylor treats her detractors with so much power in the little. She learned that less is more.
But just as there is spite and fury, there is also love that cannot help being excessive. "Invisible String" is one of the gentlest and most grateful songs he has done in a long time, an ode to curiosity and to surrender to what destiny has to give. The cute little string-like acoustic guitars are the necessary detail. The most popular song on the album, “Cardigan”, goes through a lot of pain in the middle of the toned down electronic strings, but eventually falls into a dream in which that old love returns, and Taylor remembers the good times with a typical air of grace and elegance on an enveloping production, like a walk deep in the forest. And "Betty" ... No one knows where "Betty" came from, but it's a gift. A return to adolescent innocence in which all mistakes are a kiss away from being forgiven, and a boy can try (and fail) to admit his guilt of cheating on the person he loves, and he tries to serenade her on top of an instrumental that seems almost improvised. As if his friends accompanied him on guitar, bass and harmonica, in which the despair of youth is as frank and blunt as a key change. Far and away from the warmest moment on the record.
It is definitely not Taylor's best project, simply because that bar is so high. But at times, it feels like Folklore should have come out in 5 years, when she’s no longer on top of the world, instead of now. It’s a moment where she leaves the pretenses of super stardom, and manages to present her songs in a more relaxed way. If records like 1989 and Lover were touring through the lit up city collecting mixed feelings, Folklore is to go through an abandoned house and take notice of every crack, every scratch, every lost feature. In the most atmospheric song on the album, "Epiphany", the melodies are lost, dissolving in the air, and do not wish to be found, while Taylor sings, "Only 20 minutes to sleep, but you dream of some epiphany". It wouldn't be Taylor Swift’s music without that magical ideal, of understanding something outside of yourself. But it is not the first time this has happened, nor will it be the last.