But I Was There: Beach House @ the Echo, 11/16/06

Beach House, "Tokyo Witch" - It has to be said right up front: Beach House's set wasn't nearly as good as it could have been. Most of this, I think, came down to the mix; I realize that "the mix" is to music what "cinematography" is to movies (i.e. the catchphrase invoked by the ignorant when they want to sound smarter than DUR THAT RAHT THURR WAS FUN TO DO), but when you've got (1) a CD player with a plain ol' line-out functioning as your rhythm section and (2) enough reverb on singer Victoria Legrand's vocals to choke a horse, it really is important to get the balance juuuuuust right. And, to be certain, the band themselves isn't wholly blameless here; their occasional minor slipups can easily be forgiven in light of Legrand's admission that the Echo crowd was the biggest they'd ever played before (GIL SCOT-HERON), but that doesn't mean that they weren't there. And of course I would also be doing a disservice to the truth if I failed to dock them points for skipping "Heart And Lungs".

But aside from that stuff, they were every bit as good as I'd hoped they might be, and as ridiculous as the sentiment "Aside from not being nearly as good as I'd hoped they would be, Beach House were pretty much exactly as good as I'd hoped they would be" truly is, it's a surprisingly good indicator of just how good this band is. And really, that's what I came away from Beach House's set having learned; Lord knows there wasn't much room for my high-minded opinion of their supernaturally gorgeous songs to improve, but with all the best elements (i.e. the arrangements, the compositions) more or less entirely relelgated to behind-the-scenes status, Beach House practically reeked with the potential to rule on wax and be less than compelling in person. Well, uh, wrong, mostly because you really do have to see and hear Legrand belt out those songs to believe them; I'm pleased to report that there's absolutely no ProTools honeying of her voice whatsoever (or at least not so much as to make her live performance sound crappy by comparison). "Tokyo Witch" was probably the flashpoint for this realization - placed second in their set, the song featured arguably the most dramatic moment of the whole evening when Legrand had to close her eyes, focus her chi, and tack fully into that "Myyyyyyyyyyy whooooooooooooole LIII-IIII-IIIFE/Is a MYSSSSSSSSSTERY" bit; it was practically a breathtaking (if restrained) statement of fact that Beach House's songs absolutely aren't just put together after the fact - lo-fi as they may sound, in person they're practically performative happenings. This is a band that clearly knows what they sound like, and though it's a shame that they weren't quite able to capture it flawlessly this time, they got close enough to guarantee that I'll make sure to check every time they come to town just to see if this is the time they manage to pull it off. (Click here to visit Car Park Records' webstore and buy Beach House directly from the label.)

James Holden, "Lump" - James Holden's new full-length The Idiots Are Winning is basically forty-odd minutes of house music dedicated of just how meticulously one man can modulate a song's texture intermixed with some obstreperously cutesy interludes (most notably "Intentionally Left Blank", which is two minutes' worth of exactly what you'd think). You might expect me to call The Idiots Are Winning great solely out of appreciation for how arcane it all sounds, but you'd be wrong; it's a great record because a substantial number of the songs are what we in the stuff-describing biz call DYNOMITE, packed wall-to-wall with the kind of hyperactive restlessness which would, on the surface, seem to fly in the face of anyone who'd describe Holden's approach to house music as "minimal". I mean, yes, sure it's minimal compared to someone like Roger Sanchez or Deep Dish, but that doesn't mean there's not some batshit crazy dynamics at play here - check out lead single "Lump", which may only give you the one synth line to follow but which absolutely pushes that line all over the map. Admittedly, I'm not exactly sure of how well this stuff works on the dancefloor since it does come off as slightly chin-strokey (said the man who calls Delia & Gavin's Days of Mars one of his favorite albums ever), but hey, I said the same thing about Sasha's Airdrawndaggar (not coincidentally, a Holden co-production) and it sure tore people up. Hopefully The Idiots Are Winning can pull off the same trick - after all, if Silent Shout let the horse of sonic textures out of the avant-garde barn and into the vast plains of (Relatively) Normal Folkdom, eventually someone's got to throw a saddle on that motherfucker and ride it off into the sunset. (Click here to buy The Idiots Are Winning from Amazon.co.uk)

Paul Simon, "Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes" (Tangoterje dub) - I could never really get a handle on just why I'd always found "Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes" to be so anathemic - I always presumed that it had something to do with half my family being from Louisiana, and as a result I was just circumstantially primed to enjoy all the zydeco-influenced songs on Graceland way more than their mbaqanga-derived brothers and sisters (although I sure always liked "I Know What I Know"). But in light of Todd Terje's splendid dub (as passed on to me a few months back by the magnificent Rory) of "Diamonds", I'm forced to reconsider the possibility that I may just have been an idiot - not that I'm necessarily going back to the original "Diamonds" all that much, mind you, but I'm certainly enjoying the song a lot more now that I have a wayof hearing the music as anything other than a lyrical content delivery device. That's not even to say that the lyrics are bad - Terje's dub contains few rewards more, er, rewarding than when it lets a snatch of the lyrics waft in from behind its curtain - but simply that they kinda get in the way of the angelic gentleness of the music, and considering that we're talking about Paul Simon here and not Andrew W.K., that's some preternatural gentleness indeed. To be fair, a lot of the credit has to go to Terje, who basically manages to extend the duration of the music without drastically altering its eminently-familiar dynamic; the end result is something that feels utterly logical, just in greater servings than you're otherwise used to. (To be fair, it's hardly the first time he's done it, either - if you like this, go search out his lordly dub of the Bee Gees' "You Should Be Dancing".) It's just the best kind of mix, the kind that manages to glorify both its source and itself simultaneously, and it's proven to be both one of the best examples of this whole Arctic Circle Disco movement that I've come across yet (although I'm eagerly open to anyone who wants to push those horizons for me - you know my gmail steez) and probably the most convincing argument mountable against someone as dumb about "Diamonds"' merits as I had been before I really got into the dub. That being said - the zydeco stuff on Graceland is still clearly better. I mean it's not even close. (Click here to buy the "Diamonds" dub 12" from Phonica records)

Eastern Conference Champions, "Nice Clean Shirt" - It never fails to amuse me how people think I'm some stuck-up prig when it comes to rock music - I mean, I am, just not in the terms by which I always find myself accused. When it comes to indie-rock, for instance, all you have to do to win me over to your band's side is simply not have That Inevitable Part Where The Song Slows Down; having already scarred my wrists over time and time again thanks to an inability to leave my secret ska shame in the past where it belongs, I assure you that you're not doing your band any favors in my eyes by "breaking it down" for all the frat bros and secretaries in the audience. Why not try to follow the Eastern Conference Champions' lead and just go balls-to-the-wall for one whole song? I mean, "Nice Clean Shirt" isn't anything spectacular on its own merits - not that a song with such a heatseeking missile of a chorus is worth passing over, mind you, but if you've heard an indie-rock band that's come to be in the years since hi-hats turned fashionable again, "Nice Clean Shirt" doesn't really have a lot to surprise you with - except for the way it actually manages to sustain its intensity over the course of its three-and-a-quarter minutes, but considering its breakneck velocity, that ain't just whistlin' Dixie. They've already been signed to SureTone Records, home of arguably the worst band ever, but don't let that fact keep you from checking this song out; if the Cloud Room can score a hit with "Hey Now Now", there's literally no reason why the Champions shouldn't be capable of doing the same with some marketing muscle behind a song as formidable and ferocious as this. And hey! It's good enough that that wouldn't even piss me off! (Click here to buy The Southhampton Collection EP from Amazon.com)

ELSEWHERE

- So I finally got around to updating the links page on the side - removed some dead wood and added some choice sites like Fluokids and Crown Dozen and such. I also want to single out non-MP3 blog Concussion for delivering up quite possibly the best reading of the Game's new album that I've come across yet (in addition to like eighty thousand equally hilarious other things). I would also like to kick both Phil and Tom in the nuts for making me aware that Green Day and U2 got together to play music and nobody bothered to firebomb the arena. NEVAR FORGET.

- How to laugh very hard in three easy steps:

1. Go here
2. Control-F (or "command"-f if you're stuck on one of Apple's Fischer-Price computers) for "Whitestarr"
3. Read and be merry (seriously - in light of The Mysterious Job, let me just say that the world doesn't really need to work too hard to make me tired of Cisco Adler)

- And let me conclude by saying GET A WII GET A WII GET A WII GET A WII GET A WII. STAB GRANDMOTHERS IN THE FACE ON BLACK FRIDAY IF YOU HAVE TO. GET ONE. I'LL WAIT.