The difficulty in writing about music is excellently articulated in an article, originally printed by The Believer in 2009. "Dancing About Architecture" (full text can be found here, luckily), points out that music can be such a subjective experience, that the act of writing can, when it seeks to communicate an experience in words, often fall short. I was struck by this thought when writing about some of this week's songs, especially the track by Tops. "Easy Friends" is a fairly straight forward track and one that I liked a lot, but, again, how to explain it to you accurately and without falling into a series of cliches. Then again, cliches can, despite what your writing instructor often tells you, be very useful. If your goal is to communicate to as many people as possible, the meaning is often not most universally discussed by using conventions in which everyone is intimately familiar with, which, in this case, is a cliche. That said, it is a somewhat thorny issue that cannot be thoroughly approached in a short column meant to tell you about some new music released this week. I include it here merely to point out how interesting the continued discussion about music can be even from the standpoint of something as basic as writing about music on a regular basis. Here, without further pseudo intellectual rambling, is this week's edition of Listener's Digest.
Tops - "Easy Friends:" Montreal band, Tops, will be releasing this as a 7" next week. Easy going and poppy, the song features jangling guitars and unique female vocals.
FIDLAR - "Cheap Beer:" You have to admire the brazen youthfulness of this track. The band name is an acronym for "fuck it, dog - life's a risk," which seems to sum up the ethos of this whole song. A sloppy ode to cheap beer, which I can definitely get behind (because PBR isn't so bad when it is cold, no seriously), "Cheap Beer" is a great example of raucous garage rock with a great opening.
Teen Daze - "New Life:" It has hit home that I have been writing about synth driven electronic songs all summer and that every song alternates between this and garage rock. I apologize if that has gotten boring but there have been some really enjoyable things put out within these genres. "New Life" is an atmospheric track driven by synths and smooth vocals and the first single of the act's second album this year, which is set to be released this November.
The Album Leaf - "Descent:" A gorgeous instrumental track off of the quartet's upcoming EP. "Descent" masterfully employs guitar and synths to creating a sweeping track that grows in magnitude over time. This is a great change of pace from the alternating synth pop/garage rock cycle I just discussed. A pensive and satisfying song.
The Black Keys - "I Got Mine" (Tobacco Remix): OK, so this track came out a day before my normal cut off but it was just such a great remix, I had to include it. This remix, done by Black Moth Super Rainbow's frontman Tobacco, mixes sensibilities to create a much stronger version of this song, in my opinion.
