Years are queers, m'dears, but this here's just my gears grindin' too slow, i fear: some leftovers, mostly published in oh-great oh-eight, of albs that came out in that year at least somewhere in the world, though a couple are older or newer if you wanna go by "actual" release date. anyway garsh i'm slow but here you go, midway thru oh-fine oh-nine... these were/are for realz some of my very favorite "2008 albums."
some'n nordic guitar pop (yawn...), some'n ethno-tekno and even (snrfl?!) hip-hop, but kick it off with a couple o that good ol weirdolectronica... they may not be scandinaviites, but at least they've got some frosty surnames:
Kelley Polar: I Need You To Hold On While The Sky Is Falling review
Kelley Polar's second album builds on the already rarefied majesty of his debut and expands outward in all directions: more plush neo-classical elegance, more crackling precision-disco euphoria, more dashing, gooey sentimentality, more meandering harmonic intricacy and dizzying structural invention, more pop and more fizz. I Need You to Hold on While the Sky Is Falling is an exercise in controlled excess, a lavishly calibrated and articulately decadent statement from an utterly singular artist. In compositional terms, the Juilliard-trained Kelley strikes a skillful balance between dense, dazzling chordal complexity and melodic accessibility. With some assistance from longtime consort and nu-disco guru Morgan Geist (credited with mixing and additional production), he coaxes an almost uncanny crispness and visceral presence from his limited instrumental palette of strings, synthesizers, digital beats, and vocals (sampled, spliced, and layered or simply, soulfully sung), creating a sense of sonic purity and cohesion-out-of-chaos that dovetails perfectly with his lyrical themes.
This cohesiveness of conceptual content is the album's most unique and endearing quality, but also its biggest potential sticking point: I Need You to Hold On traffics in a sort of epic hodgepodge mysticism, using references to Greco-Roman mythology, new agey spiritual philosophy, and pop astrophysics to evoke a grandiose vision of universal interconnectivity. It's the kind of thing that can be nearly to impossible to stomach if presented with more than a whiff of self-seriousness, but can also feel like distasteful mockery if treated too lightly. But Kelley Polar is both smart and sensitive enough to pull it off: his delivery is straight-faced and earnest throughout, but while he clearly intends these sentiments quite sincerely, there's also a slightly ambiguous undercurrent of levity that comes through in both his nimble, nuanced musicality and occasional moments of parodic excess. Surely, the over the top, vocodered, and time-delayed guided meditation that opens "A Feeling of the All-Thing" carries a winking sense of its own ridiculousness, yet it's too bold and striking a gesture to be dismissed as mere novelty, especially given the magnificently rapturous disco fantasia that emerges out of that esoteric invocation. Metaphysical concerns aside, it's hard to argue with the exceptional beauty and powerful strangeness this music conjures up: the searing, intimate romanticism of the diaphanous "Dream in Three Parts (On Themes by Enesco)," the ruminative, infinitely self-refracting curiosity of "Zeno of Elea," the kicky kinetic energy of "Sea of Sine Waves," and, especially, the immaculate single "Entropy Reigns (In the Celestial City)," a duetted ode to hedonistic indulgence with ambrosial electro-pop hooks to match. As ambitious, idiosyncratic, and satisfying as his music is in its own right, it's Kelley's virtuosity with the interplay between sounds and ideas, on a larger scale, that makes him a true visionary.
Max Tundra: bio and Parallax Error Beheads You review
Max Tundra's painstakingly constructed, impossibly intricate 2008 follow-up to his 2002 opus Mastered by Guy at the Exchange, Parallax Error Beheads You is the sound of those six intervening years whizzing by in just over 40 minutes. A giddy rush of convoluted melodies, hyper-precise sonic detail, and dazzling Day-Glo unpredictability, combining the meticulous luster of a big-budget pop production and the infectious idiosyncrasy of a chintzy vintage home recording (sequenced, like all of Tundra's work, on an antiquated Commodore Amiga computer), it's initially overwhelming and not a little bit disorienting, occasionally creating the sensation that one's head is about to explode. Given time, though, this emerges as easily the most infectious, engaging, and approachable of Tundra's albums so far, generally shoehorning his manic creativity into reasonable approximations of conventional pop song structures, framed around abundant, quirky hooks and appealingly restrained pop-soul vocals. As though to reassure hesitant listeners, the album opens on a particularly gentle note, with a simple, cheery harpsichord ushering in the breezy lilt of "Gum Chimes," before it unleashes two of Tundra's most buoyant pop confections to date: the herky-jerky "Will Get Fooled Again," whose fractured arcade-game bleeps and rock guitars (!) underscore typically absurd lyrics concerning a series of unorthodox Internet dating adventures ("I found a girl on Google image search/She was in the background of a picture of a church"), and the even more exuberant "Which Song," which almost sounds like it could be a massive radio hit, in spite of its gleefully unhinged musical accompaniment. Things get even stranger later on -- with "Orphaned"'s barrage of madcap micro-sampling (like Akufen on Adderall); the jittery lo-fi candy-thrash of "Nord Lead Three"; and the largely instrumental closer, "Until We Die," stretching out somewhat indulgently into a fragmented synth-prog epic -- but the vibe always remains persistently, even perversely, tuneful. Mannered English eccentricity never sounded so deliriously thrilling.
Buraka Som Sistema: Black Diamond review
Black Diamond, the exhilarating debut full-length from Lisbon's Buraka Som Sistema, will mark many listeners' first exposure to Kuduro, an Angolan style of dance music that's attracted international attention only recently despite roots dating back to the mid-'90s. The bandmembers are more than happy to serve as musical ambassadors: after an insistent warm-up track paying homage to the genre's two capital cities ("Luanda-Lisboa"), they enlist go-to global beat superstar M.I.A., along with the pioneering DJ Znobia and a few guest MCs, for "Sound of Kuduro," an unruly but unambiguous statement of purpose whose inanely effective nursery-rhyme refrain spells out, for the benefit of bewildered Anglophones, exactly what is going on here. To judge from the evidence of this album, the sound of Kuduro overlaps liberally with almost every other globalized, urban-based 21st century sound blending elements of hip-hop and techno with regional ethnic infusions, from ragga and soca to kwaito to funk carioca and even grime. (Brazilian bailé funk is an especially pertinent reference point, given the shared language and a comparable aggressively playful vocal approach; world-traveling ghetto-funk hype man Diplo's interest in the group is another relevant clue.) To get specific, though, it's not as if BSS are purists. As originators of Kuduro's heavily electronic "progressive" strain, their cross-pollinated hybrid grooves are as restlessly varied as they are relentlessly energetic, rife with unpredictable sonic shifts and dense with all manner of aural debris (sirens, bird calls, tribal percussion, industrial splutters and squelches, vocal cut-ups) flitting through their adrenalized, hard-assed beat concoctions. Hence listeners get tracks like "IC19," which swells from a skeletal dubstep throb to full-on glowstick-ready rave keyboards to a propulsive, percussive equatorial jump-up that even slips at one point into Baltimore club-styled electro breakbeats. Or "General," which is built around a scintillating Afro-pop guitar line but somehow wends its way into gleaming filter-house territory. And the less brazenly exploratory tracks are by no means less thrilling: the bouncy "Kalemba (Wegue Wegue)," featuring Angolan MC Pongolove, and the carioca-styled "Aqui Para Vocês," with Rio's Deize Tigrona, are two of the more rousing dance cuts in recent memory. Indeed, the same could be said for the entire album. One hell of an all-embracing, boundary-defying, ghetto-blasting dance party.
The Bug: London Zoo review
Kevin Martin's previous album as the Bug, 2003's Pressure, was a vital, visceral blast of digital dancehall and exploratory dub; 2008's London Zoo is darker, grittier, tougher, and all the more exhilarating for it. The basic template is similar: rough-hewn electronic productions that are rooted in dancehall and hip-hop but don't feel remotely conventional, laced with hard-hitting toasts and vocals from a bevy of sharp-tongued guests. But Zoo ratchets up the intensity in both sound and substance, creating a striking symbiosis of sense and sonics wherein the dread and righteous rage expressed by the vocalists are equally evident in Martin's furious, foreboding beats and basslines. In both regards, London Zoo is an extremely potent, relevant record for its time, capturing an energetic spark that feels tied to the creative renewal of dubstep (a genre that Martin may have helped to germinate, and which in any case scarcely existed at the time of the last Bug album) as well as the tormented spirit of a city ground down and galvanized by recent socio-political developments, both local and global. Look no further than the opening lyrical salvo -- "So many things that get me "angry"" -- from veteran British reggae MC Tippa Irie, who rails about everything from suicide bombers to global warming to Hurricane Katrina over a kinetic ragga thump. As insistent as it is, "Angry" feels practically mild (and certainly peppy) in comparison to much of what follows: the ferocity of Warrior Queen (the doggedly propulsive "Insane," the hypnotic, bass-blasted "Poison Dart"), the apocalyptic, steely-eyed R&B of Ricky Ranking (ominously funky "Murder We" and solemnly soulful closer "Judgement") and, especially, the grim, severe tracks which feature Flowdan of the grime collective Roll Deep -- the dread sermonizing of "Jah War," the industrial menace of "Warning," and the utterly bone-chilling "Skeng." Such is the album's strength -- the power and inventiveness of Martin's productions, the astuteness and aptness of his guest selections -- that any one of these tracks could be singled out as a highlight. (And the remainder aren't far behind; the washed-out calm of "You & Me" and lone instrumental "Freak Freak" do offer a respite of sorts, as they're merely spooky rather than gut-wrenchingly tense.) Taken as a whole, London Zoo is simply a masterful statement, and one that cries out to be heard: as intense as it is, it's hardly inaccessible -- hooks abound in the vocal contributions and Martin's grooves, while sometimes discordant and oppressive, are never less than riveting.
Tittsworth: Twelve Steps review
Like many a great party album, Twelve Steps is a gleeful hodge-podge; rooted in the inherently hybrid-friendly Baltimore club music for which Tittsworth is generally known, but flirting heavily with hip-hop, R&B, and straight-up pop, as well as slightly more abstract synthesizer electro. Notably, it may be the first actual artist album to be released by a Baltimore-associated producer in the style's 20-year history (albeit by an interloper -- the D.C.-based, half-white half-Asian Tittsworth is a self-described outsider and hardly a genre purist), arriving at a moment when the sound has been steadily bubbling into wider consciousness for several years. Fittingly, flagrantly, the guest-studded Twelve Steps is tailored for maximal crossover appeal -- not that that's much of a stretch for a genre based around readily danceable breakbeats and frivolous novelty hooks. The challenge in adapting it to the album format is keeping that focus on fun and immediacy while crafting a sufficient variety of songs that are at least interesting enough to merit repeated listens. Tittsworth succeeds on most counts, relying on his considerable production skills to keep things buoyant even when the songs themselves come up short. Which a handful definitely do: the gimmicks wear thin on the predictable "Drunk as Fuck" (featuring Bay area hyphy stars the Federation) and "Bumpin," (featuring the sound of a drunk partier bumping into the turntables), while the vaguely R&B-tinged "Almond Joy" and formulaic shout-out track "B-Rockin" commit the mortal sin of being boring. Thankfully, the pacing is peppy enough and the highlights high enough to overshadow these dull patches: dumb-dumb lead single "WTF," with raps by Kid Sister and Pase Rock, is insipid but enjoyably spunky; "Broke Ass Nigga" compensates for its obviously questionable taste with irresistible stuttered electro breaks and some of the most absurd nutty one-liners since the Pharcyde's "Ya Mama"; best of all, though, is the surprisingly gorgeous "Here He Comes," a pure pop love jam which cops a hook from Hall & Oates and sports the silky vocals of Nina Sky (of "Move Ya Body" fame), along with Miami rapper Pitbull. Though the record was obviously a party to make as much as it is to listen to, some of the most intriguing and satisfying moments come when the guests clear out and Tittsworth is left to work his electronic magic alone, as on the majestically moody opener "Haiku" and the floaty, meandering "4.21." All told, there's a little something for everyone, plenty of fun and games, and it doesn't overstay its welcome -- even if nothing here is truly stunning, it still makes for a great party.
Sway: bio, This Is My Demo and The Signature LP reviews
The ever-ambitious Sway DaSafo, who worked his way up from the underground to become one of the most visible rappers in the U.K., while remaining smugly unsigned, now has his sights set on the world. At least, that's the impression one gets from his sophomore full-length, The Signature LP, so named partly in reference to his recently inked international record deal with worldwide superstar (and fellow West African) Akon's Kon Live label (he's still technically independent in the U.K.), a move that may or may not succeed in spreading his fame beyond Britain's borders. "Let's take music all around the world/I can't do this by myself," he sings on the globetrotting, vaguely tropical-flavored "Special Place," but Sway's far too enterprising to be satisfied with utopian daydreams, so he's concocted a handful of flagrant crossover bids, with a parade of known and unknown guest artists, to put those words into action. These include the inevitable humdrum Akon collab "Silver and Gold" (moral of the story: strippers will steal your money); the smooth R&B/pop of "Saturday Night Hustle," an '80s throwback featuring British neo-soul crooner Lemar (best bit: Sway raps his clothing sizes, in case you want to give him any clothes); and the treacly "End of the Road" with Sting's daughter Coco Sumner. There's nothing horribly wrong with any of this, but none of it particularly plays to Sway's strengths either -- and he's always been likable and engaging enough on his own to make watered-down, overtly attention-grabbing tracks like these feel doubly unnecessary.
While his rapid-fire flow remains as impressive as ever, and his charisma is largely undimmed, Signature displays too little of the irreverent, happy-go-lucky spirit that made early singles like "Little Derek" so delightful. With a couple of exceptions -- including the bouncy highlight "Say It Twice" (which he does, clever-cleverly, with every line, at least for the first verse and hook) and the jokey "Jason Waste," an intermittently amusing character number relating the zany misadventures of a jobless loser -- this is a surprisingly serious-minded album, at least for the impish Sway. But then, he's always been more than just a jokester; he's as much a swaggering, boastful battle-rapper (a persona that crops up here on "Stereo" and the enjoyably epic, overblown opener, "Fit for a King") as he is a big softie -- indeed, it may be his sentimental side that makes the greatest strides here, most notably in the emotional middle section that includes "Pray 4 Kaya," a legitimately poignant homage to a departed friend, and the affecting anti-violence plea "Walk Away." Ultimately, despite its pop moves and world-conquering aspirations, The Signature LP may still be too idiosyncratic, too British, and too gloriously scattershot to succeed on the mass scale Sway seems to envision. It's hard to imagine, for instance, the U.K. single "F UR X," a jittery, grime-ish txt-message battle of the sexes, playing to an American audience. But that doesn't stop it from being a readily enjoyable listen -- its eclecticism practically ensures that you'll find something to like here -- and Sway's fans, once they get used to some of his more excessive departures, will realize that he truly hasn't changed all that much.
Lil Mama: VYP: Voice of the Young People review
Lil Mama (née Niatia Kirkland) broke out in a big way in spring 2007 with "Lip Gloss," a Top Ten novelty single built around an astoundingly simple but effective beat and some legitimately impressive rapping about an unabashedly frivolous subject. Despite that track's earworm resilience and Kirkland's guest turns on high-profile remixes for several of the year's biggest singles (Avril Lavigne's "Girlfriend" and Rihanna's "Umbrella"), it took almost a year for her debut album to appear, by which time her rising star had lost a good deal of momentum. That's a shame because VYP: Voice of the Young People presents Lil Mama as one of the most promising female rappers in years; a likable and amply talented performer with a refreshingly open-ended, still-developing approach that lets her flit convincingly from goofy, hook-heavy pop to heavier, more introspective material, although all the stylistic and thematic hopscotch results in a somewhat unwieldy album and a persona that's complex but a little naggingly undefined. The album's also over-long, even if it has little truly weak material, but -- aptly suited to the iTunes age -- it's helpfully compartmentalized, with brief explanatory skits serving to separate the opening set of upbeat, crossover-ready tunes from segments focused on socially conscious story-telling ("Gotta Go Deeper") and relationship issues ("Emotional Rollercoaster"), before a final pair of club jams cap it all off.
The opening section is easily the breeziest, featuring the lighthearted but infectiously cocky swagger that earned Lil Mama her fame, though its pop-happy attitude is occasionally complicated by confusing grasps at an ambiguously defined credibility. Perhaps to shore up the hip-hop realness she asserts on the intro, the album version of "Lip Gloss" is bizarrely interrupted partway through by the bare-bones, out of tempo "No Music" freestyle, while the belatedly preemptive hater-baiting "One Hit Wonder" awkwardly (if accurately) asserts her status as "one of the fewest female MCs of the century." On the other hand, she beefs up the youth-repping claim of the album title with the very silly "Wheels on the Bus"-quoting "G-Slide (Tour Bus)" and a recording of some cute tykes requesting "Shawty Get Loose," the infectious lite-R&B/dance banger which saved her from one-hit-wonder status by going Top Ten in early 2008 (thanks in part to the presence of guaranteed chart-greasers T-Pain and Chris Brown.) Later album standouts include "L.I.F.E.," an inspirational anthem of hope in the face of ghetto-life adversity, the emotional "College," about a four-year-old visiting her father in prison, and, on a different tip entirely, the jaunty duet "Truly in Love." Over the course of the proceedings a bevy of 2000s production heavyweights (among them Luke Gottwald, Cool & Dre, the Runners, and Scott Storch) contribute dependable if rarely revelatory beats that ensure Lil Mama's lips aren't the only thing that's popping. Although she deftly and admirably captures much of the struggle and contradiction that accompanies young adulthood, Lil Mama is a little too old, at 18, to bill herself as "the voice of young people" for too much longer -- but it hardly matters, as she's clearly well on her way to developing a strikingly original and versatile voice of her own.
Ida Maria: Fortress Round My Heart review
"Oh My God" was one of 2008's most explosive and ear-catching singles, a burst of punky guitar pop propelled by an electric vocal performance from 23-year-old Norwegian breakout star Ida Maria Sivertsen. "Oh, you think I'm in control," she taunts, her voice teasing out the tension between commanding authority and unhinged chaos -- she sounds at once powerful and vulnerable, ready to collapse or destroy at any moment. If the rest of Fortress Round My Heart can't hope to match the searing intensity of its calling card, much of it is nearly as engaging, both musically and emotionally. Sivertsen turns out to be as generous with hooks as she is vocally captivating, and although her loud-mouthed, liquored-up confessionals can sometimes grow grating, they're more often than not genuinely affecting. Wisely, she keeps things pretty peppy, with plenty of giddy rave-ups (the best being "Louie," "Queen of the World," and the cheeky "I Like You So Much Better When You're Naked") and only a few (less memorable) moments of downtempo tenderness (the ballad "Keep Me Warm," addressed to her coffee and cigarettes). Throughout, she offers an endearing mixture of pop sweetness and punky toughness, writing with honesty and humor on a prototypically rock & roll slate of subjects: lust, loneliness, desperation, booze, and God. That last, obliquely invoked in the opener, crops up again in the curious allegory-song "Stella," which imagines Him falling for an aging hooker and offering her the world (literally) for her affections. In the album's so-so, overly sober finale, "See Me Through," she addresses the deity directly, asking "When's the time for me?" Listeners will have to wait and see on that score, whether she grows up and calms down or if age only sharpens her rage, but for all her all-too-human flaws, with a set of songs this strong, it's safe to say her time has already arrived.
Per Gessle: Party Crasher review
The English-speaking world has more or less forgotten about Per Gessle since Roxette's dissolution in the mid-'90s. But the Swedish songsmith -- a major star in his native country -- never stopped churning out hummable, hooky pop, both solo and with the eventually re-formed Roxette. Party Crasher is his third English-language solo album and seventh overall, and it's about as solid as they come. The sheeny, synth-kissed production feels dated (circa the original Roxette era) in a way that could almost be hip...well, almost. (If the title's supposed to suggest that Gessle's crashing the late '00s' perpetual retro-'80s borrowed-nostalgia party, it's mostly a failure on that count.) But well-crafted melodies never go out of style, or at least they always come back around, and there is certainly no shortage here. The fizzy electro-pop single "Silly Really" sets the tone, musically and conceptually (it's a perfect frivolous Gessle song title, blithely devoid of any discernible meaning) and it's a blast. The supremely Cars-esque "Gut Feeling" and the goofy, surf-tinged "Thai with a Twist" (complete with sax solo, crowd noise, and vocoder breakdown, and no, the title doesn't make any more sense in context) may be even better. But the best stuff on here is the actually the mellower material: lush slow jams like "Hey, I Died and Went to Heaven" and "Perfect Excuse" (two of several tracks that benefit greatly from the vocal contributions of Helena Josefsson) and especially the breezy, buoyant, Caribbean-flavored "Breathe Life into Me" and "I Didn't Mean to Turn You On." All told, an impressive showing and a splendidly enjoyable album.
Alphabeat: Alphabeat review
Before taking the U.K. charts and the pop-loving blogosphere by storm when it was rejiggered and reissued in 2008, with a clarifying "This is" appended to the title, Alphabeat's debut, originally eponymous and released only in their native Denmark, was one of the most sterling and undersung power pop records of 2007. The differences between the two editions of the album seem, at first blush, fairly cosmetic. Although three perfectly lovely songs ("Ocean Blue," "Into the Jungle," and "The Hours") were swapped out altogether, most of the six which were re-recorded (the indelible "Fascination" was left untouched) bear relatively superficial changes: some additional keyboards here, a tacked-on string section there, and a generally beefed-up, plusher sound. But the cumulative effect is definitely evident, and it's not necessarily for the best. It's hardly enough of a transformation to render the album unrecognizable -- after all, the Danish version had plenty of '80s-inspired excess to begin with, and its undeniable pop thrills are, for the most part, undiminished. But some of the delirious scrappiness of the more guitar-oriented original version does get lost beneath the layers of synth pop gloss. The spunky "Boyfriend" turns full-on Euro-dance, while the charming choral oddity "Rubber Boots/Mackintosh," which distinctly recalls the New Pornographers at their most beautifully idiosyncratic, is reborn as a far more pedestrian synthesizer slow jam, simply titled "Rubber Boots." Though these qualms shouldn't deter the curious from checking out the more widely available This Is Alphabeat -- which is, indeed, nearly as glorious -- avowed fans will definitely want to seek out this version, for the three jettisoned tracks if nothing else.
Fredrik: Na Na Ni review
The core of Fredrik is the duo of Fredrik Hultin and Ola Lindefelt, a pair of Malmö-based musicians who also happened to form the band the LK. The music they create on Na Na Ni, however, is quite a different animal from that group's buzzy electronic pop, applying the same ear for sonic detail and an unerring penchant for melody to a more folk-inflected and more resolutely understated set of compositions. The results are nothing short of enchanting, using a consistent, gently evocative sound palette -- Hultin's acoustic guitars, voice, and accordion, and Lindefelt's bells, drums, cello, and delicately wheezy electronics -- to balance deceptively complex, layered arrangements with a charming, lo-fi intimacy. March-like singalong "Black Fur" opens the album on an especially cheery note, which is taken up more modestly on the calmer but amply catchy "Alina's Place" (whose poetically cryptic lyrics make it somewhat less reassuring) -- no less winsome, though, are the more abstract instrumental pieces which make up half of the track list. The title of one, "Angora Sleepwalking," succinctly captures the softness and sweet, dreamlike strangeness of the prevailing mood; another, "Morr," intentionally or not provides a clue to Hultin's musical aesthetic, suggesting their similarities to the less overtly electronic end of that German label's output, and the work of Múm in particular. One might also draw comparisons to the gentle, textural experiments of Silje Nes, or, to name some non-Scandinavians, the fractured folk of Animal Collective, Tunng's woodsy whimsy, and even Sufjan Stevens' antiquarian-minded indie pop. Fans of any of these artists would do well to investigate Hultin's fine debut; they will discover not just a handful of hummable songs, but a curious and comforting sound world that's at once familiar and unique unto itself. Also worth noting is the Kora Records' elegant package design, which makes Na Na Ni a joy of a thing to hold, and the appropriately intriguing booklet etchings by Warren Hilt.
23 May 2009
AMG review round-up, volume XI: 2008's greatest hits
20 March 2008
sxsw roundup pt. 4: south by (not west) a.k.a. last plane from jakarta
started at probably the best day party of the week, the seattle-themed function at the lovely palm door (which, fittingly, had a vague sort of seaside b&b feel to it, with its painted wood and exposed rafters), featuring very tasty free "northwest-style" food, free drinx, excellent schwag including emp rock trivia card decks, and, best, a noon-o-clock set from throw me the statue, who gave easily one of the best performances i saw all the week, especially in the rock-band category. totally sweet, fun, bouncy, hooky, energetic pop-squawk-rawk. and hey, that goofily kinetic bell-player is my buddy (and former bandmate) aaron - so great to see him and to see him making good on the rock'n'roll dream. good lookin' out! by the way, though they were plenty loud, this was the only set of the week for which i didn't put in my ear plugs.
we decided to skip the block-long line for the rachael ray party (and the hour-long wait for black moth super-digitalism at stubb's) and went back to the current radio broadcast corner to make some t-shirts (and some more buttons - elvis c., crossword, cabbage, warholized hillary, sister rosetta tharpe.) nava's says no topless frying, which is rule #3 of her apartment. you'll probably see what mine says soon enough. befriended some michiganders in line (hyperkinetic stereokids) who made a flint happens shirt. then to the fort in search of free ice cream (sandwiches!), free drinks (green yuck!), and a wristband for nava, and also a david banner
set that never materialized. (not sure what happened there.) we waited around anyway though, and soon lykke li came on, looking much fresher and more confident than when we'd seen her earlier, and played a substantially more enjoyable (though not all that many songs longer) set that considerably improved my opinion of her, so i'm glad we caught it.
after that though we skedaddled to lambert's to finally watch the explorer's club, whom i'd narrowly missed seeing twice so far. it was well worth the wait and effort, as they're so sunny and good-natured and goofy on stage that it's pretty impossible not to have a good time watching them (with free corn mini-muffins to boot!) their (mid-to-late period) beach boys fixation is so over-the-top it's almost preposterous, but they've got what it takes to pull it off - upwards of three fully competent vocalists, a general genially scruffy appearance including at least one dude with shaggy blond shoulder-length locks, a trove of secret-weapon instruments from lap-steel to sleighbells, and, crucially, some pretty darned effective melodies. not sure if anything quite tops "forever" (which is itself an undeniable pastiche), but several of 'em came close, and if nothing else their set-closing "johnny b. goode" cover (which had me and n off our stools and dancin') cut to the good-vibes essence of rock'n'roll.
next stop the fire hall (or something), where a small circle was huddled in rapt attention around local-ish (dallas?) hip-hop posse ddc, one of whose members (though not the one in the oversized wonderbread t-shirt) declared himself the greatest rapper ever, past or future. well all right. they were pretty sweet, and i'm looking forward to checking out their mixtape, but we were there to see sway, the british-born/ghanaian-raised/uk-reppin' rapper who's probably my favorite mc, and whom i never particularly expected to be five feet away from. his set was shortish but packed, including several highlights from this is my demo - "little derek," with the audience echoing the end of each chorus line, credit-card debt anthem "flo fashion," anti p2p diatribe "download," and of course "up your speed," for which all the place names were changed to austin ("up your speed") or texas ("change gear"), which sort of confuses the driving conceit - some stuff presumably from the upcoming signature, like the goofy but neat "say it twice" (on which he 'repeats everything he says'); a couple of a cappellas and a freestyle or two; lots of audience engagement (mostly getting us to say his name a lot of times); and much mileage taken from the fact that 'sway' rhymes with 'u.k.' and (for his freestyle on crowd-chosen topics) 'rachael ray.' being full of yourself is more or less allowed (/encouraged) in hip-hop, so i can't really hold that against him. anyway, he's just as charismatic and fun and technically impressive in person. hope he does manages to do okay here in the states... if any british rapper could make it he's probably the one.
speaking of rachael ray, we went to her party next - there was no food left by this time, so getting in wasn't too hard (though, i guess, that kind of defeated the purpose), but there were pre-mixed mojitos that, as nava said, tasted just like mojitos except that they weren't good. impressive culinary feat, that. there was also holy fuck, who sounded pretty cool and funky though i couldn't really see them that well through the crowd. (looked like they were mostly fiddling around with things on tables, but in a more energetic and interesting-to-watch way than that typically implies.) there was also dj efrin ramirez, aka pedro from napoleon dynamite, though i sure wouldn't have recognized him - but he held it down pretty well when we were there/leaving, including a good remix of beck's "guero" and an excellent mashup of "closer" and "in da club." and there was ms. ray herself, who took the stage to wish us goodbye and hope that our minds had been blown.
pretty good so far. then it got better. we biked east of downtown to the french legation museum, where one of the best lineups of the week was serenading the beautifully green and spacious grounds of the former seat of local government. we'd rsvp'd but there was enough space for anybody to just walk in, grab a $4 hamburger (skip the epic beer line though) and a free ice cream snack, and lay out on the grass - as we did for most of she & him's very pretty, if hardly riveting, decidedly classic-sounding set - or take a seat under the tent, as we did for okkervil river. actually, we sat (on the ground, forward of the many rows of seats) for about ten minutes before the set started, but by the time the band took the stage we were up on our feet, and pumped. oh man. i'd seen okkervil twice, and knew they put on an awesome show, but i'd forgotten just how tremendously, emotionally intense they are, in the best possible way, with will sheff seemingly pouring every ounce of his being into his singing and playing, and the rest of the band right there alongside him. this may have been particularly impassioned, being a hometown show, but i still don't know how he does it, especially since they had another gig (at stubb's) starting in a little under two hours after they finished this set. it wasn't a particularly long set - the whole party had been running late, for one thing - but it was action-packed, kicking off with "westfall," ripping through several from the last album ("plus ones," "unless it's kicks," and "our life is not a movie or maybe" - whose title, i hadn't realized, is apparently meant to preface the first line of the song), and the rockers "the latest toughs" and "for real." "movie" and "for real," in particular, are just such cleverly, powerfully constructed songs, in ways that translate so well to live setting, with the band wringing every drop of tension and energy out of them. damn, what a great band...
let's see... then we met a norwegian guy in the line for the men's room (don't know if i'd ever seen gendered port-a-potties before - they were even color-coded, pink and blue), who turned out to live a block or two away from where bobby had lived in san francisco. by the time kimya dawson went on the tent had cleared out a fair amount, and we took some chairs towards the back for probably the gentlest and sweetest (and funniest) set of the week. kimya may somewhat resemble a big baby - as she almost overheard somebody saying about her a little too loudly over the hushed crowd - but i'd like to see her actual baby, whose name is panda. probably the best part of her set were several songs from her forthcoming childrens album, including "alpha-butt" (an alphabet song of farts and butts) and song about us being animals too. also her closer, where an interstitial cover of "on the road again," which at first seemed to be an appropriate appropriated chorus turned out to be the beginning of an extended 'impression' of changing stations on the road-trip radio.
and then it was saturnight. quick bite at progress with matt, then off to see hanne hukkelberg at emo's iv. actually she was at emo's jr. (my mistake), which meant it took a while to get in, not because of people lining up to see her, but for the raveonettes/donnas/x lineup happening later on at the connected emo's (main). so we missed the beginning of her set ("berlin" and "cheater's armoury," i gathered from paper-plate setlist), and the room was noisy with street-noise and slowly-filtering-in bar talkers - in all a markedly poor venue choice - but it's okay because everything about the set itself was simply stunning. for such a seasoned player, hanne's not much of a performer, but her shyness draws you in, and introversion suits her music anyway. every member of her band (jazzy drummer, sick fake-hollow-body guitarist, bassist and a very impressive harmony vocalist/multi-instrumentalist) was technically great, and they played really well together, fleshing out the odd and intimate sound-world of the album (most of the set was from rykestraße 68, plus "ease" and maybe one other from little things.) dramatic conclusion of the pixies cover and "ticking bomb," which packs so much into its short running time it's kind of overwhelming. she's truly something special, and it was a treat to get to see her even in suboptimal conditions. go norway.
things did get a bit derailed at that point. nava and i went to check out volume, where flosstradamus, cool kids, a-trak, etc. were scheduled to appear in a half hour or so, and got in so easily (to a funky but only half-full club) that i decided to leave and come back in a bit, so as to check out innerpartysystem, the suburban phillyites i'd at one point been scheduled to play a gig with. as per katehawk[atwork?]'s insistence that everybody should see them. i am glad i saw them - they play a kind of u2-intense, darkly shiny, melodramatic electronic dance rock with a swanky, flashy stage-light show and a big-league professionalism rare at sxsw back-patio tent gigs, and i was duly impressioned, though it's probably not something i could stand to listen to for more than twenty minutes at a stretch - but it turned out to be a mistake as when i returned to volume not a half-hour later there was suddenly a mega-line, mass confusion, and seemingly dwindling likelihood of getting into the apparently now-at-capacity club.
i found myself without a great contingency plan for that slot (i made it through the whole festival without actually carrying a schedule, or anything more than a long-sleeved waist-tied shirt, to weigh myself down), but figured i'd go check out tally hall, a fave band of mark's who i figured might be entertaining at the least. actually it was by far my least favorite set of the day, which isn't necessarily saying much, and is also partially due to the staggeringly overheated buffalo billiards upstairs room where they were playing, but... yeah, they were just kind of bland and musically uninteresting and utterly un-groovy, and not even funny (not that i could really understand the words, which is a problem for this kind of group), cute outfits and nifty introductory video notwithstanding. oh well, can't win 'em all.
was totally made up for by the next band, white shoes and the couples company, an incomprehensibly anachronistic indie pop outfit from indonesia, jakarta (as they say it.) "indonesia has many islands!" a giddily slippery bobby shouted out after one of their songs. not only are these guys from halfway around the world, they seem like they're from about four decades in the past - on the other hand the cultural reference points are so up for grabs that it's hard to say just how much winking calculation (some, surely?) is involved in their pitch-perfect evocation of a particular late-sixties internationalist lounge-chic aesthetic, in everything from their faded press photos and period-appropriate semi-formal wardrobe (white suits; the adorably boyish drummer sported a bowtie and a floppy bowl-cut) to their unabashed exotica-flavored lite-disco and easy-listening grooves. lead singer/dancer/finger-snapper aprilia apsari's hundred-watt beam (puts even rachael ray to shame) certainly wasn't letting slip any inkling of convoluted post-colonial semiotic self-awareness. nevermind that though - she and the band as a whole (grinning and funky-dancing pint-sized bassist, sweetly demure pianist/violinist, endearingly dopey acoustic guitarist - unfortunately the lead guitarist was missing due to late visa clearance) put on a pitch-perfect, flawlessly good-natured performance, complete with an extended, jokey swing-style drum solo. and we were eating it up - it's hard to say whether the band or the audience was having a better time, but it was certainly a pretty magical moment.
and then there was time for just one more set. i'd been hoping for a finale that might approach the out-of-the-blue awesomeness of last year's junior senior gig, and after a bit of deliberation i stuck with my inclination and found it, for sure, in the form of was (not was) out-of-retirement appearance at la zona rosa, which was not merely (as i expected) entertaining and unpredictable but (as i probably should have expected) pretty much mindblowingly great on just about every level. as the grinning, dredded, shade-wearing and be-hatted don was informed us, this was the band's first gig in texas in twenty years and their first time playing with all three of their original vocalists since 1992 - they're (back) together now having recorded what will be their first album in eighteen years. but they hardly sounded dusty.
who is this band again? was (not was) are a project spearheaded by the fictional (white) brothers don and david was, featuring some seriously soulful (black) r&b vocalists (notably sweet pea atkinson and sir harry bowens, who for this gig were seriously decked out in natty three-piece suits and fedoras) and assorted other mostly detroit-based musicians (as don made sure to point out), who in this case included a completely sick (black) electric guitarist (randy jacobs), a no-slouch-either (white) saxist, and, freaking, james gadson, a drum legend (shame on you wikipedia!) whose credits include ray charles, bill withers, marvin gaye, diana ross, etc. etc. i first heard them via my dad's cassette copy of are you okay?, their 1990 swansong (until now), which i mostly dug for the oddball lyrics and weirdo sing-speaking of songs like "i feel better than james brown." also g. love e. (as he was known then) rapped on their cover of "papa was a rolling stone." they turned up again in the early 2000s as an inclusion on the first disco (not disco) compilation (hmm, title?), first shot fired in the hipster reclamation of forgotten '80s semi-disco semi-punk weirdness, and they've also recently shown up in the dj mixes of hipsterdance figureheads tim sweeney and james murphy. so where were the hipsters? watching x or black moth super rainbow or dr. dog or the tough alliance (ha, joke's on them), i guess.
they certainly weren't at this show (at least not the young hipstery ones), where the crowd (not huge, but respectable) was decidedly older and boomerier than your typical sxsw audience, which is only part of what set this set decidedly apart from the rest of the week. i was trying to come up with the right comparison - there was definitely something of the stop making sense-era expanded talking heads about it (say no more!), if david byrne (who in this case would correlate to flutist/vocalist david was, the author of those weirdball lyrics and by far the schlumpiest dresser on stage, though it fit his mildly manic, off-kilter persona) was mostly relegated to the background; an equally semi-valid reference point might be the steely dan of the showboating, talent-studded early '90s reunion tours. actually, w(nw) are in many ways kind of like the dan of the '80s - a point driven home by the fact that don's real last name is fagenson - though ultimately, i think, much more good-natured, and certainly more consistently dance-oriented, if also even weirder and spazzier. whatever - you could also compare was (not was) live to a less outlandish, reined-in george clinton/p-funk gig, or to the most righteously grooving wedding funk band ever.
i'll admit that the new songs (single "crazy water," the funkier "your luck won't last") didn't quite overwhelm me, though i'll give em some time. but they came through with the old jams, including the hits "walk the dinosaur" and "wheel me out," and "i blew up the united states," which medleyed into both "sunshine superman" and "superfly." and pretty much everything got extended with much funky soloing etc. etc. i didn't even mind too much that we'd missed "papa was a rolling stone" and (all but the final few moments of) "i feel better than james brown" - apparently this was one set that actually started on time, and lasted until the very end of the allotted hour; the band seemed like they'd have been happy to keep on blowing. just means i'll have to catch them when they come around on tour. sweet!
oh, it wasn't quite all over...we tried for a minute to get into this one party, and then this other party, where matthew was already inside, and which turned out to be perez hilton's party, for what that's worth - funnily, it was back at the palm door, where we'd started out the day, and nobody seemed to know what was going on. it later turned out that robyn had played there (i think earlier than when we arrived) and n.e.r.d. and dragonette (among many others) played later, but for some reason there seemed to be just a dj spinning prince and daft punk while we were outside, trying half-heartedly to get in. i'm not sure but i think we could have made it - i mean, they let taylor hanson in (and a-trak, such a nice jewish boy) - but by that point there'd been enough confusion, and matt came out (with a bag of liquid "schwag" including the new not-yet-available izze flavor, peach, omg, which he was pretty excited about) and we went home. well, first we went to magnolia, where our wristbands weren't good enough to beat the wait but it was well less than an hour anyway, and we went home happy and full of quesos and fish tacos, and glorious ringing in our ears (well, figuratively in my case, thanx muso. plugs.)
25 January 2008
selling insights by the word (6¢ apiece)
...and now that i've weighed in on the ark, robyn's self-titled magnum opus is just about the only Pop album of the last few years that i absolutely adore, scandinavian or otherwise, which i haven't written about for amg. (though that's about to change.) it's been an immensely enjoyable process, though, as i say, a slow and painstaking one, since i seem to be compelled to explore and reconsider each album i review, even those i know and love intimately, to come up with at least one new nugget of insight - and in some cases it has substantially transformed my understanding of these albums.
so here's a round-up of some of what i have written there so far - call it round-up round one - with links to some of my favorite reviews and bios with excerpts that hopefully convey some of the insights i've gleaned. in the order i wrote them:
Margaret Berger: bio, Chameleon and Pretty Scary Silver Fairy reviews
Margaret Berger (or "Marble," as she introduces herself to us) reportedly wished her album to be "sweet but mean at the same time" -- hence the "pretty" and "scary" of the title -- a description that resonates with the balance she strikes between tones of innocence and experience. As befits a set of songs written by a 21-year-old reflecting back on her teenage years, these tunes convey a sense of carefree, youthful hope and boundless optimism that's often tempered (though never too harshly) by a more complex, knowing nostalgia.
[...] Recordings from her [Norwegian] Idol stint, as well as many tracks from her debut, reveal her to be a remarkably soulful, full-throated singer, but for the bulk of Fairy she modulates her voice into a more modest instrument. Not that it sounds thin or lacking in personality: although it would have been interesting to hear a song like "Get Physical," for instance, with a more commanding, emotive delivery, a simpler and sweeter approach is probably more germane to this mode of somewhat icy electro-pop; it also accentuates the mood of playful innocence. That Berger evidently chose to downplay her vocal abilities for the sake of constructing a sonically and thematically unified album is in itself a strong indication of her refined sense of pop craftsmanship.
Amy Diamond: bio, This Is Me Now and Still Me, Still Now reviews
Amy Diamond's tricky. She was a young teenager when this debut album was released -- a preteen, in fact, when some of it was recorded (though you'll have a hard time believing that when you hear her big brassy voice; and the cover photo makes it look like she's about six.) But her recordings are certainly more sophisticated than you would typically expect of "children's music." And - unlike the bulk of pop made by (and for) teenagers - neither do they attempt to mimic the forms and themes of "adult" pop, at least not in the familiar manner of teen-centric rock, R&B, and dance-pop. In that sense, Diamond isn't pretending to be something that she's not -- but it's still remarkably hard to determine who, exactly, she is, the album title notwithstanding: This Is Me Now may be chock-full of personality in a musical sense, but it's bizarrely lacking in identity.
Richard X: bio and Presents His X-Factor review
"The best album in the world ever! Massive tunes! All the biggest stars! All the biggest hits!" So proclaims voice-over artist and former BBC DJ Mark Goodier partway through producer/mash-up pioneer Richard X's sprawling spectacle of a debut album. It's a joke -- obviously -- and a decent indication of the cheeky, lighthearted tone with which X constructs his reverently irreverent recombinant electro-pop. But it's not hard to take the suggestion at least a little bit seriously, particularly slotted as it is just before one of the most genuinely "massive" tunes of the early 2000s (in Britain, that is): the Adina Howard/Gary Numan frisson-collision "Freak Like Me," which began its (bastard) life as a bootleg 7" on X's Black Melody imprint (as "We Don't Give a Damn About Our Friends," recorded under the name Girls on Top), before it was re-recorded by the Sugababes and debuted at number one on the U.K. singles chart.
Sway: bio, This Is My Demo and One For the Journey reviews
This debut album, which followed two rounds of "This Is My Promo" mixtapes, displays him as a fully formed and formidable talent: self-conscious and introspective (that much should be evident from his album titles), but never tediously chin-stroking or esoteric; delightfully witty and droll but almost always with a well-considered underlying message; streetwise but hardly thuggish; linguistically nimble but not ostentatious; decidedly English in rhetoric, references, and voice, but distinctive enough, and with enough sheer unqualified charisma, to transcend genre and geographic boundaries. Indeed, Sway strikes such a well-positioned balance between so many poles and potential pitfalls, offering a little something to appeal to almost any potential listener, that you'd expect him to come off as overly calculated. On the contrary, though, his casual, almost tossed-off earnestness is quintessential to his charm.
Minor Majority: bio and Candy Store review
Minor Majority's musical m.o. -- elegant, intimate, acoustic folk-pop -- remained virtually unchanged between their 2001 debut release and this 2007 compilation...the group swelled from a duo to a quintet over that period, so their more recent work is somewhat more fleshed out, or at least more likely to include drums; they've also picked up a bit of studio polish along the way.
[...] Like their similarly hushed countrymen Kings of Convenience, Sweden's Nicolai Dunger (circa Tranquil Isolation), and Iceland's Funerals, they manage to assimilate a distinctly American strain of rootsy melancholia into a style that only subtly hints at their Scandinavian origin.
The Veronicas: Hook Me Up review
The Veronicas -- who seem to be in control of their own career to an impressive extent for a pair of 22-year-old girls -- are the rare teen pop act for whom visual presentation is almost entirely incidental. (Note, for instance, that they haven't appeared on either of their album covers -- which is practically unheard of in teen pop -- and they're 22-year-old identical twin sisters.)
In fact, this album's glistening electronic trappings -- besides being enjoyable in their own right -- only serve to enhance the integrity of the Veronicas' aesthetic by elucidating the grand driving tension at the heart of confessional teen pop: the juxtaposition of adolescent angst with pop's transcendent sweetness.
Skye Sweetnam: Sound Soldier review
Since she first emerged in 2003 with the teenage rebellion anthem "Billy S." (probably the only song in history to contain a shout of unabashed glee about how much teachers get paid), self-described bubblegum brainiac Skye Sweetnam has toured summer camps, clubs, and stadiums (as Britney Spears' opening act) in support of her debut album Noise from the Basement; contributed her voice to The Barbie Diaries and her songs to The Sims; turned 16, 17, 18, and 19; emphatically protested the inescapable comparisons to fellow Canadian punk-tart Avril Lavigne (in Basement's "Hypocrite" she ironically refers to herself as "Avril-lite"; at one point her guitar sported an "Anti-Matrix sticker in reference to Lavigne's notorious production team), and amassed a reported seventy songs in preparation for her follow-up album with collaborators in Toronto, Los Angeles, and Sweden. In 2007 -- the same year that Lavigne unveiled a newly spunky, playful attitude and gaudy fashion sense noticeably similar to Sweetnam's own, and scored the first rock number one in six years with a song ("Girlfriend") highly reminiscent of her bratty, cheerleader punk-pop -- Sweetnam finally emerged with her second album (it had been delayed for well over a year since its originally scheduled release date), which turned out to have been produced and co-written predominantly by the self-same Matrix with whom Lavigne found her initial success. Such is life in the topsy-turvy, high-stakes, and jet-setting world of rock-based teen pop.
Tunng: This Is Tunng..., Comments of the Inner Chorus, Pioneers, and Magpie Bites reviews
"If it can be broke then it can be fixed/if it can be fused than it can be split" - it reads like a mission statement for resourceful sonic collage artists Tunng, who have built their career on breaking genre boundaries by fusing traditionalist acoustic folk with spluttering electronics...
It's a style that finds clear parallels in the work of New England's the Books -- in particular, the intermittent found-sound snippets and spoken word samples (that's Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso reading from their poetry in "Out the Window with the Window") make that connection unmistakable -but has few other obvious comparisons. Which doesn't mean it's hard to classify: indeed, the genre tag "folktronica," which had entered into general usage several years before Tunng's emergence, never had a more apt referent"
Marit Larsen: Under the Surface review
Her distinctive writerly voice encompasses both a sprightly playfulness and a self-consciously mature anxiety, as reflected in her penchant for outsized, almost bombastically melodic choruses tempered by more tentative, delicate verses. After the brief, sweetly understated preamble of "In Came the Light," the title tune rushes in with a frenzied swirl of schmaltzy, Disney-esque strings and bells, but its romantic exuberance is swiftly undercut by a yearning verse melody and a narrator so enraptured and yet so wracked by jealous doubt that she can barely even stand her lover's presence. This sort of crippling insecurity crops up repeatedly -- in the self-effacing unrequited lover/loner of "Recent Illusion," and the snooping, paranoid housewife of "This Time Tomorrow," a jangly waltz whose awkward second-person perspective and forced, unconvincing premise make it the album's sole lyrical weak link. In each case, it's made achingly more poignant by Larsen's resonant delivery -- there's so much warmth and sweetness in her voice that even in her most forlorn moments you can practically hear a smile determined to break through the pathos.
Rachel Stevens: Come and Get It review
Come and Get It is a marvel of pure pop craftsmanship, boasting inventive, fresh, engrossingly detailed productions, gorgeously layered vocals and synths, huge hooks, and infectious melodies... Especially in light of its lackluster reception, it comes across as a true labor of love, painstakingly constructed by and for discerning pop true believers, and destined for future pop cult enshrinement. With all this talk of craftsmanship, and all the talent that's on display, it's deceptively easy to overlook Rachel Stevens' role in all of this, to write her off as little more than a faceless, er, pretty face. And it's true that she doesn't present any sort of cohesive persona here, but that's due less to lack of charisma than to her conscious, consummate chameleonism, her own strongest point as a master pop stylist.
If this album offers us a glimpse of the "real" Rachel Stevens, it might very well be in its final track, the rather archly titled "Dumb Dumb," which belies its generic clubland groove with a ruminative third-person account of a gold-hearted, secretly despondent pinup who "sacrificed her image for her beauty." That's pure speculation of course, but it's hard to imagine Stevens tripping through the pop-star merry-go-round as she has, garnering such conspicuous potential and such compromised fulfillment, without picking up at least a touch of world-weary resignation.
Bertïne Zetlïtz: Rollerskating review
The album artwork depicts the glassy-eyed, nordicly stunning Zetlïtz wandering through a deep, dark, verdant forest improbably populated with cartoon bats, a man made out of vines, and an eerily illuminated slot machine. It's a bizarre, arresting series of images, aptly suited to the album's evocative if often inscrutable lyrics, whose dreamlike lucidity is also well captured in Zetlitz's dulcet but detached delivery. References abound to candy, butterflies, rollercoasters, and the like - but their sweetness is undercut by frequent allusions to guns, drugs, obsession, and all manner of emotional fragility and frigidity. Even the seeming reassurance of the stately, heartbreakingly poignant ballads "If You Were Mine" and "Broken" is couched in often disconcerting imagery ("it occurred to me you might be injured/cause my dress got stained from your touch.")
