Vicki Leekx

Danny: What’s your beef with M.I.A.?

Sean: I got tired of her shtick. The trashy, 4chan aesthetic. For someone who seemed very focused at first, she started to look like her artistic project was all over the place.

D: This mixtape seemed, in many ways, a corrective to the backlash to against  /\/\ /\ Y /\.

S: Which was also a pretty shitty record, objectively.

D: It was muddled and misguided unfortunately, yeah. Did Vicki Leekx correct anything for you?

S: It didn’t correct anything so much as it has cast her in a different light. It turns out that I like her mixtapes better than anything else. Piracy Funds Terrorism and this.

D: Why? Because they’re less calculated?

S: Partially. But also because it’s perfect for her aesthetic. Remember, at first, visually, she was all about street art and its connections to guerilla warfare. Then she just went off the map. But the eclecticism of a mixtape is perfect for her grab-bag style.

D: If you believe Lynn Hirschberg’s infamous New York Times profile of her, she became more interested in provocation than actual music. That Warholian notion of package and product over content.

S: I do believe it, in a pretty big way. She’s a concept artist.

D: Do the seeming contradictions that article raised matter? That she’s engaged to the heir to the Bronfman fortune and lives in Brentwood, and  yet espouses to “pull up the people, pull up the poor” and be this anti-materialist revolutionary? Is it hypocritical? Is it mutually exclusive?

S: I think as long as she lets go of this authenticity crap… “Authenticity” is always hypocritical.

D: She’s drawing from hip-hop tradition though, which is so deeply steeped in “keeping it real.” There was a scandal a few years ago when The Smoking Gun revealed that Rick Ross was not a outlaw coke-slinger like his raps claimed, but a former prison guard. Ross even tried to keep denying it, because it was so contradictory to his persona.

S: It makes me think of Dizzee Rascal, who used to rap about street life. Then, by 2009, he was releasing Tongue n’ Cheek, an album of party songs.

D: And objectively, that album was pretty shitty too.

S: It’s true, but I respect that he realized he was beating a dead horse. He said he knew he couldn’t rap about having a tough life anymore.

D: Success is a tricky trap for artists like that to work around. If you fold your fame and success into your work, it can become vapid and self-reflexively shallow very quickly. If you try to change your sound too much, you risk losing what made you special in the first place.

S: If rich people want to rap about being poor, that’s fine with me. Just drop the authenticity label. Art is inherently inauthentic.

D: We also know too much about artists now. I miss the mystery, before every sneeze, cough, and fart was being chronicled. So what about Vicki Leekx appealed to you?

S: It’s scrappy. I enjoyed it on a sonic level, and didn’t listen too much to the lyrics. I’m afraid that would make me dislike it again.

D: I love the fact that she rhymes “Springsteen” with “mujahideen” and “mangosteen.” No one else in music capable of raising those kinds of parallels.

S: House of Pain rhymed “McEnroe” with “smackin’ a hoe.”

D: And sonically, it is pretty fresh. I wish she’d gone in this direction for her last album. The inexplicable thing about /\/\ /\ Y /\ is that it wasn’t a bid for a bigger audience or airplay. It’s a weird, noncommercial slog with few standout songs and little momentum. And yet here, when she’s poppier and looser and trying less hard to matter, she’s far better.

S: I agree. Although I have a sneaking suspicion that some of these songs are about people being inauthentic.

D: I hate to break it to you–that’s true.

S: It’s just immature on her part.

D: Or defensive or defiant or deluded. Take your pick.

S: Her musical talents lie in the bricolage of different forms of popular culture. I heard some reggae, some kuduro, a little dubstep.

D: You can see why she and Diplo clicked so well. They’re both collators, curators. They share that same love of sampling very widely and reconfiguring newly. Music as a global buffet.

S: And her lyrical talents lie in light, breezy wordplay. But she takes herself so seriously as a political writer, and it’s just not there.

D: She’s not a deep theorist, no. But at the same time, I’m glad that someone’s tackling politics in pop.

S: I would rather no one tackle politics than tackle them this childishly.

D: I don’t know. There’s a fair amount of intelligence on this mixtape. For example, I appreciate the concept of personifying Wikileaks as Vicki, a female cyborg hellbent on bringing music to the masses. And I’ve always loved how M.I.A. explores and sometimes conflates the connections between sex and violence. You may be underestimating her.

S: I’ve been disappointed by her a fair bit in the past. I did love her at first because I saw these flashes of intelligence, but she’s become predictably polemic in increasingly uninteresting ways.

D: Look at her revision of Beyonce’s hook, “A diva is a female version of a hustler.” M.I.A. takes it one step further and changes it to “A hustler is a female version of a hustler.” Or contrast her and Nicki Minaj (who she cleverly shouts out to). At one point, the former says, “Your shoes could feed a village, you should think about that,” while the latter once bragged, “We can’t even rock them shoes if it don’t got a comma on the price tag.” At least, M.I.A. is an antidote to all the get-rich-or-die-trying rap posturing. Outside of overly serious conscious rappers, there aren’t too many people in the genre who are anti-bling and anti-hustle.

S: Is she really anti-hustle? She seems to be the embodiment of hustle.

D: She claims to be anyway. I like the fact that she makes statements like, “You can have my money, but you can’t have me,” even if it’s not true. I’d almost rather have the hypocrisy than the endless bragging about houses, jets, and stacks of paper.

S: Still, something about her feels superficial while pretending at depth. Maybe she’s just a human conceptual art project about the distance between what you say you are and who you are. A rapping Banksy.

D: She is in danger of neutralizing her more salient points by spending so much energy on crafting that self-serious persona. But this mixtape is a retreat from that in some ways.

S: Which is nice. Musically, it’s back in her power zone.

D: And a lot more fun than she’s been in a while.

S: If it’s fun, I really don’t care that much what she talks about.

D: I don’t know how I feel about that. I love the idea of pop being a potential smokescreen for big, hefty ideas. It just needs to be executed with a little more thought and nuance. Are there any current pop stars who are incorporating politics into their music well? No one is jumping to mind for me, which is a shame.

S: I can’t think of anyone right now.

Eskimo Snow

Danny: When you first proposed discussing Eskimo Snow, I said I kinda hated it and you said you might feel the same way. Do you?

Sean: No, I feel more… generous toward it now. It was worth a second pass, because there were definitely moments I’d been missing. WHY? records tend to be densely packed, so I thought this one might have parts that passed under the radar. Do you still feel the same way?

D: Actually, I’ve completely reversed my opinion. I love this record now. It’s still not in the stratosphere of Elephant Eyelash or Alopecia for me, but I’m amazed how much I’ve changed course.

S: This was partially my thought—we tend to dedicate too little time to music. Or to things in general.

D: Especially art that’s not readily accessible or apparently great. And yet, ironically, it’s that denseness and inaccessibility that makes this such a worthwhile listen. Quite literally, every time I put it on, I find myself liking it more and unearthing new layers.

S: Me too. I keep discovering new beautiful little lyrics in it.

D: Lyrically, it may be nearly as strong as its predecessors. What’s harder to get past initially are the music and vocals, I think. Both are far less readily joyous and ebullient.

S: The singing and rapping aren’t quite as catchy either.

D: What I loved about the earlier albums was how Yoni Wolf would mix such morbid lyrics with such energetic delivery. Here, he can sound as depressed and defeated as his subject matter. It’s like he’s too sad to bother not sounding too sad. Whereas before, he’d try to mask his pain in showier, bouncier melodies.

S: The old pop music cliché—sad lyrics set to happy music.

D: But a pretty affecting cliché all the same. Better than happy lyrics set to happy music.

S: I can understand why these songs were cut from Alopecia, yet this record could only come right after it. Thematically, they’re night and day, but musically, they’re similarly textured. I see them as a set. Eskimo Snow is Alopecia’s sad little brother.

D: There’s a Kid A/Amnesiac comparison to be made here too.

S: That comparison flies. What about favorite songs or lines? Wolf is one of the rare lyricists who actually deserves our attention. Personally, I love “That’s right, I’m like everybody else is/ Ashamed of sleep, I lie when a phone call wakes me/ Oh, am I too concerned with the burn of scrutiny?”

D: I’m obsessed with “This Blackest Purse.” For me, it could easily stand among Alopecia’s highlights. Or any other apex of the WHY? discography, like “Gemini (Birthday Song).” There’s a verse in it that encapsulates everything I love about this band, which is, “Still sportin’ my ex-girlfriend’s dead ex-boyfriend’s boxers,/ I wanna operate from a base of hunger,/ No longer be ashamed and hide my/ Tears in shower water while I lather for pleasure.”

S: Explain how that encapsulates WHY? for you.

D: First, there’s the incredible and perverse loneliness of wearing an ex’s dead ex’s boxers. But also the impossible need for intimacy and connection that leaves you at an ever greater remove. And the attempt to hide your pain while trying to feel any temporary joy. Ultimately though, you’re alone and, oh yeah, sobbing in a shower and jerking off.

S: What most strikes me about his writing, is that, even in the most destitute and destroyed moments, he works from a base of humor.

D: That’s true. It’s a deeply Jewish trait, I find. Woody Allen and Allen Ginsberg both spring to mind as forebears. Anybody named Allen really.

S: Tim Allen?

D: Obviously. There’s also that mutual twisted relationship with sex. The guilt, the confusion, the raw need. (See: “I wish I could feel close to somebody, but I don’t feel nothing/ Now they say I need to quit doing all this random ffff…”)

S: I’d never really considered how Wolf’s Jewishness informed his work. He does remind me of a Jewish friend from school though. Quite a bit.

D: It’s a huge influence, I think. One he’s discussed before. His father’s a Messianic Jewish preacher, and he himself used to be a believer too. I can also detect the typical Jewish male mindset in many of the lines. The oil-black humor, that savagely uncomfortable honesty. It runs through our bloodline.

S: What you’re describing seems to be resonating with the wider world, beyond the bounds of a Jewish people. Or maybe I feel that way because I relate to it too.

D: It can definitely be a universal sentiment. Here are another two lines about conflicted sexuality that are pretty illustrative: “I never saw my parents try to make a thing like me/ In time, in the bathroom mirror, I learned to accept my body.” He’s so self-absorbed, so riddled with doubt. He just can’t ever get out of his head or away from his failings.

S: Humor really is the only way out. We have to learn to take ourselves less seriously. This album sounds like him coming close to failing at that.

D: And yet he grasps the importance of humor. Just before that quote, he says, “Flowers are how plants laugh.” That’s a pretty gorgeous image, and one that’s very revealing about his conception of comedy as a survival mechanism.

S: It’s a good line. The one I try to use the most. But I want to come back to the music, which I actually find is just as complex and nuanced as the compositions on Alopecia.

D: Give me an example.

S: The arpeggiated chords of “Into The Shadows of My Embrace.” It starts off as a parody of a lounge singer and develops into this beautifully full arrangement.

D: I like that description of it.

S: It’s like a dour, rapping Steve Reich song. These guys seem to have studied their minimalism.

D: I find it more subdued than their previous records overall. The music matches this impression I get of Wolf just trying to get by. To slog through the day. It’s not as manic or spiky; it doesn’t rise and fall as much as it used to.

S: I found that listening to this record very loud or on headphones really opened it up sonically for me. It’s very richly produced—organ drones, echoing vocals, clattering percussion, breathing sounds, gorgeous drumming.

D: I didn’t fall in love with it until I listened to it while walking. It’s meant for solitary walks at night through beautifully lit cities, with a coffee and a few drinks sloshing through your system. Some doubts, a few regrets, a lost love on your mind.

S: I found it made for nice music to wash dishes to. A little less romantic, but wonderful nonetheless. It’s full and thick, so it deserves to be listened to accordingly.

D: It took me about six listens to crack through its defenses. I really admire albums that grow like that, and am continually surprised when it happens. Especially in this era of instant judgment.

S: At one point, I wanted to start a website that only reviewed music that was at least a few months old.

D: That’s entirely inverse to the way the critical sphere works today. Which is, to give your loud, short opinion as soon as possible.

S: Appropriately, taking your time is a lesson I learned from minimalism and experimental music. John Cage once said, to paraphrase bluntly, “If it’s boring, listen to it longer.” We need the time to discover folds in things, which is also an act of listening as creation.

D: What are some other albums that expanded for you in a similar way?

S: Augie March’s Strange Bird. I certainly didn’t like it much when I first heard it. But I’d purchased the CD, so I was going to like it or be damned. Also, William Basinski’s work in general.

D: I still lack the requisite attention span for Basinski. But I do feel that way about Stars of the Lid’s And Their Refinement of The Decline. People should migrate back to buying CDs. It’d improve the experience of music listening. Just making that active commitment.

S: I try to buy records for that reason. I’m definitely guilty of not committing, so every time I rediscover something I hated or felt indifferent toward, it makes me happy.

D: It is a special genre of victory. For me, the most recent example was Menomena’s Mines. The most important was most of Smog’s catalog, especially A River Ain’t Too Much to Love.

S: I still haven’t given Mines enough of a shot. Like Eskimo Snow, it’s almost too brutal to listen to casually.

D: It’s startling to think, in the case of Eskimo Snow, that I let so many depths slip by unrecognized for two-and-a-half years.

S: This experience has reminded me art can be really be worth something, can really be taken seriously. That it’s not disposable, even though it’s easily available. It reminds me of how I felt when I discovered, say, the Replacements. I never would’ve made it to the last song on this record either. And the production on that song, the title track, kills me. Any opportunity to pay attention is worth taking.

D: It’s a wonderful closer, I agree. So what do you think we can expect from WHY? next? I was searching for news of a new record, but disappointingly found none.

S: I don’t know—maybe Wolf will take the Kanye route. Release an over-the-top record, followed by a downer, and then fold them into the fabric of one another for the next. I have no doubt that he has the range to make his next album as good as the last few.

D: I just hope Nicki Minaj does a guest spot to add to the psychosexual lunacy.

S: That’s a dream we can all stand behind.

D: And that his next project is just as unflinchingly honest about his current state of mind.

S: He probably can’t help it. Like Faulkner, who was once fired from a job at the post office for “incompetence.”

D: There’s one more brilliant verse that sums up the WHY? mission for me, which is: “I wanna speak at an intimate decibel/ With the precision of an infinite decimal,/ To listen up and send back a true echo/ Of something forever felt but never heard,/ I want that sharpened steel of truth in every word.” For me at least, he’s accomplished his mission very well. Over and over, about thirty times in two weeks, I’ve been cherishing that sharpened steel of truth, and I feel richer for having done so.

James Blake

Sean: So have you noticed that “Give Me My Month” sounds like an Aaron Neville song?

Danny: There is a heavy soul influence. That’s pretty striking, considering how soulless this sort of music can be. This is practically verging on gospel.

S: On that one track, his voice sounds very much like Aaron Neville to me.

D: The first time I heard him sing, I was shocked by how good his voice was. It has this really rich mix of delicacy and emotion, much like the record itself.

S: In terms of timbre, definitely. He plays the two extremes off of one another very well. On one hand, airless machine sounds. On the other, hyper-emotive soul vocals.

D: Sometimes within the same song, and yet it comes off as totally organic.

S: It reminds me of ’80s music in that context. Not the bright, sugary music that’s been in vogue again recently, but the darker post-punk and melancholy synthpop.

D: A reach back to that dark insularity, somewhere between Joy Division and New Order.

S: Exactly. It has a clear Factory Records vibe. I think of this record as a dialogue between a soul singer and his computer. I’ve started to imagine that his computer is the object in all the songs too.

D: it reminds me of the video for Björk’s “All is Full of Love.” Love and robots.

S: Love and robots! They’ve both managed to find the beatific within the cold and electronic, which is why I think it resonates so much with me.

D: The very obvious comparison though is Burial’s Untrue. I’m wondering how you think this compares.

S: I hadn’t considered that. I can definitely see it though, with a much clearer vocal personality, and less like the ghost of a rave.

D: This strikes me as a very direct descendant. James Blake to me is like a warmer, more humanist Burial. The Shepard Fairey to Burial’s Banksy.

S: But Blake is much sadder. It’s personalized. Burial is more diffused through the invocation of place.

D: Although it’s probably heretical among critics to admit this, I far prefer the Blake.

S: I do too.

D: Burial to me is too murky and ghostly. By design, but still…

S: I love Burial, don’t get me wrong, but I can see myself listening to this much more often.

D: This is distant, and yet feels so close at the same time.

S: The warmth of his voice and the hyper-stylized R&B singing make for a much more human and organic sort of record. It’s the human filtered through the machine rather than being overwhelmed by it.

D: I totally agree. The clearest example, other than “Limit To Your Love,” is “I Never Learnt To Share.” It’s so simple and yet kind of overwhelmingly heartbreaking.

S: Which actually brings to mind The xx, who have a similar post-dubstep, ’80s R&B, swallowing-the-mic vibe to them.

D: There are so many artists right now doing similar things. It really seems to be a huge wave.

S: How to Dress Well, Darkstar, Wise Blood. Just off the top of my head…

D: Balam Acab. Four Tet’s “Angel Echoes” is very reminiscent too.

S: Even Bon Iver’s “Woods.” That whole aesthetic of human sound—sometimes meaningless—set against a glowing electronic background.

D: I wonder how much further this style can evolve. I worry it’ll become a parody of itself soon.

S: I don’t know—listening to this record, I wonder how anyone could top it.

D: Maybe Blake himself, since he’s shown such diversity so far.

S: He’s young. Very young.

D: Too young. Annoyingly, horribly young.

S: So are a lot of these hypnagogic pop artists.

D: I’ve taken to calling the genre “ghoststep,” since it’s a more haunted version of dubstep.

S: I think it’s going to evolve and then spread like a virus. Even Kanye’s record has some of these same stylistic cues on it. Maybe we’re underestimating the potential of the friction between R&B and machine music?

D: Well, Blake has that hip-hop and R&B influence in his songcraft too. Like those Kelis and Aaliyah samples on “CMYK.” The proliferation of media is resulting in some very intriguing fusion and cross-pollination right now. The machine eating the machine.

S: Granted, a lot of it has been juvenile. Chillwave, for instance, is often just awful.

D: As another example of the cross-breeding, you have witch house, which they say is largely based on DJ Screw’s Chopped and Screwed subgenre.

S: Philip Sherburne wrote a great post about this. You can also read its roots in media artists like Philip Jeck, who makes this wonderfully huge music with old records. Giant, slow washes of sound.

D: Ambient music and sound collages and slowcore all factor in too, for sure. Which yet again makes Blake’s feat all the more impressive. He’s synthesizing so many influences into a coherent, very listenable whole.

S: He’s making an explicit exploration of emotion and machines. Putting the organic and the technological in conversation. Pianos, airtight beats, a very emotive voice. “To Care,” for instance, even sounds like it is skipping at certain points.

D: Add in the fact that this is self-titled. And that lyrically, there are “I”s and “me”s. It’s not just some anonymous voice drifting in the ether.

S: Though he does also play against that. A lot of wordless voices drifting in and out of tracks. The vocoder tracks that recall Kanye or Bon Iver. The glitches and pops in “To Care.”

D: For me, that contrast is most evident on Four Tet’s “Angel Echoes,” where a disembodied voice keeps insisting, “There is love in you” and somehow manages to make it sound both true and alien.

S: My favorite record of the year.

D: It’s an amazing duality.

S: It really is. It ends up being terrible so often that it’s stunning when someone succeeds. There is that underlying dread in Blake’s work that makes it land.

D: It’s also a pretty good encapsulation of our era, where iPhones both connect us and distance us, where we can pretty much all communicate in real time but can’t say much.

S: There is friction between the symbolic and the sensory. We can’t watch or hear each other emote. Even when we can, it’s digitized. We live our lives at lower bit rates these days.

D: This album is the music emo Cylons will one day listen to.

S: Weepy robots with James Blake stickers on their machine guns.