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jamesfairfax
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Review | Khruangbin, Leon Bridges - Texas Sun
lonely listening #1
this week on new music saturday lonely listening, we look at:
Khruangbin, Leon Bridges - Texas Sun
When I opened up Spotify and saw this recommended to me, I was confused.
By my own admission, I had heard of both Leon Bridges and Khruangbin, but never took the time to take a deep dive and listen to both of their (relatively small) discographies. Doing the research for this review, I, of course listened to more of their catalog (including both artist’s wonderful Tiny Desk Concerts) and I came to the conclusion that their team up was a strange surprise, but a welcome one nonetheless. After a few days of contemplation and around 10 spins of their newest collaborative EP, here I am on this wonderful winter afternoon writing out this review.
So, who are Khruangbin?
Donald Ray "DJ" Johnson Jr. (left), Laura Lee (center), Mark Speer (right)
Khruangbin is a Houston based band that consists of bassist Laura Lee, drummer Donald Ray “DJ” Johnson Jr., and guitarist Mark Speer. Self-described as pigeonhole-proof musicians, the trio’s works are mainly instrumental, with adornments of wordless vocal drones that work more as another tool in the songwriting arsenal as opposed to a lyrical focus or storytelling device in the music. Speer once said in a Reverb.com interview that he uses his guitar,
“...like a singer would, instead of thinking about, like, a guitar player.”
The band’s sound is largely derivative of funk, soul, R&B, and dream pop, yes, but their influences are also largely sourced from around the world, with the creation of the band stemming from Lee and Speer’s mutual love of Afghani music.
So, who is Leon Bridges?
Leon Bridges is a singer from the Dallas-Fort Worth Area. His music hearkens back to the traditional school of R&B and Soul, taking inspiration from talent like Wilson Pickett, Smokey Robinson, Bill Withers, and, most oftenly, compared to: Sam Cooke. Bridges’ most well-known song, Coming Home wears its influences on its sleeve, with a swinging 6/8 groove, lovey-dovey lyrics (bordering on cheese), deep, muted bass (in the vein of Jamerson’s classic playing), and the slightly muffled and distorted drums that was characteristic of the “Motown Sound” that dominated American airwaves in the 60′s and 70′s. His work here with Khruangbin is more modern sounding than some of his other cuts, but still serves the style with its romantic, sensual vibe (with the exception of the track Texas Sun).
So, what is Texas Sun?
Johnson (left), Bridges (center left), Lee (center), Speer (right)
Texas Sun is a 4-track EP from Khruangbin and Leon Bridges released on February 7, 2020. The track listing is as follows.
Texas Sun
Midnight
C-Side
Conversion
The project was short enough for me to give it some ample airtime in my ears. Overall, besides the well written arrangements and the well performed grooves, there’s not much to discuss here about this EP. With a collection of music as derivitave as this, its hard to not compare it to what it’s trying to emulate in its own stripped down, modern style.
The title track Texas Sun is probably my least favorite on the record. The two-chord vamp it relies on for the entirety of the song, and the repetitive, “Texas Sun,” line just doesn’t seem to musically fit with the rest of the EP. The next track, Midnight, really starts to draw parallels to the sensual R&B that the group is influenced by, but besides the spacey, groovy vibe, it’s not anything particularly special. The next track, C-Side, is really the star of the EP. Its funky, syncopated groove and moving bassline lay down the foundation for a more than competent and actually fun song to listen to and play.
The sparse atmosphere makes this sound almost... incomplete as a project. The musicianship that Khruangbin express and the emotional power that Bridges conveys is above a standard quality, but lacking a bit of flavor that those old Motown records used to have. No horn arrangements, no strings, no backing singers, this is the most distilled and streamlined version of a funk, soul, classic R&B project. When additional instrumentation does arrive (such as the vibe solo in C-Side) it feels fresh and exciting, but the whole EP feels like a single that stretches for 24 minutes. Overall, this feels very sanitized. It pales in comparison to classic Marvin Gaye, Isaac Hayes, and Stevie Wonder projects. You may think it’s unfair to compare these 4 tracks to decades old cemented classics, but if we cant compare Texas Sun to them, we dont really have much of anything to compare it to.
outro
Khruangbin, Leon Bridges - Texas Sun
4/10
What did you think? Was I way off the mark, or do you agree? What should I have covered? What did you like, what did you dislike, I’m all ears. Leave a follow and a like if you liked it and I’ll see you on Tuesday.
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/mu/core album review | Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
/mu/core album review #1
this week on /mu/core album review, we look at:
Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
Ah yes, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. The album that’s mostly known as either, “that one weird album from the 90s,” or, “/mu/ basic bitch meme music.” If you’re anywhere past a casual music fan, you have most-likely heard some songs off this project, if not the whole thing, doubly so if you’re into 90s culture, Indie, or any sort of Art-Rock or Folk movements. As I type this, the most popular YouTube rip of the album has about 4.3 million views, a playlist separating each track stands at 500,000 views, and the title track has a remarkable 40,733,956 plays on Spotify. Holy shit, to put that into perspective: AV Club writes that, “In The Aeroplane Over The Sea was originally slated to sell about 7,000 copies,” that’s roughly 5,819 times the predicted sales numbers of the album on just that song. This also means that this song has been listened to for approximately 131,163,338 minutes, a total of around 131,163,299 more minutes than the actual album length. Humanity has spent a collective 249 years listening to In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. Oh, and that’s just the title track.
If I couldn’t spell it out so clearly there, this album is fucking outrageously popular.
Even if you haven’t heard any material off the LP, this album is memed pretty heavily in the music corners of the internet. I don’t think I can find a single music meme page or forum that hasn’t jumped upon the ITAOTS or NMH bandwagon.
At this current point in time, ITAOTS has became a permanent resident in the zeitgeist of internet music culture. NMH, and by extension, it’s creator, Jeff Mangum have been elevated to a cult of personality status. The band and this project are accompanied by a never-ending choir: 15-25 year old sad white boys who cry while sing-screeching about semen and Anne Frank and poorly play open chords on their detuned Ibanez acoustics.
It’s oddly beautiful.
The album is so deceptively simple, so creatively cryptic and has all the elements of a slog faux-folk fest filled with whining that would bore me to so many tears that they could rival the sad boy indie kids who lose their e-girls to their more socially active explore-page bait counterparts. To a person not familiar with it, ITAOTS could look like an over hyped, masturbatory depression tape. It looks boring. It looks like it should be boring.
If it should be boring, then why have I only listened to it and absolutely nothing else for the last two days?
This isn’t a joke, I revisited the album of course to refresh myself before sitting down and writing this review. I kept listening, over the course of a school day, in-between production and songwriting sets, while playing games, and as I write this, I just finished my eighth spin of the record. Before those last two days, I had only listened to the album probably twice.
I remember listening to it back in seventh grade and not particularly disliking it. I was really into Yes and a lot of other Prog and Psych bands, but I wasn’t particularly impressed with the almost yuppie voice that Jeff had used on the record compared to vocal beasts like Freddie Mercury, Bowie, and Jon Anderson. Later on, I listened in freshman year, and I appreciated it much more, and had a few songs come up in my shuffle play, but thought nothing much of it.
Now, war had changed.
part 1: i’m the fucking carrot king
As I plopped down in my computer chair, my window crackled and banged like a distant firecracker with the smack of heavy rains on a Summer afternoon. I placed my headphones firmly atop my ears, closed my eyes and leaned back in my chair. I heard the opening chords of The King of Carrot Flowers Pt. 1 and tried not just to hear the instrumentation, but also pay attention to the lyrical content of Mr. Mangum.
When you were young, you were the king of carrot flowers
And how you built a tower tumbling through the trees
In holy rattlesnakes that fell all around your feet
Okay, so what the fuck is actually happening here?
Upon my listens, I inferred that Jeff is speaking to another party here, most likely a female love interest, in what seemingly starts in a nostalgic tone. This sounds almost like a picturesque, coming-of-age, Americana film. Maybe one starring Molly Ringwald and River Phoenix, with a surprise cameo from someone famous back then like Jack Nicholson. Maybe John Candy, with a John Hughes script. Everything would have those faded out, classic colors, a hearkened back era. Quickly, by halfway through the first act, the tone shifts. A darker mood, a stark, grim reminder that life wasn’t always sunny and shinning in Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.
And your mom would stick a fork right into daddy’s shoulder
And dad would throw the garbage all across the floor
As we would lay and learn what each other’s bodies were for
The Mang informs us of a horrific family life, specifically about what seems to be his dad’s, stepmom’s, and stepsister’s interpersonal relationships. The lines are obvious and straightforward, the life of our protagonist was rife with unhealthy familial and sexual relationships, and a sense of love and sweetness was not found there. Keep that in mind when thinking about later songs such as Oh Comely.
After the somber intro of Carrot Flowers Pt. 1, we reach my personal least favorite track on the album: The King of Carrot Flowers Pt. 2 and 3.
Look, I know the meme. “I LOOOOOOOOOVE JESUUUS CHUHRIEEEIISSSSTT,” and all that shit. I’m not even worked up about that line in particular, I just dislike Pt. 3. It’s the weakest of the upbeat songs on the album, with the weird yodel-screech voice that Gumman performs with really takes me out of the experience, which sucks because the buildup and atmosphere of Pt. 2 felt pretty amazing. Luckily, Pt. 3 is fairly short, so we don’t have to worry about it too much.
part 2: earth angel’s thesis
The title track for this album is one of the best songs on this album, no fucking contest. In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, Oh Comely, The Fool, and Two-Headed Boy Pt. 2 are top contenders when discussing this album. If you like the faster, fuzzier, upbeat songs you could probably substitute The Fool for Holland, 1945.
The title track has a familiar sounding chord progression and we can hear Gum from Jet Set Radio’s saccharine but yelp-y voice belt out from atop the mountains his undying love and admiration for… Anne Frank?
What a beautiful face
I have found in this place
That is circling all round the sun
What a beautiful dream
That could flash on the screen
In a blink of an eye and be gone from me
In the first verse, Geoff mentions meeting or viewing a beautiful person on this fleeting rock circling round the Sun. He also matches this with the idea that it’s truly futile for him to chase after this beauty, as it is only a dream that could escape him when he awakes. El Jefé has actually mentioned that some of his surrealist lyrics are derived from dreams. Perhaps these lines could imply a more literal dream fading? I don’t exactly know, all I know is what I interpreted.
The instrumentation of this piece is nothing straying from NMH’s usual repertoire: Mandrake on Guitar and Vocals, Scott Spillane on the Horns, Robert Schneider on Bass and Production, Julian Koster playing… something. What is he playing? Wait, give me a second.
He’s playing the Singing Saw? I thought it was like, a Theremin. What the fuck is a Singing Saw?
Oh.
Okay sure, you can play that, however the fuck you do that.
And finally we have Jeremy Barnes on Drums.
The personnel handle the music with a light, bouncy feeling, and the tone and timbre remind me of a faded, old, seaside town on the east coast. Another thing to mention is that the chord progression is G-Em-C-D; I-vi-IV-V. A funny thing I noticed is that this song shares a chord progression with tons of songs from the 50’s and early 60’s, which adds to the waning Americana feeling, but it more specifically shares that progression with Earth Angel by The Penguins. In the 80’s film, Back To The Future, Marvin Berry covers the song with his band for the Enchantment Under The Sea Dance where Marty’s dad and mom have to dance to ensure that the future stays intact. There’s no further real connection, but I thought that was kinda cool to mention.
After looking through the lyrics for In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, I will admit, as a brainlet Two-Headed Boy Pt. 1 eluded me. Patrolling through Genius and some other reviews, I guess the consensus about this track was that it was about Anne Frank again? Manta Jeff’s cryptic lyricism continues to fool me. Besides the lyrics, this track mostly remains a piece of really good filler.
part 3: stop the military occupation of my brainwaves
The Fool is amazing, anyone who says it’s filler is wrong. I know I might anger some people by literally implying that Two-Headed Boy Pt. 1 was filler, but seriously The Fool just makes me a feel a way. My brain creates a scene reminiscent of a depressing diesel-punk Les Misérables. Even though Scotch Spillage’s fantastic piece for horns is beautifully imperfect, it lacks lyrical content and is short and length. So, let’s instead talk about Holland, 1945.
This awesome, uptempo, almost punk-like piece of fuzzy brass is groovy son. It’s probably the song you could show someone not familiar with this project and they’d be like, “Oh, is this Cake? Why is the lead singer singing so high now?”
Holland, 1945 is a song that you can just listen for the instrumentation. Holland, 1945 is a song that promotes peace and love. There’s so many great things I can say about Holland, 1945. How it’s theme is so perfectly fitting for today’s political climate, how it manages to blend these psychedelic and bluesy timbres with a fast and loud sound and how well it continued the semi-conceptual narrative of Joff’s admiration and love for… Anne Frank.
Okay, fuck it, I have to say it. It’s bothered me ever since I discovered it.
Why Anne Frank? Like, I know why Anne Frank, but I mean like, why, y’know? I’ll say I admire Anne Frank, she was trying her best to live a normal life in a terrifying time to be alive, but I never wanted to fuck her. xxJeffxx’s mentions of Anne kind of make me raise an eyebrow. Especially because the album’s not just about her either. When he gets sexual, it’s difficult to determine whether he is mentioning a third party or Anne, which would be pretty weird, as she was 15 when she died and Heff was 28 when he wrote this. Maybe this is just some patrician music shit that I’m too plebeian to understand, like heated toilet seats or drinking for fun rather than to drown the pain. Maybe I haven’t sat down and watched enough flowery-squarespace-sponsored-lofi-hip-hop-muzak-using-pretentious video essayists to understand it, but what do I know.
part 4: the proletariat cries
To wrap on the second half of the album, this is the half that I cried in.
Communist Daughter is a good song, but with how short it is, it left me wanting more. This track is one of the few that actually features a soft-spoken Jeffen, and its open and dark but dreamy atmosphere left my jaw agape. The mountaintops weren’t the only thing stained.
Oh Comely, Oh Comely. Oh Comely is a song that deserves its own review. The lyrical chops of The Mangum Magnum are on full display as he belts somber, brutal verse after verse, with plenty of juxtaposition between sickening, sexual and vile situations alongside a description of a sweet, innocent young girl, just trying to survive with a guitar by her side. This beautiful, lovely girl gets taken advantage by someone, some people, perhaps even Yeff himself, only seen as an easy lay, a whore, like the ones her father visits often. He disgustingly describes semen in the garden, and her making miracles with her mouth, but I didn’t get a tone similar to so many songs about “sexual-empowerment.” The song is about self-deprecating depression leading to her being used, perhaps even abused. A situation all too real, too close to many of us. As I type this, I don’t know what to think. A woman should of course have individual sexual freedom, but this song doesn’t describe that. It describes trauma, emotional, psychological trauma. Meaningless sex, a rotten smell, staining the flower of a woman, all of this language that could be simply described as gross. This isn’t a happy song about fucking bitches. This song is about how a girl wanted to play music, pluck vines and was taken advantage of, reduced to her roots, and deflowered. Fuck. I wish I could save her. In some sort of time machine.
Two-Headed Boy could refer to a number of things. I have a head canon. This girl, Comely, is being used by the Two-Headed Boy for sexual favors. The Two-Headed Boy then “repays” her in friendship and music, playing their silly little songs. On the surface, Comely assumes the Two-Headed Boy trusts her and cares for her, but really all he wants is sex. Comely, living in a broken home and without a proper male figure in their life, is conned by the Two-Headed Boy, and just wants to live a normal life. Comely is trapped. She’s living in a place that is surrounded by the texture of scum and she knows it, she just can’t call upon the strength to leave. She’s trapped in a home, a ghetto, wanting to live a normal life, but she’s been placed here by the Two-Headed Boy, who knew her mother and father were broken, and she would be too. The Two-Headed Boy broke in, claimed to be her friend, and supports her, before defiling her. Comely was pretty, bright, and intelligent. She was just in a bad situation.
Comely was Anne Frank.
Not to say that they were literally one in the same, but I mean J. Mangum (private eye) is comparing two children, ripped from their lives by this awful world, and intertwining them, blurring the lines.
Who’s the Two-Headed Boy? As I said, it could be a number of people. Nazis, Peter van Pels, hell, even Jeff Manga himself could be the Two-Headed Boy. It doesn’t matter as long as we realize the relationship between oppressed and oppressor.
There is a glimmer of hope for Comely though. Read the closing words from Two-Headed Boy Pt. 2:
Two headed boy, she is all you could need
She will feed you tomatoes and radio wires
And retire to sheets safe and clean
But don’t hate her when she gets up to leave
Comely and the Two-Headed Boy split away from each other. Comely leaves the Two-Headed Boy, and the narrator says not to hate her when she leaves. On a deeper level, this could be an introspective Jeff Mangum relating on his past. I don’t really know.
outro
Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
9/10
What did you think? Was I way off the mark, or do you agree? What should I have covered? What did you like, what did you dislike, I’m all ears. Leave a follow and a like if you liked it and I’ll see you on Wednesday.
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/mu/core album review | Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
/mu/core album review #1
this week on /mu/core album review, we look at:
Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
Ah yes, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. The album that’s mostly known as either, “that one weird album from the 90s,” or, “/mu/ basic bitch meme music.” If you’re anywhere past a casual music fan, you have most-likely heard some songs off this project, if not the whole thing, doubly so if you’re into 90s culture, Indie, or any sort of Art-Rock or Folk movements. As I type this, the most popular YouTube rip of the album has about 4.3 million views, a playlist separating each track stands at 500,000 views, and the title track has a remarkable 40,733,956 plays on Spotify. Holy shit, to put that into perspective: AV Club writes that, “In The Aeroplane Over The Sea was originally slated to sell about 7,000 copies,” that’s roughly 5,819 times the predicted sales numbers of the album on just that song. This also means that this song has been listened to for approximately 131,163,338 minutes, a total of around 131,163,299 more minutes than the actual album length. Humanity has spent a collective 249 years listening to In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. Oh, and that’s just the title track.
If I couldn’t spell it out so clearly there, this album is fucking outrageously popular.
Even if you haven’t heard any material off the LP, this album is memed pretty heavily in the music corners of the internet. I don’t think I can find a single music meme page or forum that hasn’t jumped upon the ITAOTS or NMH bandwagon.
At this current point in time, ITAOTS has became a permanent resident in the zeitgeist of internet music culture. NMH, and by extension, it’s creator, Jeff Mangum have been elevated to a cult of personality status. The band and this project are accompanied by a never-ending choir: 15-25 year old sad white boys who cry while sing-screeching about semen and Anne Frank and poorly play open chords on their detuned Ibanez acoustics.
It’s oddly beautiful.
The album is so deceptively simple, so creatively cryptic and has all the elements of a slog faux-folk fest filled with whining that would bore me to so many tears that they could rival the sad boy indie kids who lose their e-girls to their more socially active explore-page bait counterparts. To a person not familiar with it, ITAOTS could look like an over hyped, masturbatory depression tape. It looks boring. It looks like it should be boring.
If it should be boring, then why have I only listened to it and absolutely nothing else for the last two days?
This isn’t a joke, I revisited the album of course to refresh myself before sitting down and writing this review. I kept listening, over the course of a school day, in-between production and songwriting sets, while playing games, and as I write this, I just finished my eighth spin of the record. Before those last two days, I had only listened to the album probably twice.
I remember listening to it back in seventh grade and not particularly disliking it. I was really into Yes and a lot of other Prog and Psych bands, but I wasn’t particularly impressed with the almost yuppie voice that Jeff had used on the record compared to vocal beasts like Freddie Mercury, Bowie, and Jon Anderson. Later on, I listened in freshman year, and I appreciated it much more, and had a few songs come up in my shuffle play, but thought nothing much of it.
Now, war had changed.
part 1: i’m the fucking carrot king
As I plopped down in my computer chair, my window crackled and banged like a distant firecracker with the smack of heavy rains on a Summer afternoon. I placed my headphones firmly atop my ears, closed my eyes and leaned back in my chair. I heard the opening chords of The King of Carrot Flowers Pt. 1 and tried not just to hear the instrumentation, but also pay attention to the lyrical content of Mr. Mangum.
When you were young, you were the king of carrot flowers
And how you built a tower tumbling through the trees
In holy rattlesnakes that fell all around your feet
Okay, so what the fuck is actually happening here?
Upon my listens, I inferred that Jeff is speaking to another party here, most likely a female love interest, in what seemingly starts in a nostalgic tone. This sounds almost like a picturesque, coming-of-age, Americana film. Maybe one starring Molly Ringwald and River Phoenix, with a surprise cameo from someone famous back then like Jack Nicholson. Maybe John Candy, with a John Hughes script. Everything would have those faded out, classic colors, a hearkened back era. Quickly, by halfway through the first act, the tone shifts. A darker mood, a stark, grim reminder that life wasn’t always sunny and shinning in Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.
And your mom would stick a fork right into daddy's shoulder
And dad would throw the garbage all across the floor
As we would lay and learn what each other's bodies were for
The Mang informs us of a horrific family life, specifically about what seems to be his dad’s, stepmom’s, and stepsister’s interpersonal relationships. The lines are obvious and straightforward, the life of our protagonist was rife with unhealthy familial and sexual relationships, and a sense of love and sweetness was not found there. Keep that in mind when thinking about later songs such as Oh Comely.
After the somber intro of Carrot Flowers Pt. 1, we reach my personal least favorite track on the album: The King of Carrot Flowers Pt. 2 and 3.
Look, I know the meme. “I LOOOOOOOOOVE JESUUUS CHUHRIEEEIISSSSTT,” and all that shit. I’m not even worked up about that line in particular, I just dislike Pt. 3. It’s the weakest of the upbeat songs on the album, with the weird yodel-screech voice that Gumman performs with really takes me out of the experience, which sucks because the buildup and atmosphere of Pt. 2 felt pretty amazing. Luckily, Pt. 3 is fairly short, so we don’t have to worry about it too much.
part 2: earth angel’s thesis
The title track for this album is one of the best songs on this album, no fucking contest. In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, Oh Comely, The Fool, and Two-Headed Boy Pt. 2 are top contenders when discussing this album. If you like the faster, fuzzier, upbeat songs you could probably substitute The Fool for Holland, 1945.
The title track has a familiar sounding chord progression and we can hear Gum from Jet Set Radio’s saccharine but yelp-y voice belt out from atop the mountains his undying love and admiration for... Anne Frank?
What a beautiful face
I have found in this place
That is circling all round the sun
What a beautiful dream
That could flash on the screen
In a blink of an eye and be gone from me
In the first verse, Geoff mentions meeting or viewing a beautiful person on this fleeting rock circling round the Sun. He also matches this with the idea that it’s truly futile for him to chase after this beauty, as it is only a dream that could escape him when he awakes. El Jefé has actually mentioned that some of his surrealist lyrics are derived from dreams. Perhaps these lines could imply a more literal dream fading? I don’t exactly know, all I know is what I interpreted.
The instrumentation of this piece is nothing straying from NMH’s usual repertoire: Mandrake on Guitar and Vocals, Scott Spillane on the Horns, Robert Schneider on Bass and Production, Julian Koster playing... something. What is he playing? Wait, give me a second.
He’s playing the Singing Saw? I thought it was like, a Theremin. What the fuck is a Singing Saw?
Oh.
Okay sure, you can play that, however the fuck you do that.
And finally we have Jeremy Barnes on Drums.
The personnel handle the music with a light, bouncy feeling, and the tone and timbre remind me of a faded, old, seaside town on the east coast. Another thing to mention is that the chord progression is G-Em-C-D; I-vi-IV-V. A funny thing I noticed is that this song shares a chord progression with tons of songs from the 50’s and early 60’s, which adds to the waning Americana feeling, but it more specifically shares that progression with Earth Angel by The Penguins. In the 80’s film, Back To The Future, Marvin Berry covers the song with his band for the Enchantment Under The Sea Dance where Marty’s dad and mom have to dance to ensure that the future stays intact. There’s no further real connection, but I thought that was kinda cool to mention.
After looking through the lyrics for In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, I will admit, as a brainlet Two-Headed Boy Pt. 1 eluded me. Patrolling through Genius and some other reviews, I guess the consensus about this track was that it was about Anne Frank again? Manta Jeff’s cryptic lyricism continues to fool me. Besides the lyrics, this track mostly remains a piece of really good filler.
part 3: stop the military occupation of my brainwaves
The Fool is amazing, anyone who says it’s filler is wrong. I know I might anger some people by literally implying that Two-Headed Boy Pt. 1 was filler, but seriously The Fool just makes me a feel a way. My brain creates a scene reminiscent of a depressing diesel-punk Les Misérables. Even though Scotch Spillage’s fantastic piece for horns is beautifully imperfect, it lacks lyrical content and is short and length. So, let’s instead talk about Holland, 1945.
This awesome, uptempo, almost punk-like piece of fuzzy brass is groovy son. It’s probably the song you could show someone not familiar with this project and they’d be like, “Oh, is this Cake? Why is the lead singer singing so high now?”
Holland, 1945 is a song that you can just listen for the instrumentation. Holland, 1945 is a song that promotes peace and love. There’s so many great things I can say about Holland, 1945. How it’s theme is so perfectly fitting for today’s political climate, how it manages to blend these psychedelic and bluesy timbres with a fast and loud sound and how well it continued the semi-conceptual narrative of Joff’s admiration and love for... Anne Frank.
Okay, fuck it, I have to say it. It’s bothered me ever since I discovered it.
Why Anne Frank? Like, I know why Anne Frank, but I mean like, why, y’know? I’ll say I admire Anne Frank, she was trying her best to live a normal life in a terrifying time to be alive, but I never wanted to fuck her. xxJeffxx’s mentions of Anne kind of make me raise an eyebrow. Especially because the album’s not just about her either. When he gets sexual, it’s difficult to determine whether he is mentioning a third party or Anne, which would be pretty weird, as she was 15 when she died and Heff was 28 when he wrote this. Maybe this is just some patrician music shit that I’m too plebeian to understand, like heated toilet seats or drinking for fun rather than to drown the pain. Maybe I haven’t sat down and watched enough flowery-squarespace-sponsored-lofi-hip-hop-muzak-using-pretentious video essayists to understand it, but what do I know.
part 4: the proletariat cries
To wrap on the second half of the album, this is the half that I cried in.
Communist Daughter is a good song, but with how short it is, it left me wanting more. This track is one of the few that actually features a soft-spoken Jeffen, and its open and dark but dreamy atmosphere left my jaw agape. The mountaintops weren’t the only thing stained.
Oh Comely, Oh Comely. Oh Comely is a song that deserves its own review. The lyrical chops of The Mangum Magnum are on full display as he belts somber, brutal verse after verse, with plenty of juxtaposition between sickening, sexual and vile situations alongside a description of a sweet, innocent young girl, just trying to survive with a guitar by her side. This beautiful, lovely girl gets taken advantage by someone, some people, perhaps even Yeff himself, only seen as an easy lay, a whore, like the ones her father visits often. He disgustingly describes semen in the garden, and her making miracles with her mouth, but I didn’t get a tone similar to so many songs about “sexual-empowerment.” The song is about self-deprecating depression leading to her being used, perhaps even abused. A situation all too real, too close to many of us. As I type this, I don’t know what to think. A woman should of course have individual sexual freedom, but this song doesn’t describe that. It describes trauma, emotional, psychological trauma. Meaningless sex, a rotten smell, staining the flower of a woman, all of this language that could be simply described as gross. This isn’t a happy song about fucking bitches. This song is about how a girl wanted to play music, pluck vines and was taken advantage of, reduced to her roots, and deflowered. Fuck. I wish I could save her. In some sort of time machine.
Two-Headed Boy could refer to a number of things. I have a head canon. This girl, Comely, is being used by the Two-Headed Boy for sexual favors. The Two-Headed Boy then “repays” her in friendship and music, playing their silly little songs. On the surface, Comely assumes the Two-Headed Boy trusts her and cares for her, but really all he wants is sex. Comely, living in a broken home and without a proper male figure in their life, is conned by the Two-Headed Boy, and just wants to live a normal life. Comely is trapped. She’s living in a place that is surrounded by the texture of scum and she knows it, she just can’t call upon the strength to leave. She’s trapped in a home, a ghetto, wanting to live a normal life, but she’s been placed here by the Two-Headed Boy, who knew her mother and father were broken, and she would be too. The Two-Headed Boy broke in, claimed to be her friend, and supports her, before defiling her. Comely was pretty, bright, and intelligent. She was just in a bad situation.
Comely was Anne Frank.
Not to say that they were literally one in the same, but I mean J. Mangum (private eye) is comparing two children, ripped from their lives by this awful world, and intertwining them, blurring the lines.
Who’s the Two-Headed Boy? As I said, it could be a number of people. Nazis, Peter van Pels, hell, even Jeff Manga himself could be the Two-Headed Boy. It doesn’t matter as long as we realize the relationship between oppressed and oppressor.
There is a glimmer of hope for Comely though. Read the closing words from Two-Headed Boy Pt. 2:
Two headed boy, she is all you could need
She will feed you tomatoes and radio wires
And retire to sheets safe and clean
But don't hate her when she gets up to leave
Comely and the Two-Headed Boy split away from each other. Comely leaves the Two-Headed Boy, and the narrator says not to hate her when she leaves. On a deeper level, this could be an introspective Jeff Mangum relating on his past. I don’t really know.
outro
Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
9/10
What did you think? Was I way off the mark, or do you agree? What should I have covered? What did you like, what did you dislike, I’m all ears. Leave a follow and a like if you liked it and I’ll see you on Wednesday.
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endtroducing...
james fairfax.
I am a below average musician, below average reviewer, and below average writer. I will hopefully try to keep this blog updated semi-frequently (twice a week) and plan to write honest reviews that demonstrate my knowledge (or lack thereof) in the art of music. I’m not gonna lie, I’m nowhere close to Scaruffi or Christgau or even Anthony Fantano, but as a budding professional, I feel as writing and analyzing the ideas, themes, songwriting capabilities and texture of the music I wish to emulate and conceptualize is important. I also think it would be pretty fun!
so, who am i?
As I stated before (although self-deprecatingly) I am a musician. I have been writing and producing music seriously for roughly 4 years as of April 2019. I consider myself an “Eclectrician” (a term I stole from a close friend named BALLAS Beats). My band Requiem Inc. and I produce Experimental and Abstract Hip-Hop / Anti-Pop. Our last album THIS IS A CULT. was met with mostly favorable reviews from those who listened to it, and did modestly on streaming services. Besides Req, I make beats and rap on my SoundCloud, and have been working on a new mixtape tentatively named Flowers. I also enjoy writing and singing, and have been singing for about 4 years as well.
what i will be reviewing
A little bit of everything I hope. I listen to many genres (one might call me a tourist at my behest) and enjoy producing and writing in many styles. As I mentioned, I am invested in Hip-Hop and its root genres such as Jazz, R&B, Soul, and other Afrocentric genres. I also have extensively listened to Classic Rock and its derivatives such as Progressive and Psychedelic, Indie, and Alternative. Producer-minded, I have, of course, listened to acts like Flying Lotus, Knxwledge, Justice, Blank Banshee, and many others.
anything you should know
You can request album reviews in the submission category (grant me an offering), ask me literally anything in my asks or see everything regarding Req’s or my music in their respective categories.
thank you for reading.
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