Janelle Monae
“The ArchAndroid, Suites I and II”
(Bad Boy/Wondaland)
My first exposure to Janelle Monae was on Letterman a few weeks ago, when the tiny, Afro-Mohawked singer, dressed in a form-fitting tuxedo, sang her James Brown-meets-David Bowie single “Tightrope,” off her new album, “The ArchAndroid Suites I and II.” With her classic, “Soul Train” dance moves and big, satisfying voice, it was one of those instances in which I immediately went out and bought her album. She was too weird and wonderful to ignore.
There’s a whole lot of things going on with her 18-track debut album — from the hypnotically groovy “Dance or Die,” featuring rapper-poet Saul Williams to the finger-snapping pop joy of “Wondaland.” Monae spans the gamut from soul to funk to psychedelic rock to antic disco pop, sometimes within the same song. The indie band Of Montreal guests on a track, as does Big Boi of similarly genre-defying hip-hop act OutKast.
That’s not to say that the whole album is a high energy, Lady Gaga-esque party. She slows it down on the soulful, ethereal “Oh, Maker” and ends the album with the jazzy “BaBopYa,” showing off her vocal range. She intersperses her songs with orchestral interludes. There’s a loose concept to “ArchAndroid”; something about how technology runs amok in the world, and how people connect in the midst of it all. There’s something about robots. It’s clear Monae inhabits the same planet as Ziggy Stardust, and got there via Parliament-Funkadelic’s Mothership.
There’s a lot of things to say about Monae: she’s ambitious, she’s progressive, she’s a little nuts and she’s very, very talented. With a debut like this, who knows where she’ll go next.
— Emily Burnham
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Passion Pit
“Manners”
(Frenchkiss)
The last few years have seen electropop enjoy a level of popularity not seen since the halcyon era of Soft Cell; there’s something for everyone these days, from the chart-topping sheen of the omnipresent Ms. Gaga to the hip aural retro-porn of Hot Chip and LCD Soundsystem. Cambridge’s Passion Pit fit snugly right into the middle of this scene, dishing out jaw-aching exuberance poured thickly over Human League and OMD castoff beats.
Of course, if you have ears, you probably already know advertisers’ favorite “Sleepyhead” with its teeth-clenching, Mary O’Hara-on-helium vocal sample, and your feelings about this ubiquitous track will pretty much decide how you feel about much of “Manners.” High-pitched vocals are a theme throughout, whether they be the aforementioned sample, main man Michael Angelakos’ own falsetto or children’s choirs. And no doubt this can be trying over the length of an album. Unless you’re Pink Floyd or the Rolling Stones (and even then), kiddie vocal groups should be handled with extreme caution.
But in the places where everything comes together, the effect can be joyous. “Make Light” is actually a cunning slab of indie rock, its shimmering guitars gussied up with effervescent metronomic beats. “So I try, and I scream and I beg and I sigh, just to prove I’m alive,” Angelakos declares in what is surely a statement of intent for the album. Meanwhile, “To Kingdom Come” dials back the grins and delivers interlocking acoustic guitar and keyboard riffs seasoned with yearning. Nicely done.
Most surprising, however, are the extra tracks that we are treated to on this “deluxe” reissue. The cover of The Cranberries’ “Dreams” is somewhat pointless but the “stripped down versions” of “Sleepyhead” and “Moth’s Wings” are minor revelations, both showing that when the synths are switched off, sweetly introspective songs remain.
— Adam Corrigan
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Crystal Castles
“Crystal Castles”
(Fiction)
Crystal Castles, an electronic pop duo from Toronto made up of producer Ethan Kath and singer Alice Glass, have been acclaimed for a lot of things in the indie rock community: the punk ferocity of Glass’ vocals, Kath’s inventive combination of harsh synth noise, 8-bit video game-style bleeps and pop songcraft, the band’s chaotic live shows. But for all the excitement over their sound, there was still something missing: a heart.
On their self-titled sophomore album, Kath and Glass take a giant leap forward by showing a little vulnerability in between their usual electro mayhem. Opener “Fainting Spells” hits you with queasy synths that seem to seesaw back and forth in the mix and a little incomprehensible yelping from Glass; it seems designed to dispel casual listeners, which makes the next song, “Celestica,” all the more remarkable. Essentially Crystal Castles’ attempt at a ballad, the chorus’ euphoric rush of noise and Glass’ longing vocals evoke My Bloody Valentine’s noise-pop masterpiece “Loveless.”
The record alternates between these new, slightly more sedate songs (the hip-hop-tinged “Empathy” and danceable suicide anthem “Suffocation”) and their previously established brand of aural terrorism (the under-two-minute electro-punk screamer “Doe Deer” and the menacing pseudo-rave of “Baptism”).
By the album’s end, Kath and Glass have proven themselves worthy successors to veteran gloom-mongers like Depeche Mode and The Cure, updating classic goth misanthropy for the 21st century. “Crystal Castles” can be cold and almost clinical at times, like a devastatingly effective noise-pop machine, but the glimpses of hu-manity in songs like “Celestica” and “Suffocation” remind you that Kath and Glass have feelings, too.
—Travis Gass
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LCD Soundsystem
“This Is Happening”
(Virgin)
James Murphy, the 40-year-old auteur behind dance-rock titans LCD Soundsystem, is kind of review-proof. When your debut single is an eight-minute spoken-word electro-dance meditation on being an aging hipster, the fleeting nature of “cool” and the fear of the kids “coming up from behind,” you’ve pretty much guaranteed rapturous reviews from aging hipster music critics.
But Murphy doesn’t get positive press just because he’s catnip to reviewers; he takes cues from all of his unimpeachably cool influences (Bowie, Talking Heads, Brian Eno), and then adds in his own wry, world-weary-but-still-hopeful perspective, fashioning a more post-modern, self-aware version of his favorite classic art-rock. “This Is Happening,” Murphy’s third album as LCD Soundsystem, expands on the mix of sarcastic social commentary and wistful, disarming lyrical honesty that he perfected on 2007’s “Sound of Silver.” All but two of the album’s tracks are more than six minutes long, but none feel stretched or tedious. Instead, Murphy uses that space to gradually build his songs, adding elements slowly until he has created another brainy art-dance epic.
Opener “Dance Yrself Clean” is a perfect example; a minimal beat and Murphy’s mumbling about a disintegrating relationship are eventually joined by a brawny synth line and more percussion, with the LCD frontman imploring his subject to “go and dance yourself clean,” even though he knows it’s only a temporary fix. Other highlights include the regret-laden “All I Want,” a worthy sequel to the bittersweet nostalgia of “Sound of Silver” classic “All My Friends,” and the rambling “Pow Pow,” filled with Murphy’s hilarious, off-the-cuff lyrical wit (“We have a black president and you do not, so shut up”).
Murphy has been claiming in interviews that “This Is Happening” will be the final LCD Soundsystem album. Let’s hope he doesn’t really plan to retire from making music, but if it is true, at least he’s going out on a high note.
— Travis Gass