Reading Dave Sitek

Producers are to music what editors are to writing. They oversee the totality of a creative project, guiding the cohesive scope of what the artist has in mind. A band comes to a producer with a few kickass trees, and the producer makes them into a kickass forest.

In the same way that you can see a similarity in style between authors who've shared the same editor, you can also listen to music from the same producer and find links. Dave Sitek is one shining example of a producer with a noticeable stylistic earmarks in his work. He's produced bands like Yeah Yeah Yeahs and is a member the insanely inventive TV on the Radio. To read the consistency of his style between artists, we can look at some cool production similarities between tracks on Yeah Yeah Yeah's first album Fever to Tell, and TVOTR's Return to Cookie Mountain.

For the first comparative example, check out these two cuts back-t0-back. Y Control and Playhouses.

It's hard to talk about music you've played to death without slipping too deep into your own subjectivity, so I'll try to be straightforward. To start, notice the noise in both songs. As much as guitars carry the melody, they also provide a palette of distortion that fills out the space of the mix. A good deal of the tracks on both Fever and Cookie Mountain are noisy by their own right, but I picked out these two for their tempo and energy. The soundscape of noise has a similar way of floating on top of the driving, energetic drum track, which is equally relentless in both songs. And while "Playhouses" veers a little more towards the abstract side of things than "Y Control," the percussion pins the noise-nebula down and keeps it from floating too far away.

When I hear both these songs, the sound textures remind me of machines. The opening riff on "Y Control" is akin to an alarm or siren of some kind. When the guitars and drums kick in, its emotional and melodic character changes in the context of the noise-scape. In "Playhoues," the guitar riff at :47 and the following string pads remind me of the noises you hear while driving on a highway. Different textures on the road make different noises as you drive over them. All the road sounds in "Playhouses" would be abrasive if they weren't blended together so smoothly and ingeniously. Is it intentional that sounds we associate with traveling over long distances carry so much melodic weight in the song? I'm not one to suggest any one interpretation, but I think that might be one way in which the melody reinforces the lyrical content.

These next two tracks are also brothers-in-noise, but in a different way:

Whereas "Y Control" and "Playhouses" have a faster tempo and driving percussive energy behind them, "Modern Romance" and "Tonight" show Sitek's use of noise in a more subdued way. The noisescape here is ambient and free-floating in a way that's more suited to a ballad. Notice the similar use of what appear to be instrument samples played backwards (cymbals, chimes). "Modern Romance's," intro is shorter, but it provides a glimpse into the kind of ideas and experimentation that would come about full-circle on Cookie mountain. The two songs are analogous to each other in that sense, since they're both the slowest songs on their respective albums and they're found at the end of the track listing.

What's mindblowing in light of all this is that both Yeah Yeah Yeahs and TVOTR still sound like completely different bands. While Sitek's penchant for noise and texture is apparent on both albums, the bands' respective sounds aren't drowned out by it. More remarkable than the artistic talent of the producer alone is the ability for it to enhance without overwhelming or stifling the talent of the artist. The good producer indeed plants a kickass forest, but the trees are still permitted to grow as they please. And where any artistic medium will attract its share of egotists, it's reassuring to see how the collaborative aspect of artists working together still flourishes as a talent by its own right.

Self-indulgent meta blog post #1

Man, I can't write anything personal in a blog any more without reading what I just wrote and thinking "Dan you're such a self-indulgent asshole writing about that who cares what the fuck bro fffffff" and then deleting it.

See, even reading that just now made me think that, 'cause that's self-indulgent too. You can't see this probably but I have a special system rigged up so that I can't delete anything in this post, so you're getting a full on blast of unfiltered/unedited words, just like a Henry James novel. Except hopefully it won't make you fall asleep. Unless you like Henry James. If that's the case, then ignore the sentence 1 sentence before this one and substitute it with "Except hopefully you will really enjoy it because Henry James is a good writer."

Alright, so I'm trying to be a good normal internet 21st century person and update regularly again and say insightful things and whatnot and hey. I went back and read my old blog for the first time in a while yesterday. I started it when I was 14 and kept it updated more or less consistently throughout the whole 4 years of high school. Reading it brought back a good deal of memories. It also made me realize what an arrogant little shit I was. Seriously, on behalf of all hormonal angst, I apologize to everyone who knew me at age 14/15/16/17, and probably at scattered moments up into the now as well. I laughed at the stuff I wrote back then, but mostly cringed. Cringed at the whininess, cringed at the dim worldview, cringed at the overtly pompous tone I had in writing damn near everything. Hopefully some of that has changed by now. If not, hopefully it will eventually. And when/if it does, hopefully I will have the objective distance to realize some kind of progress has been made.

DAMN. See, there's the self-indulgence again.

But all cringing aside, I'm kind of glad it's all chronicled there. Even though it burns my eyes, there's still a good deal of life experience preserved there on the interwebs, a lot of which I'm thankful to have a record of - both the good parts and the bad. And I'd like to keep that kind of preservation going right now, although lately I've found that trying to preserve the space-time of your past is kind of pointless, 'cause then it feels like you're trying to quantify the thing itself instead of just enjoy the sensory impression that the thing left.

What else. I just watched the first Hellraiser, something that's been on my to-do list since I first laid eyes on the giant Pinhead cardboard cutout my dad put in our basement. (I was 7 or so, it was kind of traumatizing). The ultra-grotesque demononic mutilation scenes were pretty rad, but there weren't enough of them. It was slow at parts but good wholesome fun otherwise. And It made me be sure to re-evaluate my interest in extreme BDSM before I touch a rubik's cube again anytime soon.

Holy fuck bro.

Leaving for london on the 17th, where a lot of fun will be had. If this turns into a generic "OMG I'm going aBroAd!!1" type blog, you will have permission to shoot me. But hopefully that won't be the case.

Yeeyuh.

Expect semi-regular updates again.

Some Damns.

I've found a lot of really great new music in the past year or so, but this melted my head in a way not much else has:


Damn. DAMN! OK. I wish this had come out recently so I could give it a proper review, but still. The synth track that kicks in at the start reminds me of some Bela Fleck songs I've heard, where they get a similar sound by putting woodwind instruments through a wawa pedal.

I like this kind of music, but I do not like labeling it as IDM ('intelligent dance music'). Seriously? Please don't take something great and douchify it by adding a label like that. I hope I never have to hear anyone say "I like Intelligent Dance Music" in real-life conversation so I won't have to waste any energy disemboweling them.

Spring break is ending. I read RAY by Barry Hannah. Damn. Started reading Native Son by Richard Wright, also damn so far. Started reading The Shadow Lines by Amitav Ghosh, which is not quite damn, but still pretty good in a different way. Trying to gear up for some papers and other things I need to finish, solidify. Pretty sure I'm going to leave the states after graduation, at least for a few years. I'm going to get certified to teach english as a foreign language soon so this can happen. Seems reliable, because I sure don't want to go to grad school right away, even though I'm looking forward to it. I need some non-school experience first. MFA-land can wait a few years.

De-wintering

Review of Liars' new album, Sisterworld, up @ 20 Watts.

It's a mighty enjoyable listen. One of my favorite things in music is when a song changes mood/energy level suddenly, in an unexpected way that somehow still works. This album has a lot of that, all of it executed very well. Check it out.

Currently at home, writing papers, hunting for summer jobs that will be low in the 'shame' department. Looked on Craigslist for the hell of it, and found this. Damn. I mean clearly the overall professionalism of the way the ad was written just speaks volumes about how shady this is, but it's still kind of tempting. Good material? Hell yes. I think I could be a pretty competent ghostwriter.

Shit.

Chocolate Makes You Happy

First thing, I got a story coming out in the next issue of Neon, which makes me excited. This is the first piece of fiction I've actually managed to sell, (only have had poems before), so it's good to know somebody digs it. I'm slowly getting past the learning curve of finding out which places to submit to. It took a while to stumble on the right home for this piece, although most of the rejections I got were personal and pretty human about the reasons it didn't work for the publication. Hopefully this is the start of many goods to come. Keeps the motivation high.

Second thing: Lo. Holy shit. This is a movie that is severely under-talked about. Mind-eatingly innovative, but very simple at the same time. It is a textbook example of the way a low budget can really make an awesome story even better, in the same way that lo-fi recording is sometimes beneficial to the atmosphere of a certain style of music. I think it is also a testament to how meta-fiction can live on in new, surprising forms. Some of the awesome things this movie includes are:

- Main exposition told via a demon rock band, singing a corny pop song

- Monsters from hell using the phrase, "You kids crack my shit up," and making it work.

- A married couple in hell, bickering about who gets tortured worse

- Stage plays within stage plays

Getting in depth about it any more would give away the things that make it great, so all I can say is, SEE IT. If you have netflix, stream it. It is not a typical horror/supernatural movie, it's something else. And it straddles the line between humor/terrifying with serious expertise. I hope more comes out from the same people.

Third - The band Xiu Xiu's new album "Dear God, I Hate Myself," is brilliant. For a while I was skeptical about Xiu Xiu, I had the feeling that they more or less were just trying to be weird for weird's sake, e.g., trying to ride the coattails of Beefheart. But damn, this album is something, and feels more polished than some of the other stuff I've heard by them. Here's the best way I can describe it: It takes the 'feel good' essence of today's party/dance music and replaces it with a hysterical sense of human misery. I have a full review of it coming out at 20 Watts in a couple days. Listen to this:

Maybe I am reading too much into these guys, but I think it's pretty awesome. I guess the bottom line is, I'm glad that someone is doing what they're doing musically.

Otherwise, winter is wintery. Gonna go read some more classic hebrew fiction now.

Airwaves, brah

The first broadcast went smoothly. I had a steady number of 8-10 listeners the whole time, which is pretty good for AM college radio. I read some of the segments about depression from Infinite Jest and played music that aimed to fit in with the reading thematically, i.e., sad without being sappy or overbearing. Here's the full depression playlist:

Roads – Portishead
El Manana – Gorillaz
(These two compliment each other well, since they're in the same key and have pretty like chord structures. They made for a good introduction to the mood of the show.)
The Stranger Song – Leonard Cohen
(Hot damn, nobody writes lyrics like this anymore. All that irreverent Judeo-Christian wordplay. I think the old recording quality adds to the song's impact also. It's dark, but not pitch black.)
Drom Hardt (Requiem Pt. 1) – Kaizers Orchestra
(This could very well be pitch black, if not for the fact that the lyrics are in Norwegian and thus harder to understand. If this had been sung in English, I wouldn't have played it, as the translation shows some seriously heavy misery. It has a really nice string arrangement at the end that worked well as background music.)
Dirt in the Ground – Tom Waits
(Appropriately somber Waits, full of his trademark vocal howlin' without being too cooky about it.)
Volcano – Beck
Mad World – Michael Andrews
(These two paired nicely together, and although that version of 'Mad World' has been severely overplayed, it's still a damn good cover. Much preferred to the original.)
28 Ghosts IV – Nine Inch Nails
(The list needed something ambiguous and instrumental in order to make the transition to the more hopeful songs at the end. This is probably my favorite track off of the Ghosts album. Brooding.)
Little Person – Jon Brion & Deanna Story
(From the Synecdoche, NY soundtrack. Gorgeous, and it still hits sadness-ground-zero for me just as hard as it did the first time I heard it. This song is a great example of the way a melody can really bring out the power of really simple, straightforward lyrics.)
Tables and Chairs – Andrew Bird
(I had to close with something that was happy without being stupid about it, i.e., positive, but not Walkin' On Sunshine positive. I think this fit the ticket alright, Bird is a solid songwriter, with an ear for clever lyrics without being too self-consciously “clever” about them.)

Next week's show will be about bigotry. I'll be doing a dramatic reading of an incredibly tasteless column that was published in the student newspaper last year, amongst other goods.

Eh. February is a real Satan-month.

It's official now, yo:

Click here to listen. Official first broadcast will be next week or the week after, depending on how fast I learn not to fail at using the studio. Score!


PS: The artwork here is by the brain-eatingly awesome Mia Makila.