TV ON THE RADIO

Too many reviewers already have concentrated on the singing of Tunde Adebimpe, sometimes completely ignoring the fact that Kyp Mallone also does his share of vocals as well, and overall comparing it to Peter Gabriel. Well, here is my two cents worth on the issue: The singing reminds me of the singer of Arcwelder[1], who released a couple of great records on Touch & Go as well almost a decade ago, so much that I checked if they were the same. Of course, they are not. Adebimpe started out as an animator (he did the “Pin”-video for the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s). But the singer of Arcwelder also reminded me of Peter Gabriel, but since both bands are “rockbands”, in the widest sense of the term, the comparison is a lot better, in my humble opinion.

The other point is, that above and around all the Peter Gabriel-comparisons, the main point gets lost: the great music that the vocals come with. And with those who managed to get the music into their reviews, it seemed it was all about how TV on the Radio is connected to those other over-hyped-bands from New York, like the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s or the Liars. Okay, so David Sitek, the third member of the band, started out as a visual artist and produced bands such as the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Love Life and the Liars, but that doesn’t mean you can just throw them all into one basket, does it? Of course, being an overpaid, arrogant prick of a music-journalist, who gets all his records for free and spends his day drinking, listening to CDs, trying to outwit his trade-fellows and wanking to softporn downloaded from the internet, you can. (Some of those dumbbrained dipshits also shook the 9/11-story out of their brains, just like they always do whenever NY comes up. My guess, TV on the Radio have quite a different view on the matter than those writers would...) If music is important to you, you wouldn’t do such things. Especially when those bands are all so much different.

Okay, this is the point where I stop the ranting and get on to the music, because what you’ll hear on “desperate youth, bloodthirsty babes” (what a great title, by the way) is more than groundbreaking rock. It is a new definition of rock. Josh Homme and his Queens of The Stone Age may have laid out the bare blanks on a new form of rock music, where it is possible to churn out straight guitar-licks in weird rhythms or weird guitar licks in straight rhythms (I haven’t decided yet which it actually is) and groove like hell. A loose and open formula that owes a lot to a heritage of Southern Rock (Allman Brothers, Lynard Skynard even), psychedelic Seventies rock (Ten Years After, Doobie Brothers) and Stoner Rock of late (Kyuss). But where those styles quickly fell into the trap of repeating itself over and over again, bands like Queens of The Stone Age or TOTR are ready to expand in all directions, mapping out the fields and possibilities of their songs to the fares, unexpected corners. I am hard pressed to say which roads Josh Homme is taking, except those out into the desert to get stoned, but TOTR stay home in the biggest of all cities and try to incorporate their vast tradition as a whole, making me think of Soul, Jazz, Afrobeat, Industrial and even Doo-Wop.

For TV on the Radio rock has become a matter of diagonales and oppositional pairings. The music sounds heavy and noisy but at the same time has a feeling of warmth and tenderness and softness. For instance when through the course of the song, an acapella chorus takes over the riff from the guitars during “Don’t love you”. Or the intricate way the drums and percussions cuddle themselves into layers of distorted guitars and the melody-lines lowering themselves onto both like a warm blanket. That produces another pair of opposites in a feeling of distance and control that is apparent through all songs. While those other bands from NY – see above – are all about losing control, completely freaking out and trashing instruments, stages and their own lives, TOTR keep back, control their forces and spend them more effectively and economically. Maybe the difference lies in the upbringing. Yeah Yeah Yeah’s and The Liars – I am sorry, I have to pick on them, but they are those most mentioned – come from white, safe, middle class homes and have turned towards the lifestyle of drug-abusing rock-artists by will, which is basically a choice you can only make coming from a safe home. If you got no bases covered, emotionally and financially, you want to play your cards safer than that, even when taking the risky road of aspiring artist.

Therefore they over a wider variety of emotional highs and lows, adding gravitas and meaning to their songs, that is instantly feelable and attributable. From tenderness to pure confrontation without ever losing the balance in the arrangements. Able to perform outbursts of noise as well as delicately penned vocal melodies. Though you’ll have to listen hard for some real explosions of noise, that way TOTR is closer to The Beta Band in defining new territories in rock. Or if you want it that way, TOTR is to the rest of the noise-rock scene nowadays what De La Soul was to the hip hop scene back in the day of gangsta rap. And I don’t mean they both where pullovers, I mean that they are intelligently conveying ideas and messages within their songs, packed into grooving, or rather churning floorboards of fuzzed bass and bumping drums.

There is for instance “Bomb Yourself”, an anti-war song in the broadest sense of the word. I almost wrote “in the broadest sense of the world” there, but as soon as I erased it, it started making sense to me. Such is the effect of reading the poetic and personally enigmatic lyricsheet of this record. Some songs deal with the way coloured people are still treated, such as “Staring at the sun” or the opener “The wrong way”. If you ever looked for words to form what is wrong with the mediated picture of “good living” for black people in this materialistic and violent world, look no further. Most songs though deal with the troubles and backlashes that come with relationships and the everyday. I might be wrong all there, but that’s the way I read them, and there is no private life in the political and vice versa.

[1] Arcwelder never recieved the attention they should have recieved, but nowadays they might not care anymore anyway. They released their last record in 1999 and haven’t toured since 1996 or something, but they still play around locally. So, if you ever find yourself in Minneapolis and they do a show, check them out. Here’s their website: http://www.arcwelderband.com/index.html

TV ON THE RADIO Desperate youth, bloodthirsty babes CD/2LP, Touch & Go

Back off, back off, big headway necessary. TV on the Radio is a band that should have been remarked upon some time ago. Of course, their first EP went by me completely, because nobody hit me on the head with it and I was immersed in electronic music. But this one is big, vast, mighty. Even though it still looks and feels a little innocent from the outside, there are big bursts of noise, emotions and ideas in these three sides of vinyl slab. Bassfuzz, churning rhythms, delicate quirkiness and choirs, pleasing falsetto and great lyrics combined into compact, pulsating songs- If you are slightly interested in “alternative” rock that is not the new other mainstram pop-music, you will already have heard about them. So it is time, you sat down and listened to them. Sparks, sparks of pleasure all around your head.
Too many reviewers already have concentrated on the singing of Tunde Adebimpe, sometimes completely ignoring the fact that Kyp Mallone also does his share of vocals as well, and overall comparing it to Peter Gabriel. Well, here is my two cents worth on the issue: The singing reminds me of the singer of Arcwelder[1], who released a couple of great records on Touch & Go as well almost a decade ago, so much that I checked if they were the same. Of course, they are not. Adebimpe started out as an animator (he did the “Pin”-video for the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s). But the singer of Arcwelder also reminded me of Peter Gabriel, but since both bands are “rockbands”, in the widest sense of the term, the comparison is a lot better, in my humble opinion. The other point is, that above and around all the Peter Gabriel-comparisons, the main point gets lost: the great music that the vocals come with. And with those who managed to get the music into their reviews, it seemed it was all about how TV on the Radio is connected to those other over-hyped-bands from New York, like the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s or the Liars. Okay, so David Sitek, the third member of the band, started out as a visual artist and produced bands such as the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Love Life and the Liars, but that doesn’t mean you can just throw them all into one basket, does it? Of course, being an overpaid, arrogant prick of a music-journalist, who gets all his records for free and spends his day drinking, listening to CDs, trying to outwit his trade-fellows and wanking to softporn downloaded from the internet, you can. (Some of those dumbbrained dipshits also shook the 9/11-story out of their brains, just like they always do whenever NY comes up. My guess, TV on the Radio have quite a different view on the matter than those writers would...) If music is important to you, you wouldn’t do such things. Especially when those bands are all so much different. Okay, this is the point where I stop the ranting and get on to the music, because what you’ll hear on “desperate youth, bloodthirsty babes” (what a great title, by the way) is more than groundbreaking rock. It is a new definition of rock. Josh Homme and his Queens of The Stone Age may have laid out the bare blanks on a new form of rock music, where it is possible to churn out straight guitar-licks in weird rhythms or weird guitar licks in straight rhythms (I haven’t decided yet which it actually is) and groove like hell. A loose and open formula that owes a lot to a heritage of Southern Rock (Allman Brothers, Lynard Skynard even), psychedelic Seventies rock (Ten Years After, Doobie Brothers) and Stoner Rock of late (Kyuss). But where those styles quickly fell into the trap of repeating itself over and over again, bands like Queens of The Stone Age or TOTR are ready to expand in all directions, mapping out the fields and possibilities of their songs to the fares, unexpected corners. I am hard pressed to say which roads Josh Homme is taking, except those out into the desert to get stoned, but TOTR stay home in the biggest of all cities and try to incorporate their vast tradition as a whole, making me think of Soul, Jazz, Afrobeat, Industrial and even Doo-Wop. For TV on the Radio rock has become a matter of diagonales and oppositional pairings. The music sounds heavy and noisy but at the same time has a feeling of warmth and tenderness and softness. For instance when through the course of the song, an acapella chorus takes over the riff from the guitars during “Don’t love you”. Or the intricate way the drums and percussions cuddle themselves into layers of distorted guitars and the melody-lines lowering themselves onto both like a warm blanket. That produces another pair of opposites in a feeling of distance and control that is apparent through all songs. While those other bands from NY – see above – are all about losing control, completely freaking out and trashing instruments, stages and their own lives, TOTR keep back, control their forces and spend them more effectively and economically. Maybe the difference lies in the upbringing. Yeah Yeah Yeah’s and The Liars – I am sorry, I have to pick on them, but they are those most mentioned – come from white, safe, middle class homes and have turned towards the lifestyle of drug-abusing rock-artists by will, which is basically a choice you can only make coming from a safe home. If you got no bases covered, emotionally and financially, you want to play your cards safer than that, even when taking the risky road of aspiring artist. Therefore they over a wider variety of emotional highs and lows, adding gravitas and meaning to their songs, that is instantly feelable and attributable. From tenderness to pure confrontation without ever losing the balance in the arrangements. Able to perform outbursts of noise as well as delicately penned vocal melodies. Though you’ll have to listen hard for some real explosions of noise, that way TOTR is closer to The Beta Band in defining new territories in rock. Or if you want it that way, TOTR is to the rest of the noise-rock scene nowadays what De La Soul was to the hip hop scene back in the day of gangsta rap. And I don’t mean they both where pullovers, I mean that they are intelligently conveying ideas and messages within their songs, packed into grooving, or rather churning floorboards of fuzzed bass and bumping drums. There is for instance “Bomb Yourself”, an anti-war song in the broadest sense of the word. I almost wrote “in the broadest sense of the world” there, but as soon as I erased it, it started making sense to me. Such is the effect of reading the poetic and personally enigmatic lyricsheet of this record. Some songs deal with the way coloured people are still treated, such as “Staring at the sun” or the opener “The wrong way”. If you ever looked for words to form what is wrong with the mediated picture of “good living” for black people in this materialistic and violent world, look no further. Most songs though deal with the troubles and backlashes that come with relationships and the everyday. I might be wrong all there, but that’s the way I read them, and there is no private life in the political and vice versa. As an hors d’ouevre the almost gentle “Staring at the sun” is a perfect offer, and so correctly picked as a first single, even though it is the only song from the album that was already available on their debut EP. But that shouldn’t keep you from listening to the record as a whole, to really enjoy the big red threads running through this great work. A few years from now on, “desperate youth, bloodthirsty babes” will be found in all those “secret best of”-lists, because rarely ever will you hear progressive, modern but still “rock”-songs, so carefully worked into sculptures of noise-rock. [1] Arcwelder never recieved the attention they should have recieved, but nowadays they might not care anymore anyway. They released their last record in 1999 and haven’t toured since 1996 or something, but they still play around locally. So, if you ever find yourself in Minneapolis and they do a show, check them out. Here’s their website: http://www.arcwelderband.com/index.html

CD/2LP, Touch & Go