Ivory Towers

#18. A Sunny Day in Glasgow – Sea When Absent
Of course, no member of this band is from Scotland. Although the principal players in A Sunny Day in Glasgow are mainly from a quintessentially American town (Philadelphia), the group draws so heavily on the late 80s-early 90s U.K. shoegaze/dream pop sound (specifically the pitch-shifting, fuzzy blanket aesthetic of probably the most renowned shoegaze band of them all, My Bloody Valentine), their name could easily be changed to A Sunny Day in Dublin. But really, either name is fitting considering the beautiful contrasts on display on the band's new album, Sea When Absent, which pits driving backbeats, soaring but playful synth/sample work, and scorched earth guitar wizardry against the velvety, confessional, and seamlessly interlacing pop vocals of singers, Jen Goma and Annie Fredrickson. To my knowledge, this is the first album released by the band that features such decipherable, upfront vocals and lyrics, and the band benefits greatly from the change of pace. Songs like “Crushin'” and “MTLOV (Minor Keys)” exemplify this beefing up of delivery as well as the re-contextualization of the classic verse-chorus-verse format that the band has been known to subvert on earlier material. The songs are still very circular and undulating, but their parts are highly distinguishable, even narrative at times, and the yearning R&B-influenced (think Cranberries-meets-Sade but much, much sweeter and cooler than that) dual-vocal attack solidifies the emotional core of the album. For an album with so much sonic diversity and so many quirky production techniques, the tender bedroom pop conceit of the whole affair is the most important takeaway here, which leaves the listener to ponder his/her own state of emotional well-being and reconnect with certain somesthetic notions—the feeling of ascending a great height alone and shouting into the abyss as if to claim some kind of dominion over nothing and no one, the feeling of laying one's soul bare, of singing to one's self across great distances for all to hear.

Soundcloud sample: https://soundcloud.com/lefse-records/crushin

#19. Ariel Pink – Pom Pom
It's not easy for me to like a guy who is most recently known for antagonizing one of my favorite experimental pop musicians (Grimes – check her out). Based on his acerbic, trollish personality alone, it would be relatively easy to dismiss Ariel Pink as a lavish and cunning prankster who gets his proverbial kicks from pushing our collective pop cultural buttons over and over, almost to the point of inducing psychopathy in the most masochistic (read: faithful) among us. But if you're willing to approach his new record, Pom Pom, from a purely musical and humanistic standpoint, you'll most likely find that it has more to offer than meets the eye with its colorful outsider mythology, dynamic pacing, and kaleidoscopic pop candor. Now, I know that “candor” probably isn't the first (and most certainly not the last) word one would expect to hear thrown around in talking about Pink or his music, but Pom Pom actually does succeed at establishing Pink as a more serious musician and, more precisely, a genuine songwriter who values both economical storytelling and magnanimous melody with equal regard. Breezy but emotionally charged tunes like “Put Your Number in My Phone” and “Picture Me Gone” elevate Pink to a plane of musicianship and songwriting akin to Mike Patton from Mr. Bungle's California days, both writers coming at their craft with a critical eye towards commercial over-stimulation/saturation/infatuation and, more importantly, a pendulous empathy for the deep loneliness and mental anguish of the fringe individuals that pop capitalism creates. The comparison is also apt in regards to the sheer number of genre exercises employed throughout Pom Pom's hour-plus running time, ranging from lounge, polka, proto-punk, new wave, psych-folk, funk, glam, and pure pop. Some might say the album is bloated and in need of critical editing, but if you have the time to spend (and face it, we all do, or else we wouldn't be so bored piddling on our iPorps all the time, waiting for notification of some new dystopian distraction and/or Words With Friends invitation), you might find that the album is simply a dirty mirror in which to view the psychological demons resident in all of us—our collective class/race/gender/sexual biases, cultish cravings, and floundering consumer fetishes—that when taken at face value might seem frivolous, spastic, and ego-maniacal but when picked apart and examined closely between the smudges elucidates a few bright flashes of hope for humanity, of mortal acceptance and genuine concern for our tenuous and ever-searching souls.

Music video for “Put Your Number in My Phone”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYoQ6WLuMq4