Desire

One of the blessings of recording music through an independent label, apparently, is the intimate camaraderie and collaboration between band members. This is certainly true of Italians Do It Better, perhaps my favourite new dance label. Producer Jimmy Jewel performs not only with Chromatics and Glass Candy, both of whom have released work through the label, but also with Desire, a new project he formed in Montreal with vocalist Megan Louise.

Desire's debut album, II, released 23 June, echoes the aesthetics of Jewel's other projects, offering understated, mysterious female vocals atop soft, pulsing rhythms and glimmering instrumentation. As if eschewing the discordant, broken-record barrage of more hardcore styles of dance music as well as the abstract, remote peak-and-trough wave structure of progressive trance, Desire embrace a classic verse-chorus song structure, strong melody, and alternating hooks; through this technique, they manage to avoid the inane simplicity of cheap, dust-bin electro or American Top 40 pop as well as the boring, burdensome complexity of more conceptual works in experimental music. A prime example of Desire's ear-catching motifs is the chorus to the infectious Miroir Miroir, a glowing masterwork of nu-disco which carries a simple refrain by relying cleverly on lines from a widely known folktale recorded by the Brothers Grimm: "Mirror, mirror on the wall / Who's the fairest of them all?" The coy lyrics combined with eerie, numinous background strings offer a dark yet playful commentary on vanity. A similarly tongue-in-cheek effect is achieved in If I Can't Hold You, which sets a frolicking bass drum to a melancholy requiem for a dead lover.

II's pop sensibility offers a refuge from more wearisome, "progressive" styles of music--a collection of catchy and accessible yet moody and sophisticated songs which are equally delightful to sing to, dance to, and ruminate on. It is a pleasure to discover yet another band (and I expect even more from Italians Do It Better) who reject the artificial division between traditional, poetic song structure and dance-friendliness, recognizing that the combination of these two only doubles the pleasure. The highest art, in Aristotle's view, combines a comical overtone with tragedy lurking at the core. In this way, Desire craft songs which show human warmth, thoughtfulness, and physicality while preserving the eccentricity and spontaneity that define dance music.



Image ©2009 Italians Do It Better

Glass Candy

Every so often I will give a general summary of a band I have been following and with whom I have fallen in love. The first such overview is of Glass Candy, a quirky, chameleon-like project formed in Portland, Oregon, in 1996 and consisting of Vancouver, Washington singer Ida No and producer Jimmy Jewel, of Austin. I first discovered the duo in 2008 during my perennial search for well-written, more song-like alternatives to the inane repetitiveness and abrasiveness of late '90s house and trance and their twenty-first century derivatives, which still seemed to dominate the mainstream dance music scene. Their work is available through Italians Do It Better, a fine New Jersey label which releases records by other exciting, Italo-disco-influenced outfits such as Chromatics, Desire, Farah, Mirage, and Professor Genius.

While the band's earlier releases feature such rough-hewn stompers as Excite Bike, their later endeavours include such sumptuous romps as Poison or Remedy and Miss Broadway, a splendid cover of the '70s disco hit by Belle Epoque. Rather like Blondie, Dead Or Alive, and other new wave artists who probably constitute their chief source of inspiration, Glass Candy have evolved from their raw, dissonant (yet somehow concentrated and alarming) punk roots into a glamorous, alluring carnival of melodic disco. At times the band even venture into hip hop territory, as with the irresistibly funky Geto Boys, while they show off their skill in penning ethereal Italo-disco anthems with the haunting, otherworldly gambol of Life After Sundown. Meanwhile, No's soft but whispery vocals careen seductively (if at times off-key) over the rich, scintillating textures of Jimmy Jewel's gorgeous orchestration. To double the pleasure, simply see the band in concert and marvel at No's writhing, serpentine dance moves juxtaposed with Jewel's dynamic assault on the keyboards.

It is refreshing finally to discover music which simultaneously boasts clever lyrics, elegant arrangements, and dance-friendly spiritedness--classically structured, well-written dance songs which do not require drug use to be enjoyed. Both Glass Candy's earlier dance-punk and later disco incarnations please the listener since both boast appealing chords, arpeggios, notes, and so on (while remaining bizarre and twisted), but it is a pleasure to follow an artist growing out of its chaotic roots into a refined and luxurious creature.



Image ©2009 John Londono

Review of 'My Guilty Pleasure'

Well, what can I say? The title says it all. Sally Shapiro are exactly that. Yet, why should I feel guilty? They (for Sally Shapiro are actually a duo consisting of Swedish producer Johan Agebjörn and a mysterious, unidentified female vocalist) make me feel exquisite. Sally Shapiro are doing with their second full-length studio album, My Guilty Pleasure, exactly what Sandra should have done with her most recent album, Back To Life. And these albums were both released the same year. It seems as though those who emulate early Italo-disco artists sometimes outdo them. Recall my previous post on Faith, Power and Glory, and how VNV Nation have managed to evolve without sounding poncey or lacklustre. In the present case, I find, the featured artist has reversed the trend toward boring adult contemporary music among older artists.

Because I adore Sally Shapiro, let me save the best for last and begin with the weakest point of their new album. The second single from the album, Love in July, is an insipid mistake with lyrics such as, "give me your love in July . . . you make the sun shine" and "dry off the tears in my eyes. Don't let me down. I'll be around". Now, normally such lyrics actually have a perennial appeal--they reflect that strange heartache one feels when one has lost a true love and feels actual physiological effects. One can only relate to such a simple message if one has felt truly excruciating loss. These messages, however, could have been communicated other than through an irregular dubstep bass drum, which, hideous to begin with, suggests an escape into some aggressive, epileptic, drug-fuelled ecstasy. Conveyed with the right melody, chords, notes, etc., they can move one. It's a dicey and difficult balance to achieve. The essential qualities of the composition have potential--they were simply perverted by the style of the bass drum.

Seemingly conventional lyrics are actually what is most appealing about Sally Shapiro. A work can sound burdensome, pretentious, ineffective with cryptic or pretentious lyrical content, which is why simple and straightforward messages work well with the right melody and orchestration. And Sally Shapiro basically achieve this effect throughout the rest of My Guilty Pleasure. Listening to Dying in Africa, I initially scorned the writer as provincial for fixating on a lover "even if they're dying in Africa", but I came to think how profound a singular love must be to distract one from issues of global importance. This particular song reminds the listener how magnetic, how immobilizing, an object of love can be, how easily one can shift one's priorities. As an elegantly punctuated bassline glides in the background, the vocalist sings, "I never knew anybody could make me cry like this". Well, I suppose that in Sweden we have time to analyse our lovelorn tears, but it sounds so divine.

Finally, there is My Fantasy. When I think of this song, I remember how excited I was that North Americans received it as the b-side of the single He Keeps Me Alive before the Europeans got a hold of it commercially in any form. Now, when I spoke of straightforward lyrics, I was thinking about this song. It is not only optimistic, but playful, seductive, even sinister, perhaps because of the minor keys. The vocalist muses, "I call you up for a rendezvous, another night with just me and you. / I feel so warm when I meet your eyes. I'm flyin' high somewhere in the skies". It is one of those moments where, in a complex, almost inscrutable tone, she expresses a powerful self-confidence in relation to her lover. The song presents an urgent yet mysterious message of craving, coasting along a classic melody, syncopated bass guitar, punching snares, and a relentless four-to-the-floor bass drum.

Sally Shapiro's new album--well, both of Sally Shapiro's albums, really--offer relief from the more pretentious forms of indie music which pile gratuitous amounts of obscure references onto their works; they effectively convey messages about the most basic and important human emotions juxtaposed with the sleekest, most modern aesthetics available in contemporary music.



Image ©2009 Paper Bag