Category: Tunes

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Best tunes of 2011: #8 Cults “Go outside”

<< #9    |    #7 >>

I have a very distinct memory of listening to this very song one early morning late in 2011, in that burred season between late fall and early winter. I was re-listening to a handful of albums released that year, trying to nail down my inaugural best albums list for my old blog, Music Insanity. Cults’ self-titled debut was one of two debut albums that caught me by surprise and snuck its way into the running for 2011.

As track one slid into track two, I was standing at Bayview station awaiting the arrival of my commuter train to take me into work. It was so early it was still dark so I could clearly see the lightly falling snow glinting from the glow of the fluorescent light posts. I was shuffling my doc martens in the thinnest of coatings on the asphalt waiting platform, causing rivulets of feathered snow to amass around my feet. But then “Go outside” burst through my iPod earbuds in earnest and it was like the sun came out, warming me from outside and in, and it was as if summer had made a glorious return.

Okay. Yes. I am exaggerating but I am sure you are getting the point here.

Cults are a two-piece indie band from New York, made up of Madeline Follin on vocals and Brian Oblivion (sounds like a stage name to me) on vocals and everything else. When I first listened to the album, I thought to myself: “These two make no attempt to hide their love for shimmering, sunny 60s pop”. Madeline’s vocals are so light, almost to the point of child-like, that it’s unbelievably shocking when she drops the F-bomb at the end of one of the album’s tracks. And that’s probably the point. The music that backs her is washed and filled with effects, so much so that it is sometimes difficult to tell the different instruments apart.

“Go outside” is still incidentally my favourite track on the album but it is by no means an aberration. It is a seemingly light and fluffy song about going outside to enjoy life outdoors but if you listen a bit closer, you can discern soundbite samples of cult leader Jim Jones. Adding another layer of sinister is the video’s use of archive news footage from Jonestown. Indeed, the song seems to be employing, much like throughout the rest of the album, a theatrical technique I learned in high school drama class when studying Bertolt Brecht: namely, disguising that dark subject matter behind the cheery veneer of the music. If you’ve ever listened to the lyrics of “Mack the Knife” (by Brecht, not Cults), you know what I mean.

But before I start getting highbrow or anything, I’m going to drop the mic right there and allow the song to speak for itself. Enjoy.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2011 list, click here.

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Best tunes of 2002: #24 Neil Halstead “See you on rooftops”

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On a post that appeared a couple of years ago on these pages, I wrote about how I was introduced to Mojave 3 by my friend Tim when he convinced me to claim an extra ticket he had for their show at the Legendary Horseshoe. Just over a year and a half after that night, I was living in Ottawa, after having moved there from Toronto the previous fall, and reading the local entertainment weekly, Ottawa Xpress (sadly defunct), when I came across an article on Neil Halstead. I’m not sure why I started reading the piece because I didn’t yet readily connect the name with the lead vocalist of Mojave 3 (and Slowdive, for that matter). Perhaps the paper was thin that week and I still had some bus ride to go. Needless to say, the article made that particular connection clear for me within sentences and I read on to learn he was playing in Ottawa later that very week.

The fact that it had been months since I had seen any live music probably fed my sudden urge to see the show. One of the reasons I hadn’t seen one in so long, however, was our lack of funds so I needed to somehow convince Victoria, whose move to Ottawa precipitated mine, that the show was a ‘necessity’. In the end, we went, though don’t ask me what argument I used. I pre-purchased tickets at a local record shop (also now defunct) and we walked down to the Byward market on a Saturday night. We had never been to the Mercury Lounge before and haven’t been since (that one is still there) but it was a nice intimate space for an acoustic show, which is exactly what Halstead (and his opener, Sid Hillman) presented us with. All of the material during his set was new to both Victoria and me but I remember really enjoying it. We didn’t spring for any drinks that night but certainly bought the CD copy of Halstead’s solo debut, “Sleeping on roads”, on the way out the door.

“See you on rooftops” is track three on this very album and somewhat stands out from the rest. It takes the ball of string that was rolled up tightly with Halstead’s dreamy folk rock in Mojave 3 and launches it off into space. While out there amongst the constellations, the string unravels a bit, the loose beat, string synth line, and Atari sounds and lasers get the space boots tapping. Halstead picks out the stars and sings softly to each of them, childlike and hopeful, wooing any sort of life out there to come to take him away. The song ends in a blissed out cacophony that would make any of his counterparts from the original shoegaze movement green with envy. And all you need to do is lay back to bask in its glory.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2002 list, click here.

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Best tunes of 1992: #27 Moose “Little bird (Are you happy in your cage?)”

<< #28    |    #26 >>

There are multiple stories and legends behind the coining of the term “shoegaze” and they are all generally variations on a theme. The word is that while reviewing a show he or she had witnessed, a certain music writer was referring to the fact that the singer was reading lyrics taped to the stage or that the lead guitarist was desperately trying to keep track of all his pedals. By some accounts, that show was an early one by the band Moose, the singer in question was Russell Yates, and the guitarist was K.J. ‘Moose’ McKillop, whose nickname gave the band their name.

Interesting, then, that Moose would actually dispense with the noisy and hazy sound that many would come identify with the shoegaze genre shortly after the recording of their first two EPs. This is likely why the group is almost never mentioned in connection with the term, especially one so often bandied about these days, and instead, we hear about Ride, Slowdive, My Bloody Valentine, and Lush. But another reason is that they are quite unfortunately forgotten, mostly because they were largely ignored by the buying public during their short existence. And yet somehow they managed to release three full-length albums after those first two initial EPs and some pretty catchy, rocking tunes.

How did I ever manage to hear the jingle jangle of “Little bird (are you happy in your cage)”? Two words. Mixed tape.

Mixed tapes were magical ways to discover and share new music in the age before the internet. A friend I made in the early days of university, perhaps a few years after this song’s release, recorded me a copy of Weezer’s self-titled debut album and filled side two of the tape with a bunch of other random songs to which she was listening at the time. Moose’s “Little bird” was just one of the great tunes she put together on the side that I ended up listening to way more than I did the Weezer album that I requested. It is a boppy jangly tune that captured me immediately in its rays of sun, the guitars and synths lilting all over the place like thrown petals of a flower, while the drums bounced along with the words, lyrics sung like a Psychedelic Furs song, but without any hint of cynicism.

It’s a great tune by a band by whom I would never hear another song for years but one that I would pay forward by including on many a mixed tape that I created for other friends.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 1992 list, click here.