Gorgeous accidents and works of art
Some songs take a while to work themselves into your life; you may not even like them much to begin with, but they always have a little element or aspect that intrigues you, until, over repeated listens, you are ready to set aside space for the song’s more or less permanent residence in your psyche. And then there are songs that give you serious L.S.S. against your will, swiftly slithering into your skull in a manner vaguely reminiscent of Japanese tentacle porn (case in point: Super Bass by Nicki Minaj, also known as “Boombaroomboom boombaroomboom bass”).
And then there are the songs that you like right away, that you embrace wholeheartedly from the start, and that prove, to your delight, to hold up over the days and years that follow: the musical equivalent of lasting love at first sight. Here are a few examples.
FIRST RATE. I’ve been wanting to write about First Rate People for some time now; their debut single Girls’ Night, which came out last year, was one of my absolute favorite songs of 2010: undeniably charming and catchy, but steering just shy of being too cute for its own good, with soda-sweet alternating boy-girl vocals. Pitchfork.com described it as “a funky, flirty abstraction that floats somewhere in the space between a bouncy ‘90s-style R&B tune and a swooning alt-rock ballad.”
No full-length album yet from these First Rate People, but they are offering a new five-song EP on their site, with pleasantly danceable numbers like Summer Job and Funny Games, and the exceptional title track, Someone Else Can Make a Work of Art. They take some touches from current pop music production (even Auto-Tuning a line here and there), but marry these to tunes that are both immediately likable and a little ramshackle. There’s even a remix of the title track that expands on its low-key but considerable strengths.
The “Someone Else Can Make a Work of Art” EP is downloadable for free (yes!) from http://firstratepeople.com.
BEAUTIFULLY IMAGINARY. If you like the words “shoegaze” and “dream pop” — and I’m just talking about the words, mind you, and what they evoke, not even about the musical genres they are supposed to represent — then there is a good chance you will fall for Some Gorgeous Accident.
“In 2008, somewhere between Berkshire and the Pacific, (the man referred to only as) D started Some Gorgeous Accident, a shoegaze-dream pop solo project named after a Blueboy EP and the first line of its third track, Stephanie.”
In collaboration with several Manila indie-pop bands, he has just released a six-song EP called “imaginary Lines,” and it is lovely, lovely stuff. Reminiscent in parts of such daydream-inducing acts as the Cocteau Twins (and to a lesser extent, The Sundays), these songs echo and buzz and glide and swirl and soar and will wring inexplicable tears out of you if you let them. They are all good, but my personal favorites are Tough To Chew and the hypnotic Panorama.
The “Imaginary Lines” EP is downloadable for free (yes! Again! What a wonderful world this is, sometimes) from http://numberlinerecords.com/releases/some-gorgeous-accident-imaginary-lines.
BOLDSTAR’S BACK! One of the first gigs I ever covered, long ago in the time-blurred mists of the early 2000s, had in its lineup a band called Boldstar. To be honest, with a name like that, I wasn’t expecting much. But they blew me away with their performance and their songwriting and, specifically, with the song Boom Desire, which is so much fun live. Anyway, they broke up a few years ago, but now they’re back, and will play at the Attraction! Reaction! production night at Route 196 this Nov. 12, and at the Admit One Finale at Freedom Bar (Freedom Bar? There’s another blast from the past) on Nov. 24. Google away for details, and don’t miss them.
