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wayzgoose

Author: Chloe Stiens

Categories
Culture

Playlist of the Week 13 May

By Chloe Stiens

I was in a folky rocky acoustic mood this week. Featuring new music from St. Vincent only.

You can find this week’s playlist at the top of the ‘Spring 24’ playlist, here:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5FaZdPSwOS8sEOx6Dq0yB1?si=528b996c66b74f05

Laura Marling, Alexandra

  • This song was the soundtrack to my 2020 lockdown, i.e., sitting in the sun with my Bluetooth speaker and a glass of wine, so as soon as it gets sunny this song makes an appearance.
  • The song is inspired by the Leonard Cohen song ‘Alexandra Leaving’. Here, Marling questions what happens to the woman-muse after she is no longer relevant to the writer.
  • I like chromatic descent in the internal harmony, in which the flat 7 note lends mixolydian modal folk sensibility.

Funkadelic, Can You Get To That

  • From their celebrated 1971 album, Maggot Brain. It is actually a reworking of an earlier Parliament’s track, ‘What You’ve Been Growing’.
  • I love how the drums come in accompanied by a piano glissando, and the low ‘I wanna know’ in the chorus.

St. Vincent, Big Time Nothing

  • From St. Vincent’s new album, All Born Screaming (it has also been released as a single). This is the first album entirely self-produced by St. Vincent, in which her previous sonic influences are excitingly combined; in this song, the Masseduction-esque synth gives way to a funk influence first explored on  Daddy’s Home.

Big Red Machine, Fleet Foxes, Anaïs Mitchell, Phoenix

  • Big Red Machine is the collaborative project between Aaron Dessner (of The National, and co-producer of Taylor Swift’s Folklore/Evermore and The Tortured Poets Department), and Justin Vernon (Bon Iver). 
  • The piano writing here brings to mind one of my favourite Evermore songs, ‘Dorothea’. The percussion is very interesting; the backbeat is composed more of fills than grounding kicks. I also enjoy the subtle horns combined with the other country/folk acoustic instruments.

Mac DeMarco, Moonlight on the River

  • My favourite song off of 2017’s This Old Dog. 
  • The reverb on the lead guitar brings to mind reflections in water, before it gives way to simple acoustic guitar, bass, and drums for the verse.
  • I love how it goes crazy at the end, as ‘everybody dies’. While the rest of the song can be interpreted as the narrator coming to terms with his father’s impending death, the ominous sounds here could be his grief taking over.

Gang Starr, Full Clip

  • This song is from the rap duo’s eponymous compilation album, released in 1999, and samples Cal Tjader’s instrumental ‘Walk On By’. I particularly like the scrubbing on the chorus.

Joni Mitchell, California

  • Joni Mitchell’s music is back on Spotify!
  • I too have been ‘Sitting in a park in Paris, France / Reading the news and it sure looks bad.’
  • I love how her voice floats upwards on ‘Just give you the blues’.

Land of Talk, Compelled

  • From the Canadian band’s 2020 album, Indistinct Conversations.
  • The layered guitars and synths from 2:21 create a kind of ‘indistinct’ soundscape.

Taylor Swift, The Bolter

  • One of my favourites off the Anthology portion of her new album, The Tortured Poets Department. I’ve chosen the clean version, just because I don’t enjoy how the explicit lyrics in the chorus jar against the sentiment of acceptance and renewal.
  • Dessner’s country/folk influence is strong here, and perfectly compliments Swift’s vocal writing. I really like the minor turn at the end of the chorus.

Grateful Dead, Deal – Live at Gizah Sound & Light Theater, Cairo, Egypt, Sep. 16, 1978

  • I was visiting friends in Cairo, so downloaded this album for the flight. The Grateful Dead were the first band to play at the pyramids!
  • ‘Deal’ is my friend’s favourite Dead song at the moment, so it was on repeat during my trip.
  • I really like the solo (which is actually in the first half of the song, starting at 1:23)… you can really hear Jerry’s banjo techniques in the arpeggiation. 
Categories
Perspective

The Last Dinner Party- just another industry plant?

By Chloe Stiens

The Last Dinner Party, in the months leading up to the release of their debut album, Prelude to Ecstasy, seemingly appeared from nowhere. Their hit song, Nothing Matters, suddenly reached 16th on the UK singles charts, while videos from their gigs proliferated on Tiktok. In consequence, everyone from Tiktok reviewers to respected music critics have attempted to account for their rapid rise to success, looking everywhere but at the music itself.

Like breakout act Wet Leg (also fronted by women) they have been labelled ‘industry plants’ by internet critics, an allegation that mainstream news outlets have done little to disprove. Critics have pointed to how The Last Dinner Party got a major record deal (Island Records) before releasing a song as evidence. This is true; the band did not release music independently to be scouted by an A&R representative trawling Spotify playlists or trending Tiktok sounds. Rather, they performed. The band, made up of Abigail Morris (lead vocals), Lizzie Mayland (guitar, vocals), Emily Roberts (lead guitar, mandolin, flute), Georgia Davies (bass), and Aurora Nischevi (keyboards, vocals), refined their sound and image by performing throughout 2022, so that by the time they entered the studio, they were, in effect, fully formed and clear in their artistic intention. This contrasts to the almost-overnight success of other Gen Z stars like Pink Pantheress, who went viral on tiktok making music at home. That is not to say that Pink Pantheress does not deserve her success; however, The Last Dinner Party’s success is not only down to their talent and good luck, but also their hard work.

That is not to say that the band is not lucky. Morris’ parents sent her to Bedales, a private school. Although Morris undoubtedly benefited from this education and the in-school musical opportunities it afforded her, its relevance on her musical output ends there. We cannot allow her musical talent to be entirely attributed to privilege, as if her academic education somehow gave her the unique voice and the commanding stage-presence she is known for. Certain reviewers have used Prelude to Ecstasy’s sonic grandeur as evidence of an inescapable privilege, suggesting that the album-opener ‘Prelude to Ecstasy’ conjures up Saltburn-esque images of wealth and decadence, aligning the band with the over-privileged Catton family while ignoring what the band have actually cited as their intention and influences. The Last Dinner Party have said that they wanted to create something ‘gothic and romantic’ (Rolling Stone). They are a Gen Z band; they aimed for a decadent ‘aesthetic’ as suggested by their name, one informed by the 19th-century literature both Morris and Davies study at university, or at least by the 21st Century impression of it. This baroque fantasy is evident in their lyrics, costumes, and the maximalist and classically-influenced production of the album. Perhaps Emerald Fennel wanted to recreate a similar ‘aesthetic’. However, the implication that Morris’ private school education is responsible for the creative direction of Prelude to Ecstasy is unfair. That said, I acknowledge that perhaps critics are more concerned about the success and number of privately-educated musicians in comparison to their state-educated counterparts. But the answer is not to damn any musician who was lucky enough to benefit from a musical education, but rather to defend music education from further cuts. In 2022, 179 independent schools enrolled students for A-level music, compared to just 69 secondary comprehensives (classical-music.uk), while children from well-off families are more likely to benefit from private instrumental lessons. Thus, the underfunding of the arts is creating a two-tier society in which music is only available to children whose parents can afford it. If we want the ratio of privately-educated to state-educated musicians to balance out, we must do more to make sure all children have the same musical opportunities.

However, there is more than a hint of sexism in the consistent attention paid to Morris’ upbringing and in the attribution of the ‘industry plant’ label, both of which imply that The Last Dinner Party’s success is due to factors other than the quality of their music. Their male counterparts are not undermined in this way; take, for example, King Krule, who attended the BRIT school. The BRIT school is a state school, but students there benefit from the industry connections that are so essential to getting your music heard. Or, Bakar, who attended a boarding school in Surrey. Neither of these London Indie stars have had their schools placed before their talent in terms of their success. Moreover, critics point to class-based privilege in music while ignoring the difficulty of being a woman or non-binary person in rock. Mayland, Roberts, and Davies, (guitar and bass guitar) have all become rock guitarists in a world that, when they were children, almost completely aimed the instrument at men. In the early 2000s, girls were pushed towards other, usually classical, instruments by the complete lack of non-male rock guitarists in the media. Even Roberts initially started learning classical guitar, which she did not take to (she credits her later ‘acoustic’ guitar teacher as ‘the reason I’m still playing guitar’) (guitar.com). Not much seems to have changed; St. Vincent (Annie Clark), ranked 26th by Rolling Stone in their list of ‘250 Greatest Guitarists of All Time’, is still not a household name. If girls do play guitar, they are often pushed into the solo ‘singer-songwriter’ bracket as opposed to lead guitarist. To have a band in which neither the lead guitarist, rhythm guitarist, nor bassist is a man is extremely rare. Rarer still, to be taken seriously as a rock band without a male member, and as band singing about feminist themes when 43% of the British public (and 52% of Gen Z) say ‘we have gone so far in promoting women’s equality that we are discriminating against men’ (Kings College London). If critics are going to point out class-based privilege, it is only fair to also draw attention gender-based discrimination too.

So, instead of dismissing The Last Dinner Party as privileged industry plants, let’s pay attention to their music. If we want to uncover what has made them who they are, let’s look to Nischevi and Roberts’ musical backgrounds of classical and jazz, and Morris’ and Davies’ literary inspiration. They cite Kate Bush, Queen, Florence and the Machine, and David Bowie as influences. They met at university in London, and became friends attending gig at the celebrated venue ‘the Windmill’ in Brixton. They are extremely talented, clear in their vision, and have worked hard to produce an album so good that their critics are forced to fling labels at them instead of finding fault with the music itself.

Image Credit: DORK

Categories
Culture

Playlist of the Week 29th April

By Chloe Stiens.

Bass bass bass! Also, it’s finally getting warmer…

This week’s playlist can be found at the top of the “Spring ‘24” Spotify playlist, attached here:

The Flying Burrito Brothers, Just Can’t Be

  • On their 1971 eponymous album, the first without Gram Parsons. 
  • If I was going on a long drive in summer, this is what I’d play with the windows down. Maybe I’m listening to it as wishful thinking (it’s freezing in Paris)! I like the mixolydian modal influence, and the bass.

ENNY, I Want

  • You may know the South-East London rapper’s song with Jorja Smith, ‘Peng Black Girls’, also from 2021. The second verse slightly reminds me of Little Simz’s ‘Woman’… I’d love to hear them on a track together.
  • Again, I love the bass on this song. It fully explores the potential of a synth bass, in both its bouncy tone, and wide range.

Led Zeppelin, Good Times Bad Times

  • Another windows down song, this time from 1969.
  • John Paul John keeps the bass moving in quavers or semiquavers throughout, complementing the sporadic drum fills. It really takes off in the guitar solo after the second chorus.

Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek, Nem Kaldi

  • My new favourite song, by multinational band Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek. There is a great article by The Guardian that talks about their creative process that spans national borders, that you can read here: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/nov/24/grup-simsek-band
  • The group call their music Antonalian folk. Here, you can hear the influence of Turkish music, as well as psychedelic rock. Like Arab music, Turkish music uses modes that include tones outside of the Western conception of harmony (such as ‘half-flats’, which can be heard here in the vocal line and solo instruments. I particularly enjoy the timbre of the bağlama, a kind of lute.

Beyoncé, Miley Cyrus, II MOST WANTED

  • New music by Beyoncé, featuring Miley Cyrus. I wouldn’t necessarily call this country, but its influence can be felt. Cyrus’ husky voice perfectly complements Beyonce’s smooth tone.
  • There are no drums in this song, just bass! This allows the song to maintain its acoustic feel, while keeping it rhythmically grounded.

Marvin Gaye, What’s Happening Brother

  • This song, from Gaye’s 1971 album What’s Going On, tells the story of a soldier returning from Vietnam, and getting used to how life has changed since he’s been gone.
  • Here, you can really hear the influence of jazz and funk in the chord progression, which is constantly shifting tonal centre, and in the syncopated bass.

Control Machete, Comprendes, Mendes?

  • From the Mexican hip-hop groups 1997 album, Mucho Barato. I like the trumpet-mute sample, and the bass slide.

Julia Jacklin, Don’t Let The Kids Win

  • From the Australian indie-rock artist’s 2016 album of the same name. The simple guitar chord accompaniment complements the poignancy of the lyrics.
  • My brother already doesn’t think I’m cool, sorry Julia.

The Pixies, Ana

  • Again, I really enjoy the tonal instability here, as well as the counterpoint between the multi-tracked vocals and lead guitar.

Art Tatum, I Cover The Waterfront

  • A version of the jazz standard (composed 1933), by one of the greatest jazz pianists, Art Tatum. Here, you can hear the influence of stride players like Fats Waller.

Photo credit – The Flying Burrito Brothers, Spotify

WAYZGOOSE (n.)

Pronunciation: ‘ˈweɪzɡuːs

An annual festivity held in summer by the members of a printing establishment.
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