How do you follow up a masterpiece?
It’s a question that every artist asks after releasing a perfect work. Some try the same formula again, hoping lighting will strike the same place twice. Others decide to take a major left turn (see: Radiohead). Some have even gone mad under the pressure.
After the impeccable Rumours, the songwriters behind Fleetwood Mac chose option D: all of the above.
In the summer of 2004, I found a copy of [A–>B] Life by mewithoutYou in the church camp bookstore for $7. I had seen the name trudging through the Tooth and Nail website (the things we used to do to find new music), and I was enchanted by Vasily Kafanov’s album art, so I took a chance on it.
On first listen, I hated it.
But following along with the lyric sheet, I realized that there might be a worthwhile experience if I could dig in deeper. So I listened again. And again. And a few more times.
And over a few listens, I became fully convinced of the genius of this bookish, experimental post-hardcore outfit.
Following the dissolution of At The Drive-In, vocalist Cedric Bixler and guitarist Omar Rodriguez-Lopez splintered off to make a project inspired by Pink Floyd’s Piper At the Gates of Dawn.
While it might not have much sonic similarity to that influence, their debut full-length, De-Loused in the Comatorium is an absolute masterpiece marked with aural chaos and intricate composition.
In my last CCoB post, I likened the way they built their compositions to a game of Jenga–elements are added then removed and placed elsewhere until they can go no higher (higher in terms of form, not in terms of emotional climax, which they don’t trouble themselves with).
On GIVING (their first release after being brought to a wider audience by Volcano Choir, the band they’re in with Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon) the game is a little more direct.
The pieces aren’t as oddly shaped as on Birds, nor do they shy away from sudden dynamic shifts like their brothers on the other end of post rock, Explosions in the Sky. In fact, the end of “Lawns” might even find a place in a movie trailer some day—but for an art house indie drama rather than a football movie.
That’s not to suggest (as some have) that GIVING finds CCoB taking the easy way out. There’s still plenty avant-garde textures: “Lawns” itself has a strange vocal part created on a sampler. “Vorms” features an interlude of no fewer than a dozen looped instrument).
In the end, GIVING is just as masterfully crafted as Birds, deciding instead to use combine that experimentation with more immediacy.
I got through about ten minutes of this record without realizing it was playing at the wrong speed.
Even with as long as I’ve listened to Fugazi, I am almost completely unfamiliar with Red Medicine. In fact, the only thing I hear when I think of the album is the super-gained choppy intro and the chorus of opener Do You Like Me? Purchasing the vinyl (and cassette! Gotta love overstock on record companies’ websites) was an act intended to force me to spend time with the record. Well, that and to fill in the two gaps in my collection (Steady Diet of Nothing, I’m coming for you).
Economics teaches us that the more abundant something is, the less appealing we will find it. For example, if you eat one cookie, it will be delicious, but if you eat 30 cookies, you will soon be sick of cookies. For another example, the Flaming Lips released their last record in 2009. Since then, they have released a song-for-song remake of The Dark Side of the Moon, a split with Neon Indian, a USB exclusive track available only inside of a marijuana flavored gummy skull, a 70 minute, 13 track collection of collaborations with everyone imaginable, covers of songs by Madonna, The Beatles, and more, a compilation of their first several records (along with those same vinyl reissues), a URL-exclusive twenty-four hour long psych-freakout track, twelve YouTube videos meant to be played simultaneously, live performances of The Soft Bulletin and Yoshimi in full, assorted car commercial singles, Wayne Coyne’s constant twitter feed, and on and on and on and on and on…
So, economically speaking, The Terror should simply fade in to the constant barrage of nonsense that Wayne Coyne & Co. is constantly spouting out.
But I guess The Flaming Lips don’t understand economics very well.