Currents: Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, Arcade Fire, Nite Jewel

Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin: Let It Sway

[Polyvinyl 2010]

Over three albums and five years, SSYLBY have commonly taken cues from the likes of the Shins in developing a composed, guitar-centric indie pop. They were most successful with the organic pop melodies of 2005's Broom, while after that letting studio polish and cruise control result in the more sterile Pershing. Let It Sway has the band as bent as ever on making agreeable melodies and being that nice mellow folk rock that floats around in the scenery until you're bored before the record's done. As on Pershing, the band does have its moments (the propulsive singing on "Back in the Saddle", the tightness of "Critical Drain"), but the rest of the album plods along on weak choruses, rehashed acoustic riffs and mutually embarrassing songwriting ("All Hail Dracula!"...really?).  It sounds like SSYLBY have become (are spearheading?) a kind of indie brand more inspired by soft/alternative rock than anything else.  And just like, say, the Goo Goo Dolls after Dizzy Up the Girl, SSLYBY have their moments of pop relevancy, but more often, the attempts at catholic melodies evaporate almost instantly.

Arcade Fire: The Suburbs

[Merge/Mercury 2010]

Arcade Fire has surely represented the most glaring gap in my '00s indie music education, as I had barely heard a single song by them until I first gave The Suburbs a shot a few weeks ago (yes, I didn't start with Funeral; so it goes).  I don't know what drove my insulation from them, but with The Suburbs, my awareness begins.  After numerous listens, I have developed that vague notion that I'm hearing musical brilliance in the form of intensely detailed compositions and lyrics of obsessive conceptual significance.  But is the music actually grabbing me? No, not really.  The sweeping gestures seem to not pack the gravity and emotional familiarity to keep most of the songs from running together to the point of stressing a narrow point ad infinitum.  I didn't expect to hear it like this, but I probably enjoy some of these songs, like "Rococo" and "Modern Man", as standalone singles, rather than lumped in other melodramatic rockers.  A very notable exception here is "Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)", which has a welcoming immediacy and synthy, dance-focused undertones.  I first heard this track while crossing the Delaware Memorial Bridge just after dusk, looking over an industrial south Jersey shore and the monumental suspension cables.  Musically and conceptually, it had quite the effect.  As for the rest of The Suburbs, it could still prove to be a strong grower over time, but presently I'm not swept away by it.  Where are the "Wow!" moments?

 

Nite Jewel: Am I Real? EP
[Gloriette 2010]

Nite Jewel's most recent release, this 26 minute long EP, is only seven minutes shorter than her 2009 debut full-length Good Evening, so it's tempting to treat it as a proper album statement as opposed to a scattering of tracks L.A.'s Ramona Gonzalez has been working on lately (fair or not).  Whatever the intention in not just going for the LP label, Am I Real? shows artistic growth as well as stylistic continuity.  Gone is the lo-fi buzz that lay like a fine dust upon Good Evening, now replaced by a sleek sheen clarifying every floating synth and sinking bass thump.  What stays the same for Nite Jewel is a creative celebration of the electro '80s in a decidedly 2010 fashion.  Gonzalez's voice is still ethereal and lyrically obscured, the synth keyboards build dreamy, sexy grooves, and nimble beats keep the music rooted in dance, with bookends "Another Horizon" and "Am I Real?" being the best examples of this.

"Am I Real?":

  

Album Review: Nite Jewel - Good Evening

Nite Jewel: Good Evening

[Human Ear 2009]

6.5/10

On Good Evening, dance music has migrated off the dance floor and into hipster bedrooms. And this brand of it belongs there, because aside from its serious, avant-garde artist demeanor, Good Evening is radically divorced from the action-packed, body-moving efficiency of traditional dance music, be it top-40 dance remixes or variations of techno. Instead, Nite Jewel (L.A.’s Ramona Gonzalez) is an ethereal, often slow-motioned send up of ‘80s dance/synthpop.

Good Evening is dominated by keyboards, bass and neon. Every track rides a smooth wave of colorful synths that feel like samples plucked from two and a half decades back. Throbbing basslines lend tracks like “Suburbia” a forward-looking momentum. Looped drum beats vary from the smacking reverberations of “Weak For Me” to the tinny timekeeper on “Bottom Rung.”

Style is everything in Nite Jewel’s world. “Liquid cool,” the status on the band’s Myspace page, is an accurate self-characterization of the music. No matter the pace, songs on Good Evening would warrant music videos in slow motion, as they try to radiate a clubby sense of cool and sophisticated in-crowd-ness. “What Did He Say,” one of the record’s more enduring songs, occupies the same dark and smoky nightclub corners as Portishead’s Dummy. Conceptually, with its ever-present alluding to dance culture, Good Evening suggests that amidst the smoke and flashing lights, the club is full of lonely people seeking deeper connections than they are capable of and finding only false hope and emptiness under the neon lights.

 

But once again, the ability to set a specific aesthetic or mood is Nite Jewel’s primary currency. Her lyrics are seldom discernible, or likely important for that matter. Her submerged vocals feel far away and washed out with echo and saturation to the point where her voice becomes more of a sonic rather than narrative vessel. Through clearer lyrics, she is, however, trying to harder to say something on the moody pop song “Artificial Intelligence,” perhaps criticizing pretentious artistic license (“you’re not making a statement”).

While Gonzalez’s singing serves a purpose beyond lyrics, her usually high pitched vocals as part of Good Evening’s general aesthetic can grow bothersome. The adolescent sighs on “Weak For Me” are too naïve for her own good and elsewhere, her layered vocals feel like corny ‘80s relics, no matter how true to the decade’s aesthetic she may be reaching for. Additionally, while the album isn’t fit for a nightclub, some of the tracks unfortunately pick up the more uncomfortable traits of the venue: stale ambiance and the tedium of repetition. Despite how well Nite Jewel pegs this murky, 80’s synthpop sound (as her “statement”), many of the songs don’t have lasting power and melodic warmth.

It’s ultimately hard to appraise Good Evening as it has a very specific objective to hit a particular sonic niche. In honoring ‘80s dance and synthpop while infusing modern innovations, Gonzalez succeeds and captures a unique and interesting sound. But Nite Jewel would resonate more strongly if songs revealed more engaging personalities and melodic diversity. If she were to continue to hit the target established by Good Evening, on the other hand, at least she’d sound cool doing it.

Photo by dsbartholow.