12/20/2023 0 Comments Splice samples folk![]() ![]() ![]() The interaction between Elizabeth's guitar and Kate Porter's cello recalls Nick Drake. Jordannah Elizabeth-who has written for this site-characterizes her music as psychedelic soul, but this EP collaboration seems to veer more towards roots music of one kind or another. Jordannah Elizabeth, Bring to the Table (self-released). So for the diehards, Pom Pom is a treat, a kaleidoscopic journey through Pink’s obsessions and neuroses that hangs together better than any album he’s released thus far. With his scorched-earth press campaign, Pink has drastically narrowed his fan base, leaving only those who sing his praises in private. Pink’s penchant for Ann Coulter-esque trolling is beyond gross, but if you dismiss him solely on baiting the media by calling Grimes “stupid and retarded,” then how can you ever listen to Rumours knowing that Lindsey Buckingham dragged Carol Ann Harris’ down a gravel driveway, one hand holding her head and the other gripping a steering wheel? As with Fleetwood Mac, the psychodrama is inseparable from the music, and golden pop like “Plastic Raincoats in the Pig Parade,” “White Freckles,” “Put Your Number in My Phone,” and “Dayzed Inn Daydreams” floats above the petty pull quotes and drug-related hearsay. Pom Pom-a fitting final testament should he die before age 40-is crude, lewd, and irresistibly catchy, another fat batch of genre-melting pop brilliance most reminiscent of Prince’s Sign o’ the Times. Ariel Pink, speed freak and casual misogynist is inseparable from Ariel Pink, primo tunesmith. Harris has supernatural talent, and we’re all blessed and the better for it. Her voice runs circles inside my head, and I hear her music everywhere now-in heat pipes, in the wind, in white noise. Her voice is without peer, singing within the thin range of the main line on “Clearing” or the angelic falsetto on “Call Across Rooms.” Harris’ words and the way she phrases them are as massive and affecting as they were hidden beneath bushes of digital fuzz “it’s funny when we fuck up/no one really has to care” and “I have a present to give you when we finally figure it out” are two lines that have stuck with me ever since I first heard them. Above all, Harris is an incredible songwriter with a natural ear for melodies that are devastating and hauntingly beautiful, often comprised of less than half a dozen notes. On her most direct-in terms of chords and lyrically speaking-record yet, Harris communicates the same emotional isolation and intimacy without any of the reverb, delay, or tape loops that have appeared on every other Grouper release (save for the final track “Made of Air,” recorded in 2004). Like seeing a new color or discovering a new star, Ruins unveils yet another side of Liz Harris’ genius. If I’m sure about anything, though, it’s that whoever or whatever (what’s up, amniotic AI sentiences?) is left alive after humanity perishes in a plague will have several millennia of underexposed Bandcamp/Soundcloud/YouTube bounty to feed on. Maybe that says something about the rough decade we’re gliding towards the middle of, or the tumultuous year we’re about to close the door on forever. This year, we’re down to three voters, and the only platter at least two of us could agree on was Grouper’s bleakly entrancing Ruins, a repeat of our love affair with 2013’s The Man Who Died in His Boat. In Splice Today’s 2013 music poll, we had six (!) voters, and two intersecting points of consensus. Dividers may drive artistic innovation, but at this moment in time, what we’re in dire need of is more uniters-and I sure don’t mean the sort of unification U2 wrought this year with a record nobody really wanted for free. When a “what’s your all-time hip-hop top five” discussion on Facebook can’t get five or six responses deep without two or three sub-underground outliers drifting into the fray, is there hope for any of us? Things have reached the point where I’ve been honestly stunned this year whenever anyone has heard of anything I’ve written about or repped on social media. It’s gotten to the point where talking about music with strangers isn’t even vaguely fun anymore: they haven’t heard what you’re flipping out over, you haven’t heard what they’re flipping out over, and neither of you have enough free time to engage in the requisite opposition research necessary to make meaningful connections. Deeper and deeper we descend into the era of low-to-no-consensus, the Long Tail lengthening and growing ever coarser, all the “this post-monoculture shit sucks” op-eds piling up willy-nilly, nobody able to agree on anything. ![]()
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