leisure
12 the georgetown voice
january 21, 2010
Critical Voices
Spoon, Transference, Merge Records Seven LPs deep and one thing is abundantly clear: Spoon has the paradoxical gift of consistent inconsistency, a sense of “progression” without dilution. Transference, the Austin band’s fifth album in a decade, has the all the trimmings of a Spoon record—the quiet seductiveness of Girls Can Tell (“Before Destruction”), the quirky pop experimentation of Kill the Moonlight (“Is Love Forever?”), the purist, less-is-more songwriting of Gimme Fiction (“Mystery Zone”)—but it still has a soul it can call its own. If there’s one thing guitarist/singer/songwriter Britt Daniel seems bent on accomplishing with this latest batch
Mouse, trapped For the past week or so, I have been sharing my apartment with a skinny, hairy, uninvited guest—a mouse, who pops in and out through a hole in the wall. He is small, and relatively harmless, so I didn’t mind lending him my living room for a few hours of the night. I let him run around and get his exercise in the comfort and safety of my home. But when he decided to permanently inhabit my favorite study corner, I realized that he had far outstayed his welcome. One morning, as he sat innocently beneath my study chair, I prepared to attack. The closer I got, the faster my heart beat; as he saw me approaching, his little heart began to pump as well. I was ready to
of songs, it’s distancing himself from the Sixties-glazed nostalgia of Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, the group’s 2007 pop opus. Can a song like “Trouble Comes Running” make it onto the radio like “The Underdog” did? Probably not—the first 13 seconds sound like they were lifted directly from a demo rather than meticulously mixed by Berry Gordy Jr. The same goes for “Before Destruction,” when Daniel’s vocals first emerge. Transference seems to intentionally indulge its own rougharound-the-edges aesthetic: “Mystery Zone” cuts out unexpectedly, as do the reverberant vocals on “Is Love Forever?” These are the sort of amateurish moments that peppered A Series of Sneaks, but 12 years down the road, when “sloppy” doesn’t seem like the sort of sound Spoon should be bringing to the table. But it’s the looser qualities that give the brilliant bits that much more weight— like when the guitars cut back through “Mystery Zone,” or “I Saw the Light” transfigures into something completely different. Comfort in imperfection—it looks dangerous on paper, but
it seems to hold Transference together just fine. Call it maturity, existentialism, or blissful sabotage—it’s what allows Daniel to sing “Are you quite certain of love?” while dancing around the room.
fight, but the mouse’s body was preparing him for flight— he dashed right back into the hole in the wall, faster than he ever had before. This survival instinct was all a result of a hormone called epinephrine, or more commonly, adrenaline, secreted by a set of star-shaped glands that sit on top of the kidneys. This is the hormone that’s responsible for the feeling that you experience the night before taking the LSAT, or during the half hour you spend in the waiting room before your job interview. When an animal, or a human, perceives a threat, the brain sends a signal to the glands, telling them to send epinephrine into the bloodstream. Once the body’s cells have gotten the message, they can collectively scream out commands to other areas of
the body. They push your heart to beat faster and with greater force, they coax your liver into releasing more sugar and providing more energy, and they suck blood away from your skin and towards your heart. Ultimately, epinephrine temporarily makes the skin pale, the
Voice’s Choices: “Before Destruction,” “Trouble Comes Running,” “Is Love Forever?” —Daniel Cook
Vampire Weekend, Contra, XL Recordings Vampire Weekend came out of nowhere in 2008, writing songs about the Oxford comma, ripping stylistic quirks from Paul Simon, and generating not only an astounding amount of hype, but also haters who found them too uninspiring, too un-
rub some Dirt on It by Sadaf Qureshi
a bi-weekly column about health mind alert, and the body strong. Back in the day, when primitive man had to fight off grizzly bears, or attack wild animals for food, epinephrine was a vital asset. Increased energy output allowed for increased physical performance and better chances of survival. For most of us, though, perceived threats come in the form
original, or just too preppy. Contra, their newest release, should quiet those haters. It’s the sound of a young band coming into its own, fusing the spiky Afro-influenced pop of the debut with ideas very much borne out of modern radio-ready pop. Contra is a less organic affair than its predecessor, which relied primarily on traditional rock instrumentation. On opener “Horchata,” the band opts for the flair of marimbas and a programmed electro beat. Cheerful synth lines and distorted electronic snares dominate “White Sky” before Koenig busts out a catchy wordless chorus. On a few songs—“Cousins,” for example, or the excellent “Holiday”—Vampire Weekend tightens things up with precise guitar work and jaunty rhythms. Like their debut’s best track, “A-Punk,” these songs remind us that Vampire Weekend has, at a base level, a gift for fast-paced, simple pop. Yet the band is not afraid to step out from Vampire Weekend’s shadow. On “California English,” Koenig sings with Auto-Tune, on “Diplomat’s Son,” easily the band’s longest
song at six minutes, guitarist/ producer Rostam Batmanglij samples M.I.A. and indulges in a long narrative about youthful, upper-class rebellion. While excellent songs, anyone clamoring for the simplicity of the band’s debut will prefer tracks like “Run”—which features a Mexican-influenced horn section, countering assertions that Vampire Weekend mines only Afro-pop—and “Giving Up the Gun,” perhaps the band’s most conventional modern rock song. It’s clear from even a cursory listen of Contra that the band’s members do not want to be pigeonholed. They can write twominute punk songs or six-minute electro-epics. They can rely on synths or guitars, and they can sound timelessly international or distinctly emblematic of a particular moment in time in New York City. As a result, there’s something for everyone on Contra, and it’s worth a listen, even for those that mocked their debut.
of preparing for upcoming exams, giving a presentation, or interviewing and applying for jobs and graduate schools, all of which are rather sedentary activities. Despite the natural build up in energy due to the flow of adrenaline, it is socially unacceptable to dispense that energy in day-to-day surroundings. No one gets up and does a set of jumping jacks after completing a particularly difficult exam problem, or asks to jog around the perimeter of the room while responding to a tough interview question. Civilized man has become good at holding things in. For most of us, adrenaline just keeps building up, and bouncing off the interior walls of our bodies, waiting to be dissipated. What’s the best way to get it all out? Exercise. We spend too
much time sitting around and thinking, and not enough time getting out and playing. I myself am fairly unenthusiastic when it comes to exercise. I go for long walks instead of long runs, and though I always take the stairs no matter how high the climb, I don’t always enjoy it. But exercise isn’t really a choice, and it doesn’t really have to be painful. Snowball fights and chasing after Frisbees count. It’s a biological obligation, an unyielding demand. Even my furry friend, who darts around the livingroom all night, knows the necessity of a good workout. So when that daunting paper assignment hits the table, it’s time to hit the gym.
Voice’s Choices: “Cousins,” “Holiday,” “Run” —Justin Hunter Scott
Get Sadaf’s epinephrine flowing and her heart pumping at squreshi@georgetownvoice.com.