Marnie Stern can't sleep. Not well and not often, at least. That's what she says. I didn't learn of her insomnia for months after In Advance of the Broken Arm was released last February. But in retrospect, it made sense: When I first heard her music, I couldn't sleep either.
In Advance opened with an eight-note guitar figure, cycled 32 times in half a minute-- about eight and a half notes a second. A brutal, highly repetitive pop song ensued. Marnie shrieked and trembled. Her rhythm section (Hella's Zach Hill) egged her on-- she juggled fire; he hosed her with gasoline to cool her off. She made hysteria sound hypnotic.
What set her apart, though, wasn't showmanship, or even hooks-- it was her vulnerability. In a scene of bands that rely on technical prowess to sway fans-- or, if that doesn't work, beating the collective ass into ecstasy with noise-- Marnie Stern appealed to the heart. Her music didn't just aim to impress, but to move. For a couple of weeks, I thought of her as an emotive technician, but it became clear she was something else: A dizzy heir to Sleater-Kinney, or Helium-- arty, feminine guitar-rock that infiltrated Guyville without a mission statement.
Her second album's title, This Is It and I Am It and You Are It and So Is That and He Is It and She Is It and It Is It a**nd That Is That isn't one you have to read more than once. But it sums Stern up. It's obsessive and choppy. It's playful. It's gleefully oblivious of when to shut up. But its obliviousness is crucial-- the music, like the title (a reference to the religious philosopher Alan Watts), implies a loop or a meditative void.
She still strikes Van Halen and AC/DC poses. Her guitar parts still crisscross and crosshatch, her vocals are still shrill, and both are overdubbed relentlessly. Hill still implies a groove without sparing his kit any violence, but not enough to actually sound like he's grooving, which would be anathema to music this wired. As a group, though, there's a new sense of self-assuredness. She's learned when to flex and glint, and when to lean in the cut. "The Crippled Jazzer", "The Package is Wrapped," and the album-closing "The Devil Is in the Details" get so comfortable they break into a strut-- a far cry from In Advance.
In a way, that's reassuring-- while energy is essential to her music, it's not the only force at work. It'd be a shame to see her subsist solely on hammer-ons. But learning to relax and record in a real studio-- as opposed to her bedroom-- hasn't compromised Stern's singular talent: to make the work of one sound like the joy of many.
In Advance was an album primarily about how hard Stern had to push herself to make it. The lines read like they were collaged from self-help, pop-Buddhism, and sports memoir. She was a cheerleader possessed. The newfound musical openness on This Is It is mirrored in lyrics that seem to actually account for people other than herself. "What I need now is a good feeling to let me know"-- that's a promise. "I'm hoping it's true/ I'm hoping for you, you, you"-- that's a declaration. By the time the album reaches "The Devil Is in the Details", it's hard to imagine Stern as someone who quit her job to sweat over a portastudio in the middle of the night. "The devil is in the details if you are ready," she challenges. She ends the album on a precipice, which, I guess, is how she should-- with miles to go before we sleep.
