Let me tell you about my weekend. My best friend turned thirty this week, so I helped him organize a little get- together in a vacant warehouse, which we appropriated for the evening through one of his buddies. We rented some killer audio gear: two turntables, an 850 watt- per- channel amp, and a pair of speakers the size of Midwestern suburban refrigerators. My friend brought the keg and the lawn chairs and I brought my mixer and some records. Another friend showed some stop- motion super 8 films that he'd been working on. I played the cream of my beat- oriented crop and, I have to say, I've never heard music sound so good.
And then, in the wee hours, when almost everyone had gone home, we pulled out the noise music and unleashed the most wicked and intense sonic assault I've ever had the pleasure of being scared shitless by. As the terrified pigeons that called the warehouse home whirled in the rafters above, the last of us were quaking in horror at the insanely confrontational sounds. It was heaven.
So that was Friday. Saturday, I had to get on with my Pitchfork review duties so I sat at home and spun Dressy Bessy's new album Pink Hearts, Yellow Moons. Not surprisingly, it's been pretty hard to get into. This cutsie indie pop, with its girl- group style vocals, sing- songy melodies, jangly guitars and sunny outlook just seems so... I don't know... inconsequential.
At least the melodies are good, which is always the litmus test for indie pop, even if some of them are clearly derivative (especially "Lookaround," which is so similar to "Father and Son" that Cat Stevens, er... I mean Yusef Islam... should certainly get a songwriting credit.) There's plenty here as far as spunky energy (like the catchy, Go-Go's- style "Extra- Ordinary") but there's not a hell of a lot going on in terms of inspiration. And so I spent most of my evaluation time thinking about the next album I was going to listen to. I can safely attribute indifference here to one part bad timing (it's not really right, trying to dissect cuddly Kindercore pop when I want something that screams at my soul) and one part plain old mediocrity.
