I’ve held the feeling for a while that the avenues through which contemporary music can reinvent itself to form new sounds are shrinking.
This of course is a fairly contentious point of view: it’s easy to imagine people in every single decade thinking that the musical well was dry, and not being able to see where the music of their time could evolve. If they could, they would have forged a new path, and been hailed as musical pioneers as a consequence.
But 2009, amid the ever-increasing clamour of contrived chords and unimaginative electro etc etc, saw genre splicing that not only worked, but was successful too.
R & B (the modern, slick vacuous one as opposed to the type that Chuck Berry is still playing at 165) as a genre does not sit easily along the sounds or ethics of the genre-formerly-known-as Indie.
But as unlikely as the marriage of the two styles sounds, the end results yielded last year are, in their different ways, quite exhilarating.
*****
The XX’s self-titled debut album was, quite rightly, acclaimed the world over.
The most surprising break-through album of last year was an almost uncomfortably intimate affair, with the breathy vocals of Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim playing off each other in a way that could be described as seductive, but was also extremely personal. Sims’ simple but assured bass underpins this, and is the focal point of their reductionist sound. So far so Cocteau Twins.
But the band’s utilisation of pared down R & B rhythm is arguably what has let them carve out their own little niche. On songs like Islands (watch the viddy below) or Crystalised this works perfectly alongside Sim and Madley Croft’s breathy interplay. And by way of a nod to their inspiration, they’ve even covered Aaliyah’s Hot Like Fire.
*****
Whereas The XX used the R & B template in an unostentatious arrangement, The Dirty Projectors, or Dave Longstreth to be precise, embraced it in a more full-blown manner.
Bitte Orca was another stand-out album from last year, one in which Longstreth’s musical vision seemed to find coherency as well as thrills. Although the album draws from influences too numerous to write here, R & B beats form an important piece of the jigsaw throughout.
Stillness is the Move (below) is a typically abstract creation as is Longstreth’s wont, but it’s founded on a vibrant beat that would be recognisable on thousands of dance floors across the land. Amber Coffman’s vocal is similarly soulful.
Temecula Sunrise pays less obvious homage to the genre, but throughout it’s tumultuous five minutes that trademark lazy shuffle still underpins the chaos.
*****
Discovery, the side-project of Vampire Weekend keyboardist Rostam Batmanglij, have embraced R & B to the fullest extent, with end results that sound like a strange fusion of The Postal Service and something that fell off the Usher production line.
Here the R & B element is an integral part of their sound as opposed to an influence or inflection, as songs like Osaka Loop Line (below) and Orange Shirt display all the sentiment and pristine electro-noise that you might see in any modern chart-hugging floor filler. It’s likely that you’ll love it or loathe it.
*****
Likely to also be on the “love or loathe” list are Pit Er Pat with their recent The Flexible Entertainer. Songs like Water add a hefty dose of genre critique and irony in with the Timbaland-esque synths and syncopations. Whether its a case of over-egging the pudding or not is up to you.
It’s always great when something surprises you or makes you sit up and listen in modern music. Whether anyone else (apart from Muse, shudder….) keeps on splicing we’ll see, but judging by last year’s crop, and I never thought I’d say this, R &B might help produce some of the most interesting indie music of the future.
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