RIFF MARKET

Heard You're Sick, So I'm Wishing You Well
RIFF MARKET INAUGURAL 2007 POST



Oh Fuck It's a Lit Crit Art Crit Music Crit Gangbang (Remix)

This Canadian writer Robertson Davies, I just finished his 1985 novel called What's Bred In The Bone, which tells start-to-finish the life of one Francis Cornish, a rich guy who does low-level spywork for his dayjob but what he really loves is painting. Part of his comeup is mimicking the Old Master works stroke for stroke, figuring out their techniques and then applying them to his own paintings--so he's practically an Old Master painter, but living in a post-WWI art world sent into shock by cubism and friends. There's this one scene (and this is starting to sound like a Status Ain't Hood post I know but bear with me) when Cornish exposes what's purported to be Hubertus van Eyck's heretofore neverseen "Harrowing of Hell" as a forgery, and all the art critics who were previously praising "Harrowing" for its transporting beauty and its emotional depth suddenly changed horses, "If it's modern, then whatever, fuck this painting, etc." Sort of like a reverse Mike Jones, or an upside-down Yung Joc.



Anyway I finished this book the same day Dan Balis from Brooklyn disco band Escort sent me his latest release, "A Bright New Life." My support for this band is well-documented, and "Starlight" was my favorite song of 2006, though I know I was living cognitively dissonant. I've struggled a bunch both publicly and privately with the point of semi-fascist throwback acts-- Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, Metro Area, Earl Greyhound, Escort, Jamie Lidell, Nomo, Antibalas, that "Spanky" band Joe Tangari likes, the list goes on-- and normally I said something to the extent that "we can enjoy this semi-fascist throwback stuff but we can't reward it critically, it's not of this age, it's riding the coat-tails of certain stylized nostalgia X [heavy funk, disco, Motown, Led Zeppelin, etc.] which has had decades to accrue meaning over time, etc" which is super-silly and insider because really all it has to do with numerical ratings and topten rankings. My bit was normally met with arguments of "I listen not for novelty but for craft, and reward well-made songs, so fuck off" or that brand of "I like what I like!" anti-critical bullshit that has no business masquerading as definitive review. Rootless music is impossible, but at least try to do something new, was my understanding; I point to my LCD Soundsystem interview as a good starting point for moving talks of "innovation" from composition to production, or rather understanding music's vertical space as fertile, unbroken ground.

But Christ that's a lot of work just to say, yeah, I like what I like, isn't it. This new Escort 12" is fantastic: "Bright New Life" thumps steady in octaves while the singer rambles moodily and uncertainly, strings drag then get cagey as the chorus nears, then BAM all that empty space in the verse is filled with this huge horn-heavy chorus and performative "a briyut newww life." It's smart songwriting, the stylized diction is perfect, all the instrumental buildups are taut, not a note out of place, no smirk in sight.

I remember hearing this song both times I saw the band live and thinking to myself that they really love playing disco out--love the acrobat-like thrill of playing such soulful music so note-for-note, so tightly wound. There's such an energy to that restraint, maybe the reason I'll always prefer James Brown, who micromanaged like a motherfucker, over George Clinton, who just let it all hang out. Beside the point. What I'm tasked with once again is making it OK for me to like this song. Without being all fuckitall about it, or just ridiculously pedantic, it's really tough.

So Davies. There's this part where the guy who forged "Harrowing of Hell" gives this whiny but basically hardhitting semi-extended monologue that calls, basically, for absolute criticism, criticism without heed to context--and from there, calling for absolute art, art that needs no context to be understood. Again, it's all impossible, but what my good friend The Internet has done is afford more opportunities for contextless artmaking and appraisal, which brings up the usual questions: Why do genres die? Was it who, or what, that killed disco? I mean to an extent I wonder how much of it is supply/demand, and from there how much of it is merely supply, access, presence. I'm sure one of those new books about disco has an answer too. But how much of this is a function of industry machinery? Out with the old, in with the new, etc.?

In other words, if we pretend criticism can help or hinder the newness of new music (it can't; for another time), the reason it's OK to reward semi-fascist throwbacks critically is because positive appraisals doesn't impede new music from coming along. I can see how it would have gotten pretty annoying if everybody kept drawing the same fucking Nativity scene over and over again, and there's limited space in museums and art galleries and so on, and the voraciousness of music consumers and art buyers in general all but demands the new, but all's to say I'm relieved not to be such a crank about this stuff all the time now.



79 RIFFS

Labels: 2007, disco, escort, metacriticism