Nostalgia is an Instrument, Too

As the last mixtape suggested, the new discs from Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti and Oneohtrix Point Never have been getting played pretty heavily around here in recent weeks. In relation to the first item, The Quietus offers a look inside the mind at work behind the music, with Mr. Pink serving up some observations about life in L.A., the musical semantics of chillwave, the influence of R. Stevie Moore, and the nature of language...

"The signifiers here are very dense, but I believe that it's all Satanic. I believe the act of writing itself is very Satanic. You know, the idea of consciousness, going back to the tree of knowledge, when Eve bit the apple… I believe that when you read The Bible, read those lines, you are Eve, and you have been duped by Satan. That's what it is, man. All the symbolic stuff, the abstractions that we are so entrenched in, that we teach our children before they can even understand – it's all entrenched in language."

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Speaking of nostalgia, it's quickly coming up on a year since I left Chicago, and I've really been missing the place lately. What better way to buttress that sense of longing than to revisit the music by what was probably my favorite Chicago band these past few years? I'd forgotten how Bird Names never fail to put a big smile on my face -- the sort of smile that bespeaks of nothing short of full-on 'idiot glee'.* And listening to them again and thinking about why I like them makes me realize something about my own musical preferences, and the subjectivity of such stuff.

That being: As I've tried to describe the music of Bird Name in reviews that I've written in the past, I guess I could've taken the shorter route and done what plenty of others might do -- which would be to compare the to Animal Collective. Yeah, as far as many listeners are concerned, Bird Names and Animal Collective might share certain stylistic similarities (probably serving as some basic for the former being dismissed as inferior to the latter). Thing is, I find that this comparison helps clarify my feelings about each artist, especially why it is that I've never been sold on the reputed greatness of Animal Collective.

The reason for that being that, for me, AC always seemed to miss the mark they were aiming for. For something that's supposed to be (and often described as) ecstatic in sound and spirit, every component of AC's music sounds forced -- to my ears reeking of effort and contrivance and creative deliberation. Whereas Bird Names come across as being 100% natural and genuine in doing what they do. Which I guess just leads back to the whole "let's get real gone for a change" example of how spontaneity can't be convincingly feigned. (Also maybe to the shopworn big-A/little-a discussion about what constitutes 'art.')

But anyway, oddities of oddities: I now check Bird Names's Myspace blog for the first time in ages and read that they might soon be relocating to Georgia?

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* Seeing them live was always a joy, but their recordings are their own experience -- what, with every element of the tune pushed up and peaking way up into the red & everything. :)