Radiohead Provoke Immense Sorrow on 'A Moon Shaped Pool'

Chameleons of genre, icons of self-redefinition, dealers of some of the bravest decisions made in music history; the qualifications that reify Radiohead’s legacy are more than laurels upon which the band can rest, they are also the embodiments of character traits that have allowed the band to not only endure time, but claim it, and then redefine it. A Moon Shaped Pool serves to show that these impressive shows of ingenuity, as detrimental as they may potentially be, are still re-deployable in 2016.

On A Moon Shaped Pool Radiohead has demonstrated a mastery of their idiosyncratic approach to alternative music, doing so on the most sonically spare and lyrically provocative platforms of their career while simultaneously drawing upon the subtleties of their best work. The album features the minimalist electronic motifs of Kid A alongside the nimble guitar picking and understated riffs of In Rainbows, without negating its innovation. The album’s lead single “Burn the Witch” offers Radiohead at their most orchestral, while the ensuing single “Daydreaming” reemploys the band’s dichotomy of subtle instrumentals and paining vocals. Though this contrast may evoke comparisons to Kid A’s “How to Disappear Completely,” the song is a pivotal transitioning point into A Moon Shaped Pool’s most unexpected and most challenging material. The new album deals heavily with loss on a soundscape that is even more minimal than Kid A’s ambient tracks. But while the band has curtailed its complex instrumental layering in favor of isolated pianos and finger-picked guitars, the decision has resulted in an emotionally reductive listening experience.

Lyrics such as “Dreamers / They never learn / Beyond the point / Of no return” repackage the warnings of Radiohead’s signature doomsayers’ message with more consequential and permanent subjects such as hurt, regret, love, and longing. Paired with characters like those introduced in “Identikit," “Sweet-faced ones with nothing left inside / That we all can love… Pieces of a rag doll mankind / That you can’t create,” Yorke’s lyrical content offers a scathingly futile, yet beautiful message. His vocals vary between a soaring falsetto and an unembellished delivery; sometimes offering levity to weighty material and other times presenting disheartening scenarios straightforwardly. The latter is the perfect pairing for “Identikit"’s antagonistic guitar-riff – a palm-muted baritone melody teeming with attitude.

The shifts A Moon Shaped Pool takes between moods are noticeable, but not coarse. The piano arpeggios and trills of “Decks Dark” and “Glass Eyes” have a very secluding effect, though their background orchestration attributes a certain grace to the songs which yields an air of peaceful helpless, exemplifying the careful balance found in the pairing of lyrics and instrumentation and the selection of songs as well. The acoustics of “Desert Island Disk” and the dissonant synths of “Ful Stop separate “Decks Dark” and “Glass Eyes,” allowing listeners to shift between the various mental spaces these songs inhabit. It is the transitions made between moods, instrumentation, and lyrical content that allow songs such as “Ful Stop” and “True Love Waits” to coexist and help create one of the most unique Radiohead albums.

A Moon Shaped Pool is an album that may find some fans flat-footed. Those not expecting to deal with themes of loss and the fulfillment of love may find themselves either uncomfortable on occasion or dissatisfied. But if allowed to thrive past any initial sock, A Moon Shaped Pool will knock anyone on their ass and place them in the grips of an existential dilemma. But maybe “existential” is an inappropriate term for this album. It is modernist, as evidenced by details as spare and as fleeting as Thom Yorke’s buzzing background vocals. These droning and abruptly cutting falsettos provide the most succinct and holistic summations of what A Moon Shaped Pool offers: impressionistic whirs of pain and restraint, and a heart-hollowing sense of loss.

Burn The Witch.

Watch Radiohead's "Burn the Witch" Music Video, Their First Release in Five Years

Following their much discussed social media cleanse, Radiohead have finally released their first new content in nearly five years with music video, "Burn the Witch." The lead single builds upon pulsating strings, a croaking low-register vibration with drum kits, a light violin melody, and Thom Yorke's airy vocals.

The claymation visual depicts a town being investigated by an inspector who is eventually trapped in a giant wooden statue and burned alive, evoking images from The Wicker Man. While the song's visuals offer a grotesque illustration of cynicism, collusion, and cultural disdain, the song's balance of orchestral levity and weight, along with the chimes of its spattering violins and Yorke's soaring falsetto, make it awe-strikingly beautiful. Paired with lyrics dealing with a society oppressed by a superstitious culture, the song provides an accessible entry into an uncomfortable conversation on political scapegoating.

"Burn the Witch" has been a longtime project for Radiohead; renditions of the song appeared in the band's 2006 and 2008 touring campaigns and its earliest form has been dated to the Kid A era.

'You and I’ Exhibits Jeff Buckley at His Most Candid

American ignorance withheld Jeff Buckley’s first appearance at the Billboard No. 1 position for 11 years after his untimely 1997 death. Through the lens of America’s gross underappreciation for an artist its people almost exclusively know through his cover of Leonard Cohen, a posthumous album comprised mostly of cover songs seems to be a miracle. Yet even through the European perspective which appropriately views Jeff Buckley as a guitar virtuoso and the true voice of a generation, the posthumous album of unreleased Buckley material entitled You and I still seems to be a miracle. 

Popular culture has deferred Buckley into the role of the wallflower amongst the greats of 90s rock. Scarcely referred to as a legend for his guitar playing ability, his touch and dexterity on the fretboard rival that of Jimmy Page. His voice, often criticized for its overt emotionalism, covers ground between Nina Simone and Robert Plant. Never had there been a more perfect archetype for music greatness and never had such a talented presence on earth been so brief. Though the years past prevent You and I from having the same satiating effect that Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk had the year following Buckley’s death, You and I revives an early image of the young and burgeoning talent by revisiting his artistic self-discovery. 

Buckley’s haunting aura is immediately felt in the negative space surrounding Buckley’s guitar trills on the opening Bob Dylan cover “Just Like a Woman.” His guitar playing is simultaneously inviting and distant, sparse but flawless. His gentle strumming yields the foreground to his voice until stingingly precise guitar solos command attention. His singing balances grit and levity while delivering Dylan’s lyrics, sounding tenderly affectionate at times and then seductively crass at others.  

His cover of Sly & the Family Stone’s “Everyday People” builds upon a street busker aesthetic that is reminiscent of his live performances at Sin-é. The young Buckley’s voice reveals his eagerness for the spotlight, singing “Sometimes I’m right / Others I’m wrong” with a humble softness that allows his vocal projection to explode at the chorus. He whittles the song down to a light conga introduction, percussively strummed guitars, and quivering vocals, making a very wholesome performance out of a song that most would consider disastrously empty without the accompaniment of bass and horns. 

Buckley is his best on You and I’s most balladic moments. His cover of Jevetta Steele’s “Calling You” is bone-shavingly harrowing. When considered alongside his supremely confident performance of “Everyday People,” the Jevetta Steele cover legitimizes Buckley’s ease in navigating the soul/R&B genre from its most euphoric peaks to its most lonesome plateaus. He demonstrates that same variability across genres as well, expanding his range with blues standard covers of “Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Cryin’” and “Poor Boy Long Way from Home.” 

You and I challenges both Grace and Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk as Buckley’s most intimate studio release. His elaboration upon the dream which inspired the album’s title track adds a conversational quality to a deeply personal connection with listeners built throughout the album. The hold that Buckley’s performances takes on listeners is so compelling that we mourn the album’s close in almost the same way we mourn his death; we find it immensely difficult to let go of him. His acoustic rendition of The Smith’s “I Know It’s Over” ominously sings of life coming to a close; his air is angelic as he sings “I can feel the soil falling over my head.” The greatest credit that can be afforded to him for this performance is how he congests the emptiness left around Morrissey’s original vocals. The song carries much more fluidly than the original without sacrificing Morrissey’s desperate tone; rather, enhancing the lyrics’ desperation with heightened emotion and rawness. 

Those who cherish Jeff Buckley’s work tend to elevate his legacy to a mythological stature, to the point where the organic qualities of his artistry seem to evaporate. No other Jeff Buckley album takes on a greater mythological ambience, yet You and I features some of his most unembellished and candid work. You and I presents the fragile sounds of an impassioned artist prior to fame and the mythos which followed. It is a cuttingly reductive experience, unpretentious, emotionally stirring, and powerfully evocative. 

Kendrick Lamar’s 'untitled unmastered.' Masters the Art of Compilation

After a major label debut that was heralded as one of the greatest by any artist in music history, the question of how Kendrick Lamar would follow 2012’s good kid, m.A.A.d city lingered for three years until the release of To Pimp a Butterfly. Two ambitiously conceptual albums later, Kendrick Lamar has validated his status as “greatest rapper alive,” achieving both street credibility as the liquid-tongued antagonist on his infamous “Control” verse and institutional distinction as the second most-Grammy-nominated artist in a single year (behind Michael Jackson). But recent success found K. Dot occupying a familiar place beneath the pressure of elevated expectation for his future work. untitled unmastered. seems to add levity to his predicament. 

A compilation album seems to be the perfect response to the insurmountable opus of To Pimp a Butterfly. A collection of unreleased Kendrick Lamar material recorded prior to his sophomore release, untitled unmastered allows us to see how To Pimp a Butterfly took shape, documenting the uncertainty and reservation of Lamar’s foray into an overwhelmingly jazz soundscape while furthering appreciation for what TPaB came to be. What is arguably untitled unmastered.’s greatest attribute is how malleably it fits into the Kendrick Lamar catalogue: it is simultaneously an appetizer and palate cleanser for To Pimp a Butterfly with production that could be traced as far back as 2011’s Section.80 (released independently through Top Dawg Entertainment). It is fitting that these new songs can only be referenced by number and date, because collectively they adopt a seamless identity that blends into the patchwork of Lamar’s total output. 

untitled unmastered. explores themes that we expect to be dissected in a Kendrick Lamar album: institutional injustice, the formation of identity in the ghetto, Lamar’s status as a hip-hop icon, religious conviction, and self-awareness. Intellectually, the album does not contribute anything that hasn’t already been dealt with on either of Lamar’s major releases. What makes the album interesting is how Lamar tests his lyrical and vocal abilities on jazz platforms. “untitled 02” and “untitled 06” offer Kendrick Lamar at his most vocally eclectic. Like the other songs on the album, they present themselves as the sources of confidence through which songs like “For Free?” and “u” were realized. 

While most of the album sounds like a progression towards TPaB, the production of several songs from untitled unmastered. are glaringly retrospective. The ominous synth loop of “untitled 01” is reminiscent of Section.80’s most menacing instrumentals, while the trap instrumentals of “untitled 02” and “untitled 07” reflect the emerging popularity of trap music in the early decade and the chop-and-screwed aesthetic of the 2000s. Undoubtedly the highlight of the album, “untitled 05” builds upon a funky bass line with rich horns, piano accents, and lyrical contributions from Ab-Soul and Jay Rock. Kendrick delivers his first verse with a fiery presence, later mellowing to the introspectively analytic tone of his Top Dawg counterparts. The TDE presence is surprisingly the least impressive of the guest features included on the album. The tracklist is scattered with high-profile contributions from jazz and R&B music. Robert Glasper and Thundercat both provide instrumental work, while Bilal and Cee-Lo Green, who bewilderingly merges the inflection of Nina Simone with the melodic play of Chaka Khan on “untitled 06,” lend their voices. 

As a compilation album, untitled unmastered. should be received as such, and a very fine one in fact. At a time when B-side collections have either altogether disappeared or been dismissed because of their stigmatic classification as “filler,” Kendrick Lamar has managed to hold the attention of those who crave riveting instrumental performances, complex lyrical structures, and socio-politically conscious contemplations.

'The Life of Pablo' Reaches Into the Backpack Days of the Life of Kanye

The genius of The Life of Pablo is indiscernible from the album’s opening tracks, which boast intellectual assertions of the following quality: “Now if I fuck this model / And she just bleached her asshole / And I get bleach on my T-shirt / Imma feel like an asshole.”

No, Kanye West’s seventh album does not impress early on with auto-tuned vocals, mumble-rap contributions from unknown Future impersonators, or with the trap percussions upon which both parts of “Father Stretch My Hands” build. On the contrary, they show West indulging in the contemporary hip-hop trends that are dissolving into cliché, demonstrating fad as opposed to the zeitgeist which West’s more ambitious works so precisely captured. The beginning of The Life of Pablo appears to confirm fans’ worst fears about an album whose title was only finalized hours before the songs premiered. It suggests a lack of censorship, slipshod compilation, the work of an artist whose ego has been fed to the point of complacency – a food coma in which the artist is too bloated to move towards innovation.

What innovation there is on The Life of Pablo is subtle: impressive use synth-feedback on “Feedback,” various samples’ distorting spatial effects. It is the first album in which West does not overtly challenge norms of culture (The College Dropout), genre (My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy), or politics (Yeezus). But granting fairness to Kanye West in consideration of his past several releases beg the questions “How much more room for innovation (in music at least) is there for an artist who has already produced four albums in the seven years of the current decade?” “What reason is there to innovate when the most loyal sect of his fan base has fervently demanded the Kanye of old?” By the time the instrumental on “Famous” kicks in after Rihanna’s vocals, Kanye’s response to the predicament, along with his genius, becomes perfectly clear.

What validates Kanye West’s latest release is the effortlessness of its creation. The Life of Pablo is an album in which Kanye relies on his proven studio techniques and battle-tested ear for what captivates to produce an album that is easy to enjoy. The album is nostalgically reminiscent of Kanye’s rise in hip-hop, evidenced first by the resemblance between the instrumentals of “Famous” and “Get Em High” from The College Dropout. Everything from and between the percussion pattern, the vocal melody and cadence, and the arrogant bravado of the song’s opening line: “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex / Why? I made that bitch famous,” harken back to Kanye’s idiosyncratic presence in the bling-era of hip-hop.

This reminiscence is not short-lived. “Highlights”’ instrumental arrangement is similar to “I Wonder” (Graduation), “Real Friends” is carried by the cadence of “Big Brother” (Graduation), the various interludes on TLoP reemploy Kanye’s early contextual framing techniques, and even the soliloquy on “30 Hours” reminds us of a young Kanye with a burgeoning desire to engage his listeners in dialogue, no matter how one-sided that dialogue would be or would become. While remaining faithful to his own tradition, Kanye also draws from the fundamentals of his art form. “No More Parties in LA,” which features a guest verse from Kendrick Lamar, is a quintessential boom-bap track and the drums on “30 Hours” are undeniably influenced by the most revered and most sampled drum track in hip-hop: James Brown’s “The Funky Drummer.”

Though The Life of Pablo embodies the classic standard of Kanye West production, it does not achieve greatness by tracing its artist’s laurels. The album does indeed suffer from a lack of editing. Kanye’s choices on what songs to include on the album sometimes enhance its rap appeal (“No More Parties in LA,” “30 Hours”), but other times degrade the album’s intellectual premise (“Freestyle 4,” “Facts”). What we gain from this excessive over-inclusion are glimpses of the genre-defying, experimental Kanye West of Yeezus alongside the hit-maker of his first three albums.

While the forty-four second lament/gloat of “I Love Kanye” may not seem like the most stimulating track to be featured on The Life of Pablo, it offers the album’s most profound truths. Yes, we did miss the old Kanye. Yes, we hate the new, always rude Kanye. Yes, every rapper to come after Kanye in some way derives his or her art from Kanye’s advancements. It is ironic, unexpected, and fortunate that we are given an album in which the old Kanye remerges. However, in typical Kanye fashion, he ignores pleas for decency and self-control. As far as personality is concerned, he is still very much the new Kanye. But can we blame him? We never hold him accountable anyway. Our praise has enabled the flamboyance we’ve grown to despise. We have fed his ego enough to assure him that he can do absolutely anything. Fortunately, a return to his old style lies within the parameters of what we have empowered Kanye to do.  He is, and has been for a long time, that much empowered.

Similarly, The Life of Pablo is music to feel empowered by, for the sake of self-esteem, self-exploration, or mere enjoyment. Its palate satisfies in nearly every way a Kanye West album should, in modes of both old and new. Reflect fondly on the pink polo you bought once upon a 2004, which is by now stashed somewhere deep in an old dresser or donated to a local thrift store. This album will offer you bittersweet memories. 

---

You can read "Kanye's Original The Life of Pablo Tracklist Analyzed in Three Acts by @NathanZed & @jonnysun" here and "Closing Remarks of a Reformed Kanye Apologist" here.

DIIV Reaches New Depths in Emotion and Complexity on 'Is the Is Are'

The mosh pits ignited at DIIV shows have always been enigmatic, yet oddly fulfilling, phenomena – out of place for a shoegaze concert, but inherently necessary. There are few better ways than a mosh to enjoy DIIV’s music. The dream-inducing guitars, best described as the sound of chasing life, obtain a near outer-body texture when you close your eyes, and so it is without effort that audiences lose control of their senses at DIIV performances.

On their debut Oshin they communicated emotions through guitar melodies in ways that were impossible for Zachary Cole Smith’s lyrics, which were drenched in reverb and delay to the point of incoherence. But where Smith’s lyrics could not be accessed, his band’s shimmering guitars provided clarity through the invocation of a simple thought: “Yes, this is a sound for this specific emotion and this is how I feel when I listen to this music.” 

Three and a half years after Oshin, DIIV’s material has now been complicated by clearly perceptible dilemmas informed by Smith’s past drug ordeals and by the artistic development that has made the band’s sophomore album Is the Is Are more accessible and stimulating than their debut. It is simultaneously the old DIIV and a newly complex DIIV. Signature guitars have not been lost where vocal reverb has been expended and Smith’s musings on love and sobriety substantiate a message that is disarmingly transparent and purposeful. 

Rarely does a lead single truly stand as an album’s most emotional moment, yet Smith’s depiction of helplessness and futility on “Dopamine” gives us a harrowing sense of mortality. “Would you give your 84th year / For a glimpse of heaven, now and here?” Smith asks, then reissuing the question in decreasing increments until the unimpressionable age of thirty-four seems sacred. With clearer vocals, we are now vulnerable to the dismantling effects of the honesty in Smith’s songwriting. Here and elsewhere, he deals with the loss of function and identity resulting from addiction in a manner that would be cliché outside the context of DIIV’s sound. Yet the authenticity of these sentiments, qualified by personal experience and those of characters to which certain songs are dedicated, adds credibility to his unglamorous portrayal of drug use. “Got so high I finally felt like myself,” he sings.

Is the Is Are is markedly more explorative than Oshin, crossing post-punk terrain and even emo on “Healthy Moon,” which sounds as if it has a place on the American Football LP. Smith drew inspiration from Sonic Youth’s Bad Moon Rising, telling the Urban Outfitters Blog: “I really wanted to capture the mood or ambiance that they were able to get. It's an insane-sounding record, and it sounds really dark. So that was a record that I wanted to – not replicate – but work in that same idiom.” Is the Is Are is replete with semblances to Bad Moon Rising, the most obvious being Sky Ferreira’s Kim Gordon-esque non-vocalist contribution on “Blue Boredom.” 

The desired darkness that Smith has accomplished on Is the Is Are is achieved by its vivid depiction of inner turmoil and then realized by discordant feedback. The integration of bleaker sounds and images into DIIV’s bright and vigorous acoustic palate makes the album a more emotive experience. The energy of the album varies in tempo, but each song determinedly driven and forceful, sometimes dream-like, and other times nightmarish. 

DIIV broke free from the Brooklyn DIY scene with their debut on Captured Tracks, but their sophomore effort bears less definitive implications for just how big this band can become. While considerations of Cole Smith and his girlfriend Sky Ferreira becoming the new Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love are as laughable as they are irrelevant, there is credence to be found in one aspect of the comparison. Is the Is Are demonstrates a progression from Oshin that is arguably as impressive as the difference between Nirvana’s Bleach and Nevermind.

Iñárritu Stakes Another Claim for Best Director with 'The Revenant'

The latest film from Alejandro G. Iñárritu is a deeply immersive experience realized by its various conflicts and their depiction through Emmanuel Lubezki’s cinematography. Though The Revenant is set in the early 19th century frontier, the dilemmas faced by both the local Native American tribes and the fur trappers exploiting their land resonate with fundamental conflicts of modern survival. Iñárritu has produced a commentary on the ethics of surviving off the land and amongst other people, examining the right to live for both humans and non-humans, and the power struggle between societies of opposite interests. 

From its earliest opportunity onward, The Revenant establishes a kinship between its audience and nature through beautifully serene landscapes that make us cognizant of how superior the natural world is to our mortal selves. Varying between rising embers of a campfire, snow thawing on pine, and wilting reeds in heavy winter, they serve as indications of the action to come and the conditions of central characters while communicating an array of emotions. 

When trapper and regional expert Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) is viciously attacked by a grizzly bear, we gain a sense that nature has been avenged by injuries done to a fur trader. However, Glass seeks his own vengeance as he is left for dead and his son is murdered by fellow trapper John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy). The film’s leading men are stunning as protagonist and antagonist. DiCaprio impresses with convincing delivery of the Pawnee dialect and Hardy realizes Fitzgerald’s character through calculated deviousness and volatile aggression. 

While The Revenant does not retain the “single-cut” aesthetic which made Birdman a cinematic wonder, Lubezki reemploys long and continuous shots to develop a realistically linear narrative that is sparsely interrupted. Close camerawork accentuates the unpredictability of fight scenes making an unforeseen stab of a knife particularly thrilling. Iñárritu’s foray into filming combat is marked by graphic imagery – cheek bones collapse upon impacts with rifles while arrows penetrate throats and eyes with quicksilver speed. The aforementioned approaches work in tandem to make the scene in which Glass is attacked by a grizzly terrifyingly inescapable and gruesome.

The Revenant maps a frontier of its own through the many directions it pulls its audience, traversing territory between a father’s devotion to his son and the utter helplessness of being at nature’s mercy. Iñárritu capitalizes upon the affinity the audience develops for Glass’s survival, simultaneously questioning our motivations for violence, the imperialist agenda, and our appraisal of life and the world at our disposal.

'Spotlight' Offers an Authentic Portrait of 21st Century Hysteria

Being quite young during the onset of 9/11 paranoia, my own memory of the world during my adolescence is but a cluttered news reel of towers burning, Scott Peterson testimonies, and pastors sidestepping news crews on courthouse steps. But Tom McCarthy’s Spotlight clarifies this childhood as it authentically replicates America’s unraveling sense of security in the early 21st century. 

Spotlight follows the Boston Globe’s exposure of the child molestation conducted by the Catholic priests of the Boston Archdiocese since the early 1980s, and the Vatican’s subsequent cover-up of a scandal that proved to be more widespread than the endemic it was initially perceived to be. Michael Keaton plays Walter “Robby” Robinson, head of the Boston Globe’s “Spotlight” investigative team comprised of four “lapsed” Catholics: Mike Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo), Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachael McAdams), and Matt Carroll (Brian d’Arcy James). 

Upon first impression, the Spotlight team is highly unremarkable – white collar reporters investigating city scandals at a leisurely pace from the confines of a windowless office space saturated with the mundane. But once the air of ordinariness is established, tension persistently intensifies. With each successive step made closer to the truth, Spotlight is increasingly unnerved by its cognizance of the Church’s grave immorality, evident in how Rezendes’s internal torment steers him further and further away from his initial comical vibrancy. 

Spotlight’s cast delivers. Keaton’s rendition of Robinson’s professionalism is unflinching and Leiv Schreiber is uncomfortably distant as the new incoming editor Marty Baron. The cast does not surpass expectation, but it does not need to, since this is a film whose organic complexity and relevance will undoubtedly shake the religious foundations of even its most pious audience.

This film is best described as a white-washed neo-noire, a nice counterpoint to David Fincher’s brand of dark and disturbing. Its camera techniques are engagingly varied and while its symbolism can be as on-the-nose as a shot of a churchyard playground, consideration of that landscape’s normality begs questions of whether such imagery is on-the-nose enough. 

Spotlight captures a complex cultural moment made problematic by how intricately knotted it is in religious, legal, cultural, and economic difficulties. It examines society through every scope, covering ground between institutional responsibility to maintain the communal welfare and the role of faith in a hard knock blue-collar community. This is a film that will rustle inside you at the most unexpected moment, and - I think it is important to note - as I was leaving the theater, every elderly viewer present seemed incapable of leaving their seat.

GUM’s 'Glamorous Damage' Makes Slight Return to Tame Impala Psychedelia

On Currents, Tame Impala did away with their nimble guitar riffs in favor of exclusively bass acoustics padded with synth melodies and drum kits, creating a divide amongst those who herald the LP as the band’s best work to date and those who are lukewarm to what they consider a mild disappointment. Consequently, Tame Impala’s reception has been more divided this year than any other. These observations are not intended to call the unanimity of the praise Currents has received into question, but to note that with any change in creative direction and the expansion of an artist’s discography, new material inevitably differentiates fans as either for or against an artist’s new sound. 

Three LPs, a significant style change, and several offshoot ventures have warranted enough material for the Tame Impala fan base to be classified in a few different ways: fans of the old, fans of the new, fans that are completely bought in, and fans devoted enough to have an opinion on every Tame Impala side project (of which there are plenty). The release of Glamorous Damage by Tame Impala multi-instrumentalist Jay Watson under the moniker GUM now furthers the criteria for die-hard Tame Impala fandom while simultaneously offering glimpses of the band’s forgone style. 

Glamorous Damage is an amalgam of synth pop (think backing tracks to establishing shots of an '80s coming of age film), stadium power pop, and electronic funk. The album is mostly an up-tempo extension of the sounds explored on Currents with the occasional semblance of Lonerism melodies. Consider “Notorious Gold,” whose synth leads and power chord accents can be best described as a Lonerism instrumental at a Currents pace. If you were wondering where Tame Impala’s signature psychedelic guitars went, Jay Watson hid them on this album. 

The instrumental production is noteworthy. Consecutive tracks “Elafonissi Blue” and “Television Sick” impress with the clarity of their layered synths, percussions, and guitar riffs. The delayed and distorted vocals on these songs are vocal highlights of the album that are, unfortunately, not replicated elsewhere. The low volume of the vocals throughout this album, in addition to the distortion and delay, are both an obvious guise for Watson’s limited vocal capabilities and an acknowledgement that Watson cannot compete with Tame Impala frontman Kevin Parker as a vocalist. The underwhelming vocals make the album sound as if it were the product of the theoretical situation in which Kevin Parker dies, but Tame Impala decides to keep going in his memory. 

For an album with the word “glamor” in its title and quintessentially glam rock album art, Glamorous Damage takes glam rock as more of a light suggestion than an outright influence. Had Watson incorporated glam rock’s distinctive grit into this project, it may have avoided the decline in the instrumental appeal evident in the album’s deeper cuts and fared better at sustaining listeners’ interest. While Glamorous Damage can commandingly excite a dancefloor at its funkiest moments, its inconsistency and lackluster vocals ultimately diminish it to a forgettable experience.

Aziz Ansari's Sharp 'Master of None' Tactfully Fills Culture Gap

Aziz Ansari’s Netflix original series Master of None is an urban romantic comedy in the mode of an early-thirties, American-Indian actor’s exploration of what it takes to satisfy a young man in twenty-first century New York City. Ansari shines in his leading role as Dev, navigating bad dates, workplace disappointments, and a progressing relationship with his signature enthusiasm and sharp humor throughout the first 10 episodes. 

We learn about Dev through dialogue comprised mostly of questions he poses to his friends Denise (Lena Waithe) – the voice of reason, Arnold (Eric Wareheim) – the quirk, and Brian (Kelvin Yu) – Dev’s fellow first-gen American. Each presents his and herself as an expert on the topic of inquiry, giving Dev unique answers that speak to their personalities. While Dev’s friendships set up the show’s most interesting narratives, much of the show’s appeal is owed to Dev’s relationship with Rachel (Noël Wells). 

Though Rachel’s introduction is ambiguous and awkward, chemistry builds quickly between her and Dev. Ansari and Wells are natural complements to each other on screen, authenticating their characters’ playful humor. We are made to believe that these two were made to laugh together. Their jokes, while obviously methodical, are so intimate and endearing that we elevate their comedic interplay to an ideal. We aspire to their shared laughs and imagine ourselves within their vibrant and seamless relationship. 

Master of None engages itself in contemporary arguments regarding underrepresentation (typecasting in particular), feminism, and the generational culture gap between immigrant parents and their American-born children. The series is not condemning in presenting its case, but makes its point through instances of absurdist humor that offer poignant criticisms from minority perspectives. The gravity and relevance of the topics Ansari and co-creator Alan Yang have chosen to take on seem to have overshadowed the show’s merits in early reviews, but Master of None is undeniably tactful in how it addresses these issues and revolutionary in how it combats the discriminatory practices addressed in the show by how it conducts business in real life.  

Where the show does seem to falter is in its transitions between the aforementioned absurdist humor and its more realistic humor founded in common experience. There is no middle-ground comedy bridging the downturn of Dev’s romantic endeavors with a pitch to rebrand the Washington Redskins as “the Washington Breadsticks.” Like Ansari’s stand-up material, the show can sometimes be overly dependent on its battle-tested humor (racial jokes, Ansari’s mannerisms), but each cast member brings a personalized comedic sensibility that resonates with its audience by nature of its distinctiveness. 

Master of None's debut season features full-bodied storylines whose humor is at all times conscious of what has already happened. Case in point: “You cut in line in front of me at the ice cream store.” “So you fucked my wife?” The narratives demonstrate equal retrospective reach. Interlocking themes reappear five episodes later, developing Dev and Rachel’s relationship as fully as the brevity of ten episodes allows and making the show perfect for the binge-watching exploits of both religious and casual fans to romantic sit-coms. An impressive first production by Ansari, Master of None walks you through the cultural moment with insightful humor and criticism that only its dynamic multicultural cast can provide.