32ft Left :: Pomegranates :: "Corriander"

32 Feet is posting from the West Coast for the next week or so. We'll be catching some shows, posting wildly, and drowning in rain. Posts will be shorter, barely topical, and across three time-zones. Stick with us. Pioneers have been trying to live out here for 200 years - we're just the next wave.

Pomegranates are traditionally a lot of work. The pay-off usually doesn't come until the end. Investors and soft-drink makers tried to distill the fruit down to its juice and were rewarded with something that is as healthy and high in antioxidants, as it is bad-tasting and bitter. You can't just strain out the bad parts and keep the good. You have to be thorough, by hand, and do the work.

That being said, we don't know anything about Pomegranates work habits or ethic. It seems like they're meticulous but we've been mislead before. They play a brand of post-shoe-gaze, or put another way, something that is both atmospheric and focused. Something that has moved beyond space-age guitar pedals and loops. Something that is headed somewhere. But the destination, and the effort to get there, is considerable.

From the first measure of "Corriander" they introduce a cascading guitar that seems like it should be the backbone of the whole track. But you can't press out the juice and expect it to taste sweet. You have to do the work, and in this case the work is to wait. And in the last ten measures, we're rewarded for our patience. The riff comes back and is finally the central focus. It's crystalline. It is a wave of sound. It's worth not squeezing.

Listen :: Pomegranates - "Corriander"

La Roux - "In For The Kill"

People are saying this will be the year for La Roux. Which, more astutely was referred to by the BBC as, "it looks like everyone is doubling down on electro for 2009." Where is music headed? We don't know much but we're operating on one truth: indie music is dead, the only question is, what will its funeral sound like? It could sound like La Roux's "In For The Kill." A song, that if not for slightly fuzzed out vocals and a more aggressive synth-line, could have appeared on Lily Allen's first record. Ouch. True story.

And this is not to imply that Lily Allen killed indie rock. That would be both too much credit and not enough. And it isn't that La Roux is making the same glossy, international pop as people like Duffy and Lily, but there's something about all this music that's just so inoffensive. It doesn't challenge anyone and frankly, Duran Duran have to be asking themselves why they ever became unfamous. If this is where things were going to end up, why bother with hair-metal, grunge-rock, modern alternative, rap rock, lo-fi, rock revival, and indie garbage? Why go through phases at all? Why didn't music just stop at Depeche Mode's Violator? We already had a policy of truth. We didn't need to go anywhere to get here.

That being said, La Roux's "In For The Kill" is about as fun as wrecking an expensive car. Hopefully you don't have too much invested and it's better if you do it when no one is looking. The car is full of airbags and, frankly, you're sturdy as hell. You won't get hurt. But hopefully no one saw it happen. So you scratch out the VIN number, remove your personal effects, unscrew the license plates and walk down the side of the highway. It was a little embarrassing and a little awesome. But it's best we all just forget it ever happened.

Listen :: La Roux - "In For The Kill"
Bonus :: La Roux - "Quicksand"

Tigercity :: Live on XFM [9.18.08]

Tigercity has been one of my favorite New York bands ever since I saw them open for Junior Boys in early 2007. I was blind-sided. I ended up not even staying for the headliner. It was both mainstream and avant-garde at the same time. It was somehow derivative and exciting. In the best spirit of indie rock, it was looking backwards while trying to sprint through a wall. At the time, I made some Hall and Oates references but Tigercity was more than a few name-checks in a decently put together concert review. More than many bands I saw that year, I felt Tigercity had a chance to get up and get out. I started rooting for them.

That was 18-months ago. They're still touring behind a mini-album Pretend Not To Love and last night they hit XFM with a two-song set and a brief interview. Is this a step-towards that super-hit status? Maybe. But probably not. I guess I thought they would be bigger by now. And I'm not happy they're not. But, in the great spirit of indie rock, I'll keep it like a secret.

Listen :: Tigercity (Live on XFM 9.18.08)

Awesome New Republic :: "2k3012"

The start dates of the first true Republic range anywhere from ancient Rome to the day Barack Obama announced he was running for President. Now, an Awesome New Republic in America, that could date anywhere from 1776-2000 (we'll assume anything that happened after the Clinton administration was neither "awesome" nor particularly "republican" - despite what the ironically-titled party in power would have said). Founded not in 1789, this Awesome New Republic (a musical one) kicked off in Miami in 2003 (oddly, the same place where three years earlier the Republic had been hijacked and stolen with all the grace of gas station robbery).

What did they sound like? They wanted to mix genres together into a cocktail that would be equal parts synth-rock, dance break-beat, and alt-rock. You can imagine they succeeded. And a mixing of parts will pass for success in the same way approaching a soda-fountain with a democratic mind-set will successfully give you something extremely sweet, though not particularly tasting like Coke, Sprite, Dr. Pepper, or Hi-C. It's just a light brown and has enough sugar to make you diabetic by mid-afternoon.

Well, "2k3012" doesn't exactly work but it's an interesting experiment. And there are moments, mostly under the age of 12, when you take a tug on your straw and you're sure that your "mixture" is better than any of it's individual parts. You're wrong. But you tried. Which is more than your unadventurous, Sprite-drinking, colleagues could say. And I'd rather go down in corn syrup dreams than drink the same shit every day.

Listen :: Awesome New Republic - "2k3012"