Mvscles :: "Somethin"

Matt and Kim meets Wet, or Beach House meets Mates of State: The currently unsigned Mvscles bob along with effortless boy-girl vocals and bright synthesizers on latest single "Somethin". Recently freed from a difficult label scrap, the band craft this summer jam - seasonally inappropriate but perfect for a business model like the music industry who will get around to marketing this in a few months - with more than a little reverence for UB40's upstroke Caribbean synthesizer pop. The modulated call and response "oh oh ohs" need only three notes to worm their way into your short term memory and the small cavern of your heart reserved for inappropriately brief affection.

Bogan Via :: "TES"

Brooklyn by way of Phoenix (or something) Bogan Via continue to craft their love-sick synth slow jams on latest single, "TES". "Strange how it kills," mourns singer Madeleine Miller as an arrangement of synthesizer stabs and bass unfolds like a chemically compounded version of Beach House. The lonesome lyrics and the Dramamine-paced BPM add up to something completely broken and more than a little pretty. Miller sings at herself in a duet of layer vocals, occasionally adding band-mate Bret Bender in something that resembles Mates of State or Matt and Kim if either duo broke up and continued to make music in spite of and in homage to their lost relationship. Keyboards, like little lasers, point to the scene of the damage. Miller coos, "pray for better luck tomorrow," even though the best of what's around is already here.

Listen :: Bogan Via - "TES"

On The List :: Mates of State @ The Echo [7.6.12]

It's hard to write about Mates of State without writing about all things people write about Mates of State. The band's story, after being told and retold and retold again, has sort of transcended the band itself, an arc around to stab the backs of the people who first told their story. As we smash through the fourth wall of music journalism, this would be the part of the introductory paragraph where I mention that everyone mentions the two main members of Mates of State, Kori Gardner and Jason Hammel, are married and very much in love and everyone at the Echo on Los Angeles' East Side knows this. It is inescapable. Of course, Mates of State once suggested, and played on this night, "Everyone Needs An Editor," a love song about blue skies and maybe introductory paragraphs, and it is hardly their fault that their narrative so gratuitously swallows their music. It is also worth noting here that Hammel, the drummer, took off his wedding ring rather conspicuously in the minutes leading up to the show. This was not a symbolic or temporary divorce of Kori Gardner, it's just very hard to play drums with a wedding ring on. The music might trump the narrative after all, or at least they would collide on the stage for a bit more than an hour.

The band opened with a concerted mixture of material from their previous three albums, Bring It Back, Re-Arrange Us, one of the best releases of 2008, and their more recent, Mountaintops. Opening with "For The Actor", a screaming love song from a couple who is already in love, Gardner and Hammel glanced at each other furtively, with a learned and controlled fecundity, singing lyrics like, "I remember when it poured and you sang to me in summer, it's a fantasy." This from a band who made their name in the early part of the previous decade by playing shows while staring unbroken into each others' eyes. It was creepy and cute. There is none of this type of explicitness these days. They then played "My Only Offer", "Now", "Sway", "Unless I'm Led" and, maybe their finest song, "The Re-Arranger", its four discrete parts showing the band's gift for key signature changes and second (and third and fourth) movements. The third movement of "The Re-Arranger" featured Gardner and Hammel nearly screaming, "Re-arrange us, re-arrange us", one of the most tremulous and triumphant moments in recent pop music.

A brief interlude debate about what of their old catalog the band could play lead to one of those adorable arguments between the lead-singers about what key 2000's "Everyone Needs An Editor" was originally written in. Eventually, they arrived at the right key, or the right one for this night, and plowed to the final act centering on the lyric, "I'd paint the sky with you, I'd let you choose the blue." It is the type of life-affirming, love-sick lyric that makes audiences swoon. The band then played, "Ha-Ha", another of those multiple movement songs that closes with the lyric, "This is blood that we're made of, go tell it like a chronicle," that blood is their music and their marriage. It is the story that we, and they, can't help retelling.

Mates of State plays the Echo again on Saturday, July 7.

Bogan Via :: "Kanye"

A high school acquaintance of mine relays the following story about meeting Kanye West. I suspect many people have a similar version with personal specifics. On the night his second LP, Late Registration dropped, West shuffled past my former high school classmate at the release party. After exchanging pleasantries, West said, "Have you heard my new record?" Before allowing time for a response, he answered his own question, "It's fucking incredible." This moment, and thousands of others like it, lodged Kanye firmly in the consciousness of the modern music fan, a brand of excellence and arrogance of the type that yields single-name soccer players and single-name musicians. Kanye. Or consider Bono, who once leaked his own music by listening to it at volume with the windows of his French villa conspicuously open. It resounds with arrogance bordering on the sublime. After all the anxiety, relativism and pragmatic thinking, it is a relief to hear confidence in art. Brooklyn-by-way-of-Phoenix band Bogan Via have released a single, "Kanye" that reflects this cultural evolution. But instead of brashness, they hollow out the center, replacing it with minor key synthesizer progression and lyrical urgings like, "Give your heart to everything, you gotta move when the move seems right." The vocal duet and somber mood evokes something caught between Mates of State and Beach House's records before you knew about Beach House. This is a diet of sadness, the knowledge that so many have put hope in your arrogance, alone in a tower of your own making, sentenced to a lifetime of the same conversation and your same trope answers. Here, this is beautiful, but they already know that.

Listen :: Bogan Via - "Kanye"

On The List :: Mates of State @ Webster Hall [4.6.09]

I am unexpectedly attracted to Kori Gardner. She is stuck behind all these keyboards and, yes, I know she's already married to the drummer. And yes, I know they have kids. And I know they live in Darien, Connecticut and by all reports lead the bohemian rhapsody that we all chase and never catch. But that doesn't mean I can't love her from 20 yards away. Her bangs are in her face and her voice is a more squeaky Neko Case. I feel like I could be good for her. If I only had something to offer.

Luckily, Mates of State start with "My Only Offer." By the end, I'm more than ready to offer "stifled copies of myself." I mean, frankly, she could have the originals. No one is going to be terribly picky. Without missing a beat, they turn on "Get Better" which sounds as uplifting and glossy as it does on the album. The difference is, here, now, I want to float off the ground when Kori (we're on a first name basis) says, "everything's gonna get lighter." It's a plea for perspective in a time of seriousness. It's a desire to float when everyone is sinking.

The band pounds through songs I haven't heard since 2004. This is the old stuff. These are the deep cuts. This is exciting, especially remembering my college roommate yelling, "what the hell is that awful shit?" when I played it at 10am on a weekday morning. I mean, at this point, could he have been more wrong? The band plays "Ha ha" which always moves people and then "Fraud In The 80s." The new stuff is empirically better but the songs from five years ago thump and pulse in a way that can't be recaptured. That was before Matt and Kim upped the ante. That was before Mates of State felt the need to destroy everyone.

The band closes with a Tom Waits cover and "The Re-Arranger." I cannot say enough good things about "The Re-Arranger" and this performance offers no new light or different perspective. It was good on the record. It's good in-person. Kori Gardner is as perfect as can be and we're all just copies of ourselves.

Listen :: Mates of State - "My Only Offer"

Late To The Party :: Mates of State :: Re-Arrange Us

This doesn't quite fit the title of "late to the party" because Mates of State have been a favorite since sometime in 2004 (which actually was two albums late to the party but no one is keeping score). For the purposes of this project, we'll file them under "just getting around to it now." Or "just in case YOU missed it." Elitist, I know. Mates of State are out promoting (something like) their fourth LP, re-arrange us. It's not just good. It might be the album of the year.

Saying things like this always freaks people out when you've still got four months to go, a Coldplay record from back in June, and Lil Wayne's album just crushing kids. It's hard to get anyone to buy into Mates of State with just two people, mostly known for their cloying attitude (ugh! they're sooooo married) and one-dimensional sound (drums, keys .... not a lot else). But don't forget the Tegan and Sara record really snuck up on people last year.

Same idea, a concept band that unconceptualized itself, grew sonically, and ended up transcending their formerly overwrought selves . Tegan and Sara got sick of being written off as a lesbian pop band. So they wrote The Con and crushed everyone. Re-arrange us is almost that same record. Mates Of State aren't just married and their arrangements aren't just organ and drums. The album is sneaky good and actually, forget that, this album is good good. This is the record of the year. So far.

Listen :: Mates of State - My Only Offer