Typhoon :: "CPR - Claws Pt.2"

Typhoon built this little lean-to in the Pacific Northwest, a shed against what we assume is the outside world, an absurd number of musicians drawn together to build something with a heartbeat. The tiny acoustic loop and the shy chimes which frame the foundation give way to exactly this body rhythm at 3.30, as the strings weld themselves behind what sounds like seven or eight enthusiastic voices. This second movement offers little for those in search of resolution, just a more angular progression, an edge to the hush of the song's first half. A troubling paralysis creeps in at the edges, "I want to live/but I don't want to live," before the final bout of apathy, "I don't want any enemies." Serving as the third movement of three, it is a world away from the hand-claps and Sufjan-referencing, secret-secret vocals of the first. For good reason they just want to find a place where they can be left alone, reflecting before the departure, "I am no God fearing man/But I am afraid."

Listen :: Typhoon - "CPR -Claws Pt.2"

Red Wire Black Wire :: "Locked Out"

Brooklyn's Red Wire Black Wire have a name that intimates decisions from a bad action movie. Just how many films relied on the trite (and yet?) ending sequence where the protagonist must choose which wire to cut? My personal favorite? Executive Decision, a deceptive Kurt Russell and Steven Seagal (he eats it in the first 20 minutes) vehicle where bombs are seemingly autonomous, ever evolving, cryptic instruments. When oblique Arab villains aren't enough, just put a blind guy in the baggage hold and let him try to figure out complex explosives. High comedy.

Red Wire Black Wire probably don't care which one you cut. In fact, I suspect, they prefer if you rip the whole mess out of the box and let the thing explode. Drafting themselves out of Wesleyan (you make the MGMT comment, I won't) and rolling into Brooklyn, they are a rock band with a sense of propulsion. On "Locked Out" they harness synth-rock at its most mobile. Lyrically, they're talking about going to find your girlfriend (who is off the reservation) at a house party you're neither invited to nor welcome at. You can imagine this lyrical sequence ends with the protagonist having to fight his way out. Well, unless he cut both wires and blew the place to high hell. Dirty secret, explosives are dangerous as they are useful. Now cut.

Listen :: Red Wire Black Wire - "Locked Out"
Bonus :: Red Wire Black Wire - "Compass"