The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
Every Tuesday, the Sounding Board is a space for a short-ish review of a recent-ish release and conversations about new-to-you music. I’ll get things started with a write-up about a newer, likely under-heard album, and invite you to share your music musings in the comments.
Live Laugh Love is handily the most contented album in Earl Sweatshirt’s discography.
That’s not an especially high bar to clear for a music-making career that started with an edge-lord torrent of slurs and gory imagery as part of Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All1 and continued with a run of bleak, insular solo albums rife with self-isolation (I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside), analysis of thorny family dynamics (Doris) and the sort of weirdness that can end relationship with a major label (Some Rap Songs).2Still, Live Laugh Love contains multiple references to smiling, joy and purpose in fatherhood, and resiliency that mark it as relatively at peace while also setting it apart within Sweaty’s discography. It’s heartening to hear the guy, who over a decade ago made the desultory anthem that is “Chum,” rap about indomitability and inner strength; his kids and marriage as comforts; and ringing earfuls of love.
Live Laugh Love is at its core an Earl Sweatshirt album, and that means it’s a lot less cuddly and a lot more complicated than its title and rosier outlook would imply. Dense rhymes littered with allusions and sports references set to soul samples and doled out with a heaping helping of kaleidoscopic weirdness are the album’s overwhelmingly dominant sounds.
Live Laugh Love was primarily produced by Theravada but also includes some self-production as well as work from Black Noise, Child Actor and Navy Blue. Despite several chefs in the kitchen, the album serves up a consistent sample-heavy, slightly woozy sound. That can be molded to read as warmly nostalgic, like on “Infatuation,” or defiant, like ”Static,” it can also be chopped and stretched to the point of disorientation. In the case of “Heavy Metal aka ejecto seato,” it’s interesting and an off-kilter complement to Earl’s laconic, unconventional flow, but it also leads to the album’s worst miss, “GSW vs Sac.” That track is built around a quivering vocal sample and low-stakes soul vamping that is eventually slowed to a sludgy crawl. Coupled with a long spoke outro courtesy of Mandal, it’s a rough first impression. The good news is two-fold. One, like most of the tracks on Live Laugh Love, “GSW vs Sac” is short. In an era of bloated algorithm-gaming playlists, Earl Sweatshirt released an 11-track album with a cohesive atmosphere that lasts about as long as the typical episode of a sitcom. It’s maybe more of an indictment of what everyone else is doing than a boon to Earl that this approach feels refreshing, but it is worth noting and applauding. The second silver lining: While the album maintains an air of oddness, it never veers toward such a grating low again.
It also doesn’t summit any particularly lofty peaks. Live Laugh Love is one clunker and 10 pretty good songs. It’s always interesting but never urgent. “Static” almost bucks that trend by dialing up some tough-talking swagger with a massive assist from its beat, but there’s no fire-breathing double time or raised-voice threats.3 A metronomic verbal beat down is fun and worthwhile to dissect, but it’s just shy of thrilling. To take a page out of Live Laugh Love’s book and employ some sports metaphors, this album is the equivalent of a rock-solid No.3 pitcher in baseball or recent NBA retiree Paul Millsap.4 It’s good album , sometimes notably better than its peers, but consistency rather than ceiling are what makes it quality.
Live Laugh Love is an LP totally deserving of an all-star nod, but a fair bit away from hall of fame consideration. Still, that’s somebody anyone would want on their team, especially when there’s joy and love in their game.
About the writer
Ben Hohenstatt
Ben Hohenstatt is an Alaska-based dog owner who moonlights as a music writer and photographer.
For more information, consult your local library or with parental permission visit his website.
Tags for this article
More articles by Ben Hohenstatt
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
Department of
Conversation
What Did We Watch?
Sorry, Baby – the trailer for this made it look like a full-on Cat Movie and I’m disappointed to say there isn’t all THAT much cat in it. I guess I’ll forgive them though, because this is very good – a strong debut film from writer-director-star Eva Victor that manages to tread a fine line in a story about dealing with trauma, there’s plenty of wit on display but never to an extent that undercuts the pain. Also the cat is very cute, I just wish there was more of it.
Live Music – Michael Shannon’s overqualified REM tribute band! An interesting proposition, I was a big REM fan in my teens and there are a few albums I still consider favourites, I never saw the real band live so maybe a cover band led by a well-regarded actor and featuring a bunch of indie-rock ringers who’ve worked with Bob Mould and Superchunk is the next-best thing? They played Fables of the Reconstruction in full, which has never been one of my top-tier favourites although it does include one of my favourite songs, “Green Grow the Rushes”. I enjoyed that but the bunch of fan-favourites they spun off into after the album was more up my street. Mostly IRS-era stuff, including some real early obscurities, but they also played three well-chosen songs from later albums (one each from Monster, New Adventures and Up) which was fun. Wish I could have seen them do Murmur in full but alas that tour never made it overseas, still this was a really good time! And Michael Shannon has a good (and appropriately Stipe-esque) voice.
Wooo, live music! And live Michael Shannon!
Boo, insufficient cats!
Were there at least sufficient ovens?
Sadly I believe this to be an oven-free movie!
Woooooo live Shannon!!
Woooo live tribute!
The Kids In The Hall, Season Three, Episode Nineteen
The opening rake gag of “What?” got me.
“Apparently someone has opened a pit slightly darker than this one.”
“This guy’s got a hand puppet!”
“Gary, are you gay again?”
“You’re the British consulate to Zimbabwe.”
“What’s this?”
“Coffee.”
“You’re not a very good storyteller, are you?”
“I haven’t gotten to the story yet!”
“What does that tell you about where this is going?”
Scott Thompson having played a hundred waiters was funny.
“It’s because I’m gay, right? You’re persecuting me.”
The Naked Gun — Very funny. There were some jokes I didn’t think worked, but then they were on to the next one soon enough. Neeson has just the right tone of being a blowhard and the primary agent of chaos but still being able to react to weird things enough to convey them to the audience. And Anderson is fantastic — she’s game for anything and she deploys her thousand-watt smile to good effect.
Sleeping Beauty — See a year of the month piece later this week.
Anderson scatting may be one of my scenes of the year. Great gag when she asks for a bunch of nonsense from the jazz musicians and they shrug and go with it.
Anderson is great fun but also does some very funny meta anxiety during the credits, shades of Don Hertzfeldt’s “Rejected.”
She sounds genuinely freaked out!
The X-Files, “D.P.O.” and “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose”
“D.P.O.” brings us young Jack Black and Giovanni Ribisi in a solidly entertaining MOTW episode. Ribisi is at his poutiest and most sullen here as Darin, a young man whose control of electricity has sparked his sadism–and his ability to address his many cherished grievances–but not given him enough self-confidence to, y’know, move out of his dead-end town. Instead, he’s hanging out at the arcade with Zero (Jack Black) and creeping on Mrs. Kiveat (Karen Witter), his former teacher and current boss’s wife. And killing people, of course. Fellow loser Zero can get behind it when it feels like it’s provoked lashing-out against the bullies of the world, but he’s starting to get uneasy about the dead cows and the random traffic “accidents.”
I’m not entirely sure the episode needs Darin’s obsession with Mrs. Kiveat, and at times it feels like just a way to add some sleaze and another damsel-in-distress plot, but the attempted kidnapping where he–suddenly vulnerable in inexperience–tries to impress her by offering her her choice of stolen cars works really well. And Darin does feel convincing, especially in his destructive boredom, youthful nihilism, and buried romantic streak.
Random bonus weirdness: the sheriff who’s obsessively proud of the town’s lightning lab and smug about his own understanding of how it all works. This guy turned me into a fifth-grader yelling at the screen, “If you love lightning so much, why don’t you marry it?”
“Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose” is the beautiful classic everyone said it was. (Although, again, Darin Morgan’s anti-Mulder sentiments are noticeable–the autoerotic asphyxiation joke is actually funny, and I approve of it, but the episode also implies Mulder’s interest in phenomena is mildly dehumanizing to the people it’s affecting, which I don’t think we generally see to be true. I don’t buy he’d be this insensitive to how hard Bruckman’s powers are on him. It’s not too bad, though, and again, the most obvious bit of needling is actually really funny. You know what, might as well die doing what you love.)
Peter Boyle is fantastic as the weary Bruckman, who doesn’t find his “gift” all that useful–and certainly not all that pleasant–and would rather not be involved in any of this , but whose basic compassion (that note about the dog!) makes him reach out and get entangled in it anyway. Boyle is so good at the dark humor and the occasional curmudgeonliness that it makes it hit all the harder when a kind of melancholy sweetness breaks through–he’s transcendent in that gorgeous exchange with Scully: “So, how do I die?”/”You don’t.” (That also feels like one of the low-key best uses of the show’s eeriness, here turning towards the sublime rather than the horrific.) He’s even good at it with people who irritate (when he says, “No, you don’t,” to Mulder, there’s a tired sense of grace there) or horrify him (as funny as “You’re a homicidal maniac” is, he’s almost pitying when he asks if the killer really doesn’t know, even now, why he kills, and a sense that this does indeed explain rather than dismiss it). All unbelievably good.
And while there’s the suggestion that his explanation of where his powers came from could be an invention on his part, I love the idea that you could develop psychic powers by becoming obsessed with the chain of events leading to a death, with the desire to understand taken too far. A bleak cautionary tale for a show about investigation.
Some very effective horror here, too: the killer’s encounter with the first fortune teller is magnificent in the way it turns from his sincere confusion to resignation and terror (“You should’ve seen this coming”).
Hell yeah, great pair of episodes. DPO has such a fun bunch of weirdos and Clyde Bruckman is, I think, my pick for the best episode they ever did? Although there are a fair few strong contenders!
The Avengers, “Return of the Cybernauts” – Really just one Cybernaut, which is just a robot doing the dirty work of Peter Cushing, seeking revenge for the death of his brother at the hands of Steed and Peel. But who wants slow painful revenge and kidnaps scientists expert in causing damage and pain to help. The most interesting things here are Cushing flirting with Emma before she knows the truth (making Steed jealous), and the scientist who agrees to do Cushing’s bidding because he turns out to be greedy and amoral. As scary machines go, the Cybernaut is no Cyberman.
Sexy Beast (2002) – Certainly still a good time and stands out for its reversal of the crime caper (never has a rich lazy man not wanting to work been so sympathetic), though it packed way more of a wallop for me in college. Clearer than ever that Glazer is influenced by Kubrick and Roeg and like the latter’s Performance, it’s packed with weird symbolic details and ideas. They apparently made a prequel TV show last year but this is evidently based around the idea that Don and Gal were real friends, which I simply do not buy. Gal is smart enough to have worked with Don and otherwise stayed far the fuck away from him.
Started The Detectorists again. Is this what people mean by cozy? I hate the term but this is a “nice” show with notes of real melancholy to it, as does any text with a sense of folk history and ritual. I also liked how Lance’s song turns out to be pretty good in part because there’s no bluster to it. (“I’m astonished.” “You’re astonished at the song?” “I’m astonished that it’s pretty good.”)
That “I’m astonished that it’s pretty good” idea reminds me, of all things, of the bit in High Fidelity the book where Rob suddenly hears Barry at the concert and realizes he can actually sing. (I watched the movie once with a friend who explained that he hadn’t been familiar with Jack Black when it first came out, so the movie was able to duplicate the shock at this goofy, blustery guy actually having the necessary chops.)
Cozy: I feel like I like things that can be described as “cozy” in an adjectival sense but not too many things that can be labeled as “cozy” in a noun/genre sense. (Which doesn’t prohibit them from being good, of course; there are probably just as many good cozies as good anything else. But not to my taste.)
God I love Detectorists. That’s such a wonderful moment with the song. The melancholy edge to the show definitely keeps it falling into full-on cosy territory but it’s definitely excellent comfort-food viewing all the same, I love all the green fields, trees and wildlife surrounding the characters. It shows a more positive side of England without being gross about it, haha.
I’m totally responding to that melancholy aspect – everyone here’s slightly older and settled. And what if Lance starts talking positively about Brexit?
Detectorists is wonderful and a huge favorite of Mrs. Miller’s, it is a comfort show for her and I think “comforting” is a better descriptor than “nice” or “cozy” for its vibe – acknowledging the melancholy while finding humor and grace.
Also what I liked about Joe Pera! The grace and melancholy of it all, and that show also has darkness in the corners like Sarah’s bunker.
FRIDAY
Live Sports
Went to see Chivas Guadalajara tie Xolos 3-3 at Estadio Caliente in Tijuana with my wife and my dad. It was my first time watching Chivas in Tijuana with my father, and my first time watching Chivas with my wife anywhere.
Chivas dug themselves a hole early, with a defensive mistake allowing underage wunderking teen Gilberto Mora to score for the hosts at 5′, then gave up penalty after VAR in first half injury time, that keeper Raúl Rangel saved to keep Chivas in the game. Unfortunately, Chivas had a another defensive lapse to start the second half and allowed Frank Boya alone in the box to make it 2-0 at 50′. The game stayed incident-filled, with one Xolos player getting ejected but then having the card demoted to yellow after VAR, while Mora scored a second goal that was initially called offside but which was eventually (inexplicably, after seeing the replay) made good for the 3-0.
Chivas looked dead, especially after having most of the possession and wasting several good chances all night long. But something clicked in the final minutes, with youngster Armando González scoring at 74′, and Efrain Alvarez scoring a terrific free kick at 84′ to make it a real game. Then Roberto Alvardo, who had been isolated on the far side of the pitch since coming on as a substitute, dribbled his way into the box and shot a beautiful volley into the far corner at 90+6′ to the delight of the Chivas majority in the stands. Cade Cowell nearly scored a winner after that, but erred in first touch and the referee called it over shortly after.
A great night of football, one that didn’t look good for us for a long while until somehow turning in the complete opposite direction. And that’s without accounting the off-pitch stuff, like the great hot dogs and beer, standing right behind the local fan firm, and watching security going to town on a couple of drunk guys, with my wife rooting for them. And of course, getting to share it all with two persons I love.
Arriba las Chivas 🔵⚪🔴
https://youtu.be/MQT7zrBrtR4?si=ZQnXscsUwi-rUAub
Woo, live sports with family!
Woooo live football!
What Did We Listen To?
1001 Albums, etc.:
Talking Heads – More Songs about Buildings and Food: a big step up from the first album, it feels like they’ve really locked into their sound here. Great fun.
Buzzcocks – Another Music in a Different Kitchen: definitely my favourite of the classic British punk bands, great tunes and energy.
Van Halen – S/T: I cannot deny that the musicianship is impressive and this does feel pretty revolutionary for 1978. It’s not my favourite genre though.
Willie Colón & Rubén Blades – Siembra: Always enjoy it when the list finds room for some non-UK / US stuff and this was a fun listen, lush-sounding salsa with great brass arrangements.
The Cars – S/T: The Cars best songs are SO good, I found some of the less impressive album tracks a bit of a drag in comparison but their crunchy powerpop sound and synth solos are way up my street so this has already had a couple of extra listens.
Blank Check, Fargo – quite enjoyed Zach Cregger as a guest, fit the vibe well. I think maybe I just love hearing people talk about the Coens though, I’m tempted to also check out the other podcast mentioned here that discusses their films through philosophy.
Blank Check has really lost me. I miss episodes with film critics instead of directors or worse Seth Rogen. (Also scared to ask if they addressed the magical Negro problem in Hudsucker.)
Sorry to hear that but for me this is basically my dream miniseries – I love the Coens to death and I have no problem with higher profile guests if they fit into the show’s world well. I’ve been really pleased so far, despite some reluctance over Ari Aster and Zach Cregger as I haven’t really gotten on with their films. I’m an hour into the Lebowski episode and Rogen kinda feels like the perfect guest for this particular film!
Rogen sounds like he’s been doing this podcast for years. Great fit.
Ah, three bands I’ve written about here! Although Van Halen is the only actual album of the three I’ve written about. (It’s not typically my favorite genre either, but Eddie’s guitar playing is so sick and DLR’s bombast as a frontman fits really well with it, that it makes it too high-octane and high-energy to not be fun.)
Yeah it’s definitely fun enough to break through… most of my biases
Half of Stop Making Sense while cleaning Sunday, simply sublime. Other selections include the Gypsy recording with Patti LuPone. I’ll say something probably mildly controversial with Broadway nerds: while LuPone slighting MacDonald was baffling, I think LuPone is better IN the part of Mama Rose than MacDonald could be, in part because she gets the kind of buried resentment and anger present in Rose which ironically fueled LuPone to go after a fellow Tony-nominated/winning actress who evidently had done nothing to her.
The Pretty Toney Album, Ghostface
Here I prove to be a softy, as my favorites were all the gentler and/or more romantic/sexual ones, like “Tush,” “Holla,” “Tooken Back,” and “Love.” But you already knew I was a not-so-secret sentimentalist.
It Still Moves, My Morning Jacket
This rules. Settling in with “Mahgeetah” was like a tonic when I was stressed; I loved the exuberance and brassinses of “Dancefloors,” the strong, lively opening of “One Big Holiday,” the reverb of “Early Morning Rebel,” etc. “Run Thru” slaps. And there’s a lovely ache to songs like “Just One Thing” (“And I want it so bad / It’s the first thing I see when I wake”) and “Golden” (“Sure, sometimes they thrill me / But nothing could ever chill me / Like the way they make the time just disappear”). Also, some cool country overtones to all this.
Scissor Sisters, Scissor Sisters
So jammy and lively and spirited. “Take Your Mama” is essentially a perfect song, one that I’m now singing under my breath just from typing the title, but “Tits on the Radio,” “Music Is the Victim,” and the more somber “Mary” are all excellent too.
Anniemal, Annie
I love the delightfully poppy “Chewing Gum.” (You’d think “Chewing Gum” would be a pretty specific title, but there are at least two songs I love now that are called that.) Beautiful emotions and flowing sound to “No Easy Love,” but my second favorite may actually be “Greatest Hit,” which has a hint of bitterness, or at least ruefulness, that makes the overall thrust of it work even better.
The Blueprint, Jay-Z
Energetic but controlled, confident. “Izzo (H.O.V.A.)” was one of the songs I didn’t know I knew until I heard it again, which delighted me; “Renegade,” with Eminem, was another highlight.
Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle, Bill Callahan
No surprise that I loved this, when it’s so poignant and melancholy but accepting, and the lyrics are so beautiful and stark. Favorites: “Jim Cain,” “Eid Ma Clack Shaw” (“Love is the king of the beasts / And when it gets hungry it must kill to eat”), “Too Many Birds” (except for the long silence at the end, which made me think my app was failing me), and “All Thoughts Are Prey to Some Beast.” Gorgeous stuff.
Chewing Gum and Heartbeat are two perfect pop songs in my eyes, I do love Greatest Hit as well.
Unfortunately for me, My Morning Jacket only played “Dancefloors” from this album on night 1 at Red Rocks. (But I did hear all of Z, which was nice.)
“Tush” is my favorite on that Ghostface album, but I also really like “Holla.” (My other two favorites, though, are “Biscuits” and “Run.” I, uh, guess I was trying to say something about the duality of man, sir.) Also definitely check out Supreme Clientele and Fishscale.
Now is a great time to check out the Scissor Sisters’ cover of “Take Me Out” (which, I guess from the YouTube art, was the B-side on the “Mary” single):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsLC1uy1qxk
I don’t have a lot else to say other than “Hey I like that one too!,” but if I think of something, I will.
I finally gave the new Clipse album a listen in full. I liked it and I’m glad to be hearing from them again, but nothing particularly jumped out at me.
There are a few new songs I’ve added to my rotation that you should expect to read about more at the end of the year, although I think at this point that news is several weeks old at least. Nothing new in the last week that I recall.
deftones – private music
Another strong, emotional album, filled with killer vocal hooks. “my mind is a mountain” and “milk of the madonna” are traditional bangers with incredible bridges and refrains; “locked club” and “cut hands” have youthful swagger; “~metal dream” sounds exactly like it reads; “i think about you all the time” is not their best ballad but it’s transporting all the same. Lots of their trademark melodics-over-distortion, where beauty and chaos balance each other out. Overall, it’s a very strong, iterative album that rides on the band’s time-tested form. Not as strong on first-listen as 2020’s Ohms but I’m loving it all the same.
And then there’s “infinite source”, a beautiful love letter to the fans, their partners and life, with Chino’s most tender, open singing to date. It brings me to tears, really. Can’t wait to hear some of these tracks live when I see them next November, but especially this one. Fingers crossed.
https://youtu.be/U_uVVO7eGic?si=v15poAuhf-QeMbNJ
Year of the Month update!
This September, we’re covering these movies, albums, books, from 1938!
TBD: Cori Domschot: Bringing Up Baby
TBD: Bridgett Taylor: Rebecca
Sept. 22nd: Sam Scott: Holiday
And there’s still time to sign up for 1959 this month. Check out all these movies, albums, books, et al
TBD: Bridgett Taylor: Pillow Talk/Some Like It Hot
Aug. 27th: Lauren James: The Hound of the Baskervilles
Aug. 28th: Cliffy73: Sleeping Beauty
Aug. 29th: Gillian Nelson: The Monorail