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. We’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.
If you don’t like the sound of a song on Mamalarky’s Hex Key, give it five minutes. Something new and appreciably different will be along.
Variety is a major strength of the hard-to-pin-down indie rock quartet’s Epitaph Records debut.1 Across its 13 songs, Hex Key covers a lot of ground, sometimes playing around in the art-rock indie sandbox à la the Fiery Furnaces, and sometimes indulging in glossy maximalist pop that’s too weird to draw anything like mainstream attention.2 That latter mode has a lot in common with Magdalena Bay, although it’s a comparison that’s unkind to Mamalarky. For one, Hex Key lacks weapons-grade hooks.3 It’s also an album that, at times, is a deliberately challenging listen.
Hex Key was produced and engineered by singer-guitarist Livvy Bennett and keyboardist Michael B. Hunter, and Hunter also mixed the album. Keeping that much of the production in-house seems to have allowed the band to indulge some of its weirder impulses. “Take Me,” for example, is 90% the sort of striding piano-driven song that populated mid-aughts VH1, and 10% oddball whipsaw warbles and microwave auditory weirdness. The album’s title track is two minutes of swirling neo-psychedelia that skirts the edges of a bad trip. “Blush” is built around pleasantly jazzy keys that are pushed, prodded and processed until they sound like a mix between an Emerson, Lake & Palmer deep cut and a storm warning system.
Inveterate commitment to variety means that there’s a good chunk of the album that’s fairly approachable, too. Album-opener “Broken Bones” is built around a “la, la, la” vocal hook backed by buzzy guitar and cowbell. “Won’t Give Up” plays with a dance sound complete with icy vocals and pleasantly throbbing bass. “MF,” which stands for exactly what you’d think it does, is mostly a straightforward rocker propelled by surging guitar with lyrics that vow vengeance.4
Mamalarky are at their best when they split the difference between the more immediate songwriting and commitment to high strangeness. “Anhedonia” takes an ACT vocabulary word, what sounds like the “Ziggy Stardust” riff played on a tissue box ukulele, and some twinkling keys and mixes them all up to absolutely winning results. “Blow Up” uses the band’s contrasting impulses to make 135 seconds of music that perfectly channel the song’s lyrical preoccupation with bubbling anxiety. It starts with busy drums and a catchy little riff and builds a sense of momentum that is jarringly halted by a math rock-lite breakdown. The music resets so it can all happen again and closes with noodly keys that fade out over the song’s closing seconds. The song does fail to detonate in any meaningful way, which is a shame because Mamalarky seem like they could make some loud strange sounds if they wanted to, but it’s a small quibble. “Blow Up” is catchy but weird, but not so odd that it’s difficult to listen to, and its sonic foibles serve its subject matter.
But if you want music that’s weirder, less cogent, more sprawling, even safer, or slightly tighter, there’s a song or two for you somewhere on this album.
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?
Kids In The Hall, Season Three, Episode One
– “Would you say I’ve always had these breasts?”
– “Dan, could you maybe make a little eye contact, here?”
– “She knocked out a cow!” / “Two cows.”
– “Why didn’t you do something?” / “Thought you knew him.”
– “Hey, we already got a well!”
– Nath has remarked that this show draws heavily from theater, but it does occasionally draw from old movies that were on TV a million times, like the sketch about the guy who loses his pen that riffs on 50s melodramas.
– “Barton, hang up the phone! I think it’s just dangling!”
– “I pee through my penis.”
The Pitt, “10:00 AM” and “11:00 AM”
Now we’re really getting into a good groove. Lots of great stuff here, including the affecting resolution to the Spencers’ death-bed vigil for their father, but the best plotting is in the storyline with the teenage girl who’s traveled to Pittsburgh for a medical abortion: I worried the show was setting up one of a few fairly tired moral dilemmas (will the pregnant doctor have mixed feelings about performing an abortion on a patient? Will two doctors go head-to-head over abortion rights?), and instead, it set up a plausible but fresh practical dilemma and used that as camouflage to set up a surprise complication. Very nicely done. The caregiver fatigue plotline is very good so far too, especially with Mel’s attempt to empathize feeling like it accidentally worsens the stress. I’ll even give a pass to the corny running joke of poor Whitaker going through scrubs at an unprecedented rate, if only because the surprise pissing really made me laugh.
My only qualm with this set of episodes is that I’m starting to feel defensive of Santos, who–while she has legitimate flaws and makes some serious missteps–is starting to feel like she’s been assigned to be Wrong. If literally any other character made the argument that their (uh, not exactly universally helpful, to say the least) approach to soothing a distressed patient came from personal experience, the Voice of Empathy character she’s talking to would at least consider the idea that maybe Santos, you know, means it, and maybe at some point she went through something herself and genuinely found this kind of “look, something shiny!” distraction helpful. Instead, the exact character who would normally be defending people using their lived experience on the job–and who has founded a major, useful part of her career on her own childhood trauma and tells patients that–scolds her and tells her she’s bringing “baggage” to the table, and disagreeing about this at all is being “confrontational.” If this all turns out to be correct in-universe, and Santos specifically is excluded from the same grace the other characters are given, I’m going to be irritated. (That being said, everyone simultaneously and silently realizing that the normally abrasive surgeon is giving Santos preferential treatment because she thinks she’s hot is a great comedic beat.)
Live Music – I had basically no plans over the long Easter weekend, which seemed appealing for a few hours and then I panicked and found two gigs to go to. First one was a trio of electronic musicians, the opening act was very good and then for his last song he called up four people from the crowd who had choreographed a dance routine and it was brilliant! But then a bunch of people who had presumably only turned up to see that left, and the rest of the evening was very sparsely attended. Damn flighty dance lovers. Anyway the second act was an old friend of mine doing her odd drony lo-fi electronic pop which I always enjoy, then the last act wasn’t so much my thing, generic electronic music that he would occasionally pick up a guitar and shred over, nah.
The other one was a Palestine benefit at an anarchist club, a pair of acoustic acts (one good, one bad) followed by a quiz (!) and a bunch of drag artists (!!) – really fun.
Doctor Who, “Lux” – this seems to have been better-received than the first episode but I didn’t like it as much. On a visual / technical level it’s pretty amazing but I didn’t really care for the meta stuff.
Wooo, live music, quizzes, and drag!
Wooooo live anarchists!!
Spider-man 2 – My opinion remains as it did in the early part of this century when I watched these movies as part of a regular rotation of DVDs (was that only 20 years ago? Was it really just 20 years ago?) I think this one is the better movie, the first is the better comic book movie. The first is like pouring through four issues of The Amazing Spider-man, where this one functions as a solid one piece movie, swinging confidently from scene to scene. As such, I hold them in about equal esteem, maybe a slight preference for the first thanks to the memory of its novelty at the time it was released.
Even if the Raimi Spiders-man don’t have quite the sophisticated CGI shading of more recent live-action counterparts (added by generally more dour color palettes), the way the effects are shot is much more fun, with the camera swinging along on its own web, and stunt performers making the landings when physically possible. Animation is capable of following a performance, but the puppeteering on Doc Ock’s arms has the appeal of seeing a performance captured in real time, a sensation too many big effects movies have forgone.
I kinda prefer the first one just because the angsty first half of this one really wallows in misery to the point that I don’t find it fun. The back half is tough to beat though.
Frasier, “Love Bites Dog” – Bulldog has a fling and suddenly understands love. He also turns into a pile of mush, especially when she dumps him. This one is not very good, especially since the only way to get Bulldog out of his funk is to turn him back into a sexist pig. The only thing of note is that Dan Butler’s name is now added to the cast in the opening credits.
Watched The Departed for my birthday yesterday! Said before that this is a crucial New England movie – the shit talking, the desire for upward mobility mixed with the fatalism of being stuck where you are with the same dumbasses you’ve known forever, the erasure and preservation of identity, etc. It’s also quietly one of the funniest movies that’s not a comedy, half the lines are hysterical or punctuated by hilarity (“I think you are a cop, my son” from Baldwin followed by the man plunging his face in ice water). DiCaprio has the same determination as The Aviator but tinged with real anger and despair and panic, the man believes what he says even when he’s lying, while Damon has never been more insincere and trapped in that permanent lie. The plot holes are gaping, but just like Touch of Evil, that doesn’t matter when you’re this entertained and in the hands of a great filmmaker (who apparently hated making it, in part because he had to deal with Nicholson all goddamn day*). Still a better Whitey Bulger story than Black Mass in it’s sheer scale and sense of power.
*Probably a pain in the ass to be around all day, but he makes perfect sense as a crime boss long in power and finally cracking from the paranoia and nastiness of the gig. “Heavy lies the crown…sorta thing.”
Finished Andor just in time for season 2, and started the new season of The Rehearsal. You can find out more on Sunday.
What Did We Listen To?
1001 Albums, etc.:
Sparks – Kimono My House: I’ve never been all-in on Sparks but they’re a lot of fun and this was a very enjoyable listen.
Supertramp – Crime of the Century: Didn’t do much for me.
Richard and Linda Thompson – I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight: Really excellent, I can hear a through-line from this to a lot of the folky stuff I enjoy now.
Gil Scott-Heron / Brian Jackson – Winter in America: Nothing as sensational on here as “The Revolution Will Be Televised” perhaps, but Gil definitely feels ahead of his time and I like his voice and lyrics.
Queen – Sheer Heart Attack: Hell yeah. The earliest of the Queen albums that I played a LOT in my teens, and I think most of it holds up beautifully. So much ambition in the arrangements.
10cc – Sheet Music: Enjoyably ridiculous. I only really knew “I’m Not In Love” and “Dreadlock Holiday” before this so the surreal edge to their humour caught me off guard, not sure I’d return to this in a hurry but it was a pleasant surprise.
Neil Young – On the Beach: A bit too blues-heavy to live up to some of the other Neil Young stuff from the list so far, but still really good.
George Jones – The Grand Tour: Fairly run-of-the-mill Country music, if this had cropped up a decade earlier it might have caught my ear more but it already feels a bit dated to me in 1974.
Blank Check – all caught up on Spielberg now apart from Schindler’s List, which I should really revisit but… will probably never feel like revisiting. The Jurassic Park episode was good fun, enjoyed the analysis of the weirdly terrible Dinosaur Movie genre.
Seeing Sparks in October, I’m pumped.
Toto – Forty Trips Around the Sun – I got this out of the library a while ago on a CD borrowing binge. I’d gotten it in my head that Toto was a one-hit wonder with “Africa” until I started learning that a different familiar radio single from my youth was them, and then another, and I finally decided to find out what other songs I remembered as belonging to other bands were performed by them. I called this “Toto Recall.”
(pauses for ovation) So turns out there were a couple other tracks I recognized to add to the list and I now feel more confident in identifying their harmonizing and electronic sound, like someone needed their ELO diluted. I can’t say I became a fan outside of enjoying the radio hits, but I did discover one unrecognized track that I dug in “Stranger in Town.”
I’ve never felt any need to dig deeper on Toto (and they’re not on the 1001 list, so maybe I never will) but Hold the Line and Rosanna are good singles.
Press To Play, Paul McCartney
I don’t care for the (apparently then-fashionable) production of this; it feels like a smooth R&B kind of thing that I’ve never cared for. But it’s Paul McCartney, so the songwriting is still ace.
Set The Twilight Reeling, Lou Reed
Man, Reed’s Nineties stuff is right up my alley, and very reminiscent of his early work – simple, elegant, beautiful, but still very much rock.
Obscured By Clouds, Pink Floyd
This is alright. I mostly prefer the more song-like parts, though the instrumentals suited my walk to work.
EVOLution, Sabrina Carpenter
It’s fascinating how strongly this leans on commentary. I’ve been thinking lately that what I enjoy about early Beatles songs is how they tell complete stories with comprehensible commentary; Carpenter’s songs are either generic platitudes (“Thumbs” is almost embarrassing for this thirty-four year old to be listening to) or incomprehensibly specific to Carpenter’s life. I also don’t care for dance-pop, personally, though I see the obvious talent.
Clouds is the Floyd album I listen to the most. Mainly because Richard Wright is at his very best. Stay is such a beautiful PF song and it’s written by Wright.
I’ve always thought Pink Floyd before they went all in on (what we now call) the classic-rock format with Dark Side of the Moon were a weird and interesting band.
Firmly in the Barrett camp and find (most) post-Barrett Floyd pretty annoying.
Live Music on TV
Forgot to mention it last week but my wife and I put on Jimmy Eat World’s Coachella set on the YouTube livestream. Started strong with one of my favorite songs from them, “Pain”, and their set had way more bangers than I remembered. And of course they closed out with absolute classic “The Middle”, which my wife and me sang through while chilling in the living room couch. Good times.
This Nation’s Saving Grace by The Fall, this is great, probably the best entry point into the group if someone asked. Never been a HUGE Fall fan but this might be a vocation I fall into as I enter (slowly) my mid-thirties.
DARKSIDE, Nothing
DARKSIDE played here last week and as much as I like “S.N.C” I wasn’t sure if I’d like the whole album enough to want to go. So I listened to it. It’s not bad, pretty solid, but nothing that grabbed me as much as “S.N.C”.
Not in the “did listen to” category, yet, but seeing Fontaines DC tonight. Already got my tickets for Momma next month, too.
Year of the Month update!
May’s year will be 1962, so you can write about any of these movies, albums, books, et al!
May 2nd: Gillian Rose Nelson: Moon Pilot
May 9th: Gillian Rose Nelson: Bon Voyage!
May 15th: John Bruni: L’Eclisse/Il Sorpasso
May 16th: Gillian Rose Nelson: Big Red
May 23rd: Gillian Rose Nelson: Almost Angels
May 30th: Gillian Rose Nelson: In Search of the Castaways
And there’s still time to sign up for any of these movies, albums, books, et al from 1999!
TBD: James Williams: 10 Things I Hate About You
TBD: Ruck Cohlchez – Summerteeth/The Soft Bulletin/Utopia Parkway
TBD: Lauren James – Storm of the Century
Apr. 24th: Cori Domschot: The Matrix
Apr. 25th: Gillian Rose Nelson: Disney on DVD
Apr. 29th: Dave Shutton: American Pie/Class of 1999