Warpaint

Why do you hate this band?

― I can still taste the Taboo in my mouth when I hear those songs (Scik Mouthy), Wednesday, January 22, 2014 11:15 AM (12 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Saw them live before their first record came out and couldn't remember ever seeing a band with less personality making a bigger impression on a room full of smitten indie dudes; guys who probably couldn't tell a rack tom from a djembe talking about band's "amazing drummer," etc. I listened to The Fool though, because I wanted to see if I was missing anything, and found it bland and lacking anything resembling an original idea. Conspicuously "disaffected" LA malegaze shit no one will care about in three years.

What does "malegaze" mean?

Wow.

Like, seriously, I have the most completely legitimate teengirl reason to HAAAAAAAAAAAATE Warpaint with the heat of a thousand suns jealous Beliebers, so I have been avoiding this album, but it keeps seeping into my listening space (through Tumblr, through sodding *ads* on YouTube) with this insistent whispering of "Go on, you knooooooowww you want to adore us. We are pretty much made from your ILM posts about wibbling dronerock circa 2001, just go on and drink the potion, we have cooooookies...."

So if you hate them because "other dudes like to look at them" for real, grow up and go away.

But really, please come back and explain at length what you mean by "malegaze" because if you can take a political concept like "the male gaze" and turn it into a diss against female musicians rendering their art as meaningless because men apparently sometimes look at them, I would really like to hear the logic behind that convolution.

I hoped I'd read it wrong because that term could be applied to any female musician that some male fans enjoy looking at, ie all of them.

To be uncharacteristically serious for a moment, you know, every time I start to think that I'm being heavy-handed and OTT with my whole semi-parodic satire of "refuse to judge critically acclaimed male indie-rock sacred cows by any other criteria than their haircuts" thing... I come back and read posts like that, and realise that no matter how far I go, it will never be far enough, it will never be quite as far as the way that men treat female musicians every fucking day. Which takes a little bit of the fun out of it.

I have been off ILM too long. I had forgotten.

I am gonna go discover the new Warpaint album on mine own, because this kinda discourse has just become so wearing.

I'm baffled by that.

Not BB or DL, obviously.

The Fork review was pretty wrong-footed, I felt, as would be any review of this album that complains that the drums are mixed as a lead instrument and that the bass carries the melodies. And: so? That's partly what makes the band so interesting. Though I suppose what he hammers as trip hop or whatever is what I heard as Too Pure. Same era, I guess. I know that writer is pretty smug about hating on anything from LA, his beat, but really, he's hating on this record for the wrong reasons. There are cases to be made both pro and con, but this doesn't quite work it out. Like, you know, landing Flood and Godrich as an implied criticism. Most bands wish, you know? I'd take this band's intriguing lack of charisma over Savages compelling redundancies any day. The latter is less boring but somehow still ... boring. But maybe I'll take the stronger con side re: Warpaint after I see them next month.

I do want to understand Cunningham's obsession, though. He's pretty selective.

Cunningham's married to one of them, isn't he? Which explains that.

Also, they're good.

The Pitchfork review is weird but not really that weird if you know the writer; IC used to write for Stylus so I've been aware of him for years and, at Pitchfork especially, I don't trust his ears, his opinions, or his reasons. Example: he complains that neither Flood nor Godrich were able to bring out any 'dynamics' on Warpaint's songwriting (well Godrich only mixed two or three tracks so he won't have had any effect on the songwriting whatsoever), but neither Flood nor Godrich are actually known for bringing out 'dynamics' anyway; both of them to my ears bring a smooth, technological, modernist sheen to the stuff they work in.

But that's just one example of many things that don't make sense to me about that review. Likewise the Quietus review didn't make any sense to me either; neither piece feels at all as if it's about the record I've heard.

BB, fwiw, I think you'd really, really like this record. I totally hear it as a Too Pure thing too, like Josh says, or like really early Verve with the skyscraping guitar mixed out. it's not pop or rock; it's dreamy somnambulist wooze music.

We don't mention CCunningham marrying any Dirty Drone Girl Bassist that isn't me! We just don't, OK?

This hurts me, in my heart. So we don't discuss thissssssss! *stamps feet and wails inconsolably*

Sorry!

I'm not familiar with Too Pure at all, but I usually pull this band out alongside the Cure.

BB, I'm sorry for your loss. :(

also lol at Warpaint and all their djembes or whatever.

or that pitchfork review and all their ryan gosling soundtracks.

It's OK. I hear Richard D James has recently divorced so I'm OK holding out for the OG. *sniff*

I do need to give this album a proper listen, because the thing is, I loved Exquisite Corpse, I really got that "mineminemine" precious feeling about it, like it was designed explicitly and only for me, it was a very intimate and immediate obsession. But I did not get the same feeling from The Fool apart from a couple of songs - maybe Majesty and Undertow, from memory? - and I don't know if I didn't give it enough of a chance to captivate me. But the two songs I've heard off the new one, immediately hit me in that sonic happy place. (Early Verve is much more likely to get me than "The Cure" because "The Cure encompasses so many things, like, if we're talking Pornography and A Forest, or if we're talking Friday I'm In Love? I think it's the guitar effects, though, they *luuuuuurve* that heavy chorus + Fender reverb guitar tone, which is one of those signifiers people always mean when they say "The Cure)

eagerly anticipating dog latin and imago's opinions on it exactly one year from now

― |$̲̅(̲̅ιοο̲̅)̲̅$̲̅| (gr8080), Wednesday, 22 January 2014 06:00 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

have repped for Warpaint before; this album's begun brilliantly

absolutely no comparison to the dullard Savages

I have never fucked with the Verve before. Will take this opportunity to check them out. Probably up my alley.

To be honest, I would not expect anyone with a greater understanding of the stylistic differences between various sub-genres of indie-rock than, say, Lex, to attempt a comparison between Warpaint and Savages based on their *music*. So please, let's not go there unless you really wanna discuss how much Nick McCabe sounds like East Bay Ray?

The comparison I got when I saw Savages live was specifically that the rhythm section is great and carries the group, while the guitar provides atmospherics. But I would never confuse the two bands. I am confused however at the amount of hype Savages earned vs. this band, which seems to be doing more interesting things with fewer rewards.

Flood nor Godrich are actually known for bringing out 'dynamics' anyway; both of them to my ears bring a smooth, technological, modernist sheen to the stuff they work in.

Actually, Flood's been one of PJ Harvey's go-tos, and on her grungier, less sheen-y albums, no less.

i didn't get the Savages hype until i saw a video of them playing live, then i totally got it.

Actually, Flood's been one of PJ Harvey's go-tos, and on her grungier, less sheen-y albums, no less.

TBYML is considerably more sheeny and modernist and technological, I'd argue, than Ride Of Me, which is the most dynamic and raw and dramatic, I'd say. (It's obviously still not Keane, you know, but it's a much bigger, richer, more produced sound than ROM).

Ride of Me. Indeed.

I thought the 'malegaze' thing was pretty clear; it was my maybe-not-totally-clever but certainly-not-meant-to-be-offensive conflation of both the way I've noticed male writers describing bands like Warpaint, Savages, etc (I'm guessing you don't need examples here) and the fact that their sound obviously touches on the, err, impressionistic aspects of shoegaze. I just find this band a complete non-event. To be fair, though, music "pretty much made from...ILM posts about wibbling dronerock circa 2001" was never, on its best day, bound to win me over.

TBYML is considerably more sheeny and modernist and technological, I'd argue, than Ride Of Me

True! But since then Flood has been involved with Is This Desire?, White Chalk (!), A Woman and a Man Walk By and Let England Shake, most of which don't pass the modernist/sheeny/tech test. Just sayin'.

True, true.

So they don't sound like a more polished Siouxsie & The Banshees anymore?

ok so

this is basically a masterpiece

fuck Pitchfork, fuck all the cunts who want you to write accessible indie-dance hits, make whatever music you want to, especially if it takes you down this sublime rabbit-hole

Today, I came to terms with the songs in the middle of the album that I had previously characterized as "filler", but now I get kinda hung up with with "Son". I'm saying this as a rabid Warpaint fan here.

kinda ridiculously the album kinda got even better after I posted that, culminating with 'Drive', which is srsly giving The Cars an impromptu streetrace for best song of that name

This album is blossoming more and more for me with every listen.

Son is a nice woozy closer, def not a highlight but the shoddy Byrds guitar at the end is sorta genius

It's astonishing how one person can have the talent to make me almost hate music I should otherwise love, by casually taking swipes at other music I also love. Can you please leave out the boring Drowned-In-Sound-isms of treating music as some kind of rival contest between righteous taste and whatever it is you're demonising this week. It is possible to love many different things.

Cosign. It's not a fight.

saw them last night in brighton, they were excellent. stella the drummer is a monster.

That's an Interpol song, right?

Stella Is A Monster And She Is Always Drums (pompously)

(Warpaint's drums are actually the opposite of pompous; I just can't stop saying that.)

yr totally projecting there - what swipes do I take, other than saying that the band doesn't have to adhere to blogosphere type?

Pitchfork isn't a band, you know (thank fuck)

I happen to like "indie-accessible dance hits" and your tedious grumbling against them was played out already 3000 posts ago on the EOY tracks list. When you put that music in opposition to e.g. Warpaint in your nasty little imagined feuds you do neither yourself nor the music you are supposedly advocating any favours.

In fairness, the attempt at an accessible indie-dance song is by some margin the worst thing here.

I listened to this at low volume while reading the other night and it really worked for me as ambient, to the extent I got annoyed when Disco/very broke the spell. Whether it'll reward repeated/closer listens I don't know, although I still don't like the singer's voice when she hits high notes.

I'm not saying indie-accessible dance is per se a bad thing, just that Warpaint don't have to make it, and that their talents clearly lie more sublimely with a comparatively contemplative, atmospheric, surreal music