this space intentionally left blank

February 14, 2013

Filed under: music»artists»thao

We the Common

On Friday, Thao and the Get Down Stay Down played a show at the Sonic Boom near our apartment in Seattle. The shop was completely packed, which was a pleasant surprise. Seeing a Thao Nguyen concert, even in abbreviated record-shop form, is always a treat: live, she performs with a kind of abandon that privileges energy over accuracy, and you really get the full impact of her voice, which can veer from a mutter to a howl in the space of a beat.

The best parts of her new album, We the Common, are the songs that let that voice greedily cover its full range. The titular opening number is a stompy rallying cry that builds from a choppy banjo riff until it soars into a wordless chorus. "The Day Long" showcases the quieter, spookier side of the album, but is no less effective: it has a kind of marching melancholy that's weirdly danceable. In between, there's the jaunty swing of "The Feeling Kind," which wouldn't be out of place on the band's first album.

The production remains top-notch: they seem to have picked up a few tricks from Thao's collaboration with Mirah (especially the Tune-Yards'-produced "Eleven"), but applied it to her particular brand of indie rock. "Every Body" mixes a spiky ukelele with synth bass, and while it may just be that I've been listening to a lot of Stop Making Sense lately, I hear a touch of the Talking Heads in the punchy, over-distorted "City," probably in the call-and-response that closes it out. It's becoming one of my favorite songs on the CD, along with the boozy wall of sound that is "Age of Ice."

Fittingly, the most skippable tracks involve times when Nguyen's voice is either kept to a single mood (the dirge-like "Clouds for Brains") or, more bizarrely, paired with Joanna Newsom on "Kindness Be Conceived." Newsom's folky, child-like voice is an acquired taste I've never found appealing, and it tips an otherwise inoffensive song over into tweeness.

We the Common isn't as dark as Know Better, Learn Faster, but it's still not what I'd call cheerful. It's probably not as political as the title sounds, either, although with her elliptical lyrics that's hard to know for sure. But it remains tightly-crafted songwriting wrapped around a unique, powerful voice. I think it's a must-listen, but don't take my word for it: check out their short performance on KEXP and see what you think.

May 11, 2010

Filed under: music»artists»thao

When We Swam

Clearly shot on a total shoestring, but no less adorable for it.

Past - Present