Blogarhythms

As proven by yesterday’s post (and my support for Barack Obama) I love a good (and possibly t-shirt-ready) slogan. As it happens, today’s featurees, Brooklyn-based avant-garde Rock quintet TV On the Radio, happen to have (unwittingly) provided me with a striking, and unprecedentedly practical, slogan a few years ago.

During late Summer of ‘06 I was lucky enough to see TVOTR, who were just preparing to release their third LP (and major-label debut) Return to Cookie Mountain here in the states, rock Boston’s City Hall Plaza alongside fellow Brooklynites the Yeah Yeah Yeahs at a free show sponsored by a local radio station. They delivered what I felt was a killer set despite the fact that they were really uncomfortable with the introduction they received from two of the station’s on-air personalities which included a plug for the U.S. Marine Corps who had apparently paid said radio station for the right to have a recruitment booth at the event. They were so uncomfortable that the space between nearly every song became a sounding board for their displeasure with the military. “This is another song about not joining the Marines…” was one of their more memorable quips.

A few months later I was chilling at the bar in a local nightclub listening to Emeyesi spin House, Future-Soul and Hip-Hop records when the homie DJ 12XU came in with an issue of free music periodical Arthur which featured an interview with bandmember Kyp Malone about the incident. Apparently they’d caught a lot of flack from the Boston police (who don’t have a reputation for being the nicest, most open-minded people to begin with) over their comments. But Kyp defended the band’s position with a simple declaration which wound up emblazoned in huge letters across the top of the article; “I don’t want to be a commercial for the death machine… ”

Talk about a slogan, right?

No doubt I was impressed with Malone’s eloquent irreverence, but I didn’t know just how relevant his quote would soon become to me personally. As 12XU and I sat at the bar reading and sipping glasses of cranberry juice we were approached by a young, theoretically attractive woman bearing armfuls of merchandise for some liquor manufacturer or another. She startled us, but we turned to face her none-the-less. We quickly surmised that she was working as a street-team-esque promoter for the liquor brand as she, not knowing that both myself and 12XU abstain from the consumption of alcohol, offered us her booze-logo-bearing schwag. Thinking quickly I grabbed the issue of Arthur we’d been reading and discussing, held it, with the TVOTR article facing outward, up to her face and said “I don’t want to be a commercial for the death machine…”

Ooooh, burn!

I already loved the band for their musical output, but after providing me with such a once-in-a-lifetime setup for a zinger they’ve earned a permanent place in my heart. Sloganeering and assisting me in appearing clever in social situations will only get them so far though, so it’s a good thing they put out a new record this week. Their fourth full-length, Dear Science, officially hits stores today. It’s been on my iPod for a few weeks now, and I’ve been surprised every time a track from the record was shuffled onto my playlist. The electronically programmed landmarks that dot the album’s soundscape (and stand out most obviously on the Saul Williams-ish “Dancing Choose,” the chittering “Stork and Owl” and the grainy 8-bit-bass-booming “Shout Me Out”) were something of a shock after the crunchy guitar-weathered Rock crust and gooey psyche-Funk center that made up Cookie Mountain’s terrain.

As such Dear Science is a return to both the robotic Post-Punk of Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes and the lo-fi outsider/experimental Hip-Hop, Doo-Wop and Art-Rock-influenced Punktronica of their debut/demo OK Calculator. It’s a lot more than that though because it incorporates rubbery Funk and Disco influences that drive the record into early-’80s-style Electro-Funk and Funk-Punk territory that the band has never really explored before. Songs like the first single “Golden Age” a new-age street-spiritual (with a video that mashes Earth Wind & Fire, Dungeons & Dragons, the Village People, the Carebears, Clash of the Titans and Voltron), “Crying,” and the revelrous Babylon chant-down “Red Dress” could draw comparisons to the likes of Minneapolis genius Prince, New York Art-Punk daddies the Talking Heads and Afrobeat godfather Fela Kuti with their bubbling basslines, chunky guitar plucking, horn accompaniment and off-kilter soul-infused vocals.

Part of me wonders if Dear Science is Dave Sitek’s revisioning of the weird hybrid-Pop records Disco-Funk guitarist, composer, producer and Chic co-founder Nile Rodgers helmed for the likes of David Bowie and Duran Duran during the ’80s. But slections like “Stork and Owl,” “Family Tree,” “Lovers Day” and “Halfway Home” on the other hand recall the Synthpop, New Romantic and Shoegaze balladry of the era, heard through the filter of Post-Rock innovation and Prefuse 73/Postal Service-reminiscent glitch. And “Shout Me Out,” which is built around a skipping drum-machine beat, thrumming guitar, rumbling bass and echo-y synth stabs sounds — politically-minded lyrics, resonant kick-drums and D-n-B-style breaks aside — like a post-modern take on the ’80s teen-movie soundtrack song, or the sort of tune that could’ve had a prominent place on the soundtrack of an alternative-minded retro ’80s flick like Donnie Darko.

TV On the Radio “Shout Me Out”

Ironically it might be the band’s most accessible, Pop-sounding record due to it’s abundance of hummable melodies and bouncy feel-good grooves which stand in opposition to it’s dour subject matter and erudite, some might say esoteric, lyricism. Which is saying nothing about the fact that it’s so stylistically broad and aurally unorthodox. I don’t know if any of that will translate into the sort of mainstream success that will result in offers to shill for one “death machine” or another. But it’s already resulted in what might be the band’s most succinct philosophical statement and most open-minded sonic pastiches, not to mention one of the most complexly layered, dissection-worthy records of the year.