Chairlift: Moth

CHAIRLIFT: MOTH (2016)

1) Look Up; 2) Polymorphing; 3) Romeo; 4) Ch-Ching; 5) Crying In Public; 6) Ottawa To Osaka; 7) Moth To The Flame; 8) Show U Off; 9) Unfinished Business; 10) No Such Thing As Illusion.

Well, at least Chairlift will go down in history as one of the few bands of the 21st century to have significantly evolved with each new album — the evolutionary path from Does You Inspire You to Moth is not exactly staggering, but it is very clearly laid out. In between 2012 and 2016, Pola­chek officially began her solo career (under the new moniker «Ramona Lisa»), and Moth, at least judging by the songwriting credits, is basically just another Polachek solo album, with guest musician Patrick Wimberley providing some assistance; both of them understood this, and went on to announce the final breakup of Chairlift by the end of the year.

Moth is a well-produced, intelligent, reasonably complex and multi-layered synth-pop album; unfortunately, it has very little of the charm and personality that made the first years of Chairlift's existence so endearing. It is not a coincidence that a few years before, Caroline contributed ʽNo Angelʼ for Beyoncé's self-titled album — she has clearly become a fan of modern «intellectua­lized» R&B, mixing its plastic funky grooves with the old spirit of the Eighties and depersonali­zing the songs in the process. Fans of electronic effects, autotuning, etc., will appreciate the various tricks she is playing with her voice on most of the tracks: I will not — not after she'd used it so naturally and so seductively on everything in between the twee-pop of ʽBruisesʼ and the Goth-art-pop of ʽTerritoryʼ.

This is not a legitimate «sellout»: the music is too complex, the lyrics too dense, and the hooks generally too inobtrusive for the common ear. But it is clearly a move towards a more mainstream sound; and while I applaud Polachek for doing it the best way possible — groping for interesting sounds and cool grooves rather than going in the direction of sappy adult contemporary — she is not enough of a genius songwriter to compensate for this loss of identity with unforgettable tunes. The result is a record that sounds like a more mature and educated version of Carly Rae Jepsen: indeed, I can very well picture Carly singing "Hey Romeo, put on your running shoes, I'm ready to go", except I'm not sure she knows who would «Romeo» be in the first place.

At least that chorus is catchy, as is the repetitive refrain to the soft techno number ʽMoth To The Flameʼ. Songs like ʽCh-Chingʼ go the harder way, combining tricky signature and tempo changes with an overall attitude of a sweaty-sexy R&B groove — but it's just not the kind of genre that Polachek can turn into her own, because, after all, she is not Beyoncé and she simply does not have it in her blood. As an artistic statement, it is too cluttered with «body-oriented» elements; as a dance groove, it is too damn artsy. The accompanying video, where she dresses up in Eastern fashion and gives us a martial arts demonstration, does not make things any easier — looks like a fairly pointless bit of «cultural appropriation», much as I hate the silly term.

It does look as if her gaze is turning more and more to the East: ʽOttawa To Osakaʼ is a telling title, in particular, and her use of Eastern melismatic techniques that was already evident on ʽAmanaemonesiaʼ, seems to have increased. Which is not a problem by itself: theoretically, a mix of Eighties' synth-pop, modern R&B, Chinese vocalizing, and whatever else you can throw in seems like a realizable proposal. It simply does not feel to me as if it's really been realized. Every now and then, you encounter openly bad songs — like ʽShow U Offʼ, which simply sounds like any mediocre electropop groove ever produced by a mediocre R&B artist. And the only thing that I cannot get out of my head is that goddamn "I can't help it, I'm a moth to the flame" chorus, but heck, when this band started out, it did not build its reputation upon repetitive techno one-liners.

The last and longest song, ʽNo Such Thing As Illusionʼ, is a particularly irksome patience-tryer: seems like she is trying to be Beyoncé and Björk at the same time here, and ends up being neither. Six and a half minutes of quietly rolling synth loops, odd patches of bass notes borrowed from ancient soft jazz fusion, chaotic vocal overdubs, and an overall feel of somebody trying to pro­duce an epic psychological anthem in the bedroom. Not a very respectable way to go.

I do know better than to give the record a thumbs down: who knows, it might grow on me if I ever soften up on this genre of music in general, and even now I am able to recognize the amount of work and the spirit that went into it. I can even understand it when plastic soul is delivered as plastic soul, with an underlying symbolic or ironic message; but this is plastic soul masquerading as genuine soul from somebody who once used to deliver genuine soul without a hitch, and this is irritating. Another case of the music industry eating up a good artist? It is probably too early to say this a fact, but hey, wouldn't be the first time. That's the price you pay for writing songs for Beyoncé.

Chairlift: Something

CHAIRLIFT: SOMETHING (2012)

1) Sidewalk Safari; 2) Wrong Opinion; 3) I Belong In Your Arms; 4) Take It Out On Me; 5) Ghost Tonight; 6) Cool As A Fire; 7) Amanaemonesia; 8) Met Before; 9) Frigid Spring; 10) Turning; 11) Guilty As Charged.

By the time their second album was released, Chairlift had already reduced themselves to a duo: Aaron Pfenning left in 2010, and now Chairlift consists of precisely what you see on the album cover. Upon first impression, you do not get the feel that this affects the overall accomplished feel of the music — Polachek and Wimberly are perfectly capable to lay on all the layers on their own. However, technically that does transform them into a «pure» synth-pop outfit, as the guitars are reduced to a bare minimum and, for the most part, the atmosphere of the songs now depends on how dark Wimberly makes his basslines and how cluttery Polachek makes her keyboards.

The formal changes in musical textures are, however, not the main reason why I think Something is a step down, not up, from the exciting debut of Does You Inspire You. The main reason is that the album seems to lay down severe restrictions on the eclecticism and ambitions with which they'd started out four years earlier — I am not sure whether this means just how crucial the pre­sence of Pfenning was to their collective ego, or if it is just another case of the same unfortunate tendency to self-pigeonhole that plagues so many artists, but the fact is, Something is just a synth-pop record of the «me and you» variety, with all the songs whirling around the issue of finding a perfect relationship and then trying not to ruin it. Sound familiar?..

In other words, forget about the ambitious mix of personal and collective problems tackled in 2008, and get ready for a much more modest mix of dance grooves and ballads that run the oh so wide gamut from "I belong in your arms" to "Oh god, just let my love survive". Despite some glowing reviews that actually acknowledged this self-yoking as progress (like, the more they stay out of complex Marxist and Freudian territory, the better for these silly idealistic kids), I find it disappointing — like I said, Does You Inspire You gave a cool impression of the world being discovered by a bunch of inexperienced, but aspiringly smart kids, whereas Something is just another boring record that tries to find hidden depths at the bottom of a glass of water.

Not that it is devoid of nice musical ideas and hooks: if anything, it is saved by technical accom­plishments rather than mesmerizing personality. ʽSidewalk Safariʼ, opening the album, is pretty limp if you follow the lyrics and try to convince yourself that Caroline Polachek as a hot female stalker is a credible artistic image... but if you just think of it as a synth-poppified adaptation of some romantic European dance pop groove from around 1968, and pay more attention to the stylish overlays of synthesizers and synth-treated guitars, it becomes nice. Likewise, I care not for the verbal message of ʽWrong Opinionʼ, but I kinda like how the electronic «broken glass effect» holds a dialog of its own with the heavy distorted guitar chords — a good musical allegory of personal paranoia wrestling with the Hand of Doom, if you wish.

However, as a singer, Polacheck only impresses me about twice or thrice on this record. ʽGhost Tonightʼ is a really good one, where you can sense faint echoes of the same dismal doomed des­peration that used to power all those Beth Gibbons classics — and it's only with the little things, like the tension and implied tears in the "whoah-oh-oh"s that follow the "Hollow heavy eyes, follow in your light, I'm a ghost tonight" chorus, that the record is able to transcend from catchy pop to the realm of the genuinely soulful. ʽFrigid Springʼ is another one, a moonlight-on-the-lake dream pop tune, all chimes and echoes, and as they get to the chorus, the lady transforms herself into an aethereal will-o'-wisp and just floats across from speaker to speaker — luvverly. On the other hand, sometimes they overdo this: on ʽTurningʼ, there's too much psychedelic vocalizing and not enough singer presence. This is not Enya, after all.

The first single was the tongue-twistedly-titled ʽAmanaemonesiaʼ, and it is far more typical of this record than ʽBruisesʼ was of the debut: a catchy, but not terribly profound synth-pop groove that tries to convey a sense of bewildered infatuation (or something) with its fast tempo, jerkiness, and chaotic sample attack — sort of like a cross between Depeche Mode and Kate Bush, not as dark as the former and not as artsy as the latter (although the accompanying video, most of it spent on featuring Polachek dancing on top of a giant red tongue, is every bit as artsy as any given Kate Bush video — and as far as my own tastes go, Polachek is almost every bit as terrible a dancer as Kate Bush is). And maybe it's an exciting synthesis, but it also traps the record in a nostalgic vibe from which, I believe, Does You Inspire You was largely free: it sounded highly influenced by a lot of people, but also modern and looking forward, whereas Something is more like a tribute to the past, hardly eligible for the status of a «minor modern classic». That said, I do know for a fact that quite a few people have rated it higher than Does You Inspire You — perhaps they are seeing something here that I am not seeing, or, perhaps, they are not seeing something in DYIY that I am seeing.

Naturally, I'd prefer to vote for the second option, but Something is still well deserving of a thumbs up — on the whole, it is a crea­tive, tasteful, genuinely musical piece of work that just barely misses transcending its own genre limitations, and, like almost everything else done in the sphere of art-pop today, cannot help get sucked back into the same old 20th century.

Chairlift: Does You Inspire You

CHAIRLIFT: DOES YOU INSPIRE YOU (2008)

1) Garbage; 2) Planet Health; 3) Earwig Town; 4) Bruises; 5) Somewhere Around Here; 6) Evident Utensil; 7) Territory; 8) Le Flying Saucer Hat; 9) Make Your Mind Up; 10) Dixie Gypsy; 11) Don't Give A Damn; 12) Chame­leon Closet; 13) Ceiling Wax.

The first thing you read about Chairlift on Wikipedia (today) is that «Chairlift was an American synthpop band». Well... from a certain formal standpoint, this might be true: they use a lot of electronics, and a couple of the songs are based upon danceable synthesizer grooves. But if we understand this term in a very straightforward manner, then no, Chairlift were not just one more band driven by nostalgia for the Eighties and a desire to adapt the naïvely idealistic and simplis­tic futurism of that decade to our post-post-modern realities. They were much more than that — for a brief while, they were a refreshingly ambitious and daring engine of musical eclecticism; and this debut record of theirs deserves your full and undivided attention even ten years later, which is a pretty high compliment coming from me for anything released in the 2000s.

In 2008, Chairlift were a Brooklyn-based trio consisting of: hipsterly gloomy-looking, curly-haired, dishevelled Patrick Wimberly on bass and stuff; happier-looking, somewhat cleaner-sha­ven, but still dishevelled Aaron Pfenning on guitar and stuff; and retro-gorgeous, intelligent-looking, and quite tidy (in comparison to the other two) Caroline Polachek on vocals, keyboards, and stuff. Apparently, Pfenning and Polachek met together in Boulder, Colorado, which is a grand place if you're a bearded loner (hey, you can travel to Bear Peak and imagine you're Bon Iver!), but maybe not so grand if you want to make hip pop music that mixes current trends, retro influences, artsiness, and advanced progressive conscience, so they moved to Brooklyn for those ends, where they ended up picking Wimberly and... but enough trivia.

Does You Inspire You is a wonderful little record (well, no longer truly «little» since they re­issued it on CD and added three extra tracks). I have no idea who writes which parts and whether there is an individual mini-genius at work here or it's all a matter of collective spirit, but, with the exception of a few lesser tracks, this is a collection of tight, diverse, colorful, inspiring art-pop tracks that do not offer much in terms of radical innovation, but simply put together a half-bright, half-dark, deeply personalized world that manages to include a little bit of everything. I have not been able to spot any single running theme — it's more like an artistic diary for a small group of young people trying to grasp the meaning of life around them, and it's cool.

I'd guess that most people's memories of the album would revolve around ʽBruisesʼ, the closest they ever got to hitting the charts and even so, probably only because of the song being used in an Apple iPod Nano commercial. It would be anything but a bad memory — the song is a great example of their songwriting style, a set of somewhat ambiguously dark lyrics set to a catchy, cuddly melody and punctuated by Caroline's perfectly placed falsetto chirps. However, it might also give the totally wrong impression of the band as an electronic-based twee-pop outfit, where­as in reality this twee vibe of ʽBruisesʼ is but one piece of a much larger puzzle.

Because if you listen to the album properly, starting from the start, the first song is ʽGarbageʼ, which, despite the use of programmed drums and keyboards, from a purely melodic standpoint is straightforward blues-rock — a dark, sneery vibe whose distant prototype is left somewhere far behind, in Chicago's Chess Studios, perhaps, but whose essence remains the same; and on this song, Caroline Polachek sounds more like a disciple of Grace Slick than of Amelia Fletcher. It is hard to understand what the song is about — should it be understood directly, as an ecological rant? indirectly, as a political allegory? totally indirectly, as a condemnation of some particularly messy ex-boyfriend?.. better still, all three ways at once, and that's not even mentioning how much I like the overall style — the watery electric piano overlays, the little distorted guitar riff crossing the threshold midway through the song, the ghostly la-la-la harmonies, the equally ghostly and ever so slightly dissonant chimes, the vibraphone, the faint shadow of a sax solo to­wards the very end... apparently, we did begin this as a Chicago piece, but by the end, it becomes more of a lite jazz jam, never boring because they do not drag it out for too long and keep adding neat creative touches every few bars or so.

On a few other tracks, the band goes for a grand atmosphere, which is also totally believable. ʽPlanet Healthʼ is a slow combo of a funky bassline, a whole dazzling kaleidoscope of keyboard overlays, and a vocal part run through a minor vocoder effect that makes Caroline sound a bit like an alien — completely making sense for a song beginning with the line "when I arrived on Planet Health...", although the song itself is hardly a sci-fi adventure, but rather a harsh indictment of the hypocrisy of our allegedly progressive society (best verse: "I was trained in diversity / In the gar­den of puberty / Where they Heimlich maneuvered me / And they showed me how to make a baby"); if somebody is still living in the 21st century, yet misses out on the bitter irony of the "I'm feeling great tonight" chorus, then I guess I must be dreaming. Another great moody piece is ʽTerritoryʼ, where they are not afraid to advance into the territory of The Cure, Dead Can Dance, and other slow, mopey, ocean-of-sorrow bands — an anthem of self-protection and isolation, with Polachek floating over her protected territory like an aggressive, but still gorgeous ghost, while protective guitar and keyboard spirits are building up their defenses below. Brilliantly crafted — and I dare you to play it back to back with ʽBruisesʼ and then think of any other act that would have the talent / gall to release such lightness and such heaviness on the same record... well, at least in 2008.

Other as yet unchecked highlights include: ʽEvident Utensilʼ, the first single from the album that is every bit as catchy as ʽBruisesʼ, though a little less light (there's a good chance that either the silly, but unbeatable line "the most evident utensil is none other than a pencil", or the strained, border-hysterical chorus of "how hard must I try?.." will stay with you for a long, long time); ʽMake Your Mind Upʼ, which lives through an abrupt shift from an adult contemporary ballad into a rough, loud, screechy metallized R&B groove; and I even like their minor genristic excour­ses — ʽDon't Give A Damnʼ puts the Polachek stamp on country waltz, and while most people seem to hate ʽLe Flying Saucer Hatʼ, I think it's a hilarious parody on French atmospheric pop of the Mylène Farmer variety (I'm sure someone will love to pigeonhole this under the dreaded «cultural appropriation» tag, but if you love missing the point so much, be my guest). The eclec­ticism continues with the two-minute ambient-avantgarde instrumental ʽChameleon Closetʼ, and finally ends with the New Age-like finale of ʽCeiling Waxʼ — "my time has come, my day is done", she wails quietly in a tired voice, as if indeed thinking of herself as somebody who'd been temporarily assigned to visit our «Planet Health» and is now retiring back to eternity.

So what's not to like? It's clever, it's catchy, it's bursting with creativity, and it's one of those rare records that manages to sound a bit out of this world and yet fully in touch with reality. I'm gues­sing that, had the album been released and promoted in Europe rather than the States, it would have enjoyed far more commercial success — after all, they didn't just move to New York, that most Europeanized of all American outlets, for nothing — but unlike most of the stuff that hap­pened to chart in 2008, this one feels totally fresh and exciting even today, so a major thumbs up here. (Please do not run off to watch the video for ʽEvident Utensilʼ, though: as in so many cases, this is yet another situation of brilliant musical ideas desperately unmatched with anything close to a working, healthy video aesthetics! Anyway, you've been warned).