#TORRENT STEPHEN MALKMUS FULL#

#TORRENT STEPHEN MALKMUS FULL#

The idea escalated within a matter of weeks into a full set of songs and shortly thereafter into a realized and fully committed album. Conceived while recording Sparkle Hard with the Jicks at Portland’s Halfling Studio, Malkmus had observed the variety of acoustic instruments available for use. Perhaps some of these “folk” musicians could take a lesson or two.Ĭreated in the spontaneous west coast style adopted so infectiously by young American musicians in this time of global turmoil, Malkmus took on Traditional Techniques as a kind of self-dare. Taken together, these three very different full-lengths in three years highlight an ever-curious songwriter committed to finding untouched territory. An adventurous new album in an instantly familiar mode, Traditional Techniques creates a serendipitous trilogy with the loose fuzz of the Jicks’ Sparkle Hard (Matador, 2018) and the solo bedroom experiments of Groove Denied (Matador, 2019).

It’s packed with handmade arrangements, modern folklore, and 10 songs written and performed in Malkmus’s singular voice. Take the name Traditional Techniques with as much salt as you’d like or dig the Adorno reference, Malkmus’s third solo LP without the Jicks (or Pavement) is as organic as they come. Stephen Malkmus is only the latest popular artist to apply this old new approach to their rock and roll sounds. It’s called folk music, and it’s taking the country by storm. A pedal steel guitar? What kind of Stephen Malkmus album is this, anyway? Mirror Traffic tickles that nostalgia without sacrificing maturity, discovering that 'playfully relaxed' is a valid third route between 'slacker' and 'manic.Is that a goddamn bouzouki? you may ask. Any resemblance to earlier days is likely unintentional, but for the aging hipsters of the world, even an accidental flashback is a good contact high. Whether he likes it or not, Malkmus is the indie-rock version of a Dylan or Simon or U2, artists who will forever be blurbed as making 'their best album since _.' Competing with his younger self is definitely not a priority for Malkmus, who went through Pavement's reunion tour like he was punching a clock. Here, Beck's fingerprints are lighter- he plays enabler to Malkmus' quirks, leaving in mid-vocal laughs, adding subtle lap-steel on 'Tigers' and 'Long Hard Book', and fuzzing out the punkish 'Spazz' and 'Tune Grief'. Happily, celebrity producer Beck doesn't employ the heavy hand he showed earlier this year on Thurston Moore's Demolished Thoughts, which re-enacted Sea Change with the Sonic Youth frontman on vocals. The less serious vibe better suits Malkmus' still intact sense of humor and menagerie of oddballs (opening here with a nudist in Birkenstocks and ending 15 songs later with a cousin 'down with soft rap'). Even a brief interstitial like 'Jumblegloss'- with cosmic guitars and unidentifiable auditory objects whirring by- is a refreshing bit of spontaneity to rinse after the album's most Jicks-like rocker, 'Brain Gallop'. Songs also move in unexpected directions, like the Go! Team-ish coda of 'No One Is (As I Are Be)' or the slingshot tempo changes of 'Spazz'. 'Share the Red''s shambolic waltz, for instance, goes down easier than the 10-minute-long interlocking duets of 'Real Emotional Trash'. Only three songs break the five-minute barrier, and these feel far less claustrophobic than the extended tracks on the last three Jicks records.

Blue Sky' bounce is interrupted by Thin Lizzy runs, or in the thrilling summertime riff of 'Stick Figures in Love'. Guns and putting the hard-rocking ' Senator' forward as the first single, Malkmus largely lays off the Guitar Hero: The fretboard theatrics are used more sparingly and deployed to much greater effect on 'Forever 28' where a 'Mr. Like that declaration of independence from the confines of a successful band, Mirror Traffic possesses a relaxed, spontaneous feel befitting his earlier days in NoCal.ĭespite originally wanting to title the album L.A. It also has the most songs since Wowee Zowee. To put it plainly, Mirror Traffic is not the time travel back to Pavement's peak that is the futile wish of every 30-something indie dork, but it is a rewind to a less perfectionist Malkmus, packed with the most mischief and weirdness he's displayed since his eponymous solo debut. But if the recent rash of alt-rock reunions were meant to cash in on audience nostalgia, perhaps some happy memories ricocheted back onto the bandleaders as they revisited their ragged, spontaneous greatest hits. That first-draft immediacy can fade with success, creative fatigue, or that demon 'maturity.' In the case of Malkmus, the transformation took the flavor of just wanting to play his damn guitar- a mid-life crisis where sports cars were replaced with extended solos, ornate riffs, and long songs that felt even longer.

Torrent stephen malkmus