ISSUE #7
Bigger Than Life - Black Marble
Chris Stewart’s signature angelic-yet-atonal vocals, happy-sad synthy melodies, and cold wave beats & rhythms make their return in his third LP - Bigger Than Life
It’s a beautiful day in the Bay Area this Friday-- almost too beautiful. It’s the kind of beautiful day that feels wrong. The kind of day where everything seems to be going so well even when they shouldn’t be. I blame the lack of polarity, or equilibrium. I need a little salt to balance out the sweet. Waking up to the sun blasting through my windows was nice and all, but it wasn’t until I saw Black Marble’s latest album waiting for me in my Spotify queue that I knew I was set up for a perfect day.
Black Marble’s sound epitomizes the term “bittersweet”. But I’d also argue that it also epitomizes the term “timeless”. This album could very well have existed in the late 70s or 80s during the rise of the cold wave genre. But it also is a refreshing sound that exists as an homage to the early Kraftwerk era of experimentations of using synthesizers/electronics in punk music. It’s music that makes you want to sway in the dark and maybe smoke a cigarette or two.
Black Marble, courtesy of Joseph Jagos
Bigger Than Life is an 11-track album that, for the most part, stays consistent in tone timbre. But that’s what we love about Black Marble. He has such a mastery of his genre(s) that he makes it easy to embrace his sound. My personal favorite track off the album, Private Show, is a high-energy dance party whose emotions come in waves and drag you in by your ankles. Actually, I think that’s the best way to describe this album: a dance party that drags you by your ankles, makes you dance, and makes you maybe cry.
Take a listen to Bigger Than Life and have a splendid weekend.
❤️ Mando
Vols. 11 & 12 - Desert Sessions
The dusty, delirious 11th incarnation of Josh Homme’s rotating supergroup delivers another eclectic aural odyssey.
The Desert Sessions began as a decompression jam session organized by Kyuss and Queens of the Stone Age frontmant Josh Homme. As early as 1997, on the outskirts of Joshua Tree, a small studio called Rancho De La Luna served as a kickback, a recording space and a psychedelic incubator for a schoolbus’ worth of Palm Desert’s best and most bizarre players. Equal parts creative supergroup and hedonistic summer camp, this passion project would go on to cultivate 2 decades worth of outlandish music.
Past regulars of the Sessions include former QOTSA member Nick Oliveri, Eagles of Death Metal guitarist Jesse Hughes, Mark Lanegan (he collaborated with Kurt Cobain and wrote the Parts Unknown theme song amongst other things), Kyuss drummer Brant Bjork, and Rancho De La Luna co-founder Dave Catching. During a single, mystifying visit from PJ Harvey in 2003, the group recorded a little song called Make It Wit Chu which would eventually make its way on 2007’s Era Vulgaris for the whole world to enjoy.
Few things stay the same over the course of 16 years, possibly least of all a group of desert wildfolk hopped up on mezcal and distortion. 2019’s Vols. 11 & 12 features only a single member of earlier compositions - Homme himself - but a disparate parade of talent from across time has fitted themselves snugly into place like burnt and melting jigsaw pieces.
The ragtag Desert Sessions cast. Photo courtesy of NME.
Move Together opens the album - a tune somehow both crunchier and smoother than your choice of peanut butters - and features the sullen voice of ZZ Top’s Billy F. Gibbons over desert funk and blues. Mike Kerr, bassist and vocalist for Royal Blood, basks in a minute-forty five spotlight during the dazzling, raucous Crucifire. Kerr hasn’t been shy about his love of QOTSA in the past, and it feels good to listen to someone experiencing their dreams come to life.
Scissor Sisters vocalist Jake Shears returns to wax for Something You Can’t See, a shimmering, summery ode to the 70s spun through with badland desolation and easily the catchiest number of the Session. Libby Grace, a new face and hard-to-research vocalist, captivates completely on the threadbare If You Run. A delicate darkness suffuses her voice, and she spins a scintillating web of vocal harmony over an instrumental written for circling vultures and glossy black scorpions.
Listeners would be incensed without some love from the man himself, and Josh Homme does not deprive us. Noses in Roses, Forever and Easier Said Than Done rattle and grieve respectively from either end of the album, that sickly sweet falsetto as smooth as ever. No Desert Session would be complete without a cocktail of musical satire and creative hysteria to even things out and let you know - we’re just fuckin’ around here. The dizzying Chic Tweetz pokes fun at modern dating culture with lyrics like:
I sent you chic tweets
Unanswered for weeks
I want to take peeks in those cheeks
I sent you this hot fax
And you gave me de ax
I said I would wax all your cracks
What's with that?
It’s rumored that credited vocalist Töôrnst Hülpft could actually be Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters fame, but Homme denies any collaboration this time around.
Through and through, Vols. 11 & 12 is an engaging, dangerously-swerving, surprisingly emotive and beautiful release. It is made all the more enjoyable by the knowledge of its ancestry, its purpose - unfettered creativity, a return to the carefree days before the myriad rockstars involved cut their teeth and began thriving under the pressures of success.
Give the first Desert Sessions in 16 years a handful of listens - there’s a lot in there to find - and don’t forget to do your homework on the talents involved in creating this grotesque masterpiece.
Have a great weekend everyone.
♥ Zach
