
Constant Follower – Whole Be
The history of rock music, and, by consequence, all of the styles that have sprouted from it, is, really, the history of instrument amplification. It’s the story of people fighting to make instruments sound louder, to make singers be heard across an entire field, and to make acoustic drums be heard without having to burst anyone’s ear canal open.
Alternative music, especially, is loud. In fact, young bands playing clubs will tell you that in the absence of a good enough sound system, they’ll always choose loudness over precision.
That’s why when someone reduces music down to a whisper, there’s a good chance that it will cause a few shocks. There’s a good chance that the shocks will make a lot of people want to pay attention.
Ever since the first Fleet Foxes record, some musicians have treated the Seattle band’s music as a kind of reinterpretation of the gospel. It’s not hard to understand why. There’s a spiritual element to it. Constant Follower is inspired by this sound for the original piece, “Whole Be.” Like modern indie-folk or like Byzantine religious music, this plays with silence and requires a bit of mental discipline on behalf of the listener. But it’s a dream worth being a part of, however deep and dark the alleyways tend to get.
MacGregor Burns – She Never Took a Chance On Me
First, you capture the audience’s ears, and then you go after the hearts. That’s been the strategy for every artist and band that has achieved considerable success unless they happened to have been somehow related to a famous art dealer or a rich college professor.
Music listeners will like to dazzle others with the knowledge that they have of noisy, dissonant artists. But there’s a reason why The Beatles and The Beach Boys still sell millions of physical copies and have documentaries made about them.
Once the feet are tapping to the groove and the audience members can leave for home while humming the tunes, you can do whatever else you want. Off-the-wall strategies and pure weirdness can be welcomed.
MacGregor Burns has plenty to say about the sweet-sounding “She Never Took a Chance On Me” and its strange way of saying things. But you’ll have to strain to notice that with the Beatlesque melodies and Burns’ ragged delivery so well designed to charm. This may be intended to be some kind of freak folk operation, but it, first of all, a gorgeous, retro pop tune that you’ll find hard to shake out of your mind.