Review Summary: Newness and Strangeness
The other day, in one of my more epiphanic moments, I came to a rather sudden realisation. During this mildly contemplative state of being (one which doesn’t come around too often, fortunately) I observed that many of my favourite
artists aren’t those who can proudly point to a spotless discography, but those whose approach to songcraft seems innate and without agenda; those who appear to have this irrepressible, whimsical urge to express, create and share. Their work is never guaranteed to resemble that which they’ve produced previously, nor does it tend to reflect (or appear tailored to meet) the expectations of the particular artist’s fans or critics. Instead, their output is as close as music comes to establishing a
dialogue with the listener, in my view: the application of melody and harmony through which individual experience is shared, pure and unadorned.
And the results aren’t always
good. Such a haphazard creative process doesn’t invariably
work, for obvious reasons, but it’s the passion behind that process that intrigues me.
Death Grips and
Mount Eerie come to mind as well-known, contemporary examples; projects that, but for the continuity of their protagonists, guarantee little by way of consistency, in quality or substance. And yet I
fucking love them, for that fleeting, lightening-in-a-bottle feeling that comes with each of their releases; for the joy (and, on occasion, disappointment) of witnessing whatever they’ve smeared across the canvas this time. With
Making a Door Less Open, I’m minded to add
Car Seat Headrest to that category of
artists.
Whilst Will (a.k.a. ‘Trait’, apparently) has always been somewhat of a creative chameleon, never settling on one sound for too long, here he strays further from his roots than ever before. After two carefully constructed and choreographed projects, a reckless stylistic shift felt inevitable, if not overdue. That’s exactly what we get here: a playful, strange,
new direction for the band, for better
and for worse.
As the masters of quirky, indie rock throw away the tools of their trade, they embrace a more eclectic bag of tones and textures. As is immediately apparent from the first few seconds of opener ‘Weightlifters’, synthetic aesthetics and artificial tendencies are now king. Weighty programmed-drums and fruity synth lines pop and whir joyously throughout the record’s runtime, convulsing around one another like neon nightlife reflecting off a car window. The resultant tunes are spacious and percussive, carefree and absent minded in hue as a result – just take a peak at the blissfully sluggish ‘There Must Be More Than Blood’, or the plodding, laidback ‘Can’t Cool Me Down’. With the rock aesthetic reigned in, there’s nothing here to match the levels of catharsis of a ‘Destroyed By Hippie Powers’ or a ‘Drunk Drivers’, nor are we treated to the grandiosity and scope of a ‘Beach Life-In-Death’. There is, however, a ‘Hollywood’: a ridiculous, over-the-top, obnoxious, in-your-face banger that aptly matches the vapidity and excess of its subject (
spoiler alert: it’s dumb, but fun). The tasteful ‘Martin’ is a similarly satisfying return to orthodoxy, with its lush acoustic strumming and warm horns complimenting the band’s newfound penchant for bright electronics and pitch-shifted vocals.
A mismatched and muddled record it is, most certainly, but it’s all part of its charm, I think. The experience is kinetic and involved; a hodgepodge of disjointed ideas that, in isolation, may not quite
click, but whose contrast is to their strength. The intimate, desolate air of ‘What’s With You Lately’ is owed entirely to its context: to the thumping bass throughout ‘Deadlines (Thoughtful)’ and bubbly, florescent opening notes of ‘Life Worth Missing’. Likewise, the dizzying and (kinda) tacky ‘Hymn – Remix’ is only palatable because of its placement within the LP as a whole. The extent to which these oddball songs successfully play off of one another – both sonically and thematically – is remarkable, especially given they were written and recorded over a period of 5 years. Ideas of the self, loneliness and friendship crop up on each head-bobbing, wayward collage, coalescing wonderfully with the disparate soundscapes on display.
Making a Door Less Open feels like a sort of homage to the most innocent and aimless of creative processes: to the kid in their bedroom,
fucking around with a tape recorder, with absolutely no clue what they’re doing. It’s amateurish and awkward at times, sure, and it doesn’t always
work, but its expressive and endearing in equal measure: the disjointed and elusive by-product of a free spirit; less motive, more feeling; less conscious, more inspired. It’s Will, quirks and all, and that’s enough.
