The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Tuesday, January 26, 2016 — 5
Chairlift won’t take
risks on new ‘Moth’
By REGAN DETWILER
Daily Arts Writer
I think what Chairlift really
wants from a review is for their
’08 iPod nano commercial hit,
“Bruises,”
to
not
be
men-
tioned.
My
apologies,
guys.
Every-
thing from the
sheer nostalgia
it elicits to its
endearingly
synth
rhythm
to its lyrics make mentioning it
irresistible (I grabbed some fro-
zen strawberries so I could ice
your bruising knees). It was that
adorable indie hit before adorable
indie hits were cool.
Moth is the New York duo’s
most bright and upbeat release
thus
far.
Singer
Caroline
Polachek’s vocals are similar to
those of Marina Diamandis of
Marina and the Diamonds, but
the lyrics on this latest album
don’t quite have that death-can-
dy depth of avant-pop artists like
Marina. In fact, it’s difficult to
place Chairlift in any genre right
now. They’re avant-pop and/
or synth-pop, but Moth doesn’t
quite place them into the either
of those (fairly specific) catego-
ries. Those genres elicit artists
like Marina, Lana, even Phanto-
gram or Grimes, if you want to
go there. But Chairlift isn’t really
anything like any of those.
They’re still stuck in the la-la
land limbo of alt-pop artists like
La Roux who only had one U.S.
hit and never really got both
feet off the ground. The album
is good but not great. It’s good
but not good. You can listen to
Moth for something that will
suffice. For example, two of
the catchiest, most danceable
tracks, “Ch-Ching” and “Moth
to the Flame,” offer little con-
ceptual complexity beyond the
content of their titles. Neither
change your worldview, nei-
ther will change the way you
perceive contemporary culture
but they will allow you to main-
tain your reputation as someone
who “likes good music.”
There is at least one track
that gets me feeling, and it’s
“Crying in Public.” While most
of the songs on Moth have vague
lyrics that come off as distant
and impersonal — especially
when paired with Chairlift’s
characteristic
technologized,
synthey aesthetic — they get
slow and deep on this track.
The lyrics speak to tender and
conflicting emotions of crying
about and loving someone at the
same time — crying because you
love them. Polachek’s vocals
also shine, coming out sinewy
and clear.
But that’s only one song.
While Moth has a few shining
moments, the fact of the mat-
ter is Chairlift hasn’t put any-
thing out that tops their first
album, Does You Inspire You,
featuring “Bruises.” And their
latest release is no exception.
Their sound in ’08 was original,
fresh and ahead of its time. Lyr-
ics spoke to social issues and
gave considerable attention to
critiquing
the
consumerism
emerging in our country at the
time, which has run rampant
by now. On that first album
they gave 4:45 to a song about
how much garbage we produce.
Track names included (you
guessed it) “Garbage” and “Le
Flying Saucer Hat.” Um, yes
please. When I see “Ch-Ching”
on the track list of this latest
release I just don’t get quite as
excited. Chairlift contributed
something new with Does You
Inspire You, and they haven’t
done so since.
Moth is nice. It’s pretty good.
But Chairlift, give us some-
thing cool, something great,
something weird. We know it’s
in you, and it’s waiting to be
released. Maybe next year?
B-
Moth
Chairlift
Columbia
ALBUM REVIEW
Powerful ‘Coliseum’
By REGAN DETWILER
Daily Arts Writer
You know those weird bands
you find only by way of indie
movie soundtrack? Well, The
Besnard Lakes
are
one
of
those.
Mark
Ruffalo found
them in what
he
called
a
“little
cache
in
Montreal”
of DIY musi-
cians, many of
which — like
The
Besnard
Lakes — have
their
own
recording studios and equip-
ment. He wanted them for his
2010 film “Sympathy for Deli-
cious,” which won the Special
Jury Prize and was nominated
for the Grand Jury Prize at Sun-
dance in 2010.
Something between Beach
House, Arcade Fire and Band of
Horses, they sound like an alt-
rockified amalgamation of ’60s
rock and contemporary ambient
electronic. Married couple Jace
Lasek and Olga Gureas form
the group’s core, and they’ve
just released their fifth album,
A Coliseum Complex Museum.
None of their releases goes over
45 minutes long and few go over
8 tracks — their songs are meant
to be listened to as part of a
whole. Sometimes it takes sev-
eral minutes (or several songs)
to come across any lyrics at all.
Well, it sometimes takes several
minutes to come across any spoken
lyrics. The music itself, though,
is very organically expressive,
almost lyrical in its sonic quality
alone. The music does not need the
crude approximation of words as
a crutch for delivering meaning —
the meaning transcends. Perhaps
this is what the core duo means
when they say that being in nature
inspires them, for their sensibility
might even be described as tran-
scendentalist.
A Coliseum Complex Museum
is not by any means a departure
from earlier work. It seems to
follow the same trajectory, but
it’s more conducive to casual
listening on a track-by-track
basis than on a full-album scale.
The album’s only single, “The
Plain Moon,” could even be
described as catchy, something
one couldn’t have said quite as
easily for previous releases.
This is not to say A Coli-
seum Complex Museum repre-
sents the group selling out by
any means. They maintain the
same gritty, kinda dirty, alt-
rock, technofolk sound they’ve
always had — but this album
feels like it has a little more
momentum behind it than pre-
vious releases. The Besnard
Lakes are a hidden gem, unas-
suming in a sea of alternative
music that these days can feel
a little too overwrought, a little
too heady. A Coliseum Complex
Museum is like a tension-releas-
ing exhale.
LITERATURE COLUMN
Contemporary lit’s
changing form
“
“The only way to make
sense out of change is to
plunge into it, move with
it and join the dance.” The late
philosopher Alan Watts was not
referring
to the tech-
nological
revolution of
literary cul-
ture in the
last twenty
years, but
these words
are an
unequivo-
cal push for
writers unwilling to adapt to the
changes in their industry.
We can freely admit that
writing isn’t what is used to be.
From entry points into the busi-
ness, to ideas of promotion, to
the literal form of novels, tech-
nology guarantees that nothing
remains constant. Rather than
yearning for an age I barely
knew, though, I’m choosing to
embrace the way social media
and the Internet in general has
changed our lives.
Instead of relying on an
agent to promote their works
(though agents are still hugely
important to novelists), many
authors are joining social media
and connecting with their audi-
ences directly and interactively.
Respected authors such as Mar-
garet Atwood, Gary Shteyngart
and Joyce Carol Oates have
joined the 974 million exist-
ing Twitter accounts to share
a part of themselves with their
fans and readers. (Seriously, fol-
low Joyce Carol Oates on Twit-
ter. One of her latest tweets:
“Tried to combine #National
Hug Day with #Squirrel Appre-
ciation Day with unfortunate
results.” Genius.)
But not all writers have
joined the bandwagon of social
media. Most noticeably, Jona-
than Franzen, author of “The
Corrections,” “Freedom” and
most recently “Purity,” has
denounced Twitter as “unspeak-
ably irritating. Twitter stands
for everything I oppose.” In
2013, Franzen specifically called
out commercial women’s fiction
writer Jennifer Weiner for her
self-promotion via social media.
Weiner retorted with an article
in The New Republic arguing
that Twitter isn’t primarily a
means of self-promotion; it’s a
way to access the world’s “best
cocktail party.”
This literary tussle between
Franzen and Weiner represents
the undeniable shift in contem-
porary literary culture. Some,
like Franzen, see social media as
the worst extension of ourselves,
a manipulative way to create a
false, misleadingly improved
online person. Others like Wein-
er view it as a fun way to connect
with and entertain readers and
other authors.
In other corners of the Inter-
net, less established writers
have a chance. Sure, there’s
some weird Poot Lovato fan
fiction and the sorts of obses-
sive chat rooms that create
phenomena like “50 Shades of
Grey,” but there’s also some
exceptional writing being done.
Websites like Wordpress and
Tumblr allow users to display
their work on a free platform
and gather an online follow-
ing. With a large enough online
readership, there is almost a
guaranteed audience for an
actual novel.
The expansion in the rela-
tionship between readers and
authors is another major devel-
opment caused by the Internet.
We’ve created an incredibly
large global locale, one in which
we can reach out to someone
across the world and get a
response as quickly as that of
someone across the room. For
authors, this means they can
be in direct contact with their
readership during all phases
of writing. When Aziz Ansari
wrote his brilliant exploration
of different romantic landscapes
in the recent novel “Modern
Romance,” he reached out to the
Reddit community and asked
them to share their experiences.
Ansari and his co-author, New
York University professor Eric
Klinenberg, used comments
from Reddit users to explain the
social phenomena in the book.
We can be so close now to the
producers of our literature that
we can literally take part in its
creation. But social media is also
changing the form that litera-
ture can take. The definition of
what “writing” is has changed
since media platforms have
allowed everyone to become a
writer in some sense of the word.
Writing takes place on all forms
of social media, but there’s a
shift in storytelling form as well.
Narratives like “Hey Harry Hey
Matilda,” an epistolary novel
between a brother and sister, are
being told over Instagram, with
photos accompanying the serial-
ized text.
While “Hey Harry Hey
Matilda” is a thoughtful exper-
iment in social media and its
relationship to the narrative
form, the presence of social
media has spawned some more
spontaneous stories. The viral
Twitter drama of Zola, which
she describes as “long but…full
of suspense” was one of the
better instances of pop culture
in 2015.
Zola is a Hooters waitress
who is invited by a customer
for a weekend of dancing in
Florida, but the excursion
quickly devolves into a narrative
explosion of strippers, violence
and spectacle. After reading
the whole story, Ava DuVernay,
director of “Selma” and “Middle
of Nowhere” wrote on Twitter,
“In India reading #Zola. Drama,
humor, action, suspense, charac-
ter development. She can write.
There’s so much untapped talent
in the hood.”
In the past few years, the
Internet has forced literature
into somewhat of a crossroads.
We’re constantly redefining
what it means to be a writer
and how to reconcile our pre-
conceived notions of literature
with the burgeoning technol-
ogy at our fingertips. We have
a choice to make — stubbornly
linger in the past or bask in the
developing democratization of
storytelling.
Lerner is being taken on trip
down to Florida. To make she’s
OK, e-mail rebler@umich.edu.
REBECCA
LERNER
A
A Coliseum
Complex
Museum
The Besnard
Lakes
Jagjaguwar
ALBUM REVIEW
TV REVIEW
Showtime’s ‘Billions’
is full of testosterone
By SHIR AVINADAV
Daily Arts Writer
Showtime’s new series “Bil-
lions” doesn’t quite match the
spectacular parade of excess in
“The Wolf of
Wall Street.”
But
it
also
isn’t the har-
rowing
look
at the 2008
economic col-
lapse and cor-
ruption of big
banks
cyni-
cally dissect-
ed by “The Big
Short.” It’s the story of power-
ful U.S. District Attorney Chuck
Rhoades (Paul Giamatti, “Love
& Mercy”) and his mission to
take down hedge fund giant
Bobby “Axe” Axelrod (Damian
Lewis, “Homeland”). The show-
down between corruption and
justice isn’t as simple as we’d
like to believe it is, and “Bil-
lions” goes to great lengths to
demonstrate this theme.
If you are an advocate of jus-
tice and hate the “one percent,”
then the show expects you to
root for Chuck in his relentless
pursuit of Axe and his financial
empire. However, in the show’s
opening Chuck is introduced
bound and powerless (consen-
sually, we assume), under a
mysterious figure dressed in
dominatrix attire. The unset-
tling details of this short, yet
repellant scene don’t bear men-
tioning. But its role in charac-
terizing Chuck, the supposed
hero of this series, is significant
and
necessitates
discussion.
Why show the formidable pin-
nacle of justice, U.S. attorney,
husband and father of two get-
ting sexually dominated within
the first 30 seconds of the pre-
miere? Pure shock value?
What’s more, this introduc-
tion is followed by Rhoades’s
Assistant U.S. Attorney Kate
(Condola
Rashad,
“Master
of None”) lecturing an office
newcomer about having to “be
beyond reproach.” These words
linger as, for the first time in the
episode, Rhoades is revealed
to be none other than the New
York U.S. District Attorney. The
stark
contradiction
between
the two images of Rhoades is
the first of many ploys to subtly
build tension throughout the
episode that instead result in
lukewarm uneasiness. No one
wants to see a middle-aged man
(particularly one with clout)
getting kinky.
The most contrived part of
the plot is the role Axe’s wife
Lara (Malin Akerman, “Watch-
men”) plays. The girl from
a poor New York Irish fam-
ily turned billionaire’s wife
– poised, yet retaining a tough
edge –– is like a shoe that fits
half a size too big on Akerman,
adding little depth to her char-
acter. When a former partner’s
wife embarrasses Axe in front
of his employees, Lara’s thinly
veiled threat lacks the punch it
tries to deliver. She only serves
as an accessory to Axe’s char-
acter –– another strand in the
unravelling rope of his relatable
image.
There’s no such thing as a
relatable billionaire. Axe’s rep-
utation as a “man of the people”
(he eats pizza at his old neigh-
borhood joint … then decides to
invest in it) is a weakly devised
obstacle put up for Chuck to
knock down in his fight against
Axelrod. Despite this, Lewis’s
performance as the acute, ego-
istic alpha male is convincing.
Between his and Giamatti’s
subtle glares and weighted one-
liners, the antagonism between
the two is palpable.
Also complicating Axe’s his-
tory is his role as the only sur-
viving partner of his hedge fund
after 9/11. The tragic circum-
stances of his ascent to power
leave us uncertain whether
to feel sorry for him or resent
him. As the episode unfolds, it
becomes clearer that the man
is power hungry and manipula-
tive, purchasing an ostentatious
mansion and “good-naturedly”
pitting his kids against one
another in a trivia match at the
dinner table.
Aesthetically, the show has
some redeeming qualities. A
quick cut away to the sweaty
fingerprints left on a leather
chair by an old colleague Dan
Margolis
(Daniel
Cosgrove,
“Days of Our Lives”) confirms
Axe’s suspicions that he’s an
FBI informant. The sleek cin-
ematography highlights Axe’s
smooth demeanor and makes
Rhoades appear even more
overwrought than his agitated
nature suggests he is. And while
Axe maintains his austerity at
all times, we see Rhoades soft-
en in the presence of his wife,
Wendy (Maggie Siff, “Sons of
Anarchy”).
Wendy Rhoades can’t go with-
out mentioning. Her position as
an HR executive for Axe Capital
(Axelrod’s company) puts her
in the convenient predicament
of working for the target of her
husband’s crusade against profi-
teering. She’s a powerhouse in
her own right, but when Chuck’s
attack on Axe escalates she’s
forced to choose: her job or her
husband (the timeworn source
of marital conflict)? With all the
testosterone coursing through
the series, it’s refreshing to have
a wife who isn’t just a narrative
embellishment. But between her
and Lara, there isn’t much going
on for women in this series.
Especially not for Chuck’s moth-
er, who’s relegated to the kitch-
en by Chuck’s calculating, upper
crust attorney of a father.
This brings us back to Chuck,
who’s clearly sitting on top of
some deep-seated issues. His
character, combined with Axe’s
guile and America’s interest
with the financial sector, will
hopefully make for some inter-
esting episodes as the series
moves forward.
B-
Billions
Piloy
Sundays at
10 p.m.
Showtime
DO YOU POSTPONE PULLING YOUR
WISDOM TEETH SO YOU CAN PARTY?
A WISE CHOICE — JUST LIKE JOINING ARTS.
E-mail ajtheis@umich.edu and katjacqu@umich.edu for
information on applying to Daily Arts.
We can freely
admit writing
isn’t what it
used to be.
No one wants
to see a middle-
aged man
getting kinky.
Justice isn’t
always simple.
‘Moth’ is the
New York duo’s
most upbeat
release thus far.