MUSIC REVIEW
When I stumbled on All Are
Saved in early 2015, approaching
my high school graduation, I was
certain I didn’t think I would be
writing this review almost four
years later. My graduation from
university is now more imminent
than is comfortable. I remember
vacationing in Folly Beach, S.C.
during spring break, the same
week that Carrie & Lowell was
released to the world at large. I
was just beginning to find music
for myself, exploring Stereogum,
Pitchfork, Consequence of Sound
and NPR and digesting every
word as gospel.
One morning during that week
of vacation, I was seeking out new
music on Pitchfork and found
it: Fred Thomas’s All Are Saved,
with a clean little “8.0” next to
the album cover. I had recently
paid my enrollment deposit to
the University, and a line in the
first paragraph of the review read
“Fred Thomas is always standing
right behind you at a basement
show in Ann Arbor.” Some quick
research revealed that Thomas
had been a mainstay of the
southeast Mich. scene for over
20 years by then — 25 by now.
Although I had only been to town
a couple of times then, I was more
than prepared to make Thomas’s
music mine, something literally
close to home that I could latch
onto.
All Are Saved was Thomas’s
ninth solo album, but the first to
receive any real critical attention.
Changer, a more guitar-driven
effort with hints of power-pop,
arrived in early 2017, falling
into a neat narrative surrounding
Thomas’s life: He had gotten
married, quit his job and moved
to Montreal where his wife would
be getting her graduate degree.
Now, Aftering has been pitched
as the end of an informal trilogy,
in part nonspecific reflections
penned from abroad — Thomas
watching from the outside as his
home country elected Trump
— and in part hyper-personal
anecdote.
The best way to think about
the concept of Aftering is as a
long walk off a short pier. Or a
dead sprint straight off the edge
of a cliff, followed by a careful
narration
of
the
seemingly
endless fall. The first five songs on
the album, especially “Hopeless
Ocean Drinker,” “Good Times
Are Gone Again” and “Altar,” are
pure melody, catchy guitar and
keyboard hooks under Thomas’s
sometimes
endearingly
off-
key vocals. The album opener,
“Ridiculous
Landscapes,”
features
the
Montreal-based
Common Holly and Detroit-
based Anna Burch, whose music
Thomas forwarded directly to
Polyvinyl, earning her a contract.
Both will be joining Thomas for a
fall tour.
Following the rush of “Altar,”
things
go
downhill
quickly
— imagine the rug pulled out
from under your feet, only to
reveal that there was no floor
beneath it. “House Show, Late
December” is the embodiment
of that immediate anxiety, the
plunge into the lake waiting at the
end of the pier. It’s a steamroller
that builds and builds as Thomas
just talks at you, only a hint of
sing-song in his voice. Thomas’s
nostalgic
musings
removed,
the song could easily pass as
something by Explosions in the
Sky. The last three songs follow
suit. If “House Show” is the
plunge, the rest of the album is
the realization of how damn cold
that water is, how slow things
move, the tragedy of youth and
memory and growing up. It’s half-
conscious confusion and sharp
self-awareness in equal measure,
all over fuzzed out electronics,
keyboard
and
carefully
orchestrated strings.
When I interviewed Thomas
earlier this year, I asked him if he
could name a number of artists or
albums that have influenced or
continue to influence his writing.
He responded saying that, though
it may sound pretentious, his
inspirations are largely just his
experiences
(though
he
has
uploaded a playlist to Spotify
titled “Aftering Mood Board”)
and it’s evident that this is more or
less true. “Alcohol Poisoning” and
“House Show, Late December”
function in concert as reflections
on the difficulties of touring and
the anxiety that accompanies
being a local artist who is trying
to get by on their art alone, spoken
from the mouth of the ultimate
lifer. Meanwhile, “What The
Sermon Said” dives deep
into Thomas’s childhood. He
recalls the child miscreant
he was, and how he couldn’t
make friends his own age,
and how his family never
went back to that church.
“Mother,
Daughter,
Pharmaprix”
includes
an
anecdote about a mother and
daughter arguing in French:
the daughter who “simply
hates her / With that blinding
burning meanness only teens
get / Like she has to / Like her
mom did to her mom / Like
we all do,” and the mother
who “loves her so much that
she’s constantly terrified.”
Thomas’s storytelling here
is at its best: He takes a
simple interaction and teases
something
like
objective
truth out of it. He can’t
speak the language but he
understands the subtext all
too well; we weren’t there,
but we can see it in ourselves.
This, it seems, is Thomas’s
ultimate goal, and one he
approaches with an alarming
urgency: to find solidarity,
connection and empathy in
the days when good times are
gone again.
The conclusion of Fred
Thomas’s trilogy is an
anxious ice bath
SEAN LANG
Daily Arts Writer
Aftering
Fred Thomas
Polyvinyl
The
#MeToo
movement,
revealing and cathartic as it has
been, has also felt profoundly
disorienting. There’s little that
hasn’t been dredged up and laid
bare on a mental dissection table
for study. Who are these people
we thought we knew? What
should we make of experiences
we hadn’t made anything of
before? And as consumers of
pop culture, what role have we
played in it all? How badly have
our own concepts of love and
boundaries been warped and
corrupted?
“You,” a thrilling new series
from Lifetime, is a remarkably
sharp attempt to grapple with
those questions. It begins in
an Upper East Side bookstore,
where
Joe
(Penn
Badgley,
“Gossip Girl”), the manager,
encounters Beck (Elizabeth Lail,
“Once Upon a Time”) a doe-eyed
MFA student in search of some
Paula Fox essays. It’s the meet-
cute that launched a thousand
romances — they gossip about
the other customers, lapse into
playful banter and trade reading
recommendations.
But it doesn’t take long inside
Joe’s inner monologue for us
to realize that our sensitive
bookstore owner is in fact r/
TheRedPill
personified,
a
deeply insecure creep with a
toxic savior complex that deems
Beck a damsel worthy of his
rescue. It might be a touch on
the nose that Beck’s given name
is Guinevere.
Oh,
how
quickly
one
fleeting
interaction
turns
into a dangerous obsession.
Joe has soon pored through
Beck’s
social
media,
found
her
apartment,
studied
her
relationships and learned her
routines,
all
while
making
grand, improbable conclusions
about the sort of person she
must be: “Every account is set to
public — you want to be seen.”
Most frightening is the ease
with which he’s able to convince
himself that everything he’s
doing is just fine. Hiding in
Beck’s shower, after her early
return cuts his apartment break-
in short, Joe laughs the whole
thing off in a voice-over. “I’ve
seen enough romantic comedies
to know that guys like me are
always getting in jams like this.”
It’s a smart indictment of our
culture — the Western canon
has always reassured the Joes
of the world that nice guys
win in the end. In one telling
scene, he brings home a copy of
“Don Quixote” for his forlorn
kid neighbor. “It’s about a guy
who believes in chivalry, so he
decides to become an old-school
knight,” Joe tells him. Um,
aren’t you forgetting something,
Joe? The Man of La Mancha was
delusional.
“You” is sometimes weakened
by its tendency toward the
absurd — let’s just say there’s a
giant plexiglass book repair cell
in the basement of Joe’s store
that may or may not function as
a makeshift torture chamber.
But in other moments, “You”
is buoyed by its disinterest in
being tethered to reality or
subtlety. It’s what keeps the
show exciting and gives it the
freedom to wander around New
York, poking fun of Brooklynite
caricatures,
like
Beck’s
insufferable ex-boyfriend Benji
(Lou Taylor Pucci, “The Story of
Luke”), whose line of artisanal
soda is, in his words, “legit,
period.”
And for all the fun “You” is, it
manages to stay terrifying and
familiar. In the wake of #MeToo,
some men have lamented that
they’re being forced to reassess
their every move and gesture
lest they be misinterpreted.
It’s ironic, because, as “You”
illustrates, that’s exactly the
sort of mental calculus women
have to perform all the time.
When Beck pays for her book
with a credit card, Joe decides it
must be a deliberate invitation:
“You have enough cash to cover
this, but you want me to know
your name.” There is nothing
quite like the terror of moving
through the world constantly
wondering whether the quiet
guy at the bookstore might
really be a deranged chauvinist.
If “You” stays smart and
probing, it could function as a
thoughtful look at romance in
the digital age. At the very least,
the pilot offers a few pointers
upfront: Keep your blinds closed
and your Instagram private.
Lifetime’s ‘You’ skewers
the romantic comedy
MAITREYI ANANTHARAMAN
Daily Arts Writer
TV REVIEW
LIFETIME
“You”
Lifetime
Series premiere
Sundays at 10 p.m.
POLYVINYL RECORDS
FILM REVIEW
In what more closely resembles
a melodramatic mystery than
reality, Tim Wardle’s (“One Killer
Punch”) shocking documentary
breaks conventions in style and
tone to tell a true story that
can only be described as jaw-
dropping.
“Three
Identical
Strangers” tells the story of
identical triplets, Robert Shafran,
Edward
Galland
and
David
Kellman,
separated
at
birth
and placed into three different
homes. Their reunion led them
to become global sensations,
appearing on TV shows and
even checking out Madonna in
“Desperately Seeking Susan.”
The three brothers even opened
a restaurant together in New
York
City,
not
surprisingly
dubbed “Triplets.” What seems
like a happily-ever-after type
of tale twists itself into a dark
nightmarish saga of deception,
experimentation and loss as the
nature of the triplets’ adoption
becomes more clear.
The documentary combines
home videos with talking heads
footage
alongside
tastefully
shadowed re-enactments. The
re-enactments are not forced;
rather, they create a narrative
as twisted as the reality the
triplets faced. In a way, the
re-enactments make the story
feel more fictional, played by
curly-headed lookalikes of the
triplets clad in striped polos
and flared jeans. The triplets’
first-hand
accounts
of
their
story emphasize the reality of it,
reminding the viewer that the
film before them is unfortunately
not fiction at all. Sooner rather
than later, the viewer might
notice the absence of one-third
of the triplets. While Shafran
and Kellman have a lot to say
in their interviews, Galland is
mysteriously not present. As the
film progresses, the viewer will
come to understand the dark
nature of Galland’s absence.
The film slowly unravels the
mystery of the triplets’ separation
keeping the viewer engrossed
until the very last minute. What
is uncovered is the fact that the
triplets were separated for the
purpose of scientific study. A
psychiatrist by the name of Peter
B. Neubauer, an Austrian Jew
who escaped Nazi occupation,
led dozens of these “twin-
studies” that separated twins and
triplets into different families
based on economic status and
parenting style to discover the
real difference between nature
and nurture. Children adopted
through the Louise Wise Agency
with help from the Jewish Board
of Family and Children’s Services
were used for these experiments,
unbeknownst to the adopted
parents or the children.
For years, the triplets were
not privy to files that detailed
the purpose of their separation;
in fact, the adoption agency
that handled their case and so
many other twin separations
have sealed the files until the
year
2066.
However,
since
the film’s release and other
twin discoveries, some of the
information regarding the study
has been released to individuals
who were adopted from the
Louise Wise Agency. Still, there
are dozens of people out there
who have no idea that they have a
twin. Wardle’s film has inspired
many to investigate their pasts
and has even led to reunions
of siblings that had no idea the
other existed.
The
most
unsettling
part
of
the
film
is
the
human
experimentation that took place
without knowledge or consent.
Even more troubling is the Jewish
adoption agency and the Jewish
researcher that re-created these
Mengele-esque experiments on
Jews in a post-Holocaust United
States. Many draw an ethical
comparison between Neubauer’s
twin experiments to those of the
Nazi regime, making the irony
devastatingly clear.
‘Three Identical Strangers’
BECKY PORTMAN
Senior Arts Editor
“Three Identical
Strangers”
NEON
Aftering has
been pitched
as the end of
an informal
trilogy, in part
nonspecific
reflections
penned from
abroad
6A — Monday, September 17, 2018
News
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com