The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Tuesday, February 19, 2019 — 5
As the saying goes, you can’t
always get what you want.
It’s hard for something to be
great every time. Sometimes,
sights are set too high. That is
exactly what happened with
Buoys, the latest release from
Noah Lennox, more widely
known as Panda Bear. That
is not to say that the album is
bad. It’s actually very good,
but something is off.
In his sixth album, Panda
Bear, co-founding member
of Animal Collective and
frequent
solo
act,
tries
something new. Gone are
the days of humongous, lush
soundscapes and curious lead
samples. On Buoys, he only
utilizes his highly processed
voice,
swampy
basslines,
compressed
synthesizers,
an acoustic guitar and the
occasional
sound
sample.
It’s a strange combination
of sounds, but for the most
part, it works. The looped
guitar
licks
nestle
with
bubbling bass while the synth
strikes veer anywhere and
everywhere with no regard.
It sounds disorienting, not
in a nauseating way, but a
hypnotizing
one.
Singles
“Dolphins” and “Token” are
instances where this effect
is executed flawlessly. They
sound like the listener is
swimming through a highly
viscous fluid where sounds
travel just a little too fast.
It’s mesmerizing. In fact, it is
almost fascinating to hear.
All of Buoys unfolds like
this, and it’s great. However,
it
also
leaves
listeners
wanting more. Lennox is a
little too deep in his own zone
with this album. It sounds
like he found the exact sound
he wanted for the album,
then
refused
to
explore
other
soundscapes.
Album
standout “Inner Monologue”
is the only song to break the
mold. The song begins with
a vocal sample of a woman’s
trembling
voice,
which
is
soon joined by a droning horn
blast and a meandering guitar.
Shortly after, Lennox’s voice
replaces the horn blasts, and
the song erupts into a flurry
of sound. It is unlike any
other song, both on the album
and elsewhere in the industry.
“Inner
Monologue”
serves
as an example as to why it
is so important to diversify
within the album’s set sound.
It yields absolutely fantastic
results.
However,
“Inner
Monologue” is the exception,
not the rule. The other songs
on Buoys just do not live up to
the standards that previous
Panda Bear releases set forth.
While
albums
like
Person
Pitch and Tomboy both alter
and contort their sound in
different ways with each
subsequent
song,
Buoys
allows its sound to steep to
the point of stagnation. It is
admirable that Lennox tried
this new sound, that much
is certain, but he merely
evolves his own sound rather
than expanding upon it.
All in all, Buoys is a
wonderful
collection
of
songs. The issue is that
the highs are few and far
between. Aside from the
album’s sound as a whole,
no individual song takes a
step outside of the realm
of the expected. Buoys just
does not thrill. It doesn’t
disappoint, but there is such
little
diversity
that
it
is
hard to be satisfied upon the
album’s
completion.
Panda
Bear has opened the door
for an intriguing new sound,
but for the most part, Buoys
leaves listeners with a craving
for something that isn’t there.
Panda Bear lulls listeners
into a trance with ‘Buoys’
JIM WILSON
Daily Arts Writer
DOMINO
MUSIC REVIEW
‘Buoys’
Panda Bear
Domino Recording
Company
You certainly can’t accuse
“Happy Death Day 2U” of
wasting its time. No sooner have
viewers been dropped back into
the world of the surprise 2017
slasher hit than the story picks
up with a new day, a new time
loop and a new killer in a baby
mask. Lest this all start to sound
a little too familiar, “Happy
Death Day 2U”
pulls
off
one
twist by signaling
early
on
that
this is no longer
a horror movie.
Oh, there’s still
a
knife-wielding
psychopath
on
the
loose,
but
that’s
more
a
pesky annoyance
this time around.
Instead,
with
a
story
centering
on
the
multiverse and time travel and
a host of other pseudo-science
mumbo jumbo, it embraces the
silliness at the core of its premise
and plays as an out-and-out sci-fi
comedy.
I can respect the daringness
it would take to genre-hop like
that — it’s the sort of move that
a lot of series wouldn’t even
think of making — even if the
movie itself never lives up to
that initial shock to the system.
Instead it ties itself in knots,
layering one sci-fi trope on top
of another and drowning an
underdeveloped A-plot in a wash
of underdeveloped B-plots. The
idea at its core isn’t so much
“less is more” as it is “no, more is
more, stupid,” so it jettisons the
simple efficiency of the original
film in favor of a surprisingly
confusing story that all too
rarely gives you something to
hold on to in the midst of all the
madness. Instead, true to the
fast-paced opening scenes, it
never stops moving, never stops
hitting you over the head with
nonsense, because to stop would
be to admit there’s no substance
and lose your attention.
This reaches an infuriating
extreme in the third act, which
features enough genre-bending
for an entire franchise, let alone
a single film. By this point, every
character arc has either been
finished or dropped entirely,
so as “Happy Death Day 2U”
moves from the sci-fi insanity
of the rest of the film to a heist
sequence to the twisty finale of
the slasher subplot with all the
grace of a dying animal, it plays
more as padding than anything
else. It’s hard to care about any
of this to begin with — especially
the slasher stuff that the script
seems to forget more often than
not — but without any character
growth to ground itself in, it
feels especially extraneous.
The one undeniably bright
spot is Jessica Rothe (“Forever
My Girl”) returning as Tree.
What few laughs are to be had
mostly come from her righteous
fury at having to
relive
Monday
the
18th
again
after
already
having done so 11
times, as well as
the general hard-
edged charm she
exudes in every
single scene and
the few dramatic
moments
that
work do so for
the same reason.
Rothe’s work is always grounded
in something human while the
rest of the film all too rarely
is. Even in the movie’s worst
moments (the aforementioned
endless third act) it’s easy to
return to her performance and
find something enjoyable. If
there were ever any doubt that
the superstar in the making is
the glue holding this nascent
franchise together — and if
you saw the original, for all its
merits, there shouldn’t be — then
if nothing else, “Happy Death
Day 2U” should serve as its cure.
‘Happy Death Day’ swaps
smartness for low sci-fi
JEREMIAH VANDERHELM
Daily Arts Writer
UNIVERSAL PICTURES
FILM REVIEW
‘Happy Death Day 2U’
Universal Pictures
Ann Arbor IMAX 20+. Goodrich Quality 16
Rolling Stone declared 2018
“a year of nineties obsessions.”
We’re one month into 2019, and
our cultural fixation on the
’90s — the clothing, the movies,
the music — looks as though
it’s finding its footing, not
losing steam. This phenomenon
is
strongest
among
college
students, I think; people who
were born in the 1990s but have
no memory of it. My friends and
I take pictures of each other
with disposable cameras; we
part our hair down the middle
and wear giant jackets and it
makes us feel cool. The nineties
happened just recently enough
that we’re able to fetishize
those years in a way that feels
accurate but isn’t, and this is
part of the appeal. It can be
anything we want it to be.
We’re curating a version
of the ‘90s for ourselves to
live through, and to do so we
punctuate the soundtrack of our
days with the music of the era —
Run-D.M.C., Melissa Etheridge,
Blondie,
the
B-52s.
These
are the conditions in which
I was first exposed to Sinéad
O’Connor. She showed up on
my Spotify Weekly playlist in
early January, a decidedly non-
analog introduction. Suddenly
it was 1990 again, the first year
of a decade whose complexities
I was born too late to remember,
whose decadent simplicity is so
very appealing.
Sinéad
O’Connor
is
an
enduring mystery. Her career
has taken sharp turns and
unexpected detours, her public
persona shifting from brave
to bizarre and back again.
In the ‘90s she became an
international icon with her
shaved head, dark eyebrows
and weird outfits. She built a
reputation as a badass Irish
pixie, someone who relished
voicing unpopular opinions.
In 1992, years before abuse in
the Catholic church was widely
discussed, O’Connor tore up a
picture of the Pope on Saturday
Night Live and told a shocked
and silent live audience
to “fight the real enemy.”
On tour in the United
States,
she
stirred
controversy for refusing
to sing if the national
anthem
was
played
before
her
concerts.
O’Connor
has
always
embraced contradiction.
She’s a loud feminist
in
baggy
clothes,
an
unmarried mother, an
angry radical, a sexy pop
star.
“You know that I can
thrill you,” she sings on
“I Want Your (Hands
on Me).” “I want you,
call me to you / I wanna
move, will you? I really
wanna feel you.” She
pivots to police brutality
on
“Black
Boys
on
Mopeds”:
“England’s
not the mythical land
of Madame George and
roses / It’s the home of
police who kill black
boys on mopeds.” She
wants sex; she wants
a more just world; she
wants love but forgets
how to give it.
This is the Sinéad of
1990’s “I Do Not Want
What I Haven’t Got,” her
second and most well-
known album. In the
music video for “Nothing
Compares 2 U,” she is beautiful
and mad in a black turtleneck.
Her voice rises sharply and
then drops to a whisper: a
wounded
bird,
a
wounded
woman. “I could put my arms
around every boy I see / But
they’d only remind me of you,”
she sings, the camera zoomed
in on her pale, angular face, and
you believe every word she says.
Then there’s the strange,
darker Sinéad, the one who
cried and ran offstage at a Bob
Dylan tribute concert, who
wrote an open letter to Miley
Cyrus telling her to dress more
conservatively, who said Prince
punched her over her cover
of “Nothing Compares 2 U.”
Similarly unsettling incidents
pepper recent news coverage
of O’Connor. In 2016, she went
missing but was later found
safe, riding her bicycle around
a suburb of Chicago. She briefly
had two face tattoos. She
appeared on Dr. Phil for a
televised therapy session
about her mother. When
she converted to Islam
in
2018,
she
legally
changed her name to
Shuhada’ Davitt. These
incidents cast O’Connor
as both vulnerable and
volatile, an artist whose
actions
are
directed
by
some
unknowable
combination of mental
illnesses,
childhood
traumas and a frustrated
excess of talent.
This is all to say that
listening to “I Do Not
Want What I Haven’t
Got” 29 years after its
release is an experience
that cannot be divorced
from
the
person
O’Connor has become
in the intervening time.
Here lies the persistent
difficulty of nostalgia:
We know how it all
turned out. But does
that really matter, when
our current infatuation
with the ‘90s is so fun?
It’s a relief to revisit
the
cultural
artifacts
of an era that seems far
less dangerous than the
current one.
“Whatever
it
may
bring / I will live by my
own policies / I will sleep with
a clear conscience / I will sleep
in peace,” O’Connor sings on
“The Emperor’s New Clothes.”
With that fuck-off attitude, her
placid anarchy: I just want to
keep listening.
Nostalgia, The ’90s, and
O’Connor’s enduring legacy
MIRIAM FRANCISCO
Daily Arts Writer
ENSIGN RECORDS
MUSIC NOTEBOOK
These incidents cast
O’Connor as both
vulnerable and volatile,
an artist whose actions
are directed by some
unknowable combination
of mental illnesses,
childhood trauamas, and a
frustrated excess of talent.