The 
magical 
thing 
about 
Animal 
Collective’s 
co-founding 
member 
Avey 
Tare, also known as David 
Portner, is his ability to make 
the abrasive sound beautiful. 
He can take piercing, droning 
synths fit for an industrial 
show and alter them until 
they are more fit for a relaxing 
summer evening of reflection 
and remembrance. Avey Tare 
showcases this prowess once 
again on his sixth full-length 
release, Cows on 
Hourglass Pond.
Tare kicks off 
the 
album 
with 
the 
remarkably 
abstract 
“What’s 
the 
Goodside.” 
Though a dance-
inspired 
drum 
pattern drives the 
song, 
Tare 
has 
no 
intention 
of 
coaxing 
listeners 
to get up and dance. Instead, 
through 
the 
utilization 
of 
nearly indecipherable lyrics 
and vocals processed with 
effects like distortion, reverb 
and god knows what else, 
he conjures a song that is 
guaranteed to make listeners 
stop what they are doing for 
a chance to decode whatever 
meaning they believe to be 
hidden within the song.
This trend continues and is 
expanded upon as the album 
rolls. Songs like “Nostalgia 
in Lemonade” are not nearly 
as lyrically dense as “What’s 
the Goodside,” but they are 
just as challenging sonically. 
“Nostalgia 
in 
Lemonade” 
is 
simply 
about 
enjoying 

lemonade on a warm day, 
yearning for just one more 
sip long after the drink has 
been finished. Despite this 
straightforward 
message, 
the instrumental is anything 
but simple. It begins with a 
clipping, skipping hum that 
metamorphs into a buzzing 
synthesizer 
burst 
layered 
beneath a glimmering string 
section led by an airy guitar. 
The sheer contrast of these 
sounds is challenging enough, 
but further exacerbated by the 
fact that it is just as gorgeous 
as it is trance-inducing.
If 
the 
electronic 

instrumentals were stripped 
away 
and 
replaced 
by 
something more acoustic and 
folksy, Cows on Hourglass Pond 
would be fit to be performed 
at local folk venue The Ark. 
Each song on the album has 
the ability to call old memories 
to the forefront of listeners’ 
mind and make readers reflect 
on the lyrics, no matter how 
nonpictorial 
they 
may 
be. 
Tare’s 
ability 
to 
combine 
psychedelic folk music with 
the avant garde and create 
something completely new is 
truly a marvel. The album’s 
closing track “HORS_” is the 
ultimate culmination of Tare’s 
skill.
Unlike 
“Nostalgia 
in 

Lemonade” and “Chilly Blue,” 
“HORS_” finds Tare at his 
most subdued musically. Until 
the very end of the song, 
he keeps the instrumental 
relatively simple with a driving 
acoustic guitar, pulsating hand 
claps and chime-like keys, 
instead opting to experiment 
with his voice by messing with 
the elongation of each word 
and raising and lowering his 
voice at whim. The lyrics are 
marked by non sequiturs and 
verge toward the nonsensical, 
described by Tare himself 
as “an ode to horses.” As the 
song continues, all lyrics are 
replaced 
with 
unintelligible 
vocals 
and 
humming 
that 
would 
sound 
right at home on 
Bon Iver’s 22, A 
Million. As soon 
as listeners settle 
into this soothing 
section, the song 
disintegrates into 
static, providing an 
abrupt end to the album.
Avey Tare’s efforts on Cows 
on Hourglass Pond do not 
go unnoticed. He creates an 
atmosphere of curiosity and 
wonder in manner similar to the 
early work of Wallace Stevens, 
specifically 
“Comedian 
as 
the Letter C.” That is to say 
that album does not primarily 
emphasize meaning. The lyrics 
are still important, but they 
are not central to the album, 
which is why they are often 
muddled and processed. Cows 
on Hourglass Pond focuses 
instead 
on 
the 
form 
and 
execution of its sound, so that 
all listeners can find a way to 
relate their own nostalgia and 
memories to each song.

‘Cows on Hourglass Pond’ 
is folk for a new generation

JIM WILSON
Daily Arts Writer

ALBUM REVIEW

DOMINO

Cows on Hourglass 
Pond

Avey Tare

Domino Recording Company

Certain genres of electronic 
music, such as house and 
techno, are ostensibly quite 
limited in their scope. 110-150 
BPM. Four-on-the-floor beats. 
Synthesized basslines. These 
frameworks exist to make 
DJ’s lives easier, allowing 
them to tempo match and 
transition seamlessly between 
songs in their mixes. The last 
thing a DJ wants, after 
all, is a transition that 
makes 
things 
choppy 
and disrupts the flow of 
the party. It takes a truly 
talented 
musician 
to 
reside in this somewhat 
limited framework and be 
creative and innovative 
within it. One of the most 
exciting of these masters 
is South Africa’s Black 
Coffee.
Nkosinathi 
Innocent 
Maphumulo, 
better 
known as Black Coffee, 
was 
born 
in 
Durban, 
South Africa and studied 
music 
at 
the 
Durban 
University of Technology 
before 
launching 
into 
the South African dance 
music scene. He started 
DJing at a very young 
age, 
taking 
influences 
from the local disco and 
popular music coming 
from the townships of 
South Africa. His first 
big break came when 
he was selected as a 
participant in the Red 
Bull Music Academy. Since 
then, he’s only risen upward, 
winning award after award for 
his work and performing with 
Boiler Room, Mixmag, Ultra, 
Sonar and a host of other 
electronic music institutions. 
He sells out shows everywhere 
from Miami to Ibiza, with a 
unique style that has helped 
him stand out from the hordes 
of similar-sounding European 
DJs.
Black 
Coffee’s 
specialty 
house originated in Chicago 
in the early 1980s. Black DJs 
such as Frankie Knuckles used 
new instruments, particularly 

a variety of drum machines 
and synthesizers. They used a 
love for genres, such as disco 
and European dance music, 
to create a genre to be played 
in spaces which expressly 
forbade 
any 
discrimination 
with regards to race, gender, 
sexual orientation, etc.
In an interview with DJ 
Mag, Black Coffee notes, “I 
understood the depth of the 
jazz genre, and on the flipside 
I also understood dance music. 

So I was in a very fortunate 
position. What I wanted to 
do was bridge the gap, and 
with my understanding of 
jazz, be able to simplify it so 
the dance music fan doesn’t 
feel overwhelmed by it.” But 
jazz is far from the only genre 
to influence his mostly deep 
house discography.
In the backdrop of the fall 
of apartheid in the late 1980s 
and early 1990s, a genre called 
kwaito emerged in the Soweto 
township 
of 
Johannesburg. 
Kwaito borrows heavily from 
house, but often slows down 
the beats and incorporates 

elements of disco and R&B as 
well as spoken lyrics.
Watching 
one 
of 
Black 
Coffee’s sets, it’s easy to notice 
he is not a run-of-the-mill DJ. 
Tall and imposing, he is one of 
those DJs who is fully focused 
on the technicalities of his 
craft, preferring to eschew 
frequent crowd interaction. 
His 
mixes 
are 
fluid 
and 
vibrant, with several remix 
tracks of the South African 
canon. 
He 
is 
particularly 
talented 
at 
managing 
the dynamic of the mix, 
pacing his sequence of 
tracks, not only using 
melodic or rhythmic cues 
but also dynamic range 
and character. Even more 
impressively, he does his 
work without the use of 
his left arm, which was 
paralyzed after a car 
accident when he was 
only 14.
Even 
within 
the 
aforementioned 
limited 
house framework, Black 
Coffee innovates. Those 
same 
four-on-the-floor 
breakbeats are infused 
with 
rhythms 
and 
instrumentation from his 
home country’s musical 
tradition. House clichés, 
such as whispery female 
vocals, 
are 
executed 
using 
samples 
from 
South African soul and 
disco 
music 
coming 
from the townships of 
Johannesburg 
and 
his 
hometown, Durban.
Diversity is not quite 
what people associate with 
house these days. But it’s worth 
remembering the origins of the 
genre, and especially now, it’s 
worth getting excited about 
its future. The rise of artists 
such as Black Coffee represent 
a future of house where the 
world’s soundscapes become 
ever more present. The bare 
bones of house will likely 
remain the same, and will 
remain as a canvas for artists 
to paint over. But the sounds 
will hopefully be as varied as 
the people that make them, 
and the parties of the world 
will become a bit richer.

Black Coffee, South 
African house

DAILY WORLD MUSIC COLUMN

SAYAN GHOSH
Daily World Music Columnist

Even within the 
aforementioned limited 
house framework, Black 
Coffee innovates. Those 
same four-on-the-floor 
breakbeats are infused 
with rhythms and 
instrumentation from his 
home country’s musical 
tradition.

TV REVIEW

Community is a fragile thing, 
often built on fantasy, or a 
promise of a different reality. 
A community is a collection of 
people, some good and some 
bad, who share the goal of 
doing what’s best for their small 
locality. Yet, NBC has crafted 
“The Village”: a show based not 
on the give-and-take of living 
and finding commonality with 
those who are vastly different 
from you, but on the premise of 
interlocking stories as the sole 
basis of a familial relationship.
“The Village” is an almost 
fairytale-like 
apartment 
building in Brooklyn, where 
the colorful residents find not 
just a community, but a family. 
The premiere follows a few 
intertwined 
threads. 
First, 
disabled veteran Nick (Warren 
Christie, 
“The 
Resident”) 
returns home from Iraq, finding 
companionship with some old 
retired soldiers. One of these 

is Enzo (Dominic Chianese, 
“The Sopranos”), who’s escaped 
from his nursing home with his 
son’s credit card. Meanwhile, 
one of Enzo’s nurses — and 
Nick’s old girlfriend 
— Sarah (Michaela 
McManus, 
“Aquarius”) 
struggles to relate 
to 
her 
teenage 
daughter, 
Katie 
(Grace 
Van 
Dien, 
“Charlie 
Says”), 
who 
finds 
out 
she’s 
pregnant. 
Meanwhile, 
when 
Ava (Moran Atias, 
“The 
Resident”), 
an Iranian refugee, 
is apprehended by 
ICE, 
local 
police 
officer, Ben (Jerod 
Haynes, 
debut) 
takes her son in as she is being 
investigated further.
To clear the air, “The Village” 
has been compared to — and for 
good reason — NBC’s emotional 
tour de force, “This Is Us.” 

They share a lot in common: 
interconnected 
stories, 
tearjerker moments and a plot 
built on the struggle of familial 
relationships. That being said, 

“The Village” is absolutely not 
“This Is Us.” It isn’t because the 
story is different, but because 
“The Village” has fundamental 
flaws that stop it from ever 
reaching the emotional gravity 

of “This Is Us.”
First and foremost is the 
very 
strange 
use 
of 
“Talk 
Dirty to Me” by Jason Derulo, 
featuring 
2 
Chainz. 
When 

might this song play during a 
show whose integral drive and 
fuel is its viewer’s tears? When 
three old guys are ogling a yoga 
instructor in the nursing home.
Additionally, 
rather 
than 

crafting 
a 
story 
that 
will 
organically 
offer 
emotional 
gravitas, “The Village” exploits 
elements that will guarantee 
cheap sympathy. Take Nick, 
who represents the 
show’s 
pinch 
of 
token 
patriotism. 
There’s no genuine 
discussion 
of 
the 
horrors 
of 
war 
or 
the 
hidden 
repercussions 
that 
haunt 
the 
minds of veterans 
— something that 
is 
very 
important 
thematically to “This 
Is Us.” Instead, we 
simply receive the 
hollow presence of 
a one-legged vet and 
his 
twin 
German 
Shepherds.
While the show is on the 
verge of a diverse cast, the 
problems are very white, while 
the problems facing minorities 
go mostly overlooked. There’s 
yet to be a discussion of what 

inner conflict Ben must feel 
as a Black cop in gentrified 
Brooklyn. 
Likewise, 
the 
presence 
of 
undocumented 
immigrants are used as a self-
explanatory critique on current 
politics, rather than a genuine 
exploration of what it means to 
be stateless in modern America, 
following a disturbing new 
trend in TV where all immigrant 
characters are undocumented 
and on the verge of deportation.
The 
emphasis 
on 
family 
in “The Village” is awkward 
and misplaced. Not because 
it doesn’t belong, but because 
it feels forced. The show’s 
generally talented cast cannot 
save the story’s inability to 
create 
genuine 
connections 
between the characters. It’s 
very mellow and seeks to score 
easy, 
passionate 
clout 
that 
it really doesn’t deserve. If 
there’s any takeaway from “The 
Village,” it’s that this is not 
what a community is like. It’s 
time to put an end to the “This 
Is Is” counterfeits.

MAXWELL SCHWARZ
Daily Arts Writer

‘The Village’ aspires to 
emote, falls short of feeling

The Village

Pilot

NBC

Tuesdays, 9 p.m.

NBC

6A — Monday, March 25, 2019
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com