Lightbulbs are transparent things

Fujiya & Miyagi - Lightbulbs [2008]

It’s a cliché of criticism to say that a band records the same song or the same album over and over. It’s generally bullshit perpetrated by those who want to dismiss a piece of music offhand, but there’s also some truth to it (as acknowledged by Love is All who called their 2006 album “Nine Times That Same Song”). For one, in the end, all music is about organising sound over time – so a five word history of music might read “Infinity times that same song”. But that’s not to say that repetition is a-ok. Sometimes it blows, because, well, it’s boring.

But if talented musicians reinterpret and challenge a formula, song to song, the result might be great music, in spite of the accusation that they’re reinventing the wheel. Bringing us to Fujiya & Miyagi’s newie, Lightbulbs. Lightbulbs happens to sound a lot like Fujiya & Miyagi’s excellent 2006 break-out, Transparent Things, and not just in a sound-over-time sort of way. The Brighton four-piece are still pumping out funky, bassy Krautrock over silly lyrics about household items. For those of us who were all over that shit in 2006, the question is whether they break through the seen-it-all-before threshold and back into the awesomesphere this second time around.

The answer is yes and no. Fujiya & Miyagi are still as catchy, fun and stupid as ever. They still sound great from car speakers and if you spin this thing at a party you’ll still get strangers nodding their heads and asking who these funky mofos are. Because the band’s formula is relatively unique, the need for musical evolution is diminished. One spin of album opener “Knickerbocker” or the appropriately titled “Uh” reveal Fujiya & Miyagi doing what they do best with, to quote Borat, great success.

And yet, a couple of things tend to dim Lightbulbs in the context of Transparent Things. Fujiya and Miyagi’s only attempt at anything different here comes in the form of two down-tempo tracks: “Goosebumps” and the eponymous “Lightbulbs”. Both fail. Fujiya & Miyagi are built for driving four-four grooves, but these tracks plod. They break up the album unnecessarily and feel like a token nod to the expectation that their sound evolve. And while the rest of the album pretty much regurgitates the Fujiya & Miyagi formula to success, closer “Hundreds and Thousands” is pretty much an instrumental version of Transparent Things opener “Ankle Injuries”. It seems an odd way to finish.

Still, apart from the plodders, props to Fujiya & Miyagi for shamelessly rocking a pretty sweet formula.

The Forefront of Unclassifiable

subtle - Exiting Arm [2008]

subtle’s 2006 album, for hero:for fool, always struck me as sounding like music from the FUTURE. The way subtle morphed these rambunctious beats through some very weird production, the way that it didn’t conform to any of the tropes of indie rock and yet was somehow firmly grounded in the indie aesthetic, the way the raps had no real point of comparison in modern hip hop, and the way the whole thing was somehow catchy – all of this created the time travel effect. I mean, imagine hearing cutting edge music 10 or 20 years from now without the benefit of context. So many of the evolutionary steps that are embedded in the music – and familiar to contemporary listeners – would be lost to you. It’s going to sound familiar yet different, like how rye whiskey tastes. subtle mimic this effect by being so forward looking and unique.

subtle are still rocking the time machine with Exiting Arm, providing further evidence that they’re at the absolute forefront of whatever genre they’re supposedly in. iTunes tells me that for hero:for fool is in a genre called “Unknown” (with the exception of one track, which is unhelpfully classified as “General Hip Hop”), while Exiting Arm is simply “Rock”. This is rubbish, but I’m not sure that I could do better. Is it possible to be at the forefront of “Unclassifiable”?

Title track opener “Exiting Arm” provides all the evidence. Like most of the songs here, it’s driven by percussion – in this case, a thumping, fast rap beat. Then, like a lot of great Beatles tunes, the lyrics start with the chorus. Meantime, a whining, distorted riff weaves its way around the beat, keeping pace, and further rhythm is provided by a looping, Brian Eno-does-Microsoft hum. When the guitar drops out for the verse, we’re immediately in hip hop territory. In the course of less than four minutes subtle manipulate this tension between musical genres. The bridge at the 2 minute mark is a classic electro break, while the one forty seconds later is “Rock” – everything drops out besides the voice and the bass. Somehow, it’s all catchy as hell.

Thus, Exiting Arm is the best possible musical mindfuck. “Sick Soft Perfection” drops spooky, Amnesiac beats and pained electronic glitches under subtle’s already-weird vocals at their most disjunctive. To their credit, subtle never allow the density of the music and the ideas behind it to take over, as evidenced by the surprising moments of clarity like the rap break-down in “Unlikely Rock Shock”. And while the lyrics are largely incomprehensible, you’re occasionally given a hint that what’s being said doesn’t just sound like it might be profane, it actually is: see “what sort of armor can the average man arrange inside of him?” and “Q: what’s working man’s hope? A: they call it cope”. [Edit: Also see this fucking nutso flash site the band put together to accompany the album, featuring interactive poetry.]

The future called, they want their music back.