The Raw Power of the Drum and the Drum Machine; “Sleigh Bells”
Drum’s Not Dead?
Auto tune is so 2008. Purity in vocals died already, and indie artists have worked with the times and used the vocoder as a creative mechanism rather than a business one. But what the hell is with drum machines these days? Did rock and roll just lose one of it’s essential powers and positions: the use of a physical drumset, with snares, pedals, cymbals, and all? Is it because too many of the drummers are tired of being under-appreciated and don’t like telling all their friends that they are the “drummer“? Have we got a serious drum shortage problem here in the music industry? Is all of our recklessness and sloppiness of trash rock n roll now devoted to bouncy and loopy “thrash n’ roll?” Let’s face it: if a band is breaking up, the drummer is the first to go or the one to pitch a fight (Lita Ford in The Runaways). The one that is tired of just doing back up vocals and drums, the one that doesn’t express thought in interviews, the one that is constantly changing in a band with some “real” history? Name one single band that has lived a long period of time and retained it’s drummer. Drums are replaceable, but fuck people these days if you’re tired of them quitting on you. Use a drum machine. Do it yourself. Punch in some beats into the drum machine, loop it, and then strum on your guitar. Or mix it on your laptop. But if you’ve got a physical “drum machine” player, chances are you’re gonna lose this person in the same amount of time you lose the reckless kid that shatters the noise out of everything with his classically sealed drum set, like the girl that thought touring with The xx was exhaustion. It might be exhaustion of you were touring with The xx and suddenly this girl decided to become Alice Glass. The stature and landlocked position of a drum machine noisemaker has a hard time passing the excuse of tiredness to ditch the band.
808 Drum Machine–the most overused drum machine in modern hip hop, and has common use in indie artists mimicking tangy soul flavored hip hop. Thanks, Kanye.
Rock n’ roll and drum machines are hardly intertwined in all of the grand, enigmatic and superstar fueled rock n’ roll, but the importance and recognition of drums in music have been very low key. In fact, scratch that. The importance and recognition of “music” in musical endeavors have been second to marketing. But, we’re staying with the drums. I have a counterexample to the potential death of drums right here in my pocket: Justin Carder. Justin plays the drums in the conceptually dense and audibly ear damaging post-punk outfit Strip Mall Seizures. You may not have heard of them. You should. The name goes hand in hand with the sound. Imagine a crew four rowdy teenage like thirty year-old hip North Oakland clientele that play one level shows in warehouse art spaces and have a singer that ends up tangling both herself and her microphone in the center of a play fight. That’s just one raw, gritty attribute of the musically provocative and live-engaging Strip Mall Seizures. Let’s talk about Justin. He’s normal and calm (more or less) at his daily job running the pirate supply store at 826 Valencia in the Mission, aside from laughing at every other phrase uttered by a random encounter with someone from a far away country other than San Francisco, or when he’s “mopping” a curious customer who dangerously dared to spy at the book counter without knowing there was a wooden bin of broken apart rope above their head, waiting to be spilled and to scream. Justin’s as down to earth as one human being could possibly be, and I’ve always wanted to see whether he’s so relaxed at one of his gigs. But nope, he’s the madman. He’s the breaking point of a tense build up of pure organic thrash with the drums, and he’s reinvigorating the use of the drum set, one that has been beat up to the point of no more finite texture, with cymbals missing their roundness on the edge, and a little fixer upper tape to cover the snare’s holes just before an informal gig at 21 Grand warehouse in Oakland. But Justin can beat the shit out of the drums, and while he’s expressed the use of drum machines and more modern and bedroom technology in his band’s music, his raw and visceral live drumming is something you drummers out there should take advantage of. The climax of Strip Mall Seizures thirty minute fast paced and sweaty opening set was the ending number, “Free Money”, when the singer and the bassist drop their instruments, and use some sticks to start banging on one gourd. The bassist then takes the remaining clatter, a cymbal left on the ground and throws it out of his way, while Justin, looking like he’s about to flip over his drum set and start destroying it with all the muscles in his bare hands, stands up to kneel over and crash his drum sticks on the last round of sharp, echoing and nailing notes. The song right now has no more melody, it’s just a bunch of off kilter free-form mayhem, and it’s all about the drums. At this time, everyone is a percussionist, and no one is not letting loose and caving into the dimensions of the drum.
The sound may suck, but this is what I mean by “climax.” Taken by me (Gabe Connor)
Justin being himself—this photo has no relevance here, I just feel obliged to put it, though. (Photo Credit: Gabe Connor, all other photos in this entry taken by others)
Not all drumming is meant to be so loose and free of restraint. In African influences, it may be (as I’ve learned about through history classes as an example of Mestizaje–or cultural blend), but regardless of the drum machine, how bland can R&R get with a kit? A song is generally dependent on the drums, but we aren’t close to thinking that the drums are the power in the song, they may be the fuel and the under the radar skeletal necessity, but in a straight up rock n’ roll song, whether indie or mainstream–when are drums ever featured or stretched out of their repetitive, headache sensitive pattern of clean cut and already played rhythms? Are drums not meant to be just a rhythm that is constantly borrowed off of—are they supposed to be an element that’s just as interchangeable and newly created as a harmony? I’ve noticed that a common rock song does no good without the use of any percussive elements. It’s ironic how we depend so much on a backbeat and yet the backbeat is hardly ever acknowledged. In LCD Soundsystem’s “All My Friends”, the song couldn’t sustain more that comedic performance art if it didn’t have the consistent keyboard, which was all the support it had of conveying a melody. Drums are meant to be more than just a stand in device—but they can be used well even if they’re using a simple and repetitive pattern, such as on “All My Friends”, which is sort of a middle line between what percussion should be–it shouldn’t be background, but we might not take it the right way if it’s not returning to any familiarity or structure or if it’s just wandering. Even the most psychotic drummers have a way of returning to form. When I heard Yo La Tengo perform “Blue Line Swinger” live, it felt like a bunch of fractured and scattered pieces, it seemed like a collage, before it embraced full throttle. The keyboard was spare and spontaneously touched, and the drums looped in and out of the minimalist drones of the guitar. Georgia Hubley (who has the essence of the great image of a drummer, one who plays a variety of percussion and does lead vocals on a fair amount of YLT songs) would tap the drums, but when the time was right, she’d use them in their original pattern. The song would have it’s turns; I didn’t know how to take it at first. It might have been the most evocative moment of that night, because it had such a long introduction before climbing into one of the bubbliest and familiar garage rock riffs I’ve ever heard. It repeated itself, then twisted into distortion, and resolved like the pitch perfect echo of a pop song it was, yet throughout all of it’s wildness, the glimpses of sheer pop were hardly there, being brought into focus and then being pushed from out of your reach. Which is what the drums should act as. They should bring pop songs into focus and into form, and out of focus and form. Not only did the drum work in making “Blue Line Swinger” such a rarely intuitive and eye opening experience, but they did caress it, and like the rest of the songs I’ve explained, it might have not worked without them.
The analogue drum machine (oxymoron check?)
This doesn’t mean every song should contain a drum, or a rhythm. In fact, an artist should find a clever way to break the rhythmic dependency of a song. We are ever so dependent on back beats, and when broken of it there’s a slight withdrawal, it’s an unsettling and bare feeling, a song may be awakening you but you aren’t satisfied, and something may be missing. It’s experimental and can be uncomfortable when you take a song that is built to be grander than how you perform it, stripping the song of any familiar retreat of drum and spine.
On the subject of drum machines: the way we write and listen to the sound of a rhythm or a beat is changing. Drum machines have soul. Let’s clarify this for R&R purists. There’s nothing more or less soulful than “The xx”, which is another example of the interesting affect of loss of rhythmic dependency and the power of grandiosity. The xx are eerie, minimalist, and toned down—but even when you expect a song to shake into a constant line of progression before it reaches the ultimate breaking point of a chill sending climax—it’s still soulful, it comes to terms with it’s ferocity that is mellowed out under the baritone and soprano talk-whispers of the vocalists and the sharp echoes of a variety of drum machines. You may want it to release a sense of freedom, but buried under it’s restraint, The xx’s songs are not locked into any sort of monotone pattern–they are free in emotion and in aesthetic. Drum machines can work evocatively in the spirit of a curious and genuine bunch of musicians–but if they’re just another overplayed marketing niche like the auto tune–you may lose recognition of their artistic power. Independent artists know how to work with changing technology and not wallow in their cynicism of it. It may become a hipster device, but nevertheless, it’s bringing irony and artistic merit to something so unbearable on top 40 charts.
In the mainstream world, songs feels so artificial and fake, a song may be grandiose and it may have twists and turns and blasts of snares, but it’s fucking fake. There’s no soul in it, it’s grandiosity feels artificial because it doesn’t have the personality that so many other jangling songs do. Even the guitars, the melody, the artist’s voice just sound like their trapped and forced to make something sound soulful, catchy, and exuberant. Drums are a relevant and changing part of this realm: they don’t have much soul themselves anymore. We’ve whacked timbre and bone out of drums in projects such as Sonic Youth and we’ve taped them back together with the most monotone and bland patterns of 21st century alternative rock. But by taping them back together, we’ve only done a fix up job–we have yet to repair a damaged drum with an actual dosage of soul and freedom.
Sleigh Bells
In relevance to the idea of drums and drum machines, there is one band that uses the drum machines to an equivalent extent of a bonafide soul song. The xx’s use of drum machines is dense and quiet, but Sleigh Bells’s use is an antidote to the reputation that The xx give to drum machines (the New Order nostalgia syndrome). A drum machine can have raw power too, take the example of Sleigh Bells’ “Crown On the Ground.” It is the catchiest earbug that drives me to hear more, but on the other hand, reaches to the maximum volume in it’s ear splitting siren opening and distorted glitch based hook. I have to keep the volume down low when listening to it in comparison to the normal volume on my iTunes library, it is much louder than usual. But that hook, full of mashed together synths and shattering drum machines that sounds off kilter and at the same time pitch perfect melodically, is what draws me back. It has a sort of free willing spirit, it is a frolic romp of pomp and swagger, bouncing like a hip-hop track but with the grittiness of a punk song, and the flat out joy of soul. Along with “Stillness Is The Move” it might be the best Indie foray into the borrowed craving for the smokiness of soul and hip-hop. The lead singer Alexis Krauss channels a breathy, minimal, and layered chant that finds itself in several harmonic loops twisted inside the exuberance of the feedback vibrating chorus, her chirping frailty is a great contrast to the heaviness of the track; it has the pulse of an 80′s song. And all of this mayhem is a wonder to behold.
Sleigh Bells’ energy may be a counterexample to my earlier declaration that you can’t get exhausted playing a drum machine live. The xx don’t play drum machines like Sleigh Bells or industrial glitch pioneers Fuck Buttons do, they don’t sweat and shake it off–and it’s hard to blame them–their sound does enough and they don’t want to disrupt their aesthetic with any unnecessary touches.
Fuck Buttons and their table of synths that they play so recklessly and engagingly.
Sleigh Bells use the drum machine to their blissful live advantage. The sound of their music is already meant to be loud and headbanger gathering live, and it already is on the record if you have a quiet space where no one can see you thrash dance embarrassingly in a place that isn’t a dingy one level club (which is quite embarrassing). The drum machine is not used live, it’s a laptop that mixes the beats, and the guy in the band plays guitar in the most distorted, screeching, and industrial manor, it’s treble so harsh and erupting with a blast of sonic madness. But the drum machines are buried under layers of fuzz and lo-fi recording, and you can tell, like on the track “A/B Machines” (hello, it’s named for the drum machines themselves!) that they work as the spine for the song, they’re bells and whistles but they also give the song it’s cheerleader spirit and kicking rhythm.
Sleigh Bells’ debut album Treats was released digitally May 11th. I’ve listened to the album multiple times, and certain songs and sections grow on me with each listen. From their 2009 file sharing hit EP 2Hellwu Sleigh Bells take original versions of “Crown On The Ground”, “Infinity Guitars” and “A/B Machines”, yet rename and reconstruct the EP’s “Ring Ring” to “Rill Rill” and create an even more drastic twist in arrangements from the EP’s “Beach Girls” being renamed “Kids.” I recognized the song as a leftover from the EP so passionately, but I had no idea it was “Beach Girls” until a friend told me. “Beach Girls” has sirens that are full of hip hop swagger and pompousness, yet “Kids” is polished with more riffs, more distortion, and more lo-fi beats. With the help of performance artist and remarkable musician MIA, Sleigh Bells released ‘Treats’ on her N.E.E.T imprint, which brings the works of other underground artists such as Rye Rye to recognition. Sleigh Bells are obviously a band M.I.A is built to love; their songs are full of dance hall fun with a blast of attitude and sass that M.I.A stresses on in the bulk of her work. But the best way to describe Sleigh Bells’ catchy yet headache inducing songs, aside from the excellent and funny made up subgenre of “Dream Crunk” is a pop song gone sour. It’s a spoiled prom dance or cheerleading match, it’s revenge on your best friend, it’s full of nostalgic high school anthems that have so much to give in the moment yet when you hear them their is a sense of reflection and nostalgia—and it can be much more emotionally deep than the screechy, savvy beats of producer and guitarist Derek Miller and the soft chanteuse sparks of vocalist Alexis Krauss, who provides an excellent contrast to the noisiness and abrasiveness surrounding. She can stand the distortion of her perfect pop song gone sour, she’s in her element, keeping the low profile of glossy and feminine vocal inputs, but she’s ever so ferocious as she withstands the chaos. If Alexis Krauss can be herself amongst a cauldron of inaudible and intense beats, then we all can.
But there is a point in why Sleigh Bells’ music is unbearable for someone so used to listening to well mastered and produced music, a kind that evokes controversy in the subtlest and most sensitive form. But Sleigh Bells, without the cynicism of other media and audience tricking musicians (for example MGMT), are playing with their audience’s levels of emotional capacity and territory–without the same depth as similar noisemakers Crystal Castles (who cannot really convey anywhere close to pop music)–but with similar angst, their taking music to unexplored levels of comfort zones, and ultimately challenging the listener’s sense of humor and seriousness and perception of what constitutes “art” or “music.” Sleigh Bells have a message to deliver here, it may be borrowed by millions of Andy Warhol aesthetic similarities (let’s face it, Lady Gaga may be shocking, but she’s average pop), but it’s supported by the sounds of their music. You may think it is cynicism and self absorption, but it’s actually inclusion to an array of musical terrain, a juggernaut that is positive, empowering, and creative, and less of a negative or self obsessed statement to a world of less and less originality.
Of all the songs on this album, the best I can name aside my first love, “Crown On The Ground” is the featured single, titled “Tell ‘Em.” It’s the perfect bound of everything Sleigh Bells, such as the gang bang sirens, the instant loudness and firmness of the beats that then dissolve and settle into their roughest qualities of killer super lo-fied riffs. Krauss’ vocals step right into the mixture, as the constant beats pull through and Miller contributes a spot on blast of distorted garage rock riffs, which may be the most honest rock n’ roll riffs on the entire album, but they still keep the song and it’s tempo in the name of electronic music. Their sound is not able to categorize, whether it has the grit and flavor of crunk and hip hop, the drum machines that kick in to act as electronic music, or better put “techno”, or even Miller’s abrasive riffs to dub the name of “industrial rock.” Or is it just Krauss’ voice that discerns it all–it’s just pop music? If it’s pop music, then it’s pop music gone physically sour, but if this is the future of pop itself, we’ve gotten rid of all the spoiled and overused niches themselves. In that regard, Sleigh Bells are fresh.
