16) Beams - Matthew Dear (TOP 20 OF 2012)

Beams

Matthew Dear

Ghostly International.

SCQ Rating: 80%

Music critics are so engaged with peering into the artistic realm that it’s funny when artists appear to be gazing back. Lord knows what Matthew Dear has been reading of his own press but something must be said of Ghostly’s promotional video for Beams, which seems to harness only the most grandiose of associations with the electronic pop artist. While Dear sits in a NYC loft like an emotionless icon, various artists surround him: a poet reads aloud, a trumpeter plays, an interpretive dancer performs and Ghostly artist Michael Cina paints a portrait of him.

The implicitly highbrow aspirations aren’t the problem; it’s just that Beams doesn’t cater to any of that daring. Instead of leaping into unsure waters, these eleven tracks boast Dear’s assuredness as a producer of immaculate, off-kilter pop and a singer of creative means. The scale of “Her Fantasy” is devastating in the realm of electronic pop, and hooks formed out of Dear’s bizarre, multilayered phrasings strike repeated sweet-spots in “Fighting Is Futile”, “Ahead Of Myself”, and “Temptation”. Less ambitious than the claustrophobic Black City and all the better for it, Beams lacks a grab-me guise to present itself under. But boring as it may sound without the trumpets and dancers, this is the sound of Dear’s open loft; lots of light, space and consistency. That, in and of itself, presents a lovely change of pace.

Headcage EP - Matthew Dear

Headcage EP

Matthew Dear

Ghostly International.

SCQ Rating: 75%

Matthew Dear’s pop trajectory looked pretty well paved out in wake of 2007’s Asa Breed. He’d abandoned some techno momentum in favour of catchy dynamics and streamlined his lyricism to a contagious filter of kinetic longings – the sort of template one could technically run on for years. But those who anticipated Dear’s eventual follow-up to carry a sound closer to the rave-up dance styling of LCD Soundsystem were roundly bemused when Black City reorganized the tenets of dance music around Dear’s carnal instincts. Looming on sinister rhythms and abrasive layers, Black City was difficult enough to navigate without guessing what lay on the horizon of its outskirts but that reality – here in the form of Headcage EP – isn’t some terrifying sequel.

Instead, these four songs thrive on the same off-kilter rhythms and Dear’s warped growls but breathe a little sparser than usual. Stripped of its saturated layers, the title track’s stuttering chorus hook feels sharp and purposeful next to its curious, near-funky bounce. The success of ‘Headcage’ as a return to less art-damaged origins merely hints at the surprises on this new EP, since the subsequent material finds Dear’s go-to sonic trademarks increasingly evaporative. His always claustrophobic sense of percussion feels thwarted by the relaxed organ permeating ‘In the Middle (Where I Met You)’ and the choral ambience stretching ‘Around a Fountain’ over minimal techno patterings.

It’s a brave move for any electronic artist – reducing one’s overall attack to a nuanced exercise in bare-boned songwriting – and I think a natural reaction for many fans will be to decry its focus as something undercooked. But Dear has made a firm believer of me with this song-cycle, offering a sleeper set of new tunes that seek peace as much as a reliably strange beat to live by. In the wake of Black City’s cesspool of confrontational armor, Headcage EP sounds as though Dear’s cleansing himself for another evolution.

Asa Breed (Black Edition) - Matthew Dear

Asa Breed (Black Edition)

Matthew Dear
Ghostly International Records.


SCQ Rating: 77%

Since I’m the kind of record-buyer who enjoys buying new music on the day of its release, I don’t often get the thrill of owning specialty reissues armed with bonus tracks and cooler artwork. So when bands I dig put out ‘Tour Edition’ copies of their CD or decide to re-release their older material with double-disc treatment, I curse my eagerness. When techno-whiz Matthew Dear's latest was first released in the summer of 07, I downloaded several songs and put it on my extensive list of discs to buy… but never got around to it. So when my girlfriend came back from New Hampshire with a wrapped up copy of the newly released, U.S.A.-only, Asa Breed Black Edition for me, I was pretty damn excited. Yes, this is one of the few cases where my apathy paid off.

One of the reasons I kept the purchase of this CD on the backburner for so long is that my initial listens left me unsatisfied. Because it was praised as an electro-pop record and compared by many critics as similar to the work of LCD Soundsystem, I’d take a burned copy of my makeshift Asa Breed album to work and let it play in the background. That was my first mistake – treating it like an extroverted album – which led into the assumption (and my second error-in-judgement) that this might not be a record worth owning. Both of these seemingly harmless actions were immediately understood once I put the Black Edition through my headphones last week.

Despite the dance pedigree that Dear has earned, Asa Breed’s deep bass and beat patterns distracted me from what my headphone experience pointed out: there is a hell of a lot happening on this record, most of which I would’ve never caught over that shoddy stereo at work. ‘Deserter’ and ‘Don and Sherri’ are clear standouts from any speakers, but upon close inspection, Dear has put his all into songs like the rackety dance-chant ‘Fleece on Brain’ or the bluesy electronics of ‘Good to be Alive’; dance tracks that are given the pop hooks to transcend music boundaries. While that alone might warrant the LCD comparison, Dear has used the same recipe to create a drastically different result; where James Murphy clung to his hipster record collection for inspiration, Dear’s quiet eccentricities alone make this an impressive and bizarrely original pop record.

Much of Dear’s personality can be felt in his vocals; an aspect of Asa Breed that many saw as a hindrance. And while I initially agreed that his vocals weren’t spectacular, I never considered that maybe Dear wasn’t aiming for pleasant sing-alongs. As proven by ‘Death to Feelers’ or the lush ‘Deserter’, Matthew Dear is a completely serviceable singer… he just isn’t content to rest on that. Pick just about any song on Asa Breed and you’ll find several layers of vocals: a high-strung soulful voice and a small chorus of speak-singers, both anchored by Dear’s natural baritone. Together, these multi-tracked voices create a purposefully strange combination – an organically constructed electronic tone, if you will – that gives an otherworldly feel to the killer chorus of ‘Don and Sherri’ or the candle-lit slowburner ‘Will Gravity Win Tonight?’. Careful listening will also unveil layers of vocals that are separate from the lyrics; nearly wordless (but decodable) chants that like a keyboard refrain assist in completing Dear’s beat patterns.

Of course, what makes the Black Edition so special is the inclusion of several bonus tracks, previously released on seven-inch singles but compiled here for the first time. Four Tet re-imagines ‘Deserter’ with some pre-school piano arpeggios and a sparkling loop of electronics that give the single a climax it never had, while Hot Chip reinvents ‘Don and Sherri’ from top to bottom, replacing Dear’s vocals with Alexis Taylor’s and using a ton of synths to emphasize Dear’s romantic deliberation. Bonus tracks sewn onto the end of an album can often damage the core material but here it works, largely because Asa Breed undergoes a dramatic shift in its third act, introducing guitar-rock and some Johnny Cash-flavoured lyricism. This tail-end is the only section of the album that is truly hit and miss, but the newly added remixes and bonus song help to reign the album back to form after such a sudden change of focus.

Since Matthew Dear is off on tour with both Four Tet and Hot Chip right now, this Black Edition makes a lot of sense in the land of cash-in reissues. On the other hand, like a movie that returns to theatres a second time in a last-chance bid for Oscar consideration, Asa Breed is back for those, like myself, who may have missed its quirks the first time out. Certainly worth a second listen.