Off White Is Now The New White

My new column for the asap debuts today. The first column is here, and includes a couple audio snippets of an interview with me as well as reviews and mp3s of songs by The Fiery Furnaces, A Frames, and Nouveau Riche.

The Coup featuring Silk E “BabyLet’sHaveABabyBeforeBushDoSomethin’Crazy” – In as much as it lacks rapping entirely, this is a very atypical track for The Coup, but in spite of some pretty solid hip hop tracks (I’ll be covering one of them in the next AP column, actually), it’s the most impressive and revealing song on their new album. It’s basically a paranoid slow jam, and though I can imagine a dozen ways a track like this could have gone wrong, Boots Riley basically came up with a dozen ways to make it exactly right. A lot of the quality comes down to the detail in the arrangement, especially the understated lead string melody that tugs at the heart like a nagging doubt, and the subtle woodwind notes that pop up momentarily when the lyrics shift into cautious optimism. This is a top drawer modern soul song that remains totally focused on the present tense and nearly devoid of musical nostalgia in spite of borrowing liberally from the past. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Joan of Arc “Many Time I’ve Mistaken” – Despite what some haters may believe, Joan of Arc are not strangers to musical prettiness. Granted, their sprawling catalog contains far more than a few clunkers, but at their finest, Tim Kinsella and his collaborators are capable of some truly gorgeous high concept folk ballads. Live In Chicago 1999 has the highest hit to miss ratio, featuring the meandering “When The Parish School Dismisses And The Children Running Sing,” the vaguely jazzy “If It Feels Good/Do It,” and the moody identity crisis “Me (Plural),” but the grandest peaks tend to come on their most inconsistent albums. How Can Anything So Little Be Any More is virtually unlistenable aside from the stately, heartbreaking “Ne Mosquitos Pass,” and The Gap is redeemed by “As Black Pants Make Cat Hairs Appear” and “Me and America,” both of which seem to stumble drunkenly into, respectively, an anthemic rock chorus and an extended, breathtaking string coda. “Many Times I’ve Mistaken,” like most of the songs from the forthcoming Everything, All At Once is surprisingly straightforward for the band. There’s simply no catch here – it’s just Tim singing one of the best melodies of his career over a graceful arrangement of acoustic guitars and cello. (Click here for Record Label’s Joan of Arc page.)