Something’s Here But Something’s Gone

The Clientele “Joseph Cornell” – You can listen to this song during the day, and because it is an exceptional composition it will sound just fine, but it will only really make sense at night. (This is also the case for the vast majority of the Clash’s discography, most of which sounds as though it was recorded in a world illuminated only by the moon, street lamps, neon signage, and fluorescent light leaking out the windows of buildings.) The lyrics are fully aware that the music is about the night, and more than that, a feeling of emotional absence accompanying physical presence as two people make their way home in the wee hours. The words set the song in London, but the mention of Delancey Street and quiet late night train rides keeps my mind in Manhattan, in part because I can’t help being a bit provincial, but more in that the Lower East Side is a place that I associate with this type of scene, and this particular sort of loneliness. (Click here to buy it from Merge.)

Grachan Moncur III “When” – The song walks in aimless circles, somehow lost in a place it knows too well. It doesn’t matter what the other instruments do — if they pull off in another direction, if they whine and moan and protest, if they cool out and nod gently — they can’t escape the gravity of that unchanging piano motif. It’s an anchor, and even if its chords are calming, by the end of the piece, it becomes clear that it has kept the song contained within a stifling perimeter. It grinds down on hope, and reinforces pessimism. It’s a beautiful performance full of inspired improvisations, but that just makes the piece more terrifying and seductive. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)