You Looked Like A Painting Out On The Sidewalk

Women “Black Rice” – In 2008, any semi-competent person can make a recording that sounds pretty good for a relatively small sum of money. No one needs to be “lo-fi” anymore, but it’s still an aesthetic choice available to artists. Some bands, such as Times New Viking, are intentionally abrasive, and coat all of their songs in a tinny, in-the-red din. They go for novelty, and the quality of their music is rather hit or miss. Women, a band from Calgary, use the lo-fi sound to a different end. For them, it’s a distancing device. They aren’t trying to push away the audience, but rather to separate themselves from a wave of superficially similar artists, most of whom happen to be on Sub Pop’s current roster. Whereas acts such as the Shins and Fleet Foxes deliver their tunes with crisp precision and ruthlessly tasteful production values, Women opt for a sense of extreme immediacy and intimacy. Their songs are just as pretty, and their influences and arrangements are not dissimilar to many of their contemporaries, but their material has the benefit of feeling raw, alive, and fully present. “Black Rice” in particular is gorgeous, but it’s not especially graceful — there are moments when the lead guitar part feels somewhat hesitant, and the piece as a whole seems ambivalent about its own beauty. That subtextual tension feeds into the content of the song, adding to its potent yet murky mix of emotions. (Click here for the Women MySpace page.)