donderdag 22 oktober 2015

Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks : 122 - 2012

122
2012/08/03, Deaf Institute, Manchester
1% of 1


The august 2012 tour is where it happens – wave two of the songs for 'Wig out'. For a summation of the first wave, see note 105. But in summation, the first wave had a number of quality songs, some slow and singer-songwriterly, some knotty and proto-prog. A good start but no clear direction for the new album yet. It must've been between the first and second wave that Stephen's wife told him to cheer up his songs and write a fun record. A task he set himself with relish. Wave two (the songs debuted on the august tour) is a clear departure: 'Houston Hades', 'Chartjunk' (originally titled 'PR Tomb'), 'Lariat' (originally titled 'Chicago') plus the unreleased 'Blind imagination', a re-arranged ballad version of 'Flower children', a recovered (from 2008) 'Cinnamon and lesbians' and the first concert airing of a song from the first wave of writing 'Pick up the spare'. A nice crop. We'll see these songs pass by the next couple of days. At this point it became possible to compile indicative tracklists for an album to be called 'Analog heat' and speculate about what the sixth album would sound like (I certainly did so).

From this early night of the tour there are a number of performances on YouTube, including the new arrangement of 'Cinnamon and lesbians', but I've restricted myself to this nine minute '1% of one'. In comparison to the Granada theater version from february they try for the same telepathic interplay but listen closely and you hear several cues misfire. Stephen's trying for a number of moments but the band follows just a second too late. Early tour stiffness? Still, on its own it's a good performance. And it's got a great moment with Stephen's guitar imitating the sound of a ceiling fan. That's a keeper.

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