{"id":10362,"date":"2016-03-03T03:28:52","date_gmt":"2016-03-03T06:28:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/culturedarm.com\/?p=10362"},"modified":"2016-04-20T10:50:30","modified_gmt":"2016-04-20T13:50:30","slug":"culturedarms-songs-of-the-month-january-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/culturedarm.com\/staging\/5793\/culturedarms-songs-of-the-month-january-2016\/","title":{"rendered":"Culturedarm’s Songs of the Month (January 2016)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Aristophanes<\/a><\/p>\n

Laura Gibson \u2013 \u2018The Cause\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

After a string of critically acclaimed albums, If You Come to Greet Me<\/em> and\u00a0Beasts of Seasons<\/em> followed by\u00a0La Grande<\/em>, which was released on Barsuk and City Slang back in 2012, the Oregon-born singer-songwriter Laura Gibson packed up and moved to New York City, planning to complete an MFA in Creative Writing at Hunter College. But\u00a0in the midst of her studies,\u00a0on 26 March 2015, her apartment was one of those that succumbed to the gas explosion on the Lower East Side which killed two, injured nineteen, and destroyed four buildings between East 7th Street and St. Mark\u2019s Place. Laura escaped unharmed, but suffered the loss of\u00a0her belongings, including\u00a0her musical instruments and notebooks.<\/p>\n

Finishing her second semester between friends\u2019 couches and guest rooms, she embarked on Empire Builder<\/em>, an album\u2019s worth of material which takes its name from one of the busiest long-distance trains in the US, its journey from the Pacific Northwest through the Rocky Mountains to Chicago the first leg of Laura\u2019s move to New York. Empire Builder<\/em> is scheduled for release on 1 April, the grand vistas and passenger\u00a0point of view implied by the title entwining with a more personal narrative which bears traces of strife and loss: using the rubble\u00a0as a sort of palimpsest, she\u00a0endeavoured to rewrite lyrics, while having lost her guitar, along with her co-producer John Askew she decided to build structures of songs around scratch tracks from early demos.<\/p>\n

\u2018The Cause\u2019, the first song from Empire Builder<\/em>, released on 21 January, is the fire pit through\u00a0which Gibson sustains and refigures herself in the face of unrelenting fate. Her limpid voice lilts over the steady rattle and industrial clang of the percussion, as she warns, \u2018Won\u2019t you wake up \/ Or trace the plumb line to your death \/ You\u2019re fine, you\u2019ll see \/ What has love done \/ But to drag a dead deer by its horns \/ From the passing lane\u2019, and in the second verse the song really starts to swing before a swirling break. Sustained by strings, Gibson gives herself, her lovers, and her followers up, \u2018You belong to the cause\u2019 a gentle invocation in the chorus.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/cityslang\/laura-gibson-the-cause\/<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Kanye West \u2013 \u2018No More Parties in LA\u2019 (feat. Kendrick Lamar)<\/strong><\/p>\n

At the threshold of January, Kanye counted us into 2016 with \u2018FACTS\u2019<\/a>, by the end of the month Swish<\/em> had been retitled Waves<\/em> with 11 February posited as the release date, and as his upcoming album continues to take shape, in between we heard a couple of new songs, the staggered release of \u2018Real Friends\u2019<\/a> on 8 January followed just over a week later by a full version of \u2018No More Parties in LA\u2019.<\/p>\n

Work on the track\u00a0extends back to the sessions for My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy<\/em>, and to a beat put together by Madlib which samples the 1970s funk of Johnny \u2018Guitar\u2019 Watson and Junie Morrison. Over this groove, in their first collaboration, Kanye and Kendrick Lamar unfold a tale of women and riches, contrasting greed, superficiality, and unhealthy habits like pancakes and burgers at 4 am with the need for financial security and the pleasures of increased access to nice things. Kendrick\u2019s winding logic \u2013 \u2018She said she came out here to find an A-list rapper \/ I said baby spin that round and say the alphabet backwards \/ You\u2019re dealing with malpractise, don\u2019t kill a good nigga\u2019s confidence \/ Just cause he a nerd and you don\u2019t know what a condom is\u2019 \u2013 complements Kanye\u2019s declarations of love \u2013 \u2018I be worried bout my daughter, I be worried bout Kim \/ But Saint is baby Ye, I ain\u2019t worried bout him\u2019, \u2018And as far as real\u00a0friends, tell all my cousins I love em \/ Even the one that stole the laptop, you dirty motherfucker\u2019 \u2013 and Kanye\u2019s flow has never sounded more confident and composed, while the soulful sound of Junie Morrison\u2019s clipped voice, as from the first line of \u2018Suzie Thundertussy\u2019 he sings \u2018Los Angeles is a lonely sort of place\u2019, carries just enough of a sense of the Hollywood conjured by Sunset Boulevard<\/em> and Mulholland Drive<\/em>.<\/p>\n