Meet ‘The Talkbox’: A&E’s new music discussion

“The Talkbox” is a new feature for The Pitt News, in which three A&E writers dissect three of the week’s new music releases and bicker about which albums brought them joy, anger, sadness or simply made them scream. For the inaugural edition, Dan Willis, Nuria Marquez and Shawn Cooke discussed new releases from A Sunny Day in Glasgow, How To Dress Well and Phox.

A Sunny Day in Glasgow – Sea When Absent

Dan Willis: The thing I’ve always loved about these guys is the way they use not necessarily a shoegaze sound pallette, but a shoegaze modus operandi. It’s still rock music, but it’s just slathered with effects until you have no idea what’s happening. Where a band like My Bloody Valentine just brute forces those effects by daisy chaining thirty pedals together and recording fifty tracks of guitar, something feels very deliberate about A Sunny Day in Glasgow. They’re also not afraid to use really digital sounds, either. I actually thought the pitch-shifting on “Golden Waves” was strangely beautiful.

And the lead single, “In Love with Useless,” reminds me of their past album standouts, the way it slaloms through several totally distinct sections. Plus the effect that comes in about 18 seconds in is perfect. It makes these sudden chasms of silence in the vocal track, which is a brilliant microcosm of the band’s sound. There’s a lot of reverb, but it’s transparent enough for you to see what’s going on underneath.

Shawn Cooke: The pitch-shifting is gorgeous, but if there’s anything strange about “Golden Waves,” it’d have to be that it provides one of the few moments of vocal clarity on Sea When Absent. ASDIG so expertly mashes together enough beautiful moments of dreamy pop to make Chvrches blush but with these massively disorienting and dizzying effects. Perhaps even more disorienting is when they seem to fully commit to a straightforward and crystal-clear pop song, like “The Body, It Bends.”

Nuria Marquez: It’s a little too electro synth-pop (I don’t know what you kids call it) for my personal taste, but I can definitely appreciate how despite all the distortion and effects this still sounds very clean and completely assured. It’s all done with purpose instead of flashiness. But I did love “Golden Waves” — it has a lot going on and still manages to be a simply beautiful track.

How To Dress Well – What Is This Heart?

SC: If we owe anything to Sam Smith’s boring, uninspired and acoustic guitar-heavy debut, In The Lonely Hour, it’s that lively and more eclectic modern R&B now seems even easier to appreciate. Dan, just last week we were talking about acoustic guitar in R&B and how it can be more of a crutch than an asset, yet here it is on opening track “2 Years On (Shame Dream),” with varied, detached fingerpicking and all the ebb and flow of electronic instrumentation.

That question mark at the end of the record’s title is an important one — Krell is mired in uncertainty on Heart, struggling to know what’s best for himself, to remember what he just said and even what he looks for in a lover. But this confusion comes with Krell’s most confident production and vocal delivery we’ve seen. His vocals are front and center in the mix — this might be the first HTDW record you can get through without the lyric sheet.

DW: I’m sorry, but the novelty of clever throwback synth sounds and meticulous sound manipulation wear off quickly for me, and this is just another slick, stone-cold, ‘90s kid R&B album to throw onto the pile. This guy’s not as bad as Autre Ne Veut, but he still masquerades as having more intelligence than comes through in his music. Three minor chords and lyrics ending in “baby” do not art-pop make.

NM: Theres a very real R&B vibe here, and that’s cool. I do love me some ‘90s R&B, so I respect it. I’m not as mad as Dan. But listening to him just made me want to listen to Miguel instead. I’m on board with Krell’s silky smooth vocals, but it’s not a good thing if the album makes you crave something else.

Phox – Phox

NM: There are always two main qualities I pay attention to when listening to any type of music: the voice and the lyrics. With the first track of this first album, “Calico Man,” both are the main focus, and it makes for the best song on this album. It sucks you in right away and serves as a great introduction to the warm, soft and dreamy vibe on the rest of Phox. Monica Martin’s voice is really what you pay attention to most of the time, since it has this calm confidence to it which makes the whole album just flow together, never getting too fast or too slow. I see it as a cool soundtrack to some silent filtered movie about two teenagers lost in the woods. But it’s alright, since they’re in love, and they just start building a cabin to live in seclusion. I should write that movie. “Raspberry Seed” and “Slow Motion” are also essential tracks.

DW: I think there are these two tendencies arising within the world of indie R&B, and if HTDW is that really cold, distant, disaffected and strung-out style, then Phox is that warm, cozy, forward-looking yet decidedly retro counterpart. This record reminded my of a tamer Ava Luna, or perhaps a more cinematic Amy Winehouse. And I love these songs’ arrangements! Props to them for having the guts to use banjos and clarinets.

SC: Very early on in “Slow Motion,” I was filled with rage over the Lumineers-y whistling and hand-claps, which are most commonly heard in Ford Focus and Kodak commercials. But then something funny happens — they totally abandon that kitsch for perpetual motion between modern folk instrumentation, a clarinet solo, Dirty Projectors-harmonies and sultry R&B, which are all anchored by Martin’s deeply assertive, yet never overbearing voice.