SOUNDTRACK: SLEATER-KINNEY-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #231 (July 1, 2021).
Sleater-Kinney were once an abrasive riot grrl band with vocals that were challenging and guitar riffs that were often abrasive. The songs and the vocals intertwined in fascinating ways, making music like nobody else.
They took a lengthy hiatus and reemerged sounding a little different. Then they released another album which sounded very different (so different that it caused Janet Weiss, holy drummer of the trio, to depart).
That album was not Sleater-Kinney. It was good, very good in fact, it just wasn’t the same band. Now, they’ve released another album and this one verges even further from their trio sound.
It’s still good, but it’s disconcerting that our two guitar-wielding singers aren’t playing much in the way of guitars.
“Path of Wellness” opens with a funky drum beat (from Vince Lirocchi) and bass. Bass! The gypsies had no home and Sleater-Kinney had no bass. Well now they do in the form of Bill Athens.
On the previous album I bemoaned that Carrie Brownstein and Corin Tucker’s vocals didn’t intertwine like they used to. It’s nice that the two sing the song together. The vocals are much closer to traditional harmonies than untraditional S-K vocals. But there is a bit of that wild S-K interchange in the voices. And, once the song takes off in the middle though, Carrie plays some leads and Corin plays big loud chords.
Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein sing of human frailty and self-improvement, vibrating with low notes of disgust. Then Brownstein shoots Tucker a knowing smile as they sing, “You could never love me enough,” and the pair, who have been making music together for nearly 30 years, start to unwind things: Brownstein hisses “I am on a path of wellness” through gritted teeth before ripping into a four-note riff that feels like it’s pulling your guts out; Tucker sets her voice at maybe 75 percent howl capacity to sing “I feel like I’m unknown” and Brownstein still has to raise a hand to steady herself against the force. She can’t stop grinning.
“High In The Grass” feels looser and hazier than on the album;
“High In The Grass” has Corin playing the chords, Carrie playing the main riff and third guitarist Fabi Reyna playing the high lead read. I don’t know if Corin would have normally played that or not, but having an extra guitar doesn’t hurt.
Corin sings this song rather delicately, in a kind of soft falsetto. But when they get to the chorus is sounds like classic S-K vocals.
The guitars are pretty awesome in the middle part as all three women play different things Corin is playing chords up and down the neck, Carrie has some riffage going on in the middle and Fabi is playing a scorching feedbacky solo.
Track three is a surprise. Going back to 2002’s One Beat, they play the title song. Corin and Carrie put down their guitars and keyboardist Galen Clark plays piano while Bill Athens plays bowed upright bass.
“One Beat” played with piano and bowed upright bass, making it that much easier to hear how, by the end, Tucker’s pleas and Brownstein’s yelp have been inextricably knitted together.
The album version is spare intertwined guitars and tribal drums–a very different sound.
“Worry With You” feels heavier [than the album].
The guitar riff sounds very S-K, and the guitars (and keys) do bring a heaviness to the proceedings. The verses are jumpy and erratic but they resolve into one of their catchiest chrouses yet.
So yes, you can hear Sleater-Kinney in this album. But one aspect of the band is definitely gone. Nevertheless, the core remains and it sounds terrific.
[READ: June 10, 2021] “Standing By: Fear, loathing, flying.”
It was fascinating to read this article in 2021 because at the end he talks about fearing to ask the person near him on line who they voted for. I wondered when he wrote this because it really applies to pretty much any election in the 21st century.
The essay opens with the joke that when your flight is delayed it’s a national tragedy–why isn’t this on the news! But when you hear about it from someone else, it’s totally ho hum.
But mostly he gets to be snooty about his fellow passengers. Like the guy next to him in a T-shirt and shorts:
It’s as if the person next to you had been washing shoe polish off a pig then suddenly threw down his sponge saying, “Fuck this. I’m going to Los Angeles.”
He also talks about flight attendant friends who have given him some insight. “I’ll be right back” is code for “Go fuck yourself.” When he asked another attendant how he dealt with unruly travelers, the answer (at the end of the essay) is very satisfying.
He talks about another flight in which he saw an old woman with her young grandchildren who were dressed beautifully–like children from a catalogue. The boy was even wearing a tie–clip on, but that’s ok. (more…)
