SOUNDTRACK: HAIM-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #34 (June 17, 2020).
When Haim first came on the scene they were marketed as a kind of hard rocking sister act. So when I heard them I was really disappointed because they are anything but hard rock. In fact this Tiny Desk (Home) Concert shows just how nicely their music works as kind of poppy folk songs.
I haven’t really liked most of their songs, but I do like first and third in this set (I was unfamiliar with the middle song).
“The Steps” is like a classic rock song that’s been around for ever. “The sunny, take-no-prisoners assertion of independence of “The Steps” recalls the soft rock jams of their earlier albums.” The very cool sounding lead guitar riff that opens the song is definitely missed in this version, but the song itself is really solid and their harmonies are lovely. The bass is mixed too loudly in this song, which is a bit of a shame since the rest sounds so good.
Strangely, it’s only Danielle who speaks and introduces only herself. So you need the blurb to tell you that on her left is her sister Este Haim (bass, keyboard, drum pad, vocals) and on her right is her sister Alana Haim: (guitar, vocals, bongos).
The second song is “the muted techno glimmer of ‘I Know Alone.'” Este switches to keys, Danielle switches to a rhythm machine and keys and whole Alana keeps the acoustic guitar she is also playing keys. I think she keeps the guitar for one dramatic harmonic moment.. This song is kind of bland–not much really happens in it.
In comes Henry Solomon (the screen splits into four) to add saxophone for the final song “Summer Girl,”
a song that wavers like a heat mirage reflected off New York’s summer sidewalks, thanks to Henry Solomon’s whisper-toned sax.
I had no idea this song was HAIM I recognized that saxophone melody immediately and have hear it many times on the radio. Once again the bass is too loud, which is a bummer since this song is so chill. This song also feels like it has been around forever–there’s a real timeless quality to it.
HAIM recorded its Tiny Desk set before the death of George Floyd, and released “Summer Girl” last year. The world has changed a lot in that time. With its opening line — “LA on my mind, I can’t breathe” — “Summer Girl” becomes another piece of music that takes on a parallel meaning in the evolving social and political landscape of 2020.
I didn’t enjoy Haim’s early stuff, but I have come around on this album.
[READ: June 19, 2020] “Free”
This was a short story about who love ages.
Henry was married to Irene, but he was having an affair with Lila, who was married to Pete.
Irene was stuffy, very proper. Lila, by contrast, once stripped off all her clothes and skinny dipped into a cold lake in front of him–“her bottom a sudden white heart split down the middle, in his vision.” Lila lived in the now and gave herself to him completely. But Henry “was no good at adultery…because he could not give himself, entirely, to the moment.” (more…)
