STEPHEN MALKMUS, Traditional Techniques
Is that a goddamn bouzouki? you may ask. A pedal steel guitar? What
kind of Stephen Malkmus album is this, anyway?
It’s called folk music, and it’s taking the country by storm.
Stephen Malkmus is only the latest popular artist to apply this old
new approach to their rock and roll sounds.
Take the name Traditional Techniques with as much salt as you’d like
or dig the Adorno reference, Malkmus’s third solo LP without the
Jicks (or Pavement) is as organic as they come. It’s packed with
handmade arrangements, modern folklore, and 10 songs written and
performed in Malkmus’s singular voice. An adventurous new album in
an instantly familiar mode, Traditional Techniques creates a
serendipitous trilogy with the loose fuzz of the Jicks’ Sparkle Hard
(Matador, 2018) and the solo bedroom experiments of Groove Denied
(Matador, 2019). Taken together, these three very different
full-lengths in three years highlight an ever-curious songwriter
committed to finding untouched territory. Perhaps some of these
“folk” musicians could take a lesson or two.
Created in the spontaneous west coast style adopted so infectiously by
young American musicians in this time of global turmoil, Malkmus took
on Traditional Techniques as a kind of self-dare. Conceived while
recording Sparkle Hard with the Jicks at Portland’s Halfling Studio,
Malkmus had observed the variety of acoustic instruments available for
use. The idea escalated within a matter of weeks into a full set of
songs and shortly thereafter into a realized and fully committed
album. When he returned to Halfling, Malkmus drew from a whole new
musical palette--including a variety of Afghani instruments--to
support an ache both quizzical and contemporary. Stephen Malkmus
isn’t one of those “hung up” musicians one reads about so
frequently these days, sequestered in a jungle room of the heart. The
jukebox in Malkmus’s private grotto remains fully updated. Not only
is the artist present, but he’s on Twitter.
Traditional Techniques is new phase folk music for new phase folks,
with Malkmus as attuned as ever to the rhythms of the ever-evolving
lingual slipstream. Instead of roses, briars, and long black veils,
prepare for owns, cracked emojis, and shadowbans. Centered around the
songwriter’s 12-string acoustic guitar, and informed by a
half-century of folk-rock reference points, Traditional Techniques is
the product of Malkmus and Halfling engineer/arranger-in-residence
Chris Funk (The Decemberists). Playing guitar is friend-to-all-heads
Matt Sweeney (Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Chavez, and too many other to
count), who’d previously crossed paths with Malkmus on the opposite
end of the longhairs’ map of the world, most lately gnarling out
together back east in the jam conglomerate Endless Boogie.
But, buyer beware, no matter how these recordings might be tagged by
your nearest algorithm, the expansive and thrilling folk-rock sounds
of Traditional Techniques aren’t SM Unplugged. One might even
question his commitment to acoustic instruments, but we’ll leave
that for somebody else’s hot take. All we’re saying is watch your
head. Because alongside all that gorgeous folk music (“The Greatest
Own in Legal History,” “Cash Up”), there are also occasional
bursts of flute-laced swagger (“Shadowbanned”), straight-up
commune rock (“Xian Man”), and mind-bending fuzz in places you
least expect it (“Brainwashed”).
It’s hard to call Traditional Techniques “long awaited,” because
Stephen Malkmus just put out an album last year, but it’s also
exactly that. While he may have taken his sweet time in jumping on the
folk music boom, surely there are those among us who have fantasized
about how lovely it might sound if SM would just get with the times.
And it sounds like all that and beyond. Set a day or two aside to
transcribe the lyrics like the Dylanlogists of yore (though please
keep your garbology to yourself) and vibe on the shape of folk to come
with Stephen Malkmus.
- Jesse Jarnow
music
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11/04/2020 Last update