Ball of Wax 65 Songs: Chris Klepac – “Rinse and Repeat”

Posted on October 6, 2021 by Lattney B. Jones

There is a statement and a question in Chris Klepac’s contemplative “Rinse and Repeat” that are timeless for people like me (these days, there seem to be lot more of you than ever before) and, if one thinks about it, hide the answer as cold, hard truth within. But I don’t want to think about it just yet, so let’s talk about Klepac’s mastery of key and the type of arrangement that builds a monument on three primary notes that are used in motif, melody, and progression.

“Rinse and Repeat” hangs out mostly in my favorite mode of C Major: G Mixolydian. This one is always fun for me to hear because the G chord in standard guitar tuning sounds so full and rich; I’m a fan of F and C in their basic positions, too, but centering things around G often “feels right.” Except that, for all intents and purposes, Klepac undercuts that rightness with self-frustrated (yet accepting and willfully so) messages. Like many of my favorite tunes, “Rinse and Repeat” counters up (arrangement) with down (message).

Part of the song’s strength lies in those three notes I mentioned. They form the synth riff that opens and carries the song on its back. Two of them represent the roots of the chords that open the verses and chorus and the third is the dominant of this mode, the fifth of that beautiful G chord, and in the melody that sneaks in post-chorus and during the excellent break, those notes carry the listener aloft and stable while the ground beneath alternates between different terrains.

Okay, I’ve avoided completing my opening thought for as long as I could, so let’s get to facing up to the facts, fellow procrastinators. When people like you and I lament the speediness with which our lives pass, a favored phrase is, “Where does the time go?” Klepac makes this the point of each chorus. But he answers his (and our) question with his very first words and they cut that much deeper when they’re so accurate: to paraphrase, we’ve wasted it. The harsher truth is found in the metaphor of the song’s title in that we’ll continue to waste it into the future.

Posted in Ball of Wax, Check Out This Song | Tagged | Leave a comment

Ball of Wax 65 Songs: Anne Mathews – “The One That Makes Me Scream”

Posted on October 5, 2021 by Lattney B. Jones

My first thought on reading the title of this song was, “I know that line.” But no, it couldn’t be any sort of connection to a beloved pop nugget by one of the most important bands of my youth, could it? [This never occurred to me until just  now. -ed.] The four hi-hat smacks that call the players to action offer no confirmation, but the jangly-beyond-all-C-86-reason guitars (mandolin? 12-string? Why can’t I place it specifically?) coupled with the off-beat hi-hats and lifted off the ground by a bassline that even I can’t begin to describe without namedropping (and even then, THIS bassline mops the floor with THAT one) tell me that “The One That Makes Me Scream” is not the mascara-laden-faux-goth-pop of yore. Nay, it (dare I say [check your unbridled fanhood at the door, put in your objective eardrums, and stick with me here]) TRANSCENDS by using a line that isn’t found in the lyrics as a grab (worked on me, didn’t it?) and then ever so briefly lifting from that old tune a snippet of melody but then taking it somewhere else—somewhere that still makes melodic sense but accomplishes the emotional descent/ascent with more immediacy. If that isn’t enough to set this song apart, the vocals come in and offer a bit of frustration, a bit of dread, a lot of wonderful “ay-ay-ays” bobbing up and down on the slightest bending of notes, and a by-turns truthful and hopeful aphorism in “Together, we have all we have—together, we might do this thing.” I don’t know what “this thing” is, but against such an ebullient backing, I damn sure know they/we might do it.

Still not enough for you to accept my declaration of transcendence? Fine. Take into consideration that, after three-plus millennia of music (I’m going back to the earliest known “written” music here, since recordings from the ancient world are hard to come by), 70+ years of rock and pop (essentially defining the structures, rhythms, and progressions that have informed all but the purposeful outliers of what we listen to), maybe 42 years of home recording, and roughly 18 years of free and easy accessibility to any uploaded recording at any time, there are really only so many combinations of notes, patterns, timbres, arrangements, effects, et cetera ad infinitum that can be created and used, at least in a way that is aesthetically pleasing to the ears of most listeners in the Western world (I realize this precludes the possibility of an insane variety of excellent music being considered “palatable” and for that I apologize, but I’m trying to make a point here), but an artist can STILL create something that is both NEW and FUN. Anne Mathews certainly has.

Posted in Ball of Wax, Check Out This Song | Tagged | Leave a comment

Ball of Wax 65 Songs: defineartworks – “Sweet Life”

Posted on October 4, 2021 by Levi Fuller

BoW 64/Telephone alum Timothy Ralphs returns under a different moniker with “Sweet Life,” a delightfully weird two-minute groove/meditation on what sounds, indeed, like a pretty sweet life. Pushed along by a chunky, Tom-Waits-Kathleen-Brennan-esque rhythmic loop, he unspools a  loose narrative of driving, chilling, and generally living pretty sweet. Different instruments pop in and out here and there, creating a surprisingly dynamic soundscape for a song of such brevity and rhythmic/harmonic consistency. Here’s hoping the future is, indeed, capable of containing such sweetness – and weirdness.

Posted in Ball of Wax, Check Out This Song | Tagged | Leave a comment

Ball of Wax 65 Songs: Bubba Bach – “Ready”

Posted on September 30, 2021 by Levi Fuller

Bubba – FKA Sebastian A. – Bach sure knows how to pack a lot of weight and depth into a small musical package. “Ready” clocks in at under two minutes, with only a couple lyrical phrases carrying it through, but every time I hear it I both think “dang, it’s over already” and “was that really just a couple minutes?” This song is addressed to God – or a god, anyway – but unlike Shellac’s “Prayer to God,” my other favorite song-addressed-to-God, the singer doesn’t let us in on his prayer, merely states his readiness to move forward when it’s granted, when his dreams come true. Through the lush yet simple arrangement of guitars and keys, and Bubba’s emotional, almost fragile vocal delivery, we are made to embrace this mystery, to look forward to the day when those dreams come true, whatever they might be.

Posted in Ball of Wax, Check Out This Song | Tagged | 2 Comments

Ball of Wax 65 Songs: Brad Dunn – “Malfunctioning”

Posted on September 29, 2021 by Levi Fuller

In order for Brad Dunn – a brilliant old friend who (is it possible?) last appeared on BoW way back on Volume 31 – to give us a song about the future, he had to look back into the past: To the long-gone mid-’00s, those heady days of CD-Rs, house shows at Dearborn, and the births of Ball of Wax and Hollow Earth Radio. The words for “Malfunctioning,” written and recorded about fifteen years ago, came from his then-five-year-old daughter Camille, describing an apocalyptic drawing she she had made. A plodding, almost-in-tune old upright piano and Brad’s lyrical electric guitar musings draw us into the song at first, laying the groundwork for the tale to come.  A guitar/piano unison line tingles our spine (that spot at the end of the phrase where the guitar hits a few harmonics and the piano plays its own variation on the theme just about kills me every time), before Brad’s plainsung baritone jumps right in: “This world is made of trash . . .” and the story continues, Brad giving the words their due gravity, despite the youth of their author.

The story ends with a mystifying (even to the singer) Jesus reference, and the guitar and piano play us out, providing ample time to ponder the meaning of it all.  I am thrilled to be able to bring this song to you, all these years later. Thank you Brad, and thank you Camille, for entrusting these words and music to Ball of Wax.

Posted in Ball of Wax, Check Out This Song | Tagged | 2 Comments

Ball of Wax 65 Songs: oddkin ft. sceneriesplacements – “Taste This”

Posted on September 28, 2021 by Lattney B. Jones

I’m gonna come right out and say that it’s very possible I am biased in my reviews. I also really like everything that I review. Certainly, both are factors in my not being an actual critic. I’m okay with that. And so, good readers, I present to you “Taste This” by oddkin, featuring sceneriesplacements. I know both of these characters, having watched them release unholy/transcendent sheets of noise from the stage, stood side-by-side with them in audiences, enjoyed their various side projects, and even contributed a snippet of my own sound to a creation of theirs.

“Taste This” is representative of their aesthetic while simultaneously anomalous. Sometimes one will hear samples in their world of music—TV dialogue, radio calls, snippets of actual conversations—and it can serve any number of purposes. Opening and closing the song as it does here places the listener on a couch or chair in the center of a slightly worn-in apartment living room, old CRT set on a shaky dresser in the corner, not really being watched because the very room itself is about to undergo metamorphosis into a slow-melting fuzz apocalypse of gathered souls (heralded in by the first cautious but then suddenly fanfaring synths)—the kind reserved for the lowliest of conditions. A central melodic idea takes center stage immediately behind the listener (one almost feels its fingers splayed and pressing into one’s shoulders) and guides the panned red-and-grey vocals (themselves a call-and-response between anguished declarations and pained wordless coos) while guitar tones of every color (white noise, brown noise, pink noise, glorious howls and otherdimensional roars) call forth the shoegaze of yesteryear to give its approval, blessing, and granting of passage to usher this thrumming heartache into the future.

At the moment of complete collapse, everything drops but a few final wails and then, just like that, you’re left alone in a slightly worn-in living room while a 19” rerun machine with wobbly color bars mutters laughtrackless fifteen-minute philosophies that will never bring you nearer the brink of comprehension or annihilation than what has just transpired.

Posted in Ball of Wax, Check Out This Song | Tagged | Leave a comment

Ball of Wax 65 Songs: electric bird noise – “won eht ylno s’ereht”

Posted on September 27, 2021 by Michele Khazak

Epic, funky, artfully disjointed, and even a little creepy, this five and a half minutes of madness from electric bird noise is absolutely worth your full attention. It grooves deeply and explores an aural universe of hypnotic harmonics and distorted solos. There’s structure there that stabilizes things in contrast to the wailing discord that becomes more and more dense and intense as the piece continues. The balance struck here is not a simple one to achieve, and electric bird noise executes and delivers with a grace and ferocity that can be felt. So grateful to have been turned on to this music.

Posted in Ball of Wax, Check Out This Song | Tagged | 2 Comments

Ball of Wax 65 Songs: Keyboar – “Under Glass for Now”

Posted on September 23, 2021 by Lattney B. Jones

If I thought that I was 2 for 2 interpreting what the artists on the new Ball of Wax were saying instrumentally and sonically about “the future,” Levi throws “Under Glass for Now” in as the third panel in this instrumental triptych and ensures that I return to the drawing board.

I want to say a lot of things about this track all at once but I can’t quite get it out without my fingers stammering and tripping each other up. The song seems to do so, as well, although far more gloriously. It seems to start before it’s ready to start, with the tin clatterbox percussion jumping the gun a split second before a deep, rich tone with synth-and-stringed counterpoint arpeggios begins proper and presents enunciated guitar plucks crispy enough to plant you firmly in an amplified desert somewhere west of El Topo and south of Eastwood/Leone. Once it’s underway, though, everything falls firmly into place.

This is a 2-minute, 18-second final score of the film we’re coming to know as “The Future.” Like any epic audio denouement, “Under Glass for Now” marches the whole narrative of WHAT HAS BEEN before our eyes/ears/hearts, but shows us at the very same time WHAT WILL BE—but in such a way as to render us incapable of fully comprehending, the guitar’s sinister melody informing us that, when the music’s over, we’ll remember what we’ve seen the way we remember a dream by lunchtime (remember the arpeggios? Understated, dreamlike). This, of course, is by design, for we’ll be drawn to listen again—and again—gaining just a hint of something more each time but still unable to grasp the whole picture. Is the future as uncertain as we’ve always feared?

Posted in Ball of Wax, Check Out This Song | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Ball of Wax 65 Songs: Kora Karuna – “Kolombia Is the Future”

Posted on September 22, 2021 by Lattney B. Jones

The kora is a traditional West African instrument not unlike the combination of a guitar and harp and large gourd (though there is a lot more to it than my oversimplification) and the word “karuna” (or “karuṇā”) is found in Sanskrit and Jainism and translates roughly as “compassion” or “mercy.” Gabriel Bass and his associates in Kora Karuna create just such in atmosphere within “Kolombia Is the Future,” their lovely marriage of organic and synthetic, on Ball of Wax 65.

As previously mentioned, the theme here at #65 is “the future,” and the artists are free to pursue or express that theme however they desire. Opening on the gentle plucks of the kora and an alternating-current drone with oscillations and electronic spritzes and splashes, Kora Karuna invite the listener into a future of naturopathic spiritual cleansing and fern-speckled valleys, joined in here and there on what I believe to be a very lively marimba and a synth bass that holds the otherwise freestyling players together.

But before simply declaring that the future is a full return to the acoustics and hide-and-wood tones of nature in the spirit of reconnecting with that from which we all get our start, that buzzy drone shows up again to upstage the gang, at least for a bar or two. Electronics don’t belong in this valley, do they? Or don’t they? If the drone and synth bass were removed, the song would lose something. Maybe, then, the future is really a world of symbiotic codependence between man and machine and animal and circuit board and rocks and trees and electrons—not like a SkyNet-McGovCorp world with its envy and excess and demand for subjugation, but like a place filled with mutual respect, genuine extraself interest, desire to understand and help the community—“compassion” or “mercy,” even. Maybe Kolombia?

Posted in Ball of Wax, Check Out This Song | Tagged | Leave a comment

Ball of Wax 65 Songs: autOaudiO – “untitled (wax mix)”

Posted on September 21, 2021 by Lattney B. Jones

Without lyrical content or even clues in the title as to what autOaudiO’s vision of the future may be as represented musically, one is left to invest oneself fully into the actual composition—and therein lay the rewards. Levi asked for submissions to this edition of Ball of Wax to revolve around “the future,” with no additional specificity required. That leaves the artists free to interpret how they like.

The synths that swim toward the listener’s ears at the beginning of this untitled track embody a liveliness, a newly-forming aural colony reproducing, teeming with life and survival instinct, their motility driving them out and about in various directions—seemingly random but somehow still organized. They’re allowed to proliferate, albeit placed gently to one side, and a blooping synth and trimmed beat take the central role on this beatlab benchtop, seeming to skip along without real direction and yet aligned to the aforementioned organism. In their symbiotic state, they bring us to a somewhat sudden primary analog motif and then, together, the various elements do that to which life is occasionally driven: They evolve. Bloops find their place as the backbone of an actual jam, the fledgling beat becomes an electronic four-on-the-floor, and our colony of aurobacillus chimedophilus acquires a new life complete with a silvery sheen and slow decay.

Lyrics might only have taken away autOaudiO’s untitled statement, which is as much mankind’s own statement toward this point in time as to what the future holds: Despite difficulty and hostile environments, life survives, even flourishes.

Posted in Ball of Wax, Check Out This Song | Tagged | Leave a comment