My (belated) review of the Madison Square Garden show

I saw Interpol perform live for the first time last September, at Madison Square Garden. I am not a “big venue” concert-goer; I much prefer the smaller venues, or even the medium-sized ones like the Bowery Ballroom here in NYC. It is in fact a testament to how much I like Interpol’s music that I didn’t think twice about forgoing my no-big-venues rule to be able to hear them live. Nonetheless, as my friend Elizabeth and I made our way to our seats, the outlook seemed bleak---it felt more like we were going to a hockey game than a concert.

- My distaste for MSG (pun intended) aside, as soon as Interpol began to play I was instantly transported, as I often am when experiencing live the music with which I connect. The band played their songs with passion and their stage presence felt completely genuine to me, so much so that my distance from them physically didn’t bother me as much as I thought it would. I was able to lose myself in the sound and step into that idealized space where music seems to permeate solid objects.

- One agonizing moment stands out to me about that performance: the band began their set behind a large sheet through which you could see their outlines, but which covered the entire stage. The effect was great for their opening song, “Pioneer to the Falls,” but as that song ended and they began their next song, the sheet remained where it was. I began to have panicked thoughts like “they’re not going to play the whole show behind that sheet are they??” This idea was torture to me, to be in the same room with them, but blocked from them at the same time! Finally, Paul acknowledged technical difficulties, and my fears were somewhat allayed. When they finally got the sheet down, the crowd (myself included) cheered ecstatically.

- Hearing Interpol live made me conscious of how many of their songs encourage movement; sometimes dancing, sometimes just simply movement. All throughout “Rest My Chemistry,” I found myself wanting to sway and twist with the rising and falling of the bass line, and likewise moving with the syncopated drum hits during the chorus of “Not Even Jail.” I think this aspect of Interpol’s music contributes to the “addictive” quality I addressed in my October 30th, 2007 entry. Their songs often inspire both thought and motion.

- Most of the concert is a blur of ecstatic sound for me, but I do remember that they played quite a few songs, and came back for an encore. I could have stayed there all night, but I certainly didn’t feel cheated when they finally left the stage. I do hope I get to see them again.

Watch next time for more from the “favourite seconds” thread!

Until then,
Much love from,
Meg

Read more...

NARC presentation mentioned in Brazilian HowStuffWorks

The editor of the Brazilian HowStuffWorks, Silvio Anaz, contacted me a little while ago to ask if he could reference my work on NARC in his article on Interpol. For you Portuguese-speakers out there, the entire article can be found via the link below. I've included an English translation of the portion that mentions me, with thanks to Cristina in Brazil ("hazey jane" on the Interpol message board) for her hard work - and thanks to Silvio for the mention!

http://lazer.hsw.uol.com.br/banda-interpol.htm

Interpol and songs that revive the post-punk of the 80's

Songs that cause a fusion of reason and sensuality in the listeners, something that many people make an effort to have in their lives. This could be the secret of the success of Interpol's songs with the public, according to the academic work of the theorist Meghann Wilhoite, of the University of Columbia, in New York (U.S.A.).

Many of the lyrics by Paul Banks express a concern with the body, with its needs and physical sensations. Besides this, his verses are open to multiple interpretations that cause intellectual endeavours of listeners because of the multiple meanings and narratives permitted by the poetic construction of words. Something that also contributes to this, according to Wilhoite, is the highly orchestral sound used by the band, as well as the cyclical movement of harmony and melody in songs that can be repeated infinitely.

The process of composition of many of Interpol's songs seems fairly democratic. According to the band's members, a song starts from a progression of chords presented by guitarist Daniel Kessler and undergoes several alterations of direction with the contributions of bass player Carlos D and drummer Sam Fogarino. Alongside this, vocalist Paul Banks works on the lyrics while the rest of the song is in development, and he only finalizes them after the music (harmony, melody and rhythm) of the song has been finished.

In their work, Interpol approaches compositions with persistently repetitive rhythms and a sombre, cold resonance. In the lyrics written by Banks, which are occasionally criticised as banal, the writer [Banks] actually uses several poetic devices as mentioned in Wilhoite's studies, such as metaphors, simile and synecdoche, the latter being a sophisticated mechanism of language that uses a part to describe the whole.

In the song "Narc" from the album "Antics", the metaphor is to do with a type of federal agent from North America whose job is to battle drug trafficking, called a "narc", who is skilled in infiltration using many forms of disguise and specializes in the techniques of manipulating others. In a similar way, the song is about a loving relationship, in which the protagonist in "Narc" appears like a hunter lying in wait, with requests that manipulate his object in an elaborate way, as in this example in the third stanza:

Feast your eyes, I'm the only one
Control me, console me
'Cause that' s just how it should be done
Oh, all your history's like fire from a busted gun
I show some love and respect
Don't wanna get a life of regret

In "No I in Threesome" from the album "Our Love to Admire", Interpol speaks about the love of a three-way that is best shown the first verses:

Through the storms and the light
Baby, you stood by my side
And life is wine
But there are days in this life
When you see the teeth marks of time
Two lovers divide
Sound meets sound, babe
The echoes they surround
And all that we need is one thing
Now what is there it to you allow?
Babe, it's time we give something new a try
Oh, alone we may fight
So, just let us be three

With a tone hardly monosyllabic both in the instruments and voice, there is a resonance of sombreness in the tone of the song, but it is also danceable, as the song brings lyrics that can be interpreted like a suggestion of sex for three (or that the protagonists have a kid?), but wrapped up in a melancholic atmosphere and also a certain despair.

The success of Interpol's songs is actually a proof that the melancholic pop style, expressed in rather depressive, pessimistic lyrics, but with a danceable sound, kept its place in this Renaissance of rock music in the new millennium.

Read more...

Unweaving 'Untitled'

“What are your thoughts on Untitled, in general? the progression never alters yet Interpol's signature layering of harmonies is present- I'm just curious as to how an experienced theorist views the song.”
- Kyle

This experienced theorist found herself momentarily stumped when thinking about Kyle’s question! Much like 'Hands Away,' 'Untitled' is a song that I had always listened to passively, not really actively thinking at any moment "what’s happening here?" So, when I did sit down with the song with that question in mind, I was surprised to find that the ideas I came up with weren’t as self-evident as I had anticipated.

- The first 40 seconds of 'Untitled' are played by Daniel alone---two melodic lines in counterpoint, which form the backdrop for the entire song. This was perhaps the most surprising revelation for me, as the texture of the song is so diverse. I never would have expected that the first few notes of the song are played continuously until the very end.

- The texture thickens and thins alternately around this guitar backdrop. As Kyle mentions, this is a technique that Interpol often use: beginning with a simple guitar lick, and then layering around that lick. Thus, in 'Untitled,' the guitar backdrop begins the song, at 0:40 the drums and bass enter, at 1:22 the voice enters, at 2:05 the voice leaves while new guitar lines are added in, at 2:47 the drums and all but one of the new guitar lines leave, and at 3:40 the bass leaves, so that the original guitar lick and the solo 'moaning' guitar line end the song.

- As for the progression of harmonies, in typical Interpol fashion, Daniel provides a lick whose melodic content influences the other musical lines that will eventually coexist with it during the song (this is something I noticed with the opening lick of NARC as well). He begins with C and E-flat, moving the C down to B-flat just before 0:03 so that E-flat and B-flat are played together until 0:05 when E-flat is moved down to D-flat, and then back to E-flat around 0:09. In other words, Daniel introduces the pitches C, B-flat, E-flat and D-flat in his guitar lick, which means that any other notes introduced in the song will most likely fit within a scale that contains these four notes. In terms of new notes (i.e., notes other than the four listed above) the bass introduces A-flat in 0:40, while the voice introduces G in 1:27 (the bass also introduces D-natural, but I hear this as what’s called a non-harmonic tone, or, a tone that lies outside of the predominant scale and that functions as an embellishment).

- So, my guess for the 'key' of this song is A-flat major---feel free to post any alternate hearings you might have here! My final conclusion of A-flat major as the key for this song, like the revelation of the continuous presence of the guitar backdrop mentioned above, also surprises me, as I’d always heard this song as having a more minor sound (in Western parlance sad, dark, etc.).

- Well, those are my general thoughts on 'Untitled.' I hope to be able to write something a little more nuanced and interpretive on this song in the future, using this as the basic groundwork.

Thanks for the question Kyle!

Much love from,
Meg

Read more...

"Favourite seconds" - fan moments

This is a thread from the Interpol message board entitled "My favourite seconds of a song", where fans showcase the parts of Interpol songs which they find most inspiring. I've decided to take some of these sections as springboards for my analysis.

Hands Away 1:42 - 2:02

"Homespun desperation's knowing/Inside your cover's always blown"
This section just sums up all of TOTBL to me. When I hear this bit, it takes me right back to the first time I listened to the whole album in one go. I think it's a combination of the production, Paul's little axiom, and how incredibly classy and subtle Sam has always been - even in the earliest days.

Thinking about and examining this moment actually made me appreciate this song in a way that I hadn’t before. Always just classifying “Hands Away” as atmospheric, I’d never taken the time to really listen to it, and ask myself what I felt and thought while doing so.

- Like with most favorite moments in music, much of our predilection for that moment is contingent upon what comes before and after it. The songs begins with a very sparse texture (guitar only), and Paul enters with typically cryptic lyrics and sounds fairly close-by to the listener (please note that I always refer to Paul’s lyrics as if they are portraying characters, thereby acknowledging his repeated statements that his lyrics aren’t necessarily and indeed are rarely meant to be listened to as autobiographical). The drums enter at 0:31, with Sam hitting the kick-drum on every beat (fairly unusual), and therefore providing the song with a sense of urgency and somewhat resembling a heartbeat, which makes me a little uneasy (like that moment in 2001 when Kubrick forces you to listen to the astronaut’s breathing for what feels like an age). To me, this drum pattern sounds as if it triggers Paul’s next entrance in 0:35, in which he moans and asks “what happened?” thereby giving us a window into the desperation of the character. Shortly thereafter the second guitar and the keys enter, and from 0:47-1:41 the voice is absent while the instruments repeat and build in texture (and therefore, to my ears, in suspense).

- At 1:42 (the beginning of this particular favorite moment), the voice reenters, but is now much farther away, and seems to be now more of a narrator as opposed to a first-person character. It’s as if Paul’s character needed to pull away from the listener (and perhaps the band itself) for this confession. Seven seconds after the voice leaves the song for good, Carlos enters, filling out the bottom-end of the texture for the first time. His entrance gives me a sense of fortification---the vocals have just confessed desperation, but the bass comes in shortly thereafter to provide a foundation; I could also, however, hear the bass entrance as confirmation: the bass telling the vocals, your confession is truth, and my entrance attests to its integrity. From about 2:09-2:37 the bass remains with the song, and the string synths repeat a dramatic, almost ecstatic rising figure. After this, the bass falls away again and the texture thins out; at 2:49 the kick-drum “heartbeat” stops, and the song ends much as it began 15 seconds later.

- I can see what this fan means about this moment summing up TOTBL for them. I’d always had the vague impression that, of Interpol’s three albums, this one felt the coldest, rawest, and most depressing (all of which I assure you attracts me all the more to the album). Beyond being in a minor key, this song, with its desperation-focused lyrics, general lack of bass, and heartbeat-imitating drum pattern, pulls at my heartstrings towards a fairly dark and raw place (a place I found myself when I first moved to NYC, no less), which is perhaps why I had avoided really listening to it for all these years.

I look forward to digging into more of these entries very soon!

Until then,
Much love from,
Meg

Read more...

Video: a chat in England

A short interview done by my sister, recorded by her husband Jamie (they like making movies). It was absolutely freezing outside!

Read more...

From early days to OLTA

“I'd love to hear your thoughts on early stuff such as Precipitate and maybe their growth to now. –Josh”

- Before getting to Josh’s question, I’d like to briefly address the idea of musical form. Most songs are of course made up of verse and chorus (repeated cyclically: vs1-ch-vs2-ch, etc.), but with a band like Interpol, we hear a lot more sections in any particular song’s form than just verse and chorus. This in fact was one of the challenges for me in my NARC paper, what to call the individual sections of the song.

- Little did I realize at the time that NARC actually has a relatively (very relatively) simple song form when compared to many of Interpol’s songs. In particular NARC is fairly cyclical, in that the sections of the form re-cycle in the order in which they first appeared: verse 1, pre-chorus, chorus, verse 2, pre-chorus, chorus, after which point we get into less easy-to-designate territory (which I ended up for ease’s sake calling verse 3 and coda).

- Listening to early songs like “Precipitate” or “Specialist,” I’m struck by how “creative” I have to get in order to designate the sections of each song’s form, and also by how non-cyclical their forms are. “Precipitate” starts off with a version of the standard cyclical verse 1, chorus, verse 2, chorus, but this only takes up half of the song, the rest of which traverses on without repeating sections. This type of song form is one that we hear more often in Turn on the Bright Lights (“Stella,” and “The New,” for example) and in Our Love to Admire (“Pioneer to the Falls”) and less often in Antics, one of the reasons I’m guessing that some fans hear OLTA as a (often termed welcome) return to TOTBL.

- So, to answer Josh more directly: the preference of (please forgive me) “peregrinated” song forms over cyclical song forms is one of the ways that I hear Interpol’s earlier work as differentiated from Antics, and also one of the ways that I hear OLTA as harkening back to that earlier work. Even in Antics, however, Interpol’s songs stretch the norms of song form.

Thanks for the question, Josh. There’s a lot more to say on this, so I’ll be dedicating a few blogs in February to my findings on form and other musical parameters in songs from all of Interpol’s “eras.”

Until then,
Much love from,
Meg

P.S. Just to quickly answer this question from Ian:

“Did you discover the notes/chords on your own or did you use a "TAB"? –Ian”

- I transcribed the music into standard musical notation using the program Sibelius; I tried to be as true to what I heard as possible and managed to get the voice, guitars, bass, and keyboard down, but not the drums (haven’t quite learned how to do that yet, though I definitely want to include them in my transcriptions eventually). Once I get it turned into a PDF I’ll be making it available to any who’d like to see it. Thanks for the question!

Read more...

Carlos's compositions

As promised last time, a few thoughts on Carlos:

“What do you think of Carlos' orchestrations in Interpol as well as his solo compositions (ie, 'the Mortician' for HBO iPromo)?”

- I really love the way Carlos captures a particular style of composition with “Mortician,” one that is now nearly ubiquitous in the world of soundtracks (both in film and television), but that actually has roots in concert music from about 20+ years ago: I’m speaking here of composers such as John Adams (I highly recommend his work from 1980 called Harmonium), Steve Reich (and his 1976 work Music for 18 Musicians), and of course Philip Glass (his 1988 piano piece Metamorphosis was used to great effect in the new version of “Battlestar Gallactica”), the last of whom has composed several recent film scores (The Hours, The Illusionist, etc). I find it quite remarkable that Carlos, a self-trained musician, has managed in “Mortician” to both reproduce, and make his own, a style of music that is associated mostly with highly educated composers (Adams studied at Harvard, while Reich and Glass both attended Julliard).

- What really surprised me when I first listened to “Mortician” is how happy and up-beat sounding it is, as I’d always thought of Carlos as a “dark” musician, and just assumed that “darkness” was what he brought to Interpol. And in fact listening to this track one doesn’t necessarily hear a lot of “Interpol.” What does sound closest to me in terms of the Interpol sound occurs in the peak-moment around minute 5:00, before which a dramatic build-up has taken place. Such climaxes (i.e., those that occur about three-quarters of the way through the song) are quite common in Interpol’s songs. We then get this very clever return to the beginning material, which highlights the cyclical “time” theme that’s been apparent from the very beginning with the presence of the clock ticking. The clock fades away about 10 seconds from the end, and just as the music begins to swell dramatically again, the piece is abruptly over with a short pluck of the strings. I think we get a touch of Carlos’ sense of humor here: dramatic climaxes don’t last forever, after all. In general I think we get a taste of Carlos’ true personality in this piece, and thereby get a peak into which elements he brings to Interpol, namely an ear for drama and a flair for orchestration.

- The opening of Carlos’ orchestration of “Pioneer to the Falls” represents an entirely different musical style to me, more along the lines of Wagner or Mahler (both of whose music served as the basis for the majority of the film music composed in the first half of the 20^th century). The opening horn moment is quite emblematic of the so-called late-Romantic era of Western European music. What sort of confuses my ear with this orchestration, however, is the style-change that takes place when Paul’s voice enters, where Carlos adds plucked strings, piano, and xylophone; as a result we end up with something like a Danny Elfman/Gustav Mahler blend that doesn’t quite sit right with me. I think this blend would have been more convincing for me had Carlos put a little more sustained bass in the mix, as it feels a bit treble-heavy. However, I will say that I absolutely adore the timpani hit at 3:28 and his treatment of the “So much for make believe…” section, and the fact that I can be critical at all with this track speaks to its worth.

- I’ll just add (in case I’ve made you question my love of Carlos’ music!) that I’m looking forward to hearing more compositions by Carlos in the future, as I think these pieces are just a taste of what’s to come from his solo oeuvre.

Up next, a fan asks about Interpol’s development from early songs (such as “Precipitate”) to now.

As always,

Love from,

Meg

P.S. Just a reminder that my email is megwilhoite@gmail.com if you’d like a copy of my NARC paper.

Read more...