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It's said way too often, but it's true: Stephen Malkmus is quite the inscrutable one. And quite frankly, it cracks me up to no end that his latest and third solo album, Face the Truth, begins with some weird building synthesizers until Stephen chirps "There's a villain in my head/And he's giving me shocks/His name is Leather McWhip/And he needs to be stopped".
Oh, how the weirdness just keeps on going from there! And truthfully, I love every freaky ol' minute of it. Malkmus is kinda doing this weird 1970's prog-rock thing on Face the Truth. There are a lot of synthesizers, a LOT of experimentation with different styles...I guess the story is, he has this basement recording studio in his Portland, OR home, and he basically just went downstairs and messed around on this one. The other story is...well, I'm not trying to spread rumours or anything, I'm just sharing what I've heard!...the story is Malkmus likes his wacky weed. Listening to this CD, you can just kinda picture ol' Steve, goofing around in the privacy of his home recording studio, kinda buzzed, and shouting "I want my Alka-Seltzer" and the end of his prog-rock eight minute long opus "No More Shoes". (And, there are some weird electronic noises that go in during this song that always make me and Mike think our cell phones are ringing...)
It's not all weird though! "Freeze the Saints" is the closest you'll get to old school Pavement, and it's a lovely return, that's for sure. Actually, "Mama" kinda calls to mind later-day Pavement, too, with more weird electronic bleeps in the background, but mostly, it's a straight-forward indierocker, and so is "Post-Paint Boy"...
Well, whatever. It's all really good and interesting. (I TOLD you he was inscrutable!) (janice.07.05)
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