Nobody's said anything much about the Polycarp review in this week's
Indy, so I figured I ought to step up and register my disgust. 

Sure, I've come to expect Greg Bower to not understand large amounts of
the good stuff that gets released around here--he's a meat-and-potatoes
guy living in a tandoori-chicken-and-mango-chutney kind of scene. But he
quite intentionally ignored the remarkable heterogeneity of _The
Magnetic Moment_ in his vain attempt to tar it with the "plink buzz and
thud" brush.

I mean, sure, the CD is interspersed throughout with a variety of
interesting little noise-burst sections, but the bulk of it is something
quite different: a dizzying array of popsongs, built from a fascinating
conglomeration of traditional and decidedly non-traditional elements.

Greg takes a stab at dismissing the whole CD outright with his statement
"There's been enough of this type of stuff around (we're talking
decades, folks) . . .," but if those are his criteria, then I'd say it's
high time he put down his bass guitar and quit that retro "Pop" band
he's a member of, because honey, that stuff has *all* been done to
death.

What makes _The Magnetic Moment_ brilliant is that it's *neither*
noise-for-noise's sake, *nor* bland, "pure" pop. Rather, it's an attempt
to blend the two within the context of single songs. In other words, it
takes risks in an attempt to interrogate pop music, to suss out what we
mean when we say "catchy." If a looping plinking sound takes the place
of a snare drum or a guitar riff, does it still "catch" the ear in the
same way?

So a song like "Love, Love"--which at its most basic level is a
remarkably simple, remarkably catchy pop-song--is expanded with odd
clicks, a ghostly chorus, and an extended sample from Home Shopping
Network. The result works on a variety of levels. 

If you find yourself getting bored with traditional pop, then, well,
there's the enigma of the bizarre buzzing that enters the song midway
through--where the heck did that come from, and what is its relation to
the sugary subject matter of the vocal?

If you find yourself suspicious of treacly pop sentiment altogether,
then the funny noises provide a safety valve, or a knife to scrape away
the crust of sugar that coats most such music. And funny thing: stripped
of that veneer, the sentiments regain some sense of genuine-ness.

And if you're not even bored with traditional pop yet, the layered
sounds can be equally affecting, in the song's juxtaposition of "pop"
lovesong sentiments and "pop" commercial-culture sentiments (there is a
part of the Home Shopping sample, in which the saleswoman's voice is
listing off potential uses for a necklace, and says "it's easy to fall
in love with your nurse, or a doctor who has cared for you so well."
Floors me every time I hear it.)

At issue is the role that mass-produced sentiment occupies in our lives.
Polycarp know that a gumball-machine ring (or a Home Shopping necklace)
can become vessels for as much emotion as the finest gold or silver, in
the same way that the corniest song imaginable can become "our song," if
we hear it at the right moment. They're playing with that fact, holding
it up to the light. They're trying to figure out what we mean when we
say "pop," or what we mean, for that matter, when we say "love."

My point is that at its best, _The Magnetic Moment_ is an
extraordinarily sophisticated critique of pop music and pop culture--the
fact that it's also downright gorgeous in some places, and downright
noisy in others, is proof that these folks know what they're talking
about.

The fact that so much is quite *obviously* going on, musically and
intellectually, in _The Magnetic Moment_ makes Bower's closing sentence
("Is it too much to ask that a record be interesting or engaging, or is
this music for people who don't really like music?") all the more
depressing.

Is it too much to ask that a music critic be able to recognize
intelligent, challenging music, music that is attempting a bit more than
3 minutes' worth of mildy catchyness? Is it too much to ask that Greg
Bower mobilize his brain when reviewing local releases, rather than
sitting back passively waiting to be entertained?

As for Karen Mann's halfhearted response, well, I think this is one more
example of Karen's paranoia about perceived conflicts of interest. Just
as she omitted all reference to her *own* role in Pine State's last show
(she played drums during the encore) when she reviewed it, here she's
afraid to be too complimentary of the Polycarp CD, lest someone accuse
her of bias (a real danger, I suppose, since she once dated a member of
the band).

Well, I've got news for her: this is a small, close-knit community.
Better to get the potential conflicts out in the open from the start,
and work from there. You might find it makes for more interesting
writing (or at least more *honest* writing).

Ross Grady

p.s. In the interest of disclosure, I should note that the members of
Polycarp are friends of mine. So are the members of half the bands in
the Triangle--including a goodly number whose records I *slammed* when I
was writing for the Indy. Conflicts aren't conflicts unless you make
them so.
--
http://sunsite.unc.edu/grady/ch-scene
The alt.music.chapel-hill Guide to the Triangle
Ross Grady      factory@sprynet.com