Helicopter Seeds

(Tongue firmly in cheek)

Over the past 2 decades, there has been a profound cultural shift taking place in America.  Over the previous several centuries in America and Europe, there has been a diametric opposition between the aristocratic social set and the iconoclastic bohemian social set, as was evidenced in the stark examples of 19^th Century Paris, or 1960’s Greenwich Village.  There was a divide and disconnect between the etiquette and mores of the establishment bourgeois and the anti-establishment intellectualism of the bohemians.  Beginning in the 1990’s, this long-standing class conflict gave rise to a new hybrid, meritocratic social set.  They were the new upper-middle class– their resumes weren’t comprised of pedigree, but consisted of scholastic and professional achievement. They were indwelt with an ecumenical worldview and a new entrepreneurial spirit that has profoundly changed the shape of American business and social mobility.  They brought businesses like Apple, Starbucks, Pottery Barn, and Birkenstock to prominence.  They introduced a new appreciation for balance and aesthetics to American affluence and an affinity for minimalist creativity and effective problem solving.

The music world has been something of a lagging indicator of this new Meritocratic ideal.  Now, nearly a decade and a half after this cultural shift really began to be apparent, the reach of the Meritocrats has extended into the indie clubs.  There is a newfound appeal both for nostalgia as well as for cross-cultural or novelty acts.  Artists like Fleet Foxes or Kanye West perform night after night to sold-out crowds of white suburban kids.  Bands like Vampire Weekend or The Dodos pick up where Paul Simon left off by embracing African musical influences and they are heralded by some as the next great hope of American music.  Brooklyn, more so than just about any other music scene, has emerged as something of a microcosm of this social set phenomenon.  The aristocratic air of TV on the Radio or the nouveau-bohemian Animal Collective have come to represent new fronts of the ever changing musical dynamic.  Most recently, the album Veckatimest from Brooklyn’s Grizzly Bear emerges as something of a new soundtrack of the Meritocracy.

(Tongue slightly removed from cheek)

As such, it is an aesthetic wonder.  In the wake of their 2006 masterpiece ‘Yellow House,’ Grizzly Bear has greatly refined their ability as a band to convey movement in their music, and ‘Veckatimest’ certainly exemplifies that.  True to the Meritocratic ideal, ‘Veckatimest’ also strikes a near-perfect balance between nostalgic homage and technological embrace.  So many of ‘Veckatimest’s’ most memorable moments come as Daniel Rossen and Ed Droste create sweeping vocal harmonies reminiscent of 1950’s era pop which are given further interest by their incredibly detailed and deliberate production and engineering– which has become something of a Grizzly Bear hallmark.  Often it is not only the music that moves but the sound as well; drum tracks fade from front to back and vocal parts from left to right giving ‘Veckatimest’ new dimension when heard through headphones. 

Also, like the meritocratic social set that ‘Veckatimest’ somehow embodies, the album’s principle shortcoming is that it fails to represent more than the sum of its constituents… there are twelve incredible songs but little in the way of a grand, overarching vision.  Much of this is due to the individual development of Daniel Rossen and Ed Droste both as musicians and as songwriters.  The Rossen songs often stand in contrast to the Droste songs, which serves to lend a strange and interesting tension to ‘Veckatimest,’ but is also disruptive to the album’s continuity.  Lyrically, it is often ostentatiously impersonal which makes ‘Veckatimest’ a very relatable piece but very much lacking the incredible poignancy of Droste and Rossen’s previous work.

That said, although I feel ‘Veckatimest’ fails to be more than the sum of its parts, its various parts still add up to a very remarkable album, certainly among the year’s best.  The Droste led “Two Weeks” and “Cheerleader” are nothing short of brilliant and beyond infectious; beautiful deconstructed pop in the vein of Wilco’s ‘Yankee Hotel Foxtrot’ where the obvious melody lines are eschewed in favor of more idiosyncratic ones.  Daniel Rossen continues to establish himself as a modern Paul Simon with tracks like “Southern Point” and “While You Wait for the Others,” and a preternatural sense for harmony that lends warmth and interest across the album. 

Far and away the unsung hero of ‘Veckatimest’ is multi-instrumentalist Chris Taylor, who also produced and engineered the album.  In its moments of restrained creativity as well as in its cathartic indulgences, the production on ‘Veckatimest’ is something to behold.  Upon carefully listening to any Grizzly Bear recording, one gets the sense that they have no reservations about moving a microphone and re-recording a track, and that attention to detail and quality control is readily apparent across ‘Veckatimest’… and the instrument tracking is amazing.  There is a pervasive sense of production one-upmanship across the album.  The drum tracking on “Two Weeks” rivals that of the incredible Radiohead effort “Reckoner,” the risky tracking of “About Face” would have seemed contrived in less capable hands, the atmospherics of “Ready, Able” are on par with any of Deerhunter’s recent work, the intricate harmonized vocals of “While You Wait for the Others” or “Dory” match anything done by The Dirty Projectors.  The end result is a collection of songs that, while incredibly deliberate and complex, feel effortless and organic; and therein lies the brilliance of ‘Veckatimest.’ 

While much has been made of ‘Veckatimest’s’ indebtedness to the Top 40 pop music of the 1950’s and 60’s, it owes just as much to the Prog Rock stylings of Yes or the Moody Blues as it does to the harmonious work of The Righteous Brothers or The Beatles, giving the album tremendous nostalgic appeal as well as real sense of steadfastness. 

The song that perhaps best represents ‘Veckatimest,’ and to that end the Meritocratic ideal, is “Ready, Able”- one of the best songs of the year thus far.  Ed Droste continues to amaze with his vocal range and versatility as what begins as a sparse and minimalist song swells into a dense and aurally textural wonder as creepy synthesized organ and indecipherable falsetto drone over dissonant guitar noodling.  Droste so effectively reveals the essential thesis of ‘Veckatimest’ and of the emergent meritocracy-  “Checking it off of my list, unable to rewrite.  Five years, countless months, and a loan, hope I’m ready, able to make my own… They go, we go, I want you to know what I did.”