Expert in a Dying Field

 

The Beths

Expert in a Dying Field

(Carpark)

How does a person become an expert?  I'm not sure what that entails or feels like.  I suppose I became an export of sorts at some of my various jobs over the years, after practicing them for many years.  That never felt like anything other than doing a bunch of stuff that I really didn’t want to do.  Perhaps that is my problem that I need to figure out and adjust.  What I do know is that despite living in a country and society that touts capitalism, I seem to embrace dying fields, or anything that can be lucrative financially.  The things I enjoy doing or being a part of one rarely gets the opportunity to earn a living.  I have a feeling that this is true for many of us.  The entire “job” scenario alludes me.  How did we get here?  Why can I not be productive with the stupid shit I like to do without spending most of my time trying to make enough money to survive?  This is part of why I try to be so supportive of the artists I appreciate.  I try to buy stuff and talk about it when I can, in a minor effort to keep these atists enhancing my life with their creativity. 

The more life I’ve lived, the less I understand how to navigate it.  All of the good ideas I have and things I’d like to do feel impossible.  I’d like to be involved with music related projects, but the music industry is only profitable to an incredible minority and I don’t ever fit in, nor do I know how to break in.  My friend Ox and I have tried releasing music, and online music retail, but almost no one buys it anymore.  I sometimes enjoy writing. in my amateurish way, but I am allergic to promoting it, or trying to monetize it, nor do I think I could earn a living at it.  When I was a dialysis patient I had some serious ideas that might help dialysis patients with their difficult diets, but I never knew how to make that happen.  I would like to help people dealing with trying to navigate the medical system, but I don’t have the job experience or education to be taken seriously.  I have the problem of shooting myself down before anyone else can.  I am good at self-sabotaging, and I tend to disengage from things I like and can be good at, when they become jobs.

It’s surprising to me that this will be the first time I’ve written about Auckland, New Zealand’s The Beths.  Expert in a Dying Field is their third album since 2018 and it is as fresh and exciting as their debut!  I first happened upon them by accident via their first single “Future Me Hates Me,” which the creepy YouTube algorithms thrust upon me after I played my chosen song and I had let it play.  Turns out this one was right on!  I immediately pre-ordered that first LP.  It’s been a fun ride ever since.

The Beths "Future Me Hates Me"

I hate say it, since I recently referenced it, but I think I may have given The Beths a bit of a short shrift in that Men at Work way (read here).  They are fun and display a sense of humor, yet they are much more than that.  The “Future Me Hates Me” video is a sweet kind of goofy clip and the song has an awe-shucks ‘everything goes wrong’ self-deprecation shrug vibe to it.  This is an unfair and shallow assessment.  Bandleader Elizabeth Stokes’ lyrics are incredibly clever, inventive, heartfelt and impactful.  She has an unbelievable knack for creating effortless sounding pop songs that are relatable in an every-person sort of way.    Plus, they flat out rock!  These pop tunes are crunchy, buzzy, energetic, light on their feet and performed flawlessly.  The background vocals are otherworldly, frequent and super fun.  They capture the relatability and excellence of some of 90s band That Dog, but with way more consistency. 

The thing is that these songs can be fun and fun to blast on a warm sunny day, but they have a lot of depth.  Not far underneath these clever and inventive songs is some deeply felt emotion and huge dollops of melancholy.  There is a sense of loss and longing that is infused in most of their songs giving them an added depth.

I realize that the excellent title and lead off song for this album, “Expert in a Dying Field,” is a thought-provoking missive about clarity about a dying relationship, but to me, it’s more universal.  It’s bigger than that.  The title alone has stuck with me since it was first released as a single.  Stokes has had me contemplating life, existence, work, usefulness, and the damning passage of time just with the song title alone!  It has me feeling like an old relic.  Not the potentially valuable kind, but the kind that sits unnoticed in a weekend garage sale, that will be thrown away if not sold for a nickel.  Far too often, I feel like most of my interests and desires are part of dying fields. 

Having said that though, this album does not make me feel old.  Anything but!  The Beths brand of energetic pop rock is the type of thing that has always rejuvenated me.  Their mix of high energy, burbling basslines, noisy guitars, frantic drumming, incredible sing along songs full of passion is never not utterly infectious. 

The second song on the LP, “Knees Deep,” is the kind of song that confuses me.  It is so catchy and relatable, at least to me (“The shame / I wish I was brave enough to dive in”), it should be a massive worldwide hit that none of us can escape.  These songs are all over this album and their entire catalog.  This can also be said of the ultra-sentimental “Your Side,” the anthemic “Best Left,” the rocking “I Told You that I was Afraid,” and the reflective and wistful love song “2am.”

I think about times in my life, when I have pushed difficult and uncompromising noise onto others, attempting to prove to others that I am also those things.  There is that side of me, but I still get giddy over really well-done pop music.  I would’ve loved the Beths when I was a 4^th grader and I love them now as an old relic, or anytime in-between.

(https://thebethsnz.bandcamp.com/album/expert-in-a-dying-field)

The Beths "Expert in a Dying Field"

Fool of a Kind

As the year has progressed, several great singles and EPs have been released for which I have written reviews or should have written reviews.  I’ve waited for many of these bands to go ahead and release new full length albums before offering my thoughts, but several have not yet materialized.  So, over the next week or two, I hope to share my enthusiasm for some great singles that have come along during 2014 that I’ve neglected to share.

Marine Life

“Fool of a Kind” 7” EP

(Elefant)

1998 was the last year that I subscribed to the weekly trade magazine CMJ (College Music Journal).  It was a ridiculous subscription for someone like me.  It’s for college radio stations, and was incredibly expensive, yet I would somehow scrape together enough money to renew for seven lean years.  Why was it such a draw for me?  Simply because the magazine gave me reviews of hundreds of new records each week, provided me with CD samplers of music from new music, kept me up to date with the latest and greatest imports and upcoming releases – enough to keep a fanatic attached to his addiction.  Every so often, a free CD would come along with an issue, aside from the regular sampler.  Most of these were pretty terrible, but two very important and memorable free CDs caught my attention.  The first one was a powerful shoegaze / dream pop EP from Los Angeles band The Autumns (Suicide at Strell Park, 1997), which led to a decade long search for their sporadic and often difficult to find albums.  Meanwhile, the other free CD was from a San Francisco pop band named Julie Plug with their 1998 debut album Starmaker.  Starmaker has been a regular visitor to my CD players pretty much ever since (has it really been 16 years?!).  It is a shiny, bright, and immaculately played pop rock album, highlighted by the absolutely adorable vocals from Des De Leon and all kinds of memorable songs that sit somewhere (I struggle with comparisons sometimes, but what other tools do I have that might invoke a relatable reference?) between The Sundays (especially vocals), the later poppier / less political (and popular) Cranberries, The Popguns (older band / recent discovery – see here) and the wonderful Dina D’Alessandro (see gushing review here) and her band The Beautiful Things.  Julie Plug had a second album in 2003, Whatever You Need, but for some reason it never connected with me the same way, and then they completely disappeared from my radar.

So, while I go and put the Starmaker CD next to my car keys in order to make sure I get it onto the stereo tomorrow morning, I have to tell you about how Des De Leon Nicolas and Julie Plug guitarist Terry Nicolas and pretty much the rest of the second LP Julie Plug lineup are back with a new band and four new songs that are easily the equal, if not better than anything they’ve shared before!  Leave it to the excellent Spanish label Elefant Records to find this obscure band and expose them to a larger audience and I’m so thankful to have their delightfully delectable music back in my life.

The A-side opens with the incredibly catchy “Fool of a Kind,” which is so bright and sunny and jaunty musically, yet filled with a melancholic overtone.  Des De Leon sings of her heartbreak from failing relationship and her foolishness for not wanting to let go, all awash in shimmering organ hums, piano, wonderfully textural guitars, a jaunty rhythm section, and chorus emphasizing horn section that really adds swing to this instant classic.  Next up is the upbeat “Big Sur,” which takes us on a lovely private visit to the beach with a soundtrack of perfect pop harmonies, gliding keyboards, and splashing drums to enjoy along the way.

On the flipside is the dreamy sounding “Boy from B-612,” which opens with a repeating chiming keyboard melody, which sends chills up the spine.  The mid tempo bass crawl and thumping drums set the mood for this song of longing and loneliness, as Des De Leon paints a picture of understanding and quiet support.  Lastly, the wonderful horn section returns on “For the Camera Shy” – an energetic breath of fresh air as she tries to pry a celebration out of a reluctant recipient of her affection.

This is another typically elegantly packaged 7” single (red vinyl) from Elefant and is part of their “New Adventures in Pop” series, where they expose good music like this (Just Handshakes anyone? My #7 pick for best album of 2013!).  I hope that Marine Life continue on with the label and get to releasing more music, because this is such a welcome return!

(facebook.com/MarineLifeMusic)

Marine Life "Fool of a Kind"