COLLAPSE BOARD

Song of the day – 297: Lispector

Bedroom musical recordings since 1996 boasts the front page of her website. To say this gives no hint of the wonderment that waits in store, just one click of the mouse away, is an understatement. The only reason I haven’t featured Lispector on these pages before is because I’ve been struggling for months to come to terms with the sheer scale of Julie Margat’s music. If you haven’t listened in already, you’re in for a real special time. This is the greatest hidden music you’ll encounter all year.

There is such depth, such diversity of sound here. On Julie’s ‘Lispector Jukebox’ page alone there are over 500 songs to listen to, and – I’m not sure, maybe I still quite can’t believe it – download. These are four-track and eight-track home recordings, originating from somewhere within the South of France and New York, recorded with obvious delight and surprise and meticulous craft. Not a moment is wasted in the creation of magic. Please tell me that Julie is already way famous and renowned among the well-heeled articulators of taste. Please tell me that. There’s no way music so diverse, so eloquently and lovingly expressed, could have remained in secret for… what? FIFTEEN YEARS. Julie writes songs with titles like ‘Eating Dragoons’ and ”Teenage Rebels Live In Hell’ and ‘Give Me Your Beer’, and they linger in your memory for an age after the last cheeky drum machine has been switched off, long after the final sequenced guitar loop has subsided. Julie writes songs with imaginative backings and odd little tape loops and synthetic strings that make me think a little of yr Pikelet, yr Ill Ease, yr kyü – but she’s way, I dunno, herself. (Not least, she is French: you can hear the coldwave influence.) The bass thumps merrily like yr Go! Team, yr My Disco, yr Rihanna. Sometimes, I think of Beat Happening. Other time, Kid Koala. The voice is softened sometimes, brash other times but not very often: Lispector’s music always feels startlingly intimate, you’re so privileged to be listening in. It’s a little bit late 80s Olympia, for sure. Guitar fuzz and distort gently, but not always. Photographs are Polaroids. Music is blurry snapshots of magical moments in time. Music is wonderment.

Her lyrics are neat, too:

One mademoiselle and her red keytar. “You can change the way you look/But not the books you’ve read,” she sings over low notes that wheeze like old air conditioning. “Like a ping-pong player, play along with someone/Roll him into a ball, go along with the game/Kick the ball about, you know it’s a gamble/Take it anyway, it may pay off one day,” she adds, over a spiderweb rhythm track. And when was the last time you had a new favourite lyricist? (from Plan B Magazine #30)

To tell the truth, I’m a little overwhelmed: some of these songs (the Willy Wonka-esque ‘Ice Cream Man’ from the Twisted Nerve album Guide To Personal Happiness, for example) are the equal of a Daniel Johnston (say), but with a far richer, more complex (but never knowingly smart) sound. I cite Daniel simply as a guide to the scale of Julie’s recorded work, not for its musical content: for the fact it exists within a universe of its own, to indicate the strength of her songwriting, for the way the songs feel so personal. Musically, I’m not sure where the touchstones lie: this is probably because Julie has SO MUCH to offer, SO MUCH recorded, SO MUCH quality. Five hundred songs, and I haven’t yet found one I don’t think is less than magical. I listen to a song like ‘The Game’ and think, maybe there’s a little bit of Fall Of Saigon or Young Marble Giants in there, or … but to throw comparisons around is to devalue the music on both sides. This is…

This is the DIY tape culture of the early 80s brought home to roost.

(continues overleaf)

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 8th, 2011 at 10:34 am. It is filed under Song Of The Day and tagged with Alistair Fitchett, Beat Happening, Careless Talks Costs Lives, Clarice Lispector, coldwave, Daniel Johnston, Debbie Harry, Fall Of Saigon, France, Guide To Personal Happiness, kicking_k, Kid Koala, Lispector, Marine Girls, My Disco, Olympia, Pikelet, Plan B Magazine, Polaroids, Rihanna, Stephin Merritt, The Go Team, Twisted Nerve, Unpopular, Willy Wonka, Young Marble Giants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.