I don’t actually know a whole lot about Aberdeen. The two main members are John Girgus and Beth Arzy (of the Trembling Blue Stars). They released a number of songs on Sarah Records in the 90s, but didn’t get around to making a full-length record until 2002’s Homesick and Happy to Be Here, which was breezy, fun, and beautiful at times.
If you only hear one song by them, it needs to be this one. It’s pastoral, effortless, and sounds like floating on a cloud. It starts quietly and her voice drifts along, full of gentle longing, barely skimming the surface. But my absolute favorite moment is when all the sweet tension fractures and the music bursts out at the 4:07 mark. I’ve been in love with this song for years and really can’t get enough of it.
Kyoto Death Song
From the recent EP Florida, this one sounds (appropriately enough) like the twee-folk incarnation of the Trembling Blue Stars. Beth Arzy has a great voice, smooth and pure, and it’s on fine display here.
As for pop culture significance, they apparently made an appearance on an season 7 episode of Buffy, though I haven’t seen that one. They also appear to have a CD coming out in September that’s a compilation of singles and extras called What Do I Wish For Now? If I hear anything more about that, I’ll probably post about them again.
And, for your daily Sufjan fix, I was going to write something extensive about Stephen Erlewine’s A Case Against Sufjan Stevens, but realized it’s not really worth the effort. Anything embraced by hipsters one year by definition must suffer a hipster backlash the following year and become so totally uncool, only to experience a revival a year or two later. It’s the natural order of things.
I will point out one thing that I found pretty annoying, though. Some quotes:
1. “an artist who is building his career on a schoolboy’s conceit”
2. “his music doesn’t play as sophisticated, because of the school-report nature of his subjects – each song is thoroughly researched, spit-shined, and presented for the class, as if he’s reciting all that he learned during his time in the library”
3. “two traits that make his music no longer quite so charming: his pretension and childish preciousness.”
4. “his adolescent fascination with John Wayne Gacy, Jr.”
5. “all comes across like a precocious high school student in his senior year, where he’s smug enough to want to prove that he’s smarter than the rest of the school.”
6. “Appropriately, his lyrics often read like the work of a gifted but sheltered high schooler, and his music sounds like a drama student’s idea of a pop opera”
7. “earnest ambition and an overt pretension”
8. “It’s music that gives the impression of being sophisticated and complex, that never comes close to the sophistication of…”
9. “it certainly doesn’t have the complexity or range of…”
In an essay of 1300 words, that’s SIX separate jabs that liken Sufjan to an adolescent and three more that accuse him of a lack of sophistication. Combined with a number of complaints at the Sufjan’s lack of variety, am I the only one thinking: Pot, kettle?