Catharsis is a term that critics often relegate to the darker emotions. Nirvana, the Arcade Fire, and the long tradition of artists screaming away their angst, anger, sorrow, and pain have received the “cathartic” label. But in a Big Apple hipster scene where unadulterated joy and exuberance are often only celebrated when reduced to kitsch, who dares to be the standard-bearer for the jubilant catharsis?
After hearing Marnie Stern’s single “Ruler” from her somewhat cumbersomely titled sophomore effort This Is It and I Am It and You Are It and So Is That and He Is It and She Is It and It Is It and That Is That, I was certain that she was the chosen one. The novelty of a virtuoso with ADD, unbridled enthusiasm, and unlimited tracks creates a unique sound for this day and age.
Stern spends 48 minutes screaming at the top of her lungs against a backdrop of overlapping instrumental acrobatics. With a rhythm section comprised of Hella drummer Zach Hill and The Advantage’s Robby Moncrief on bass, the trio creates a sonically dense album with all the candied multiplicity of a Warhol silkscreen in motion. This exhilarating roller coaster has earned numerous accolades even outside the New York noise/math rock scene, landing her at #44 on Pitchfork’s Best Albums of 2008 and on LA Weekly’s list of the Top 10 Indie Albums of 2008.
Stern herself is listed as the engineer, which seems to indicate that the record was tracked in a home studio of some sort. The lo-fi “just push the button when I’m ready to go” sound is evident from the onset. The record opens with a voice and stick click solo that introduces the audience to Marnie’s Japanese pep-rally vocal timbre, staccato execution, and Ginsberg-like lyrical ramblings. Beneath all this is the subtle hum of a room tone, perhaps an air conditioner neglected, forgotten, or never considered.
Stern can’t be bothered with that kind of trivial minutiae when she has ten thousand voices and guitar riffs running through her head trying to get on tape. Furthermore, there isn’t much space for such artifacts to be heard again in the wonderful cacophony, bathed in delay and overdubs, that follows.
Lyrically, Stern infrequently waxes generic about feelings of isolation and betrayal. But these sentiments have no real sway over the music behind them. Like many of the math rock/noise rock/experimental artists before her, the lyrics are often just a window dressing to the music. Moreover, her more polished tunes read like a self-help seminar: “That is right, nothing can hold me down/I’ll drag your body into the wild west/But we will get out alive, this much I know” and “Bigger without boundaries/Big enough to try/Bigger than the whole world/Bravest in the whole world.”
On a compositional level, the instrumentalists do an excellent job of making things sound more complicated than they actually are. Hill puts on a clinic about the possibilities of common time–his off-kilter drumming implies numerous changes in time signature and feel despite rarely veering from 4/4. Similarly, Marnie’s tapping and frenetic riffs sometimes land her the ill-fitting label of “shredder.” Any YouTube video of her playing will prove otherwise. Her technique is raw and the performance seems less prodigious when seen rather than heard, but perhaps a more academic player would have talked herself out of some of the bizarrely brilliant compositional choices. Still, there are enough moments in the tune that hearken back to Volta do Mar and Ian Williams era Don Caballero to keep you thinking she carries a Berklee diploma in her guitar case.
If there is a short-coming in the record it would be that Stern can’t really keep up with her own effervescent energy. The instrumentals are a non-stop barrage, but her vocals at times lack the same energy that makes “Transformer” sound like Hunter S. Thompson’s cocaine-fueled workout soundtrack. Even “Ruler,” captivating though it was on first listen, left me wanting just a bit more from her in the chorus which seems to trail off without finishing the idea.
But like My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless, this energy shortfall is easily overcome by turning the record up real loud. And since I am prone to rocking out anyway, that leaves this record on my top 10 for 2008. Coming from a city known for turning doe-eyed newcomers into another jaded and anonymous face in the crowd, this record is proof positive that there is such a thing as brimming with pent-up joy ready and waiting to burst.
