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January 24, 2019 - Columbia
You may be able to see beyond your nature,
But you remain natural all the same.
One of the reasons humans are attracted to the consumption and creation of music is our addiction to inventorying the world around us into a system of patterns. We are able to find patterns (if patient) in even the most amorphous musical compositions that directly connect the primal brain to the modern brain. It’s a powerful crack that opens the trap doors of all types of intelligence and renders a timed laser-light show out of a brain scan (whatever that means). Even the multicolored code of the brain scanner’s output screen is a human-designed pattern built out of patterns out of patterns out of patterns. We trust in patterns. They are the blueprints of survival, and the satisfaction felt when recognizing the glorious forms of a new pattern falling into place is as instinctual and natural as sex.
I am oh so happy that Vampire Weekend is back. The six years since we last heard new music from them have passed in the blink of an eye, which is terrifying to be honest. But here we are, and they have hit us over the head with two new tracks heralding their upcoming album, Father of the Bride.
In ‘Harmony Hall,’ an upbeat ear-worm that sparkles true Vampire Weekend-style, Ezra Koenig sings the fatalistic power of our patterns with mature frankness that is a bit more pointed and a bit less open-ended than his older work. Not only is the compositional syntax founded on a deliciously repetitive guitar riff, but the song’s refrain pins itself to our uneasy minds. Because in this time of social transition and political upheaval, he’s just confirming an already-present undercurrent: “I don’t want to live like this, but I don’t wanna die.” Yeah, me neither.
We all suffer through the process of becoming aware of what lies behind the curtain of Oz. It is not pleasing to face the lack of meaning behind all those patterns we build to keep ourselves from losing the will to survive. To cope, we trust in the patterns that already exist by solving a mathematical equation, writing a story, going to church, talking to a therapist or procreating. Realizing blankness and then carving meaning out of it is, for humans, the cycle of life. It is as constant as the guitar riff Koenig plays and as brutal of the shot of ladybugs eating each other in the accompanying music video.
Koenig’s lyrics are a reminder that the patterns of power in civilization are as crushing and selected as the patterns in what we call the natural world. We are alive and of the Earth. The instinctive pattern-weaving essential to our survival can create patterns detrimental to our progress. And as we grow older, the limitations in our ability to rewrite our environment become visible one by one. They pile up in the corner of our bedrooms and keep us up at night.
‘Harmony Hall’ is paired with ‘2021,’ a soft lullaby that sweetly acknowledges the uncontrollable passing of time. The track itself is built upon ‘Talking,’ an ambient composition made for the Japanese retail company Muji by Haruomi Hosono. There are moments on the track when Koenig’s voice trails off mid-sentence into a stream of thoughts censored by the jarring, sampled interjections of Jenny Lewis singing the word ‘boy.’ Those interruptions stop me from finishing the cliches of Koenig’s sentences, breaking my anticipation and replacing it with something new to anticipate—when interrupted, I write a new pattern. It is a simple subversive compositional tactic that intrigues just long enough for the brief 1:47 song to finish, and it perfectly complements the existential surrender of ‘Harmony Hall.’ The two tracks together set a mood of punchy, optimistic nihilism that colors my expectations of Father of the Bride a fresh spring green. ☔