fbpx
  • Subscribe & Support
  • Sign up for Free Newsletter
  • Print Edition
    • Get Home Delivery
    • Read ePaper Online
    • Newsstand Locations
  • HV1 Magazines
  • Contact
    • Advertise
    • Customer Support
    • Submit A News Tip
    • Where’s My Paper?
  • Manage HV1 Account
  • Free HV1 Trial
  • Movie Night Gift Subscription
Hudson Valley One
  • News
    • Schools
    • Business
    • Sports
    • Crime
    • Politics & Government
  • What’s Happening
    • Calendar Of Events
    • Featured Events
      • Art
      • Books
      • Kids
      • Lifestyle & Wellness
      • Food & Drink
      • Music
      • Nature
      • Stage & Screen
  • Opinions
    • Letters
    • Columns
    • Editorials
  • Local
    • Special Sections
    • Local History
  • Marketplace
    • All Classified Ads
    • Help Wanted
    • Post a Classified Ad
  • Obituaries
  • Podcast
  • Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • News
    • Schools
    • Business
    • Sports
    • Crime
    • Politics & Government
  • What’s Happening
    • Calendar Of Events
    • Featured Events
      • Art
      • Books
      • Kids
      • Lifestyle & Wellness
      • Food & Drink
      • Music
      • Nature
      • Stage & Screen
  • Opinions
    • Letters
    • Columns
    • Editorials
  • Local
    • Special Sections
    • Local History
  • Marketplace
    • All Classified Ads
    • Help Wanted
    • Post a Classified Ad
  • Obituaries
  • Podcast
  • Log In
No Result
View All Result
Hudson Valley One
No Result
View All Result

The apotheosis of lo-fi: Kurt Vile in Kingston

by John Burdick
April 1, 2016
in Art & Music, Entertainment
0
Kurt Vile
Kurt Vile

To survey the remarkable career of Kurt Vile is to marvel at the multi-band rainbow of murk. Who knew that there were so many ways to warp, melt, muddle, cloud, gelatinize, nauseate, gasify, skew, saturate, poison and pollute the core sounds of indie rock? It has been a very long time since lo-fi was about not knowing any better, or about the scarcity of affordable recording gear, or about the democratization of production. For Vile, whose first album, Constant Hitmaker, came out in 2008 – more than 20 years after Guided by Voices were releasing their early cassettes with a straight face – lo-fi is nothing less than an intention, a free-standing aesthetic, and not even an especially primitive one. These sounds are beautiful and not easy.

As further evidence of how high lo-fi has fallen in his hands, Kurt Vile can really play. No matter how damaged the production, it can’t obscure the sheer competency and versatility of his guitar. Sometimes he jangles with an offhand Baroque precision. Sometimes he stacks the slabs of sludge and fuzz like someone trying to outdo J. Mascis. Sometimes he fairly dazzles with his fingerpicking: a delicate, blues-free cascade that sounds like British folk denuded of its finer tensions and resolutions by a stoned Phillip Glass.

His poetry is the poetry of professional slack and an executive policy of indifference. It’s about not caring with an almost-OCD focus and drive, and about catching glimpses of heart and of heartbreak in the cracks. It’s also an urban mood index. Sometimes he’s really down, and all that he can see is the filth around him. Sometimes he’s light, graced and untouchable (and not necessarily even high); sometimes he is in love – and that alone is when things get tricky.

Through it all, his words and his melodies flow with a shambolic grace, like some kind of street-surfing Jack Johnson, only much better. But you just can’t be sure what he means and whether he means it. You can’t be sure whether he is winking or just nodding off when he sings:

It’s just another day in the shame chamber
Living life to the lowest power
Feeling bad in the best way a man can

“Shame Chamber” is one of the standout tracks on Vile’s fifth and latest full-length, Wakin on a Pretty Daze. In musical and in lyrical dimensions, this album steps toward commitment; but as the grammatically indifferent title betrays, commitment is a fraught proposition for someone who has made his name cultivating the lack of it. The ambiguity pivots upon the preposition “on.” Is Kurt Vile, the self-described “Childish Prodigy,” waking up in a daze (again), or from one?

Both. The sounds are still warped, but not every sound. A song is more likely to commit to a singular signature weirdness in an otherwise-conventional mix, as opposed to a global policy of weirdification. The lyrics and the delivery are not much changed on the surface; but on a second or third listen to songs like the epic mission statement “Goldtone,” you might think, “By God, he’s actually being not only mature, but even a little didactic!”

It calls to my mind the cautionary example of Stephen Malkmus. Post-pavement, Malkmus learned how to rock in a proper band with the Jicks. In his lyrics, he trained himself to commit to an emotional thrust and to resist his old habits of teasing and undermining everything. And in so doing, he carved his fanbase down to the ardent few who were willing to accept the idea of a competent and mature Stephen Malkmus. Vile, too, might ride this personal and musical growth fresh out of an audience. It’s the ass-backwards success proposition of indie rock – a game that no one has won to date.

But Vile is über-talented. He is the Rocky Balboa, the Philadelphia Chosen One of contemporary indie rock, so I have to give him a fighting chance.

Kurt Vile & the Violators with V B A, Thursday, October 24, 9 p.m., $20/$25, available at Jack’s Rhythms in New Paltz, Outdated Café in Kingston & online, BSP, 323 Wall Street, Kingston; (845) 481-5158, www.bspkingston.com.

Join the family! Grab a free month of HV1 from the folks who have brought you substantive local news since 1972. We made it 50 years thanks to support from readers like you. Help us keep real journalism alive.
- Geddy Sveikauskas, Publisher
Previous Post

Who will rule the roads?

Next Post

Letters (10/17-24)

John Burdick

Related Posts

Woodstock gallery celebrates the life and art of Carol Zaloom
Art & Music

Woodstock gallery celebrates the life and art of Carol Zaloom

June 1, 2023
Legendary NYC avant-punk polymath performs live in Woodstock this Saturday
Art & Music

Legendary NYC avant-punk polymath performs live in Woodstock this Saturday

June 1, 2023
Dozens of activities for all ages in Ulster County this week
Community

Dozens of activities for all ages in Ulster County this week

May 31, 2023
All the art events in Ulster County this week
Art & Music

All the art events in Ulster County this week

May 31, 2023
Century-old Woodstock music venue hosts open house this Saturday
Art & Music

Century-old Woodstock music venue hosts open house this Saturday

May 31, 2023
Ulster County live music guide: First week of June 2023
Art & Music

Ulster County live music guide: First week of June 2023

May 31, 2023
Next Post

Letters (10/17-24)

Trending News

  • Victim’s mother was assured by Kingston school officials that her son would be safe, notice of claim now entered against the district 3.7k views
  • Who’s to blame for Kingston’s inadequate playing fields? Just ask the parents 843 views
  • Pride reaffirmed in New Paltz 732 views
  • At iPark 87, things do seem different this time 430 views
  • Vintage baseball game in Hudson Valley will play by 1800s rules 353 views
  • In a push for affordable housing, Metzger proposes a $15-million fund   322 views

Weather

Kingston
◉
61°
Sunny
5:22 am8:25 pm EDT
Feels like: 61°F
Wind: 0mph SE
Humidity: 94%
Pressure: 29.97"Hg
UV index: 0
SatSunMon
72/46°F
73/46°F
73/52°F
Weather forecast Kingston, New York ▸

Subscribe

Independent. Local. Substantive. Subscribe now.

  • Subscribe & Support
  • Sign up for Free Newsletter
  • Print Edition
  • HV1 Magazines
  • Contact
  • Manage HV1 Account
  • Free HV1 Trial
  • Movie Night Gift Subscription

© 2022 Ulster Publishing

No Result
View All Result
  • News
    • Schools
    • Business
    • Sports
    • Crime
    • Politics & Government
  • What’s Happening
    • Calendar Of Events
    • Featured Events
      • Art
      • Books
      • Kids
      • Lifestyle & Wellness
      • Food & Drink
      • Music
      • Nature
      • Stage & Screen
  • Opinions
    • Letters
    • Columns
    • Editorials
  • Local
    • Special Sections
    • Local History
  • Marketplace
    • All Classified Ads
    • Help Wanted
    • Post a Classified Ad
  • Obituaries
  • Podcast
  • Subscribe & Support
  • Contact Us
    • Customer Support
    • Advertise
    • Submit A News Tip
  • Print Edition
    • Read ePaper Online
    • Newsstand Locations
    • Where’s My Paper
  • HV1 Magazines
  • Manage HV1 Account
  • Log In
  • Free HV1 Trial

© 2022 Ulster Publishing