Digest - The Morning News

Listening • What the Kids Don’t Stand

It’s become difficult to remember the hazy epoch that was last year, when the musical contents of a simple CD-R became an epidemic. The songs of Vampire Weekend were everywhere, which made the official “release” of their “debut album” in January of this year somewhat of an exercise in anachronistic formality. The current release of an EP featuring a single from that same, self-titled album seems all the more so, especially since it seems like those fine, young men should be coming up with new material by now. Aside from a contribution to the Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist soundtrack, we haven’t heard another peep from them. They’ll probably use the whole “we’ve been touring constantly in support of the album” excuse. Which is not so much an excuse as it is a point of fact.

They could learn a lot from Chromeo. Though they only have two albums to their credit, and though they are touring constantly in support of last year’s Fancy Footwork, Dave 1 is currently earning his PhD in French literature from Columbia university. Which is where he probably met those fine, young Vampire Weekend men. Which is probably what led to this, where both bands performed together for mtvU last week.

The live version of VW’s “The Kids Don’t Stand a Chance” is interesting, if only for the addition of a vocoder, but the version that appears on the new EP, remixed by none other than Chromeo, is nothing short of a revelation. Retaining Ezra Koenig’s plaintive vocals and the song’s most basic keyboard melody, Chromeo throws a seductively glossy and disco-digital framework underneath. Combining the best elements of each disparate group, the resulting product is euphoric, colorful, brilliant. More like this, please. —Erik Bryan, Nov. 19, 2008

» Listen to "The Kids Don't Stand a Chance" at The Tape Is Not Sticky

SHARE THIS • EMAIL THIS • FILE UNDER: Chromeo, Columbia University, Dave 1, Ezra Koenig, mtvU, Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist, Vampire Weekend

Listening • Re-Appropriating Appropriation

In the past week, two major music blogs (Stereogum and Gorilla vs. Bear) have featured Malawi’s Esau Mwamwaya along with leaked tracks from his highly anticipated debut release produced by Radioclit, the British DJ/production duo with a naughty name. Mwamwaya was also featured on the cover of Fader magazine’s Africa-centric issue earlier this year, and he is increasingly getting attention in the U.S. due to collaborations with such headline-grabbing indie acts as M.I.A., Santogold, Bonde do Rolê, and Vampire Weekend. Now, Vampire Weekend has been maligned in a lot of press over the past year due to their Paul Simon-ish appropriation of Afro-pop, Columbia University grads (read cynically: privileged white kids) that they are. But what does that really say about their music itself? And, furthermore, does it mean that white, Europe-descended performers are forever relegated to finding inspiration from Bach or John Philip Sousa? Does anyone begrudge the Beatles for their infatuation with African-American bluesmen like Bo Diddley? Did it not bring greater attention to those deservingly inspirational artists?

Rhetorical questions aside, what Esau Mwamwaya has done by sampling Vampire Weekend’s “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” is the deliciously cannibalistic re-appropriation—or reclamation, even—of appropriation. The result, like M.I.A.’s more politically minded contributions, decentralizes Western influence as “normative” and shines the spotlight even more directly on global issues, specifically those relating to the rise of so-called “third-world” (an opprobrious misnomer if ever there was one) nations. Even if I don’t speak the language. —Erik Bryan, Sep. 9, 2008

» Listen to "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" at Esau Mwamwaya's MySpace

SHARE THIS • EMAIL THIS • FILE UNDER: Bonde do Role, Esau Mwamwaya, Fader, Gorilla vs. Bear, M.I.A., Radioclit, Santogold, Stereogum, Vampire Weekend

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