Deradoorian, while keeping modern pop rock as her central inspiration, doesn’t hesitate to mix seemingly antagonistic styles on her fourth album, Ready For Heaven.
California-born Angel Deradoorian began learning the violin and piano at the age of five. As her interest in music grew, she decided to leave school to devote herself fully to her passion. She moved to Brooklyn and, after a few experiments, in 2007 joined the indie rock band Dirty Projectors, which she left five years later with a view to devoting herself to more personal projects. She then became close to Animal Collective and released her first solo album in 2015, in addition to making a name for herself as part of the duo Decisive Pink.
On her fourth album, Deradoorian maps out the styles that inspire her. We can see that she follows her desires without trying to stick to any particular label, and that’s what makes this record so original. Despite its diversity, the record acquires an overall tonality that becomes more and more evident the more you listen to it. Without shying away from a clearly arty approach, the tracks move from the New York post-punk of the ’80s to the repetitive side of krautrock, the precursors of the electronics that also make their presence felt here. A few jazzy, industrial or reggae touches round off the soundtrack.
Clearly, the artist loves the studio and production. The musical lines are superimposed, giving coherence to an assembly of modules whose cohabitation might have seemed incongruous elsewhere. The clear guitar at the beginning can saturate elsewhere, the saxophone can go from languorous ambiences to heart-rending flights of fancy, as can the rhythms, sometimes almost hypnotic and at other times more danceable. Interestingly, the varied timbres maintain a general sound tinged with torpor, in line with the tensions perceived by the musician within our society.
Artiste : Car Seat Headrest Album : The Scholars Label : Matador Lien : https://www.carseatheadrest.com/ Style : Pop-Rock, Alternative
Car Seat Headrest offers The Scholars, a record with a narrative spread out in the manner of concept albums from the golden age of rock, the perfect pretext for unfurling their searching, gripping pop.
After all, Car Seat Headrest started out as Will Toledo’s own recordings, which he distributed via the Bandcamp website. Parts of the songs were recorded in the family car, hence the name of the project. After his studies, he moved to Seattle, and it was from this point on that we could speak of a band, with the arrival of other musicians. In 2015, the band signed with the renowned independent label Matador Records, for whom they recorded a handful of albums, which included Will Tuledo’s original tracks reworked for the occasion.
The Scholars adopts a narrative structure inherited from the concept albums of the 70s. From the outset, the band has operated in a pure pop-rock style that can best be described as classic, but with an element of momentum and a breadth full of lyricism that is evident on this album, where the compositions evolve in structures far removed from the sempiternal verse-chorus. In the more adventurous moments of their pop side, one is reminded of Animal Collective, who would have abandoned their electronic paraphernalia as well as their long studio work to leave more room for immediacy. All this without falling into the lo-fi of Will Toledo’s early solo recordings.
The voice, which alternates between strength and fragility, always full of emotion, is barely in the foreground, with the guitars, which can be acoustic and clear, or conversely full of saturation and more shadowy to accompany the narrative. Rhythm, too, plays an important role in shaping track structures and modulating tempo as they evolve. The production perfectly captures these different moods and, as a sign of its quality, will highlight different characteristics depending on whether you’re listening on speakers that favor a wide soundstage, or with headphones that are more faithful to detail.
