PSYCHEDELIC HORSESHIT – MAGIC FLOWERS DRONED
This record recasts the meaning of the phrase pop-punk, which has been dragged down to a codified lineage of Ramones-Screeching Weasel-Green Day, but applies to Psychedelic Horseshit’s entirely separate vision that actually takes into account the etymological meanings of the term. It is a PUNK look at POP, which does not necessitate fast beats, three chords, and whoa-ohs though at one time that strategy was as abrasive, confrontational, and critical as the one now employed by Psychedelic Horseshit, whose songs feel glued together by spit, one measure from falling apart.
Lost in the mix, not just in the actual recording but in the critical commentary surrounding this sound*, are the pop songs entombed by the noise. “Lovingly fucked with” as it is said, amounts to an aural equivalent of the chatter on old film reels but engenders the same kind of reading as the impressionists’ choice of ethereal and unreadable** styles in the face of hundreds of years of academic painting. Horseshit is playing up this critical perspective in a self aware manner, “Bad Vibrations” is a retelling of THE BEACH BOYS’ canonical pop song “Good Vibrations” that strips the utopian-anti-depressant ambiance of that song and uncovers an actual possibility, the actual feeling of anxiety and misanthropy. On “New Wave Hippies” Horseshit takes shallow, empty pop bands such as YEASAYER and DEERHUNTER*** to task for not using their public status of being “cool” to do anything politically or socially challenging.
In addition to the lyrical attacks on pop music as we know it is the sound of Horseshit, which is a patchwork conglomeration of injured methods of music production that rework notions of song structure, coherent instrumentation, and sound quality. As a three piece playing through a clean PA they have a difficult time pulling off their sound live but on record it is a wall of pretty problems. By retaining the themes of pop songs as well as their melodic nature and suffusing them with ugliness, dissonance, and tape hiss they are not just engaging in empty aestheticism as many have implied, but are attempting a strong critical reworking of pop codes that briefly show the options abandoned, the sounds ignored by the structural power wielded by the tastemakers in the music industry.
These tastemakers impose rules by means of selection on how music will sound and what one may have the opportunity to hear. That these same tastemakers (MTV, Pitchfork, Matador) are now courting bands like TIMES NEW VIKING and Psychedelic Horseshit is no shock as late capitalism’s greatest achievement has been its proficiency at turning strong criticism into even stronger product. That these bands are to reinvigorate a dead assembly line of pop music is not surprising. That they are participating in the commercial co-optation is surprising, as well as intellectually incoherent with the seeming message of the music. This sort of corporate exposure generally invalidates the importance of actual independent culture in that it seems to say you have to be reliant on mainstream institutions to be successful. The opportunity to play music for a living would be hard to turn down obviously, but why would you really even contemplate talking to someone who doesn’t even have the gall to spell your name correctly in their blog? (John Norris of MTV wrote Psychedelic Horsesh- - on his blog, questionably leaving open the possibility of Psychedelic Horseshoe.)****
This commercial exploitation that is underway will not be anything other than another turn in the cogs of musical capitalism. The brashly beautiful sounds on Magic Flowers Droned which rely on abrupt endings, innovative song structures, dueling vocal lines, inconstant instrumentation, unanticipated shifts of momentum, teeny-toy drums, and blown out recordings will lose its ability to startle once it is not a comment on mainstream codes of music but is, instead, mainstream music itself.
A USEFUL EQUATION FOR THE CAPITALISM OF CULTURE
Mainstream Product Code + Independent Culture's Criticism Of Code = New Mainstream Product Code !
And nothing structural in the institutions of the music industry that cause the suffocation which produces bands like Psychedelic Horseshit will change.
* Jason Crock’s review of Psychedelic Horseshit’s brother band, Times New Viking, and their new record RIP IT OFF will not shut the fuck up about the sound quality of it, as if the whole album was just a field recording of white noise or something. Did this guy ever listen to punk rock?
** Unreadable then of course, not now. It was garbled garbage in direct confrontation to the mainstream traditions of painting accepted by the art world. Now it is the tradition. And just as annoying as academic painting was.
*** Talking shit on other semi-established bands in a very Columbus thing. Note the New Bomb Turks' Eric Davidson in the nineties on that.
**** How is MTV going to fuck up and capitalize off the current roster of “indie” bands utilizing curse words for cheap appeal with this rule in effect? Bye, bye to Holy Shit, Holy Fuck, Fuck Buttons, Fucked Up, Fuck The Facts, Holy Fucking Shit, Shitstorm (j/k), etc etc etc fuckingetc. There is money to be made on blue words, MTV!
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