Witness the best of the lot: " Pavement were an OK band/but you don't gotta sound like them." Most importantly, they're very, very quotable. Some of his best lines are brazen provocations ("depression is a construct") many sound like jokes but are devastating insights about drug abuse and suicidal ideation. They all read like casual conversations, but the kind you can only have when the speaker has a total lack of a filter and a complete trust in the person on the other end. As a result, the listener is inclined to relate to the person going through the harrowing narratives here. Most of the lyrics appear to be trimmed to fit for maximum impact within a character limit and even if they're not necessarily about him, Ray takes advantage of the presumption that songwriting is an autobiographical mode. But Teen Suicide's crucial novelty lies in how they connect modern forms of communication and dissemination-it's a celebration of how Bandcamp and Soundcloud can allow songs to be released in an instant while constantly mutating (this was not invented by The Life of Pablo) and, of course, any form of social media. His use of tape manipulation and sampled orchestral bric-a-brac dutifully marked in the treasure map-like credits ( Girlpool, Elvis Depressedly, Alex G, Porches, Owen Pallett and more) put him in the lineage of Elephant 6, Microphones or early Saddle Creek. It's hard to think of any album, probably ever, that managed to sound like these three and Sparklehorse in the same hour. "My Little World" touches on Aphex Twin's early ambient work, while the crackle surrounding the harps and strings on "V.I.P." carry the haunted-house eeriness of the Caretaker's Victrola memory experiments. The resplendent piano rolls of "I Don't Think It's Too Late" and "The Stomach of the Earth" are slightly scuffed and distorted, like a tear-stained take on the Range's recent emotronica. But the lo-fi recording quality serving as Celebration's binding agent has a far greater effect the further Teen Suicide get away from guitars. And this is just the first song.Īt their core, Teen Suicide is the most "indie rock" of Ray's projects and in that form, they write poignant song-sketches that can traffic in sarcasm ("it's not art unless you laugh, one of these days I'm gonna laugh") and have a poignant sweetness ("Falling Out of Love With Me").
As he shows with his projects outside of Teen Suicide, Ray is direct, omnivorous and unpredictable: Celebration feints at stop-start post-punk, patches in some nifty acoustic progressions on loan from Alex G's Beach Music, flirts with psychedelia and throws out some jazz noodling as well.
#TEEN SUICIDE BAND DISCOGRAPHY FULL#
This personality (or persona) is as crucial to full appreciation of Celebration as the music. Ray's ascent as an indie/DIY auteur has been propelled by his prolificity and his equally active desire to circumvent any barrier between him and his listeners.
#TEEN SUICIDE BAND DISCOGRAPHY PASSWORD#
It's a party you can hear from down the block and yet still requires a password at the door. The ugliest song is called "Beauty," one of the prettiest is "Neighborhood Drug Dealer." It's constantly absorbing and equal parts astonishing and frustrating. Its intentions are messy: Sam Ray resurrected his old band by popular demand (vis-à-vis his other projects Ricky Eat Acid and Julia Brown) and will be touring throughout the spring, yet they are also calling it their last will and testament. Its presentation signifies wild ambition, but Ray appears more interested in capturing fleeting bits of casual brilliance than making good on grandiose designs. Vincent is more art-pop, Whitney is great but perhaps to new of an act to be on the list, etc.).If you couldn't tell from the title or its 26 tracks or 69-minute length, It's the Big Joyous Celebration, Let's Stir the Honeypot is A) a glorious communal blowout and B) goddamn mess. We tried to filter things, just to shorten the long list of worthy candidates ( Postal Service is more electro than indie, St. The list could easily be hundreds of albums long, and probably should be. Settling on even the best 15 indie rock records proved quite the task. It’s undeniably approachable but maintains a certain streak of defiance, something that biggest labels often pass on as it might not be safe enough for the top of the charts. Indie music tends to be less FM dial and more college radio, falling somewhere between garage rock and pop. What does the genre even mean anymore? It’s tough to define, but as the name suggests, there’s an independent spirit at play. What began as an anti-establishment movement by bands in the 1970s and ’80s snowballed into a massive sonic category by the 2000s. Of all the many genres in music, indie may be the most crowded.
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