Sondre Lerche - Coliseum Town
I can’t think of a better description of Sondre than this snippet from an old Daytrotter session: “There’s more scary pop genius in that young man than is legal.” He’s known for mixing genres, but that’s really a roundabout way for reviewers to admire his songcraft, which is clean and hugely approachable but always a step ahead of its listeners. “Coliseum Town” is a nice introduction to his strengths: his narrators, dreamy and bemused; the instrumentation, which unspools outward in dozens of elegant stylistic detours; and most impressively, the way they waltz together with just enough breathing room, two worlds for the choosing. Remove the trappings and you get this: pensive and wistful, another route entirely. Its versatility is almost mathematical. If the parts of this song were broken down and labeled, the result could be displayed at a museum, brushing elbows with the model skeletons.
What allows Sondre to incorporate so many disparate influences into his work is the same fluency that packs in complex ideas and arrangements without letting one strongarm the spotlight. I was surprised when he mentioned on WNRN that tourmate Kishi Bashi devised the strings for this song—I assumed it was him. I mean, he could. Somehow that only shifts my admiration from “arranges symphonies with his eyes closed” to “keeps excellent company.” No matter whom he works with or what he tries, it all sounds so accomplished, and blends the best of tradition with a little something extra, like a Cyclops burger. He doesn’t need to switch styles to stay interesting, but if he’s up for it, consider this the campaign speech for Sondre for Bond Themes/”She Wolf” Covers/Beyoncé’s Next Single 2012. I will listen to anything he makes. For the moment, you can see him on tour (!!!!) or buy a million copies of his self-titled album, which is available now.
P.S. His Twitter (@SondreLerche—spell check thinks this should be rechurches, underclothes, or Sondheim) is delightful. He’s shown no signs of that Twitter curse in which actors and musicians outside their element systematically lose the sheen separating them from people I know, revealing themselves to be solipsistic, or boring, or mean and ungracious, or really bad spellers. My feed might as well be renamed THE DREAM IS COLLAPSING. Thankfully, Sondre tweets like that friend who always has the best stories: affable, observant, wry, and unapologetically cheerful. Sometimes he posts candids that either look like outtakes from GQ or days out with Suzie Pancake, the IHOP mascot. Basically it is hilarious and wonderful and like staring into the sun. If his music isn’t your thing, at the very least you’d want to invite him for a drink and several rounds of “Does This Blu-Ray Look Like Soap or Porn?” Bless him forever.
The further this song pushes its way into my head, the closer I get to a tombstone that reads “slow death by R&B.” But what a way to go. Not one reference to conquests or the travails of fame (and barely any exposed flesh in its references to the body), and yet in daring to sound vulnerable The Weeknd has aligned itself with Frank Ocean in delivering a heady, high-concept debut that’s more interested in sleeping in than blacking out. Though there might have been some blacking out when I first heard “Wicked Games,” the sticky sonic equivalent of a Zane novel. Part of that I’ll credit to the subject, equal parts plea and rebuke to the woman holding the trigger in a grim affair. The rest belongs to vocalist Abel Tesfaye, who pines and wails his way through the verses with a longing so sharp I’m surprised it doesn’t draw blood. The melody on “get me off of this, I need confidence in myself” is so gorgeous (and startling—even the most straightforward “I’m sorry / why did we break up / FOREVER ALONE” pop rarely allows for this kind of concession). Whether it’s all purposely understated and contrived to generate the kind of hype frenzy publicists dream about doesn’t matter to me. Consider that goal achieved. As Robert Christgau wrote in response to a D’Angelo concert: “He was R&B Jesus, and I’m a believer.” 
Considering the radio has consistently played the same two Sarah McLachlan songs for the past decade, it’s not surprising her latest album—coming off a seven-year hiatus—garnered little press here last summer. I only read about it because I listened to Mirrorball (her live concert album) a million times in high school, and that kind of feelings vortex only gets overwritten, not erased. It’s a shame McLachlan’s style falls so squarely into the dull, spiritless trappings of adult contemporary: her voice is cottony and soothing, but without the lyrics that prove she’s more than just the living embodiment of VapoRub, it’s easy to forget how riveting her albums were. People only seem to use her as a reference point when playing to irritating notions of femininity (as seen in Eat Pray Love: self-help retreats, perfumed candles, endlessly ruminative existential despair), and in turn, her specter haunts the gates of conventional masculinity. Whatever you do, don’t risk your straight and/or fratty credentials by listening to this woman. The only cure is ten days of manly posturing and a Judd Apatow filmfest.
Ever since soundtracks became synonymous with branding, it’s standard to skip anything Clear Channel-approved in favor of delivering unknown artists from obscurity. Pop music has its place—club scenes and musical numbers—and the rest gets scored from the unruly tower of submissions threatening to bury their listeners at work. While supporting up-and-coming artists keeps interest high and costs down, there’s a neat logic behind it that goes beyond practicalities. When something gets played on TV for the first time, that show secures a degree of creative ownership over that song that gets knotted into the minds of several million people—many of whom already have the kind of super-specific sense memory that will remember the lighting and what everyone was wearing and the way their mouths moved.
In honor of last night’s showdown with the Gravedigger, here is the second most epic music cue of all time. I think that if you’ve seen “Aliens in a Spaceship,” there’s nothing else to say. If you haven’t, I can’t convey how extraordinary it is, and how its inclusion—when the tension is cranked as high as it can go—transforms the sequence that follows into something raw and vulnerable and hopeful and perfect. This song is embedded so deeply into the continuity of this episode that it feels wrong to hear it in isolation, and I like to pretend they don’t exist independently for my own sanity. Pay no attention to the link up there.