Deconstructing: Deafheaven, Disclosure, and Crossing Over!

[MoreTokyo]

 

Deconstructing: Deafheaven, disclosure, and Crossing Over! by Chris DeVille

 

It was damn near impossible to breeze through the music internet last month without tripping over Deafheaven and Disclosure. The two acts, both duos, just released landmark albums that are catching on outside the genre niches from whence they came, though not without some consternation from certain genre purists.

 

Deafheaven hails from the Scandinavian-born school of extreme sonic terrorism known as black metal (kind of). Per Michael — who co-writes Stereogum’s metal column, the Black Market — the band’s sophomore LP, Sunbather, “absolutely, passionately embraces black metal, and explores possibilities of the genre that have been opened up by such visionary masters as Agalloch and Amesoeurs: It’s expansive, melodic, blinding, textured, dynamic, and moving.†It’s also being embraced by people like me who’ve never listened to Agalloch and never heard of Amesoeurs, people who (gasp!) might not even know the difference between black metal and death metal.

 

Disclosure revives the turn-of-the-millennium UK dance genre 2-step garage (kind of), although, as Tom Breihan pointed out, debut full-length Settle “has a bit of a pan-genre sweep to it. A handful of tracks are straight-up four-on-the-floor house, and a few others are the sort of diffuse, bottom-heavy bass music that the Lawrence brothers were making when they first showed up a couple of years ago. And this isn’t an album of DJ-bin tracks; most of these are full-on songs, with guest vocalists of some repute, structured with verses and choruses and memorable riffs.†Settle is catching on with people who had never heard of UK garage kingpin MJ Cole until he started getting name-dropped in Disclosure reviews — again, people like me.

 

Why are these records reaching so far outside their genre ghettos? Partially due to quality, but also due to accessibility. Indie rockers can identify with the shoegaze and post-rock aspects of Deafheaven’s album — again, not a Burzum stan, but I’m guessing most black metal LPs don’t have interludes straight out of a Trail Of Dead record or fadeouts that could be mistaken for U2. Meanwhile, R&B fans can get a grip on Disclosure’s stellar songwriting and knack for hooks; few dance acts have one single as melodically charged as “Latch†or “White Noise†or “You & Me†in their careers, let alone three of them on their first album. By blurring genre lines, each of these crossover stars give outsiders something to connect with.

 

 

Of course, the outsiders have to hear this music in order to appreciate it, which is where the deafening din of critical-hive-mind hype comes in. Certain records accumulate so much buzz that anyone interested in keeping up with the critical conversation feels the need to have an opinion. That opinion tends to positive; once a few key tastemakers rave about a record, the rest of the internet usually falls in line. A self-fulfilling feedback loop of conventional wisdom develops, a central core of acclaimed albums that may or may not reflect most listeners’ genuine tastes. That’s certainly been the case with Sunbather and Settle; it seems fair to assume that come year’s end they’ll be the token metal and dance records on Pazz & Jop and other critics’ lists. As someone once said, “When a fire starts to burn, and it starts to spread, she gonna bring that attitude home.â€

Those exact factors are why certain genre partisans find Deafheaven and Disclosure so irritating. What your average Metacritic gusher sees as pushing forward modern music, purists see as a betrayal of sacred (profane?) tradition, be it Deafheaven forsaking the lo-fi “necro†sound or Disclosure favoring compact, melody-driven pop singles over stretched-out, beat-centric club tracks. (Ironically, ultraconservative black metal zealots decry their crossover stars for being too progressive while evolution-obsessed club kids clown theirs for being too retro.) When buffet-style dabblers opt not to dig deeper than the big buzz release, the genre acolytes resent seeing so much similar, equally worthy music going ignored. Yesterday on Twitter, a user by the name of @bfordelokoxvx posted regarding Deafheaven, “they rip off wolves algalloch [sic] Alcest envy etc super hard. Idk everyone thinks they are doing something innovative and they arent.†Last month, another tweeter named @mcviper rattled off a bunch of old UK garage producers: “I reckon disclosure is made up secretly of Wookie, mj cole, artful dodger, zinc, Jameson and Karl brown.â€

Metal and club music are worlds apart aesthetically, but it’s easy to find some common threads. Both rely on relentless pounding rhythms designed for physicality and catharsis; both are havens for outsiders or people who view themselves as outsiders; both are vast universes to themselves containing a litany of carefully codified subgenres. Most importantly for our purposes, both groups have been infiltrated by armies of ideologues ready to passionately defend the gates to the fan club. And defend they have — sometimes with bizarre insults (Metacritic user finnigan37 on Settle: “If you dance to this you are a terrible dancerâ€), other times with threats (the charming @chudblunter on Twitter yesterday: “How many Deafheaven kids do you think I can fit in the trunk of a 1998 Buick LeSabreâ€). It’s worth noting that most of that rhetoric has been relegated to social media, message boards, and comments sections, because the overwhelming majority of music writers are attempting to present themselves as open-minded omnivores. In professional coverage of Sunbather and Settle, you’re much more likely to find disparaging references to purist backlash than actual purist backlash.

As someone who’s writing professionally about those albums right this second, and who is frequently guilty of scouring a genre’s critical-consensus fringe without bothering to plumb its depths, I can’t help but wonder: Is that so bad? I resonate with William Bowers’ defense of dabbling in his concert-review-as-treatise last year: “A few of us dilettantes overestimating Liturgy, and then maybe checking out some other black metal bands’ releases and shows, isn’t ‘doing’ anything to your precious ‘true’ black metal.†Sure, Deafheaven doing “the exact fucking opposite of what black metal bands do†is probably trolling the trolls as Michael suspects, a deliberate attempt to inflame. And sure, Deafheaven’s forebear in the “hipster black metal†designation, Liturgy’s Hunter Hunt-Hendrix, is up his own ass a bit with that brilliantly pretentious manifesto. But which Fenriz fanboy was prevented from enjoying some limited edition cassette because of it? And who’s really suffering for my sins of Agalloch omission besides me? Cue Bowers again: “You happily torture yourself practicing lifelong monogamy to the ‘true’ black-metal strictures, and let Hunt-Hendrix write any oracular PowerPoint exegesis he wants to, while others of us whore out our iPod space to whatever comes along and seems halfway interesting.â€

Still, a part of me sympathizes with the authenticity police when they call out interlopers like myself for branching out only when it’s fashionable — not because there’s anything wrong with attempting to stay on the cutting edge, but because when you’ve staked your identity on something, it stings to see other people so casually co-opting it. We all structure our worldview around some center; we all define ourselves according to some core identity. For a certain sect of people, that identity happens to be “super kvlt.†They probably relate with a commenter named TheWolf who spewed venom back in May when the metal blog Invisible Oranges posted Deafheaven tour dates: “Thanks for encouraging hipsters who treat metal like a fashion of the week or a garnish to place on top of their indie rock main course.â€

I’m the guy with the garnish, but I totally see where the TheWolf is coming from. As someone who defines myself first and foremost as a Christian, you would not believe how much it galls me when people crib elements from my faith as a fashion statement. Examine it, sure, but at a certain point you’re either in or you’re out. Who on Earth wants to see his entire lifestyle reduced to an accessory? Certainly not a gay suburban teen who found himself in house music, only to see the latest wave of EDM exploitation encroaching on his scene. Definitely not a woman who claims “Black Metal Saved My Life.†Even Michael, a passionate supporter of Deafheaven’s quest to redraw the borders of black metal, felt antagonistic toward the party-crashers at the band’s New York show, if only temporarily.

 

 

 

[kinjiki]

omg i love sunbather omg i can't believe this on onehallyu

[DocumentaLy]

I've heard of the Deafheaven album quite a bit but never listened to it. I breezed through it on YouTube and it sounded a bit too hard for me. Maybe I should listen to it in full.

 

Disclosure. I'm actually kinda shocked at how much they've caught on. I saw their second US show last October at Mercury Lounge in New York. Small room, like 200 people. This was the week Latch was released in the UK. The show wasn't an immediate sellout but it did sellout. I'm seeing them again next month at Central Park SummerStage and this one sold out pretty quickly. I think this rise that they have can be connected to the buzz they've gotten in the indie music press. They're dance music but they kinda operate in a space that is outside of mainstream dance music. Mainstream dance music now is very EDM. Not everyone likes that sound, I'm not about that sound. I remember posting some Disclosure songs on H8 last year and this year and some people were about it and some weren't. Common complaints about them was that they were too soft, too mellow, and the main one: there's no drop. But Disclosure isn't about a drop. They're about a groove. This isn't music you really get drunk off your ass and go nuts in a club too (I stole that from Jamie xx talking about the bastardization of dubstep but that's another conversation). You have a drink to this but you kinda just sit/stand there and bob your head. Take it in. Do a little two step (garage reference ). It's soulful and R&B driven. This is why it comes as no surprise to me that R&B fans would like Disclosure. Garage is like an offspring of R&B. They brought up MJ Cole earlier. I was listening to him back at the turn of the century when he was popular. Could you not see a R&B fan being down with this:

 

 

 

It's not a stretch at all. Speaking of acts from back then, I actually see a clearer link between Disclosure and Artful Dodger than MJ Cole. I've said a few times that Settle is an updated version of their album It's All About The Stragglers:

 

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIsvsjs9vPk

 

Funny enough, Disclosure has actually remixed the song above:

 

 

 

Disclosure is dance music for people who want something warm from dance music as opposed to the coldness of EDM. Will they catch on and become as big as an EDM act like Swedish House Mafia and doing Madison Square Garden? I don't know. I don't think so. I personally think it would be weird seeing them at a place like MSG. I think there is a niche for them that can be expanded. Garage didn't really catch on here the first time around, outside of Craig David and that Daniel Bedingfield song, but maybe it will now.

 

omg i love sunbather omg i can't believe this on onehallyu

 

I can. This is what we talk about in the Unsaturated thread.

[Goo]

Sunbather by Deafheaven is great. Its crossover appeal isn't that surprising to me. The same has happened before with Amesoeurs (check them out) and Liturgy (don't). Silly of people to accuse them of ripping off Envy, Agalloch or Wolves in the Throne Room though. Envy at least has a somewhat similar sound, but the other two are quite different (and you wouldn't be missing anything to omit them in Deafheaven's favor). In any case, even if there are people merely hopping on the bandwagon for Sunbather, it's an album that deserves some praise IMO.

It's still easier to see Disclosure having crossover appeal beyond the house/garage boundaries considering dance music has a much broader audience and that this kind of music has been around for a while already. They are retro but as far as I can tell, many "authentic" house/garage fans are enjoying their tunes. On the charts and radio they are a refreshing antidote to all the grating EDM that's been pumped out the past few years. The more progressive acts will still be out there and probably won't be climbing the charts like that regardless. Settle is a really good record, especially because of some excellent stand-out tracks and not so much the whole.

For the black metal purists I have no sympathy. Maybe it's because I think most black metal is shit but these people are also incredibly close-minded with their demeanor that Deafheaven is "guilty" for not really being black metal and that only those initiated into the scene should be listening to it anyway.