Small Black
//photo by elizabeth weinberg
Brooklyn’s Small Black just released their self-titled EP this month and it’s filled with swirly keyboards and fuzzy guitars. While it’s true that there have been a bunch of bands in this same vein as of late (check out the last twenty posts and I’m sure you can pick out five or six), Small Black has the advantage of Josh Kolenik’s fogged-out vocal delivery and great songwriting abilities. Washed Out (whose slow, fuzzy songs we wrote about a while back) also remixed their song ‘Despicable Dogs’ and did a damn fine job of making it even further up in the clouds. Gotta love these songs on those gray, overcast days.. you can almost pretend it’s still summertime.
Small Black – Despicable Dogs
Small Black – Weird Machines
Small Black – Bad Lover
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October 19th, 2009 at 10:33 pm
hah, just went looking for their new ep and found this here. my google search led me back to you. the interweb wants for us to be together. thank you for these songs. missing you. big hug, adam
October 25th, 2009 at 9:22 am
Yeah, I don’t catch the buzz about these guys. Poor contrived production, twee contrived vox, and the songwriting???? really—seems like everyone regurgitates the same comments and doesn’t see it through themselves…
songwriters:
Stuart Murdoch
Elvis Costello
John Lennon
the above and many others seem like songwriters…this version of songwriting is like a perverse and diluted interpretation of New School Art, which this band is so far removed from the original source of its aesthetics…as if you all you needed to do was write oblique lines and lightly tie them together and then call it songwriting???
October 25th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
I think that’s quite a valid point. It just seems to me that there is a very high standard for songwriting and each person can choose how seriously to take that standard. Personally I find so much crap out there existing in a mediocre vein, that anything second or third tier constitutes good songwriting. Otherwise I would only like maybe one band a year and then I would be depressed.
I think this also translates into a world view – The world is totally fucked right now. You can dwell on that and let it depress you endlessly or you can focus on some elements that make you happy and accept it for what it is.
Does that make sense? Hope I didn’t generalize too much. The point is that I used to have the opinion that everything mediocre was the same as being terrible. As I get older I seem to be refining that position. Maybe I am becoming mediocre myself or maybe I just am able to see the good parts of strained songwriting.
November 9th, 2009 at 6:31 pm
boob.