Xinlisupreme – “All You Need Is Love Was Not True” b/w “Kyoro/CLose”
I can offer nothing rational (haha, not like last night, eh Jess?) on this slab of oddly fey brutality, because like most things which drown good intentions in a hellafied noise racket it makes every attempt to thwart over-intellectualization. Xinlisupreme are a Japanese band (which provides lazy critics the requisite Merzbow get out of jail free card) which takes the basic Mary Chain blueprint (the Ronettes sucked into a turbine) and explodes it outward with impossibly massed feedback, oddly pretty melodies and queerly pitched vocals. It’s also got MBV’s quavery sonic sweeps, and early Husker Du’s way of tossing a bit of the old pastoral into their amphetamine rave ups. Less an expansion of the ‘tradition’ than just ‘more.’
It’s a good record, maybe even my favorite of the year so far, if only becaue it’s the first to really make me examine my own listening habits. If the forums were working at the moment, I’d link to an argument had this January – instigated by Tom – about fucking about with ‘real’ pop music (for a rather coarse paraphrase) and why this (which is ostensibly indies entire modus operandi) is necessarily as good as (or better than) the real thing. My line then — and it remains about the same today — was why can’t this (be it odd time signatures, queered structures, feedback as melody… whatever) be pop too? (As I remembered the conversation stalled somewhat after that. Or maybe I just stopped paying attention.) It’s a bit of a cop out, however, as it doesn’t explain (to me) why I’m often more inclined to listen to something which marries noise and pop rather than just a. noise or b. pop.