Day 15, The Raincoats - Self Titled

So far, today’s self titled album by the Raincoats is the oldest I’ve listened to. Which got me thinking. Looking at the list, there are only a handful of albums from past generations. There was nothing in my original e-mail that I sent out to all of my friends when asking for suggestions about “new” or “fresh.” I simply asked for two, must hear albums. Nobody mentioned Dylan, the Beatles, or even Michael Jackson, and there were no antiquities, like a Bach or Beethoven. Had my friends completely turned their back on history?

Since the average age of the people I asked for recommendations was around 25, it could be that everyone is just sick of being force-fed canonical works of art, like we were all through college. The most optimistic answer to this is that everyone is in the stage of their lives where they are beginning to clear their own paths in life and finding new ways to satisfy themselves. Maybe this has an influence over their music tastes?

Or maybe my friends just know me too well. Although I never mentioned it in the original e-mail, it was my intention to only spend a whole day on an album I had never heard before. Maybe they had the sense to guess. Also, if you know me well at all, you may know I had almost given up on “new music” years ago, so perhaps they were trying to enlighten me to regain faith. Or maybe it is all coincidence.

Regardless, the Raincoats’ self titled debut released in 1979 came out 17 years before anything else I’ve listened to so far (Jay-Z’s reasonable Doubt in 1996). It felt great to get out of hipsterdom and revisit the origins of a style and sound often mimicked today. The Raincoats are an all girl post-punk band from London. Their album is clunky, thin and awkward, but not because they did a half-assed job recording it. They are simply hell-bent on sounding like they way stick-figures look: thin, simple, overtly expressive (slanted eyebrows, smiley-face, etc.) and when used correctly, it’s all you need.

The Raincoats have bass, drum and guitar like any other punk band, but this album features a violin—and there is nothing honky-tonk about it. In fact, I didn’t even know that it was a violin until I got halfway through the album, and then I still had to double-check online. The violin is often wrapped in serious fuzz, and she turns it into a shrieking cow. It is also the only sound-modified instrument on the album. The rest of the instruments sound like they were mic-ed once for the demo and then plopped right into the final cut. The guitar twangs along with little-to-no overdrive, the drums are clinky, and the bass sort of plods along like C3PO in serious need of oil.

But this almost amateurish sound is not indicative of the maturity of the band. The arrangements are actually very interesting and well thought-out. The harmonies and interactive vocals on “No Side to Fall In,” and “Black and White” disserve more credit than their tin-can sound would grant on its own. My favorite track, “You’re a Million,” rises with a dramatic, open and drawn-out section and then falls into a hectic, speedy dance-beat, like a tidal wave slowly approaching and then crashing.

The lyrics, too, prove that the band isn’t just playing around. They can get pretty heavy when the time is right: “Rolling in pain/discovered what hurts/and tasted hell/infatuated by madness/I danced in flames/and drunk in the depth of love.” But the Raincoats can be fun, too. They do a cover of The Kinks’ “Lola,” which they strip down and bang out extraordinarily well. This version may even be little more believable, too, as if Lola is singing the song about the guy she picked up.