KQUE - Brass Rock
Hello and welcome back to KQUE, you are listening to Radio Query.1 This month I've found myself circling the experimental edges of rock. This has entailed a lot of genre fusion, with acts drawing on everything from orchestral to chiptune (shoutouts to the new releases from Father John Misty and Saoirse Dream respectively). Shoegaze has seen a major revival in this post-digital era of production, turning heavier and more electronic in many of its modern forms. There may be a future program on this subject, but today's focus is quite far from the distortion of foot pedals: today we're bringing in the horns.
I'm quite fascinated by the emotional range atypical instruments bring to rock composition. Brass instruments (such as the trumpet, saxophone, and trombone) have an immediacy comparable to vocals, and there's a force to their presence that demands unusually careful attention to the relation between vocalist and instrumental. All good composition considers the relations between the constituent elements but brass brings this to the forefront. Put simply: horns make dense noise. Their sound emerges from the exhalation of humanity with all the richness and depth of the lungs. They must be in conversation with the vocalist, they emerge from the same expression.
In today's program I'm focusing on two major modes of brass in rock: anxiety and tenderness. Anxiety refers to the to the building of uneasy anticipation; the knowledge that something's not quite right, that bottled energy must eventually release. Protomartyr direct this unease toward political rot. "Sounds We Cannot Hear" refers as a title and lyric to the omnipresent reminders of the untenability of the present. The sounds ring clear but we can't process them or else we couldn't continue. Horns fill this role beautifully in the noise rock mix, calling through layers of guitars and distorted synths. It isn't the brass itself that's anxious but our response to our ability to hear it. Amidst the din of living, how are we to hear anything clearly?
Protomartyr's horns tap into a secondary power of brass instruments: grandeur. They're associated with orchestras and national anthems, and thus make great vessels for political anxiety. Radiohead use them in this way for their song "The National Anthem," the inclusion of horns invoking the track's namesake while taking from free jazz in implementation. Just as horns have invoked nationalist pride so too have they given voice to the voiceless. There is no sure comfort in nationalism, all it takes is a shift in perspective to find the whole mess rotten. The supposed grandeur of the nation is necessarily ironic.
As "The National Anthem" builds so too does the anxiety. The horns become more dissonant, more unexpected, louder. They create a need for release, for the buildup to collapse. In this way Radiohead's horns are a political statement: this cannot continue.
The horns of "I'd Rather, Jack" return to a cleaner sound and more expected structure but deliver a message identical in form to Radiohead's. It starts with a skittery dance beat, the bass-heavy midi drums quickly becoming an anchor beneath noisy synths and chopped samples; The drums suggest a dance track, the synths suggest a panic attack. Anxiety arrives by way of uncertainty and energy must eventually release. The horns then call, clear and confident: "this cannot continue." Do not let anxiety accumulate in the body, it will eat you. Let it out. Dance.
Anyone even remotely partial to big band jazz should know the dance-ability of brass. The romantic in me wants to tie this back to the lungs, as though any impassioned bellowing should instigate movement. I don't know if its totally true but I don't care to follow this tangent. My thesis remains: horns move people.
Racing Mount Pleasant demand movement from a different direction, centering tenderness instead of anxiety. "Call It Easy" begins gentle with soft strumming, tender drumming, intimate vocals. The horns croon before they call. There is an anxious element in the build of anticipation but the root is in sensuality. When the seven piece band finally crescendos, the movement in the body is not that of anxiety but that of empathy. The wailing of the horns evidence other bodies, heaving, breathing, just like yours.
In the aftermath the horns return like the heavy breath at the parting of bodies. I find incredible beauty in those moments. They exist on the border of instinct and reflexivity, the thoughtlessness of pure movement slowly eroded as self awareness returns. Those moments force recognition that living is not a solitary act. We are all heaving bodies. Racing Mount Pleasant manifest this with brass.
But empathy needn't always be as obvious as a sax solo. In fact, its usually a subtle thing. This can give empathetic crescendos greater weight but it can also overshadow quieter kindness. The horns on "Who Can Be Loved In This World?" never come to the front of the mix. They fade in and out with a touch of reverb, providing a soft warmth to the indie rock composition. The reverb lends the brass an ethereal edge which allows it to give voice to the implicit tenderness of the lyricism. To be soft in breath requires concerted effort, so the dedication to softness is a choice of form. "I want to be tender for you," it says. "I want you to know you can be tender too."
Potential. This is a core I have circled throughout this discussion. Without it there can be no anxiety, no tenderness. We must be capable of change — energy must eventually release — or else none of this would matter. For me, no song embodies this deeper than "Red Rock Riviera." Its horns make me become someone else, someone I've known and loved but never known how to be. It shimmers like the sunset over the ocean, the fractalized light catching the potential in every wave.
From here my feelings grow too personal for radio broadcast so I fear I must cut myself off. However, I trust you, dear listener, to find the words I cannot speak. Adapt my ideas, disagree where you see fit, and I'm confident you'll come to find the potential to which I gesture in all the songs from today's program. Maybe you'll even find it in yourself, or maybe sentiment has gotten the better of me.
Whether or not my sappiness has you stuck, I appreciate you tuning in. It brings me great joy to be back on air, and you best believe I'll be back again within the month. Stay safe, stay warm. Love whenever possible.
This is your host, Kassiopeia, signing off.
links to this KQUE broadcast on YouTube and Spotify are available above.↩