STEPHEN MALKMUS

Stephen Malkmus gets a little help from friend Beck on 'Mirror Traffic'

THE BURG STAFF
By: MATT ASHARE
Published: September 01, 2011

Nirvana were far from the only paramount band to come out of the ‘’90s underground.

In fact, surveying the current rock landscape, where an off-kilter Toronto band like Arcade Fire can win top honors at the Grammys and Portland’s brainy little band the Decemberists can debut at No. 1 on the "Billboard" charts, one could easily credit the lesser known but no less influential California-by-way-of-NYC band Pavement for having a bigger impact than even Nirvana on today’s odd state of the musical arts.

Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks

     Indeed, if the band’s lanky, unapologetically cryptic, often willfully obscure slacker of a frontman Stephen Malkmus didn’t exactly invent the idea of indie-rock as the smart-guy wing of the alternative nation, he certainly did more than anyone else to popularize the notion.

Malkmus, a UVa grad who led Pavement through five acclaimed albums from ’92 to ’99 before packing it in and moving to Portland, Ore., has quietly been recording and performing a raucous, jammy, guitar-centric brand of grown-up indie-rock with his band the Jicks since 2001.

      But, the singer/songwriter/guitarist’s solo work has largely been overshadowed by deluxe reissues of the Pavement catalogue and last year’s Pavement reunion tour. Chalk that up to Malkmus’ preferred method of songwriting — contorting a riff borrowed from a random tune, improvising lyrics on the spot, and delivering them with little concern for things like, oh, staying on pitch. Even back in the Pavement days he came within spitting distance of "radio-friendly" with only a handful of tracks: the chaotic yet melodic "Cut Your Hair" would be one, and the more laid-back, country-tinged "Range Life" would be, well, the other.

     Nevertheless, something clearly clicked when Malkmus, keyboardist Mike Clark, bassist Joanna Bolme, and former Sleater-Kinney/Quasi drummer Janet Weiss (who’s since been replaced by Jake Morris) entered the studio with Beck to record the new "Mirror Traffic."

Maybe it was Beck’s presence: of late he’s distinguished himself as a remarkably tasteful producer on albums by Marianne Faithfull and Charlotte Gainsbourg. Or perhaps the prospect of the Pavement reunion, which took place after "Mirror Traffic" was completed, simply put Malkmus in a more focused frame of mind. Either way, even Malkmus, in a recent press release, concedes with characteristic understatement, "this record is relatively approachable."

     Despite the rather formidable amount of ink that’s been spilled puzzling over Malkmus’ lyrics, he’s always been as much a guitar wonk as a wordsmith, a tendency that only became more pronounced when he started producing his recordings with the Jicks.

You can hear echoes of that on the new "Brain Gallop," a bluesy number rife with string-bending leads. But it’s one of only three of the 15 tracks here that surpasses the five-minute mark. And that’s a positive development.

     Beck’s never struck me as a particularly strong taskmaster, but it sure sounds as if someone inspired Malkmus to rein in his more avant inclinations and, instead, tap into his knack for marrying an inviting melody to intriguing/amusing free-form lyrics. "I caught you streaking in your Birkenstocks/A scary thought in the 2Ks," he sings on "Tigers," the disc’s hooky opening track, "Got enveloped in your sticker shock/I gotta tell you it’s a barrage/it’s a barrage/It’s a mirage." It sets the tone for what might be the first Malkmus album that won’t have casual fans skipping occasional bursts of noisy discord.

     Okay, "Mirror Traffic" does go out on an experimental limb on the ambient instrumental "Jumblegloss." But the track is a merciful minute and 13 seconds long. More typical are fully realized songs like the intimate, acoustic rumination "No One Is (As I Are Be)," where Malkmus hums along with a nice little trumpet solo, and the harder-rocking "Senator." The latter, with its references to American-made toxins, a cattle-prodded working class, and the illicit behavior of an unnamed elected official, is the most overtly political sing-along in the Malkmus canon.

     So, no, it wouldn’t be quite right to conclude that Malkmus has lost his edge, just as it would be a mistake to think that he’ll ever be an irony-free straight shooter. This isn’t so much a case of an old dog learning new tricks as him opting, at least for now, not to play quite so many cat-and-mouse games with his fans.