Stephen Malkmus “Traditional Techniques”
Full disclosure: Years ago, when I was in college, I resented the fuck out of Stephen Malkmus. He was so many things I wanted to be, but couldn’t. All the artsy, pretentious kids in the Semiotics classes fawned over him — even (especially) the girls. He was California handsome. He was clever. He wrote great songs. He seemed both heady and effortless. Talented and “I don’t give a shit.” His lyrics were opaque but very true and even occasionally heartbreaking. I really did like Pavement but I did not want to like Stephen Malkmus.
Time passed. I grew up. I stopped resenting Stephen Malkmus. Pavement broke up. But, Malkmus kind of stayed the same. He moved to Portland. He got a band together. He started calling them “The Jicks.” Every two to three years he would release an A- album that sounded a good deal like Pavement. I listened to some of them. They were uniformly very good to great. With my youthful envy faded, it became easy to take Malkmus for granted. Every album was a slight variant of the same sounds. Fuzzy guitars in front of woozy tunes. The laconic conversations and occasional shot of the singer mixed back. There was nothing not to like, but it was getting easier to pass over.
Surely, Malkmus felt some of this himself. While he was all of those things I accused him of — too clever, too handsome, too talented, ambivalent about all of the above — he was also a “serious, professional artist.” And to be a serious professional artist, I assume one has to make money from their art and to seriously consider its form. No artist survives thirty years without some experimentation and sacrifice. Right?
I’m sure it was not easy. But, by 2017, there were signs of evolution, if not disruption. 2017s “Sparkle Hard,” with The Jicks, sounded grounded, present and (eek) vulnerable in a way that was atypical for Malkmus. A year later, he released “Groove Denied,” an album of largely electronic music that he’d been tinkering with for over a decade. It also marked the first time he had released albums in consecutive years since Pavement’s “Crooked Crooked Rain” and “Wowee Zowee.” And then, in a wonderfully unprecedented move, Stephen Malkmus released “Traditional Techniques” in early 2020. It was his third album in three years and his first played primarily on acoustic instruments. Though billed as a modest and low key affair, it is actually nothing of the sort. It is not only his most “middle-aged” album, it also signals a profound openness to change and might well be the best thing he’s done post-Pavement.
Aside from the volume in which it is performed and the size of the band, there is actually nothing modest about “Traditional Techniques.” Musically, it doesn’t simply reference 60s psychedelic Folk music, it lives in it. The songs effectively channel Donovan, Nick Drake, Plastic Exploding Inevitable V.U. and a dozen other artists who tinkered with Eastern guitars and English Folk Rock. Truly -- none of it sounds derivative here because Malkmus sings like few others and because the band exercises great restraint. Where they could get very electric and trippy, they opt for more of a very pleasant, titrated high. The band is loose and deft, but never stoned or showy. Finally, Malkmus’ lyrics sound more personal than before, when the song requires it, and more empathetic and poetic when he is working through characters.
The album’s vibey vibe — earthy and mesmerizing — is established up front on “ACC Kirtan.” A dobro and flute lead the way for a six minute track that sounds firmly analog and places the singers’ vocals so far back as to sound like he is being recorded through a cloud pillow. Instruments and backing vocals blow in the breeze for three minutes and then the song opens up into a very tired but pretty, late night jam at The Factory in 1967. It’s a long journey from Pavement for the band and the listener. But it’s a great drive.
“Xian Man” is a groovy, insinuating hip shaker. It’s the closest thing to a single on the album, featuring handclaps, a guitar vibe readymade for Tarantino, a Sterling Morrison-y guitar solo and the singer testing his upper register to pull it all off. It’s fun and — yes — funky, in a heady, forty-something sort of way. As it happens, I’m forty-something and in my own head a lot.
All of “Traditional Techniques” is marinated in a vintage, Eastern vibe. It wraps you up in its loveliness. Malkmus has admitted that the twelve string acoustic he played was a challenge for him. You can hear the struggle throughout. But that is part of the record’s charm. You are not listening to masters of exotic instruments. You are listening to a bunch of collaborators who trust each other in an acoustic experiment. The woodwinds can sound loud and, even, clumsy. The mix can sound thin. The vocals can sound either buried or naked. But it always sounds hand-crafted, earnest and frequently sounds poetic. This is not “Pink Moon” or “Astral Weeks” but Malkmus is certainly experimenting with some of those influences.
On “The Greatest Own in Legal History” and “Flowin’ Robes,” Malkmus draws characters wrestling with humanity and the hangover of post-hippie idealism. The former is very good, early 70s, singer-songwriter fare while the latter has a fuller hook and a beat. On several tracks, Malkmus finds his inner Raymond Carver, empathizing with flawed, multi-dimensional subjects. But the moments that cut through, if not always the best songs, are the ones wherein the singer seems to lay himself most bare. Although “Sparkle Hard” hinted at this, I was unprepared for the honesty and perception the singer offers on “Traditional Techniques.”
The thesis, as best I can articulate it, of this record’s “Love Songs” is something like: “To love someone you have to be OK with them taking all of you and with you giving all of them back.” It’s a profound and profoundly touching sentiment. He wonders aloud about this on the “What Kind of Person,” a somewhat traditional, if entirely pretty, love song. And he revisits the notion on “Cash Up,” a song in which he gets very close to the core of love in friendship, but then cleverly demurs near the edge:
Does anybody like me?
No pressure, I'm just asking for a friend
He'd like to know
If then, we're good to go
On the album’s closer, though, Malkmus leaves us with a completely naked meditation on his thesis. Devoid of affect, his voice strains throughout and cracks occasionally. There are two slight guitars and a warm hum in the background. And, at the very end, he leaves us with:
If you leave me please return
I'm still into watching bridges burn
Miss you more
Life itself don't miss
Anything at all, that's just the way it is
Naturalistic new
Clearing the headlines in clearing rooms
This amberjack, let's throw it back
I’m now decades older than the Stephen Malkmus I once resented. I’ve changed, slowed and softened. So, apparently, has he. I knew all along that my resentment was envy and angst. I knew my feelings would change about the artist. But never did I expect such a bold mid-career experiment from the man who appeared content retreading a form that he’d basically invented and certainly mastered.
You did it Stephen Malkmus. You made a different, but still beautiful album. And, no. I’m not crying. You’re crying.