There's a motif running through "Pardon Our Dust", the lead track on the new Beauty EP, Please Advise, that makes me think of Philip Glass. And, sure, this isn't the first time I've compared the compositions of Chad Clark to those of Glass, nor will it be the last. But that figure in the song is so insistent, like a finger poking you in your side and then your other side, that the addition of Erin Nelson's voice and the strings only brings relief. The music of Clark is insistent like that, nearly pushy in its inventiveness. And having played these tracks a bunch of times, I think it's safe to say that there are as many ideas on Please Advise, out tomorrow out on Northern Spy Records, as there were on some longer BP releases in the past.
Hearing this material, and knowing how Clark's finally extricated himself out of a bad (non-Dischord) label deal, you'd be an idiot not to hear something that sounded like liberation here. That liberation equals freedom for an artist, and it's the kind of freedom that allows for a surprising cover on Please Advise. A deconstruction of "Tattooed Love Boys" by The Pretenders is a blast, the kind of thing that seems bold and necessary when you hear the results. Then, new band member Erin Nelson croons like Aimee Mann all over the brief and lovely "Prison Song", one of the simplest numbers here. While I wouldn't call this jazz, there's a vibe here that suggests a juxtaposition of improvisation and something perfectly pitched and performed. That said, there are these scattershot drums all over the background of this that offer up that familiar and faint hint of chaos that lends Clark's work as a composer so much power. And that clash between arrangement and seeming improvisation foreshadows the extraordinary closer.
"The Damnedest Thing" is ridiculously catchy and overflowing with ideas. And while the music feels like an expansion of what we heard on Describes Things As They Are (2015), Clark seems to be using his vocals in a new way, in a manner that suggests one of his heroes. I'd played this probably a dozen times before I finally heard the Kristin Hersh-like way he works his way through the verses here. The music is less obviously abrasive than on an early Throwing Muses release, of course, but Chad, like Kristin, sings like he's pushing his way up and out of the shackles of conventional songwriting. That sounds pretentious as shit, but there are genuinely few people who can write pop songs like this, and get away with it.
Please Advise is shorter than an album, of course, but it doesn't feel meager given how much is crammed into the compositions here. This is rich music, and music which is clever but not annoyingly so. Rather than show-off, Chad Clark and the players here stick to the limitations of the form, even as they pump the material so full of figures and ideas that one feels gleefully overwhelmed. Fans of bands as disparate as High Llamas, Laurie Anderson, Kate Bush, and The Dears are likely to find this a good entry point to the world of Beauty Pill. For the rest of us, we know this drug and have likely already pre-ordered it via the delivery method of our choice from somewhere already.
Please Advise is out tomorrow via Northern Spy Records.
More details on Beauty Pill via the band's official Facebook page.
[Photo: Cameron Whitman]