I'm reviewing a couple of projects from the local record label Trickhouse in the modern critical style - think Pitchfork, Stereogum, etc. First up, it's the debut EP from the indie project Sweet Embrace.
In case it isn’t clear from the black nail polish and eyeliner he insists upon wearing at appearances, London-born, Lancaster-based Phillip Johnson is an emo at heart. It’s clear in the over-reliance on proper nouns (Mitcham? St Chad’s Cathedral, Birmingham?? The IJsselmeer???) that we so detest here, it’s clear in the rapid time-signature changes and histrionic coda of “Isabelline” (cribbed directly from Sunny Day Real Estate, natch), and it’s clear even in Johnson’s choice of alias (his full webpage title reads ‘Sweet Embrace… of Death’ because of course it does). Most importantly, however, it’s clear in the fact that the entire project is misogynist garbage. You know, like his heroes make!
Opener “Isabelline” starts off strongly enough, with a sound that reads like Jason Molina fronting Bark Psychosis, and Johnson detailing his struggles with the drudgery of daily life. The first inkling that something is wrong comes during the aforementioned ending, where he repeats the phrase “I’ll wait for something to change my life; I’ll wait for someone like you.” While this could be him reaching out to a friend, or even an SDRE/Mineral style disguised paean to Jesus, one listen to the rest of the EP makes it clear that is but the first instance of Isabelline’s failure to acknowledge women as agents. Rather, they are means to ends, objects whose sole purpose is to improve his mood and make sure he no longer wishes for the Sweet Embrace of death.
Things get worse with “Lorelei,” an unapologetic Lô Borges ripoff (hidden amongst the metadata for the EP is the tag ‘Lô Borges worship’). The twinkling guitars jostle for primacy, and often fall over one another, as though they are all racing to see who can escape the terrible project first. In this song, Johnson details a former love; the staggering thing about this is despite his repeated claims that he loved this woman “more than [she] could know,” we are none the wiser to any aspect of her being by the end of the song. How one could profess undying love and then not give us any detail about the object of their affection is, quite frankly, beyond me. He at least acknowledges his shortcomings by mentioning that he’s “selfish through and through,” though this is tossed off in the bridge section, buried under a wave of choral voices that venerate Johnson as he half-heartedly drags himself.
“All You Saints” continues the trend; this time it’s a “Jezebel” who told him “[he] was the prettiest girl around,” before his superior morals allow him to deduce that “[he’s] not sure [her] boyfriend would think that’s alright.” Truly, a modern day Confucius. Once again we are told nothing about the girl beyond her relationship to him. Couple this with the weird Christian illusions throughout (Jezebel; the cathedrals; “forgive me, I knew not what I’d done”), the warmed-over doo-wop changes, and the fact that this song sounds so much like an undercooked version of “You’re So Great” by Blur that it almost hurts, and one reaches the halfway point of this album without hearing a single idea worthy of publication.
The more upbeat “It Happens Sometimes (It Doesn’t)” allows Johnson to try on yet another posture: that of the shy and retiring, reluctant love interest. “How could a girl like you like me?” he asks, as though he hasn’t just spent the past two songs explaining times when girls liked him and he wasn’t particularly fussed about it. Between the nonsensical chorus, the J-Mascis-if-he-was-high-as-fuck-and-didn’t-care-in-the-slightest guitar solo, and the abysmal lyrics, this is probably my least favourite track on the project, and that’s really saying something. The second verse is particularly egregious in its inanity. “After Nessun Dorma plays, what are we supposed to do?” makes absolutely no sense, but I’m sure it’s incredibly deep if you’re fourteen years old. “The ever-after’s hazy, bun the follow through,” highlights another problem I have with this EP - Johnson’s insistence upon sprinkling random pieces of what linguists call ‘Multicultural London English’ into his work (“bun” - to blow off - here; “so come let’s just not” instead of something more grammatically sound in ‘All You Saints’; “swear down” in ‘Lorelei’) plague Isabelline, and are about as jarring as Elliott Smith including a chopped-and-screwed remix of ‘Bled White’ on XO, replete with guest rap verse, except Elliott probably would’ve made it work, because he’s, yknow, good at music.
‘So Tired’ drifts along without incident like the second-tier My Bloody Valentine song it is. I’m sure if I could understand the lyrics they’d upset me somehow too. Thankfully they’re buried deep in the mix where no one can find them and investigate them. Closer ‘View (North From The Rialto Bridge (Mitcham, Not Venice))’ lopes along with all the urgency of a particularly laidback tortoise, content to coast on some admittedly adept guitar playing and the fact that you’re supposed to recognise the title as a John Fahey reference, rather than a fucking stupid title, and bask in second-hand enjoyment from there.
One wonders how Johnson would react to the criticisms I’ve levied at him here. I personally imagine him, upon being asked why he’s so oblivious to female personhood, batting his impossibly long eyelashes, pouting, and asking his interlocutor “Me?” in as innocent a voice as he could manage. Of course, the wanton displays of femininity (the eyeliner, the ‘All You Saints’ line about being “the prettiest girl”, etc.) are supposed to be indicators to women like me that Johnson isn’t one of those ghastly boys who likes soccer and cider and being honest with their intentions - he’s woke! He likes playing around with the concept of gender display! He’s sensitive - he just LOVES Either/Or, both the Elliott Smith album and the Kierkegaard novel that, he insists upon reminding you, the album takes its name from. Unfortunately, this signalling falls flat, and it becomes clear that he is just as abhorrent as the boys he claims to abhor. In short, he is the archetypal softboy - specifically the one in this article that “may be named Phillip” and it comes across heavily in the music.
I want to stress that my beef with Sweet Embrace is not purely ideological - Johnson is no XXXTentacion, as far as we know, and there have been far worse musicians, in moral terms, that continue to be lionized by media publications. No, what irks me about this project is how empty the music is outside of the misogynist lyrics. It’s all stuff we’ve heard before, perhaps not in this exact configuration, but somewhere and somehow, and Johnson doesn’t bring anything good to the table. His musicianship is serviceable, but it honestly feels like he banged these songs out in his bedroom over the course of a weekend or two, compressed the fuck out of them, and called it a day. He lists Lô Borges and King Krule as his heroes on Soundcloud, but those are artists who innovate(d) in their respective fields and time periods. This offers nothing new. All we can hope is that Johnson puts whatever talent he has into more creative, productive endeavours in future. And stops being such a softboy.
In case it isn’t clear from the black nail polish and eyeliner he insists upon wearing at appearances, London-born, Lancaster-based Phillip Johnson is an emo at heart. It’s clear in the over-reliance on proper nouns (Mitcham? St Chad’s Cathedral, Birmingham?? The IJsselmeer???) that we so detest here, it’s clear in the rapid time-signature changes and histrionic coda of “Isabelline” (cribbed directly from Sunny Day Real Estate, natch), and it’s clear even in Johnson’s choice of alias (his full webpage title reads ‘Sweet Embrace… of Death’ because of course it does). Most importantly, however, it’s clear in the fact that the entire project is misogynist garbage. You know, like his heroes make!
Opener “Isabelline” starts off strongly enough, with a sound that reads like Jason Molina fronting Bark Psychosis, and Johnson detailing his struggles with the drudgery of daily life. The first inkling that something is wrong comes during the aforementioned ending, where he repeats the phrase “I’ll wait for something to change my life; I’ll wait for someone like you.” While this could be him reaching out to a friend, or even an SDRE/Mineral style disguised paean to Jesus, one listen to the rest of the EP makes it clear that is but the first instance of Isabelline’s failure to acknowledge women as agents. Rather, they are means to ends, objects whose sole purpose is to improve his mood and make sure he no longer wishes for the Sweet Embrace of death.
Things get worse with “Lorelei,” an unapologetic Lô Borges ripoff (hidden amongst the metadata for the EP is the tag ‘Lô Borges worship’). The twinkling guitars jostle for primacy, and often fall over one another, as though they are all racing to see who can escape the terrible project first. In this song, Johnson details a former love; the staggering thing about this is despite his repeated claims that he loved this woman “more than [she] could know,” we are none the wiser to any aspect of her being by the end of the song. How one could profess undying love and then not give us any detail about the object of their affection is, quite frankly, beyond me. He at least acknowledges his shortcomings by mentioning that he’s “selfish through and through,” though this is tossed off in the bridge section, buried under a wave of choral voices that venerate Johnson as he half-heartedly drags himself.
“All You Saints” continues the trend; this time it’s a “Jezebel” who told him “[he] was the prettiest girl around,” before his superior morals allow him to deduce that “[he’s] not sure [her] boyfriend would think that’s alright.” Truly, a modern day Confucius. Once again we are told nothing about the girl beyond her relationship to him. Couple this with the weird Christian illusions throughout (Jezebel; the cathedrals; “forgive me, I knew not what I’d done”), the warmed-over doo-wop changes, and the fact that this song sounds so much like an undercooked version of “You’re So Great” by Blur that it almost hurts, and one reaches the halfway point of this album without hearing a single idea worthy of publication.
The more upbeat “It Happens Sometimes (It Doesn’t)” allows Johnson to try on yet another posture: that of the shy and retiring, reluctant love interest. “How could a girl like you like me?” he asks, as though he hasn’t just spent the past two songs explaining times when girls liked him and he wasn’t particularly fussed about it. Between the nonsensical chorus, the J-Mascis-if-he-was-high-as-fuck-and-didn’t-care-in-the-slightest guitar solo, and the abysmal lyrics, this is probably my least favourite track on the project, and that’s really saying something. The second verse is particularly egregious in its inanity. “After Nessun Dorma plays, what are we supposed to do?” makes absolutely no sense, but I’m sure it’s incredibly deep if you’re fourteen years old. “The ever-after’s hazy, bun the follow through,” highlights another problem I have with this EP - Johnson’s insistence upon sprinkling random pieces of what linguists call ‘Multicultural London English’ into his work (“bun” - to blow off - here; “so come let’s just not” instead of something more grammatically sound in ‘All You Saints’; “swear down” in ‘Lorelei’) plague Isabelline, and are about as jarring as Elliott Smith including a chopped-and-screwed remix of ‘Bled White’ on XO, replete with guest rap verse, except Elliott probably would’ve made it work, because he’s, yknow, good at music.
‘So Tired’ drifts along without incident like the second-tier My Bloody Valentine song it is. I’m sure if I could understand the lyrics they’d upset me somehow too. Thankfully they’re buried deep in the mix where no one can find them and investigate them. Closer ‘View (North From The Rialto Bridge (Mitcham, Not Venice))’ lopes along with all the urgency of a particularly laidback tortoise, content to coast on some admittedly adept guitar playing and the fact that you’re supposed to recognise the title as a John Fahey reference, rather than a fucking stupid title, and bask in second-hand enjoyment from there.
One wonders how Johnson would react to the criticisms I’ve levied at him here. I personally imagine him, upon being asked why he’s so oblivious to female personhood, batting his impossibly long eyelashes, pouting, and asking his interlocutor “Me?” in as innocent a voice as he could manage. Of course, the wanton displays of femininity (the eyeliner, the ‘All You Saints’ line about being “the prettiest girl”, etc.) are supposed to be indicators to women like me that Johnson isn’t one of those ghastly boys who likes soccer and cider and being honest with their intentions - he’s woke! He likes playing around with the concept of gender display! He’s sensitive - he just LOVES Either/Or, both the Elliott Smith album and the Kierkegaard novel that, he insists upon reminding you, the album takes its name from. Unfortunately, this signalling falls flat, and it becomes clear that he is just as abhorrent as the boys he claims to abhor. In short, he is the archetypal softboy - specifically the one in this article that “may be named Phillip” and it comes across heavily in the music.
I want to stress that my beef with Sweet Embrace is not purely ideological - Johnson is no XXXTentacion, as far as we know, and there have been far worse musicians, in moral terms, that continue to be lionized by media publications. No, what irks me about this project is how empty the music is outside of the misogynist lyrics. It’s all stuff we’ve heard before, perhaps not in this exact configuration, but somewhere and somehow, and Johnson doesn’t bring anything good to the table. His musicianship is serviceable, but it honestly feels like he banged these songs out in his bedroom over the course of a weekend or two, compressed the fuck out of them, and called it a day. He lists Lô Borges and King Krule as his heroes on Soundcloud, but those are artists who innovate(d) in their respective fields and time periods. This offers nothing new. All we can hope is that Johnson puts whatever talent he has into more creative, productive endeavours in future. And stops being such a softboy.
Comments
Post a Comment