This Must Be Miles Fisher's Place
Written: Aug 15 '09 (Updated Aug 16 '09)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: enthusiastically energetic electro-pop
Cons: the original songs aren't quite as solid as the cover song
The Bottom Line: Do you like Miles Fisher? His latest EP marks a new peak of professionalism.
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| DrFaustus's Full Review: Miles Fisher [EP] by Miles Fisher |
Back when I was growing up, MTV was the way to go for a fledgling musical act looking to gain some exposure. If a band had an interesting music video, everyone would be talking about them within days of its debut. Buzz about the band would spread like a virus, all thanks to the strength of music video innovation. Heck, in the early days of MTV, the videos didn't even need to be all that engaging. Many of the first music videos were nothing more than a band halfheartedly pantomiming their way through their latest single in front of a bedsheet hung from a studio ceiling, and MTV still played those videos a few dozen times a day.
But of course, by the time I started college, MTV had switched over to a format of cartoons, dating game shows, and proto-reality television. Some many great bands lost the marketing push that having a video or two beamed directly into America's living rooms, and the resulting wasteland of popular music in the late nineties still makes me feel awfully angry.
Like I mentioned above, though, a good music video is like a virus, and viruses are awfully difficult to get rid of. Thanks to the glory that is the modern internet, it's never been easier for an artist to produce a video on their own and toss it up on their own website or any of a number of video sharing websites. If they can produce something halfway creative, word-of-mouth (or word-of-email, or word-of-blog posting, or what have you) can easily bump views up into the hundreds of thousands within a few days thanks to the phenomenon of viral marketing. MTV may be dead for all intents and purposes, but the music video remains a solid promotional tool for the up-and-coming musical act.
And it's just that sort of vital marketing that led me to Miles Fisher his debut EP. One of the music blogs that I read regularly had a post of few weeks back that linked to a YouTube video Fisher had made, imploring me that I absolutely had to watch it. (What can I say... I like to think that music blogs are addressing me specifically, rather than all the faceless masses across the internet, but that's all beside the point.) The creatively catchy hook for video? It's a five-minute collage of Fisher and friends recreating a variety of scenes and images from the 2000 Christian Bale film American Psycho. Countless memorable moments are captured for the video - running around with chainsaws, obsessing over business cards, goofy raincoat dancing, axes to the head, and even a brief spoken interlude in which Fisher gushingly lectures a pair of escorts on the depths of the music their listening to in the same vein as Patrick Bateman's Genesis speech from the film. It's a visually striking video, particularly for anyone familiar with the original movie, but even more important is the music, an electro-pop cover of Talking Heads' This Must Be the Place (Naive Medley), which stands on its own as a fantastic cover song that puts an enjoyable spin on the original.
Fisher's take on the song starts with a sparse, almost robotic a capella delivery of the first few lines of the song's second verse:
♬ home is where I want to be
but I guess I'm already there
I come home, she lifted up her wings
so I guess this must be the place ♬
but before that flat, emotionless take on the lyrics has the time to set the tone for the song, the musical arrangements kicks in - a quintessentially electro-pop arrangement that takes those opening lines, slices them up syllable by syllable, rearranges them, and slathers them with a layer of auto-tune to create a post-human pastiche that David Byrne would certainly approve of. Rounding out the arrangement, a looping drum beat and synth piano riff help to create a Pet Shop Boys / Erasure / New Order sound, strikingly different from, but contemporary to the original version of the song. And for the vocals of the song's body, Fisher sings with a geeky sense of uneasy elation, which doesn't jive completely with the American Psycho theme of the video, but fits the emotional tone of the song exquisitely.
As a well-crafted piece of viral marketing, the video for Fisher's take on This Must Be the Place concludes with a message to visit his website where fans can download this four-song EP, and as a well-intentioned consumer, I did just as I was told. If there's any real disappointment, it's that This Must Be the Place, the one song on the EP that Fisher didn't write, is the strongest song of the collection. The other tracks, though, while not perfect, show some solid electro-pop craftsmanship and leave listeners with the promise that Fisher has a lot to offer if this EP eventually leads to a full-length release.
The three original songs, while all steeped is the highly stylized, glossily produced traditions of synth pop, show a good deal of musical variety. Don't Let Go resounds with chiming synthesizers and guitars, creating a big, showy, anthemic backdrop for Fisher's soaring multi-tracked harmonies. Half A Beer Left uses its downtempo rhythms flecked with twangy acoustic guitar, ringing chimes and country music touches, shows off the wistfully nostalgic, bittersweet side of Fisher. And the energetic, upbeat What We Know, full of electronic squeaks and squawks as musical flourishes along with tempo shift halfway through that makes things even more giddily frenetic, showcases Fisher's way with lyrical charm, starting off with:
♬ walking is a series of falling down
and getting right back up again
I fell down pretty hard that afternoon
that you walked into my head
I was so full of butterflies
girl, you were so full of charm
it took a lot of walking side by side
before we were arm in arm ♬
Before this EP, Miles Fisher's highest profile gigs have been small, bit part acting roles on film and television. But with the fine musical craftsmanship laden with solid pop hooks of his original songs, not to mention the fantastic job that he does with his Talking Heads cover, it wouldn't be a surprise to see him join the very selective ranks of thespians who've made the leap to a notable recording career.
Recommended:
Yes
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DrFaustus
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