Landlady – Girl
SoundCloud
When listening to Landlady’s Upright Behavior, one’s train of thought is sent off to explore both the macro and the micro. As in — the universe is really big and no one can fully grasp how big and brilliant it truly is because our brains are just a by-product of this really big thing that will mystify us until the end of our existence, and afterward the universe will just keep right on existing as if we were never here at all. It’s hilarious and exhilarating and fucking depressing. Now zoom in a billion plus times to the core of us, and there’s love and that is equally as fascinating and mystifying. Landlady’s second full-length is also big and small, brilliant and exhilarating, hilarious and beautiful, as it mirrors and explores inner and outer spaces in bizarre and wondrous Landlady fashion.
Landlady is the brainchild of Adam Schatz, musician extraordinaire and blessing to the human race. Schatz is the quiet kid sitting in the back of science class who never raises his hand, yet when called upon by the teacher, gives such profound, open-ended answers that he blows everyone’s, including the teacher’s, minds. With a heavy background in improvisational jazz and all things experimental, Upright Behavior is naturally impossible to categorize since it has influences from every corner of everything. The common factor here is passion and the follow-through energy that every erratic song possesses.
There are bands who underwhelm on tape yet overwhelm when heard live. Each track on Upright Behavior sounds immediate, like they’re performing it just for you, complete with Schatz’s sighs and sonically surprising moments. The irregular drum patterns and quirky arrangements point to a stellar conglomeration of musicians who are able to find their individual brightest colors and stitch them together to create a vibrant creature.
When “Above My Ground” starts things off, there’s a bit of a TV on the Radio influence to be heard, and as the record progresses, other influences are also conjured. By the end, it’s clear that Landlady’s sounds is fiercely Landlady-influenced. Ingrained, evocative builds and whiplash-inducing gear changes make for an album that is never dull even for a second, not even when Schatz is singing about where in his yard he wants to be buried in “Under the Yard”, or desperately begging a girl to come back during “Maria”. That’s what it comes down to — that Upright Behavior is just immensely interesting.
Themes are revealed in the lines that Schatz likes to set on repeat. Lines like, “What am I supposed to do about it?”; “We survive”; “Please allow me to believe in something big/Bigger than my strife/Bigger than my appetite”; “We are more than carnivores” and “Heading towards a black hole.” The latter he sings with a smile in“The Globe”, the album’s first single and a track which serves as a concentrate of all the reasons why Upright Behavior works on so many levels. So, yeah, we are tiny specks who eventually realize that we’re just tiny specks on a big rock “Spinning out of control/Heading towards a black hole/Living under stars,” and as a result, understand that all things mean both everything and nothing at all. Landlady sings of our eventual extinction but also of embracing our current existence. The next lines say, “Who knows how far we are from home/We are home.” Upright Behavior approaches our deepest questions of humanity with optimistic pessimism, warm sincerity and a large sense of humor. Who can grasp the human experience at all? No one. Everyone. Everything. Nothing. Upright Behavior says: Fuck it. I love you. Let’s dance.
