Best albums of 2023: #23
#23: Blonde Redhead, ‘Sit Down For Dinner”
Genre: Dream Pop
I first learned about the band Blonde Redhead from their underrated 2004 masterpiece Misery Is A Butterfly, one of my favorite albums of all time. Their work is light and airy but simultaneously musically distorted in a strange and beautiful way. I followed the release of this album from the moment they announced it, and I was certainly not disappointed as a fan of the group. As with all their projects, it takes patience to appreciate, but once you have that patience you will find music like no other you’ve ever heard.
Every song holds a dreamy atmosphere full of cloudy noise and creative, experimental melodies that repeat throughout. For example, the first song, Snowman, repeats a classic Blonde Redhead riff, along with impressive but relaxed vocal inflections. On the first time listening, you may not enjoy it fully, but once you’ve heard the song and know what to expect you can immerse yourself in the atmosphere of the music.
Said atmosphere is the main focus of the music throughout this album, more than any other album this band has put out. Of course, the lyrics are still interesting, and it’s certainly not impossible to move along with certain songs, but Blonde Redhead seems to be more focused on the small, subtle moments that create a tone. A quiet chime here, a change in a vocal pattern there. It can be infuriating for someone who is expecting more classic, catchy dream pop, but for me personally this works exceptionally well.
This focus on atmosphere is leaned into more and more heavily throughout the tracklist. Snowman and Kiss Her Kiss Her are a little bit catchy, but as we move along to songs like the Sit Down To Dinner duo, the song structure has been almost entirely engulfed by it. How much I enjoy one song or another essentially comes down to how well it immerses me. This all culminates in the final song, Via Savona, which strips away the vocals entirely in a 5 minute instrumental. And although I usually don’t enjoy instrumental tracks on albums such as this one, it fits the context of the album so well that it catapults itself up to being one of my favorite songs this band has ever made.
This album is given a difficult task; to try to accomplish the comfortable energy of dream pop with an uncomfortable departure from its fundamentals. However, although obtuse, strange, and hard to recommend, it arguably succeeds with flying colors.
Favorite songs:
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