Slang Editorial :: Never Underestimate The Value Of A Holla'

Saturday, November 28, 2009
Suburban Recordings

"Valleyview Elementary Hoop"

I have loved the shit out of New Jersey band Real Estate since Alex Doorknobs and I first saw/heard them on a bill with Nodzzz and Wavves in early 2009. and their track "Suburban Beverage" from an eponymous 7", is without doubt on my list of the Ten Songs That Touched Me Good In 2009. (I meant all summer to pen a great ode to "Suburban Beverage" but never seem to have gotten around to it, only denoting my additional appreciation for its b-side "Old Folks" in a post about my grandfather.) I have been primed for more from these dudes for a long time coming. And now, finally, their full-length is here and it's better than I'd even hoped (and you can get it here).

Before I say anything further, let me reiterate the most important point I could make about Real Estate: great record, and I encourage you to buy it and fall in love. Because as good as "Sub Bev" and "Fake Blues" (summer follow-up) are, I have fallen even harder for "Beach Comber", which might be the most subtly awesome pop song of 2009 by anyone, and, of course, the rest of the record ain't far behind.

But (this is a point that I know I'm going to fail to make, mostly because I'm not sure I quite understand it myself, but it's stuck in my craw enough to make me feel like I need to make it)..........

I have to say: despite me liking Real Estate almost instantly, I've found myself somewhat surprised at their fast-growing popularity. Obviously my tastes are not so esoteric or obscurantist that my "love" for Real Estate might imply that they don't have something valuable to offer a greater public, but in my brain their tunes fit into a category of bands I have always seen as offering limited appeal to a main-er audience on the lookout for hooks, noise, aggression, or bounce. To my ears, Real Estate have little of this in the tunes; their music is largely made up of loping, hookless excerpts of noodly, spindly, circular guitar riffs that don't sound like they're ever quite supposed to go anywhere.

In listening to this record nonstop the past week, I am beginning to think that part of why I feel this way about them is because the production feels not just "lo-fi" but straight-up amateur. The drumming is for sure recorded primitively and sloppily, but i think it's the guitar really that gets me: it sounds almost specifically unmixed and unproduced--so that ultimately their tunes literally sound like a four track recording of four dudes playing together in a garage, with not a knobtwitch of mix adjustment.

I know that this in general is a definition of amateurish lo-fi tuneage, but i think the tipping point for me then becomes the way these recording techniques run in contrast to the type of music they play. The music of Real Estate is very much in line with a history of slinky, shimmering, sleepy surf and western mavens of yore--but it just feels like what sets Real Estate apart from their varied antecedents is this not primitivism but amateurism.... or something. Listen to the clear-ringing lines in "Beach Comber," the sludgy guit-murk of "Suburban Beverage", or, most hilariously, the drumming on "Fake Blues" (hilariously shitty sounding) and hopefully you'll get a sense of what I'm saying--it's rare you hear "hot tracks" sound so poorly recorded, especially in a way that isn't part of some forced conscious aesthetic like the mock 50s shitpunk of Vivian Girls and "we don't know much" slapdash of Beat Happening. Right?...?

I dunno, I guess. I'm grasping at straws, really, and making points that aren't even important. I love this band, and I love this record, and every time I listen to it, I love both band and record more. But there's something strange and everyman about it that makes me feel weird, and I can't shake it. Ultimately I guess I'll just keep listening.