“Beat (Health, Life and Fire)“
from the album We Brave Bee Stings and All
2008
iTunes
It was Lucinda Williams who cleverly quipped that the finest songs “sound happy but are so sad.” Thao Nguyen (who ditched the tongue-twisting surname for her stage name) seems to not just agree with this sentiment, but perhaps embrace it as an artistic philosophy on her sophomore album, We Brave Bee Stings and All. “My songs reflect my personality as far as shirking the seriousness of things,” she says. “Big Kid Table,” among the album’s finer tracks, is an example of this: over the tuneful and folkish guitar interplay, backing vocals, and odd percussive sounds, Thao characterizes herself as a “small kid at the big kid table” and laments in frustration: “It is not as though I do not know it hurts me / It’s just I drink only that which makes me thirsty!”
Meanwhile, the bouncy rhythms and “ooh ooh!” chorus of “Beat (Health, Life and Fire)” threaten to obscure the message of betrayal hiding beneath the surface. “Beat the ones who love me the best,” Thao sings over the melodic cacophony. “Oh, how could they be liars? / They insure me health, life and fire.” Is this the contradiction Leonard Cohen was aiming for when he practically vandalized his typically solemn September 11th ode (“On That Day”) with that absurd mouth-harp solo? Is Kill Rock Stars (the label that brought us Deerhoof, Bikini Kill, and Sleater-Kinney) suddenly going soft?
Thao, a Vietnamese-American raised in Falls Church, Virginia, supposedly perfected her solo songwriting during slow hours working at her mother’s Laundromat. Her relationship with Kill Rock Stars began when her prolific touring landed her a spot on the label’s 2006 singer-songwriter compilation, The Sound the Hare Heard. Ultimately, her backing band, the Get Down Stay Down, augments the instrumental layers (Melodica! Wurlitzer! Piano Marxaphone??) on what could otherwise be a monotonous solo affair. The 23-year-old’s voice falls somewhere between a less squeaky Joanna Newsom and a more unstable Feist; as for the music, imagine a more stubbornly off-kilter (though delightfully poppy) Cat Power with a penchant for lovely backing vocals and cryptic lyrics. Playfully cryptic, that is — with a mournful edge.