Cornelius
Point
[Matador; 2002]
Rating: 7.8
My initial thought was that, with Point, Cornelius had made an album not
of songs but of machines: twittering little trinkets and gewgaws, clockwork
formalist tricks, hooks, and grooves, tiny snazzy robots covered with push-buttons
and blinking lights. I was mostly wrong about this. But back when I didn't know
that, I was all set to talk about Cornelius's Other Half-- Takako Minekawa-- and,
more importantly, her collaborators in Dymaxion, who are, by my estimation, past
masters of the sonic trinketry, the clever formalist motorik grooves, and the
whole concept of "songs" as basically Rube Goldberg devices-- these things where
you watch Tab A snap ingeniously and unexpectedly into Slot B, and then watch the
whole machine teeter back and forth. The trick is that while everyone was trying
to meld rock genres and dance genres by throwing blippy textures and drum loops
under crunchy guitars, some people decided to use the tools of rock but organize
them using the structures of dance or IDM.
Point isn't really as like that as I thought, but let's pretend-- just for
a second-- that it is: you couldn't possibly ask for anyone to do that stuff
better than Cornelius does. Like him or not, he's pretty much the master of this
sort of thing-- evidence is littered from his late-period albums with Flipper's
Guitar to solo records like 96/69 to tracks like "Mic Check" and "Magoo
Opening" from Fantasma, his more "proper song"-oriented U.S. breakthrough.
Evidence is abundant on Point, as well: one need look no further than the
moment where "Bird Watching at Inner Forest," a sweet, jaunty samba, suddenly and
masterfully disintegrates into "I Hate Hate," a whirlwind of sliced-and-diced
cartoon prog that sounds like Aphex Twin making mincemeat of a track by the
Fucking Champs. If you're going to talk about someone who can produce-- someone
who can slap together shimmery organic instruments with the same agility as the
world's best glitchmeisters and laptop guys-- Cornelius really should be mentioned.
And he's gotten a lot better at this than he was on Fantasma, a record that,
in retrospect, sounds a little too eager to please-- all the tinny, busy layering
and the near-constant bells and whistles now look a little like a hyperactive
fourth-grader given free reign at the school talent show. Point backs off.
It's more efficient, and thus more minimal: Cornelius has learned where a couple
instruments and a couple tricks can do the work of ten of each. It's also a lot
smoother and more languid-- the bulk of it actually qualifies to be called
"subdued." The cleverness, technical mastery and ping-pong stereo effects are
all there in spades, but this time they're all much more mellow than you'd think.
Listen right and you'll hardly notice them, because you'll be wrapped up by the
thing I initially completely missed-- some of these tracks are just plain lovely
as songs.
That's right: you could very satisfyingly listen to Point while casting
Cornelius as some kind of modern-day Esquivel, a master of arrangement and studio
technologically and virtually everything that makes you cup your hands over your
headphones and be just plain wowed by the stuff that's coming out of them. But
the thing is that Point, like the IDM records it shares some of its
formalist leanings with, gradually reveals itself to contain some song forms that
are, without qualification, quite beautiful and expressive, and in completely
non-trinkety ways. It sounds as if he's been listening to more bossa nova-- subtle
acoustic guitar rhythms are all over this record. It sounds as if he's made a
conscious effort to turn his vocal harmonies from chirpy amazements to swooning,
dreamy soft-touches. It sounds as if he's basically loosened up, and figured out
where subtly funky flows and immersive, bubbly drifts are way more agreeable than
hyperactive flashes and non-stop banging. He has, in many senses, mellowed out.
And there's what's good about Point. Cornelius comes across as some sort
of über-hipster from the glossy fashion mags, a cultural curator, a buzzy Japanese
pastiche guy making music that feels like Bandai pocket games-- I've no doubt that
a lot of you will hear Point somewhere and be turned off by precisely this
quality, and I'll admit that before throwing Point on I sort of feared that
it might be just another totally mid-90s reiteration of that heavily explored
model. But Point isn't all about playing with trinkets and baubles. "Point
of View Point" develops from an airy bounce into some delicious, dynamic, sweeping
chord changes. "Drop" teases you by offering and then withholding a beautiful
groove that sounds like Antonio Carlos Jobim taking a stab at writing funk, and
then "Another View Point" finishes the job. "Tone Twilight Zone" is the equivalent
of a Boards of Canada pastoral played live. "Brazil" applies singing-Macintosh
software to a gorgeous laid-back ode with an oddly country-and-western chorus
breakdown, and "Fly" is a flat-out prog single, in the best possible way.
Cornelius has done well, and he's done it subtly and unassumingly. If you've spent
the last six months feeling inclined to listen solely to alt-country records, this
may be Officially Not Your Bag. But it's a handsome little bag, and undoubtedly,
some people will take great, great pride in wearing it out.
-Nitsuh Abebe, February 1st, 2002