Futurismus is, by far, the most interesting thing happening in contemporary rock music. As I laid out in my essay, the mixture of inherently oppositional atmospheres that makes up the core of the genre’s tone is a direct embodiment of a political expression. Little did I know back when I wrote the piece two years ago that not only would we still be observing the same genocides unfolding on our phones, but also that our governments would be further limiting freedom of speech, all while global voters are shifting towards right wing totali- OK, no, to actual nazism would occur.
Yes, quite possibly we didn’t listen enough, as the apocalypse shifts ever more closer. At least now we find ourselves with a whole host of groups who are furthering the sound of Futurismus – Prostitute, Nerves, Chalk, DITZ – all while the originators of the sound are moving to record new songs, growing ever further towards an inevitable, cataclysmic moment.
But where to evolve if the world is falling apart and obscure laws threaten what you’re allowed to say? Model/Actriz present a logical, if also somewhat familiar step forward. After the thematically dense, cohesive “concept album” Dogsbody, the quartet present a fragmentary collection of possible reconfigurations of itself. Pirouette has the group wondering how far they can take the concept behind their sound without losing what they are. This contrasts Dogsbody‘s standout achievement of crafting a homogenous piece that ended as cohesive, yet circular, narrative. It had more in common with a David Lynch movie than with contemporary post-punk albums. For an expressively queer and often transgressive album that stood as a unified piece, its crossover success was an incredible achievement. But it would be hard to imagine a repetition possible, so maybe Pirouette‘s attempt at collecting 11 highly distinct pieces isn’t so much a showcase of versatility and is instead rooted in the band wondering who they could become while forced to face an uncertain future, both as art collective and as outsiders living in an increasingly antagonistic world.
I want to focus on a criticism before I dive into the (predictable?) positives first: Pirouette‘s design aesthetics are… hokey? It’s all very familiar trash-kitsch, all very “techno-flyer”, all very alt-queer with its pseudo-tribal arabesques. Yes, don’t judge a book by its cover and such, but from a band so innovative and unique, seeing them pivot to what truly feels like the art style of many years ago, which by now overflows all across the Insta-spheres of LA and Berlin, is a tiny bit bothersome, precisely because it feels like Model/Actriz want to fit into a pre-digested formula which they are so much better than. The cast-iron gate on pink background and marble-meets-regurgitation with tramp-stamp graphics of the physical package look immediately aged and clichéd. It’s lame and bland, where this second album should have borne the stark brevity of a Warholian design philosophy, choosing timeless gravitas (mixing eroticism and darkness) over the fashionable cynicism of contemporary trends.
I’m more than glad that the music of Pirouette does not fall for the same folly. On their second album, the band is at full force, pulling no punches. These are bold, emotional and often very clever songs, which explore different interests of the individual musicians. There’s an even stronger hint of Xiu Xiu’s caustic compositional philosophies to be found here than on the debut, confronting tender and vulnerable moments with angular sonic experimentation.
What’s interesting is how these two elements speak of queer realities – and anxieties. For example, “Ring Road” features the distorted beats familiar to anyone who has ventured into a bad techno club. As the sound becomes ever more distorted, vocalist Cole Haden’s quiet voice – which is brilliantly isolated on top of the madness – flatly lulls on about the circular motion of happiness and pain. The track climaxes in the stark notes of “The Murder” from Bernard Herrmann’s Psycho soundtrack, embodying a terribly bad synthetic drug trip. The equally merciless “Audience” uses digital handclaps, distorted screams and massive sub-beats to present an individual focusing on judgemental oversight: “I remember I was told / Never be complacent / There’s angels watching over all / And they’ll send me straight to the hoosegow / For a lackluster performance.”
Dogsbody had a clear movement – across cityscapes and through the hours of a day, from dawn to dusk through streets to clubs, back to another sunrise – while Pirouette embarks to produce nasty polaroids; out of focus but documenting every inch of body-politics. The metallic, loud “Poppy” presents a lasting thesis of this life – and Haden’s artistry: “Endless dreaming, endless ecstasy / For all I’ve caused a brutal end is apropos / I’ve made my art to suffer for the spectacle / As flesh is made in marble / As marble captures softness / As softness holds a violence / Within a pure expression.” Those three songs that lean into techno dynamics are, maybe, the most predictable on the album; of course Model/Actriz, with their interest in performance, dance, industrial and gay culture would turn further towards Berlin.
What is less predictable are the sharp quasi-middle eastern riffs that drive “Diva” and “Departures”. The former uses the dynamics between diva and muse to elaborate on how disposable romantic partners have become, and how sex can be motivated by fetishised class imbalances (“I’m such a fucking bitch / Girl, you don’t even know / Just imagine me absolutely soaked / Dripping head to toe in Prada Sport”). The latter questions the inner urge of being desired, exploring drag as well as gender dynamics: “Am I seeking to be held / So I don’t have to hold myself? / I step onto the platform / Let me be your girl”. Both are infused with insanely punchy grooves and startlingly hard hitting vocal performances from Haden that ooze personality and physicality.
And then the band completely abandons the industrial and electronic elements on the one-two punch of “Headlights” and “Acid Rain” – which actually feel like one long song. “Headlights” is almost an ambient track, consisting exclusively of guitar manipulations and a lengthy (and likely autobiographical) spoken word piece. “Acid Rain” has the borderline uncomfortable intimacy of John Lennon’s “Julia” and “Happiness is a Warm Gun”. It absolutely is the best song on the album, a quiet ballad that is so tender and nakedly melancholic that it actually can be felt in ones chest. Haden observes two hummingbirds, comparing their graceful and weightless movements into the air to an absent lover and his own form. Almost every line is essential and painful, with an especially striking couple of them being: “I’ve recognized the beauty in fragility, it’s true / But I feel like a stranger to it now suddenly / I don’t wanna leave this garden alone / While they come and go, I hover“. Haden rivals Ethel Cain’s “Amber Waves” in brutal tenderness when he confesses: “I sing in part because you often / Told me that you liked to listen”. It perfectly expresses the inexpressible, which is at the center of “Headlights”, where Haden muses on a teenage love interest who is a friend of his best friend, having him “going to her house more, increasingly, so just to wait there in case he showed up.”
This graceless hopelessness, fused in anger and sadness, this depression of the heart, is something elemental in Pirouette. Is our love for others just an embodiment of our own incapabilities of being loved, or is it genuine, true emotion that is of utmost importance – a spiritual experience? Haden wonders this himself in “Headlights”, and closes with: “I hated most how I’d pray each night / Asking God to make him see me in all the ways I couldn’t”.
Lead single “Cinderella” embraces an almost spiritual linkage between the narrator and animated Disney princess, which only lasts until, at five years old, the (immediately iconic) “Cinderella birthday party” leads to an existential crisis: “And when the moment came and I changed my mind / I was quiet, alone, and devastated.” Compositionally, “Doves” almost feels like a reverse-mirror image of “Cinderella”, abandoning the anxiety to embrace an inner monster: “I drag my nails on blackened stone / I scratch my name in crooked rows / Trade sweat for wax and tears for smoke / I make a rapture out of / Waiting”. Is this the protagonist of “Audience” finally performing, or the entity hiding behind the two-dimensional cartoon shell of “Cinderella”?
In comparison to those musings, the opener “Vesper” seems almost a little too straightforward and clean cut – well, for a band as strange as Model/Atriz – as it is a direct observation of tour life, to the familiar sound of the band’s debut. Thankfully, the closer “Baton” makes up for it. Muffled and mysterious, it starts in a dream-like tone, then moves to the fully formed beauty of a Björk or Radiohead ballad, as Haden pays tribute to his sister. It’s truly touching, and the question remains if this is an actual sibling or an inner twin reflection. Indeed, the most lasting image on Pirouette is that of women – of best friends, of sisters, of idols, of drag, of a mothers, of performances. As masculine as the loud, techno leaning tracks here suggest: Pirouette is an incredibly feminine record in contrast to the wholly masculine and thoroughly gay Dogsbody. As I said back then: I don’t consider myself part of the queer community; so speaking of the inherent values of gender dynamics from a queer perspective is foreign to me. Still, it becomes transparent that Model/Actriz imagine themselves in different, new forms, observing the play with costume and movement, similar to the protagonist of “Departures”.
This makes for an album that is both more elaborate and less cohesive than the iconic debut. “Follow up” albums of the Millennial indie era come to mind, such as The Futureheads’ News and Tributes and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah’s Some Loud Thunder – albums that followed widely celebrated debuts with noisy, experimental body-music and tender balladry, that tried to evade the repetition. In those two cases, this came with the disadvantage of the zeitgeist passing the bands by (both are overdue for a revision, especially that Futureheads album).
Model/Actriz have the apocalypse on their side, as these songs of embodiment and frightening tenderness are thrown into ever cooler societies. But then the flash-drowned, awkward polaroids of Pirouette form a not-quite-as-iconic or fully formed experience as Dogsbody did. I’ve already explored my main gripe with the overtly “hip” artwork, because aesthetics definitely do matter a lot in how we, collectively, conceive art. It’s an interesting question to pose how this album would “feel” if every song would follow the stripped down, acoustic approach of “Acid Rain” and “Baton” – or if it would aim the other way and follow “Ring Road” to replicate a Berghain DJ-set. But this kaleidoscopic vista is the album’s ultimate strength, arguing that all these sonic formations can be united within one band. Just as we, as individuals, include multitudes, so do Model/Actriz. In a world that is uniquely broken, they persist unwaveringly.
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