Laki Mera – The Proximity Effect

written by: Alex Bahler May 10, 2011

Release Date: May 30, 2011

Dear Jean,

I hope this letter finds you well. I look forward to our dinner reservations at Dorsia this Friday night; I can’t wait to see what you’ll be wearing. Flowers are so cliché, so I’m writing you with a music recommendation I think you’ll enjoy.

Have you heard of Laki Mera?

Well, if you’re among the deprived millions who have not, let me tell you: they are a great, great band. Included in this letter is a compact disc of their new album, The Proximity Effect. It shares its name with a Nada Surf album, but that’s largely where Laki Mera’s musical comparisons end. On the five-piece group’s sophomore album, there is exactly zero resemblance to traditional ’90s alt-rock; in fact, this is what I fully expect 2012 to sound like: bummed-out post-chillwave with a strong pop inflection, appropriate for an Internet-fueled, increasingly cross-pollinating music world no longer bound by stringent indie politics.

But if there’s one shining characteristic of The Proximity Effect, it’s that it doesn’t feel like a big, bold statement on society and culture. Whether lyrical or melodic, restraint and subtlety are sorely missing from today’s pop music scene, and I propose there’s no better band right now than Laki Mera to fill that void. Commencing with crumpled drums and hissy electronics, it almost hurts to listen to “The Beginning of the End,” in the same way today’s YouTube overload hurts us—only in a more immediate way, and juxtaposed with blasé chilled-out vocals that weave in and out of focus. It sounds like a closing track that got promoted, ending as horrifically as it began. With the 140-character attention spans of 2011, an artist needs to get to the point, and the end is a very good place to start.

The twin bookend tracks are the album’s strongest (“The End of the Beginning” appropriately concludes the album), but the catchy music in between doesn’t so much attempt some sort of people-pleaser indie/mainstream crossover as it deftly straddles the line between accessibility and inscrutability.

The Proximity Effect sounds like something Natalie Portman’s Black Swan dancer would have in her headphones, and the movie comparison isn’t too far-flung: a constant tension pulses throughout the experience to offset the pretty face (or voice) as the star of the show.

If the sweeping, cinematic tracks don’t always recall Black Swan, they occasionally echo the Dust Brothers’ soundtrack for the 1999 cult hit movie Fight Club (as on “Onion Machine”). However, it’s imperative to recognize how Laki Mera has evolved in the three years between albums: Immediately evident in early numbers like “More Than You” and “Fingertips,” the members now write songs instead of churning out merely sufficient background music.

They’ve been compared to Massive Attack and Portishead, and while they aren’t too relaxed to abstain from the usual noir-ish paranoia, I found Portishead’s brand of trip-hop too off-putting, Massive Attack’s too didactic. The streamlined sound is partly the result of singer Laura Donnelly’s vocal talents. She has a crisp, pristine voice that hasn’t changed much in delivery since Laki Mera’s 2008 debut, Clutter, except it has more of a presence. But the sonics surrounding her have thankfully improved: song titles like “No Motion” summed up an album that wallowed in its numb, love-burned state. With its trite lyrics, the more guitar-friendly Clutter was ultimately calming, whereas The Proximity Effect is all about stretching tension into a marathon of discomfort. There’s nothing as pleasurable on The Proximity Effect as the darting cello stabs in Clutter‘s “Zeuhl,” but overall, it’s the more consistently engaging album where Clutter was (befitting its name) spotty and nebulous.

If Laki Mera stays this focused for its next two albums, the group should be a personal favorite in the hearts and minds of music lovers everywhere.

Professionally,

Patrick Bateman