Album Review: arrange - New Memory

arrange
New Memory
Rating: Yeah Daddy Make Me Want It

On 2011's Plantation, arrange, the moniker of teenager Malcom Lacey, tapped into something idiosyncratic and new, merging the confessional singer/songwriter with bedroom pop/chillwave into a sound that was as distinctive as it was brutally honest. In my review, I noted that listening to the album was "akin to rummaging around a stuffed attic, coming across old photo albums, journals, and keepsakes, being washed over by the floods of memory: the triumphs and failures, the joy and sadness, the important and the mundane." On his latest full-length New Memory, there is still that feeling of sifting through the contents of Lacey's mind, but in place of Plantation's diffuse impressionism, there is a slight change to the more direct, at least lyrically. But this being arrange, the songs are all about dealing with family, domestic dramas, and the search for one's place in the world. While the songs don't stand out as freely as tracks like "Tiny Little Boy," "Veins," or "Medicine Man," as a whole, there is a more cohesive production that binds the songs together.

Starting off with the lovely piano ballad "Ivory Pt. 1," a tender plea to a parent to not give up, singing "everything I'd ever known/Won't cast doubt on these hands that hold me."



The haunting track "Caves" mixes piano and ambient electronics over skeletal drum programming, Lacey's voice open and raw. Lyrics like "My hands are porous things filled up by anything/They know the way to go but haven't had the chance to show them," reveal a wounded self doubt.



Within this tracks is always a search, for reconciliation, for forgiveness, or just for peace. The delicate electronics of "Where I Go At Night" underpin Lacey's search for a mother to help and also find some help for his own sadness,



in "North" he sings of his search for his true self, "I won't become myself undone/I've learned that I'm important to someone,"



and in the gorgeous "When We Saw," Lacey relies on his family for peace in the wake of doubt, "Always there to help me find a way to never lay near/Or give life to the hate I keep within."

While New Memory is a really good record, there is always the nagging notion in the back of my head that Lacey just didn't quite push himself farther on this record. Not that it is a carbon copy of Plantation, it just has a similar sonic impact, but without the distinction of having standout singles like the aforementioned ones. New Memory is an interesting holding pattern, but one I would like to see him transcend in the future.

Rating Scale:

Chilfos: masterpiece; coolest thing I've heard in ages.

Woof Daddy: excellent; just a hair away from being a masterpiece.

Grrrr: very good; will definitely be considered for my top releases of the year.

Yeah Daddy Make Me Want It: good; definitely invites further listens and piques one's interest for more material.

Meh: not horrible, but certainly not great; could have either been polished, trimmed, or re-thought.

Jeez Lady: what the hell happened? Just plain bad. They should hang their heads in shame and be forced to listen to Lady Gaga ad nauseam as penance.

Tragicistani: so bad, armed villagers with pitchforks and torches should run the artist out of the country for inflicting this abomination on the human race.