Roughly 45 minutes after writing about how it’s inane to compare someone to the Beatles or Wu-Tang, White Fence drops another song obviously indebted to the sounds of John Lennon circa Revolver. But that’s become a sub-genre in its own right, one obviously worn out by 2013. But there’s something about Tim Presley’s music that always goes beyond retro fetishism for me. For one, a song called “For the Boy I jumped in Hemlock Alley” uses language used only in this century. For two, Presley’s songs always seem to extend in unpredictable directions: guitar squalls and organs that play for only a few seconds and fights in alleys named after poison. The truth is that I could sit here and strain for a thousand adjectives or reasons why White Fence is better than arguably anyone making music like this (not named Ariel Pink or Ty Segall), but that feels contrived and mildly dishonest. The truth is that this song knocks and when it enters your head, you don’t want it to leave.
Taken from Cyclops Reap, released this week on Castle Face. You can stream the whole thing at Pitchfork Advance. Other jams below the jump.
