Listening to Alligator Indian‘s new EP, More Songs About Animals and TV, gives me the same feeling as the one I get listening to Laurie Anderson. When I was a teenager, I found a CD of hers in my room. To this day I have no idea how it got there—my parents and my brother didn’t know where it came from either. It was as if the music fairy had flown in at night and left it in my room to broaden my horizons. The first few times I tried to listen to the CD, I didn’t like it. Her voice sounded goofy, like she was trying too hard, being too deliberate. Her studied, cerebral melodies didn’t immediately hit my pop pleasure center in a way I was familiar with. But the more I listened to her, the more I realized that my own prejudices were getting in the way of something more substantial than I had recognized.
What made Laurie Anderson a challenging listen for me was that she refuses to employ the easy trick of playing it cool in a detached manner. Alligator Indian’s Christian Church and Spooky Bubble strike me as her brethren. Musicians of this kind can put their egos aside and show you who they are without glossing themselves over with a trendy persona. They give themselves over to you instead of cloaking themselves in faux-apathy. Rather than try to be popular or impressive, they try to be honest and to invite you to engage with them.
The style these days is to be removed when you sing, like your voice is an instrument among many, and I’m as guilty as any when it comes to perpetuating this trend. But when I hear songs like these, I begin to doubt my obsession with holding back. Why can’t people sing this way, too? There is something refreshing about hearing people sing like they mean it. Like Laurie Anderson, Alligator Indian is not trying to sound cool. Rather, they are trying to sound as strange and passionate as they really are, with no hazy, romantic Instagram filter.
Style aside, their pop craftsmanship here is undeniable. Their songwriting choices are invariably complex, and they avoid falling into familiar pop tropes while still creating the sense of energy and pleasure characteristic of great pop music. The mood of More Songs About Animals and TV is as spooky and fun as the Halloween aisles springing up at grocery stores and pharmacies this time of year. The album is strewn with ritualistic bellows and chants but, with jokey titles like “Corpsing” and “Later, Data Dog,” doesn’t take itself too seriously. “Corpsing” sprints bombastically, as if Christian Church and Spooky Bubbles were playing a game of chase with each other. “Later, Data Dog,” a mellow and atmospheric closer, bleeps and bloops like a charming early video game and contains the endearingly nerdy line, “Speak to me in binary.”
All this levity, however, occurs within a dark outline. The opener, “Revar Yu Droem,” starts with a sample of children playing and inches into a choir-like minor key chant. They might be having fun, but that doesn’t mean they’re just messing around. Acknowledging how terrifying life can be, they maintain an emotional depth that feels genuine but never overtakes the sense of excitement and optimism. “PUF//FIN,” for example, is melodically creepy but rhythmically bouncy. These are songs you can dance to, songs made to bring people together and let them have a good time. Listening to More Songs About Animals and TV is like watching a campy horror movie with your best friends.
Where would we be if we shrugged off Laurie Anderson and Alligator Indian just because they are direct and don’t remain at a chic emotional distance from their listeners? We need more Alligator Indians—musicians who want to bring people together rather than act like they’re too cool to have a conversation with you. They use their gifts not to astonish us with their hipness but to make us feel like we, too, can express ourselves sincerely.
More Songs About Animals and TV is out now digitally and on cassette via Bleeding Gold Records.