Why is the title of this song an españolized version of “the know-it-all”? Does the feminine pronoun mean it’s about a woman? Is “smarty-panties” a better translation? Which came first, this song or Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs album (something like “Ready to Start” or “Deep Blue”)? Is Seattle-based burn burn satellite’s proximity to Canada rubbing off? If so, in which direction?

These are just a few of the questions raised by “la sabelatodo,” The opening of the song reminds me of blinking lights on a dark horizon, like cell towers. Imagine the voices coming over all those wireless wires. Here they are in unison, or at octaves, singing from many to one:

you start the day
your way
the only way
we’re all wrong
you must feel
you don’t belong

Maybe the influence is closer to home: I hear Modest Mouse in those octaves—and in the attitude. With Isaac Brock, you’re never quite sure who’s more alienated, him or you. With Darren Holt, it’s probably you. There’s something essentially well-adjusted about burn burn satellite’s music—the whimsical guitars and moog-noodlings arrive precisely where you’d have missed them otherwise, and a graceful balance in composition seems to preclude any deep disturbance in the composer.

The opening stanza repeats and then extends as the drums really kick in. I’ve written elsewhere about Darren Holt as an imaginative rhythmatist, and you hear that in the stops and starts and accents here. The stops are particularly interesting, filled with a quirky choir of electronic sounds and ghosts of guitars. In lesser hands, songs lose momentum when drums drop out this way, but “la sabelatodo” maintains tension through these interstices. The listener listens harder, wondering what’s next.

And that’s my final question: What’s next for burn burn satellite? Whatever it is, I want to hear it. I want to know it all.


La Sabelatodo

Wow. Listen to the rhythmic imagination on this tune. “2 notes” has as much ambition as 2:40 worth of chillaxing music is likely to develop, and it combines two things that burn burn satellite possesses in abundance: rhythmic ingenuity and instrumental arrangement in the service of mood. The song is a gem of composition and studio wizardry, with a feel that’s at once direct and laid-back.

I was going to write “tautly direct and wryly laconic,” but I had a sudden image of Darren Holt (I’ve never met him) reading those words and thinking, “Too many adverbs” or maybe even, “This writer is full of shit.” I have no idea what his taste in writing might be, but his music isn’t showy or excessive; it has an essential honesty about it. It deserves an honest appraisal.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

Honest doesn’t mean simple. Six-beat drum phrases weave a complex basket to catch a falling six-note xylophone figure. And here come a couple of lithe guitars—a marvel of weird-interval harmony and fluid fretwork. If Wishbone Ash had ever considered dual guitars playing anything but thirds or fifths, maybe they’d have settled down into something as satisfyingly strange as what the guitars do over the top of this beat.

An earlier burn burn satellite song, “Fictional Clock,” is the one that first tipped me to Darren Holt as a crazy-good drummer. I don’t know for sure, but I think drums might be his first instrument, just as English is probably his first language and not answering my emails his first instinct. The fluency and subtlety—his ability to stay in the pocket, never getting ahead of himself—are really impressive. And the way he mikes and mixes his drums, with the snare a prominent but muted slap, suggests a clear vision for what rhythm is supposed to accomplish.

Clarity notwithstanding, the song retains its mysteries. On “2 notes”—which two? what about all the others?—you’ll hit repeat to make sure you haven’t missed a single one.


2 Notes

Listening to burn burn satellite, I’m reminded of how much good, hyper-listenable new music is out there, waiting to be discovered. This is alternative, avant-rock at its best: melodic, rhythmically assured, with more textures than a “Pat the Bunny” book on acid. 

“Flyweight” opens in Tom Waits territory, as plucked strings of unknown provenance (might be a gu-zhueng, which Darren Holt lists among his dozen or so instruments) bend the ear with unusual timbres, and electronic textures begin to creep in around the edges. But when the voices enter the middle section—in high, tight, lilting, three-part harmony—you’re somewhere else altogether. The lyrics taunt us with turns of phrase like a Chinese puzzle box: 
 
we will do nothing
and do it so well
that it eats into all of the time
we do nothing with

The cleverness here is reminiscent of XTC’s run-on rhyme in “Mayor of Simpleton” (“and I don’t know how many pounds make up a ton of all the Nobel Prizes that I’ve never won”) or R.D. Laing’s play-on-logic poems (“I’ll never forgive you for not forgiving me”). But cleverness is next to boringness without some feeling in it, and burn burn satellite’s songs manage to communicate a lot of emotion. Once past the intro, the feel of “Flyweight” moves from the playful buoyancy you’ll sometimes find in Fleet Foxes or Sufjan Stevens, to the urgent angst of Seattle’s older influences.

It’s that grunge-y, Grohl-y, pounding surprise we get in the final section of the song. The voices, like Sirens seducing us to their little island, all but vanish as we hit the rock(s) suddenly revealed by crashing waves of sound. Yet the surprise feels inevitable, which is a sure sign of mastery. The intelligence of the music creates an expectation of thoughtful, civilized sentiment. Abruptly, the rug of quiet reason gets pulled out.

“Flyweight” hits harder than you expect. The impact is pure pleasure.

DarrenHolt