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Mozart-inspired Phoenix drops bombshell

Joel Devyldere
The Commuter

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Phoenix

Musically speaking, “Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix,” from the band Phoenix, is the most surprising album of 2009. It’s just ridiculously strange! A French indie act from Versailles, Phoenix is making a splash with smash tracks like “1901” and “Lisztomania,” because these songs have no equivalent on the modern charts. Near as I can tell, there’s no one else who is currently doing songs the way that Phoenix does them, and to me that’s exciting.

The album is aptly named after 18th century composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Franz Liszt, a composer and pianist of the 19th century referenced in this first track. Liszt, who was a wild and unconventional pianist, had crowd-maddening performances. Thus the term “Lisztomania” was coined long before the advent of Beatlemania in the 1960s. Apparently, women would go crazy at Liszt’s performances in a similar manner. Phoenix is drawing on both styles for this album – the brilliant and steady Mozart and the carefree and ridiculous Liszt. And it pulls it off well.

What makes this quasi-concept album so special? Two things: mixing and vocals. Lead singer Thomas Mars fits the words of each song into the music in such an obscure fashion that you will have a hard time trying to understand what he’s saying. In some ways, Mars’ voice functions as more of an additional instrument, jiving all crazy-like with the prominently eccentric drums and funky synthesizer. This, however, also presents one of the few flaws of the album – on some tracks it is confusing to have a vocalist going off like that while the music is taking a different turn. It is occasionally hard to stomach the dissonance.

Phillipe Zdar, who produces all manner of strange combinations, mixed this record. The drums lead for much of the album, though mid-track they will trade their dominating role with the synthesizer or keyboards. The sound is an unheard-of blend that makes you want to snap your fingers while you work, play or study. It’s most definitely worth the buy.

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