Tame Impala’s “My Outdated Methods” opens with Parker’s voice, distant, uncooked, prefer it was captured on a handheld machine. Sparse piano notes shadow him.
The microphone bleeds into the room: crackling, fragile, uncovered. It’s jarring if you already know Parker’s work, this man who’s spent twenty years obsessing over sonic perfection.
He instructed interviewers he needed to open with this “janky” take to drive himself out of his consolation zone, and you may hear that discomfort. It sounds susceptible in a manner Tame Impala hardly ever does.
For sixty seconds, that’s all you get. Piano and confession. Parker singing about falling again into patterns he thought he’d escaped, and the manufacturing matches the sentiment.
Every part feels unstable, unfinished. Then the rhythm arrives, slick and full-bodied: a home beat cloaked in gloss.
Synth tides rise, bass pulses, and the chorus, “Again into my previous methods once more,” anchors itself. The transition is easy, a rising wave of precision contrasting the uncooked begin.
The 90s home affect is smart thematically. There’s one thing about that period’s rave tradition that matches with the tune’s dependancy narrative.
When taking medicine felt extra communal, extra in regards to the get together than numbing out alone. Parker performs with that nostalgia all through, letting the beat carry the burden whereas his lyrics spiral.
The home manufacturing although. That is the place issues get messy. Resident Advisor didn’t maintain again, calling out the inflexible 4/4 construction and lack of element.
They mentioned it exposes Parker as somebody nonetheless determining membership music, that it sounds generic in comparison with precise home producers. And look, they’re not flawed.
The observe runs over six minutes and barely deviates from its central groove. That repetition can really feel hypnotic or simply tedious relying in your tolerance for minimalism. I’ve listened to this possibly twenty instances now and I nonetheless can’t determine if the repetition is the purpose or if it’s simply… repetitive.
Parker’s refusal to make the subject material palatable does reserve it although. There’s no redemption arc right here, no second the place he claims he’s figured it out.
Simply the cycle: rationalisation, give up, disgrace. “Thought I’d by no means return, however simply this as soon as / Somewhat current for holding out so lengthy.”
That’s the bargaining stage, the lie you inform your self. Parker is aware of these psychological gymnastics intimately, and he doesn’t costume them up.
The bridge is the place he stops holding again. Vocals stack on prime of one another, “At all times fucking up with one thing” repeating till it sounds much less like singing and extra like purging.
It’s uncooked in a manner that feels virtually punk, which is unusual to say a few home observe. Unusual however correct. There’s actual frustration there, actual self-loathing. The instrumental break that follows seems like falling, which might be the purpose.
Parker recorded components of this at Wave Home in Perth, the identical place he holed up fifteen years in the past to write down Innerspeaker.
That element issues greater than it ought to. Going again to the place you began, bodily returning to the scene. The entire tune capabilities as that sort of return, each literal and metaphorical. Or possibly I’m studying an excessive amount of into it. Perhaps it was simply out there.
The Orchid synth factor is price noting. Parker put money and time into growing what needs to be his ideally suited instrument, however this observe doesn’t sound prefer it makes use of any of that know-how.
Perhaps the tune predates his involvement, or possibly his fingers nonetheless attain for the acquainted gear when he’s really creating. There’s one thing humorous about that. Constructing a customized device after which not utilizing it to your comeback single.
Sam Kristofski’s video will get the duality proper. Parker transferring between remoted seaside landscapes and crowded metropolis streets, by no means fairly belonging in both area.
The visible language matches what the tune does, that stress between desirous to retreat and needing to interact.
Critics have known as it an addict’s anthem, which sort of is smart. However it works simply in addition to a tune about any sample you possibly can’t break.
Relationships you retain falling into, jobs you retain quitting, cities you retain transferring again to. The specificity of Parker’s lyrics provides it weight, however the themes are broad sufficient to mission onto.
He debuted it reside at an A24 session in New York with a full band. Experiences say the reside association opens it up, provides dimension. I haven’t seen footage but so I can’t converse as to whether that addresses the repetitiveness.
Typically a tune that feels skinny on file expands in a room with different people. Typically it simply reveals the thinness extra clearly.
The discourse round this observe frustrates me. The way it will get framed as Parker “promoting out” or “chasing tendencies.”
As if the one genuine transfer can be to make Lonerism half three. He’s allowed to be all in favour of home music. The query isn’t whether or not he needs to be doing this, it’s whether or not he’s doing it nicely. And truthfully?
It’s combined. The emotional core is stable. Parker sounds extra sincere right here than he has in years, keen to look pathetic and imply it.
However the manufacturing feels half-committed, like he couldn’t determine whether or not to make a correct membership observe or simply borrow the aesthetic.
That phone-recorded intro is doing plenty of work. It indicators that this album might be completely different, rougher, extra keen to indicate the seams. And that’s admirable.
Music doesn’t have to be good to be transfer you. However there’s a distinction between intentional rawness and simply not absolutely growing an thought.
“My Outdated Methods” sits someplace between these poles, by no means fairly committing to both. Which is perhaps essentially the most sincere factor about it, really.
The observe received’t fulfill purists of any stripe. Home heads will discover it too smooth, too melodic, too all in favour of being a “tune” fairly than a device for the ground.
Tame Impala followers wanting one other psych-rock epic will bounce off the entire method. What it gives as an alternative is one thing messier and extra human.
A man in his late thirties admitting he’s nonetheless making the identical errors, set to a beat that desires to be danceable however can’t fairly shake the unhappiness beneath.
There’s worth in that honesty even when the execution wavers. Parker’s finest work has at all times lived within the hole between what he needs to be and what he really is.
“My Outdated Methods” exists in that hole too. Extra fascinating than good, extra affecting than spectacular. I hold coming again to it even once I’m unsure I prefer it.
