In his work Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote, Jorge Luis Borges asked how it might be possible to rewrite Don Quixote, not as a retelling nor as a transcription of the original piece, but as a novel written as such in the contemporary moment. The contemporary music scene, in which pitch-perfect revival has become a standard quality, poses a similar metaphysical conundrum: How, in 2011, do we listen to a work like Frank Alpine’s (a.k.a. Rich Moreno), a slavish, loving recreation of the 80s minimal synth/minimal wave sound?
Before addressing that question, we should note Simon Reynolds’ argument that ‘minimal synth’ is a retrospectively invented genre made up of “groups who would have been Depeche Mode if they could have come up with a tune, plus Suicide/DAF/Fad Gadget clones” — the aim of the exercise being the recontextualization of old, unpopular music in order to extract maximum market value for it in the present. This, I would argue, goes too far, but it’s a reasonable description of most of the material presented on this album. But the problem with the explosion in availability of old music and the constant fishing for new, more obscure subgenres (invented or not) is that, for a band, it’s a double-edged sword. On the one hand, material can now be accessed that may bring new influences and inspiration; but on the other (and this is my dominant hand), given availability, why would an audience listen to a recreation when the material from the genre’s original period is virtually limitless? Why defrost a Frank(-N-Furter) creation from the meat and leather of the gothic 80s?
And while we’re questioning (musical authorities), what is it about retro darkwave and Franks? Frank (Just Frank)’s gorgeous 2010 debut, The Brutal Wave, explored similar terrain, though with more of an eye to the incorporation of Cure-esque guitar jangle as well as (post-)industrial synthetics. But in doing so — in being the first of the New New Wave of wave Franks — they were waving, not drowning in a body of recycled water. As I’ve discussed elsewhere, the current revival of 80s darkwave sounds — from synth wave to the gloomier side of post-punk — seems to herald the (relative) exhaustion of genres like punk itself as fashion(able) material. (Though, having said that, the garage, shoegaze, and twee revivals, among others, show little sign of deceleration.) And here Frank Alpine looks the part, with a primitively produced, red and black cover featuring runesque text, an aesthetic associated with arty original deathrockers (thereby continuing what has by now become an L.A. tradition), from Christian Death to Virgin Prunes.
But where, as with those outfits, the lyrics of the original, seminal minimal groups often explored existential and surrealist concerns — Fad Gadget’s “Collapsing New People” or Dark Day’s “Hands In the Dark”, for example — Moreno is content with the reiteration of tired, sub-emo lyrical tropes. (It’s difficult to choose from a myriad of possible examples, but sufficiently representative are the lines “Dark places in my eyes/ I try to find some peace of mind.”) The lines in question are often chanted repeatedly, as if to add profundity; and indeed, the pomposity of the delivery, the lack of the sense of humor and of play found in the works of bands like 45 Grave or Liaisons Dangereuses is not the least obvious aspect of the album’s aesthetics. The vocals lie somewhere between darkwave portentousness and snotty Buzzcocks sneer — and, on the latter note, the album works best (musically, rather than lyrically) at moments when the pop impulse comes to the fore, as on “Painted Eyes” or “Through Your Window.”
But speaking of frankness, we might quote from Honest Abe: “People who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like.” And “Frank Alpine” himself, it transpires, is a tormented character in the Bernard Malamud novel The Assistant — here again we see that, while Moreno clearly knows his re(tro)ferences, he’s riding on the backs of others, not in the dark sleazy sense that has currency in the genres at hand. Or, to put it another way, we’ve got our Alpine mentholateds, but sex in the hall is only a distant memory.
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