When the legendary Vanessa Briscoe Hay croons, “Remember who you are, angel from nowhere,” in “Flowers Everywhere”, a song from her band’s new album, you take notice because it’s like she is singing directly to you, reminding you of your interior magic. It may be a song about Athens, Georgia, or at least about the multifaceted “misfits” who live there, but to me, it’s about reclaiming your innate beauty and facing fear with a fearless demeanor. After all, “you must be brave to live out here.”
Vanessa’s vocals on Pylon Reenactment Society‘s debut album, Magnet Factory, released earlier this year, make the songs genuinely relatable. Her voice, which can swerve from ethereal to feral and back again, contains an intimate quality that immerses the listener into the eccentric yet accessible Pylon Reenactment Society universe. But Vanessa’s vocal persona inhabits a paradox: sweet and sinister both, with caressing contours one minute and ragged edges the next, but always spiced with a delicate Georgia twang, of course.
Conceived as a spiritual tangent, as it were, of the decades-old underground post-punk icons Pylon (Vanessa is the only original member from that band), Pylon Reenactment Society have crafted an album that is fresh, fierce, bright, and dynamic. But even the spirit of the “darker” songs is a far cry from Pylon’s most menacing tunes, such as “Danger”, the 1980 Max’s Kansas City video of which should be required viewing for every serious music fan. With her frenzied dancing, Vanessa has been compared to Joy Division‘s Ian Curtis (she’s more rhythmic, but the intense and quirky kinetic vibe is similar), and the music of Pylon, in general, summons comparisons to Gang of Four and other like-minded dance-punk bands from the late 1970s and early 1980s eras.
Yet, really, Pylon were a force all their own. Making music in Athens, Georgia, meant Pylon had a Southern sensibility that helped their music transcend genre hallmarks. Notably, there is a rootsy sound to the guitar and bass, and the more cosmic stylings of a song like, say, “Crazy” call to mind the experience of meandering through twisty Deep South backroads at midnight, tall trees looming, the air thick with impenetrable shadows.
I came very late to the Pylon party, having moved from the Southeast in the late 1970s to Austin, Texas, a somewhat scrappy college town akin to Athens that boasted a different type of music scene. Since I did not have proximity to Georgia in Texas, the only Athens bands I had heard growing up in the 1980s were R.E.M. and the B-52s. Indeed, in the late 1970s, the latter group’s outlandish and pivotal “Rock Lobster” helped indoctrinate me into an alternate musical world, far from the easy listening, classic rock, and disco that had consumed me until then.
So when I moved to Atlanta in the 1990s and started making semi-regular trips to Athens, I kept hearing about Pylon—yet blithely brushed them off. Finally, sometime in the mid-2000s, I sat down and listened to Chomp, Gyrate, and Chain, Pylon’s only three albums—and not only was I blown away, but I was abysmally ashamed that I had been so obstinately in the dark until that point. How could I call myself a music lover and yet not know these classic LPs?
Pylon broke up in 1983 but reunited a few times over the 1990s and 2000s. Then, in 2009, co-founding member Randy Bewley tragically died. A few years later, the Pylon Reenactment Society was born, with Vanessa Briscoe Hay as the only member from Pylon. I caught a few Pylon Reenactment Society shows in recent years, and this time, I was determined not to let music history pass me by. Their shows are invigorating, by the way.
Magnet Factory is rife with hearty hooks and – you guessed it – magnetic melodies. Kay Stanton’s supple bass lines feature prominently in the songs. Meanwhile, guitarist Jason NeSmith wields an impressive range of expressions from his instrument, from shimmering echoes to surfy, crunchy, and, most dominantly, cyclonic textures and tones. Drummer Gregory Sanders, meanwhile, alternates a steadfast beat with a feisty style that never veers beyond the frenetic.
Magnet Factory features two Pylon-scripted tracks, “3 x 3” and “Heaven (In Your Eyes)”. Indeed, “Heaven”, with its initially spacey ambience soon demolished in a hail of raging vocals and guitars only to float back toward a lulling luminosity, is the standout song from Magnet Factory. In an album of standouts, that’s quite a feat to achieve. Its video is also captivating, a highlight among other intriguing videos for “3 x 3,” “Flowers Everywhere”, and “Fix It”, featuring the inimitable Kate Pierson, whose vocal presence and visual persona meshes beautifully with the Pylon Reenactment Society aesthetic.
Magnet Factory‘s songs tackle jangle pop, garage rock, dance punk, and new wave with equal skill and flair; often, genres and subgenres meld together in one song, sounding earthy and futuristic simultaneously. A festive fervor permeates the record, yet many tracks are shot through with a disquieting tension. The spirited tracks that populate the bulk of Magnet Factory are bookended with mystical meditations: The opener, “Spiral”, sets an entrancing mood, while the celestial closer, “I’ll Let You Know”, was inspired by the Portuguese musical form of Fado, according to Vanessa in Brooklyn Vegan.
That the record’s front and back portals beckon us inside and say farewell with metaphysical melodies and philosophies (“(I am something) I am nothing” from “Spiral”) suggests that Pylon Reenactment Society want to infuse the musical atmosphere with a sense of transcendence amidst the slightly fraught tension, and also offer a calm sense of closure (“I’ll let you know, before I go” from “I’ll Let You Know.”).
In most of Magnet Factory, the lyrics transmute mundane topics into humor or wisdom, or, more precisely, wisdom laced with humor. There’s the advice on repairing problems: “You showed me how / To not throw my troubles away” (“Fix It”); a caution to resist toxic media and politician efforts to confound us with conspiracies: “Information overload / Seek facts without fear” (“No Worries”); a suggestion to slow down our lives in a rushed society: “Take your time, don’t be scared / Takes time to get somewhere / Takes time once you’re there” (“Compression”); and musing about moving beyond broken relationships: “Not too sad, but it’s sad anyway / The sun still shines since you went away/the world still turns, people still yearn (“Messenger”).
A host of groups, both mainstream and lesser-known, homegrown and otherwise, have incubated in Athens, Georgia, and well-regarded artists continue to spill forth from the city’s loins. “Classic City” will always be on the musical map somehow. However, the city’s two most revered musical icons have wound down: the B-52s just completed their final tour, while R.E.M. broke up ages ago.
So it seems that the Pylon Reenactment Society will have to take on the mantle of being Athens’ musical ambassador to the world. At 68, Vanessa Briscoe Hay seems to be on top of her game, and her assembly of Athens’ most talented players to forge a new musical outfit in the spirit of the best underground band of all times, Pylon, was a shrewd move at just the right time. After all, this disturbingly troubled world needs a jolt of arrestingly good music to remind us of the beauty that surrounds us as Vanessa ebulliently croons, “Flowers grow everywhere.”