Tame Impala’s “My Outdated Methods” opens with Parker’s voice, distant, uncooked, prefer it was captured on a handheld system. Sparse piano notes shadow him.
The microphone bleeds into the room: crackling, fragile, uncovered. It’s jarring if you recognize Parker’s work, this man who’s spent 20 years obsessing over sonic perfection.
He instructed interviewers he needed to open with this “janky” take to power himself out of his consolation zone, and you may hear that discomfort. It sounds weak 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.
All the things 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 music’s dependancy narrative.
When taking medication felt extra communal, extra concerning the social gathering 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 stated it exposes Parker as somebody nonetheless determining membership music, that it sounds generic in comparison with precise home producers. And look, they’re not unsuitable.
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 perhaps 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 might by no means return, however simply this as soon as / A bit of 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 high 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 nearly 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 looks 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 music capabilities as that sort of return, each literal and metaphorical. Or perhaps I’m studying an excessive amount of into it. Perhaps it was simply accessible.
The Orchid synth factor is value noting. Parker put money and time into creating what must be his preferrred instrument, however this observe doesn’t sound prefer it makes use of any of that know-how.
Perhaps the music predates his involvement, or perhaps his fingers nonetheless attain for the acquainted gear when he’s truly creating. There’s one thing humorous about that. Constructing a customized instrument after which not utilizing it in your comeback single.
Sam Kristofski’s video will get the duality proper. Parker shifting between remoted seashore landscapes and crowded metropolis streets, by no means fairly belonging in both house.
The visible language matches what the music does, that rigidity between eager to retreat and needing to interact.
Critics have known as it an addict’s anthem, which sort of is smart. But it surely works simply in addition to a music about any sample you possibly can’t break.
Relationships you retain falling into, jobs you retain quitting, cities you retain shifting again to. The specificity of Parker’s lyrics offers it weight, however the themes are broad sufficient to challenge 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.
Generally a music that feels skinny on document expands in a room with different people. Generally 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 traits.”
As if the one genuine transfer could be to make Lonerism half three. He’s allowed to be interested by home music. The query isn’t whether or not he must be doing this, it’s whether or not he’s doing it properly. And actually?
It’s combined. The emotional core is stable. Parker sounds extra trustworthy 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 lots of work. It indicators that this album will likely be totally different, rougher, extra keen to point out the seams. And that’s admirable.
Music doesn’t must be excellent to be transfer you. However there’s a distinction between intentional rawness and simply not totally creating an concept.
“My Outdated Methods” sits someplace between these poles, by no means fairly committing to both. Which could be essentially the most trustworthy factor about it, truly.
The observe received’t fulfill purists of any stripe. Home heads will discover it too comfortable, too melodic, too interested by being a “music” fairly than a instrument for the ground.
Tame Impala followers wanting one other psych-rock epic will bounce off the entire method. What it affords 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 all the time lived within the hole between what he needs to be and what he truly is.
“My Outdated Methods” exists in that hole too. Extra attention-grabbing than good, extra affecting than spectacular. I maintain coming again to it even once I’m undecided I prefer it.