ART IN A CAGE "I could have done something that sounds like the Strokes, and maybe I should have. It would have been the smart thing to do — if I were a businessman."
Julian Casablancas is in control, for better or worse. Better, in the sense that he is finally seeing the release of his debut solo album, Phrazes for the Young (RCA), in which he steps out of the stripped-down style of the Strokes — his blockbuster unit for the past decade — and unveils a kaleidoscopic world of lush dreamscapes, arpeggiated classicism, and haunting balladry. Worse, in that for this guardedly reserved frontman, having your name on the marquee means it’s that much easier to second-guess yourself.
“To be honest, with this record I wanted to go out there, musically, but I was scared,” he says. “Scared that people would think that it was this weird vanity solo avant-garde-wanna-be thing. And I think that, actually, I was wrong.”
Wrong or not, the resulting album is a bold, baroque masterstroke from a restless musician temporarily freed from the democratic constraints of bandhood. Within the Strokes, Casablancas always struck an odd pose between screaming abandon and shrinking discomfort. Now, he finds himself closely evaluating his musical moves so as not to repeat himself.
“I could have probably done something that sounds like the Strokes — that I could have done easily. And maybe I should have. I’m saying that somewhat sarcastically, but success-wise, it would have been the smart thing to do — if I were a businessman.”
Better for us that he’s not. If a typical Strokes song is a Tetris-like fit of guitar, bass, drums, and crooning vocals with nary an ounce of air to spare, then Phrazes is like a prolonged exhalation — an explosion of styles and textures that maintains an organic flow. “4 Chords of the Apocalypse” has a loping gentleness that tips its hat to Motown, but it also includes a piercing lead break that sounds like Brian May and Tom Scholz in a laser battle. “Glass” begins like a trip-hop tiptoe through the clouds, only to dive-bomb into a spiral of classical trills and fractal runs of guitar and organ. Lead single “11th Dimension” begins tidy and spry and lo-fi (imagine a Miami Sound Machine demo) before spinning into a vortex of triumphant guitars and clobbering drums. The constant is Casablancas’s instantly recognizable voice, once buried beneath chugging garage chords and muffled in distortion, now clarion clear and gliding atop each track.
Casablancas was just as much in control of the Strokes’ lauded 2001 debut, Is This It(RCA), as he is with Phrazes — he didn’t just write all the songs, he wrote the solos, too. “I had a specific idea of how I wanted it to sound. I wanted the vocals to sound really messed-up. But with this record, the vocals are doubled and more confident, and I found a way to make them work with things like polyrhythmic drums and melodic keyboards.”
The remaining task, then, is to sell this new Julian to an audience that simply wants to hear “The Modern Age” the way it did 10 years ago. The Strokes haven’t been active since settling into a self-described “hibernation” following the tepid public reception of their third LP, 2006′s First Impressions of Earth — a record that marked a clear departure from Is This It‘s indie strum and also suggested a band in need of a break. Take “Ask Me Anything”: three minutes of nothing but vocals, Mellotron, and a chorus that repeated “I’ve got nothing to say” into infinity.
This time around, Casablancas has plenty to say. Phrazes is bursting with ideas — lyrical, musical, conceptual. His initial concept for the tour (which hits the Paradise this Friday) was a Disney-esque extravaganza, but that didn’t prove feasible save for a short November residency at LA’s Downtown Palace Theatre. “It’s like when you go see a play, and the scene opens with a mountain range, or Roman columns, or whatever: it’s kind of exciting and fun for about five minutes, but then it wears off and it’s boring. The idea was to create random sets, a different one for each song. So a mountain range, and then for the next song you’re underwater, and then you’re in an ice world.”
For Casablancas, his theatrical ambitions make the same demands as the Strokes’ carefully maintained austerity — it’s just more music to create. “When I first started doing this, just messing around, everyone was like, ‘Play guitar, man!’, and I just didn’t want to. That wasn’t fun for me; it wasn’t the dream. I guess I always had a kind of fantasy of being, you know, a modern composer — not like I can really pull that off or anything.”
Yet with Phrazes he’s not so wide of the mark — it’s a leap of musical sophistication that’s far-reaching but not pretentious. “This would have never flown with the Strokes — the rest of the guys would have been like, ‘Uh, let’s just play the songs, dude.’ ” And should the new Julian alienate devotees who wish he’d simply concentrate on reviving the Strokes in 2010 (they do have some summer-festival dates scheduled and a fourth album planned), so be it. “I’m just trying to come up with something different and weird but good. And who knows? Maybe I went about it a little wrong — but whatever.”
JULIAN CASABLANCAS | Paradise, 967 Comm Ave, Boston | January 8 at 9 pm | $20 | 617.562.8800 or www.thedise.com
