Crush Songs soothes with raw, folk sound

Karen O’s Crush Songs seems almost mythical, otherworldly. She announced the album’s existence with a handwritten note on her website, explaining, “When I was 27 I crushed a lot. I wasn’t sure I’d ever fall in love again. These songs were written and recorded around that time. They are the soundtrack to what was an ever continuing LOVE CRUSADE. I hope they keep you company on yours.”

At 27 in 2006, O had just released Show Your Bones, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ second CD.

Crush Songs is a lonely CD. The songs are like scraps, most barely a minute long, containing minimalistic instrumentals and repetitive lyrics that alternately reveal fragments of heartbreak and of hope. Some of the songs sound eerie, particularly in contrast to O’s other work with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. While she is a loud presence dominating tracks on other albums, here she is subdued, even uncertain. Sometimes she sings just above a whisper.

O begins many of her songs with the familiar “One, two, ready, go” which has appeared on several acoustic Yeah Yeah Yeahs tracks. This creates a sense of intimacy, but also lends to the feeling that these songs are all just false starts to songs released later.

The CD also acts as a kind of journal. Indie, folk, emo, punk — whatever you want to call a project that is youthful, lo-fi, confessional and DIY. It reminds of Waxahatchee or Frankie Cosmos or, if we want to talk about local bands, Teen Suicide or the Magnetic Fields.

When listening to Crush Songs, it’s hard not to think of KO at Home, a demo CD by O which surfaced in 2006. O gave KO at Home to Dave Sitek of the band TV on the Radio, but the CD was leaked online after Sitek moved out of his apartment, leaving it behind. This story and invasion of privacy certainly taints KO at Home, but even without this background, the CD is unapproachable in a way that Crush Songs isn’t.

Although both are primarily acoustic and repetitive, KO at Home slips into long monotony where Crush Songs fades quietly from one song to the next. KO at Home sounds like someone thinking and experimenting while Crush Songs sounds like someone worrying and writing.

The latter may be seen as stronger from the perspective of a listener, but the subject matter and sound of the songs are more homogenous than in KO at Home.

Crush Songs is reminiscent of “The Moon Song,” a single O wrote with Spike Jonze for the film Her. The song was nominated for the Best Original Song Academy Award but lost to “Let It Go” from Frozen. No songs on Crush Songs are quite as polished nor quite as good as “The Moon Song,” but they seem to come from the same place — they are quiet, with simple rhymes and lullaby-like lyrics. Jonze and O also used to date, so he’s potentially the inspiration for some of the songs on Crush Songs.

He also made a music video for the first song on the album Ooo, in which Elle Fanning cheerfully dances around a stage. It was apparently created during a short break in preparing for a play. Jonze said that “this week my dear friend Karen is putting out her first solo album of precious, personal love and heartache gems titled Crush Songs. They are songs made intimately and spontaneously alone in her bedroom a few years ago. So on Sunday, during a 10-minute break as we were rehearsing and lighting at the Met, we made a very impromptu ‘music video’ for Karen in the spirit of her album.” The video was made as a surprise, and it captures the album well.

Particularly striking songs on the album include “Visits,” “NYC Baby” and “Indian Summer” (a cover of The Doors’s song). In “Visits,” O sings over a drum machine. It is one of the album’s more upbeat, cheerful sounding songs. At first it sounds almost like a call and response, but then it transitions into a repetitive refrain that highlights the first word of each line. Lyrically, it is a song of resignation. O sings, “Alone, who will stop the world?/I don’t know, I don’t know, I won’t grow.” The song implies resignation and self-awareness that has led to a certain detachment. “NYC Baby” is another highlight on the album. It contains modest, easy rhymes that sound like a lullaby (“And the phone it rings a-plenty/But I’d rather have my baby/Much much closer to me lately/Than he’s been”). The soft tones complement the entire album.