BØRNS "Blue Madonna" - Album review

BØRNS re-enters the musical fray with this album, a study in Alt Pop.

Alt Pop?

"What is Alt Pop?" you ask? Is it just another label designed to try and give an artist a niche? Or is it something else?

Alt Pop could be another way of saying Indie Pop, but what defines it is the need for the musician to break the kind of moulds that the Pop genre has developed, still using catchy melodies and vocal hooks, while driving the instrumental tracks to unexpected places. Often infused with electronic elements, always a bit strange, Alt Pop is a DIY cooking show where all the chefs take turns adding things in they think will make the dish better in the end. The result is not exactly something that appeals to everyone, but can definitely be counted as some kind of unique.

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Who is Børns?

Garrett Borns was born in Michigan, USA, to Randall Clark and Cheryl Borns. As a child he gravitated toward magic, giving himself the stage name "Garrett the Great".
Its little wonder that Børns describes himself as a man craving fantasy. It is even noted that he at one time lived in a treehouse.
As has a host of musicians before him, he played in a cover band and a trio for a few years, refining his musical craft, until a move to Los Angeles in 2012, where he cowrote his debut single as Børns titled "10000 Emerald Pools" with producer Jack Kennedy.
And so began his rise, with the Candy EP being signed to Interscope records, followed by some major television appearances with presenters such as Conan. Taylor Swift and One Republic have even gone on record as being fans.

Watch live on Conan

Børns is enigmatic, and his curious nature courses through his music leaving you instantly charmed.

The Sound

What immediately strikes you is his voice. Borns is a somewhat androgynous male who, using his falsetto to great effect, manages to blur the lines between what sounds male or female. A sonic gender-bender if you will. When asked about the fact that people that people often get confused when listening to whether they're hearing a man or a woman, it seems to amuse him.

There's an element of surprise in the songs' structures, with chord sequences that you wouldn't normally find in the pop format, sudden twists and turns to sections that you wouldn't expect. This could really be seen as one of the definers of Alt Pop, the surprising shifts in the music that separate it from the more formulaic Pop genre.

Then there is the use of sounds that are treated very heavily, almost assaulting the ears. A great example of this can be found in the track God Save Our Young Blood (feat. Lana Del Rey) at 1:57 where the vocal is sent to a reverb that is distorted so that it jumps out at you, but then is immediately cut in an unnatural way.

God Save Our Young Blood

Oh but of COURSE there's a song that features Lana Del Rey. She is one of the queens of Alt Pop after all.

The song opens with a curious synth that sounds like a voice resampled and processed through a guitar amp. The verse sounds like it could easily belong on a Lana Del Rey album as her voice joins with Børns' own. Borns admits to being heavily influenced by Lana on this track. The lyric "Spinning and we can't sit still" repeats several times as the singers conjure up images of late nights and young love.
Then after a slight pause, the chorus drops and does something that very few pop songs seem to be willing to do these days - a key change. Its bold and its perfect. Its cleverly done but at the same time its subtle. Its not the usual key change to lift the song up a half-step or a whole-step. Its a drop down from A Major to F Major. Its a shift in mood that carries you with it.

Lets delve further into the sound

You can distinctly hear a 60's and 70's influence in Børns' work, with a glam rock sound shining forth in his vocal style. I can also I hear a tip-of-the-hat to the way the Beatles used to write their music (I'm talking Beatles on acid), particularly in some of the chord movement as it gives way to interesting melodic ideas. There are surf-rock guitars, drum machines, weirdly pitched percussion instruments, modern resampled vocals as instruments, meaty synths and ethereal vocals.

Faded Heart

This single immediately evokes imagery of young people jiving, twisting and falling in love in a time when the world was a bit less jaded. I absolutely love this song. Børns uses lyrics like: "You in the suede backseat is all I'll ever need", which, with its energetic drum beat, catapults the listener back in time. The lyric: "Don't you break my faded heart" soars over the song, and I can almost hear this in a scene in a 70's movie set at a prom, with the lead character searching the dance floor for their partner. Imagine my surprise when at the end of the song, the audio is treated with the effect of being heard from outside of a venue. My mind was blown!

The rest of the album explores a surprising amount of variance in the sound, and I love the fact that some songs use old-school 60's and 70's drum kits, recorded with minimal microphones, and then on other songs you can hear classic Roland drum machines, found more in modern pop. There are beautiful, real string ensembles recorded right next to songs with clearly synthesised string sounds from analogue synths.

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