PREGNANT – Life Hard: I Try (Part 2)

So, Sarah agrees with me. She is after all, my audiovole. But then she pulls out Rogue Wave’s Our of the Shadow… and I’m all like WTF, dude? I wasn’t like that at all. Mostly this is just a love fest for fellow AV contributor, Natalie Snoyman. A well deserved love fest.

Because we’re still stuck on WordPress (Sincerest apologies. The path to excellence is indeed a slow one.) we cannot embed the album stream. However, you can click anywhere here to open the player in a new window and listen while you read!

Pregnant – “Life Hard: I Try”

From: Sarah Braunstein
To: Brandon Hall

Well Brandon, this might not be the most interesting of posts because I largely agree with a lot of what you said. Natalie Snoyman (of past YACHT and Key Losers dialectics) shared Pregnant with us and I’m generally psyched when she passes an album my way. Natalie has introduced me to some bands – like Lower Dens, Mirah, Cloud Nothings – that make me think differently about what a band or musician can do. I realize I’m being incredibly vague (not on purpose) but all three of those examples have albums that got their hooks in me for totally disparate reasons and kind of expanded my music universe.

That being said, Pregnant doesn’t fall into the same category for me. Maybe I like my music a little more obvious, but I’ve listened through Life Hard : I Try four or five times now and I’m feeling pretty unmoved. I don’t harbor any negative feelings toward the album; just no overwhelmingly positive ones, either. Sure, there are a couple “standout” tracks that I prefer over the rest of the album. I think “I Wasn’t Getting Paid” is really really cool and I’d love to witness Trudeau pulling that track together live. It’s danceable, joyous, and a little bit Go! Team-esque (down to lyrics that I can’t quite understand).

You know, it took me a couple of listens to place, but I also hear some Rogue Wave in Trudeau’s work particularly in the tracks when he’s singing. Realizing this made me warm up to Pregnant a bit more although I had to find that door and open it myself. Listen to “Every Moment” and then head over to the title track or “Letter to a Friend.” Do you hear it? Or am I just making some subconscious connection between Pregnant and my 18-year old self listening to Out of the Shadow…

So I’d say that I’m strictly in appreciation mode. I dig some of the samples Trudeau works with but I never get to hear them quite enough because of all the other samples and layering that he’s got going on. And if the straws I’m grasping at are samples that I could like if given a chance, then I guess it’s safe to say that Pregnant does not have its hooks in me like other Snoyman recommendations (note to Natalie: I’m still really excited for anything else you want to share with us!).

Also, did you read that this album was release on cassette before any other medium? What do you make of that?

“Old men shit in a clearing, that’s how they get clear”

Sarah