pitchfork music festival live update 6

wow. I was one of the few completely underwhelmed by “the greatest,” but chan marshall sounds fantastic tonight. Backed by members of dirty 3, blues explosion and delta 72, she’s turning songs inside out, making them dark, smoky ciphers. Her voice is gorgeous and chalky and the band, anchored in burbling organ, captures that Memphis soul sound she scrubbed clean on “greatest.” the song theyre playing now is a new one (most of them have been), and its got a great, tangled guitar line and the kind of bleating organ runs you don’t hear outside of church. These are the Stax songs Chan was born to sing, and tonight she’s two parts Rolling Thunder, two parts Carla Thomas.

Updated 7/15: The set ended up being my favorite of the day (though I seemed to have a hard time finding anyone who’d agree with me). It was all smoke and soul, and Chan flipped, inverted and re-arranged classic songs (“Tracks of My Tears,” “Satisfaction,” “New York, New York”), turning the melodies inside out and finding new alleys and pathways. It was similar to what Dylan does to his own catalog, but this had a kind of basement-bar R&B band feel to it that added a kind of ruined beauty. Near the end of the set she did a version of “Dark End of the Street” that gave me goosebumps. I can’t put my finger on it, but something about Chan Marshall feeling her way through these songs, inventing new turns and runs as she went along, felt like magic.