Reflektor is the fourth studio album by the Canadian indie rock band Arcade Fire, released on October 28, 2013, through Sonovox Records internationally and Merge Records in the United States. A double album, it was recorded between 2011 and 2013 at studios in Montreal, Jamaica, and Louisiana. It was co-produced by LCD Soundsystem frontman James Murphy, regular Arcade Fire producer Markus Dravs, and the band themselves.
Influenced by Haitian rara music, the 1959 film Black Orpheus, and Søren Kierkegaard's essay "Two Ages",
Background
The album's origins stem from a trip that both vocalist/guitarist
Win Butler and multi-instrumentalist Régine Chassagne took to her family's home country of
Haiti. Butler said: "Going to Haiti for the first time with Régine was the beginning of a major change in the way that I thought about the world. Usually, I think you have most of your musical influences locked down by the time you're 16. There was a band I feel changed me musically, just really opened me up to this huge, vast amount of culture and influence I hadn't been exposed to before, which was really life-changing."
Inspired by the country's
rara music, Butler and Chassagne incorporated elements of this sound into the band's new material, alongside
influences. Butler stated, "I mean, it's not like our band trying to play Haitian music. I just felt like we were opened up to a new influence.
Bob Marley probably felt the same way the first time he heard
Curtis Mayfield."
According to the band's manager Scott Rodger, the album cost $1.6 million to make.
Recording
Recording in
Louisiana, the band began work on
Reflektor in 2011, and subsequently moved to
Jamaica the following year with producer
Markus Dravs.
Working on roughly sixty song ideas, the band wrote and recorded in an abandoned
castle, named Trident: "The castle was built in 1979, or something, by this eccentric Jamaican dude who just wanted to hang out with royalty. And it kind of worked. After about five years he couldn't afford to pay the bill, so it had been sitting empty for many years. I met a dude who was planning on turning it into a hotel, so we just rented it off him for cheap and there was nothing in there. We brought in some beds and a piano and some gear."
The album was mostly recorded on
analog tape.
In August 2012, the band also began working with producer and LCD Soundsystem frontman James Murphy, whom the band had been wanting to work with for over six years. Butler: "LCD Soundsystem to me is like New Order and the B-52's and we deeply share a lot of those influences, and we did completely different things with it. Régine is kind of the person who dances. At any given minute, if you can get Régine to dance, you're kind of on the right track, so I think we just wanted to make a record that Régine could dance to."
Regarding the band's decision to record a double album, Win Butler stated, "The record is really long. We intended to make a short record and we ended up with 18 songs that were all between six and eight minutes and we were like, 'Uh oh, I think we screwed up making a short record.' Splitting it over the two halves enables you to get into the different worlds of the records."
Writing and composition
Reflektor is an
art rock and
dance-rock album.
Primary lyricist
Win Butler notes that the 1959 film
Black Orpheus inspired his lyrics on the album, in particular its themes of
Solitude and
death: "
Black Orpheus is one of my favorite films of all time, which is set in Carnival in
Brazil. The
Orpheus myth is the original
love triangle, Romeo and Juliet kind of story. Lyrically, it's not literally about my life. I feel like I'm kind of a bit of a sponge in a way. Like, if people around me are going through things, I find it very hard not to be empathetic."
Also influential to the album's lyrical content is an essay by Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, entitled "
Two Ages". Butler states, "It's about the reflective age. This is like in 1846, and it sounds like he's talking about modern times. He's talking about the
news media and alienation, and you kind of read it and you're like, 'Dude, you have no idea how insane it's gonna get.'"
The album tracks, "Here Comes the Night Time" and "Here Comes the Night Time II", each appear on the album's respective halves, with Butler noting, "The second one was actually written first and it almost starts the second half of the record – kind of like after the [Haitian Carnival]]. Both of them are very much influenced by when the sun is just starting to go down in Port au Prince, and it's really intense because most of the city doesn't have electricity so everyone is just racing to get home before dark."
The track "Supersymmetry" was originally written for the film Her, which the band was composing simultaneously while working on Reflektor. A different version of the song appears during the film's end credits. The instrumentals and theme of "Porno" are featured throughout the movie as well.
The lyrics include singing in both English language and French language.
Promotional campaign
In early August, a cryptic logo, which incorporated the word "reflektor", appeared on the walls of cities around the world. The
street art was reported to be part of a guerrilla marketing campaign for the new Arcade Fire album.
The upcoming album and its release date had already been announced via a message on Twitter, written as a reply to a single fan. An Instagram account posted pictures of the symbol, and included a video of one being drawn.
On August 26, Arcade Fire confirmed that the work was related to them, with a large mural on a building in downtown Manhattan, which included four of the symbols and the words "Arcade Fire 9pm 9/9".
The Reflektor campaign received negative publicity when an article that appeared in Slate in September 2013 depicted instances of property damage that resulted from the advertisements. The band made an apology, explaining that the viral wall stencils were meant to use chalk or other washable media, rather than spray paint, nor binding glues under the paper advertisements.[ My Wife Was Vandalized by Arcade Fire, Ian Dille, Slate, September 12, 2013]
The build-up to the release of the album was described by Pitchfork Media as "unusual, ambitious, vague, confounding, a little heavy-handed, and very successful". It was compared to similar campaigns for albums by Daft Punk and Kanye West, also released in 2013. In such campaigns, the music itself becomes one part of a wider experience. Although the events surrounding the album's release take place in the real world, their impermanence suits the use of social media, where the campaign is documented and shared.[ Reflektor, Year Zero, and a Brief History of the Elaborate Album Rollout , Stephen Deusner, Pitchfork Media, October 21, 2013] In an interview, Butler stated that he enjoyed anticipating the release of an album, and that the build-up to the release of Reflektor felt like "a weird art project" or "throwing a good party".
Artwork
The album's artwork features an image of
Auguste Rodin’s sculpture of
Orpheus and
Eurydice photo credit:Joseph Coscia Jr, Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Release
The band released a 15-second music clip on
Spotify on September 2, 2013, titled "9pm 9/9" under the album name
Reflektor.
On September 9, 2013, the band announced a last-minute secret show under the name "The Reflektors" at Montreal's Salsathèque Club, at 9PM for $9.
Following the band's September 28 appearance on
Saturday Night Live, a 30-minute concert special aired on
NBC featuring cameos including
Rainn Wilson,
Bono,
Ben Stiller,
James Franco,
Michael Cera and Zach Galifianakis.
The band debuted three tracks, "Here Comes the Night Time", "
We Exist" and "Normal Person".
On October 12 the band released a teaser video containing thirty seconds of the song "Awful Sound (Oh Eurydice)".
On October 21, the song "Afterlife" was debuted in a music video, playing over edited clips of
Marcel Camus's 1959 film
Black Orpheus. On October 21, the song "Normal Person" aired on
The Colbert Report, with the band identified not as Arcade Fire but only as "The Reflektors". On October 24, a
lyric video for the Official Reflektor Full Album Teaser,
playing over longer clips of Marcel Camus's 1959 film
Black Orpheus was posted to the band's website.
In September 2015, a digital Deluxe edition was released. It featured five new tracks that did not make it on the original album, as well as a new remixed version of "Flashbulb Eyes" by Dennis Bovell featuring Linton Kwesi Johnson. "Get Right" was released as a single. These tracks were also released physically on cassette as The Reflektor Tapes.
Reception
Critical reception
Reflektor received generally favorable reviews from music critics. At
Metacritic, which assigns a
standard score rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an
weighted mean score of 80 based on 48 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
of
Rolling Stone called the album "a perfect summary of their group's still-fervent indie-born hunger after a decade of mainstream success" and, noting its "decisive, indulgent ambition", cited it as "the best album Arcade Fire have ever made".
[ Lindsay Zoladz of Pitchfork described it as "a triumph, but not a victory lap; the band never sounds content enough for that."]
Kitty Empire of The Observer was impressed by the album's production and songwriting, but felt that "every track outstays its welcome by a couple of minutes", resulting in Reflektor not being an "astonishing album", but "merely very, very good one instead."
Accolades
Rolling Stone ranked the album at No. 5 on their "50 Best Albums of 2013" list, writing that the fact that album has the "ability to provoke actual feelings is what makes this great."
The album was shortlisted nominee for the 2014 Polaris Music Prize.[ "Arcade Fire, Drake, Shad make Polaris Music Prize short list". CTV News, July 15, 2014.]
The album was nominated at the 57th Grammy Awards for Best Alternative Music Album, whilst the track "We Exist" was additionally nominated for Best Music Video.
|
|
| Consequence of Sound | 7 | Top 50 Albums of 2013 |
| Drowned in Sound | 5 | Drowned in Sound's Favorite Albums of 2013 |
| Gazeta Wyborcza | 1 | 10 Best Foreign Albums of 2013 |
| The Line of Best Fit | 15 | Best Fit Fifty: Albums of 2013 |
| NME | 7 | 50 Best Records of 2013 |
| Rolling Stone | 5 | 50 Best Albums of 2013 |
| Stereogum | 10 | The 50 Best Albums of 2013 |
| Pitchfork | 10 | Top 50 Albums of 2013 |
While Pitchfork recognized the album among the decade's "best albums ... so far" in 2014,
Track listing
Notes
-
signifies an additional producer
-
"We Exist" is the second track of the album on CD and digital releases, but the fourth on the vinyl version (as the first song of Side B, or 1:4
Personnel
Personnel adapted from album liner notes.
Arcade Fire
-
Win Butler – lead vocals, rhythm guitar, electric bass, piano, synthesizers, banjo and mandolin
-
Régine Chassagne – lead and backing vocals, synthesizers, piano, accordion, xylophone, hurdy-gurdy, drums, elephant's trunk, recorders and percussion, ting-tong
-
Richard Reed Parry – rhythm and lead guitars, piano, synthesizers, organ, xylophone, accordion, electric and upright bass, celeste, drums, backing vocals & percussion
-
Tim Kingsbury – rhythm guitar, electric and upright bass, piano, synthesizers and backing vocals
-
Will Butler – rhythm guitar, electric and upright bass, synthesizers, piano, sitar, trombone, clarinet, panpipes, glockenspiel, musical saw, omnichord, concertina, backing vocals, percussion and gadulka
-
Jeremy Gara – drums, rhythm guitar, piano, synthesizers and percussion
Additional musicians
-
Sarah Neufeld – strings, orchestral arrangements, backing vocals, vocals, synthesizers, piano
-
Owen Pallett – orchestral arrangements, strings, piano
-
Marika Shaw – strings
-
FILMharmonic Orchestra Prague – orchestra
-
Colin Stetson – horn arrangements, saxophones
-
Stuart Bogie – saxophones
-
Willinson Duprate – additional percussion
-
Verrieux Zile – additional percussion
-
Baptiste Jean Nazaire – additional percussion
-
Wilkenson Magloire – additional percussion
-
Dieuveut Marc Thelus – additional percussion
-
Wichemond Thelus – additional percussion
-
Kid Koala – sample manipulation ( 1.1)
-
David Bowie – vocals ( 1.1)
-
Jonathan Ross – vocal sample ( 1.6 and 3.1)
Recording personnel
-
Arcade Fire – production, mixing ( 1.3 and 2.1)
-
James Murphy – production (except tracks 1.3 and 2.1), additional recording, mixing ( 2.2 and 2.6)
-
Markus Dravs – production (except tracks 1.3, 2.1, 2.3, 2.4 and 2.6), additional recording
-
Mark Lawson – recording, additional production ( 1.1, 1.3 and 1.4)
-
Korey Richey – recording, mixing assistant
-
Tom Elmhirst – additional recording, mixing ( 1.1, 1.2, 1.4, 1.7, 2.3 and 2.5)
-
Damian Taylor – additional recording
-
Pascal Shefteshy – additional recording
-
David Farrell – recording assistant
-
Eric Heigle – recording assistant
-
Craig Silvey – mixing ( 1.2, 1.5, 1.6 and 2.4)
-
Mark Lawson – mixing ( 1.3 and 2.1)
-
Matt Shaw – mixing assistant
-
Ben Baptie – mixing assistant
-
Joe Visciano – mixing assistant
-
Eduardo de la Paz – mixing assistant
-
Ted Jensen – mastering
Artwork
-
Caroline Robert – album artwork, photography
-
Korey Richey – photography
Commercial performance
The album debuted at number one on the Canadian Albums Chart, selling 49,000 copies. This marks an increase from their previous album's debut week.
In the US, the album also reached number one on the Billboard 200, with 140,000 copies sold in its first week, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
The album debuted at number one in the UK with sales of 45,252.
Charts
Weekly charts
Year-end charts
Certifications
