BIGGER SPLASHES

Mark Van Hoen

2012-02-29T00:23:00.001-08:00

Cleaners From Venus - Midnight Cleaners (1982)

2012-02-28T11:09:00.008-08:00

I've been sitting on this album for a while, but it was amongst a big pile of other CFV stuff and it wasn't until my buddy came over a few weeks back and coerced me to listen to it, that I actually did. You hear a lot of people talking about how early Martin Newell sounds a lot like Ariel Pink (or vice versa, rather), and in a way they're right. "Corridor of Dreams," with it's delightfully kitschy saxophones and masterly momentum sounds like it could've been on Ariel's latest, Before Today. But besides both being perhaps the best underground pop musicians of their respective times, and the lengthy list of comparisons that could be drawn, the two are very different song-writers. The most vital similarities between them lie in their style of recording, or rather the philosophy of such a style and how they incorporate it to fit and enhance the feeling of their work - not just for novelty or out of necessity, like many 'lo-fi'/bedroom/cassette artists. Anyways, this is a fantastic album, a lost album, an anti-pop pop album, from a band which has only recently being rediscovered. Give it your attention and then make your way through the rest of Newell's work, because there are plenty more lustrous bullion where this came from.

Rating: 9/10

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Talking Heads - This Must be the Place

2012-02-26T15:53:00.001-08:00

David J - Urban Urbane (1992)

2012-02-26T13:32:00.012-08:00

Shadowy and seductive release from David J of Bauhaus and Love and Rockets fame. His solo output can be hit or miss, but this is really, really stellar stuff - definitively his richest, most realized and sundry release and a lovely soundtrack for desecration. Think a smart, soulful, gothic take on adult contemporary with the occasional ode to disillusionment and country pastiche tune thrown in to keep things fresh....really easy listening, but with some dim undertones chronicling fame, drug addiction, sex, violence, and all that fun jazz. Rockin' good stuff, and growing on me more and more with each listen.

Rating: 9/10

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Saint Etienne - Tonight

2012-02-26T12:24:00.000-08:00

Mmmmmmmmm

Tao Lin - Richard Yates

2012-02-25T22:23:00.021-08:00

I am not typically in the business of 'slamming' things, because frankly there are too many things out there worth slamming, and besides, that goes against the basis of what I'm trying to do here. However, there are exceptions. Occasionally, I'll come across something that irks me to the point where I feel the need to voice my negative opinion of said thing, and Tao Lin's Richard Yates is one such exception. It's not that Tao Lin is a bad writer, or that Richard Yates is a particularly bad book, but that he is so overpraised as a contemporary genius that offends me, as a writer myself, who aspires to one day deservingly hold such titles. First, I want to examine a quote on the back of Richard Yates which I find to be exceptionally nauseating. It reads:

"Richard Yates is hilarious, menacing, and hugely intelligent. Tao Lin is a Kafka for the iPhone generation."
-Clancy Martin

This is the sort of quote that brings to mind sexual favors or blackmail, because it's so hyperbolic, even for literary ass-kissing, because to call Richard Yates 'hilarious' is like calling Inception 'depressing.' It is mildly comical at best, and even then only before the cheap schtick wears off. I have read several different definitions of the word 'menacing' and I cannot possibly fathom what dictionary Clancy Martin is in possession of. Richard Yates is many things("unique"), but to say it is 'hugely intelligent' is just absolutely ridiculous. Lin is a decent writer, and has a subtle sense of humor, but let's be honest here; the book is essentially a live-journal entry converted into dry, self-aware, humorous prose by some guy who went to NYU and happens to be familiar with youth culture. Me, you, - anyone - could have written this book, and to say it is 'hugely intelligent' does nothing more than make David Foster Wallace's bloated corpse roll around in his grave a bit. Last, but not least, this person goes on to say Tao Lin is a 'Kafka for the iPhone generation.' Now, I was going offer some witty rebuttal to this, to expand on how absurd such a statement is, how much nerve this person has to say such an idiotic thing, but you know what? No. It doesn't deserve such tact or clemency. It deserves the anger in which it evoked in me: So fuck you, Clancy Martin. I don't know who you are, but I fucking hate you and I hope you lose all your fingers in a bowling accident. No exaggeration intended.

Richard Yates is supposed to be ironic, maybe even entirely tongue in cheek - a mockery of relationships in the digital age – but also show how, despite the format of communication, it’s really not that much different from prior generations. And despite the juvenile (pathetic?) nature of the characters and culture within – is meant to expose profound truths about human nature. The problem is that these ‘profound truths’ are anything but profound. Yes, technology makes us lonely and separates us as much as it connects us. Yes, love is complicated. Yes, youth is complicated. Yes, life is complicated. These are not only things which have been written about by thousands of writers before him (and far more poetically, I might add), but are also obvious to anyone with half an analytical brain. Then there are his blatant pretensions he takes part in, ie. the index at the end of the book (why?), the Vice-vomit cover design, and that self-written magazine article he did, which I have yet to read, which might make the whole affair that much sillier depending on the route Lin took. Then of course there are the names of the characters and the book itself. Seeing the names Haley Joel Osment and Dakota Fanning printed was mildly amusing for a few pages. With brevity in mind, Richard Yates would have worked really well as a (short) short story, however as a full length novel its humorous effect is lost well early in the book.

Tangential anecdote: when I was 16, I dated a 12 year old. She was my first girlfriend and I was under the impression that she was 14 for the first 3 months of our relationship, because that is how old she told me she was. 90% of our interaction consisted of chatting over aol instant messenger, 8% took place over the phone, and occasionally, we would see each other secretly in person, roughly 2% of the time. I’d sneak out of my house and drive an hour to see her, sneak into her window, and we’d have to be quiet because her parents were in the room next door. She took my virginity, and I took hers. Her sense of humor was cute and a little on the morbid side. I tried my best to be all the things I thought I was supposed to be – to play my role, while still being true to my emotions, which was often being discontent. I occasionally patronized her. We were both confused. It was uncannily similar to what I’ve been reading in Richard Yates, only I would never dream, not in a lifetime, that it would be worth writing about and sharing with others outside of my livejournal at the time.

Part of me is convinced that Tao Lin is playing a big joke - an elaborate trolling for his own amusement, and his supporters are all playing a part in it, and I am the gullible one falling for it. That’s what I want to believe. That would make me feel better about the world and the current state of literature. But, somehow this is doubtful. Somehow, all these heartless monkeys with English degrees who suck so badly at writing anything other than lab-language that they end up doing journalism, really do find Richard Yates to be funny, and to be some practical genius. But the question still remains, with Haley Joel Osment and Dakota Fanning fresh in my mind: how is this book funny? Maybe it’s funny because it’s so fucking dull and boring, and it uses the same jokes and the same scenarios over and over and over for 200 pages – and that’s the big fat farcical joke. Ha ha. Funny like the comedic version of a 20 hour Tarkovsky film (but that would be giving Lin too much credit). Funny like a kidney stone that takes two weeks to come out, and you have to laugh at it to keep from blowing your brains out or stabbing yourself in the throat with a kitchen knife. Is this what humor has come to? Is unfunny the new funny and I just did not get the memo? Has humor expended itself and is desperately flailing around on the ground in a puddle of its own coagulated blood, trying to figure out a way to resuscitate itself?

Again, Tao Lin is a decent writer and obviously a pretty smart guy, if for no other reason than for his talent for marketing his unremarkable writing. But his name should never be uttered or written in the same sentence as an immortal such as Kafka and [insert Tao Lin book here] is certainly not the [insert lit-crit glowing superlative here] novel of the last however-many years. Richard Yates is solid and easy to read, 'cute' even, but painfully uninteresting and to regard it or its ideas as special in any way, is a far bigger inside joke on modern culture than the book itself ever hopes to be.

Ironic irony?

Bitter Springs - Best Bakers on the Island (2000)

2012-02-25T12:10:00.011-08:00

I have fallen utterly in love with this album. After a certain point, when you've been digging for years, and you start to think you've excavated every last gem in the proverbial quarry, and you're tired of getting crap on your hands, something like this comes along and really surprises you. Brilliant lyrics, sheen-polished, abounding compositions in a jamboree of styles ranging from Captain Sensible-like toe-tappers to classy pub-pop to dreary brit-folk in the vein of Robyn Hitchcock, Best Bakers a joy to behold from start to finish. This record flows like a dream, and captures the romance and sadness and overall essence of Great Britain like only a distinguished, middle-aged English-born gentleman with a penchant for hooks could. Thanks again to Mike for this one. Fabulous work - don't miss!

Rating: 9/10

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Single from a 7" release by pre-Bitter Springs Simon Rivers and co:

Adam & The Ants - Kings of the Wild Frontier

2012-02-25T12:05:00.000-08:00

Espresso for your ears

The Band of Holy Joy selected discography

2012-02-24T10:17:00.012-08:00

Such an epic, under-appreciated band, so I'll just dive in....

It's hard to get used to a new tempo. Tempo is probably the biggest commonality tying together any style of music, and when a band maintains all other stylings of their contemporaries but plays to a different speed, it can be a little hard to adjust to. So don't be turned off if these guys don't click on the first listen. They will.

They have changed their tune over the years, and have the capacity to be dark and experimental as well as make hits-that-never-were-but-should-have-been. Most of the time they like a more upbeat Stockholm Monsters/Martyn Bates fused with The Pogues' Irish-y organs and instrumentation fused with Horses-era Patti-Smith's organic vocal meandering* but with exquisite - truly exquisite - pop layering and rich orchestration, whose lyricism and song-writing are both so fantastically good, it will shock you that these guys are so unknown.

*Note: Kind of. This is a stretch, but really couldn't think of a better way to describe this. Hear for yourself and let me know if you think this is a poor/accurate description.

Collection includes:

More Favourite Fairy Tales (1984) 8/10
The Big Ship Sails (1986) 7.5/10
Manic, Magic, Majestic (1989) 9.5/10
Positively Spooked (1990) 9/10

I recommend starting with Manic, Magic, and Majestic, and then Positively Spooked, and then their earlier releases, which can be more chaotic, lo-fi, and experimental (The Big Ship Sails sounds like what taking acid at a circus must feel like). When I get paid I'm going to try and download the rest of their stuff, but in the meantime there is a lot of quality to be found in this collection.

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The Band of Holy Joy - Tactless

2012-02-20T15:28:00.001-08:00

Thanks, Mike

Cleaners From Venus - Corridor of Dreams

2012-02-18T22:32:00.000-08:00

Really, really, really one of the best songs I've heard in some time. FEEL IT.

General words of wisdom

2012-02-16T19:15:00.000-08:00

"When we dead awaken, we see that we have never lived."
-Ibsen

"Grace to be born and live as variously as possible”
― Frank O'Hara

Black Bananas - Radtimes

2012-02-16T19:07:00.000-08:00

New stuff from Jennifer Herrema of Royal Trux. Makes me miss putting things in my nose.....a little

MIX - Speed Run

2012-02-15T17:08:00.000-08:00

Petition and Repetition sat on a log; Repetition listened to minimal, progressive electronic music.

Wait, what?

For absorbing, creating, running, passing time.

01) Markus Guetner - Jellyfish
02) Broadway Project - Blood in the Temple
03) Underworld - Dark & Long
04) Four Tet - This Unfolds
05) Gui Boratto - Colors
06) SCSI-9 - Mini
07) Ulrich Schnauss - On My Own
08) The Field - A Paw in My Face
09) Laurent Garnier - The Man With the Red Face
10) Daft Punk - Too Long
11) Aphex Twin - Ptolemy
12) House of House - The Rough Half (Don't Stop)

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MIX - Night Terrorists

2012-02-14T23:06:00.000-08:00

The theme of this mix is music for sleep paralysis. I'm sure you're wondering - sleep paralysis is fucking scary....why would anyone want to willingly induce such a state? Well, the reason is that when you mentally prepare yourself for something, and face it willingly, you are much better equipped with dealing with it and also because many amazing things can arise from the half-conscious state you find yourself in during sleep-paralysis, such as OoBEs, lucid dreaming, and other neat stuff.

Relaxation/sedation ---> trance -----> subconscious programming

For best results, this mix should ideally be played during a nap, in a place you do not usually sleep, while lying in the supine position. If you have any questions, let me know!

01) Peter Davison - Glide II
02) Emeralds - Up in the Air
03) Gang Gang Dance - Egowar
04) Seefeel - Climactic Phase 3
05) Oneohtrix Point Never - Betrayed in the Octagon
06) Cluster - Sowiesoso
07) David Shea - Elegy
08) Yasunori Mitsuda - The One Who is Torn Apart
09) DJ Signify - Costume Kids
10) Liars - It Fit When I Was a Kid
11) Coil - Triple Sun
12) cLOUDDEAD - I Promise Never to Get Paint on my Glasses 2
13) Rachel's - The Mysterious Disappearance of Louis LePrince
14) Akira Yamaoka - Innocent Moon
15) Hymie's Basement - Moonhead
16) Gastr Del Sol - Mouth Canyon
17) Software - Island Sunrise

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This Mortal Coil - Kangaroo

2012-02-14T01:07:00.000-08:00

MIX - Music for Coming Over

2012-02-13T23:33:00.001-08:00

Modern, poppy, accessible, lovey-dovey shit, because you can only make jaded, roman-cynical Valentine's mixes with titles like "Fuck Your Stupid Day" and "I Hope You Choke and Die and Cry" and "No One Will Ever Love you Ever Ever Ever" for so many decades before you gotta switch it up a bit. Be forewarned - if you aren't cuddling by a fireplace or driving around aimlessly with your significant other after a day of exchanging oral sex and sensual rub downs, this will probably be too sappy for you.

01) Jeff Eliassen - Valentine
02) Smog - Dress Sexy At My Funeral
03) Atlas Sound - Walkabout
04) The Embassy - Information
05) Hot Chip - One Life Stand
06) The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Young Adult Friction
07) Stars - The First Five Times
08) Jens Lekman - ??? (live)
09) Super Furry Animals - Juxtaposed With U
10) Luna - Lovedust
11) Math & Physics Club - Darling Won't You Please Come Home
12) Broken Social Scene - Lover's Spit
13) Blur - Sweet Song
14) Yo La Tengo - Black Flowers
15) The Magnetic Fields - Asleep and Dreaming
16) Liars - The Other Side of Mt. Heart Attack
17) Black Box Recorder - Goodnight Kiss
18) Beach House - Take Care

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Kevin Ayers - Stranger in Blue Suede Shoes

2012-02-11T19:56:00.001-08:00

Joachim Witt - Der goldene Reiter

2012-02-11T19:51:00.001-08:00

FEEL IT

Pale Saints - Kinky Love

2012-02-11T16:36:00.003-08:00

Been pretty busy lately, but normal updates should resume this week

Steely Dan - My Old School

2012-02-09T01:10:00.001-08:00

Tall Dwarfs - Turning Brown and Torn in Two

2012-02-09T01:08:00.001-08:00

Deux - Felicita

2012-02-07T13:20:00.000-08:00

Lords of the New Church - Dance With Me

2012-02-04T22:33:00.001-08:00

Primal Scream - Higher Than the Sun (live)

2012-02-03T07:31:00.001-08:00

MIX - West is Wondrous, part three

2012-02-01T20:12:00.000-08:00

Leaving San Fransisco and heading home.

01) Sufjan Stevens - The Black Hawk War
02) Smog - Hit the Ground Running
03) John Vanderslice - White Plains
04) Lou Reed - Doin' the Things That We Want To
05) Mercury Rev - Goddess on a Hiway
06) Red House Painters - Shock Me
07) Mark Kozelek - River (KCRW version, 1996)
08) Bill Callahan - Riding for the Feeling
09) Hymie's Basement - American Too
10) Cass McCombs - County Line
11) Wilco - Via Chicago
12) Califone - The Orchids
13) Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - Easy Down the Road
14) Mojave 3 - Bringin' Me Home
15) Al Stewart - Long Way Home
16) Vietnam Veterans - 500 Miles
17) Judee Sill - There's a Rugged Road
18) Tom Waits - Downtown Train

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MIX - West is Wondrous, part two

2012-02-01T11:06:00.000-08:00

Los Angeles up highway one and on into the Bay.

01) The Clientele - From Brighton Beach to Santa Monica
02) Shuggie Otis - Strawberry Letter 23
03) Warren Zevon - Excitable Boy
04) Saint Etienne - Shower Scene
05) The Raveonettes - Ode to L.A.
06) Puro Instinct - Lost at Sea
07) The Orchids - Peaches
08) The Tyde - All My Bastard Children
09) Luna - Malibu Love Nest
10) Comet Gain - You Can Hide Your Love Forever
11) Girls - Darling
12) Magik Markers - Taste
13) Massive Attack - Sly
14) Pulp - My Lighthouse
15) Van Morrison - Astral Weeks
16) Simon and Garfunkel - The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)
17) Akron/Family - Island

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MIX - West is Wondrous, part one

2012-01-31T23:02:00.000-08:00

So I just returned from a wonderful road trip west (Dallas > Midland > Phoenix > LA > Big Sur > SF > Flagstaff > Ruidoso), and this is a mix chronicling the journey, divided into three parts. The first part is music for driving from Texas to California. Should be finished with the other two tomorrow. Enjoy!

01) Silver Jews - Trains Across the Sea
02) The Handsome Family - Stalled
03) Calexico - Quattro (World Drifts In)
04) The Microphones - The Glow, Pt. 2
05) Blanche - Jack on Fire
06) Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Albert Goes West
07) Neil Young - Rockin' in the Free World
08) Neko Case - People Got a Lotta Nerve
09) Mirah - Cold Cold Water
10) The Breeders - Drivin' on 9
11) The Decemberists - The Engine Driver
12) Modest Mouse - Styrofoam Plates / It's all Nice on Ice
13) Smog - I Was a Stranger
14) Lee Hazlewood - Your Sweet Love
15) Magnolia Electric Co. - The Night Shift Lullaby
16) Fleetwood Mac - Gypsy

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Note: track 4 and 5 should be switched after unzipping.

Music for cold weather, day seven

2012-01-18T17:30:00.000-08:00

I should say in advance that this is going to be the most personal post I've ever done and probably that I'll ever do. Also this will be the last update for a week or so as I'm going out to Phoenix for a memorial and then onto LA and SF for a few days.

1. Red House Painters - s/t (Rollercoaster) (1993)

I have so much rushing through my head at the moment, I don't know where to start. I'm sitting in my car in front of my first home in Bedford, TX, writing this down on the back of an envelope with a Bic pen that doesn't want to cooperate with me. I came here today specifically for the purpose of writing about this album and now that I'm here I just want to enjoy the silence. So it goes....

It's been over ten years since I've been back to my old neighborhood. Driving into it a little earlier, I was greeted by vaguely familiar (albeit much smaller than I remember) street grids and very familiar locales (the empty supermarket parking lot where my mom taught me how to ride a bike is now a library, the jungle gym in the park where I broke my leg, the creek in that same park where I found a Swiss army knife one time and thought it was luckiest thing ever, and still have somewhere) and especially the street names: Harwood Rd, Forest Ridge Dr, Cummings Rd, and of course my old street, Wendover Ct. Chances are these names don't mean anything to you, but to me they are forever ingrained in the back of mind, and they evoke a million and one memories of my childhood. Turning onto the street where I grew up (an 'F' shaped cul de sac), I was hit with a tsunami of emotions I could never describe. Much of this place is embedded in my person, and even if I could accurately put it into words, no one will ever understand these things the way I do, the lingering familiarity that I feel, and that makes me a little sad.

When I first arrived I rang the door bell to my old house, somewhat nervous the present owner might mistake me for a thief or solicitor, and looked around as I waited. A lady answered the door and I explained to her that I used to live there and she kindly invited me in. She was a dietitian, and a very nice lady. Walking through my old house was, of course, a trip further down memory lane as I'd forgotten so many things that were just buried deep under all the newer memories I had accumulated. But as it always happens, despite that the house had been entirely re-decorated; everything came rushing back to me.

All those Christmases huddled around the fireplace with my mom and dad, the warmth of fire and my parents love, the impossibly tall ceiling of that living room, all the tiny design elements of the house that I'd become so acquainted with so long ago, were all just as I'd left them. She took me to the backyard and showed me the pool, which was almost exactly the same as it was in 1992, with those motley blue, black, and green tiles I could spend an entire summer day just staring at, getting lost in their swirling patterns. The neighborhood was like a huge playground to us. We knew every nook and cranny of it by heart, secret pathways to each others houses via jumping fences, the best trees to climb, the spots on the street which marked the goal lines for our football games we'd play with this neon orange ball that would illuminate with the push of a button (and when we were feeling strategic or just playfully devious, we would switch off the moment before a hand-off to confuse the opposing side). It was all mapped out back then, and it still is now.

I had some great friends. There was my first ‘girlfriend,’ Alex, who I remember as being blonde and gap-toothed, and who became a meth addict, and is now working for the government somewhere, maybe D.C. There was A.J., who lived on the corner, who I’d play video games with and jump on his trampoline and play wall ball like it was neatest thing ever, and was one of the best friends I ever had - no idea what became of him. Then there was David and Devon who lived next door. David was my age and Devon was the cool older kid we all looked up to and wanted to be like. We all had the same style of chili bowl haircuts, inspired by Devon Sawa and Jonathan Taylor Thomas and we spent every free moment we had playing sports in the street. I remember a sleep-over in David’s back cabin where we watched Alien 3 and played a boyishly homoerotic game of truth-or-dare with each other. But more than anything I remember being alone most vividly. I can almost recall the feeling I’d have, that naïve blissful feeling, of just sitting in my front yard in autumn playing with the exoskeleton of a cicada for hours and hours, completely unaware of time, completely appreciating every aspect of my little world.

The summers seemed like they would never end, yet always ended too soon. Everything then had a soul back then too. Every season, every month even, every tree or bush or flower bed, every insect and animal, and especially the houses themselves
I don't believe in ‘souls’ nowadays because I've come to learn that word is just a romantic signifier people of the past gave to the human experience, and understandably so, because it is a very mysterious and complicated thing. However, if I did have a soul, I would say that more than any other band, Red House Painters SOUNDS like my soul FEELS.

Mark Kozelek is 45 now, but he was around my age when he wrote these songs. He has since matured and no longer makes such dark, reminiscing music, but knowing he was 26 once and that someone else feels the same is very comforting to me. On the song, “Void” from Old Ramon, the last Red House Painters album, Kozelek sings, “Sometimes I pick it up and play / loosen and stretch it's ancient strings / until it sounds the way I feel.” This is how music should be made. You shouldn’t be concerned with subscribing to any musical trend or make music with any ulterior motive, it should be about expressing the inexpressible, and that is what Kozelek does so well.

I considered the Rollercoaster album to be my favorite and the very, very best record I knew of for several years. I considered it to be god-tier, and although I no longer regard it as the 'best' album there is, it is certainly still one of my favorites. There was a time, maybe around 18 or 19, when I had to skip the first track of this album. The song is called "Grace Cathedral Park," and just hearing its opening chords was too much to bear for me at the time. I can listen to it now, but it still moves me greatly, as does the entire record. I have put the piano version of "Mistress" on too many mix cds to even try and count.

I've spent many years trying to either embrace, or come to terms with, or rid myself of this nostalgia. I spent a few recent years under the idea that this sort of sentiment was detrimental to my progress as a person, and it was weighing me down. However, I've recently concluded that despite this time is probably nothing more than a sweet deception, a heavenly lie we are allowed to live for ten or twelve years, its good to keep a tiny piece of your past self intact, because I've seen what happens to people who don't and how dangerous such a separation can be, and I know now that's not how I want to be.

After I left my old house there was one other place I wanted to visit before leaving Bedford. By now I'd had enough silence, and I finally put in my cd of the Rollercoaster album, and drove to the park where I use to go often as a child. It was dusk, and everything was bi-tonal. The sky was completely clear, occupied only by the silhouettes of a flock of passing birds and the white trail of a single jet plane passing by. The sky was the color of orange sherbert near the horizon, and it blended into a gradient of periwinkle blue above it. Everything else was either that sherbert orange or periwinkle blue, or a black silhouette, the dim outlines of the leaf-less treetops, each with a million tiny crooked points, and below that the water, its ripples and reflections moving fluidly, so solemn and serene. It's the beauty of these simple and seemingly ordinary scenes such as a park at dusk that Kozelek knows and captures so well, with the keen eye of a child, and the poetic mastery of a grown adult.

As I sat there listening to "Things Mean a Lot," I reminisced on the halcyon days of youth that I yearned for and spent trying to recapture in my teenage years, and came to resent for their blissful taunting of my early twenties, and now at 26, the same age Kozelek was when he was writing these, I think I finally understand what he was trying to say. Even if his songs were about some park in San Fransisco that I've never been to, in a sense mine and his (and yours) are the same, and that essence of wistfulness or saudade or nostalgia or whatever you want to call it, is all so poetically (and philosophically) summarized in one single short line midway through the Rollercoaster album:

"Things mean a lot at the time, don't mean nothin' later"

Note: normally I assign scores to albums, but to try and give these ratings would be pointless as they transcend numerical values. Let this speak for itself.

DOWNLOAD : Red House Painters - s/t & Down Colorful Hill
DOWNLOAD : Red House Painters Retrospective (2 disc, FLAC, 700~MB)

Music for cold weather, day six point five

2012-01-17T23:40:00.000-08:00

I'm waiting until tomorrow to post my very favorite album because it is very special to me and I have a lot to write about it. In the meantime, here are some other albums I like during the colder months of the year that didn't make the top seven. If you plan on drinking while listening to these, be sure to hide the kitchen knives beforehand.

Xiu Xiu - Knife Play (2002)

Bark Psychosis - Hex (1994)

Arab Strap - Philophobia (1997)

Knife Play. The album title says it all. Sounds like being stabbed feels to a masochist. Sounds like what I'd want to hear if I was freezing to death. Sounds like the kind of music someone would make with live jumper cables clipped to their scrotum. I knew a guy who took 5 hits of acid and listened to this album once; probably the craziest human being I've ever known, because that would be at the top of my 'things you should never ever do' list. Hex. Mostly instrumental post-rock. Light cymbals + emotive, studious piano melodies, snowed under several feet of orchestrated melancholy. Probably what inspired Explosions in the Sky and bands like that. Philophobia. The most self-loathing, desperate, and saddest of all sad bastard music. You just feel fat, drunk, and loveless listening to it, its like a contact high only not at all euphoric (contact Low?). Despite all that, this is a very sincere and well-written album. Like Low or Bedhead with a drum-machine turned up a notch on the tempo, and more direct lyrics about romance/relationship woes. I had a hard time choosing between this and Elephant Shoe, but this is probably my favorite.

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Music for cold weather, day six

2012-01-16T14:18:00.000-08:00

2. Montgolfier Brothers complete discography

A lot of people consider Radiohead to be depressing music, and it certainly is, however its depressiveness is the kind for people who end up on Prozac at 19 and stay on it for the rest of their lives. Thom Yorke's is a hollow sadness, and I can understand that, because I've experienced that before. However, it's a little too mopey for me nowadays and I fancy my depressing music to be more maudlin than mopey. I don't want to fill whatever gap or emptiness resides within to some emotional homeostasis, but rather to make that gap larger and more exposed for 45 or so minutes so afterwards, it kind of heals and shrinks a little, and I realize that my circumstance isn't as bad as it could be. I want it to be therapeutic, to achieve some end and help me - not numb me.

I get myself into trouble sometimes with my hyperbolic metaphors. My description of that LN album took superlatives to a new zenith, and now I’m faced with the task of describing an even MORE depressing album via some form of elative. With LN, there's a definite immaturity to his writing. That's probably not a good word because its connotations can be demeaning (youthfulness?), but what I mean to say is that if LN is music for heartbreak at 23, Montgolfier Brothers is heartbreak for 33 or 43. Not break-up heartbreak, but divorce heartbreak. I've had these albums for several years now, and every winter I bust them out when I'm in 'the mood' and they resonate more and more with me each year.

Mark Tranmer isn't the kind of guy who knows a couple chords and has enough of a poetic/tortured soul to still make compelling music; he is the rare breed who is also a born composer. The sounds shimmer with the beauty of a blanket of winter snow, cloaking and cleansing everything in the whitest of whites. I've talked many times about how beauty and sadness are often closely related, and this is a fantastic example of this. Tranmer's discography consists of 3 albums, and there isn't a single song below stellar on any of them. One of my favorite bands for this time of year. Take a listen below and you'll hear why.

Rating: 10/10

DOWNLOAD

Rolf de Heer - Bad Boy Bubby (1993)

2012-01-16T02:36:00.000-08:00

Note: Its 5am and I'm kind of writing this half asleep so bear with me...I'll probably come back and edit tomorrow. Pardon the ranty wall of text...

HOLY MOTHER OF GOD, WHAT A BRILLIANT, BRILLIANT FILM. I don't even know where to begin. This is one of those movies whose title and trailer might make it out to be not as shocking or soul-destroying as parts of it actually are, and I know that somewhere someone rented this with their family and was in for a huge surprise. I guess I should talk about the "one scene" (although there were many). But one in particular, was executed in such a casual manner I couldn't have prepared myself for it. I knew it was coming, reluctant, yes, expecting, yes, just waiting for it because it was inevitable and only a matter of time before ***** **** ******** and gets ***** ** ****, and I grimaced like I knew I would. This is by far the most touching, wonderful and inspiring movie where a mentally handicapped man takes off on a desultory trip in the world for the first time and **** ***** ** ****, ***** *** ***, **** * *** that I have ever seen. But despite all those fucked up spoilers that I don't dare expose, holy shit, this was good. There are so many pitfalls for a movie like this and Rolf de Heer avoided all of them commendably. The depravity of the films' focus was made bearable by the many hilarious moments through out, some of them laugh-out-loud hilarious. Near the end there is one of most joyous + depressing + memorable scenes I've witnessed in some time. So whether or not you want to take it as one big dark, yet humorous metaphor on Oedipal complexes or even life itself, or just at face value as a bizarre character study, keep in mind that Bad Boy Bubby is not just one of the most fucked up films ever (which it rightfully gets credit for), but a damn fine one to boot. I smiled, laughed, cried, and by the end I was exhausted from expending so much emotion. Nicolas Hope should've won an Oscar. The ending....dear lord, the ending! Monumental. Superb. Phenomenal. Marvelous. The best Australian film ever made.

Be more like Bubby. Cling wrap ignorance and hatred.

Greg Dulli and the "rebirth of the cool"

2012-01-15T11:59:00.000-08:00

For those unfamiliar, Greg Dulli was the front man of the 90s rock band, The Afghan Whigs, and has a current project, Twilight Singers. I'm sure you've heard of one or both of these bands, because they are fairly well-known and appeal to both indie and popular circles. However, despite that popularity, Dulli has been defecated on undeservedly more than any other indie musician, and many people who share similar tastes as mine tend to write him off as being 'lame' (just one of the many vague descriptors I've heard used to describe his music)

Here is a recent short exchange I had regarding Dulli with a newly made internet buddy of mine:

Friend: Matt. I never thought of it before, but Dulli really is one of those outliers that can both demand AND defy explanation.

"Outliers can occur by chance in any distribution, but they are often indicative either of measurement error or that the population has a heavy-tailed distribution. In the former case one wishes to discard them or use statistics that are robust to outliers, while in the latter case they indicate that the distribution has high kurtosis and that one should be very cautious in using tools or intuitions that assume a normal distribution."

I think Dulli is a sign of both a measurement error AND a heavy-tailed distribution.

But it would take a serious stamp of approval from some current rock divinity to introduce him as the anti-clsasic classic he is (Maus can't do it, yet, but maybe Chris Owens? or some pitchfork douche like twin shadow? anyway it's all too gross to think about but I would want it to bring Dulli some much deserved recognition. Wouldn't it be funny if Hedi Slimane did a "rock journal" photo session with an actually FAT guy for a change, instead of all those NAMBLA shots of precious brooders?

Me: I don’t get it why a band like, say, Sonic Youth, or any number of countless others who try to exemplify 'cool' ARE considered cool, while Dulli isn’t. I mean I get it from (sub)cultural standpoint, I just think its silly and it irks me.

Dulli’s sexuality (or sex appeal or whatever) is perhaps the best (or worst kind…I don’t know, it’s at least fun/interesting) . If I had to call it something I’d call it ego or hero sex – sex that’s far more human than animalistic. Anyways, yeah people call him cheesy and lame and shit (and fat, apparently, which I don’t think he is, and even so, this is kind of douchy/tasteless)…but a) I find his music to be fatally and drippingly sexy and b) isn’t everything fraudulent/acted to some degree? So fuck the haters.

I would definitely consider him to be an outlier. Interesting word, also because I tend to be drawn to those kind of artists (Lawrence of Felt is another, there are plenty). I’m also quick to dislike something based on associations…for example if a group of people I typically loathe enjoy something, I’m partial to dislike it for that reason alone. But, not always. So if Twin Shadow's fans suddenly started swooning over Dulli’s music because it became trendy to do so, I’d probably still like it, it'd just sour the whole affair a bit for me, if only a little. [I think it's this very mentality that cause people to overlook his music, because many of his fans are not cool, rather they are the type of people who think they know what 'cool' is, but in reality haven't a clue and these fans give Dulli himself a bad rep. Guilty by association. Also the fact that he is a cocky asshole, isn't that the archetypal rockstar personality? I will say that his latest T-shirt designs aren't helping the cause much, either]

Music for cold weather, day five

2012-01-15T11:38:00.000-08:00

3. For Against - December (1988)

If someone asked me what being a depressed outcast teen in the late 80's sounded like (and I'm speculating here, because I was born in '85), I would recommend them one of three albums:

Sonic Youth's Daydream Nation
REM's Dead Letter Office
For Against's December

Remember the coolest kids at your school, who weren't quite lame enough to be in the goth crowd, but smoked pot before anyone else, and read Nietzsche and shit, and hated everything maintstream? You were either friends with them or they scared you or both, but they were there in almost every school. These are those kids, and this is their soundtrack resonating from a transient point in the past that seems so long-gone in modern times.

For whatever bizarre, obtuse reason, this band, along with some others such as Dif Juz, get described as being "dream pop." When I think of the term dream pop, I think of bands like Cocteau Twins or Lovespiralsdownwards, Cranes, or music you can get high and make love with your steady girlfriend to because its actually 'dreamy.' For Against is very un-dreamy, discontent and confused, lucid in the most depressing way.

To me For Against sounds like a more melodic early 80s emo group inculcated with The Cure's proto-coldwave sounding guitars. The album itself is named after the most barren month of the year; the last month, the dying month before rebirth, and that alone should tell you the mood of the album: it's a brooding, loveless, hopeless one, drenched in the emotional despair of youth. This is purely subjective of course, but with the exception of the album I'm going to post tomorrow, December is the most 'nostalgic' sounding music I've ever heard. I feel like I have some memory of having heard these melodies before, feeling a certain way: sleepy, naive, curious and taken back by it all, riding with my mom on the way to school at 5am, her in her flight attendant uniform, even though I know it was probably silent except for the familiar drone of the car engine and the road ambience sneaking through tiny crevices in the rolled up windows. Every song on this album is so overflowing with feeling and I can't stress enough how much it's like stepping into a time machine from an era of days past, a niche moment in a niche corner of America in the late 1980s. Even if you were not, like myself, actually there, this record will still make you feel nostalgic for that period, and its one of those bestirring, evocative ones which conveys the kind of rich, darkened sentiments that begin when childhood ends, are strongest during our teen years, and gradually evaporate as we get older. Imbibe and appreciate it while it lasts, because it won't last forever.

Rating: 10/10

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Music for cold weather, day four

2012-01-14T14:49:00.000-08:00

Where lies sorrow lies holy ground there
but where lies heartbreak, neither god, nor Jesus, nor angels dare.

-Me, just now, playing on Oscar Wilde

LN - Novel (2003)

This band is called LN and this album is called Novel. Neither of these names divulge much information, and outside of the vague cover art which slightly resembles early Red House Painters or shoegaze, there is still a lot of ambiguity as to what lay inside if you were to come across it on a non-existent display shelf somewhere. So if I were to describe what it sounds like I'd say a mix of slowcore and shoegazy dream pop, however, the heart and soul of a work of art, are not so easy to describe in a few paragraphs or reduced to genres.

I should also mention that this is the most obscure record I've ever posted. There are no songs on youtube, no discographies anywhere, no other blogs writing about it, and naturally none of his music is available for purchase or download anywhere. If you don't believe me go ahead and look for yourself. Now, a big reason for this extreme level of obscurity for such a wonderful album is that LN doesn't really have an audience. Gary Murray is considered to be a Christian musician and his work as LN is under a Christian label. The Christian music community is more often than not a very insular and segregated one. I would also have to assume that his music has been ignored because the Christian community doesn't jive too well with themes of drug addiction and debauched fornication (“This motel room smells of sex and the angels/That danced on your tongue the minute you took the pills”) set to music that sounds like it was made on heroin, during the kind of depressive episode that stems, not because the person you've been dating for a month broke up with you, but when you've obsessively and secretly loved someone for years and years and you finally get the courage to tell them your feelings and you find out they're fucking some metal head, the kind that often ends with a neighbor finding your bloated body in a bloody bathtub.

Here is something Murray himself wrote about his music:

"Remember that house in the old neighborhood, the one that was slowly falling apart brick by brick? We swore the damn thing was breathing, that there was a face behind every window, torn nails and rust colored stains on every shutter, broken words and violent poetry etched into every burned-in shadow, that the walls were whispering to themselves. There was always a real stillness in the air, and we felt as if we were intruding on sacred ground; there were stories there, stories buried underneath the pale dirt in the backyard near the rusting swing set, stories burned into the wallpaper in sickly yellow stains, stories reflected in every single shard of glass left on the front porch. Of course, we never approached that house any closer than we had to, keeping our steps light and straying as far as the cracked sidewalk would allow. We never knew why; perhaps it was out of respect, or fear, or some vague, indefinable sense of something both quietly sad and unassumingly ominous.

We left the quiet streets and strangely discontented air of our childhood grounds, losing ourselves in the veins and arteries of this land’s secret anatomy. Some of us left for various cities, hiding amid the darkened archways and high-rise towers left rusting in the broken skyline with its buildings gone missing like teeth; some of us left for wide-open spaces, wandering alone on empty beaches and fallow fields. But the ghosts from that old house still came to visit us, instilling us with the same odd feelings of delicate unease as before, manifesting themselves as broken memories swooping down from every street light that went dark as we passed, or riding on the hoods of our cars as we careened wildly down interstate highways.

As we grew older, the ghosts began to fade away, until all that was left of their once ardent protestations (Against what? We never did suss that out) was a gentle, yet oddly discomfiting, sense of nostalgia. The once-constant feeling of fragile dread finally gave way to a small sense of loss, like we accidentally threw away something that was only really important in our youth. Some of us found loves, got married, settled into a life of quiet repetition and easy contentment; some of us found jobs in our own comfortable nooks, hidden away from the rest of the world behind glaring screens; some of us wandered ahead, looking for some vague framework that we could call home. And yet, every once in awhile, we would look outside office windows, peer through darkened doorways and into empty closets, looking for something that none of us could define, and we’d sigh when we realized that there was nothing there.

The nostalgia finally gave way to a hushed and inexpressible sadness, which could only be described as the feeling of someone tenderly but persistently pressing against your chest. We learned to live with that feeling, and soon we grew very fond of it, and none of us really knew what we’d do if it left us. It gave us strength; for some of us, it became a close and cherished companion.

No one really knew who heard the songs first; perhaps one of us heard the delicate guitar lingering in some smoke-filled club, perhaps another heard the warm and comforting baritone voice calling from across a busy street. I would like to believe that we all had a hand in crafting these songs, cobbling together our own memories of old homes sinking into disrepair, creeping into abandoned factories lying on the outskirts of once-bustling industrial cities, running freely through those golden fields that seemed to stretch on forever beyond the horizon, wetting our feet in still lakes on the ends of rotting docks; nevertheless, whether we heard the soft crackle of vinyl in the background, or the gentle wash of guitar, or those strangled notes that recalled an older rural America that we never knew, we recognized these songs as our own.

It was the soundtrack for that strange and beautiful childhood we tried to hard to forget, when every coincidence was fate and when our surroundings bordered on the magical. It was the music we heard whenever we passed that old vacant house, and we realized that the walls actually were singing to each other, repeating our stories before we ever really knew them to be ours. It was the sound of contradictions and paradoxes, of happiness and regret, of gain and loss. More importantly, we could finally define those strange feelings we felt, the ones that teetered between regret and sadness and inexplicable nostalgia. And at that moment, when we firsthttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif heard these songs swirling through crackling speakers, when we heard them resonate against the walls of a room that was never really meant for music, we realized that we never really lost anything at all - we just weren’t looking in the right places."

Rating: 9.5/10

DOWNLOAD (file also features some very very hard to find bonus tracks from some of Murray's other albums)

Edit: there is one other review I've found for Novel and it can be found here. Far more in depth than my own, which relies largely on metaphor and imagery, so check it out if you're still not sold.

Music for cold weather, day three

2012-01-13T10:37:00.000-08:00

David Thomas Broughton - The Complete Guide to Insufficiency (2005)

Folk is a very perennial genre, maybe the most perennial genre I can think of. Many people consider a good folk album to be one which sounds like it could have been written in the 60's because that decade was a very prominent era for the genre and there is a misconception for many that the style itself was birthed during those years. However, the 60's folk explosion was merely a revival, and this 'folk' was actually 'pop folk.' The term 'folk' has been around since the 19th century, and its styles have been around for much longer as well, well back into the 1600's. So in my opinion, a good folk album, is not one who is chameleonic of a half century ago, but precedes that, and sounds even more antiquated, which brings us to David Thomas Broughton....

If it weren't for various effects, and if recording technology had been invented a hundred years prior, The Complete Guide to Insufficiency sounds like it could have been written sometime in the 1850s. The civil war era mythos, the use of archaic language ("cacodaemonaical"), the deep, howling, haunting vocals, and the various structures of the songs themselves all create a very convincing sense of artifice, which brings to mind times of the distant past.

I know very little about musical composition, as my academic background was in visual art, however, I know enough to understand that the two ideologies occasionally overlap. Broughton puts to use various principles such as repetition, progression, and contrast to create a seamlessly fluid work. The songs begin with simple chords, sounding innocuous enough, and develop organically, with new layers introduced, clashing and making love with one another, sometimes chaotically into rich, thick harmonies. They begin to swell until each song feels so giant it just might POP, and then, by the time you're so drawn in and hypnotized, end abruptly and transition naturally into the next. These transitions are very central to the album as a whole, and it's perhaps one of the most continuous collection of songs you'll ever hear in a folk record, sounding more like one long track divided into five sections rather than five separate, individual pieces. By the end of the entire affair, you're in such a stupor, you really don't know time has passed (which, I might argue, is the very function of music itself), nor do you realize that you've just been listening to songs about death, self-loathing, and live sex shows because you were so mesmerized by the soulful dance of the chords and the entrancing beauty therein. Such are the soothing sounds of any good folk musician, and despite being lost amongst a sea of revivalists and band-wagoners, Broughton is unquestionably one of the best you will ever hear, old or new. Do listen for yourself.

Rating: 9.5/10

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Music for cold weather, day two

2012-01-11T22:38:00.000-08:00

6. Smog - Wild Love (1995)

It's Christmas Eve, 1995, and you just had your heart really broken for the first time and you're snowed in with your entire family, all the lame cousins and insufferable second cousins you wouldn't talk to if it weren't for familial obligations and aunts and uncles who get obnoxiously jovial after having one too many cocktails, and you can't get that fucking night out of your head and you can't talk to any of them about it because they are so far fucking removed from reality that you want to puke, and talking to them would make you feel even more alone because they wouldn't understand, because they are the people you are supposed to feel closest to, but they feel like total strangers instead, ones you're forced to associate with every year around this time. You're drinking from a water bottle filled with siphoned Dewer's you stole from your grandparent's liquor closet when no one was looking (and maybe a couple muscle relaxers from the bathroom cabinet, if you're lucky), and now you're sitting outside listening to Smog on shitty headphones at 3AM on the back porch watching a cloudburst of snow trickle down in waves, reminding you of him/her because everything does, because that's how heartbreak is. You're wrapped in layers, coats, jackets, scarves, winter gloves, and chain-smoking, hoping no one comes out and discovers you. You're freezing your ass off, but it beats the alternative which is being warm and listening to that goddamn spinning carrousel on the mantle playing a MIDI loop of "Silent Night" because it would be too much to bear and you might just off yourself if you had to deal with that on top of everything else. Finally, the albums ends and you feel like you may have hypothermia, but you don't care because the numbness from the freezing air, the scotch, and the music makes you feel a strange sense of catharsis and you stumble inside into bed and as you drift off to sleep, you can't quite remember what his/her eyes look like, and you take comfort and solace in that, if only for those few minutes before you lose consciousness.

Rating: 9.5/10

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Music for cold weather, day one

2012-01-11T20:33:00.000-08:00

7. Unwound - Leaves Turn Inside You (2001)

There has been a lot of buzz recently about the reformation of a couple of late 90s / early 2000s 'punk' bands that I don't feel the need to mention here. When asked to guess who it was who had reformed, I replied with a question of my own: is it Unwound? And really, as far as I'm concerned, given the parameters of the genre, it's really the only band I would care to see reunite. Sadly, however, it wasn't Unwound, and they don't seem like the bunch who would likely get back together anyways. Wishful thinkers will think wishfully, however.

Leaves Turn Inside You (the kind of conveying title well-suited for this type of music) is the final studio release by Unwound, an epic double album of sober, somber, Sonic Youth-y guitar rock. It just sounds like teenage 'misery' feels, the kind of romantic misery where you wallow in it, the kind that almost feels good because it isn't real misery, the kind often existing parallel to the fatalism of youth. This album is angry, but not the kind of vapid anger often seen in metal or grunge, rather the anger that stems from love or loss of the love, or on the contrary a general lethargy towards life, which can spark emotion in itself. This big bad mother is a post-rock masterpiece and one of my favorite albums to listen to when I'm feeling 'under the weather.'

Rating: 9/10

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That soughing soughing sussurus of Stygian sentimentality:

Music for cold weather - a week-long feature of sorts

2012-01-11T20:26:00.000-08:00

After the holidays, winter can be a pretty dismal time of the year (with the exception of Valentine's day, which for many is a more wretched day than any non-holiday). Outlooks on life can become bleaker than usual, routines blander, relationships more bitter, etc. Apparently January is the new October, however, and I did not get the memo, because I've been waiting patiently for the first cold front to hit north Texas for several months now and it has only finally arrived.

In those barren lifeless months of January through March, there is a certain intimacy between us and decay, decline, and death, the part of life's cycle we at once fear and are fascinated by. At the same time, maybe winter wasn't so magical as a child, maybe you were just transferring parental love into the environment around you so you reminisce accordingly. Or maybe all the flickering colored lights and huddling around hearths of fireplaces possibly, on some subconscious level, elicit memories of prenatal warmth of the womb, with the cold weather of nature representing the 'coldness' that exists outside the protection and comfort of your fleshy cave of nascence....which are also inextricably linked to sex and all forms of.....wait, what were we talking about again?

The point is that cold weather is evocative of many things and for whatever reason it has always reminded me of my 'jeunesse' and music that typically reminds me of cold weather also reminds me that time as well.

I'm going to post seven albums (one per day for the next week) that try and encapsulate this sensation. Melancholy will most likely be dealt in dense doses, because winter, more than any other season, is generally when most people feel down and out. Some of the stuff is raw and noisy, capturing the electricity in the air of the first cold days of fall, and teenage angst, while other albums will be sparse and solemn, more evocative of those later, barren months of winter when the numbing chill begins to affect our moods and the type of music that brings to mind earlier times of youth. There is also the whole sadness/beauty dichotomy but that's enough explaining for now. Onto the albums themselves, which hopefully will be explanation enough...

Vermin Supreme

2012-01-11T17:00:00.000-08:00

Western world capitalism and American 'democracy' have been at a rubicon for some time now. In any situation which could be deemed absurd because of its inherent futility, the only logical response is to make humor of it. This man, aka Vermin Supreme, is doing just that: becoming an act in the travesty of American politics, and undermining it with an absurdist parody and various levels of irony/humor. Beyond that, his performance is nearly perfect. His outfit speaks for itself, and much like the politicians he is mocking, he is a good, relaxed speaker giving him the presence of an actual presidential candidate, which is the basis for any quality impersonation, exaggerated or otherwise. For all these reasons this video is an ore of comedy gold and the best youtube clip I've seen in some time. VOTE VERMIN SUPREME!

BSFBPG

2012-01-10T18:04:00.001-08:00

I finally gave in and made a FB page. 'Like' if you feel inclined:

HERE

xo

Dominant Legs - Hoop of Love

2012-01-08T20:58:00.000-08:00

Dominant Legs - Hoop of Love from Eugene Kotlyarenko on Vimeo.

and one more from director Eugene Kotlyarenko. Watch if you're feeling gloomy.

Glasser - Treasury of We (Delorean Remix) - UNOFFICIAL from Eugene Kotlyarenko on Vimeo.

Weird movies I've watched this week

2012-01-08T17:56:00.000-08:00

Bad Biology was hysterical and absurd, 0's and 1's was an event to behold, and Maximum Shame was pretty dumb and reinforced my general dislike for drama majors.

David J - I'll Be Your Chauffeur

2012-01-07T18:34:00.001-08:00

A few little things

2012-01-06T16:16:00.000-08:00

As far as music is concerned, BS is based around a fairly singular aesthetic (undiscovered quality music from years past, with the occasional exception). If you're ever in the market to discover some newer tunes, my good friend Ryan Ellis runs a gracefully written blog of his own centered around undiscovered quality music of the present, Weekly Tape Deck. His 2011 year end list had some amazing things I hadn't even heard of before, so give it a check.

Also, I've been meaning to post some cold weather albums I've had sitting around for a few months now, but considering it's still 60 degrees here in North Texas, I'm gonna hold off until we at least get some sleet. In the meantime I have some more mixes coming later this month. If anyone has any requests, feel free to email me and I'll happily oblige.

-Matt

MIX - From Auschwitz to the Ritz

2012-01-05T18:30:00.000-08:00

Genre: Post-punk-meets-pop-punk

01) Erstaz - Smile in Shadow
02) Strutz - We are so Fine
03) I'm so Hollow - Distraction
04) The Mudhutters - Page 41
05) Shiny Two Shiny - Through the Glass
06) Mariah - Shinzo no Tobira
07) Silicon Teens - T.V. Playtime
08) Tone Set - Living in Another Land
09) Groovies - Boys Ride Bikes Girls Want to Dance
10) The Freshies - Fasten Your Seatbelts
11) Honey Bane - Baby Love
12) Mark Beer - Pretty
13) The Digital Dinosaurs - Amy Turtle
14) The Cubs - A Dance to Forget
15) The Scrotum Poles - Pick the Cat's Eyes Out
16) Cleaners From Venus - I Can't Stop (Holding On)
17) R. Stevie Moore - Too Old (To Fall in Love)
18) Television Personalities - The Crying Room
19) Greg Vandike - Final Scene
20) Rexy - Perfect Day
21) Max Splodge - Bicycle Seat

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When we dead awaken

2012-01-03T19:47:00.000-08:00

we find that we have never lived

YMO - Wild Ambitions

2012-01-03T19:42:00.001-08:00

Pedro Almodóvar - The Skin I Live In (2011)

2012-01-03T02:32:00.000-08:00

It's a shame I'm just now getting around to this, because it would have ended up in my top 5 of 2011 had I seen it sooner. By far, Almodovar's most bizarre and beautiful film yet. Whether or not he is a better writer or director remains unknown, the only thing certain is that he is excels at both. His latest features some of the finest cinematography I've seen all year alongside a wickedly genius plot that if I was feeling bold, would describe as 'Shakespearean' (maybe even more intricate and original than Talk to Her, which was previously my favorite story of his). Last but not least, 100% guaranteed to sexually confuse many straight men.

The Tyde Discography

2012-01-02T15:20:00.000-08:00

Once, Twice, and Three's Co. (appropriate, unassuming titles for such a trifecta), are three of the finest modern pop albums you will ever hear (and will never hear on the radio). I stumbled across these gems last summer and I knew from the moment I heard the opening chords to "All my Bastard Children" that these guys would be all I was listening to for months to come, and I was right. Shimmery production, catchy riffs with Felty-sounding guitars, and sun-and-marijuana baked rhythms, blend together to create some old-fashioned good vibrations. Unmistakably Californian, this is the kind of music you want blasting full volume in your beat up convertible when taking a trip up or down highway 1 to go surfing in Malibu or Orange County with some good friends and a big bag of pot. A modern soundtrack for tan-lines, bleached blonde hair, the smell of surf wax, sandy toes, and heavy eyes, but also the exhaustion and interpersonal disruptions that arise from this kind of bohemian lifestyle, as seen in some of their slower, more sincere songs such as "Best Intentions," "Separate Cars," and "Breaking Up the Band." It's what you'd get if Lawrence, Comet Gain, and Mojave 3 collaborated at the end of a blurred, sun-washed summer in Southern California. I'm totally posting this band at the wrong time of year, but as they say, summer's always just around the corner.

Apparently, Darren and co. are in the process of writing the fourth Tyde album, and there's no doubt that it will be one of my favorite albums of 2012. Be on the lookout for it later this year.

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Jens Lekman at Skybar, Mondrian Sessions

2012-01-02T14:07:00.000-08:00

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE

2011-12-31T16:45:00.000-08:00

Low - Try to Sleep

2011-12-31T08:24:00.000-08:00

New year's resolution:

The Wild Swans - The Worst Year of My Life

2011-12-30T23:50:00.000-08:00

For me, 2011 in a song:

Good riddance.

MIX - Old Wave New Year

2011-12-30T16:45:00.000-08:00

We all know that NYE, like Halloween, is just a pretense for dressing fancy, get fucked up, and having sex with strangers. This is music for that, more or less.

Genre: New-wave, italo, synth-pop, disco, rug-cutters, nose candy for your ears

01) Chemise - She Can't Love You
02) Madonna - Don't you Know
03) Rebbie Jackson - Centipede
04) Moderne - Sans Signalment
05) Ivan - Fotonovela (chapter 1)
06) Desireless - Voyage Voyage
07) Pete Shelley - Telephone Operator
08) Silicon Teens - Sun Flight
09) Ultima Emocion - Maquinas Romanticas
10) Patrizia Pellegrino - Automatic Amore
11) Lilli Berlin - Midnight Lady
12) Telex - L'Amour Toujours
13) Fake - Brick
14) Colourbox - Tarantula
15) Trees - 11AM
16) Tirez Tirez - Set the Timer
17) Love Tractor - Neon Lights
18) Aviador Dro - Programa en Espiral

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Bone Thugs-N-Harmony - Tha Crossroads

2011-12-30T09:15:00.000-08:00

E. 1999 Eternal : Is there anything more representative of the Apollonian/Dionysian dichotomy in all of hip hop and more importantly, is there any more appropriate music to listen to while getting the bond for your theft case reinstated?

Gary Oldman - Nil by Mouth (1997)

2011-12-29T21:25:00.001-08:00

Two of the more PROgressive things I heard this year.

2011-12-29T10:24:00.000-08:00

Gang Gang Dance - Eye Contact

Remember that scene in Party Monster where Natasha Lyonne grinds up various pharmaceuticals in her 'drug salad?' Eye Contact is a lot like that. It's drug-induced melodies sound bizarrely alien and futuristic. Mellifluous chanting over textures and textures of some of the most pristine synthetic sounds you will ever hear. The opening track, "Glass Jar," is over 11 minutes in length and it's meanderings are fluid like ripples of water. This is not the type of album where the creators sat down armed with influences like many 21st century releases, but rather one where you get the impression that they made this from scratch, with only human creativity and mind expanding substances for inspiration. A very remarkable album.

Oneohtrix Point Never - Replica

Daniel Lopatin's Replica is a psychedelic ambient album and to be frank, it sounds like what I would imagine music sounds like a century from now. This is a truly progressive work, and it's obvious why I saw it on so many people's year end lists. All coherency is abandoned, preconceptions of structure and timing disregarded. Replica's composition is unpredictable from moment to moment, but it is far from 'random' - you get the idea that complex concepts are behind every transition, every loop, every alternation from harmony to dissonance, and it's all composed together in a cleverly woven tessellation of tonal adjustments and noise. It is in its very unpredictable nature that it's intensity arises. It is no doubt a beautiful set of music. However, it's beauty is a strange and dark one, like the radiation afterglow lingering in the atmosphere after an atomic explosion, the dichotomy of beauty and death. Much like The KLF's Chill Out, or Loveless, this is an album, not a collection of individual songs. Also contains my favorite cover art of the year.

Gaston Bussière - Yseult la Blonde (1900)

2011-12-28T20:33:00.000-08:00

Try to think back on what the word 'awesome' meant before it was dragged through the dirt of 90s pop culture.

The Rolling Stones - Paint it Black

2011-12-26T22:42:00.001-08:00

MIX - Fuck the Holidaze

2011-12-26T15:02:00.000-08:00

A 38 track punk rock holiday mix

Tracklist:

01) The Incestors - Something Better Change
02) Country Teasers - Good Pair of Hands
03) Continental Co-ets - I Don't Love you No More
04) J.C. Satan - Morning After Love
05) GG Allin - Carmelita
06) Sonny & The Sunsets - Bad Vibes and Evil Thoughts
07) The Beets - Your Name is on my Bones
08) Hunx and his Punx - He's Coming Back
09) Dead Boys - Sonic Reducer
10) Undertones - Teenage Kicks
11) Special Forces - Rollercoaster
12) Magic Michael - Millionaire
13) Pentagram - Starlady
14) Electric Frankenstein - All's Moving Faster
15) 88 Fingers Louie - Try it Again
16) The Birdhouse - Sick Boy
17) The Moonhearts - Eat my Shorts
18) The Misfits - Where Eages Dare
19) Fetchin' Bones - You're so Much
20) SS Decontrol - How Much Art
21) Negative Approach - Nothing
22) Nausea - Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing
23) Funeral Oration - Never Die
24) Sorry - Listen
25) Generation of Vipers - Ritual
26) Last Rites - No Right to Take
27) Bevis Frond - High in A Flat
28) Reversal of Man - Obsession
29) Endtables - Trick or Treat
30) Long Hind Legs - Open Wide
31) Sneaky Feelings - Throwing Stones
32) World of Pooh - Cake Flotiulla
33) Primitons - All my Friends
34) The Trilobites - Venus in Leather
35) Ned's Atomic Dustbin - Happy
36) The Fumes - Poploaded
37) The Flatmates - Happy all the Time
38) Little Murders - 100 Drugs

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Some thoughts on Lars Von Trier's Antichrist

2011-12-26T11:17:00.001-08:00

There are few things more frustrating to me than having to state the obvious. Antichrist is a film that I feel has been largely misunderstood more so than any other film of the past decade. I could offer countless "essays" written about it that don't even focus on what it is really about for more than a sentence or two. I have a lot to say about this movie, but I'll try to condense/summarize it as best as possible.

Antichrist is about mental illness and 'neuroticism' (which is a state caused by our society's anal-retentive avoidance of the natural order: death, decay, chaos, 'creatureliness', meaninglessness, and ephemera to name a few) It is about how these states come to arise, how they are contagious, and how they can spiral out of control very easily. It is an extreme chronicle of such a downward spiral and how even the people society deifies - the so-called infallible ones - (in this case, a psychologist) are susceptible. It is the most uncomfortable and confrontational film I've ever seen.

If you browse over the (masturbatory) article I posted above, you'll see that the author is fixated on guilt and grief, but those are the catalysts, the precursors, not the central focus. Aside from maybe a tangential sentence or two, the article does not mention my above observations. The tragic and horrifying loss of her child, and the grief which followed, are what caused her to become mentally ill. My guess is she would have had some dormant issues beforehand which this triggered, given the topic of her thesis she was writing. The isolation and her phobia of the woods exacerbated these things.

Many feel that Antichrist is a very cryptic and ambiguous movie, but I strongly disagree. It's themes are fairly evident, unlike, say Lynch's Inland Empire. One of the reasons I claim to 'get' Antichrist is because it deals with a lot of issues I've experienced personally and have dedicated several years to researching. They are not very popular, and hard to understand from a distance. You really have to have to dig around in the psychiatric text of the last half century because the ideas are considered misanthropic/threatening by the majority of the psychiatric community who would rather sugar coat and speak in euphemisms. The gist is that civilization is one complex and ridiculous defense mechanism against finitude, meaninglessness, chaos, death, etc. etc. and when our own internal defense mechanisms fail, so do our hero systems, thus creating all mental illness (anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, and so on). In essence our self-consciousness would drive us insane if it were not for culture, distractions, and the meaning we assign to things. When we are removed from these things we are more vulnerable to the threats the we try to avoid and from there it really becomes a slippery slope (which is the focus of Antichrist). Lars Von Trier who is one of, if not perhaps the most neurotic, phobic, manic depressed filmmakers alive has been doing what all artists strive to do, and that is to express and in turn, purge internal conflict, suffering, etc. So while many critics tend to argue that his intentions are vague, I feel that a neurotic, phobic, manic depressed filmmaker most likely made a neurotic, depressing film about phobias. But hey, it could also be a total coincidence and I may be the one projecting here.

I was having a discussion with a stubborn friend who claimed that guilt was a far more prevalent theme than insanity and even that the insanity in Antichrist is a fictional one (whatever that means). Dafoe sees a dead fox in the woods and it says fucking "chaos reigns" to him. That is unquestionably a hallucination which is an acute symptom of schizophrenia. That is purely objective and is not up for discussion. It could not be more blatant if he looked directly into the camera and proclaimed "My character is losing his shit." If Dafoe's character was of a sound mind, it would just be a dead animal, and hardly a big deal. This is just one example. I don't even need to explain how Gainsbourg's character is nuts. It is obviously a film about insanity, or more appropriately 'mental illness.' However, it is such a brilliantly accurate and intimate portrayal of mental illness, because it's written and directed by a man who has experienced it first hand, allowing him to capture the tiny details often overlooked by most cliche-ridden films on the subject (A Beautiful Mind, for example)

Then of course there is the sex guilt attributed to an overly moral and repressed society, the 'Adam and Eve' metaphor, the assumed misogyny, and She's paper are all symbolic on their own, but unrelated (well, yes, but not directly) and add even more depth to an already complex study. It also ridicules the notion that the psychologist is any different from the rest of us, which I feel is an important point that hasn't been properly made in a film. If I were to get into all of these things, I'd be merely restating what many people have already said before me, so I'll spare us both. I'll conclude by saying what I've told many people before: Antichrist is a work of genius. If you have watched this movie, and didn't like it for whatever reason, watch it again with what I've said in mind. I guarantee you will appreciate it more.

David Cronenberg - A Dangerous Method (2011)

2011-12-26T10:11:00.000-08:00

As a preface I'd like to admit that as far as film critics go, I'm kind of a slacker. Unless a movie is just an atrocious mess and I must entertain myself by dissecting it in a humorous manner (recently, Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale comes to mind, although I'm still unsure if that was just hilariously bad or a brilliantly subtle Michael Bay parody), I generally like to get lost in the fictional boundaries and not analyze it until afterwards, where the sum is often more apparent to me than the parts. I also tend to not re-watch movies very often, so unless I'm already infatuated with a movie (in which case my impressions will most likely be wildly hyperbolic anyways), its rare that I'll study a movie with several revisits. My point is that I like watching movies far more than I like writing or talking about them (both of which I do enjoy), so my film write-ups are far more casual than my music ones, and can typically be reduced to me either hating, being impartial to, liking, or loving, as opposed to getting really in depth. The only movie I can think of off the top of my head that I've felt an urge to truly analyze was Antichrist, and I may one day get around to posting my lengthy thoughts about it on here.

Moving on, there are a lot of arguments to be made against Keira Knightley. If you've ever seen her speak in interviews, you know she is a naturally obnoxious person. She's the type of girl who brings to mind a spoiled English princess ("But fother, I wont a poooooe-ny!"). That being said, I thought her portrayal of Sabina Spielrein in A Dangerous Method was one of the best performances of the year. Many will disagree, and say she overacted but I feel she played her character exceptionally well. Fassbender, Mortensen, Cassel, the girl who played Jung's wife, and hell, even the minor characters and extras were all very believable as well. Knightley especially though - not only was she a convincing schizoid, which is one of the most difficult parts an actor/actress can play, but she also had to forge a Russian accent on top of it, which makes the role even more difficult.

The film is a drama, and although there are some very intense erotic scenes, it is largely dialogue based and will likely bore some. Had it not been for the subject matter and the historical people/events it was focused on, which I find very interesting, I would have probably been bored as well. Although heavy, the dialogue was nearly impeccable throughout. In classic Cronenberg fashion, there are a few lines that are hilarious and a few that will linger in your memory for some time after ("I'll gently rip you to shreds"). Howard Shore's Wagner-inspired theme (featured in the trailer) is wonderfully suiting - I'd even say one of the better main themes for a film in the past several years. The cinematography was some of Cronenberg's finest as well. This was just a really well-made film, all around. Saying that it's Cronenberg's best would be difficult because its vastly different from his 80s work such as Videodrome and his 90s work such as Naked Lunch and Crash and it's hard to offer comparison with such different styles. He has transcended his reputation for being a gimmicky 'body violence' master and has showed with his recent films that he is capable of much more. To call him competent, would be a discredit to his talent - he is much more than that and his latest is my third favorite film I've seen this year.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM BS

2011-12-25T16:36:00.001-08:00

Eiichi Yamamoto - Belladonna of Sadness (1973)

2011-12-20T16:32:00.000-08:00

John Maus, Art as Politics, and The Predicament of Change

2011-12-18T10:56:00.000-08:00

I mentioned some criticisms of John Maus' recent album in my year end post, and I would like to clarify and elaborate on them, so as not to be misunderstood. As a preface I would like to say something I mentioned on the mausspace forums, that he who writes, or paints, or composes may be considered as a kind of general challenger, whom everyone has the right to attack; since he quits the common rank of life, steps forward beyond the lists, and offers his merit to the public judgment. In essence, no man can justly aspire to honor, but at the hazard of disgrace. Without criticism there would be no progress, nor standards for quality. We must critique those who critique, even (and especially) our idols. This is my attempt at doing that, as I consider John to be one of the most influential people in my life.

The nature of the artist has always been ubiquitously narcissistic. John is obviously a very self- and world- conscious man and also arguably at the same time one of the most ‘selfless’ men I’ve ever met. I am guessing that he realizes this and wants his work to be more than just expression or some form of deification/immortalization vessel for himself, more than just a feeble attempt to say, "admire me, give me recognition, validate my wretched petty existence; tell me I am of value to the earth for my valliant contributions to culture," and I feel this is just one of the reasons for his changes in style we’ve seen take place over his last two albums. I am extrapolating here, so John, forgive me if I’m mistaken.

Although Songs (2006) was technically his first official release, it was actually a compilation of sorts composed of songs from his first two albums, I Want to Live (2003?) and Love Letters from Hell (2004?). In my opinion, these two albums are some of the most genuine and transcendental pieces of art I have ever come across in my 26 years on this planet. They are works of pure unadulterated genius, whose plethoric virtuosity and brilliance are rivaled only by how humble and human they are. They are devoid of the pretentions that generally surround music of such an epical nature, making them very, very unique. In terms of musical composition, they could be compared with and sit along side Mozart, Bach, Wagner, Beethoven, Schubert, and the rest. Moreover, these albums are humorous, the kind of raw humor that arises from the absurdity of the horror of existence. They encompass everything vital about art.

In an age where nearly everything feels contrived and is a revival or throw-back to something that preceded it, John’s first two albums sound bizarrely original. Of course there are influences, as with all art, particularly minimal wave acts such as Section 25, and classical structuring, but they are not directly borrowed from, rather only parts and ideas are borrowed to create true, 'unique' art. All art is intrinsically contriving to some degree, but it’s within the variations of that contrivance which we can discern its ‘originality.’

I feel that John’s live performances could best be compared to a ritual, a séance, or a church sermon. It is a means for both John and his audience to expunge something. Nothing pains me more than to see these drunken idiots dancing around like children, dressed up like fools, making a mockery of John’s true intentions all because they feel they are subscribing to what they feel fits some popular trend. These people should be exiled to some distant island where they can continue with their vapid, sexless orgies. Again, John, if you’re reading this and your intention is to make dance music and I am gravely misinformed, please let me know.

When I first heard Love is Real, I remember downloading a leaked copy on soulseek (I later bought it on vinyl, of course, along with a few more copies as gifts for friends) and being huddled close to my monitor as each individual song finished downloading, and listening – no, devouring, imbibing - eagerly. I was going to like it regardless, but I noticed immediately that something was missing. I was a pizza delivery driver at the time and I listened to it over and over in my car during the weeks (and months) to come. As I mentioned before, the macabre has been substituted for the panglossian. This much was obvious, but there was something else missing and I could not figure out just what it was. But I finally realized what the missing piece was: the realness of genuine suffering, longing, the pain and burden of love. The ‘love’ John seems to have found in Love is Real is an illusory love, an ideal love - not the kind of love found on his first two records – the kind that plagues you, that consumes you, not real love. Beyond that is the departure from poetry towards rhetoric that seemed to have taken place, rhetoric whose purpose seems to be that of sparking social and political awareness. Because rhetoric is a device that is arrived at willingly and consciously, and not a mechanism that is a product of its own accord, a certain element of sincerity is bound to be lost, and that is what is missing in Love in Real and We Must Become.... John's richest, 'realest' work has always been his love and existential songs, because these are the most guileless subjects for any human being, even the most altruistic of us.

Furthermore, the problem with attempting to merge art and politics is that it is useless, futile, ineffectual. John’s music is not going to change anyone’s mind or open anyone’s mind because of the very inaccessibility of his music. If the fucking Beatles couldn’t do it, If U2 couldn’t do it, two of the most colossal music forces the world has ever seen, it surely cannot be done. Educating others is a good thing, a noble thing even, but in John’s case with a fringe audience, it brings to mind the expression ‘preaching to the choir.’

The only way drastic, -significant- change has ever come about is from one of three ways: 01) the separation of those desiring change and exodus into a new land where a new country can be formed, 02) a violent overthrow/rebellion by the people, or 03) a rebuilding after a complete collapse. The first is irrelevant because there is no unclaimed, unoccupied, ‘free’ soil left. The second would be very difficult given the paradigm of the modern world, especially in America where everything is so spread out, and even then what is to say that the new rule and order would not be even more oppressive than than the previous? Throughout history, power and ignorance have almost always been parallel to one another. If you can name me one kind, wise leader of a prominent, prospering civilization, I will gladly paypal you $20. The third method seems to be the only viable option, and that leaves us with no other choice but to sit back and wait and watch the figurative train crash in slow motion.

Getting back to art as kindling for political revolution, not even literature (which I feel is a much better medium for actuating change) has been able to do this, George Orwell’s 1984 being the best example. This is a book that is –mandatory- reading in just about every high school in America. Yet despite being read by nearly every person in our country with a high school diploma, the once cautionary tale is no longer prophecy, but is becoming eerily true as we find ourselves in a vivid dystopian world of our own. Despite being warned, we have been duped, fallen into a cleverly conceived trap, and wonder why things have gone to shit, scratching our heads and being unable to do anything because it is much too late.

Perhaps you could accuse me of being overly pessimistic here, but the fact remains - no artist or group of artists have ever brought an end to tyranny. Art has always served best as a nexus between individuals, a way for us as isolated and simultaneously social creatures to relate to one another and communicate on a deeper level than symbolic language allows, and lastly a way to cling together and share the weight of our burden, the burden of conscious existence and finitude that can be so hard to bear at times.

John, if you are reading this (and I truly hope you are), please take what I've said to heart and feel free to respond to this and I will happily discuss my views further. I consider myself to be one of your biggest fans, and I will support whatever direction you choose to go in, but you at least know where I stand. I consider "Just Wait til Next Year" to be the greatest song ever written. I've had "That Night" haunt me because I could relate to it so, the music and lyrics perfectly encapsulating the heartbreak I was feeling at the time. I would be grateful if you even produced only one more song with such intense passion and sincerity as contained in either of those two songs. If there were more musicians like yourself I wouldn't be having to write this, but sadly you are one of a kind.

MIX - Cheap Thrills and Alphavilles

2011-12-17T22:02:00.000-08:00

Some songs that remind me of LA, for Ryan. I came across a lot of these bands when I was around 21 and 22. It was a very confusing time in my life and this weird shit helped to confuse me even further, but without them I would not be the person I am today.

01) Bubonic Plague - Polyhedron
02) Molly Nilsson - Poisoned Candy
03) Nite Jewel - What Did He Say?
04) Geneva Jacuzzi - Clothes on my Bed
05) Super Creep - Tasteless
06) Icy Demons - This is It!
07) UM - Africa is a Fridge
08) Chas Mtn. - Upsidedown Hanging
09) Softboiled Eggies - Underwater World (Fogatron edit)
10) Mordant Music - Winding Ourselves into the Ground
11) Rangers - Zombie (Night)
12) Temple Vibe - I Don't Think About Anyone
13) Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Steviepink
14) Ry Rocklen - My Crow
15) John Maus - Peace That Earth Cannot Give
16) Fred Frith - Walking Song
17) HOLY SHIT - Rough N Tumble
18) R. Stevie Moore - I go Into your Mind
19) Jeff Eliassen - E ( Across the Sky, a Web of Ice)
20) Vibe Central - No Ariozona
21) Need New Body - Poppa B

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2011 In Film

2011-12-16T12:04:00.001-08:00

A few things worth mentioning: there are several movies I have not yet seen, which I am looking forward to, including Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method, Steve McQueen's Shame, and a few others. Also, I saw a lot of places including Love Exposure on their year-end lists, which is a fantastic epic Japanese melodrama that I included in my '09 list.

SHIT:

The Descendants

Saw this in theaters with a friend and I walked out 10 minutes before the end. A lot of people heralded this as Clooney's 'best role,' but that award goes to his perfomance in Michael Clayton (or maybe the neurotic dude in Burn After Reading). Sideways is great, but this is a stinky turd. Sid was funny at times, but not enough to salvage a sappy cliche-ridden train wreck. Some of the dialogue was so painfully unnatural that it made me cringe. Avoid like the plague.

The Last Circus

I wanted this to be good, I really did. I hoped it would be, I thought it would be. The trailer even made it out to be, but the movie itself was pretty awful. The first half was fine and quite sexy even, but the last half was an utter atrocity. A lot of good ideas wasted with boring execution, especially near the end.

SOLID, NOT SPECTACULAR:

We Need to Talk About Kevin

Recently, Tilda Swinton seems to be getting cast as these crazy, on-the-verge-of-a-nervous-breakdown female roles (Julia, Michael Clayton) but it is very, very hard for a sane person to accurately play an insane person no matter how good of an actor/actress they may be. However, Lynne Ramsay’s keen directing makes this one of the best portrayals of schizophrenia I’ve ever seen. The problem is that, sadly, despite some wonderful scenes, it is not that good of a movie. Kevin’s delinquency is so ridiculous and over the top that it’s almost comedic at times. The ADD alternating between present and exposition/flashback is at times too much to keep up with. Part of me feels it should have been called ‘Tilda Swinton and John C. Reilly play the world’s most inadequate parents’

Martha Marcy May Marlene

Another movie centered around a schizophrenic character (I still need to see Take Shelter, because I've heard nothing but good things). I was really enjoying this until the end, where it just lost its way and came to an abrupt halt. To clarify, I do not have a problem with loose or open endings. Dogtooth is an example of this being done well. I have a problem with a film who is so unsure of itself that it relies on them out of necessity, which is the case here. Still, a pretty good psychological thriller, just don't expect too much.

Melancholia

Thematically, this was somewhat similar to Antichrist (sub castration anxiety for annihilation anxiety), but just not nearly as effective or powerful. Antichrist is so disturbing and confrontational that I'll probably never watch it again. With a title like 'Melancholia' I was expecting something as psychologically brutal as such a name suggests. Instead, I left feeling unaffected and indifferent and thus the title is simply pretentious, not appropriate. Melancholia's biggest failure, however, was in the area of atmosphere. For a film about the psychological dealings the end of the world, I expected something startlingly ominous and foreboding. I never got such a mood. Also, both Justine and Claire's behavior was inconsistent, unpredictable and ultimately unbelievable. In Antichrist the characters' mental states gradually declined, becoming more and more isolated and neurotic. There were causes and effects for their behavior. Justine often goes from being fragile to lethargic to spiteful to motherly and kind. Not even people with severe manias act so erratic and contradictory. Even beyond these failings I just felt it was a poorly written film. Not terrible by any means, but as I said before, wholly unremarkable.

The Tree of Life

This big beautiful film's biggest error was that it was too ambitious for it's own good. I might even say it's the most ambitious movie ever made in terms of what it tries to achieve. Mallick is a brilliant artist, but his work is better suited for more intimate and restrained environments ala The Thin Red Line and Days of Heaven (which are still both rightfully ambitious, just with a smaller scope, ie. not trying to poetically convey life in a 3 hour movie)

Drive

Felt a bit hollow to me, although very stylish and really well made, like all of Refn's films. The villains were completely uninteresting. Gosling's character was cool and all, but I wish he would've been more developed. Anyways, I enjoyed it though; definitely a well put together film and the soundtrack is awesome.

The Future

I saw this only a month ago, but oddly enough I can't remember much about it.
Miranda July makes, what, like one movie ever five years? I had forgotten how abstract the narrative in Me, You, and Everyone We Know Was and The Future is the same way. I really liked this, but as with many movies I saw this year, was expecting a little more.

Submarine

A witty, angsty, existential bildungsroman in the form of a British comedy or rather a British comedy in the form of a witty, angsty, existential bildungsroman. Would probably be my 6th favorite film of the year if I did a top 10 instead of 5. Like many on this list, another one I need to revisit soon.

Redline

A classic example of style over substance, but I'll be goddamned if this wasn't one of the most beautiful animated movies I've ever seen. Fan-service (boobies, violence) galore, and the ending theme (featured in the trailer below) is so so so good. Fun, but far from flawless.

Midnight in Paris

Yet another case where it's been awhile since I've seen this but I remember liking it a lot. The 'psuedo-intellectual' was such a hilariously obnoxious character. A lot of people didn't like the portrayals of Hemingway and some of the other immortalized authors, but I thought they are pretty good exaggerated comedic fictionalizations. Not a big Owen Wilson fan, and I would have cast someone different, but he's at least tolerable here.

TOP FIVE

5. Tyrannosaur

This year's Breathless, albeit not quite as good. A bone-raw character study about two people worn down by life, and how they interact and relate with each other.

4. The Borrower Arrietty

I'm breaking the rules, yet again. This came out in Japan in 2010, and isn't due out here in the states until early 2012. However, I saw the British release which came out this year, so I'm including here. Another magical tale from Studio Ghibli which I would best describe as Spirited Away meets Honey I Shrunk the Kids, and their most visually captivating film to date.

3. Louis C.K. Live at the Beacon Theater

Probably my new all time favorite stand up special and a few separate segments made me laugh so hard I couldn't breath. The way he ties jokes together is just perfect - they just flow so nicely and bleed together into one continuous joke, there are no pauses between like many comedians. Also, he starts off relatively tame and works his way into the funny bits and it progresses. The clip below is just an outtake, but the actual special is golden.

2. Bellflower

I was originally quite hyperbolic in my initial write-up of this movie, so I'd like to re-watch it and see how it holds up. It's a modern Fight Club only on acid, and with far less Hollywood flash. Starts off quirky and cute, then turns into a horrifying nightmare. The use of sound design in one scene during the climax might induce a panic attack, so be forewarned.

1. Beginners

The day after I first watched this, I asked a friend of mine to 'please come watch this movie with me.' But after I said that, I realized how it silly it was to be asking that. It would be similar to asking her to 'please eat this delicious ice cream sunday' or 'please let Brad Pitt go down on you for an hour' or 'please have all these free drugs,' so I just said, "look, its really good. Either come over and watch it or don't." It made her laugh, cry, and become gravely silent. We talked about it for an hour afterwards, and we both agree it's the best movie released in 2011.

My top five favorite albums of 2011

2011-12-15T01:52:00.000-08:00

5. John Maus - We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves

This is the worst John Maus album. By John's standards it is relatively bland and there aren't really any standout tracks like his previous releases. The macabre has been substituted for the panglossian. The political/social messages are admirable, but John's most sincere and 'real' work has always originated from his existential and love songs. Despite all of these things, We Must Become... is still better than 99.9% of everything else released this year. "Cop Killer" is a much needed anthem, but a part of me wishes some girl would get John to fall in deeply love with her and then break his heart so we could get another "Just Wait til Next Year."

4. Kate Bush - 50 Words for Snow

In a perfect world, everyone would have Kate Bush as a mom.

3. Destroyer - Kaputt

Dan Bejar takes the term 'stylistic departure' very literally.

2. Momus - Thunderclown

Not only one of the best albums albums of the year, but one of the Currie's own best behind classics like Voyager and Timelord. Sadly this will probably be overlooked by many, but it is a conceptual masterpiece and a veritable Momus magnum opus.

1. Nunzio Fattini - Album Primum

I am blatantly cheating here. Technically this album came out over two years ago (according to iTunes). Normally I wouldn't bend the rules so, but given the circumstances I feel it's acceptable. Nunzio's website 'promoting' (see: irony) the album didn't even appear until early this year and the earliest mention of his new project anywhere else on the internet didn't occur until March (correct me if I'm wrong here). So I don't know how anyone could have known of it's existence outside of Mr. Fanuelle himself until this year, and that's why I'm allowing this gem to appear on my 2011 list, despite actually being released earlier. I'm going to let this fact speak for itself and not write any more about this. The album is available on his website, but please, support him and buy it over iTunes, paypal him $5, something - anything - to keep this man making music. In a word: incommensurable.

My top ten favorite songs of 2011

2011-12-13T19:20:00.000-08:00

(excluding songs by artists that will appear on my favorite albums list)

10. Rangers - "Zombies (day)" - Ariel would be proud.

9. Oneohtrix Point Never - "Replica" - Taking ambien to make music to take ambien to.

8. Toro y Moi - "I can Get Love" - Just ride the wave, brah.

7. Gang Gang Dance - "Glass Jar" - I was going to drop a Loveless reference, but you just don't do that.

6. Cold Cave - "Underworld USA" - A deeply excitable song off a pretty mediocre album.

5. Julia Holter - "Try to Make Yourself a Work of Art" A good example of "l'art comme philosophie," like that one French guy talked about.

4. Girls - "Vomit" - Do not be confused. This is actually a b-side to the unreleased single of Pink Floyd's "Us and Them"

3. Twin Sister - "Stop" - Easy on the ears? I think so.

2. Cass McCombs - "County Line" - Made the second spot on "songs I would like to get drunk and slow dance to on a lake shore under a full moon," just under Neil Young's "Harvest Moon"

1. Puro Instinct - "Lost at Sea" - Cocteau Twins + Felt + Los Angeles aesthetic = bonafied 2011 heavenly pop hit.

HONORABLE MENTION

Comet Gain - "Clang of the Concrete Swans" - Youthful and vivacious as ever

Gregor Seyffert ´s Marquis De Sade

2011-12-11T18:39:00.000-08:00

The Beautiful South - Woman In The Wall

2011-12-11T13:00:00.001-08:00

Molly Nilsson - Hotel Home

2011-12-10T23:36:00.000-08:00

Mike Mills - Beginners (2011)

2011-12-09T19:05:00.000-08:00

This is the best movie I've seen all year. Consistently brilliant, charming, clever, funny, heartbreaking, genuine, and a million other glowing, over-used adjectives. The day after I first watched this, I asked a friend of mine to 'please come watch this movie with me.' But after I said that, I realized how it silly it was to be asking that. It would be similar to asking her to 'please eat this delicious ice cream sunday' or 'please let Brad Pitt go down on you for an hour' or 'please have all these free drugs,' so when she protested that she was 'busy' I just said, "look, its really good. Either come over and watch it or don't." It made her laugh, cry, and become gravely silent. We talked about it for an hour afterwards, and we both agree it's the best movie released in 2011.

Antena - The Boy From Ipanema

2011-12-09T14:18:00.000-08:00

The Art of the Mix Tape (A BS Special Feature)

2011-12-09T01:22:00.000-08:00

This is a guide that will hopefully give you a better idea of how to create an enjoyable, fluid, and memorable mix tape/cd.

A good mix is a lot like a good fuck: not too short, not too long, engaging from start to finish, and most importantly, ultimately transcendental. A good mix, if created for the right person at the right time and under the right circumstances can even make someone fall in love with you. It is an art that takes a lot of practice to master, and every mix requires patience and complete concentration. The only good piece of advice my father ever instilled in me was an old cliché: if something is worth doing, it is worth doing right. If you slap a dozen songs together haphazardly and without care, your mix will most likely not be ‘bad,’ but it will not be remarkable in anyway, thus, c'est une connerie. It will not achieve anything the radio or a podcast cannot and you are wasting the time of your audience (whether or not they realize it). All of the mixes I make generally take at least two hours to compile, some taking up to several weeks of scrutiny and consideration and until I feel it is polished and smooth enough to my satisfaction. Like any art there is an element of obsessive perfectionism if you want to achieve a good finished product. You can never put too much time into an endeavor - only too little.

This particular mix I’ve chosen to use as a demonstration is only one single method, and is my personal favorite template. For labeling purposes I will call it a M-type mix, as it progresses as such (ascend, descend, ascend, descend). It is divided into four distinct ‘sections’ (each with a unique style and mood, to create a diverse and compelling whole, and each transitioning naturally into the next, to create a sense of fluidity) but there is no one way to approach the process. Your mix can be genre specific, or have a wide variety of styles. I mentioned the symbolic ‘shape’ or progression earlier and there are many of these. There are mixes that are orbicular in nature, bell-like, unidirectional/progressive, and many more. A mix can be subtle and relaxing, or relentless. Your mix have can have one or multiple crescendos or climaxes or none at all. A mix can be constructed around almost any concept or theme, the trick is to be creative and learn to listen to what flows and sounds ‘right.’ Contrary to popular belief, pay no great attention to length as it is irrelevant. A 45 minute mix can be just as good as an 80 minute one. Try not to go below 40 minutes.

This is an old mix I made for a friend. I chose to this particular one as a demo because it is solid, yet flawed. I recommend downloading it before reading any further.

Title: Pretty Poisons

Part I

01) Max von Sydow - "Intro to Europa"
02) Mount Eerie - "Between Two Mysteries"
03) Kangding Ray - "Idle"
04) Cold Cave - "Love Comes Close"
05) Death in June - "Break the Black Ice"
06) Emptyset - "Aleph"
07) Television - "Elevation"
08) The Brian Jonestown Massacre - "Anemone"
09) Spiritualized - "If I Were with Her Now"
10) The KLF - "Build a Fire"

Part II

01) Flaming Tunes - "Restless Mind"
02) Nick Nicely - "On the Beach (The Ladder Descends)"
03) Holy Shit - "Hot on your Trail"
04) Sensations' Fix - "Visions Fugitives"
05) Felt - "Ancient City Where I Lived"
06) Robert Wyatt - "At Last I'm Free"
07) Iron Curtain - "Love Can Never Die"http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
08) Michel Polnareff - "Holidays"
09) Robyn Hitchcock - "Flavour of the Night"
10) Linda Perhacs - "If You Were My Man"

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Start playing the mix and let’s break it down to better analyze its components. You’ll immediately notice that it’s divided into two parts. This structure is unconventional (and not recommended) but I felt that condensing it would ultimately detract, so I decided to be a little creative. If I were to create a graph of it's movement, it would look something like:

(note the 'M' shape)

There are a few different 'arcs' joined together by transitional pieces. The first track is a recording from the opening scene in Lars Von Trier’s Europa and features Max Von Sydow hypnotizing the viewer (or in this case, the listener). This is a good opening track for obvious reasons. It sets a tone and sucks the listener in. The next track is immerse and atmospheric as well and was chosen to further capture the attention and imagination of my intended listener(s). Tracks 2, 3, 4, and 5 compose the first arc, and are different styles, but are all similar in mood (mysterious, dark, yet hypnotic). The tempo is increased, but not drastically so; you will also notice the songs are more pop-ish. Track 6 was intended as a bridge between 5 and 7 because the two songs did not flow very well. In retrospect, I might remove this track completely. I wanted to create contrast between the almost silence lows of track 6 and the sharp highs of track 7 to give 7 more of an impact. The pace/mood/style transforms with the second arc, tracks 7-10. You should notice more guitar oriented 'rock' whose sound is narcotic, slightly psychedelic, and somewhat bluesy. The first half is not unlike a drug high, and I created it systematically to be so. The second half will continue with this concept.

The last track of part 1 marks a subtle, but distinctive decline. I set it up so the listener could take an intermission if needed or even listen to the two parts separately. The point of all these peaks and valleys, 'ups and downs' is to create titillation. To paraphrase a quote from High Fidelity, you don't want to blow your load too early, and to return to the sex analogy, you should tease, create anticipation in, and then deliver to your listener, repeating the process however many times you deem necessary. Tracks 11-14 make up the third arc, and this arc continues in the psyche vein, but is a little more experimental and the recording quality of the songs are noticeably different. Again, there is contrast between the end of the third arc, the transitional track (15), and the beginning of the final arc. The final arc marks a decline in velocity, but due to the haunting and sincere nature of its songs, is the heart of the mix. Despite once again the varying alternation of the genres in this last segment, the landing is smooth and easy and things come to a gentle close. I forgot to mention this earlier, but I'm doing so now (bolded for importance): Pay attention to how a preceding track ends and how its successor begins. As with everything else, avoid friction.

Do you always have to be so analytical/technical? No. Does it help? Most definitely. Again there are many ways to approach, so play around with themes and concepts until you find something that works. What I've outlined are only the basics. Feel free to go above and beyond by mixing your songs continuously with Audacity, create a custom designed cover art for them, et al.

One final thing that is equally important: you should keep in mind that there is also a discipline to follow on the part of the person receiving the mix. The listener must fully dedicate his/her attention in order to properly take in the mix. I like using headphones or driving around in my car, but all that matters is that you are focused and you have some decent speakers. For god's sake just don't put iTunes on shuffle and let it play as background music while you are vacuuming your house! That about wraps it up. I'll leave you with a little inspiration:

"The other day, a friend told me that she still listens to a mix that I made her five or six years ago, and that was a great feeling."

-Chris Piercy
-

Go forth and make good work!

Q: What is the most sexually attractive quality a person can possess?

2011-12-06T23:49:00.000-08:00

Bembeya Jazz - Petit Sekou

2011-12-06T23:23:00.001-08:00

Agustí Villaronga - In a Glass Cage (1987)

2011-12-05T15:29:00.001-08:00

Here is a synopsis of In a Glass Cage that will paint a picture of what you're in for if you have not seen this movie: "A former Nazi doctor-turned-pedophile, paralyzed from the neck down after a suicide attempt, is forced to accept a boy as his nurse under threat of blackmail: the boy secretly witnessed the doctor's torture and murder of another boy, and possesses the man's diary, which details his wartime experiments and his subsequent descent into pedophilia and murder."

Sounds fun, no? The plot/characters/subject matter alone makes it one of the more interesting films I'm seen in some time and gives great perspective on sadism/masochism and how the two are not unilateral, but in fact can be closely interwoven. This is a very demented "love story," and the focus is on the deranged dynamic between the boy and the doctor and the intimacy of their relationship. A lot of people consider this to rank with Salo as being in the upper echelon of 'fucked up' films, but I didn't find it disturbing at all. Chilling and bizarre, definitely, but not particularly disturbing. In a Glass Cage is a very perceptive and well made film, but its definitely not for everyone (especially those who aren't a fan of blue, because that's pretty much the only color shown throughout). Check it:

The Rain Parade - Emergency Third Rail Power (1983)

2011-12-04T20:30:00.000-08:00

Rain Parade were a Paisley Underground group active during the mid 80's. I would best describe this album as sounding like a nineties college-radio indie band who wrote a bunch of seventies psychedelic inspired tunes using instruments and equipment from '83. Very indie-poppy, but of the low sugar variety. Main man David Roback went on to found Mazzy Star.

Rating: 7.5/10

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The Raincoats - Fairytale in the Supermarket

2011-12-04T20:19:00.000-08:00

THANKS NATALIE

The Only Ones - Someone Who Cares

2011-12-03T22:55:00.001-08:00

Cocteau Twins - Those Eyes,That Mouth

2011-12-02T22:33:00.000-08:00

THANKS ASHLEY

Edwyn Collins - Selected discography

2011-12-02T10:09:00.000-08:00

I like Orange Juice. A lot - and for obvious reasons. They were instrumental in the foundation of several of my favorite genres and I consider both Rip it Up and You Can't Hide your Love Away to be masterpieces. Their single, "Rip it Up" rapidly ascended the UK charts but unfortunately, it was their only 'big' hit and many wrote them off as a one hit wonder. I'm guessing most of my audience here knows better than to make that assumption, but I'm writing this just in case.

Edwyn Collins is a smart, witty lyricist, a talented musician and a distinguishable vocalist. The only minor gripe I have with his solo work is that I feel his voice is often unsuitable for some of the tracks. That is to say, that while it is appropriate for many, I feel an equal number could benefit from a different vocal style (Call me crazy, but Sarah Cracknell, maybe? I don't know). The music itself is mostly stellar, with a few sub par tracks here and there, but that is generally how it goes with most pop records. I'm sure you are probably familiar with "A Girl Like You" (video featured below), because it got a decent amount of exposure during the nineties, but other songs such as "Means to an End" (wait, the Paul Quinn version was actually a revised cover?), "50 Shades of Blue" and "Out of This World" which were overshadowed are all very approachable too. One final thing - all three of these albums go well played at loud volumes in your car. They don't work well as background music, so keep that in mind when listening.

Collection includes:

Hope and Despair (1989)
Hellbent on Compromise (1990)
Gorgeous George (1994)

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Suicide - Dream Baby Dream

2011-11-30T14:56:00.001-08:00

Anna Domino - Land of my Dreams

2011-11-30T05:14:00.001-08:00

Close Lobsters - Lets Make Some Plans

2011-11-30T04:57:00.000-08:00

Holy Shit - Live at Midi Festival 2006

2011-11-28T15:34:00.000-08:00

Criminally underviewed

Momus - Thunderclown (2011)

2011-11-28T14:12:00.000-08:00

For those who were a little put off by the novel eccentricity of his 'O' records, the post-modern master of mockery returns in 2011 with his most accessible record in over a decade. Autotuned Mo-musings whispered over music that can only be described as a mixture of Raymond Scott's Soothing Sounds For Baby and songs your parents heard on the radio while huddled around a fireplace on Christmas eve of 1955. The naive, yet blissful sentimentality evoked from the minimal post-war era music (tape hiss, distortions and all) is offset by the clever, hyper-conscious complexities of the album's lyrical themes, creating a work that is immediately distinct and entirely original. The result is something you'd find yourself listening to alone on Christmas deliriously drunk and disillusioned, taking solace in long-vanished nostalgia. It's available for purchase on iTunes, and I highly recommend buying it, because it has become a last-minute contender for my album of the year choice. Momus also has the entire album streaming on a youtube playlist (each song with its own homemade music video) on his website.

Rating: 9/10

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Prefab Sprout - Electric Guitars

2011-11-28T04:29:00.000-08:00

"Gouda pop"

Sean Durkin - Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011)

2011-11-28T01:16:00.000-08:00

Have you ever talked to someone at a bar all night, putting up with dumb conversation and stale atmosphere in hopes you will at least score some sloppy sex, and they get in your taxi, and there's a lot of sexual tension built up, and you make it to your apartment, and they take off their clothes and then right as they're walking towards you naked, about to kiss you, they say 'Oh, you know....I forgot I have to get up early tomorrow. I should go."

Yeah, this is a lot like that.

Spoonfed Hybrid - Somehow Some Other Life

2011-11-27T21:43:00.000-08:00

Asha Puthli - Say Yes

2011-11-25T22:58:00.001-08:00

Thanks, Ellie!

MIX - She Lives by the Castle

2011-11-25T18:05:00.000-08:00

Some fancy, dreamy all-girl fun by Anh Do (Owley Patrol), "inspired by Felt, Anna Karina and girls who wear tights." I might even say it's the best damn mix I've heard in years. Don't miss it.

Note: I made some minor changes, namely compiling the songs in a more suitable order (it was originally arranged alphabetically), removing a few tracks I've posted before, and adding a Galaxie 500 track for transitional purposes).

01) Wanderléa - Te Amo
02) Lucie Eyenga - Yaka Mama
03) Taken by Trees - No Letting Go
04) Purity Ring - Ungirthed
05) Helene Smith - Willing And Able
06) Madredeus - Oxala
07) Lijadu Sisters - Come on Home
08) Poly Styrene - Dreaming
09) Emma Tricca - Paris Rain
10) Susanna + The Magical Orchestra - Condition Of The Heart
11) Mazzy Star - Common Burn
12) Galaxie 500 - Listen, the Snow is Falling
13) Kendra Smith - Iridescence 31
14) Joan Armatrading - Only One
15) Cat's Eyes - I'm Not Stupid
16) This Mortal Coil - Mr. Somewhere
17) Laetitia Sadier - Summertime
18) Sibylle Baier - The End

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Stendhal - The Red and the Black (1830)

2011-11-25T16:41:00.000-08:00

“Indeed, man has two different beings inside him. What devil thought of that malicious touch?”
― Stendhal, The Red and the Black

Bel Canto - The Glassmaker

2011-11-25T03:12:00.001-08:00

Neneh Cherry - Raw Like Sushi (1988)

2011-11-24T21:32:00.001-08:00

I'm not going to put up a link for this one, because I don't feel like getting scolded by the pesky fellows at the RIAA, but it's not too hard of an album to find. I got into Neneh a little late, but thanks to my bud Corey, it was better late than never. Neneh has an undeniable dual appeal, especially for a black female artist. She was and is considered highly relevant both in the punk/indie and mainstream scenes. Originally from Sweden, she was born from an African father and Swedish mother. Both her father and stepfather were musicians, and her mother was an artist, paving an encouraging path for her to openly express her creative visions. I could write a hefty amount of text about her upbringing and how it produced such a passionate unique individual, but it would be much more informative to just go here.

In the eighties she was part of several underground punk groups such as New Age Steppers and Rip Rig + Panic, was a steady contributor to early trip-hop groups, and fashioned herself a very notable solo career. Because her success was a product of her own ideals, and not manufactured by a major label, Neneh was something of a humanitarian. She functioned as a role model and was a much needed voice of positivity for low-income inner city youth (especially girls) in the early nineties. It was very much a form of pop feminism, but without all of the spite and arrogance of the original movement that turned so many conservative minds away from it. Because of her pop culture accessibility and success, she most likely inspired a lot of troubled kids around that time who would have otherwise fallen into the pitfalls set for them by their perceived class, race, and gender 'limitations.' Nearly all of the songs on Raw Like Sushi carry a vital and progressive message and were aimed at bettering one's self, being strong and aware, and not settling for the hands you were dealt.

It's unfortunate to think that this kind of thing was once the message the radio was sending out to kids in comparison to the morally questionable, "get money fuck bitches", intellectually devoid dreck playing nowadays. A damn shame, but as Vonnegut said, "so it goes..."

Rating: 8.5/10

Kate Bush - Wow

2011-11-21T22:13:00.000-08:00

Prince - When You Were Mine

2011-11-20T17:43:00.000-08:00

The Apartments - The Evening Visits...and Stays For Years (1985)

2011-11-13T00:38:00.002-08:00

A tender and nectarous affair from forgotten Brisbane indie group, The Apartments. Fronted and organized by Peter Walsh, their debut album also featured help Ben Watt (Everything but the Girl) and Clare Kenny (Orange Juice) and was released by Rough Trade. Generally you can extrapolate whether a band will be good or not based on their associations and the company they keep, and The Apartments are no different. The Evening Visits... is very much the diary of a dreamer; its a heartbreaking and humble work, and one best absorbed in private. "Mr. Somewhere" is a classic bittersweet ballad and lyrically, an 'anti-platitude' if there ever was one. As Walsh softly sings the line, "and the hardest words are spoken softly," you can't help but feel a certain emotional weightiness.

Rating: 9/10

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