Anyway, look, it’s 2012 already. I know. Terrifying. About a year ago I made the bold claim that within a year I would be in Canada. I’m totally not in Canada. Because it took me so long to get a job last year I couldn’t afford it. But guess what? I’ve had a job now for almost six months, and I can afford it now. As in, right now.
But it’s funny how little and how much things can change in a year. Is Canada really the place? Or is it New Zealand? Or could it be somewhere else entirely? I don’t know, but it’s out of here. And even if it’s somewhere I don’t stay long, I want to go, and to see, and to be there, in the world as it were.
People say wherever you go, it doesn’t really matter because you’re still the same person. But it’s not me that I’m looking to be different. It’s the place, it’s the people, it’s the culture, it’s the shape of the world around me that will change. Scotland is too familiar, it’s too safe, it’s too easy for me to fall back on bad habits and into a dull routine.
There’s other factors to consider obviously, but now is the time. Someday I want to settle down somewhere, but I don’t know where. Right now all I know is I don’t want to settle down here, and I don’t want to settle down now. Maybe I’ll travel the world and come back here and I will stay after all, but how will I know unless I’ve seen what else the world has to offer?
I like making plans, but I really love throwing the plans out the window and going wherever. And I don’t do that enough because I didn’t have the means to do it. Now I do.
Here’s to 2012 I guess. And to looking forward, with open eyes.
So not all the music I enjoyed this year came out this year, and this list is a reflection of that. Here’s some music from whenever, that I liked a lot this year, for the reasons stated here. Enjoy, or not, that’s up to you.
New Musical Discovery of the Year 2011
The National
Note the two twins. Also the other two guys in the back are also brothers. Also, living proof, as if any were needed, that scruffy beards are sexy.
Thanks Portal 2, for introducing me to an awesome band that I now love. The National are a band that should probably be huge, but I guess I’m happy that they’re not too huge. There’s something nice about a band like this with a modest level of success, because it means there’s some substance to them, there’s not some big marketing push involved. Also because if a band is popular I automatically hate them, right? Not true, because I am not 12 anymore (see my ongoing love affair with R.E.M. for further evidence to the contrary).
I started with High Violet, and so far I have worked back two albums to Alligator. It’s solid stuff throughout, but overall I think I like High Violet the best. I love the arrangements, I love the structures, I love the voice, I love the words… I love how the drums are running off at a frantic pace while everything else is taking a leisurely stroll. I love the way Matt Beringer’s voice sounds half-mumbled. I love the slightly awkward jerky rhythms and . Plus, this is the kind of band that I could genuinely recommend to most people and they wouldn’t think I was a complete weirdo. Though I obviously am.
***
A Song for Hope 2011
Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band – Hang on to Each Other
This campfire singalong song seems genuinely heartfelt and painfully beautiful to my ears and brain. The band’s combined untrained vocals here build into an aching wonderful hymn about community and love, the love we find amongst friends and family and the preciousness of that love.
Yeah I know, that’s me being a hopeless romantic again, but what other song in the world has lines as beautifully poetic as “birds toss precious flowers from the murky skies above” set against a small choir repeatedly whispering the desperate refrain “any fucking thing you love”? No other song, that’s what song. And that is why this song.
***
A Song That Most Accurately Describes My Average State of Mind Throughout 2011
The National – Secret Meeting
This song seems to be about paranoia and confusion. Also, it’s jangly awkward rhythms speak to my lack of social skills. So here’s the National describing exactly that problem in a pleasing musical aesthetic.
I am learning though, getting better at this weird ongoing thing we call life. But still, I find it hard to relate to most people. The way they talk, the way they think, the way they are with each other, and with me. There are things I want to say but can’t say, things I want to do but can’t do, things I should say or do that just don’t occur to me at all. I feel guilt when I shouldn’t, I miss opportunities that I should be looking out for, I misinterpret the emotions of others, I stumble ever onward into an unknown and mysterious future. I guess I’m kind of an awkward guy, much as I mean well.
But enough moaning. It’s not like I have any real problems with my life, it’s just the silly little things I let pile up around me and fall on top of me. Not to worry though, because like the song, with a wry sense of irony I do get by. Also, this song is cool.
“And so and now I’m sorry I missed you, I had a secret meeting in the basement of my brain…”
***
A Song for Anger 2011
The Locust – Book of Bot
From 2007’s sterling effort New Erections, this track features The Locust at their most structured and precise. This is a band that specialises in short bursts of diamond-hard razor-edged catharsis. Unlike a lot of earlier Locust numbers, Book of Bot also tells a story, of a man fed up with his pathetic life, taking matters into his own hands, and re-establishing control with a little focused violence. Something we can all relate to I think.
***
Live Performance of the Year 2011
Secret Chiefs 3 at Supersonic 2011
Phenomenal. I love this band plenty on record, but they are something else live. Something whirling, twirling, glowing, burning with the light of creation. Trey Spruance has assembled a rotating lineup of exceptional musicians, and this tour was no exception. After an evening hard at work in the volunteering corps, this was the band I was waiting to see. And after an exhaustive set drawing from the many genres and styles their peculiar musical umbrella happens to encompass, as if just for me, an encore of Labyrinth of Light, a surf tune so awesome that I cannot find the words to describe how awesome it is. Best I can come up with right now is “exceedingly”.
***
A Song for Love 2011
R.E.M. – You Are the Everything
I’m sorry I keep talking about this band. Well I guess I’m not actually otherwise I wouldn’t keep doing it. R.E.M. actually haven’t done that many songs that I would really classify as love songs, at least not songs about personal love. This is one of them though, and it’s an early use of mandolin and accordion on an R.E.M. track.
I think the thing that gets me about this song is that it’s very nearly overwrought and melodramatic about the whole thing, but at the same time, it’s musically fragile, very light and full of air. It’s an outpouring of emotion, unfiltered and uncoloured by romance. It’s almost naked, leaving itself open and vulnerable. It might well be over-the-top, but it seems to me it’s honest about the overwhelming feeling of love.
***
Erik Satie’s Gnossienne of the Year 2011
Erik Satie – Gnossienne No.3
Obviously.
***
A Song for Scaring Everyone You Know 2011
Khanate – Wings From Spine
It had to be Khanate really. From the last Khanate record, the basis of this track is an improvisation. The guitar tone here is pretty haunting, and the bass is pretty throbbing, and the drums are pretty scattershot, and the voice… That fucking voice… This is not the voice of a happy man. Overwhelming is probably the word. Brutal in a way that so many metal bands wish they could be, but can’t because they’re all girly men.
Nothing fancy this year, not much time to devote to stuff like this when you have a job. But nonetheless, now that I have a few days break, I figured I should throw something together, because I do like to clarify my own thoughts on each year’s new music in an entirely arbitrary way and satisfy my apparent need to create some lists of some things for no good reason.
This year, I’m not really putting them in order, just picking the record, and posting a song from each, so you can get a little bite-size flavour if you will…
Bear in mind the caveat that I have not listened to every album that came out this year, not even all the albums that I would normally have wanted to listen to but for one reason or another have missed. I will do my best though, and I will catch up with the rest next year. There will also be a complimentary list to this one for albums that did not come out this year, but were listened to by me, a lot, this year.
Without further ado, here’s my list.
J Mascis – Several Shades of Why
Dinosaur Jr. frontman J Mascis is a cool dude, with long white hair, nerdy glasses, and a guitar. Here he plays largely acoustic tunes, singing in his particular Neil Young-inspired nasal drawl. It’s pretty neat daddy-o.
Song pick: Not Enough
It’s a poorly kept secret that there’s a girl that I met relatively recently that I’ve become a little smitten with. When I feel that way, my taste tends towards a certain lyrical and musical style, and this particular song happened to resonate with me pretty strongly because of that. I love the chords. I love the tambourine. I love the words. I love the voices. I love that little bit of guitar in the chorus. I love this song, even though I know it can never love me back…
***
Akron/Family – S/T II: The Cosmic Birth and Journey of Shinju TNT
It’s hard for me to say anything about Akron/Family without fumbling my way through a weird child-like metaphor because this band is all about the pure child-like joy and wonder at the mere idea of life. Loud haphazard celebrations are their bread and butter, and this record has a vigor about it that’s unmatched.
Song pick: Light Emerges
This is a great example of Akron/Family’s gentle whimsical songwriting style. Beautifully simple words sung softly, suddenly descending into absolute unbridled instrumental mayhem.
***
Battles – Gloss Drop
I was wondering for a while if or when there would be a new Battles album. Then one of the band’s members left. Then a new album did come out and it turns out I like it better than the first one. So there. Lots of herky-jerky off-kilter funky grooves and electronics.
Song pick: Sundome
This song has the feel of an epic, building with stuttering synthetic steel drums and organ, a crazy guy yelling what could well be absolute gibberish with absolute conviction, and a jerky chopped-up guitar and eventually a relentless, almost motorik drum beat.
***
Darren Korb – Bastion Original Soundtrack
Bastion is a video-game that is awesome and may soon appear in another list on this here blog. An independent production that plays great, looks great, sounds great, and is just all-over one of the best games to come out all year. The soundtrack is full of country twang and electronic beats. A lovely melange of style and substance.
My copy of this album is signed by the composer.
Song pick: The Pantheon (Ain’t Gonna Catch You)
This track does not actually appear in the game, but is rather an example of the kind of folk song that might exist in the game world. Acoustic guitar, and the smooth sultry tones of the game’s narrator, singin’ ‘bout the Gods and their ways.
R.E.M. are no more. Which is a shame and all, but I’m glad they put out one last record, and that it’s actually really good. Similar to their previous release, the high-energy Accelerate, Collapse Into Now has a broader range of styles on show.
Song pick: Oh My Heart
This is a song about New Orleans, and is a direct sequel to a song on their previous record Accelerate. But you don’t really need to know that, it’s an R.E.M. song with accordion. Nothing much to say really, but I think it’s pretty neat.
***
Björk – Biophilia
Oh Björk you crazy crazy lady. How I love how crazy a lady you are. Ach, it’s not that she’s crazy, it’s that she’s uninhibited. And this record, as with all of her others, is all over the place with weird ideas that hang together by the force of her will. And boy what a will she has.
Song pick: Virus
How about a love song from a virus to a cell? The metaphor is clear, the virus loves the cell so much it yearns to be one with it, but in so doing, it destroys the cell. Anyway, Björk’s voice carries the bulk of this song, as it does most of the record, with a sparse tinkling pulsing soundscape surrounding her.
***
Dyskinesia – Dalla nascita
Somebody sent me a link to this free download record, and I was pretty smitten, which is almost never the case. This is what some might class as Post-metal, in the vein of Isis, Neurosis, et al, but actually the closest comparison I can draw is to pre-Pelican band Tusk, or at least their last album The Resisting Dreamer.
Song pick: 2
The perfect post-rock structure here, descending arpeggio guitar and crunchy bass, surrounded by warm fuzzy drones and hums, driven forward relentlessly by the crashing of cymbals. Of course, it slowly disintegrates into a swampy near-structureless dirge of feedback.
It’s Paul Simon. In case you didn’t notice. No further explanation is required. But in case you need one, here is one: Paul Simon, of Simon & The Other Guy fame, writes better songs than just about any other songwriter in the world, and has done so for almost 50 years now. His new album mixes the wisdom that comes with age, with the musicality that comes with being Paul Simon.
Song pick: Rewrite
There’s something about Paul Simon’s songwriting style that speaks very deeply to the sweetly mundane nature of the human condition. In this song, which lurches and jitters along with some confidence, he describes a veteran who is trying to rewrite his life story into something more interesting, more cinematic and perhaps find some overarching theme he has been lacking. That’s something I think we can all identify with.
***
Earth – Demons of Light, Angels of Darkness I
Earth continue to do what Earth do these days, but drifting further into realms of folk and traditional musics. The addition of cello lending a breathy, soft and warm quality to proceedings.
Song pick: Descent to the Zenith
Dylan Carlson’s trademark picked guitar sound is present as always, with his trademark mobius strip of repeating country licks. Slow as ever, this song crawls forth with all the haste of an armadillo wandering aimlessly across a desert in an autumn sunset.
***
Steven Wilson – Grace for Drowning
I have not listened to this record(s) nearly as much as I would like to, partially because it’s quite long, and partially because as previously mentioned, my free time tends to get eaten up with more important social concerns. But it is damn good. Lots of very direct prog-rock influences here, especially King Crimson. Sectarian and Raider II in particular seem to evoke Lizard-era KC, which Wilson has confessed to be one of his favourite records.
Song pick: Index
This song appears to be a dark twist on Steven Wilson’s own obsession for collection. There’s a really menacing tone at play here that Wilson is pretty good at pulling off. Electronic beats and real drums abound, with sinister electric piano.
More of the same really. Music made by stretching guitar improv noise. Not very exciting. Sorry. It’s easy to do, and I’m lazy, and I kind of like the sound of it.
Probably the last one of these though, that’s one for each of the elements.
It’s easy to be musically prolific when you find ways to make 22 minutes of noise out of 12 seconds of actual programmed music. The source material here is distorted choir samples. This is then stretched to 100 times its original length, heavily processed, and et voilà, this monstrosity right here.
An exercise in getting much from little. Also an attempt to capture the essence of a single vast body of water, its majesty, grace and terror all rolled up into one long unending static moment. Except this one ends, and the ending is actually one of my favourite parts of the piece as a whole – it exploits a simple trick that I happen to find highly effective. And loud.
Last Saturday night I had a mixed experience with alcohol. I consumed none, the people around me consumed a lot, and things quickly became strange for me. I made a vow that night that next time I was out with people, drinking, I would join in, with moderation.
Now, at the time I made this vow I specified two drinks, but inevitably two drinks this evening turned into six, thanks to cheap bottles of beer. Now six bottles is not much I grant you, and I did not get drunk, but six bottles is more than I have ever drunk in one night before, and I could feel it coming on. It was pretty okay actually. It was a small group from work, in a quiet little pub on Waterloo Street. Hilariously enough I lasted right through to the end.
Then I went home had a two-hour nap, then woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep, so now I’m writing this instead.
I did notice that the alcohol did bring me out of my shell just a bit, and that’s cool. I also think I found my comfortable limit. 25 years old and I’m just learning something like that, that most people take for granted… It also helped that I was in the company of the right people. If there had been many more people there I think it might have been unpleasant.
Things at work over the past couple of weeks have become seriously high tension. A number of people have been let go over the past week or so, people I had gotten to know quite well in a short time, and one of them in particular is a guy who has a lot in common with me. Saying a quick goodbye to him as he was escorted downstairs was a tough moment for me, which feels like a horrendously selfish thing to say because he’s the one losing his job through no fault of his own. Genuinely crushing though, to see all these people being walked out of the building a month before Christmas. That’s outsourcing for you.
It especially bothers me I have been unable to actually do the same job as all these people for coming up to two months now, an issue which always seems on the cusp of resolution but never quite reaches it. Instead, I floorwalk. I wander around and around the floor and help anyone who has an issue, anyone who isn’t sure what to do next.
It’s genuinely been quite enjoyable, because you learn a lot from seeing people working their cases, and the more you learn the better you can help others. That and the fact that without it, I would not have met so many interesting people. Some of my colleagues still can’t believe it when I tell them that floorwalking isn’t technically my job, because I’ve done it for so long now that I’m part of their day. But again, with the numbers dwindling, and the experience level of everyone on the floor rising, There are fewer and fewer people who need help. I also don’t contribute directly to targets even though I am fully accredited by the client. Yet still there I am, wandering around, like a ghost, the restless spirit of a claims handler with only the vestigial memory of a login tying me to this physical plane. What is my value over and above X number of additional claims handlers who slipped through the net? Good people who were doing the job I should be doing?
Yes, I can see why stuff like this drives people to drink.
Fortunately, it’s not all horrible though. Like everything in life, there’s always some things worth clinging to.
A couple of weeks ago I had applied for one of several team leader roles along with others from the backshift, only to find out that none of us were picked, and the roles went to dayshifters instead, including our own team leader. Now these new team leaders were actually were genuinely great people to work with for the past couple weeks, and thankfully the changeover went pretty smoothly. Now though, through some strange circumstances those dayshifters are moving on again and those team leader roles have actually passed on to a couple of my colleagues, which is pretty good news.
So next week our team will have its fourth team leader since October, a lovely girl from New Zealand I have gotten to know a little from floorwalking. So I guess I’ll do what I can to help her out while she finds her feet. She’ll do fine though, far better than I ever would have.
It’s kind of staggering to me, all the friends I have made wandering around the floor every night. I’m a shy person, maybe a bit of a strange person. It’s usually hard for me to make new friends, but these guys have made it remarkably easy, by being for the most part the friendliest bunch of people you could ever hope to work with. Yes, there’s some ugly office politics going on in the background sometimes in certain isolated pockets around the floor, but I try to keep my nose out of it. There’s a lot of strong characters in the office, and I’ve accidentally found myself in the fortunate position to get to know quite a lot of them – part of the reason the recent suspensions feel so horrible. But I feel like a better person for having met these people.
So even though the situation at work can be tough sometimes, it’s not all bad. And maybe it sounds crazy, but I still like going in to work every day. I’ve also been able to save a decent amount of money so far towards what was before just a Canada plan, but is now more of an open promise myself to get out into the world next year and see where it takes me.
About a year ago I recorded a little guitar experiment called Cloudpiercer. It was extremely quick to record (in fact, playing it took less time than the total running time of the track) and I enjoyed it so much that I told myself I would do more of that.
So here we are a year later, and looks like I finally did that. Hooray for procrastination.
Anyway, whatever creative spark had been lacking, appears to have finally drifted my way, caught in my mind and this is the result. It’s processed guitar. Probably not your cup of tea, I don’t know. But that’s fine.
Here’s the art by the way:
That font is Astloch by Dan Rhatigan, one of the free Google Web Fonts.
I just got back from a night out which was really intense for me, and completely outside my comfort zone. I’m glad I went, but I think that the whole idea of being the sober one amongst drinkers is completely contrary to my nature. I basically found myself enclosed in a small area with a mixture of people I knew, and didn’t know, people with whom I may not feel entirely comfortable around.
I don’t even know when it happened, but the intensity of my job has recently ramped up to absurd levels, and everyone seems to be on edge about everything, on edge with each other over the tiniest stupid little things.
Yes, I wish I knew how to express myself more openly to others – my lack of such an ability is a trait I appear to have inherited from my father. However, alcohol is not the answer for me. At least, I don’t think it is.
I’m frightened by the type of person I might be if I was drinking. I’m frightened by the potential contrast between that and who I am sober. I’m frightened by the idea of losing who and what I am to baser instincts, to bad decision-making. I am frightened by these things because I see them in others. I see the way people are when they are drunk, and I don’t want to be like that.
I have heard it said that alcohol brings out your true personality, but I do not hold to that notion at all. People may feel more relaxed by drinking it, but every time in my life I have been around people drinking, they are almost always more intense, more full-on, more hyper-exaggerated versions of themselves. The idea that the face we present every day, without chemicals, is some kind of a filter that obscures the true essence of a person’s humanity, just seems like bullshit to me. Stripping away a person’s self-control to me is not an indication of truth, because to me the truth of a person is not in the extremes of their behaviour, it’s in the average, the sum.
Somewhere under my well-meaning exterior, is there some vile monster that I am frightened to reveal? I hope not. But there are things that I feel that I don’t think I should tell other people. Not that I simply act nice to people in order to be well-liked. It’s rather that I was raised to be polite, to live and let live. If there’s something someone says that I don’t like, I’m not going to forget that, but I’m not going to throw it in their face for no reason.
The other part of it is my inability to express myself. There are things I want to say to people, but I don’t know how to say them. How to make my meaning clear. That is something I could be more relaxed about I think.
Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with alcohol itself, or with drinking, but I simply don’t want to surrender control of my mind and body to a volatile substance like that. Others enjoy it, and their lives are not out of control, and it’s overall a positive experience for them. But for me, I don’t think it would be. Because when I am sober, I look at people who are drunk, and it’s kind of terrifying to me how people can be without their self-control.
It’s a personal choice that I can’t really explain to people when they ask me in a bar why I’m the only one not drinking. Yet I kind of have to.
I think a lot of people think I’m kind of an on-edge person, always stressed out and panicked. I think the reason they see that is because they’re not seeming me in my natural environment, my down time. It’s always been hard for me to engage with large groups of people, and the longer I spend in an environment like that, the more I find myself getting stressed and losing control. I don’t think alcohol fixes that. I don’t think seeing the drunk me tells you anything more about me, at least not anything I want to share.
What makes me happy in life are small things, little perfect moments that stick with me, and I don’t want to lose those moments of happiness in favour of what drinking to excess offers. A squirrel sits on a wall eating an acorn, before noticing I am there. Dylan Carlson plays that one final note on the guitar that resolves all of the musical tension. A good meal with family or friends. Or somebody smiling in a certain particular way, that for a fraction of a second appears the most beautiful expression of joy in the known universe. Those are the moments I treasure in life, not the memory of a friend getting up on a table and spilling drinks on people.
I’m not telling anyone how to live their lives, that’s their personal choice. That said, I wish desperately that I did not live in a culture where alcohol is deemed necessary for enjoyment of an experience, where drinking to excess is celebrated as the highest achievement of one’s week. Unfortunately I do not live in that world, and I am learning fast that in order to survive and make a life for myself, I have to make a compromise, to let go of my inhibitions even slightly, otherwise I will never be able to connect with people.
Anyway, I hope the tone of this is not sanctimonious or preachy, because I don’t intend it to be that way at all. I just thought it was a perspective worth sharing, because it seems alarmingly uncommon to people.
Hello Internet. I am Paul F. Ferguson. This is my blog. I include the F. because I want to distinguish myself slightly from all the other Paul Fergusons on the internet, of which there are many. It also deservedly puts me in the company of other such presidential fellows such as Chester A. Arthur and John Q. Adams.
I currently live in Glasgow, Scotland. It's okay. I wouldn't mind living somewhere else though.
I use this blog to post things of various interest including thoughts, interests, music reviews, game reviews, photos, whatever I feel like. Sometimes I talk about my life, but it's not that interesting, so mostly other stuff.
