I just got my Canadian Visa. Well actually, not my Canadian Visa, but my International Experience Canada Working Holiday admission. I need to pay the fee, and then the actual Visa part should come through as long as there is no legal reason why I might be refused entry to Canada. As long as they don’t find out about all that anti-Canadian propaganda I’ve been publishing (note: that’s not true. If anything I’ve been publishing pro-Canadian propaganda), then I should be good to go.
The thought of this makes up for a fairly lousy start to the year.
Today just went from being an okay day to a good day.
It started out as a work trip to some kind of a huge formal building of some description. Rich red carpets on the floor, tasteful décor. Theresa got everyone lined up to get temporary photo-passes printed. I was last in the queue, and when I got my photo taken, and walked around the corner to the pass dispenser window, what came out was a generic pass with a generic name and photo.
I said, “hey, this isn’t me”
“We’re out of passes,” came the reply from behind the glass.
“Okay, just so everyone knows,” I said aloud to the whole room, “I’m not this guy.”
So I went to join the rest of my party, but unfortunately, they had left me and I had no idea in what direction they had gone. So I picked a corridor and wandered down it. It was a huge maze of a building. Eventually I found myself entering a huge theatre – and I mean really huge, like Madison Square Garden, but all the seats facing the same direction. I wandered around looking for any members of my party and I couldn’t see any of them. Soon a voice told us the presentation was going to begin.
I sat in a seat, for some reason several rows in front of Jon Stewart. Some African ladies came onto the stage, and began talking about their country, and their noble struggle to bring democracy and women’s rights to the fore. However, eventually one of the women listed the aims of the nation’s new government, and one of those aims was “to undermine our enemy Pakistan”, a proclamation which elicited a general uproar from the crowds.
Jon Stewart then made a joke which I forget because it probably made no sense, and the women on stage seemed highly offended. I got out of my seat at this point, and moved towards a second smaller connected theatre which seemed to facing the opposite direction. Nothing was happening here, so I continued out into another corridor.
At this point, I noticed Jon Stewart was walking around in a franctic panic. Except it wasn’t Jon Stewart. Instead he had somehow turned into David Lynch.
Suddenly I was holding a camera, making a kind of documentary about David Lynch. I followed him through the corridors, as he peeked into rooms, mumbling nonsense. It occurred to me that he was so upset about offending those African woman, back when he was Jon Stewart, that he wanted to find them and apologise. I followed him down a set of carpeted stairs where he became even more agitated. We reached a set of doors with guards outside who refused to let him pass. So we returned up the stairs, and I realised I was getting sidetracked from what I was really supposed to be doing.
I decided to leave. So I found the nearest exit into the outside world, whereupon I found myself in a grey modernist car park of sorts. Looking back at the building, it seemed a perfectly smooth concrete form, subtle curves and angles abound. Also, the light seemed pale but intense, and kind of blinding.
Then I woke up and realised that was the light from my window.
I follow American politics more than UK or European politics. Why, you might ask, considering I live in the UK/Europe, and not in the US of A?
American politics is kind of like professional wrestling. It’s a lot more entertaining than British politics for the most part.
On top of that, the stakes are higher, and the rhetoric is better. There are so many things in America that seem so weird from an outside perspective that colour every facet of their politics, from gun rights to political funding, to healthcare.
The fact is that legally, in America, the provisions set forth in the first amendment have been extended to corporations. That alone seems absolutely INSANE to me.
In America, idealism is often taken as absolute. There’s often rhetorical references to the American Dream and the American Experiment, as if these are still realistic or even desirable goals for the nation. These idealistic and patriotic values are often used as a way to encourage the poor to vote against their own interests, as though the only thing keeping them going is the thought that some day they may join the upper echelons of society with their superfluous riches, and any attack on them may some day come back to bite them in the ass.
On top of that, there’s a slightly worrying xenophobia and ignorance that gets played to particularly in the states bordering Mexico.
All of these factors are portrayed in the media in such a way as to polarise the response amongst the voting population of America, as if there is no room for a sensible middle ground. That’s very interesting to me, because I generally fall on the side of the Democrats, though historically I favour the Republicans of old, born out of the Whig party. There seems to have been a near total reversal of the two parties social policies caused by civil rights issues. Really my position is progressive as opposed to reactionary.
I absolutely abhor the notion that America has at any time been any kind of utopia, and that we must return to the past. Particularly in the Obama years, there has been a resurgence of anti-progressive sentiment in many sectors. There is often talk of America somehow becoming unrecognisable. Of course, this fear or anger is usually expressed as a gut feeling, and those who possess it seem to struggle to define exactly what has changed or is changing so radically since Obama took office. It’s almost as if their fears are being played to, even dictated by the media. The word liberal to me, has wonderful connotations, but in America right now, it’s tainted.
Of course, the media plays a huge part of the amazing spectacle of American politics, with various news networks and ill-informed pundits taking often absurdly partisan positions without any shame whatsoever. The difference between the right and left wing though seems to be that the left uses rationality to frame their arguments, while the right uses gut reaction and intuition. The problem is that in doing so, the right can much more easily appeal to people’s fear and anger, to what affects the listener directly, while the left struggle to gain ground with empathy and the admirable but non-inspirational idea of considering all sides of an argument.
Anyway, that’s what attracts me to American politics specifically.
Republican Nomination (or How I Learned to Hate Santorum)
Currently the Republican Party is going through what most will admit has been a damaging and thoroughly ugly campaign for nomination for the upcoming Presidential elections in November. Now at this point I’m going to through what little sense of impartiality I had out of the window to say that the fight is now between the unexciting moderate Mitt Romney, and Rick Santorum, who is a horrible cunt.
Sorry. But the fact that a candidate like Rick Santorum has been taken seriously as a potential candidate for the American Presidency in the year 2012 is genuinely quite frightening. He is extremely conservative, but worse than that, he is strongly religious, and seems to favour an America where Christian values dictate policy. He openly misunderstands and dismisses science and social equality in favour of his own understanding of Christian values.
Now I love the US Constitution, I think it’s a pretty swell document with some wonderful sentiments and guidelines that are important to protect. It is not flawless, but, especially with the addition of the Bill of Rights, and later amendments, it expresses a wonderful vision for governance of a nation. The first Amendment is probably my favourite part though, because it contains provisions for free speech and separation of church and state (YES I KNOW IT DOES NOT USE THOSE EXACT WORDS YOU WEIRD CONSERVATIVE CHRISTIAN REVISIONISTS, BUT IT MEANS EXACTLY THAT). That amendment is Jefferson’s baby, and it basically declares America as a pluralist nation, where all points of view are respected and none are oppressed. Speaking of said amendment, let’s read it together:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Here’s JFK pretty much hitting the nail on the head about the first portion of that amendment:
Here’s what Rick Santorum thinks about that:
Rick Santorum seems to think that JFK saying the American President should not take orders from the Pope means all religions are banned from public debate. Even mid-response he seems to turn a corner from the rejecting the idea of separation of church and state, to somehow misrepresenting it as a ban on religious expression. And that is why, though I am reticent to use the word in almost any other circumstance, I feel compelled to label Rick Santorum a dangerous and irredeemable cunt. His idiocy almost makes me throw up.
Anyway, that’s my two cents. It’s seeming pretty likely Mitt Romney will get the Republican nomination, but that Obama will retain the white house. Romney seems to have no real substance to him. I like that he’s moderate, and I like that he’s not standing on absolutist positions the way other candidates are. I actually respect that about him, because it suggests his hypothetical presidency would be about addressing the current needs of the nation, and not about pushing a reactionary and anti-progressive agenda. But he’s the best of a bad bunch.
Okay folks, strap yourselves into your toilet seats like your mother always told you to do, because I’m about to review an album. The album that I am about to review is called Noctourniquet, and what I’m going to do is write about this album, formulate some kind of an opinion about it through reasoned consideration, and the application of time and thought.
As a sidenote, I’m experimenting slightly with the tone and structure of this review, because it might be boring otherwise.
Noctourniquet? What's that, a nocturne and a tourniquet? Clever huh? Gradients ahoy in this, the album art.
In 1859, some guy said a thing, and then I wrote a paragraph about it at the start of the review and put forth some kind of a cod-philosophical argument in the vague direction of the tone of this review. And then I rather awkwardly drew comparison between the thing what that guy said, and the album what these guys recorded, using some kind of a joining-phrase.
And that’s a lot like The Mars Volta’s latest album really. Noctourniquet, pronounced Nokia-when-wet, is a “return to form” if you will, if by “return to form” you mean that it’s another album in a string of objectively adequate albums whose varying subjective qualities are entirely that – subject to chives, I mean Ives. Charles Ives that is, not Jonathon, the overrated idiot. Their last record Octahedron was, by some way, a Mars Volta album, and as such, I quite enjoyed it. But on the other hand, some people on the internet like to tell you that it was some kind of a war crime. But then again, some people say that about every Mars Volta record, so maybe some people ought to shut the funk up. All Mars Volta albums are Mars Volta albums, whether you like them or not.
What this album is, is also one of those, a Mars Volta album. So in a way it is similar, but and at the very same time, it is actually very different to the other members of the set. But you could say that all Mars Volta records are notably different from one another so I guess that trait makes this one identical in that respect to the previous records. In many ways it might have been more original of them to just re-hash one of their old records. But they did not do that, because these guys are apparently such hacks that they cannot stop making every record sound different from their previous ones.
Spot the difference in the line-up?
Where to start? Well the contemporary paradigm of album reviewing suggests I jump somewhere into the middle of this record to find the song that in itself reflects the album’s specific qualities in microcosm and then act like describing that one song describes the entire album and by extension the specific qualities and disqualities (or abqualities if you will) thereof/therein/thereabouts.
On Noctourniquet that song is probably In Absentia, latin for “electro-punk ballad”. The specific qualities in question here are synthesizers, of which this album is worryingly enamoured. Despite losing their long-time keyboardist, Isaiah Ikey Owens this is by far the most keyboard-oriented record to bear the name “The Mars Volta”. In Absentia also features the herky-jerky spasmoid drum-clattering battery of Deatoni Parks, whose contribution to the band seems to have propelled them into distinctly odd territory, precariously close to the edge of a cliff.
Imagine, if you will, Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and Cedric Bixler-Zavala had recently returned to At the Drive-in. Now, imagine if you will, shortly after that announcement, they finally put out a new Mars Volta record, which in many ways is more electro-funk-boogietronic-doo-wop oriented than I had any idea whatsoever where this sentence was going.
In the end though, all this postulation means little-to-nothing, because Cedric Bixler-Zavala tells us that Noctourniquet is an album about stopping the night from bleeding. If so, tracks like Empty Vessels Make the Loudest Sound and Trinkets Pale of Moon seem to salve the wound and sooth the pain, while Dyslexicon and Molochwalker seem determined to push their pointy shrapnel barbs deep into the flesh of midnight. See what I did there? Actually, I pretty much have no idea what’s going on with any of these songs because, like the drumming, they are pretty scattershot and all over the damn place. Like this review? How meta! That’s what all the kids are into these days, right?
I found this lying around on my hard-drive, and I'm afraid I don't really have a good explanation for it.
A large proportion of this album is given over to squelching electronics and self-sabotaged brickwall limiting. It is too loud. Literally. And that kind of undoes some of the softer moments. It’s a lot like trying to enjoy a tender kiss, but while you are being kissed, the person kissing you is pressing your head against an actual brick wall.
Cedric’s lyrics have never really been the kind of thing you can take with any literality (note: I literally did not know literality was a word until now). But as usual, he spits out his weird half-nonsensical glossolalia with “a plomb”, whatever one of those is. Let me illustrate this with several egg samples:
“And all the traps in the cellar go clickity-clack, cause you know I always set them for you.” Strong use of imagery here.
“Don’t you step on me, cause I’m a landmine, cause I’m a landmine.” Okay, I think I get you.
“In the time of the sixth sun, we are cattle to the prod.”
What the fuck does that mean?
Hello, sir!
Also, if you came to this record expecting guitars then you should leave by the nearest window because there are no guitars whatsoever. Well, okay, there’s actually plenty of guitars whatsoever, but it no longer feels like Omar’s angular playing is necessarily the lead instrument here as it has often been before. Instead, this musical soup gets its viscosity from its abundance of hypersaturated dirty-as-a-dirty-hat-worn-by-a-filthy-cat synths, and a mix that does not quit. Pouring concentrated acid into your eardrums.
Remember that thing that guy wrote? Well it’s funny because in many ways I guess it applies exactly to this album, because it’s also drawing uneasy parallels between religion and personal anxiety through the medium of brashness and afros.
Sorry that you read this? I’m sorry that I wrote it.
Well, two contradictory ways to describe what’s happening. There is a lot happening, but a great deal of it relies on waiting, so I sometimes feel like very little is happening. Still overwhelmed by the scope of it all though.
I’ve been careful not to set too many plans in stone this year, because there’s a lot of things that are still up in the air. With any luck though, this will sort itself out in the near future and plans will start falling into place.
Canada
Canada is probably happening. I say probably, because I won’t know until I hear back from the Visa process. But fingers crossed. When there’s gnus, I will release them. My plans do not exactly rely on, but kind of pivot on Murray’s upcoming wedding, depending on how his plans fall into place, the exact nature of my plan will likely bend around them into the scary unknown future of life in another country on another continent.
Making Musick
What else? I am slowly starting to pull together a lot of musical ideas from the past few years into some form or another, if for no other reason than to get them out there into the world instead of being trapped in my head where there’s less and less room left. Hopefully more on that shortly.
I’ve also been trying to learn a little bit about reading and writing music. Not for playing, but for composing. It’s kind of enjoyable to see something I’ve written rendered in proper notation, but I still look at a page of music and all I see is a bunch of dots on a bunch of lines. Still got a way to go on that front.
Mass Effect 3
This week I’ve been slowly slogging through Mass Effect 3, which I have been enjoying a lot. On the one hand I want to get to the end of the series and move on with my life, but on the other hand, the Mass Effect universe is a place I’ve come to enjoy spending time in over the past few years. I’ve heard mixed things about the game’s ending, but I’m trying my best to remain spoiler free. I know from both Lost and BSG that rabid sci-fi fanbases are rarely satisfied by the conclusions of their favourite properties, but I tend to come down on the side of the creators.
For the record I liked the endings of both Lost and BSG. I would have done them differently, but there’s a reason I’m not a professional writer. I feel like an ending should provide closure to the main story arc presented within, at least on the terms of the story itself. In the case of Mass Effect, the way the story is presented and framed, most of Mass Effect 3 so far has felt like the ending. It’s an extended final act, where all the various cast of characters are brought on for their last appearance, their stories resolved in some fashion, before the huge, overarching story thread reaches its termination.
Something I think is worth noting about Mass Effect is the main theme of the series is usually touted as being some variation of man vs. machine. However, I think it’s something different. I think it’s actually all about the value of life in general. [NERD-TALK WARNING...] It’s like that early classic Star Trek The Next Generation episode “The Measure Of A Man” in which the android Data must defends his rights as a person. On the face of things it’s about whether machines can ever be truly alive and therefore worthy of consideration as a person, but ultimately, as with all good science fiction, it’s really about the moral lines we draw within ourselves as humanity. It largely bypasses sexual questions, and focuses on racial and political issues, the value of an individual against that of a larger group, and whether or not you can even afford to decide these things on a case-by-case basis in the face of overwhelming danger.
Anyway, enough lazy pontification. Point is I’m enjoying it, and hopefully that’ll continue to the end.
Listening to Musick
I totally still find time to listen to music, and I still buy way too much of the stuff. Even outside of Siskiyou, I’ve spent a lot of time recently enjoying more direct lyrical singer-songwriter type music. The first track off Efrim Menuck’s first solo record is an expression of sweet mundane love.
On the other hand, it’s almost time for the Minimal festival to re-convene here in Glasgow’s fine concert halls, so I’ve been absorbing a lot of Glass, Riley, Pärt and Reich, as well as some Satie. Got tickets for lots of shows coming up, including some performances featuring Philip Glass himself. Pretty exciting for me.
Anyway, that’s enough for now. See you all soon, or later, or never, whatever…
Hey there, it’s been a while since I did an album review, so I thought I might do two at once.
I love a lot of Canadian artists, operating in all manner of musical styles, and quite a few of them happen to reside on the roster of Montreal’s Constellation Records. If you know anything about me, or have read this blog for long enough, you might have noticed that I like that label an obscene amount, so I won’t waffle on about it too much this time.
Anyway, placing my first Constellation order in some time at the start of this year, I decided to take a chance of some of their newer artists. Their site has whole tracks and albums available to stream these days, but I don’t really like to over-indulge in an album before even buying it, so I simply listened to a couple of tracks here and there across a range of releases to get a few different flavours. Siskiyou stood out for some reason, so I added their Sasquatch faced self-titled debut to the cart.
Siskiyou, released in 2010, turned out to be quite a lovely little find, full to the brim with honest hand-crafted snow-capped folksy goodness. Songwriter Colin Huebert has a plaintive sensibility that is effortlessly charming, and lends itself well to the simple stripped-down arrangements on show here.
Opening with the vaguely-haunting Funeral Song is a bold choice, but it’s far from morose. Acoustic guitar and wavering slightly nervous vocals are the signature sound throughout the record, augmented with clattering percussion and flanked by just the right amount of orchestration. It’s hard not to be won over by the intimacy this record exudes. It sounds alive and present, and also slightly fragile. It’s pretty lyrical, and I’m not just talking about the words – though my personal identification with the words of tracks like Hold It In certainly helped me fall in love with this band.
It’s All Going to End is a particular gem, with all of the ebullience that you might expect from the likes of Akron/Family. There’s quite a few short tracks here like Useless Anymore and Inside of the Ocean that never really reach full-pace, while lengthy slow-burn Big Sur seems to dominate the latter half of the album. However, this uneven pacing seems like a key part of the ebb and flow of the record.
Having enjoyed Siskiyou so much, I decided to emigrate to Canada for a year.
(Just kidding. Though I will be doing that, I think it would be silly to base a major life decision on the strength of one little album. Two albums though…)
Let me try that again. Having enjoyed Siskiyou so much, and the other records in that Constellation package, I decided to order some more compact discs from their fine catalogue including this band’s second album, released in 2011.
Similarly minimal design to the first, but in a slightly different direction, you'll note.
Keep Away the Dead ploughs forward in a familiar aesthetic realm to the first, expanding the band and arrangements outward a little, yet thankfully retaining that peculiar vulnerability that I found so endearing on the debut. Again Huebert’s writing hits me in a soft place. If there’s any criticism to be made of the follow-up it’s how similar it is to the original. So given I thought that first one was pretty fantastic, I guess this second one should be right up my alley then? You’re damn right it is.
The title-track kicks things off in style, showing off a more confident and assured side to the band. This trend continues throughout, reaching a peak with the slightly off-kilter structure of Fiery Death, whose lo-fi demo-like intro suddenly cuts into the much grander production of the finished piece, punctuated with sudden short outbursts of chaos. Also included is a very nice cover of Neil Young’s Revolution Blues from On the Beach, the subject matter of which is quite a bit darker than Siskiyou’s usual wheelhouse. Still, it is a worthwhile interpretation of a classic.
Twigs and Stones is a lovely little number, that bounces along, while So Cold moves like a glacier, full of Sigur Rós-esque arctic chill. Overall this record seems more grounded and consistent, an impressive feat considering it’s actually painting from a broader musical palette.
That there’s my thoughts on Siskiyou, a band I cannot stop listening to right now. And the best bit is, if you listened to this band, you probably wouldn’t get the impression they (and by extension me) were super-weird. In fact, I think this is a lovely band just about anyone could enjoy. Thanks Constellation. And thanks Canada. And thank you, for reading this if you did. And if you didn’t, thank you anyway. Whatever! SISKIYOU!
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.
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.
