I've been in a rut, but today I finally wrote something that I feel captures a tone that I want. Its stupid to say this, but there's always this exact tone and feel to a piece that I can never quite capture. Well, i got it for a page today.
Chocolate stains lined the corners of her lips. She licked her thumb and index finger before clearing the residue. "I never had any pets" she said while cleaning the desert from her lips. Her expression never changed and her eyes didn't meet mine as she broke the silence. "Never, not a cat, not a dog, so i don't know how it feels to lose one," she continued still with an air of calm, not like she felt anything in her words, merely stating the facts. "Other kids learn the lesson of in this way I guess. Flushing a goldfish down a toilet, having to bury their cat that they spent their adolescence with, understand what it means to age as their dogs got pains in their joints, that their pet walked with a limp or stopped waling all together. I don't think that others take these expressions for granted. I just don't know how it would feel to experience them" She stopped talking when the waiter came to take away her plate and empty the ash trays. "Two espressos please," she said looking at the waiter, then sliding her eyes from him to me she smiled a small and unreadable smile before continuing, "And how should I feel? I feel like I'm missing something, something everyone else has, a relationship to aging, death, evanescent companionship, compressed into adolescence, when we are most susceptible to those experiences. Sure, I've had friends who have died, friends who are old, but I feel like their deaths or their age are unaccessible to me, I feel an emptiness when I think of their passing. Not an emptiness left by their absence, but an emptiness where there should be mourning or empathy." She pauses when the coffees arrive, she lights a Dunhill and lets the smoke roll off her tongue as she exhales the first drag. When I realized she was finished, I light up my own cigarette, Lucky Strike, and feeling it was my turn to say something found myself saying "And?" with little to no conviction. "And. And thats it. You got the bill?"
Well its done.
I don't know where to take it from there, but i wish I could write a whole story in that tone, that feeling, even then its not finished. I had a couple friends read it, and they get it, they also get that the writer (me) is an asshole. Its not the intention to be an asshole, I tried to find the right adjective for so long to replace the work conviction. But thats it, its not about who is an asshole (call me that if you'd like), its about some things being irreconcilable, especially after desert over a coffee. So you ask when else might we say it? After a drink? and what drunks listen to another drunk with too many proverbs. In bed after sex? Talk about no second date. Call me a cynic, whatever, most lives aren't idyllic, and if they were, are you always truthful? Anyways, I'm not going to keep defending myself, I hear its one of my bigger faults, always explaining myself before I give a punch. No, back on target, really, why not say it after desert? We're alone, our little things we've pieced together for ourselves are solitary, break dead air with something sincere, even if they don't listen and believe in it, will you in a year? Whether you do or don't thats the world we live in, little pieces, we feel, we regret, we recognize, and for what? We share it with a crowd of sympathetics, is there anything more patronizing than a pat on the back? How do you want them to respond? If they get it, do you expect a "oh do, please tell me more," or "oh thats so sad," what? If I write more here its preachy so I quit it and hope that you get it after extensive subtext (this being the sub). I don't think I'm defending myself. It may sound like a defense, but really, its because I don't know how to say all of that in a story by only saying "And?"
I read this today when I was a bit more sober and that last paragraph makes no sense. I almost like how little sense it makes so I'm not editing it.
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Monday, December 24, 2007
Sunday, December 23, 2007
In Paris for the Holidays
Well, I'm not going to Latvia, I'm sure everyone already knows this, but I feel like I need to give an explanation to those that don't.
I'm an idiot.
No, really.
I booked my ticket for november 22nd to november 28th.
I'd kick myself if I bent that way.
I was really upset, but being in Paris is an ok consolation prize.
I'm consoled.
My Birthday is the 30th, and I'll be with some friends, so I'll be sure to go out and do whatever it is that gets done on birthdays. My birthday last year was saved by a close friend of mine, and ended up being a great cadence to an otherwise horrible way to celebrate my anniversary.
I'm an idiot.
No, really.
I booked my ticket for november 22nd to november 28th.
I'd kick myself if I bent that way.
I was really upset, but being in Paris is an ok consolation prize.
I'm consoled.
My Birthday is the 30th, and I'll be with some friends, so I'll be sure to go out and do whatever it is that gets done on birthdays. My birthday last year was saved by a close friend of mine, and ended up being a great cadence to an otherwise horrible way to celebrate my anniversary.
Friday, December 21, 2007
A Rough Start
Today is the worst. I'm not going to latvia and have no one to blame but myself and my idiocy.
Fucking so upset.
Fucking so upset.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
3 songs
---Sonnenblumen or Wilted Sunflowers (Autumn Sun II)
---Rediscovered masterpieced by Egon Shiele, presumed lost for over 60 years.
Here are three songs that are special dedications to three special readers.
More to come later.
------------------------
Arthur Russel - This Is How We Walk On The Moon
Tenniscoats - Rolling Train
Bloc Party - Where is Home (Burial Remix)
Friday, December 14, 2007
Tired, atomized
Well, I've spent the evening wandering from one café to another. Killing time over coffees and happy hour beers. Dug into either my book or my note pad.
A few things I paid special attention to:
One, a transformation. I don't know what it is yet, but I can feel it.
Two, there was a pinball machine in one bar called the Authre Bistro called Medieval Madness. This machine has a bit of sentimentality to it to me. I can't really explain it, its just a machine. But I Know this machine for some reason. Its a perfect pin table. I not the best at pins, but I know them. I can respect their craftsmanship and the cult that follows them. This specific machine plays like none other, it has all the traditional clichés and perks of a pin machine, great analog synths, a good point system, etc. etc. etc. something that most people don't really care about. Call it nerdy that I think so, but whatever, pins are out of fashion, doesn't mean that this specific machine isn't a well crafted relic from a golden age. I know this about the machine, each one is hand built, on top of that each electronic board is hand soldered, even on top of that, each table is hand painted. All of them with a their own kind of love and affection that people don't really pay attention to anymore. Its just a coin eater. Its just for killing time. No, this is something of a cabaret of mechanics, you can feel it when you play, even if you're the dregs on a pins table like me. If you're ever in a bar or an arcade and you see a Medieval Madness table, play it, its worth the 25 to 50 cents/centimes.
Three, I'm probably going to be back in Toronto in the fall, if not late summer. I'm going to come back and work hard and untie myself from whatever loans and bills I have lying around before I jump back out into the world. Even waiting can be like making moves. But if any of you see me stuck in a rut forgetting to play the game and hustle to accomplish my dreams, slap me.
Four, one week from now i'll be waiting in an airport terminal to go to the Baltics for a week. This will be the first time that I haven't been around my family for Christmas. All the subtle joys that I've always associated with Christmas shout out at me. Waking up early, making coffee for my Dad, tea for Mum. This is the only way to get them up and ready so that you can open presents. Then eating a fantastic breakfast and drinking Mimosas. Taking a day nap. I guess its been a while since I've done the present thing, but even so, the switch from getting presents to being able to be around family for the holidays seemed like a natural progression of feeling festive. Well this year I'm atomized for the first time. My mom and dad are married and have each other, and my brother is married and spending the holidays with her, and I'm going to the Baltics where I don't speak the language or know what I'm doing there.
Andrew out for now, I'm sleep deprived and this blog is probably the results of such catatonic maddened thought processes. picture me writing this on a friend's couch, flicking my pursed lips while I loll my head counter-clockwise.
yeah.
and people are on their way over for a dinner party and I have to be social.
1 hour later, 1 secret santa later. I've got a cooking cape (which people keep insisting is called an apron), a record, bugles, and some other neat stuff. But the cooking cape is totally the end all, its brand new, but embroidered, sharpied, and pre-covered in wine stains. So my style.
anybody like Glass Candy?
---------------------
Glass Candy Mp3s-
Glass Candy - Beatific
Glass Candy - Candy Castle
Glass Candy - Life After Sundown
Glass Candy - Digital Versicolor
A few things I paid special attention to:
One, a transformation. I don't know what it is yet, but I can feel it.
Two, there was a pinball machine in one bar called the Authre Bistro called Medieval Madness. This machine has a bit of sentimentality to it to me. I can't really explain it, its just a machine. But I Know this machine for some reason. Its a perfect pin table. I not the best at pins, but I know them. I can respect their craftsmanship and the cult that follows them. This specific machine plays like none other, it has all the traditional clichés and perks of a pin machine, great analog synths, a good point system, etc. etc. etc. something that most people don't really care about. Call it nerdy that I think so, but whatever, pins are out of fashion, doesn't mean that this specific machine isn't a well crafted relic from a golden age. I know this about the machine, each one is hand built, on top of that each electronic board is hand soldered, even on top of that, each table is hand painted. All of them with a their own kind of love and affection that people don't really pay attention to anymore. Its just a coin eater. Its just for killing time. No, this is something of a cabaret of mechanics, you can feel it when you play, even if you're the dregs on a pins table like me. If you're ever in a bar or an arcade and you see a Medieval Madness table, play it, its worth the 25 to 50 cents/centimes.
Three, I'm probably going to be back in Toronto in the fall, if not late summer. I'm going to come back and work hard and untie myself from whatever loans and bills I have lying around before I jump back out into the world. Even waiting can be like making moves. But if any of you see me stuck in a rut forgetting to play the game and hustle to accomplish my dreams, slap me.
Four, one week from now i'll be waiting in an airport terminal to go to the Baltics for a week. This will be the first time that I haven't been around my family for Christmas. All the subtle joys that I've always associated with Christmas shout out at me. Waking up early, making coffee for my Dad, tea for Mum. This is the only way to get them up and ready so that you can open presents. Then eating a fantastic breakfast and drinking Mimosas. Taking a day nap. I guess its been a while since I've done the present thing, but even so, the switch from getting presents to being able to be around family for the holidays seemed like a natural progression of feeling festive. Well this year I'm atomized for the first time. My mom and dad are married and have each other, and my brother is married and spending the holidays with her, and I'm going to the Baltics where I don't speak the language or know what I'm doing there.
Andrew out for now, I'm sleep deprived and this blog is probably the results of such catatonic maddened thought processes. picture me writing this on a friend's couch, flicking my pursed lips while I loll my head counter-clockwise.
yeah.
and people are on their way over for a dinner party and I have to be social.
1 hour later, 1 secret santa later. I've got a cooking cape (which people keep insisting is called an apron), a record, bugles, and some other neat stuff. But the cooking cape is totally the end all, its brand new, but embroidered, sharpied, and pre-covered in wine stains. So my style.
anybody like Glass Candy?
---------------------
Glass Candy Mp3s-
Glass Candy - Beatific
Glass Candy - Candy Castle
Glass Candy - Life After Sundown
Glass Candy - Digital Versicolor
This little lady who works at my school
In the teacher's lounge there's always this little lady puttering about.
Her little locker is overflowing with disorganized scraps of paper.
She has the look of a troll doll, troll hair tied together with mismatched chopsticks.
She has ruffled and wrinkled paisley dresses that she wears under a woolen button up sweater.
Bottle cap glasses hang at the very edge of her long nose.
She's always on the go, but she must not have many classes; she's always on the go, but only in the teacher's lounge.
She talks to other teachers in urgent, but hushed, tones. As if she were debunking some grave conspiracy or working to solve some mysterious case of missing staplers.
He fanatical air reached a climax today and I was forced to come in here and write this to keep from laughing out loud.
The coffee machine had refused to return her 5 centime piece (its 45 centimes for a coffee, everybody pays with a 50 piece, and gets a 5 in return). So she stood there shaking and shouting at it. The machine stands like a giant above her, which is relatively simple since she stands at about 4'5 (5'3 when her troll hair is tied up) and the machine seems like its twice her size.
PS: if you didn't already know: Caleb's end all beef-short-rib-chili recipe. I'm thinking of pulling it out for a christmas party tonight.
Her little locker is overflowing with disorganized scraps of paper.
She has the look of a troll doll, troll hair tied together with mismatched chopsticks.
She has ruffled and wrinkled paisley dresses that she wears under a woolen button up sweater.
Bottle cap glasses hang at the very edge of her long nose.
She's always on the go, but she must not have many classes; she's always on the go, but only in the teacher's lounge.
She talks to other teachers in urgent, but hushed, tones. As if she were debunking some grave conspiracy or working to solve some mysterious case of missing staplers.
He fanatical air reached a climax today and I was forced to come in here and write this to keep from laughing out loud.
The coffee machine had refused to return her 5 centime piece (its 45 centimes for a coffee, everybody pays with a 50 piece, and gets a 5 in return). So she stood there shaking and shouting at it. The machine stands like a giant above her, which is relatively simple since she stands at about 4'5 (5'3 when her troll hair is tied up) and the machine seems like its twice her size.
PS: if you didn't already know: Caleb's end all beef-short-rib-chili recipe. I'm thinking of pulling it out for a christmas party tonight.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
A Year Ago - note: somethingsentimental
it's passed
we
have
passed 365 days
and
fuck me
for longing
I read this somewhere today and it got me thinking.
A year ago today, I was ripped from a rut I'd been in for too long.
A year ago today, I had a reason to stop being cynical.
A year ago today, I was getting ready for Costa-Rica.
A year ago today, I would stay up late working on an essay.
A year and two days ago, I ran into someone who fished in her grocery bag for a pen.
A year and three days ago, I guessed a girl's name who I'd never seen before and laughed when she scowled.
A year and three days ago, I worked door in a theatre where they taught circus performance, who would have guessed that I'd learn how to juggle, balance on perilous wires, jump through hoops, and swallow fire.
A year and four days ago, was like any other day, I woke up, I went to bed, I thought of nothing, and coldly laughed with Irony.
---------------------
Nouvelle Vague - In A Manner of Speaking
we
have
passed 365 days
and
fuck me
for longing
I read this somewhere today and it got me thinking.
A year ago today, I was ripped from a rut I'd been in for too long.
A year ago today, I had a reason to stop being cynical.
A year ago today, I was getting ready for Costa-Rica.
A year ago today, I would stay up late working on an essay.
A year and two days ago, I ran into someone who fished in her grocery bag for a pen.
A year and three days ago, I guessed a girl's name who I'd never seen before and laughed when she scowled.
A year and three days ago, I worked door in a theatre where they taught circus performance, who would have guessed that I'd learn how to juggle, balance on perilous wires, jump through hoops, and swallow fire.
A year and four days ago, was like any other day, I woke up, I went to bed, I thought of nothing, and coldly laughed with Irony.
---------------------
Nouvelle Vague - In A Manner of Speaking
Saturday, December 8, 2007
Top Albums of 2007 List
Ok, music blog standard, I have to make a list of all my favorite albums of 2007. Who would have thought it was so hard?
He spoke to me of Sei Shonagon, a lady-in-waiting to Princess Sadako in the 11th century, during the Heian period. "Do we ever know where history is really made? Rulers used complicated strategies to fight one another, while real power lay with a family of hereditary regents. The emperor's court was but a place of intrigues and intellectual games. But by learning to draw a sort of melancholy comfort from the contemplation of the tiniest things, this small group of idlers left a mark on Japanese sensibility much deeper than the mediocre thundering of the politicians. Shonagon had a passion for lists: a list of 'elegant things,' of 'distressing things,' or even of 'things not worth doing.' One day she drew up a list of 'things that quicken the heart.'"
from - Chris Marker's Sans Soleil
( 10 )---------------------
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Is Is EP
I don't know if this is cheating, its only an EP. I've always really liked the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (the song Maps will probably be part of me forever, DL: original/peel sessions)and the song Down Boy was one of my favorite songs of the year. Its a very strong release and deserves to be on this list of top albums even though its not really an album.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Down Boy
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Isis
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - 10 x 10
( 9 )----------------------------------
Boy Is Fiction - Boys Is Fiction
I'm always worried good ol' fashion IDM is on its way out (well it is), but this album goes to show that it won't go without a decent fight. This is a great album. It has the sweeping soundscapes and beautiful harmonies layered over these crisp and crunchy percussions. The reverb is also fantastic, sometimes heavy handed, but balanced by the piano's cool serenade. Thank you Boy is Fiction for reminding me of how beautiful old loves can be when they're dusted off and put back on the shelf.
Boy Is Fiction - Should Have Stopped
Boy Is Fiction - BiF vs 307
( 8 )----------------------------------
Grinderman - Grinderman
Speaking of great things that won't disappear without a fight. Nick Cave just keeps giving. Giving like the good ol' Nick too. Back on a guitar, back to his old spin around circus slashing a theatrical punk performance. It is totally excessive, but stripped back, his lyrics chaotic but refined, silly but delivered in low growls.
Grinderman - Go Tell The Women
Grinderman - No Pussy Blues
( 7 )----------------------------------
Marissa Nadler - Songs III: Bird on the Water
I'm a sucker for dreamy strange folk. This is an album that it'll bring me through the winter's long cold nights. Its perfect to listen to with sound proof headphones in crowded cafés in Paris and writing melancholy short stories. Marissa, you've created a beautifully crafted little gem that I think went under the radar this year. Its very Pentangle for our age. (and also one of the few singer/songwriter albums that really stood out this year)
Marissa Nadler - Dying Breed
Marissa Nadler - Mexican Summer
( 6 )----------------------------------
Battles - Mirrored
This album came out of no where for me. I don't know how to classify it, which is generally a good thing. Its a perfect mixup of all of my favorite kinds of music. A bit of the Boredoms' chaos and dissonance, a bit of broadcast's electronics, a bit of Marc Bolan's dead phantom. Where do you begin? Its a bit tech-metal, but not enough that its in your face, but enough to keep you guessing. The drums are a bit military but never boring. A bit Krautrock without ever sounding recycled. And somewhere in the cacophony of noise, its really catchy. It was an early 2007 release, but the year is almost over and its still just as good.
Battles - Atlas
Battles - Race-in
( 5 )----------------------------------
World's End Girlfriend - Hurtbreak Wonderland
This Japanese group came out with a fantastic album this year. Hurtbreak Wonderland is a perfect blend of post-rock, modern classical, glitch, and experimental electronica. Yeah, you heard me, glitch/breakcore/classical, and it does it without ever becoming pretentious or self-glorifying. The string section creates this euphoric soliloquy over complex squarepusher percussions stabs that are never "in your face" like so many other artists who experiment with the electronic/classical hybrid. It keeps itself restrained until it feels like exploding. Just when the dischord and frenetic drums have carried you too high for your poor heart to bear, it drops out the electric drums as if telling you to let yourself soar away carried on their string section's wings. If there was a masquerade ball waiting for all of us at the end of time, they would be at the top of the billing.
World's End Girlfriend - Ghost of a Horse Under the Chandelier
World's End Girlfriend - 100 Years of Choke
( 4 )--------------------------
Pinch - Underwater Dancehall
Pinch's new full length Underwater Dancehall does something similar to Burial. He's taken the foreground of the dubstep scene by making an album (not to mention numerous releases featured on compilations and singles released around the same time) that insists on forcing the sound to evolve before it goes stale. Intricate but minimal production, a wide range of emotion, and technique show exactly what a dubstep artist can do with the medium. In this album he's expanded the horizons of a format that is generally critiqued for being too one dimensional. The first listen I gave it didn't impress me too much. He'd released too many hot singles in the month before (singles on planet-mu, and the songs on the Soul Jazz's Box of Dub compilation). But as I listened to it more, I found it impossible to stop. I carry this album with me everywhere, because no matter how many times I've heard each song, they get better with each time.
Pinch - One Blood One Source ft. Rudy Lee
Pinch - Angels In The Rain ft. Indi Kaur
( 3 )---------------------------------
Deerhunter - Cryptograms
This album was an instant hit for me. It combines two of my favorite periods of music; The melancholy and morbid introspective moments that came out of Factory Records' production and the Psyche-rock of Amon Duul II. It has an ambient looseness at moments, only to come back sounding new and rocking. Did I mention that it rocks? Well it does.
Deerhunter - Providence
Deerhunter-Lake Somerset
( 2 )---------------------------------
Panda Bear - Person Pitch
Yeah, I have this instead of Animal Collective's Strawberry Jam. Noah Lennox did more with this solo album than Strawberry Jam could even close to. It has repetitive looped structures that give it the feel of dance music, but instead of making your body move, the loops keep your mind in looping structures of dischordant harmonies that could stretch into oblivion. There's a certain sublime that comes from this album that I won't quickly forget. The melodies are soft and evanescent like you could see them in the shadow play at the end of a hallway that goes on forever. The psychedelic feeling of this album is like taking the Beach Boys' at their finest in Smiley Smile and submerging it in a deep well then lighting it from underneath with florescent bulbs and watching it through a kaleidoscope as is skips off yours irises.
Panda Bear - Bros
Panda Bear - Carrots
( 1 )---------------------------
Burial - Untrue
When asking my friend for ideas for my list because its been racking my brain for a few days, he was like, "you have a certain responsibility to mention Burial." Well, here it is, I have a responsibility to mention it, but personal preference makes it my number 1.
This album is stellar. I can't get it across how great this album is. I must say I liked his first album (self titled) more but he's created something wonderful with this one. His drums are so perfect, his minimal sampling, the way it slips into your subconscious. I've found it really hard to try and explain this album to someone who doesn't listen to this type of music. Its backround music, not in the sense that you can just put it on and forget about it, like in elevators, but its music that works into your dreaming mind and warps the backround of wherever you are. Listen to it while taking public transit and all of a sudden the speed of commuters, the rushing cityscapes outside the windows, the tired faces of city people, begin to morph into a melancholy parade of whatever urban living is supposed to be. It also shows new producers what you can achieve from really stripping a song and focusing more on creating rolling textures. Bravo.
Burial - Untrue
Burial - Etched Head Plate
( 0th / Wildcard )----------------------------------
Tenniscoats - Tan-Tan Therapy and Totemo Aimasho
Oh they're neat! Love them! Love them! Umm. yeah, no review for them, I'm burnt out from this little list, but if Sei Shonagon were to make a list of cute little Japanese artists who made her heart race she'd definitely have Tenniscoats on the list. They're my eleventh choice. Not because they're eleventh best (like Yeah Yeah Yeahs is 10th on my list), but because you can put them anywhere.
Tenniscoats - Umbarepa!
Tenniscoats - Oetsu to Kanki no Nanoriuta (Given song by sob and joy)
----
Honorable Mentions:
Health - Health
Disrupt - Foundation Bit
White Williams - Smoke
Stereo Total - Paris - Berlin
Efterklang - Parades
umm.. the list keeps going so i'm not going to bother with this.
He spoke to me of Sei Shonagon, a lady-in-waiting to Princess Sadako in the 11th century, during the Heian period. "Do we ever know where history is really made? Rulers used complicated strategies to fight one another, while real power lay with a family of hereditary regents. The emperor's court was but a place of intrigues and intellectual games. But by learning to draw a sort of melancholy comfort from the contemplation of the tiniest things, this small group of idlers left a mark on Japanese sensibility much deeper than the mediocre thundering of the politicians. Shonagon had a passion for lists: a list of 'elegant things,' of 'distressing things,' or even of 'things not worth doing.' One day she drew up a list of 'things that quicken the heart.'"
from - Chris Marker's Sans Soleil
( 10 )---------------------
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Is Is EP
I don't know if this is cheating, its only an EP. I've always really liked the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (the song Maps will probably be part of me forever, DL: original/peel sessions)and the song Down Boy was one of my favorite songs of the year. Its a very strong release and deserves to be on this list of top albums even though its not really an album.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Down Boy
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Isis
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - 10 x 10
( 9 )----------------------------------
Boy Is Fiction - Boys Is Fiction
I'm always worried good ol' fashion IDM is on its way out (well it is), but this album goes to show that it won't go without a decent fight. This is a great album. It has the sweeping soundscapes and beautiful harmonies layered over these crisp and crunchy percussions. The reverb is also fantastic, sometimes heavy handed, but balanced by the piano's cool serenade. Thank you Boy is Fiction for reminding me of how beautiful old loves can be when they're dusted off and put back on the shelf.
Boy Is Fiction - Should Have Stopped
Boy Is Fiction - BiF vs 307
( 8 )----------------------------------
Grinderman - Grinderman
Speaking of great things that won't disappear without a fight. Nick Cave just keeps giving. Giving like the good ol' Nick too. Back on a guitar, back to his old spin around circus slashing a theatrical punk performance. It is totally excessive, but stripped back, his lyrics chaotic but refined, silly but delivered in low growls.
Grinderman - Go Tell The Women
Grinderman - No Pussy Blues
( 7 )----------------------------------
Marissa Nadler - Songs III: Bird on the Water
I'm a sucker for dreamy strange folk. This is an album that it'll bring me through the winter's long cold nights. Its perfect to listen to with sound proof headphones in crowded cafés in Paris and writing melancholy short stories. Marissa, you've created a beautifully crafted little gem that I think went under the radar this year. Its very Pentangle for our age. (and also one of the few singer/songwriter albums that really stood out this year)
Marissa Nadler - Dying Breed
Marissa Nadler - Mexican Summer
( 6 )----------------------------------
Battles - Mirrored
This album came out of no where for me. I don't know how to classify it, which is generally a good thing. Its a perfect mixup of all of my favorite kinds of music. A bit of the Boredoms' chaos and dissonance, a bit of broadcast's electronics, a bit of Marc Bolan's dead phantom. Where do you begin? Its a bit tech-metal, but not enough that its in your face, but enough to keep you guessing. The drums are a bit military but never boring. A bit Krautrock without ever sounding recycled. And somewhere in the cacophony of noise, its really catchy. It was an early 2007 release, but the year is almost over and its still just as good.
Battles - Atlas
Battles - Race-in
( 5 )----------------------------------
World's End Girlfriend - Hurtbreak Wonderland
This Japanese group came out with a fantastic album this year. Hurtbreak Wonderland is a perfect blend of post-rock, modern classical, glitch, and experimental electronica. Yeah, you heard me, glitch/breakcore/classical, and it does it without ever becoming pretentious or self-glorifying. The string section creates this euphoric soliloquy over complex squarepusher percussions stabs that are never "in your face" like so many other artists who experiment with the electronic/classical hybrid. It keeps itself restrained until it feels like exploding. Just when the dischord and frenetic drums have carried you too high for your poor heart to bear, it drops out the electric drums as if telling you to let yourself soar away carried on their string section's wings. If there was a masquerade ball waiting for all of us at the end of time, they would be at the top of the billing.
World's End Girlfriend - Ghost of a Horse Under the Chandelier
World's End Girlfriend - 100 Years of Choke
( 4 )--------------------------
Pinch - Underwater Dancehall
Pinch's new full length Underwater Dancehall does something similar to Burial. He's taken the foreground of the dubstep scene by making an album (not to mention numerous releases featured on compilations and singles released around the same time) that insists on forcing the sound to evolve before it goes stale. Intricate but minimal production, a wide range of emotion, and technique show exactly what a dubstep artist can do with the medium. In this album he's expanded the horizons of a format that is generally critiqued for being too one dimensional. The first listen I gave it didn't impress me too much. He'd released too many hot singles in the month before (singles on planet-mu, and the songs on the Soul Jazz's Box of Dub compilation). But as I listened to it more, I found it impossible to stop. I carry this album with me everywhere, because no matter how many times I've heard each song, they get better with each time.
Pinch - One Blood One Source ft. Rudy Lee
Pinch - Angels In The Rain ft. Indi Kaur
( 3 )---------------------------------
Deerhunter - Cryptograms
This album was an instant hit for me. It combines two of my favorite periods of music; The melancholy and morbid introspective moments that came out of Factory Records' production and the Psyche-rock of Amon Duul II. It has an ambient looseness at moments, only to come back sounding new and rocking. Did I mention that it rocks? Well it does.
Deerhunter - Providence
Deerhunter-Lake Somerset
( 2 )---------------------------------
Panda Bear - Person Pitch
Yeah, I have this instead of Animal Collective's Strawberry Jam. Noah Lennox did more with this solo album than Strawberry Jam could even close to. It has repetitive looped structures that give it the feel of dance music, but instead of making your body move, the loops keep your mind in looping structures of dischordant harmonies that could stretch into oblivion. There's a certain sublime that comes from this album that I won't quickly forget. The melodies are soft and evanescent like you could see them in the shadow play at the end of a hallway that goes on forever. The psychedelic feeling of this album is like taking the Beach Boys' at their finest in Smiley Smile and submerging it in a deep well then lighting it from underneath with florescent bulbs and watching it through a kaleidoscope as is skips off yours irises.
Panda Bear - Bros
Panda Bear - Carrots
( 1 )---------------------------
Burial - Untrue
When asking my friend for ideas for my list because its been racking my brain for a few days, he was like, "you have a certain responsibility to mention Burial." Well, here it is, I have a responsibility to mention it, but personal preference makes it my number 1.
This album is stellar. I can't get it across how great this album is. I must say I liked his first album (self titled) more but he's created something wonderful with this one. His drums are so perfect, his minimal sampling, the way it slips into your subconscious. I've found it really hard to try and explain this album to someone who doesn't listen to this type of music. Its backround music, not in the sense that you can just put it on and forget about it, like in elevators, but its music that works into your dreaming mind and warps the backround of wherever you are. Listen to it while taking public transit and all of a sudden the speed of commuters, the rushing cityscapes outside the windows, the tired faces of city people, begin to morph into a melancholy parade of whatever urban living is supposed to be. It also shows new producers what you can achieve from really stripping a song and focusing more on creating rolling textures. Bravo.
Burial - Untrue
Burial - Etched Head Plate
( 0th / Wildcard )----------------------------------
Tenniscoats - Tan-Tan Therapy and Totemo Aimasho
Oh they're neat! Love them! Love them! Umm. yeah, no review for them, I'm burnt out from this little list, but if Sei Shonagon were to make a list of cute little Japanese artists who made her heart race she'd definitely have Tenniscoats on the list. They're my eleventh choice. Not because they're eleventh best (like Yeah Yeah Yeahs is 10th on my list), but because you can put them anywhere.
Tenniscoats - Umbarepa!
Tenniscoats - Oetsu to Kanki no Nanoriuta (Given song by sob and joy)
----
Honorable Mentions:
Health - Health
Disrupt - Foundation Bit
White Williams - Smoke
Stereo Total - Paris - Berlin
Efterklang - Parades
umm.. the list keeps going so i'm not going to bother with this.
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Goodmorning
Some songs to start the day.
I'm off to the mosque for tea and a good book.
Today is a good day.
--------------------
Santogold - Shove It feat. Spank Rock (Switch remix)
Arovane - A Secret
Arvo Part - Astoria
Arovane - Ten Hours
Four Tet - Smile Around the Face
Arovane - Tokyo Ghost Stories
Arovane - A Storm
Panda Bear - Comfy in Nautica
Marissa Nadler - Diamond Heart
I'm off to the mosque for tea and a good book.
Today is a good day.
--------------------
Santogold - Shove It feat. Spank Rock (Switch remix)
Arovane - A Secret
Arvo Part - Astoria
Arovane - Ten Hours
Four Tet - Smile Around the Face
Arovane - Tokyo Ghost Stories
Arovane - A Storm
Panda Bear - Comfy in Nautica
Marissa Nadler - Diamond Heart
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Art I like
Well, I've written a lot about how I love the author Haruki Murakami, but I'm also really into the artist Takashi Murakami.
If you live in NYC, go to the MOCA, they're doing a retrospective on him right now.
Images:
-----------------------
Waaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Polysics - Plus Chicker (New Recording)
Polysics - Modern (New Recording)
If you live in NYC, go to the MOCA, they're doing a retrospective on him right now.
Images:
-----------------------
Waaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Polysics - Plus Chicker (New Recording)
Polysics - Modern (New Recording)
Monday, December 3, 2007
Nonexistant
Ok, well, i'm taking a break for this week, sorry readers. My internet at home is defunct and I'm dealing with a lot of bureaucratic/financial issues right now. If I was to write, it would be bitchy. We all get our bad moods, and I'd prefer not to use this blog to display them publicly.
I'll be back soon. (Probably by wednesday)
Love
feel free to write me at sidenote@dubstep.ca
----------------
Billy Holiday - Gloomy Sunday
Bjork - Gloomy Sunday
I'll be back soon. (Probably by wednesday)
Love
feel free to write me at sidenote@dubstep.ca
----------------
Billy Holiday - Gloomy Sunday
Bjork - Gloomy Sunday
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Back at it
So, I haven't blogged in a bit, I'm sorry. I've had a bit of a writer's block, not really knowing where to go next. I could have just written something, the day to day whatever. But, I don't want my blog to be a conduit to relay my grocery lists, how many cigarettes I smoke in a day, or what I had for dinner.
I thought I was at a stand still. I'd sit in front of my computer hoping that the words would come if I wrote anything. But it's empty. Anyways. I'd sit there hoping that it'd give, hoping that I could push it through whatever cusp to take it to somewhere it wasn't before. Take it to some other level or something. But I also knew that what has to happen is that it needs to come without being forced. I hate my writing when it reads like it was forced. So that was my stand still.
Its a weird collision, and it made me horribly alienated from any attempt to write.
Trying to write, I came up with these rough drafts of a blog post then stopped knowing that I was going nowhere with it, or if it was, it was being forced.
...I feel like I'm at a cusp and something needs to happen to my writing. I don't know what it is. I want to say that this cusp is me needing to get over some fear, though I can't quite pinpoint what it is that I'm afraid of.
Is it a problem with recognition? Sometimes I feel like when I write here in public that I'm confronting a demon. An invisible beast that keeps me from opening to the public. But even then, I'm getting more comfortable with that.
I've always had problems opening up, talking about my problems. My friends assume that I don't talk about my feelings. Its not that. Most of the time I've thought that talking about my feelings was somehow criminal. Like to put it into a language for sympathy or understanding was somehow reducing or negating its significance. I'm not talking out my problems to hear myself translate it into words so that I can rationalize them in some way.... "
Well, yesterday when I was walking home it came back to me. I stayed up late last night writing, and today I spent all my spare time writing. Its not going in here, but I'm working on a short story. I have the framework for it, and it should be done hopefully by next week.
Anyways, how are you doing reader? Good I hope? I'm also working a lot, the strike has let up and I can take the train to work now. Its been replaced with rioting. Which means public services are still up if nobody has thrown a molotov cocktail at a bus recently. A "social movement" has been replaced with "civil unrest" or "uncivil rebellion." On Tuesday I went by work to deal with some bureaucracy that I have to fill out in order to make up for the lost hours during the strike. I don't really mind, working a bit extra each week isn't really that bad. Tuesday, I took the train to the suburb beside the suburb where I work, then I caught the bus I regularly catch to get me the rest of the way. The bus driver informed me as I got on the bus that it would be stopping before it got all the way into my suburb and I would have to walk the rest of the way. I get off, and I walk along the bus path. At one point I stopped at a bus shelter and read the sign attached the glass. It was an apologetic note explaining that there will be no running busses till Thursday along this line since a bus driver was assaulted and his bus molotov cocktailed.
Some images of the riots.
Sidenote:
Oh, I love this russian character called Cheburashka and Krokodil Gena. They make me happy and basically just all around kick ass.
Note! Don't bother watching more Youtube clips of Cheburashka. Most of them are parodies that ruin the whole charm of Cheburashka. They make me angry and upset. I mean Krokodil Gena's voice is the greatest, why bastardize it?
------------------------
mp3 - Random:
Me:
Lou Reed - Vicious
Dan Deacon - The Crystal Cat
Cocteau Twins - Wax and Wane
Tony Curtis - Rolling
Kate:
Joanna Newsom - Sprout and Bean
Joanna Newsom - Sawdust and Diamonds
Tina:
Air Supply - Lost in Love
Debbie Gibson - Lost In Your Eyes
Bronwyn
Devo - Gut Feeling
I thought I was at a stand still. I'd sit in front of my computer hoping that the words would come if I wrote anything. But it's empty. Anyways. I'd sit there hoping that it'd give, hoping that I could push it through whatever cusp to take it to somewhere it wasn't before. Take it to some other level or something. But I also knew that what has to happen is that it needs to come without being forced. I hate my writing when it reads like it was forced. So that was my stand still.
Its a weird collision, and it made me horribly alienated from any attempt to write.
Trying to write, I came up with these rough drafts of a blog post then stopped knowing that I was going nowhere with it, or if it was, it was being forced.
...I feel like I'm at a cusp and something needs to happen to my writing. I don't know what it is. I want to say that this cusp is me needing to get over some fear, though I can't quite pinpoint what it is that I'm afraid of.
Is it a problem with recognition? Sometimes I feel like when I write here in public that I'm confronting a demon. An invisible beast that keeps me from opening to the public. But even then, I'm getting more comfortable with that.
I've always had problems opening up, talking about my problems. My friends assume that I don't talk about my feelings. Its not that. Most of the time I've thought that talking about my feelings was somehow criminal. Like to put it into a language for sympathy or understanding was somehow reducing or negating its significance. I'm not talking out my problems to hear myself translate it into words so that I can rationalize them in some way.... "
Well, yesterday when I was walking home it came back to me. I stayed up late last night writing, and today I spent all my spare time writing. Its not going in here, but I'm working on a short story. I have the framework for it, and it should be done hopefully by next week.
Anyways, how are you doing reader? Good I hope? I'm also working a lot, the strike has let up and I can take the train to work now. Its been replaced with rioting. Which means public services are still up if nobody has thrown a molotov cocktail at a bus recently. A "social movement" has been replaced with "civil unrest" or "uncivil rebellion." On Tuesday I went by work to deal with some bureaucracy that I have to fill out in order to make up for the lost hours during the strike. I don't really mind, working a bit extra each week isn't really that bad. Tuesday, I took the train to the suburb beside the suburb where I work, then I caught the bus I regularly catch to get me the rest of the way. The bus driver informed me as I got on the bus that it would be stopping before it got all the way into my suburb and I would have to walk the rest of the way. I get off, and I walk along the bus path. At one point I stopped at a bus shelter and read the sign attached the glass. It was an apologetic note explaining that there will be no running busses till Thursday along this line since a bus driver was assaulted and his bus molotov cocktailed.
Some images of the riots.
Sidenote:
Oh, I love this russian character called Cheburashka and Krokodil Gena. They make me happy and basically just all around kick ass.
Note! Don't bother watching more Youtube clips of Cheburashka. Most of them are parodies that ruin the whole charm of Cheburashka. They make me angry and upset. I mean Krokodil Gena's voice is the greatest, why bastardize it?
------------------------
mp3 - Random:
Me:
Lou Reed - Vicious
Dan Deacon - The Crystal Cat
Cocteau Twins - Wax and Wane
Tony Curtis - Rolling
Kate:
Joanna Newsom - Sprout and Bean
Joanna Newsom - Sawdust and Diamonds
Tina:
Air Supply - Lost in Love
Debbie Gibson - Lost In Your Eyes
Bronwyn
Devo - Gut Feeling
Sunday, November 25, 2007
The scarf I found.
Walking home one night in the rain, I found a scarf on the street. It was on the winding roads of the Latin quarter. The scarf was soft and simple. Made from angora goat wool. When I'd gotten home, it quickly dried out, it wasn't too wet, and though wet, wasn't dirty. It had a woman's smell to it, and it was a very specific scent.
I want to write about the woman whose scent I wear around my neck. I want to write about this invisible woman who I smell when I wear this scarf, keeping me warm, keeping the wind off my neck. Some people reading this might find this notion creepy. Why should they though? Sometimes you fall enamored with someone the first time you see them. People call it love at first sight, and though it sounds cheesy, its never really considered creepy. Its one of the five senses, and however brief it was, the image embeds itself on to your retina, and you see this person each time you close your eyes.
But, how do you imagine someone embedded in your sense of smell? I find the idea is more romantic than a capturing gaze. When we see someone, we have so many layers guiding our attraction, love at first sight can be so superficial, to love a facade, to love their to-be-looked-at-ness (sorry to borrow a term from Laura Mulvey). What does someone who we create in our mind, guided only by our sense of smell, look like. An unseen woman. I like this concept a lot. We would dream them and they would be a love wholly built in our own imagination. We might find it on other people, from the previous occupant in a taxi cab, in the wind, in strange body odours, or even the toxic fumes of a construction site, but it would never be that scent exactly. If we ever did find that person too, this person of our imagination who embodies this scent, would that person ever be wholly world you built for them through their smell.
I don't know. But, I like this idea of longing a fiction. Or at least writing a fictional character who is in love with a disembodied fiction. You could have them thinking of them in public places. The protagonist wouldn't be entirely there, but day-dreaming of his lover. He'd watch as shapeless figures appeared on the inside of his eyelids. Then, all of a sudden he'd smell her smell, open his eyes, look around him, and the smell would have disappeared. Maybe in a subway, tired and coming home from work, or sitting at a public bench near a crowded intersection. I wonder what kind of profession the person would have, it couldn't be something so cliché as a perfumer. I'm not trying to re-write Frankenstein.
While writing this I realized, and I feel awkward writing this in a public space, that all my most memorable loves have had the most memorable smells. Maybe its how memory works. Each day we piece together so many people when we process the faces and features of strangers we pass when we live in a city. How many smells have you truly taken the time to separate and meditate on. From that smell, I can piece together physical characteristics much easier than the other way around. I imagine the smell of an old lover's hair, and I see and feel the memory much closer than merely imagining what it might have looked like.
From the smell you can piece together the whole scene:
I woke up to the smell of her hair. My eyes only half opened, never came into focus. I pulled myself closer and buried my face in her hair, my chest against her back. She lay there breathing softly, I matched my own breathing to hers, quietly, through my nose, and like that, I was back asleep.
I remember the unclean body odours of a lover fondly as well. They vividly brings to mind something like a teasing smile thats in the middle of sarcastically apologizing.
I want to write about the woman whose scent I wear around my neck. I want to write about this invisible woman who I smell when I wear this scarf, keeping me warm, keeping the wind off my neck. Some people reading this might find this notion creepy. Why should they though? Sometimes you fall enamored with someone the first time you see them. People call it love at first sight, and though it sounds cheesy, its never really considered creepy. Its one of the five senses, and however brief it was, the image embeds itself on to your retina, and you see this person each time you close your eyes.
But, how do you imagine someone embedded in your sense of smell? I find the idea is more romantic than a capturing gaze. When we see someone, we have so many layers guiding our attraction, love at first sight can be so superficial, to love a facade, to love their to-be-looked-at-ness (sorry to borrow a term from Laura Mulvey). What does someone who we create in our mind, guided only by our sense of smell, look like. An unseen woman. I like this concept a lot. We would dream them and they would be a love wholly built in our own imagination. We might find it on other people, from the previous occupant in a taxi cab, in the wind, in strange body odours, or even the toxic fumes of a construction site, but it would never be that scent exactly. If we ever did find that person too, this person of our imagination who embodies this scent, would that person ever be wholly world you built for them through their smell.
I don't know. But, I like this idea of longing a fiction. Or at least writing a fictional character who is in love with a disembodied fiction. You could have them thinking of them in public places. The protagonist wouldn't be entirely there, but day-dreaming of his lover. He'd watch as shapeless figures appeared on the inside of his eyelids. Then, all of a sudden he'd smell her smell, open his eyes, look around him, and the smell would have disappeared. Maybe in a subway, tired and coming home from work, or sitting at a public bench near a crowded intersection. I wonder what kind of profession the person would have, it couldn't be something so cliché as a perfumer. I'm not trying to re-write Frankenstein.
While writing this I realized, and I feel awkward writing this in a public space, that all my most memorable loves have had the most memorable smells. Maybe its how memory works. Each day we piece together so many people when we process the faces and features of strangers we pass when we live in a city. How many smells have you truly taken the time to separate and meditate on. From that smell, I can piece together physical characteristics much easier than the other way around. I imagine the smell of an old lover's hair, and I see and feel the memory much closer than merely imagining what it might have looked like.
From the smell you can piece together the whole scene:
I woke up to the smell of her hair. My eyes only half opened, never came into focus. I pulled myself closer and buried my face in her hair, my chest against her back. She lay there breathing softly, I matched my own breathing to hers, quietly, through my nose, and like that, I was back asleep.
I remember the unclean body odours of a lover fondly as well. They vividly brings to mind something like a teasing smile thats in the middle of sarcastically apologizing.
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