I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY-How Strange, Innocence (2005).

Explosions in the Sky is one of those instrumental bands that the kids are raving about these days. Bands have been doing instrumentals forever, really, but I guess about a decade or so ago, some bands started specializing in an all instrumental format. Bands like Scenic, Mogwai and Godspeed You Black Emperor are probably the forefathers, although to be honest I can’t think of too too many more bands doing the style (aside from the Constellation Label in general). These bands work a great, atmospheric sound, usually building to a crescendo and pulling away before reaching the ultimate climax. This album is EITS’ first, recently reissued. There are some bands who hit their stride running on their first record, these usually seem to be bands that aren’t too complicated. Nothing wrong with them, in fact their debuts are often stellar, as if they were born playing their style. EITS is not one of these bands. They have really built a strong catalog, with each album getting better and better. So this, first album doesn’t have quite the impact as their later ones. However, there are two really standout tracks that show where the band would be heading in the near future: “Glittering Blackness” is really a fabulous track, followed by the longer, more atmospheric “Time Stops.” EITS did the soundtrack for Friday Night Lights, the movie, and I think some of the music is in the show too. I have no interest in seeing either of these, but their music makes me consider it.

[READ: June 13, 2007] McSweeney’s #23.

I started reading McSweeney’s with Volume 1 (see my Periodicals tab for more background) and they are now up to #23. I’m going to find it hard to review this because it is a number of different authors, with obviously mixed results. So, I’ll just talk about the presentation of the issue. This one came with a wrap-around full color cover. Beautiful artwork all around, which unfolds into a poster sized sheet. It is done in a diamond-style and most of the pictures appear within #23 as story cover pages. The reverse side of the cover contains a huge number of very short stories. Most are about 3 paragraphs. These are all funny/weird/clever little stories written by Dave Eggers.

Each story’s cover artwork is, as I mentioned, from this cover sheet, and each one has the author and title incorporated into the work; one is even stitched in, which I rather hope the author got to keep. #23 also comes with an excerpt from another McSweeney’s book called Comedy by the Numbers, with an intro by Mr. Show’s Bob Odenkirk, so how can you pass that up? In fact, McSweeneys just hit some financial hardship, so if you are interested in this type of thing, now is the time to send them some money! Buy some of their books (usually I suggest the library, but in this case, fork out some cash!). The “Baby” series of board books alone is worth your visit to their store!

So who is in this volume? Roddy Doyle! Ann Beattie! (look at that, authors you’ve actually heard of!) And the Roddy Doyle story is simply great. Some other authors in #23 include Wells Tower and Chris Bachelder (who I’d not heard of but whose stories I enjoyed reading nonetheless). Overall, I found this volume to be a very strong one. There have been some in the past that I had to struggle to finish, but this one gets a very enthusiastic rave.

UPDATE: I decided to review all the stories, which you can read here.