I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: COLIN STETSON-Live at SXSW (2011).

NPR has made available three songs from Stetson’s SXSW performance.  I’m not sure why there’s only three songs as surely his set was longer than 15 minutes.

He opens with the first two songs of New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges, “Awake on Foreign Shores” which segues into the masterful, noisy “Judges.”  It’s a wonderful 7-minutes of music. True, it is not as dynamic as the album (how could it be?), but hearing him play this stuff live, unaccompanied, is amazing.

The final track, “The Righteous Wrath of an Honorable Man” is a beautiful short piece that really shows off his ability to keep these riffs going more or less continuously.  Unlike the other songs, this one is more tenor than bass-sounding (although I believe it is all the same instrument) and it sounds equally impressive.

This is just a taste of what Colin can do, and I do wish there was more from this show available online (the sound is pristine, and you can actually hear him talking, which you can’t do at the All Tomorrow’s Parties show).  The NPR page says that there were four songs.  I’m not sure why the fourth isn’t here, but I’m happy to get at least these three.

[READ: October 10, 2011] “Oubliette”

This was a strange story for me because, really, nothing happened.  Well, that’s not true.  Something happened, but it was told in such a straightforward manner, in such a non-inflected way, that it seemed more like a news account than a story.

It is the brief account of a girl whose mother began treating her worse and worse as she got older.  It seems like a fairly natural deterioration of the relationship between mother and daughter, but then her mother’s behavior becomes more erratic and more violent.  Then one incident causes everything to change.  Her mother is diagnosed with Huntington’s. 

Both the girl and her father visit their mother, knowing that there’s very little they can do for her except to try to keep her calm.  So they hold their tongue and try to be nice. 

As the family gets older, they become more resigned to the mother’s condition and then one day the inevitable happens.  It is told as matter of factly as I just did.  And it’s quite disconcerting that the protagonist seems to be utterly devoid of emotion throughout the story.  There’s only one moment, before the diagnosis, when the daughter seems to have a feeling: 

“Unfuckingbelievable,” Nathalie said aloud.
Then she said it again, liking the sound.

But that is about as much emotion as this story gives us.  I didn’t dislike the story, I just didn’t feel anything from it.

I will say, however, that the final line is wonderful.  It packs all of the punch that the story was missing.  Unless, of course, that is the point.  That a young girl who is emotionless and detached is not really like that.  But it goes a long way towards proving that theory.