SOUNDTRACK: YUCK-“Rebirth” (2013).
Yuck put out a great albumin 2011. And then a principal songwriter and singer Daniel Blumberg left the band. So they regrouped and are coming out with Rebirth (due in the fall). This track is very My Bloody Valentinesque–big echoey guitars with gentle vocals on top of them.
The big difference comes in the bridge which seems a little more pop than most MBV songs. The chorus also has a few guitar notes that stand out as unechoed notes which also break the shoegaze vibe in a very interesting way. The biggest surprise comes at the end when the song turns into mostly drums with a bit of a keyboard/dancey feel. It’s just a touch to show that they are not simply mimicking shoegaze, they are using it in their own way.
I’m excited to hear what else the come up with.
[READ: August 8, 2013] “The Horror at Martin’s Beach”
This short story was written by H.P. Lovecraft’s wife, Sonia H. Greene. Apparently Lovecraft then edited/reworked it before publication in Weird Tales (when it was titled “The Invisible Monster”) although it seems every anthologized version has the “Martin’s Beach” title. For more about Weird Tales issues, check out Yankee Classic.
I’m not sure how much work Lovecraft did on this story as it doesn’t have any of the hallmarks of his own work. Indeed, it is a fairly straightforward story with none of the gods and supernatural eerieness that Lovecraft puts in his work. Which is not to say that this story doesn’t have supernatural elements, it’s just not Lovecraft’s supernatural elements.
In this short story, a group of sailors of the coast of Gloucester fought with an undersea beast for 40 hours before subduing it. The beast was huge–nearly fifty feet long and ten feet in its cylindrical diameter. Although it was clearly a fish, it also had small forelegs. Its skin was thick and, most peculiarly, it has one, giant eye. After it was dissected, scientists determined that despite the enormity of the creature, it was only a baby–simply a few days old.
The Captain chartered a vessel and made a show out of this creature–displaying it as if in a museum. And people came from all over to marvel at the beast. After a short time displaying the beast in such a way, the ship was torn loose in a storm and lost. No remains were found.
Soon after, the water began rippling in a mysterious way. And then there was the cry. A cry of pain and helplessness, but an inhuman cry nonetheless, full of foreboding. And incredibly loud. But the lifeguards were on call and they ran out to the water and threw life rings out to where the sound seemed to originate. They began pulling in the life saver but the more they pulled, the more whatever held the ring pulled harder. And soon enough they were asking for help from all able-bodied men, who pulled with all their might to no avail.
The Captain decided that he would get a boat, for more strength was needed to pull this in. But as soon as he tried to let go of the rope, he realized that he was utterly incapable of doing so. He seemed to be magically affixed to the rope. How does the narrator know that that’s what happened? Because he, too, was holding onto the rope and could not let go as it was slowly pulled into the sea.
The ending of the story is chilling. It is a very well told and very creepy story–mostly because of what is never actually revealed and because but also because of the sheer confusion that the beast creates.
I see that Greene has written one other story without the help of Lovecraft. I’ll have to check it out to see if it obvious how much he did to this one.
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