I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: PLACEBO-Loud Like Love (2013).

I enjoyed Placebo’s previous EP and I had high hopes for this album.  And I was not disappointed.  Loud Like Love is a great record–with very catchy songwriting, clever word play and a return to the sound that we love best from them–loud guitars, sleazy bass and so much angst.

The title track opens with a quiet guitar riff until the whole band bursts forth and it emerges as the rocking Placebo of old.  The track is a loud brash rocker—catchy as anything they’ve done. “Scene of the Crime” introduces some keyboards to the opening and slowly builds to a bracing end chorus. “Too Many Friends” has always bugged me for the opening line, “My computer thinks I’m gay” which I find inscrutable, especially since it is sung with virtually no musical accompaniment. Later, the follow-up line makes up for it: “Whats the difference anyway? when all that people do all day is stare into a phone.”  The song turns around from there and has a great chorus.  “Hold on to Me” is the slow brooding song on the disc, full of angst.  “Rob the Bank” has a great raunchy bass sound that propels this rocker

“Exit Wounds “is a longer song (almost 6 minutes) with a very electronic sounding drum beat introduction. “Purify” has a breakdown in the middle with some spoken word echoes.   “Begin the End” is the first of two 6 minute songs that close the disc.  This one has a kind of epic feel—he’s not hurrying through this one, allowing it to linger with us a bit longer.  I enjoy the way it seems to ramp up a bit after 5 minutes. “Bosco” ends the disc with a piano intro.  It’s slow song with a great melody.  It’s even a little touching.

Those who hate Molko’s voice will not like this album, and it clearly is not designed to convert anyone.  But new listeners may find this batch of quite accessible songs to be a great introduction to the band.

[READ: November 4, 2014] Artichoke Tales

I saw this book in the children’s section of my library and the cover drawing of a girl with an artichoke on top of her head blowing a dandelion looked so peaceful and nice that I brought it home for my daughter.

And I’m glad I read it first because on page 24, two artichoke people have sex (in shadow) and on the next page the guy thinks to himself “I made her come” (which could, of course, be taken two ways, but still).  A couple of “fucks” later on in the book coupled with my late realization that this book was published by Fantagraphics confirmed that this is in no way a children’s book–it may not even a be a teen book.

But it is a good book, nonetheless–just don’t be fooled by how sweet it looks.

So this book is the tale of a race of people with artichoke tops on top of their heads (It’s a very cool and distinctive look).  They live in a land divided into Ladle (north) and Forks (south).  The Northern peoples fish while the Southern peoples farm.

As we open the story though, things are pretty bad between the peoples.  There is a war between the North and South and few have ever talked to someone from the other side.

We open on Brigitte, a Southern girl who works for her grandmother (the apothecary).  While she is out collecting herbs she meets a Northern boy, Adam, who is fixing a cannon.  They flirt, they fight and they have sex (!). But later that night when he is scrounging for parts for his cannon, Brigitte’s grandmother spies him and tells him to stay away from her granddaughter.  She intimidates him so he agrees to stay away and he is mean to Brigitte so that they have a fight and agree to not see each other again.

Then in a lengthy flashback we learn why the north and south are at odds with each other.  In Brigitte’s grandmother’s version of the story a queen is born (I loved the way that her head (the artichoke part) differed slightly but pointedly between the regular people.  The baby queen was raised by the whole village so that everyone would love her and she them.   But over the years, the two parts of the country grew divided and she was unsure how to proceed.  Her dithering allowed the stronger half of the country to dominate the other.

In Chapter 3 we see how Brigitte’s parents met and fell in love and how they defied the north and south divide.  There’s a lot more to the backstory than that as well–Kelso really builds and fleshes out her world.

Returning to the present,  we see Brigitte leave her land and head north to find Adam.  But on the way she is trapped in a culvert.  She is rescued by Anna, another person from the north who looks so much like Adam, it’s very confusing.

While she and Anna walk together, Anna tells Brigitte her version of the story with the queen that caused the war in their country.  It is similar but subtly different.

And so when Brigitte reunites with Adam she must decide where her loyalty lies.

I enjoyed this book quite a lot and I thought the illustrations were simply gorgeous.  Kelso has a beautiful, delicate line and her details are so pretty.   The one major problem with the story that I had was in keeping all the characters straight.  The differences are very subtle between them (which is what makes it so beautiful, and yet also so confusing).  I needed them to re-state some of the relationships between each other, and to really emphasize who was who during the flashbacks.  I accept that a little more effort on my part would probably have cleared this all up, but if you have two characters who look pretty much identical, and two other characters whose only distinction is that one’s eyes are filled in and the other’s aren’t, then I think you need to do more things to make sure we know who is who.  But as I skimmed through it a second time, the story made a bit more sense, and I was rewarded by the beautiful drawings a second time.

Despite the length of the story (this is Kelso’ first novel-length book), I would have liked there to be a lot more. I found the whole world really compelling.