I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: GIRL BAND-France 98 (2012).

France 98 is the final piece of music available on Girl Band’s bandcamp site (every thing else is sold out and not streaming).  I assume the other songs will be on their properly released EP later this year.  (And from what I hear, their sets at SXSW were killer).

While their debut single was a noisy alternative rock and roll song, France 98 really ups the ante of buzzsaw guitar noise (that they seem to do even more on more recent tracks).

“You’re A Dog” has a dizzying riff that opens the song and only lets up for occasional forays into a more piercing noise.  The bridge (it’s not the chorus I don’t think because that seems to be at the end), is similarly dizzying with the vocals blending into the swirling guitars.  “Busy at Maths” actually slows things down with some fairly pretty guitar notes before the more conventional alt rock kicks in.  After the chaos of the first song it’s nice to bring it down ta bit with this sound.  “That Snake Conor Cusack” is one of my favorite songs by Girl Band, the bass is interesting and the riff is really full and kind of catchy.  I do find the part in the middle where he repeats “I finish dead last” over and over to be unsettling, but it’s still a cool song.  It ends with some scorching noise

And “side two” picks up with more noise.  The title song is a 75 second blast of 4/4 hardcore.  When all the instruments kick in it’s even noisier.  “Second One” brings a more reasonable beat to the proceedings.  It also has one of the more complex bass patterns.  It’s has a cool opening and is a fairly conventional song with lots of scratchy guitar noises.  And at nearly 6 minutes it’s really quite long for them.  “Handswaps” is a slow, menacing song that plays with feedback and effects over a slow bass line.  The blasts of guitar noise are pretty shocking when the rip out from the noise.

I’m really curious to hear what Girl band does next.  I’d like to see them live, but I fear more my ears.

[READ: March 19, 2015] Escapo

As far as I can tell this story was originally published in 1999.  This volume has the story in color and adds some new material as well.

I’ve been a little iffy on Paul Pope.  His visual  style is unsettling to me.  This is not a bad thing, it’s just not something I would go out of my way to seek out.  But I saw this book at work, and I pretty much always grab new graphic novels at work, and with Pope’s name on it, I figured it was worth a look.

And it is.  It’s an interesting book filled with Pope’s dark and slightly askew visuals.  It tells the story of Escapo, the circus’ master escape artist.  And as such, Pope’s visual work quite well in this circus setting.

There are a couple of short stories in the book.  In the first, Escapo is in love with the Magnificent Aerobella, the tightrope walker.  She is very pretty (Pope does draw pretty, but to my eye there is still something odd about the pretty woman–the scratches or the shadows or something.  Escapo is distracted by her–which can be deadly in his line of work.

But the worst comes from the other carnies who tease him.  They say she is way too pretty for an ugly man like him–especially since everyone knows she has the hots for handsome The Acrobat King.

Finally Escapo gives her a note and asks her to wear a scarf signalling her answer to his question.  And at that night’s show, he has his answer.

The second part of the book–I assume it’s a different story since Aerobella is not present, although I feel like it begins that same night.  This escape involves a gigantic water contraption.  And inside it he meets death and makes a bargain with him.  But this makes Escapo nervous about going out again.

When it is suggested that perhaps his fear is water, the story shows Escapo doing some amazing escapes (I love that Pope’s escapes are so far beyond any realistic escape artist stunts–the contraptions alone would be impossible to create–it’s very cool).

Can a once fearless man conquer his fears and resume as the greatest escape artist?

There’s lots of bonus material and a lengthy afterword from Pope about what he was doing while he was writing Escapo.

As with Battling Boy I really like Pope’s ideas, I’m just not crazy about the way he delivers them.