SOUNDTRACK: SACKVILLE-Low Ebb EP (1996).
Sackville was a Montreal based folk group who released one album through Constellation Records, and a couple of other releases on other labels. When they broke up, most of the members of the band went on to play with other bands, many of whom were later released on Constellation.
The focus of the band is really singer/guitarist Gabe Levine whose voice shows a lot of folk, rock and avant garde influences. His voice sounds at once familiar and also strangely unique.
And this EP was their first release.
The first song is “Messengers.” I love the way the violin cuts through the slow verses to add a great melody to the chorus (including some raw scratching sounds before the verse starts again). There’s a hint of Mike Doughty in his delivery too. “Donkey Song” opens with some quiet verses and violins has a loud clamorous chorus—super fun and stomping with a nice side guitar riff. “William” has a standard American folk song melody but the way he sings it is very Social Distortion (through a tinny modulator). The fiddle gives it more of country sound, but still kind of alt
“Showcase Showdown” opens with a cool slide guitar and very different vocal style delivered by Kurt Newman. And the chorus is fund and perhaps a little silly in three-four dance rhythm “your eyes scare us more than the mirrors on the dance floor.” It’s the most fun song on the disc. “Low Ebb” continues with the more rocking sound with big brash guitar and crashing cymbals. It also features some quiet but cool backing vocals—a kind of scream that acts as a drone. “Thomas” opens with a slide guitar and quiet vocals, the chorus is a major highlight with the vocal duet playing against the loud crunching stop-start guitars. “This Thing I Want, I Know Not What” is a straight ahead folk song with a lead violin and a pretty melody. “Cheap” has a quiet melody ending with some slide guitars and violin.
It’s a solid E.P. with even better music on their full lengths.
[READ: June 25, 2016] Last of the Sandwalkers
This is a fascinating book that proves to be an amazing look at beetles and insects and a somewhat interesting adventure story.
I actually found myself a little confused by the story when it started because while I knew it wasn’t going to be realistic (the beetles are leaving their civilization to discover the world) it was also very rooted in real insect knowledge. And then it got a little out-there so the level of reality in the story wavered from time to time and I found myself getting pulled out of the story to try to puzzle things together.
Which was a shame. Another shame is that it doesn’t tell you that there are notes at the back of the book (do most people flip to the end to discover this? Because I didn’t). And the notes are one of the best parts of the book. But more on that later.
The protagonist of the story is Lucy. She is in charge of a small team who have decided to leave their home to go exploring. Her team includes Professor Bombardier; Raef, a lighting bug (with a secret); Mossy, a giant beetle with a big horn and Professor Owen who has huge mandibles. They also run into Ma’Dog, an old storyteller who is rather cantankerous.
The story begins with Lucy’s diary as the teams sets out from Coleopolis. They quickly discover Old Coleopolis which was destroyed by coconuts falling from a tree. It was said that the city was destroyed 1,000 years ago by the god Scarabus, although Lucy can’t believe how not-overgrown it looks after 1,000 years. It all seems very suspicious.
Chapter 2 is where the science fiction parts really begin because the insects have created things to help them on their journey–like sleeping bags (to prevent chill-coma–which is a real thing) as well as water gatherers (based on Lucy’s shell–which is real). And then they encounter serious threats from snakes and spiders and birds (which they rather goofily call Dyna-Soars).
As the team heads out they discover a human skeleton. One of the problems I had with the story was not really knowing when this was set (or time in general for the story). I mean, how likely were they to discover a human skeleton? But whatever.
As they move along, the gang encounters a spider who thinks that they taste terrible so it refuses to eat them (and cuts them out of its web). I enjoyed the moths that use pheromones to hunt things down. And I really liked the beetles that eat the desiccated mouse–and the beetle that shoots poison from its butt. There are bats and a velvet worm (and its snot gun–which you can see in the invasion of the land episode of David Attenborough’s Life in the Undergrowth) that come after them. The dangers are very real.
One main plot twist occurs pretty early on when Professor Owen turns against them. He is a religious leader who is intent upon the word of Scarabus being heeded. He wants Lucy’s mission to fail because any knowledge they gain will undermine his claims. (I loved how this story became one of science vs religion). He also wants to claim this human skeleton for himself. So he sabotages the rest of the crew. And that’s when we learn about Raef’s “upgrades.”
Raef proves to be part mechanical which I found really odd and unsettling especially since it is never entirely explained why he is in this state. This new aspect changes a lot for the team and means even more technological advances.
Even tough I didn’t really like the robot part of the story (well, again, I thought it was cool and allowed for some neat things, I just feel like the story could have worked using only “real” things the bugs can do), there is one part where Lucy and Raef are having a chat that’s very funny. I liked the way that was set up and I even enjoyed the sci-fi aspects when Raef was reduced to just a head. I just needed a bit more preparation or explanation for the various real and unreal aspects of the story. Another weird thing was that all of the beetles talk about being in the same “family,” as if Raef is everyone’s dad and I can’t decide if that is meant to be the entire beetle population family or… surely one kind of beetle cant birth another kind.
Perhaps the most fascinating thing was when the ladybug got involved and told them about the wind rivers. She explains that high in the sky between 300 and 5000 feet in the air there are bugs flying the currents all the time. And they take advantage of this to get them expedited.
The end of the book comes to the showdown between Lucy’s team and Professor Owen (who has created a super machine as well) and it turns into a robot battle.
So, pretty good story. But the reality of the bugs was so much more interesting!
And the annotations that were so great. Hosler talks about the truths behind his story like chill-coma (which was the focus of his graduate school work). There a hilarious joke about a faculty member who once told him not to condense to the students (instead of condescend). Professor Owen is named after Richard Owen the enemy of Charles Darwin (who we learned about in Science Comics Dinosaurs. He debunks the premise behind Jurassic Park saying we would never be able to extract enough DNA to build a single gene much less a giant dinosaur.
There’s also a lot of simple facts to enjoy: 40% of all inspect species are beetles and 30% of all animal species are beetles. Lucy is a Setnocara sp. beetle. And the carrion carrying beetles are called Nicrophorus. We get some more detail about the bombardier beetle with a funny story from Charles Darwin about putting a beetle in his mouth and getting burned by the acrid fluid.
And that whole business about bugs flying overhead all the time? true! Check out the video: “Look Up! The Billion-Bug Highway That You Can’t See”.
He also says he heard a biologist describe ants as the nastiest creatures in the world because you can find piles of dead ant bodies where the territory of one colony meets the territory of another. And if fighting wasn’t bad enough, some species specialize in enslaving other species by capturing larvae from neighboring nests and raising the young as their minions. Now that’s a story worth creating a book about.
In terms of his drawing style, it’s really good. I love his style and his exactitude–it reminds me a bit of Bone. He has a great appreciation for the minutiae of insect life. He is a graphic novel fan himself and he throws in nods to Astro Boy when Raef starts flying.
Hosler also made a graphic novel called Clan Apis about the honeybee, which he (modestly) recommends as a good place to start learning about honey bees.
So, overall I enjoyed so much about this book. But I found the reality of the insects to be so cool that to add the extra fictional elements seemed to spoil it somewhat. Of course, how in the heck is he supposed to writ ea story with a plot if he doesn’t add some fictional elements. It’s a tough call. But overall, it’s a book totally worth reading, especially for the endnotes.
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