SOUNDTRACK: KING KRULE-Tiny Desk Concert #681 (December 6, 2017.
King Krule is one of those artists that I love on paper. But who in actuality I find really rather unpleasant. He was raved about by so many people this year, and yet, aside from a few parts of these songs that were good, this was all kind of slurry jazz to me.
The blurb says the music is a kind of mashup of “cool” and “jazz” and an acquired taste well worth dipping in.
I guess I don’t have that taste.
They play three songs with instruments including sax, guitars, bass, drums, live vocal processing of Archy’s voice and electronics
“Midnight 01 (Deep Sea Diver)” has interesting sound effects and echoes on his voice, which I like. But his voice is deep and mumbly and the music is pretty standard lite-jazz. There’s a sax solo and a jazzy guitar solo.
I don’t know if it’s the whole picture but this vibe turns me off:
lyrics that talk about the sorts of depression singer and guitarist Archy Marshall has dealt with in his young life (he’s 23). “Why’d you leave me? Because of my depression? / You used to complete me but I guess I learnt a lesson.” All this comes from someone who honestly looks like he couldn’t care less, which seems like a far cry from the words and care he puts into his twisted, woozy tones.
His “whatever” attitude annoys me and I can’t hear these words anyway.
“Lonely Blue” There’s some interesting things going on in this song–the shifts in tension and volume. But those few moments can’t rescue the song for me.
“Logos/Sublunary” is 7 minutes and is either one long song or two shorter ones. He switches to keys and I like it a bit more. This song sounds like some other songs I like but those jazzy elements (two saxes!) bug me. After 4 minutes it switches to a more funky style (that would be “Sublunary,” I guess). The end is my favorite part.
But once again, I feel like I was set up to be blown away, and it sounds too much like jazz to me. The musicians include: Archy Marshall; Connor Atanda; John Keek; George Bass; Jack Towell; James Wilson.
[READ: September 17, 2017] Science Comics: Plagues
This might just be my favorite of First Second’s Science Comics series. I love the topic, I really love the art, and I love the way Koch has created a compelling story as well.
The book opens with a Bubonic Plague creature (a cute blue hot dog with yellow bits) meeting up with Yellow Fever (a yellow-green ball with nodules). They are in a host body and are looking to take advantage of their surroundings. Before they can do any damage, though, they are attacked by a large, scary T-cell.
A fight ensures bit it is short-lived because, in fact, everyone is in a simulation created by ECHO [Education Control Hologram Overseer]. They are in CHAMBER [Center for Holographic Advanced Microorganism and Bio Engineering Research].
In CHAMBER, the researchers observe cells–like way white blood cells learn about germs (anything that makes us sick) and is able to fight it.
The book explains how white blood cells work. There are five kinds of leukocytes: Neutrophil (abundant and first to arrive–they kill by consuming invaders). Eosinophil (specialize in bacteria and parasites). Basophil (target allergy causing invaders and carry histamines to destroy them) Monocyte (removes foreign objects) Lymphocyte (take on the most dangerous bacteria and viruses).
There are also wonderful fun drawings for all of the baddies that can attack us. The drawings are so cute, especially for such nasty things as:
Chicken pox, ebola, Spanish flu, cholera, dengue fever.
And there are varying degrees of seriousness: Endemic (found in a certain area) Epidemic (quickly spread) Pandemic (across multiple continents or the whole word).
There’s some gross pictures of people experiencing fungi, bacteria and plagues.
Bubonic is not too happy about all this. He wants to go and attack as many organisms as he can. He is proud of his heritage–The Justinian plague of 541-544. The Black Death Plague of 1347-1351 and The Third Plague of 1894-1922. There’s a pretty gross description of what happens when you get the Bubonic Plague. Ew.)
Then our human friezes tells us how plagues and viruses spread so easily back then. In medieval London, people just peed and pooped and ate wherever they wanted. There was no cleanliness. Problems were blamed on vapors and miasmas. Priests believed that incense could help (at least it smelled better than rotting fish). In this climate germs and bacteria spread from rat to flea to human and all over again as travelers spread it from town to town.
I always wondered why medieval doctors looked like birds.
They wore a mask over their face with a beak filled with herbs; they thought it defended them from bad air but it really protected them from plague. They wore oiled leather and covered all of their skin. They thought is shielded them from filth but it really protected them from flea bites. And they used canes to poke and touch which limited their exposure to sick people. Soon hygiene took over and people started to deal with these things in a better way,
It wasn’t until 1670 that Antonie van Leeuwenhoek observed bacteria through a microscope. And in the late 1850s Louis Pasteur made things much safer for all.
The Bubonic Plague character revels in those past glories and even hugs the fleas and rats. But the rat demurs: “You think we’re friends? You make us sick, too” The tick says I need to drink blood–you used me!”
People didn’t know what caused illness in early days (cure funny picture of a man eating a burger picking his nose and getting bit by a dog all at the same time).
We see a graphic interpretation of how T-cells fight off viruses (I love the little “pieces” that they use to block the spread of germs).
There’s also the story of yellow fever. How it came from the tropics. It killed off many white people but natives (slaves) were not affected because they had built a natural immunity to it.
And then there’s the knowledge of vaccinations–how they were initially created by introducing small pox to others by grinding up scabs and inhaling them. Or in another variation, people inserted pus into an open wound.
In 1768, John Fewster was convinced that you could make immunity to small pox with a limited amount of cowpox. 30 years later it was testes (involuntarily) on a young person by Edward Jenner.
The book ends with the researching asking the germs to help them fight other diseases. Yellow Fever signs up, but Bubonic Plague is holding back. He wants to fight something. Maybe they can convince him to fight other viruses instead of humans
The book ends with a glossary and more pictures.
I learned a lot from this one.
I Just Read About That... 
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