SOUNDTRACK: DARLINGSIDE-Pilot Machines (2012).
The first Darlingside EP had no information about the band. It was almost a blank slate. This, their first full album at least gives us this:
Darlingside consists of David Senft, vocals and guitar; Harris Paseltiner, cello, guitar and vocals; Auyon Mukharji, mandolin, violin and vocals; Don Mitchell, guitar and vocals; and Sam Kapala, drums and vocals.
Yes, drums. This is the final Darlingside album with drums and the final Darlingside album with a sound that is not their current sound. At this time Darlingside was more of an indie folk rock band who sang with great harmonies and had some unusual instruments. But they still rocked in a fairly conventional way (in fact the drums are often front and center).
“Still” bursts forth with harmonies (ahhhs) and loud drums. They play with a loud/quiet dynamic within the verses. It sounds like Darlingside if you squint your ears. The lyrics are pretty funny, (and now a message from our sponsor) and it’s really catchy too. But those drums really modify everything.
“The Woods” opens with the kind of harmonies that Darlingside would become known for. But this song has a propulsive drum moves things forward. It also highlights some great wild violin and a short spaced-out outro with some heavily processed vocals. “The Woods” and “Ava,” both have really big loud moments. Ava starts with a thumping bass and picking guitars but it builds nicely with some great tension between the vocals and guitars.
“Drowning Elvis,” has a very spaced-out drum groove, lots of strings and a clean guitar sound. “The Company We Keep” features mandolin and high voices. It’s a pretty, folkie song.
“Blow the House Down” is familiar to fans because they have re-recorded it and play it live consistently. “The Ancestor” was also recorded without the drums for their next album. This version has a kind of low thrum underneath the song but the drums are just a kick drum. It sounds pretty close to the familiar version.
I’d actually like to hear this whole album re-recorded in their current style (no disrespect to their drummer), but the rock band format changes the whole sound of the songs and it would be interesting to hear how they differ.
Having said that, this rock band format also makes some great songs. “Only Echoes” starts as a slower, moodier piece but midway through it dramatically shifts gears and grows really loud with a buzzy bass and distorted guitar and smashing drums. It’s the most un-Darlingside song I can imagine, but it’s really great.
“When Fortune Comes” and “My Love” are quieter songs. “Fortune” focuses on their harmonies (there’s no drums). While “My Love” has shuffling drums and an upright bass. The lyrics are also a bit rougher than expected: “You weren’t the first to call me….an arrogant son of a bitch but…”
“Terrible Things” opens with snapping drums a rocking staccato guitar line. The singers do a series of single note “coo” sounds that’s pretty neat. The vocal harmonies are really cool and a little spooky, too. It’s a neat song.
“Sweet an Low” has a very smooth sound (and an extra vocalist–Caitlyn Canty). The final two minute are kind of an extended jam with this little electronic device.
When I first listened to this after falling in love with Darlingside’s current sound, I didn’t like this very much. But having listened a few times, I really like these songs. They’re very well crafted with some excellent details.
[READ: February 5, 2018] “Fletcher Knowles”
This excerpt is from a then novel-in-progress and it is a doozy. It’s very funny and very meta and once again I can’t imagine where the story is going to go from here.
The story begins with the character saying that his name is Fletcher Knowles. And he is going to tell his story. He says that he is going to tell everything from memory and that you should never doubt your own memory. Nor should you trust anyone who says that they doubt their own memory.
So he is going to tell his story exactly as he wants to. Which means he is not going to:
tell you a story about my grandparents who were dragged out of their house in the Ukraine by the SS and thrown into a pit and shot, and how the first time I heard that fact described to me I vowed to write a book someday about the HISTORY OF MY SLAUGHTERED FAMILY; and I am not going to tell you the epic tale of how I was so depressed that for two years I only got out of bed to try to kill myself but was so exhausted I had to go back to bed, and how I vowed that if I survived that black period of my life, I would write a book about the HISTORY OF MY DEPRESSION; or the story about how my alcoholic father beat and raped and impregnated me in our trailer, which I call a HISTORY OF MY SADNESS; or the story about how my homophobic mother came and took care of my boyfriend when he became terminally ill, titled a HISTORY OF MY MOTHER’S AWAKENING; or the story of how I murdered someone when I was fifteen and learned to read and write in prison and then got out forty years later A CHANGED MAN AND PUBLISHED AUTHOR; or the story of my paranoid schizophrenia, or my older brother’s homelessness, or my younger sister’s drug addiction, or my great uncle’s amnesia, or my cousin’s incest, or my aunt’s violent episodes,or my aunt’s charming eccentric vices, or my aunt’s cruelty with a knife; or the story of how I was separated from my Siamese twin brother; or the story of how I, or someone I loved, or some FAMOUS OR OBSCURE HISTORICAL FIGURE endured, survived, and overcame car accident, bus collision, train wreck, shipwreck, … dwarfism; giantism; elephantiasis; chronic insecurity; debilitating hay fever; and so forth.
Still, I wish I could at least tell you something outwardly “interesting” about my parents…but my parents were simply my parents, on the one hand, and specific personalities with endless private meaning inside them, on the other hand. I don’t know how else to put it.
His mother was a schoolteacher. She looked Mediterranean and had that air about her. But she was from Denmark. She desperately wanted to be an actress, but only managed to be successful in local theater. Where she infused that Mediterranean sense in everything she did even when she played a Scandinavian wife.
The worst moment of that play was when she (as Helga the Scandinavian) kissed Antonio Flagrante played by the police chief. Their kiss lasted too long (for she was actually having an affair with him).
The last paragraph details the list of psychological failures all of his life’s trauma has left him with
I don’t think well of myself
I have an inflated ego
I have masochistic tendencies
I have sadistic tendencies
I’m too driven
I’m not motivated enough
I’m paranoid
I trust everyone
I think I’m Napoleon.
I think I’m Satan.
I think I’m the Messiah
and on and on.
In short he has trouble adapting.
It’s pretty funny.
Where on earth could a story that opens like that be headed? I hope to find out.
I Just Read About That... 
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