SOUNDTRACK: JEALOUS OF THE BIRDS-NonCOMM 2019 Free at Noon (May 15, 2019).
I heard the band name Jealous of the Birds and I instantly formed an opinion of what they sounded like.
And this recording couldn’t be much further from what I imagined.
I assumed they would be bird-like and they are not at all. This set rocks, it switches genres, it covers a lot of grown, but nothing at all bird-like.
Many artists live by the philosophy of creating the music that they want to exist in the world, but few do it in such a striking way as Jealous of the Birds. Northern Irish songwriter Naomi Hamilton has been making music under the moniker for a few years now, but each song we hear from Jealous of the Birds feels like a fresh new discovery — and anyone who was hearing the band for the first time today undoubtedly felt like they were experiencing something special.
Folks who attended last year’s NonCOMM music meeting may remember hearing a glimpse of the arresting single “Plastic Skeletons.” The song, which is not quite like anything else and not immediately accessible, is congruous with Hamilton breaking out of her local music scene in Northern Ireland and carving out an indescribable genre of her own. Since then, Jealous of the Birds has gone on to release two new EPs, The Moths of What I Want Will Eat Me in My Sleep and Wisdom Teeth, which show the depth and range of Hamilton’s songwriting ability.
Driven by her love of language, Hamilton’s lyrics are intricate and poetic; musically, you can detect influences from Irish folk to psychedelic rock.
With her slicked back hair and laid-back demeanor, Hamilton makes it look easy, but her songs aren’t necessarily easy to listen to — hearing them once will only make you want to listen again and again to try to understand what the artist is getting at.
The first four songs are from their 2016 album Parma Violets.
Powder Junkie is a stomping, stop and start kind of song. It’s bluesy but stops abruptly after just 2 and a half minutes. It’s a great introduction to the band. As is “Trouble in Bohemia,” a slower song with a folk feel. It showcases the softer side of the band, and is also quite short.
“Russian Doll” introduces a much more poppy sound to the band. The chords are simple, but the highlight the clever lyrics
I took your compliments
I just struggled to believe
That I was worth loving
And you weren’t lying through your teeth
In truth, I’m a Russian doll
My egos shut inside
I painted them by hand
And I’ll never let them die
“Parma Violets” is slower and more acoustic-sounding. It’s a ballad and a sad one a that:
Oh please
Don’t you swallow
Pills like parma violets
Again
I had to look up to discover that Parma Violets are a British violet-flavoured tablet confectionery manufactured by the Derbyshire company Swizzels Matlow.
The next two songs come from 2019’s Wisdom Teeth EP. I like them both. “Marrow” is a folk song, but “Blue Eyes” is a wonderfully weird rocking song. It feels off-kilter with some unexpected lead guitar riffs at the end of each verse and some funky bass parts.
The final song, “Plastic Skeletons” comes from 2018’s The Moths of What I Want Will Eat Me in My Sleep. It’s got a cool bass with some nifty guitar line to start the track. The chorus is kind of staccato and lurching and quite a lot of fun.
These last two songs were my favorite of the set, and I’m glad to see they are the most recent songs. I like the direction they’re going.
[READ: May 15, 2019] “Peep Hall”
I have read many many stories by Boyle and I like him quite a lot. I like that he writes about so many different topics from so many different perspectives. He is even unafraid to be sympathetic to people who don’t seem to deserve it.
It was somewhat unfortunate that I read this story and the previous one by him (written about 19 years apart) on the same day because they were both rather creepy and voyeuristic and sympathetic to people who necessarily don’t deserve it.
The narrator of this story, Hart Simpson, likes his privacy. His phone is unlisted and the gate on his driveway locks behinds him. When he sits on his porch, the neighbors can’t see him. He works as a bartender at the local pub and is quite a visible person, but when it’s time off, he wants to be alone. I mean, sure he hooks up once in a while, but otherwise he’s alone.
One afternoon, a woman came up his driveway. She had been talking to his next-door neighbor (not his favorite person) in some kind of heated argument. Then she came over to his porch.
He pretended he wasn’t home, but she said she could see his shoes. So he sighed and walked down to meet the woman–in her twenties, in blue jeans and high heels.
She was Samantha. She was very friendly and said she lived at the end of the block. She wanted to know if they were bothering him all that much. He had no idea what she was talking about.
So she said, “You’re not the one who complained?” She explained about Peep Hall, “You know, like peephall.com.” She quickly said it’s nothing dirty–it’s not a club or anything like that. “We don’t even take our clothes off that much because that totally gets old.”
Basically it’s a house with good quality cameras all over.
He asked, “Even in the bathroom?”
She laughed, “Especially in the bathroom.”
He narrates, “I was shocked. I definitely was. But–why not admit it–I was titillated too.”
She explained that she made good money and if some guy she didn’t know about was jerking off to her, so what.
Eventually she asked that if they come around with a petition against the house, that he not sign it. And that he should check out the website sometime.
So he did. For $36 a month, he never hesitated.
He went through the rooms checking everything out. Eventually he saw Samantha. He checked out the rooms and the girls living there. He saw them eating brownies. And stayed up way into the middle of night. The next morning he was right back online. He checked out the bathroom and was rewarded with one of them peeing.
He was late for work.
It was slow and he was okay, but the next day when he was late his boss was clearly mad at him. That’s the evening that Samantha and her housemates came in for dinner.
He hid from them but they didn’t see him. He sent them their first round of drinks on the house. After they were done they all came over. Samantha was celebrating her 21st birthday with her roommates. He pretended that he hadn’t logged in and Samantha seemed rather surprised. They drank a lot,
He woke up with a hangover and when he logged in he saw Samantha vomiting into the toilet.
After a few weeks he was feeling the effects of watching Samantha online all the time. When she left the house, he felt an ache.
Coming home after work one day his next door neighbor (that woman he didn’t like) was waiting for him. She had a petition “to get rid of them because this is a residential neighborhood–this is family neighborhood … as if there isn’t enough of this sort of thing going on in our town already.”
He acted innocent, but he didn’t need or want this from his neighbors, so he told her to come back later, that he was busy.
When he got in the house he logged in to make sure Samantha was there and then he walked to the house to warn her.
This could have gone in many directions and I was frankly disappointed in the way it wound up going. It was a bit of male fantasy ending–not exactly sexual male fantasy but more of a rescuer male fantasy ending and that bummed me out because I that Boyle would give Samantha more agency.
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