SOUNDTRACK: LITTLE DRAGON-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #35 (June 18, 2020).
As I was looking at concert listings, I kept seeing an upcoming show for Little Dragon. I’d never heard of them but the promo made it sound like I should have (they have been around since 1996!).
Indeed, this Tiny Desk blurb says as much.
The group’s latest album, New Me, Same Us, is their grooviest, most concentrated in years, and I was eager to hear these songs as Little Dragon’s music is best experienced: live on stage. “Some of you might know that we were supposed to be on tour in the states, but due to these crazy times it got canceled,” lead singer Yukimi Nagano says.
So I was interested to check out this Tiny Desk (Home) Concert. Unfortunately, I was was rather unimpressed by this set, because it seemed to be a lot more “Little” than “Dragon.” However, the blurb indicates that this is not what they might normally be like:
these stripped-down iterations from the band’s home studio in Sweden move me but in a different way. I find myself focusing on the songwriting and how all the instruments come together for these numbers, proving just how strong the tracks from New Me… are.
Little Dragon is a four piece. In this home concert they are (maybe) socially distanced–maybe they live together.
The first song “Rush” features prominent bass from Fredrik Wallin, trippy keys from Håkan Wirenstrand, gentle drums from Erik Bodin and very soft vocals from Yukimi Nagano. Nagano plays the wood blocks or whatever they are and then loops them-which is neat. Midway through the song during a lengthy, chill an instrumental break, Wallin switches to acoustic guitar as Nagano, oohs. Then he’s back to the bass for the funky end.
“Where You Belong” ratchets up the fuzz on the bass. This song doesn’t sound all that different, although that bass is pretty great sounding,
Then as a bonus, Little Dragon played an oldie, “Forever,” which is still my favorite track from this genre-bending band.
“Forever” is the first song they ever wrote together. It comes from their first album from 2007. It’s a bit bouncier and funkier and sounds like they may have been a bit more dancey back in the day.
They end the set with “Every Rain” which returns to the trippier sound of the first two songs–echoing keys and Nagano’s soft croon. Although this set doesn’t make me want to see them live. I am curious to hear what they sound like when they are not stripped down.
[READ: June 23, 2020] “The Ones We Carry With Us”
This month’s issue of The Walrus is the Summer Reading issue and features two pieces of fiction, one memoir and three poems.
The third piece is fiction although it reads a lot like a memoir.
It starts with the fascinating sentence: ” A few years ago, I accidentally midwifed a death.”
This could literally mean many things, although figuratively it makes sense for what she actually means.
The narrator then goes on to tell us about three women whose lives have impacted her.
The woman who died was Agatha.
Another woman was Marjorie who she knew from when she had volunteered at a senior center for women with dementia. Marjorie was convinced they’d been schoolmates and they would reminiscence together. The narrator was brought up to always tell the truth but, “sometimes you have to tell it slant.”
The third woman was a young woman from when the narrator herself was much younger. The woman banged on her door and said she was running from her boyfriend. Could she call the police–and have a glass of water.
When the young girl left, she took the narrator’s hand and told her that she was good person. That’s not all she took.
When Agatha died, the narrator had to give a statement since she was there–as if they were looking evidence that it was her fault.
Marjorie would often worry about where her husband was, even though he had died years earlier.
While Marjorie forgot her husband’s death, Agatha never forgot that her son had died when he was twenty one. Wouldn’t it be kinder if she had forgotten too?
The narrator says that she used to be a fiction writer and was often interviewed. In many instances she wrote the questions and the answers and the interview would create a script from that. She enjoyed starting her answers with “Funny you should ask that.” I’m not entirely sure what that has to do with anything, but I did enjoy that observation.
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