SOUNDTRACK: KATE CARR-“The Ladder Is Always There” (2018).
At the end of every year publications and sites post year end lists. I like to look at them to see if I missed any albums of significance. But my favorite year end list comes from Lars Gottrich at NPR. For the past ten years, Viking’s Choice has posted a list of obscure and often overlooked bands. Gottrich also has one of the broadest tastes of anyone I know (myself included–he likes a lot of genres I don’t).
Since I’m behind on my posts at the beginning of this year, I’m taking this opportunity to highlight the bands that he mentions on this year’s list. I’m only listening to the one song unless I’m inspired to listen to more.
Messa is an Italian band (although they seem to sing in English).
The song opens with some feedback and a heavy guitar (and a single cymbal bell, which I quite like). After playing the riff a few times, everything pulls back to reveal some delicate Fender Rhodes notes and Sara’s softer, muted voice. Then things take off. But it’s not fast or super heavy, it’s just spot on.
They have a great stoner rock sound but with a seriously metal edge to the riffs. What really sets them apart is vocalist. Their singer Sara has a great soaring 70’s classic rock voice. It goes really well with the low end of the songs.
The end of the (eight-minute) song has a great guitar solo and then harmonizing vocals. It’s an awesome song and I will definitely be checking out the rest of the disc on bandcamp.
[READ: January 3, 3018] “Living Animals”
This begins the 13th year of this blog. So why not start it with a criticism of online content. This essay was originally written in 1999 (Gass died in 2017), and I’m sure his concerns multiplied on the decade plus since. This is also an excerpt from the essay.
Gass talks about the permanence of the printed word whereas
words on a screen have visual qualities…but they have no materiality, they are only shadows and when the light shifts they’ll be gone. Off the screen they do not exist as words. I cannot carry them beneath a tree or onto a side porch [well, now you can, but you couldn’t in 1999], I cannot argue in their margins [now you can, sort of].
But then he gets more specific of what you cannot do. (more…)
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